Bedded by Blackmail

CHAPTER ONE

‘NOW, that one there. She interests me. Who is she?’

Diego Saez indicated with his wine glass before sweeping it back up to his lips to take another mouthful of the extremely expensive vintage wine. He lounged back in a stiff-backed chair, long legs extended under the damask-covered table. He looked relaxed, despite the formality of his evening dress. One hand lay on the tablecloth, the natural tan of his skin colour accentuated by the white linen. His dark, hooded eyes were very slightly narrowed, and his strong, compelling features held a considering expression.

The man beside him looked across the large, crowded dining hall. Stained glass windows pierced the outer wall, emblazoned with the arms of the City livery company where tonight’s banking industry dinner was taking place. A wash of people, predominantly men, all attired in black-tie and evening dress, sat at the fifty or so tables filling the room. There was an aura of expensive wine, port and brandy, and faint fumes from cigars, for the Queen’s toast had already been given so smoking was now permitted, as the several hundred guests relaxed for a while after dinner, before the evening’s guest of honour—a senior politician—rose to give his speech.

‘Which one?’ asked the man sitting next to Diego Saez, craning his neck slightly to see where his companion was looking.

‘The blonde in blue,’ replied Diego laconically.

An unpleasant smile appeared briefly on the other man’s narrow face.

‘Not even you, Señor Saez, could do the business for Portia Lanchester. And even if you did get up her skirt you’d just meet iron knickers!’

Diego took another mouthful of burgundy, savouring the bouquet a moment, and ignoring the comment. Its coarseness did not strike him as incongruous, merely repulsive. Upper class Englishmen might talk with plums in their mouths, but the sentiments they expressed—like that one—were by no means unusual amongst a certain type. And Piers Haddenham was definitely that type. His background might be moneyed, but his soul came from the gutter—and that was to insult the gutter. Diego had no illusions about him, or the rest of this collection of comfortably privileged company.

But then he had no illusions about anyone.

Especially women. They might play coy for a while, but they all came round in the end. Their reluctance never lasted long.

Diego’s dark eyes narrowed again, studying the woman who had caught his attention.

He could only see her profile, but it was enough to tell him that he’d like to see the rest of her. She had those classic English rose looks—fair hair, translucent skin, and facial bones that told her bloodline as clearly as if she’d been a racehorse.

‘Lanchester…’ he murmured.

‘Loring Lanchester,’ supplied Haddenham.

‘Ah, yes.’ Diego nodded.

Loring Lanchester. Merchant bankers to Victorian industrialists and colonial expansionists. Now, a hundred and fifty years later, a complete anachronism. They should have been taken over by a global bank years ago if they were to have the slightest chance of long-term survival.

His razor-sharp mind worked rapidly, filing through the complicated landscape of the City’s financial institutions, long since meshed into a global nexus that spanned the UK, Europe, America and the Pacific Ring like a spider’s web. And one of the most skilful spiders, who could sense and exploit to his own unerring advantage every tremor in that delicate, complex web, was Diego Saez.

Quite who he was no one seemed to know. He was South American—but his Hispanic background, hinted at in the strong features was as far as anyone got in identifying him. Self-made; that much was evident. There was no Saez dynasty backing him, bankrolling him, opening doors for him. But then Diego Saez opened his own doors.

He’d opened them in New York, Sydney, Tokyo, Milan and Frankfurt, and any number of the less influential financial centres. Now he was busy opening them in London.

Not that he needed to exert any pressure. Doors opened magically for him the moment he expressed the slightest interest in any kind of venture or investment. His reputation as one of the most astute financiers operating on the global stage had gone before him. Saez made money. A lot of money.

Out of everything he touched.

And that made everyone—from chief executives to bankers, investment houses to industrialists—very, very keen to know what he was up to, and to get in on the act if they could.

Frustratingly, Diego Saez had a habit of keeping his cards close to his chest.

Piers Haddenham, despatched by his chairman to woo Saez during what seemed to be an impromptu visit to London, was doing his best to get a glimpse of those cards. But so far Diego Saez had done little more than make enticingly ambiguous remarks—possibly leading, more probably misleading—and sport a sardonic look in his eye whenever Piers tried to steer the conversation towards what might or might not be attracting his interest right now.

Apart from Portia Lanchester.