Bride in a Gilded Cage by Abby Green Read Free Book Online Page B

cornerstone for a strong and successful marriage.’
    His eyes dropped down her body, making her heart speed up.
    ‘If you’re concerned about my fidelity,’ he drawled seductively, ‘I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.’
    Sudden heat flared in her belly, much to her disgust, and Isobel bit back a retort. She said through gritted teeth, ‘For the umpteenth time, I don’t want to marry you, so you shouldn’t have to face the boring prospect of fidelity.’
    Rafael looked serious then, all facetiousness set aside. ‘At the risk of repeating myself, and pointing out the inevitable again, we have no choice. This marriage will take place. It is the only way to ensure that your parents receive what’s due to them. And you’re forgetting that on our marriage day you will become joint owner of an extremely lucrative estate. One of the biggest in Argentina.’
    Isobel flushed at being reminded of their unbreakable ties. And also at being reminded of that nebulous pull she felt to the estancia that had been her grandmother’s.
    Even so, she fought. It was all she had left to do. Her response to him made her lash out again. ‘Damn you, Rafael, you think you know it all. It goes against everything in me to bind myself into a loveless marriage to fulfil the terms of some agreement. There has to be another way.’
    He smiled a hard smile. ‘I’m not a tyrant, Isobel. I won’t be locking you away in a high tower.’
    Isobel still fought. ‘I’d rather be locked in a tower than be forced into an arranged marriage with a cynical, spoilt, jaded Buenos Aires playboy who has nothing better to do than make arrogant demands because he’s decided he’s happy to honour some ancient agreement.’ Isobel realised she was breathing hard. ‘I want you to leave.’
    An incredulous expression stole across Rafael’s face. ‘You have no idea, do you?’
    Despite herself Isobel had to ask. ‘No idea about what?’
    Rafael was watching her carefully. ‘About how badly your father is doing…He’s made some highly risky investments lately, spurred on by your mother, and they’ve all backfired. He’s on the verge of bankruptcy.’
    ‘Oh, please,’ Isobel said disgustedly. ‘If this is just your attempt to make me feel even more vulnerable—’
    ‘It’s not.’
    He sounded so grim that Isobel just looked at him, and felt a cold finger of dread touch her spine.
    ‘Your father is in serious trouble, Isobel. He stands to lose everything.’
    Isobel instinctively reached for the high-backed chair near her, needing to hold on to something. Right then she knew implicitly that Rafael wouldn’t be lying about this. He wouldn’t need to. Her father had always had a rash side; it was what had made him a financial whiz in the first place, and brought him to the attention of her mother’s family, who’d wanted her to marry into the prestigious and more stable banking world in Europe. Isobel had always suspected that the sale of the estancia had probably had as much to do with her father’s reckless trading as her grandfather’s own poor judgment. And she could well imagine now that the collapse of the global economy hadn’t been kind to him.
    She tried not to reveal how shaken she was by this news, and recalled that she hadn’t heard from her father in some weeks. He’d always made an effort to keep in touch.
    ‘How do you know this?’
    Rafael grimaced. ‘It seems you’ve forgotten how small our world is in Buenos Aires. It’s not common knowledge yethow bad things are for him, but I’m in close contact with some of his lenders and it’s not good. I’d say he has at the most a month before it becomes public knowledge.’
    Isobel had gone inward, and she said now, more to herself than Rafael, ‘My mother mustn’t know…if she knew about this…’
    ‘Oh, she knows all right. That’s why they came to see me some weeks ago. Their very future hinges on this marriage going ahead, so needless to say they were