The Twelve-Month Marriage Deal Read Free Page B

out of his mind if he thought that. Entirely deranged. Not in a million years would she marry this man. She had no intention of getting married, not to anyone, not for a very long time. She’d gone out with guys in Los Angeles, but never seriously. She didn’t have time, for one thing, it had been hard work building up her agency and now that she had made it she had no intention of letting anything—or anyone—get in the way.
    ‘No, I don’t,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘I can think of no woman who would agree to such a thing.’
    Relief flooded through her, filling her body with a warm feeling of liberation, and she took a sip of her coffee. Vidal understood! She had done him an injustice! She smiled, and was just about to tell him how happy she was that he felt the same when his next words had her gasping in horror.
    ‘Unless, of course, she thought that there was something in it for herself?’ His voice had gone an octave lower and he looked at her from beneath half-closed lashes.
    Immediately Elena flashed her magnificent eyes.‘How dare you suggest such a thing? I need nothing from you—or indeed any man. I’m quite capable of supporting myself, thank you very much.’ It hurt that he thought she was so mercenary and she would have liked nothing better than to slap his face hard.
    ‘But you are going to be a dutiful daughter and help out your parents?’
    ‘By marrying you?’ she countered fiercely, jabbing a piece of toast with her knife. ‘You’re out of your mind if that’s what you’re thinking.’
    ‘But you will!’ he insisted.
    His arrogant confidence angered Elena even further. ‘I’m worried about my parents’ future, naturally, but there has to be another way out of the situation. If you were half a man you would let the business deal go through without all this nonsense of uniting the banks by marriage. I was appalled when my mother told me that Reina’s was an arranged marriage. I thought she loved you. I was happy for her. But I can honestly say that I don’t blame her for leaving you. The marriage would never have worked, not without love. And neither would marriage to me work. At least you knew Reina. You and I are strangers.’
    She felt like getting up and storming out, or at the very least throwing something at him. How could he accuse her of being mercenary? The man was seriously insane. But at least she now knew how much he wanted their bank. If he was prepared to marry her, a woman he’d never liked, never had time for, then he had to be desperate.
    ‘We could have fun getting to know each other.’ The words were dropped quietly into the air between them.There was even a tiny smile curving the corners of his mouth.
    ‘Fun?’ Elena wanted to scream the word at him; it was hard keeping her voice level. ‘How can you say that? How can you describe marriage between two people who dislike each other’s guts fun?’
    His smile widened. ‘Perhaps we’re each interpreting it differently?’
    ‘Precisely,’ she snapped. ‘Mine is that it would be hell. ’ She deliberately put emphasis on the word and saw the sudden change in his eyes, quickly disguised. ‘If you want to know what I think, Señor Marquez, I believe that you’re prepared to do whatever it takes to get your hands on my parents’ bank. Even if it means marriage to someone you—you despise.’ Her breathing had deepened by the time she had finished and it was all she could do to sit still.
    Vidal’s face really did harden now. His eyes grew fiercely angry, his brows drawing together in a ferocious frown. ‘So that is what you think of me? Let me tell you, something, Señorita Valero, if it were not for the fact that I do not wish to see your parents in trouble I would not be doing this. Do you think I want to marry someone like you? Someone who has turned her back on her family? When they could do with your support you have not been here. Tell me, what is it that you do over there in the States? If I