Claimed for the De Carrillo Twins

Before he left he took something out of his inner pocket. He handed her a black credit card.

She took it warily. ‘What is this? A test?’

His face was unreadable, but she wasn’t fooled. She knew he’d be assessing her every reaction.

‘You’ll need access to funds. Do what you want for the afternoon—a dr

iver will be at your disposal downstairs.’

He left then, and for a long minute Trinity found herself wondering if he had been talking about Rio not being able to handle things...

Then, disgusted with herself for obsessing like this, she threw the credit card down on a nearby table and paced over to a window. When she looked down to the street far below she could see Cruz disappearing into the back of another sleek Jeep.

It pulled into the flow of traffic and she shivered slightly, as if he could somehow still see her. He was so all-encompassing that it was hard to believe he wasn’t omnipresent.

She sighed and leaned forward, placing her hot forehead against the cool glass. It felt as if every time they took a step forward they then took three backwards. Clearly the credit card was some kind of a test, and he expected her to revert to type when given half a chance.

* * *

Cruz was standing with his back to the recently emptied boardroom on the top floor of the De Carrillo bank, loosening his tie and opening a top button on his shirt. Madrid was laid out before him, with the lowering sun leaving long shadows over the streets below where people were leaving their offices.

He hated himself for it, but as soon as the last person had left the room he’d pulled out his phone to make a call, too impatient to wait.

‘Where did she go?’ he asked incredulously, his hand dropping from his shirt.

His driver answered. ‘She went to the Plaza Mayor, where she had a coffee, and then she spent the afternoon in the Museo Del Prado. She’s just returned to the apartment.’

‘And she walked,’ Cruz repeated flatly, not liking the way the thought of her sightseeing around Madrid on her own made him feel a twinge of conscience. As if he’d neglected her. ‘No shopping?’

‘No, sir, apart from two cuddly toys in the museum shop.’

Cruz terminated the call. So Trinity hadn’t spent the day shopping in Calle de Serrano, home to the most lavish boutiques. He had to admit that the credit card had been a test, and a pretty crude one at that. But once again either she was playing a longer game than he’d given her credit for...or he had to acknowledge that she had changed. Fundamentally. And in Cruz’s experience of human nature that just wasn’t possible.

Cruz didn’t deal in unknowns. It was one of the driving motives behind his marrying Trinity—to make sure she was kept very much within his sphere of knowns.

Suddenly he wasn’t so sure of anything any more.

But how could he trust her over his own brother?

He could still see the humiliation on Rio’s face when he’d had to explain to Cruz that that his own wife had tipped him over the edge. Cruz knew that Rio’s lavish lifestyle and his first wife had undoubtedly started the process of his ultimate destruction, but Trinity had finished it off. And, worse, used his nephews to gain privileged access.

But then he thought of her, standing between him and his nephews the other night, so adamant that they came first. And he thought of how he’d found her, curled up asleep in the chair... He shook his head angrily and turned away from the window. Merda, she was messing with his head.

Cruz blocked out the niggles of his conscience. He would be the biggest fool on earth if he was to believe in this newly minted Trinity De Carrillo without further evidence. She was playing a game—she had to be. It was that simple. And he had no choice but to go along with it for now...

Because eventually she would reveal her true self, and when she did Cruz would be waiting.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A COUPLE OF hours later Cruz’s mind was no less tangled. The woman beside him was drawing every single eye in the extravagantly designed and decorated open-air courtyard of the new opera house. When he’d arrived back at the apartment she’d been in her room getting ready, so he’d been showered and changed before he’d seen her, waiting for him in the living area of the apartment.

The shock of that first glimpse of her still ran through his system, constricting his breath and pumping blood to tender places. She wore a strapless black dress that was moulded to every curve. Over one shoulder was a sliver of chiffon tied in a bow.

She wore no jewellery apart from the engagement ring and her wedding band. Her nails were unpainted. Minimal make-up. And yet people couldn’t stop looking at her. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

Very uncharacteristically, Cruz wanted to snarl at them all to look at their own partners. But he couldn’t, because he could see what they saw—a glowing diamond amidst the dross. She appealed to this jaded crowd because she had an unfashionable air of wonder about her as she looked around, which only reinforced the shadow of doubt in his mind...

Just then her arm tightened in his and he looked down to see a flush on her cheeks. She was biting her lip. Irritated at the effect she had on him, he said more curtly than he’d intended, ‘What is it?’