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CHAPTER ONE
LAZARO SANCHEZ SURVEYED the glittering ballroom of one of Madrid’s most exclusive hotels. A hotel that he owned. Satisfaction and anticipation coursed through his veins. This moment...was huge. His whole life had been building to this, to standing here in front of his peers.
But they hadn’t always been his peers. These people wouldn’t have recognised him as the semi-feral teenager who’d roamed and lived on the streets. Hustling to make a few euros by washing car windows at traffic lights; showing tourists how to beat the queues into museums and galleries; eating out of bins when he couldn’t afford to buy food.
The familiar burn of injustice and rage burned low in his gut when he recalled those desperate days. He’d run away from his last foster home when the father had cornered Lazaro in the bedroom and started taking his trousers down.
Lazaro had jumped out of the first-floor window.
From the age of thirteen he’d fended for himself.
The cruel irony of it all was that Lazaro hadn’t been orphaned, or abused by his parents so badly that he’d been removed from their care, like other kids who’d ended up in the foster homes. He’d been abandoned into the system by his parents. And, actually, his father was in this very room right now. Not that he would ever look him in the eye. Or admit he was his father—even under duress.
As for his mother, he’d only ever seen her a handful of times in his life, from a distance.
The reason for that was because Lazaro Sanchez was the illegitimate result of an affair between two members of two of Spain’s oldest and most respected and revered families. The closest you could get to royalty without being royal.
The only way he’d found out about his parentage had been through a mixture of fluke and happenstance. A careless social worker had left his file unattended one day and he’d seen his birth certificate and memorised his parents’ names. When he’d investigated them afterwards nothing had come up. They were fake names.
Then, while changing foster homes at the age of about twelve, he’d been dozing in the back of the car as two social workers had driven him to the new home. He could still remember seeing one of them glance behind, to check if he was sleeping, and then, as if she hadn’t been able to sit on the information any longer, whisper to the other social worker the rumour about who his real parents were.
Lazaro had clamped his eyes shut completely and frozen solid in the back of the car. Even at that age he’d heard of the Torres family and the Salvadors. They were two of Spain’s most important and wealthy dynasties, with lineages stretching back to medieval times.
When he’d had a chance he’d looked them up for more information. And even though it had been just a rumour he’d known as soon as he’d seen a picture of his father when he’d been Lazaro’s age. They were mirror images. And he’d inherited his mother’s unusual green eyes.
He’d taken to stalking the palatial properties belonging to the Torres family and the Salvadors in an exclusive suburb of Madrid. Watching them come and go. Seeing his half-siblings. One in particular was an older boy on his father’s side—Gabriel Torres. For some reason, Lazaro had fixated on him...perhaps because they were relatively close in age.
One day he’d seen them all sitting in a restaurant in the centre of Madrid, celebrating his half-brother Gabriel’s birthday.
Lazaro had waited outside, and when they’d emerged—the women wearing designer dresses and dripping in diamonds, the men in bespoke suits—Lazaro had da
rted forward and planted himself in front of his father and Gabriel.
‘I’m your son!’ he’d announced, shaking with adrenalin as he’d looked up at the towering man, aware of his half-brother beside him, looking at him as if he was an alien.
It had all happened so fast. Men had appeared from nowhere and Lazaro had found himself face-down in the dirt in an alleyway beside the restaurant. His father had hauled him up by the hair and spat into his face.
‘You are no son of mine—and if you ever come near me or my family again you will pay for it.’
That was when Lazaro’s ambition had been born. The ambition to one day be in a position where he was literally touching shoulders with them. Where they would have to look him in the eye. Where he would taunt them with his presence—with the knowledge that he had thrived and survived in spite of their attempts to excise him from their family histories.
And here he was, in the same room as his father and his half-brother Gabriel—with whom he was embroiled in a bitter and ruthless battle to take over one of Madrid’s oldest indoor market buildings and redevelop it into a new space.
His half-brother Gabriel still refused to acknowledge that Lazaro could be his brother even though—
‘Lazaro?’
He looked to one side to see the reason why both his father, his half-brother and other peripheral members of both his birth families were all in the same room.
Leonora Flores de la Vega.
With her exquisitely beautiful face, long black hair, dark grey eyes and a willowy body that curved in and out in all the right places, she was arguably one of the most beautiful women in Spain.
And one of the most well-connected.
Her family might have no money—in fact that was one of the reasons for the marriage—but their name was as old and venerated as the Torres or Salvador families. And that was priceless.
Hence the reason why Lazaro wanted to marry her. It would bring him another step closer to the inner circle that had always been shut to him, no matter how many millions he’d made. It would bring him another step closer to making his family squirm. Another step closer to ultimate acceptance.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘You look very fierce.’
He forced a smile and held out a hand to Leonora. She slipped her hand into his and Lazaro closed his fingers around hers. Nothing. Not even a twinge of response. But then he wasn’t marrying her for their chemistry. He was marrying her for something much more enduring. Securing his own legacy. Forcing those who would ignore him to acknowledge him and respect him. Finally.
‘Yes, fine...just a little preoccupied.’
He saw her glance across the room to someone or something, and a faint tinge of colour came into her cheeks. She bit her lip.
‘Are you okay?’ Lazaro asked.
She always seemed so composed, unruffled, it was strange to see her suddenly look a little flustered. Distracted.
She looked back at him and smiled. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’
He tightened his fingers around hers. ‘I’m glad you agreed to marry me, Leonora. I think we can have a good marriage. I think we can be...happy.’
