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“You should hurry, miss. I’m afraid you’re late,” she said anxiously.
Late? How could she be late? No one had told Belle anything about breakfast being at any certain time.
She found the formal breakfast room, with its long elegant table, with food spread out on a side table and big arrangements of flowers that made her want to sneeze. When she arrived, Santiago set down his newspaper, his breakfast plate already empty. His dark eyes were cool as, rising from the table, he came forward.
“I missed you last night,” she said, staring up at him.
“Sorry. I was busy.” He barely looked at her, and kissed her on the cheek as if she were a stranger.
“Did you enjoy sleeping in, Miss Langtry?” cooed Nadia, also rising from the table, looking sexy and chic in a perfectly cut black skirt suit, her light blond hair pulled back into a chignon, a jeweled brooch on her lapel.
“Sleeping in?” Belle stammered.
“We expected you an hour ago.”
The duke muttered something darkly in Spanish, but didn’t bother to look in Belle’s direction, as his servant pushed his wheelchair from the room.
Belle bit her lip as she looked between Santiago and Nadia. “You expected me at a certain time?”
“Breakfast begins strictly at eight,” Nadia said sweetly. “As the housekeeper mentioned in your wake-up call this morning.”
“I didn’t get any—”
“Don’t worry.” The blonde swept her arm in a generous gesture. “You are a guest, so of course you are free to ignore the rules of our household, no matter how much trouble it might cause everyone. The food has grown cold, so I’ve instructed the servants to prepare you a fresh breakfast, in addition to their other duties.”
“I didn’t mean...” Belle stopped when Santiago kissed her forehead. He was dressed in a dark suit. “Are you going somewhere?”
“The lawyer’s office,” he said. “And to Madrid, to discuss the possibility of donating art to the museum and creating a wing in my brother’s name.”
“Otilio was an art lover,” Nadia purred. Her stiletto heels clicked against the marble floor as she looked up at Santiago with a smile. “Shall we go?”
Oh, hell to the no. Belle looked between them. “I’ll come with you.”
“That’s not necessary,” Santiago said.
“But I want to.”
“It will be very boring for you.”
“Please,” she implored, holding out her hand.
With visible reluctance, he took it. “As you wish.”
She exhaled.
“It’s really unnecessary, Miss Langtry,” Nadia said. She looked seriously annoyed.
Belle was glad. The other woman might be in charge in this castle, arranging to exile her to the attic room and sabotaging her in front of Santiago and the household, but Belle wouldn’t give up Santiago without a fight.
But, it seemed, neither would Nadia. Later that morning, as the duke and Santiago were in the adjoining office, speaking to the lawyers, the two women sat together in the posh waiting room.
Bright sunlight was pouring through the windows, and cushy chairs lined the walls. The sound of secretaries typing on keyboards came from the next room. Sitting across from Nadia, Belle felt nervous and awkward and tried to hide it by reading a magazine. In Spanish. Upside down.
“How charming,” Nadia said suddenly.
Sheepishly, Belle turned around her magazine. But the other woman wasn’t looking at her reading material. Reaching out, she touched the diamond on Belle’s finger.
“Oh, the ring?” Belle smiled. “Yes, I love it. His proposal was very romantic, too.” Maybe it was stretching the truth to call the way he’d blackmailed her into marriage in Texas romantic, but she hated the smirk on the movie star’s face.
