A Mistress, a Scandal, a Ring

She hesitated, but then came to him, curling into his arms, her body soft and warm through her thin sarong.

He removed her sunglasses, resting his jaw on top of her head. ‘Ten years ago I met a woman I came to believe I wanted to marry.’

Jordan was silent a long moment. When she spoke he felt the warmth of her breath on his chest.

‘Because you thought you loved her?’

He drew air through his nose, exhaled it slowly from his mouth. ‘Sí. I believed she was...special.’

So ‘special’ he had introduced her to his family. Told his mother she was The One. Bought an expensive ring.

‘Who was she?’

‘A young American heiress. We met through social circles.’

‘And what happened?’

‘I proposed and she turned me down.’

‘She didn’t love you?’ she asked gently.

‘No.’

Jordan rose up on her elbow. ‘I’m so sorry, Xavier.’ Her eyes were soft with compassion. ‘That must have been incredibly difficult—and painful.’ She paused, biting her lip. ‘But...would you deny yourself the chance to love again just because of one bad experience?’

His gut knotted with tension—and a touch of anger. A bad experience? It’d been the single most humiliating, soul-destroying experience of his life.

But she wouldn’t understand that unless he told the whole story.

‘There’s more.’

He eased her head down to his shoulder again. He didn’t want her watching him. Already he felt too exposed.

‘She told me she would’ve married me in a heartbeat if I was my parents’ biological son. She said there was no point marrying into aristocracy if her children wouldn’t inherit the bloodline.’

Memory churned in him like acid. Natasha had dismissed their relationship as just a bit of fun. She’d even admitted that she’d allowed him to introduce her to his family in the hopes of snaring his brother.

He made a rough noise in his throat. ‘She said she couldn’t possibly marry someone of “unknown origin” for fear of what her children would inherit.’

‘What?’

Jordan popped up again. This time she wouldn’t be encouraged back down. Angry colour bloomed on her cheekbones.

She shook her head, curled her hand into a fist on his thigh. ‘And where does that scumbag Diego fit in?

He tucked a flying curl behind her ear. Her furious indignation on his behalf was almost adorable. Incredibly he felt his chest lighten—enough for him to be able to admit, ‘He slept with her within days of our break-up. And ensured the reason why she’d rejected me became gossip fodder in our social circles.’

‘Oh, Xavier.’ She touched his jaw. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It is in the past.’

‘Yet it affects your life to this day.’

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t.’

‘How can you say that?’ she persisted. ‘When you won’t let yourself love?’

‘It is not a matter of allowing myself. I simply have no interest in it. A few people, like my parents, find it—or a version of it, at least—but others waste their lives looking for it. Or waiting for it.’