He towered over her. She was small and young and lithe, with long, striking red hair, and an expression that appeared candid, but was most definitely defiant and determined. She was pale, but outwardly composed. He knew who she was. The lawyer had warned him she might be difficult and not to be deceived by her innocent looks.
‘Did the lawyer send you?’ she challenged, seeming to have no guard on her tongue.
‘No one sent me,’ he replied, all the time assessing her keenly.
‘Then why are you here?’
Her clenched fists were the only sign that she was nervous. She had courage to stand up to him, but he wasn’t a bully and she was a young girl alone on the beach. He ordered his muscles to stand down. ‘I’m here to see you.’
‘Me?’
She put one small hand on the swell of plump breasts peeping above the towel. And then a stiff breeze caught hold of her hair and lifted it, tossing it about. The urge to fist a hank of it, so he could ease her head back and kiss her throat, was overwhelming.
She might hold appeal, but anyone who could persuade his crotchety aunt to leave them such a sizeable bequest had to be more conniving than she looked.
‘We have business to discuss.’ He glanced up the cliff towards the house.
‘You can only be one person,’ she said, levelling her cool amethyst gaze on him. ‘The lawyers have shown no interest in me, or in the island. They’re happy to let Isla Del Rey go to hell, and me with it. Every door in the city’s been slammed in my face. But I suppose you already know that...Don Xavier.’
He remained impassive. The day the contents of his aunt’s will had become known her lawyers had been in touch with him to profess their undying loyalty. The firm had worked for the Del Rio family for years, the head of the firm was at pains to remind him, and every associate was squarely behind Don Xavier in this most regrettable situation. There was a good case to challenge the will, the lawyer had assured him, no doubt rubbing his hands with glee at the thought of more fees to come. Xavier had dismissed the man’s suggestion out of hand. He would deal with the situation, as he would deal with this girl.
‘Are you responsible for me being ignored in the city?’ the girl now challenged him, firming her jaw with affront.
‘No,’ he said honestly. His aunt had always been mischievous, and never more so than when she had drawn up her will. Now he’d met the girl with whom he shared the bequest, he suspected Doña Anna must have taken much pleasure in putting as many obstacles in his way as she could before he could lay claim to an island that was rightfully his. ‘No doubt the money men think as I do, that the responsibility of Isla Del Rey cannot rest in the hands of one young girl.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose you’re interested in my opinion,’ she flashed back.
She was going to give it to him anyway, he suspected.
She proved him right. ‘Anyone lucky enough to have relatives should cherish them, not abandon them, however difficult they might be.’
‘Was that a dig at me?’ he asked with mild amusement. ‘Are you suggesting that I have as little claim to the island as you?’
‘You have the name,’ she conceded. ‘You also have the reputation. Why would your aunt leave the island she loved
above all things to a man as notorious as you?’
The bluntness of this statement silenced him for a moment, and he had to admit to some grudging respect. Her boldness was shocking, but it was also refreshing. He guessed her blunt character had been forged on the anvil of a difficult childhood. She’d had to find ways to survive, and had chosen logic and stubbornness over compliance and self-pity. She was brave. He’d give her that. Not many people would take him on.
‘No argument, Don Xavier?’
He raised a brow, but what she’d said was true. His reputation hung by a thread. He lived hard and fast, funded by the lifestyle his highly successful business ventures provided. He wasn’t interested in love and caring. They had only brought him disappointment in the past. He had no time for such things now. That was why he had avoided both the island and his aunt. He wasn’t proud to admit that the thought of rekindling the feelings he’d had for the old lady when he was a boy had made it easier for him to stay away. His parents had knocked all thoughts of love out of him. More grief? More regret? Why would he invite them in? He’d done what Doña Anna had asked him to do, which was to make more money to fund those schemes she would have been proud of, and that had to be enough.
But his mischievous aunt was asking more of him in her will. He could only imagine she had been playing games with him when she had added a particular caveat that stood in the way of him claiming his inheritance.
‘I imagine it’s the terms of your aunt’s will that brought you here,’ the girl commented forthrightly.
What business was it of hers?
Against his better judgement, his senses stirred as she continued to interrogate him with her astonishingly beautiful amethyst eyes.
‘We’re both here for the same reason, I imagine,’ he countered evenly. ‘To sort out the terms of the bequest.’
‘I live here, you don’t,’ she said, smiling a faint challenge at him.
Was she staking her claim? If she’d read the will, and he presumed she had, she would know he could forfeit his half of the island if he didn’t provide the estate with an heir within two years. It must have amused his aunt to put his infamous reputation to the test.
‘You’re under some pressure, I imagine,’ the girl said.