The Spanish Billionaire's Hired Bride by Rachel Lyndhurst Read Free Book Online

towards a wooden stile on the edge of a meadow. “Your parents seem to like me. We make a convincing pair.”
    Helen shot him a cold look. She’d felt like a fight since dessert and was delighted that he hadn’t noticed her kick a streak of wet manure up his back when he wasn’t looking. “We’re alone now, so you can stop acting as if you’re actually a nice person. Having said that, you’re really very good at it. Acting that is. It comes with practice, I suppose.”
    Ricardo stopped walking and let out a hollow laugh. “It baffles me how people as nice as your parents managed to produce such a misery for a daughter. It doesn’t seem biologically possible somehow. What made you so sour?”
    “You.”
    “What?” He started walking again. “You entered into this agreement willingly. No one held a gun to your head. You appear to need my money more than I need a difficult new bride, however much you turn me on.”
    Helen felt her cheeks burn as a sharp arrow of sexual awareness found its target. She felt like such a hypocrite. Their rapidly approaching wedding night was never far from her mind. If he could inflame her senses with one brooding flick of an eye, heaven only knew what would happen if she ever let him touch her naked flesh.
    “Anyway,” Ricardo said swinging his athletic frame over the stile, faded denim stretching tight for a moment over his thighs and backside, “what’s the money for?”
    Helen hadn’t been expecting that question. Ricardo had advanced her half the money, and she’d cleared her parents’ debts the same day. She hated lying to them, but had convinced them she’d arranged a new financing package while she was in Ibiza. A long-term deal with a Spanish financial institution, secured on her future earnings.
    The deception was horrible, but she could never tell them what she’d really done to get the money. They’d be appalled. Added to that, her father was a proud and independent man. He’d allow his family to pitch in. After all, Helen was an only child and would ultimately inherit, but he’d hate for any one else to know the mess they were in. Rightly or wrongly he would feel ashamed of what he viewed as his failure to protect his assets and family’s future. And to be bailed out by his future son-in law? That would be unthinkable.
    Helen was clear in her own mind that her parents didn’t need to know the truth, and neither did Ricardo. “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” Helen said. “It’s not going to fund anything illegal if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    “That hadn’t crossed my mind at all until you mentioned it. Spiraling debts, was it?”
    “Something like that,” Helen conceded, in an attempt to satisfy his curiosity.
    “Too many designer handbags, eh?” he said mockingly, and cast a glance over the small leather backpack she was carrying. “You women are such suckers.”
    Helen simmered with fury. She’d never bought a designer item in her life, not even from a charity shop! But she couldn’t let him know that. “We all make mistakes,” she said in a flustered tone. “Don’t try and tell me you haven’t, Ricardo. This stupid bet of yours must count as one.”
    “That’s an entirely different situation.” His expression was as hard as stone. “A matter of honor, as I told you before.”
    “Yeah, right.” Helen didn’t even try to hide the scorn in her voice. “Not some playboy antics that got out of hand after too much beer, then?”
    The muscles in his jaw twitched with annoyance as he stared angrily out over the teal and grey estuary marshland. “It’s very refreshing here.” He poked at a plant with his foot. “What’s that stuff down there? I’m sure I’ve eaten it at The Savoy before, is that possible?”
    “Every possibility,” Helen said as she picked a little of the fleshy plant for him to try. She studied the sweep of his nose and the way his nostrils flared slightly as he stared at the ground.