Czytaj książkę: «The Boss's Nine-Month Negotiation»

PROLOGUE

NOTHING HAD CHANGED in six years.

Emiliano Castillo was mildly surprised at himself for entertaining the thought, even for a second, that things would be different. Wasn’t ‘the old way or no way’ one of the endless tenets forming his family’s foundations and beliefs?

Wasn’t that rigid clinging to tradition one of his reasons for turning his back on his family?

He kept his gaze dead straight, refusing to turn his head to glance at the miles of rolling paddocks that usually held his family’s prized thoroughbreds and foal training ground. Even then, he couldn’t help but notice, as his chauffeur drove him towards his ancestral home, that the normally teeming landscape was now curiously empty, the dozen or so gauchos usually in each corral nowhere in sight.

He brought his wandering thoughts back under control. There would be no indulging in nostalgia on this visit. In fact, Emiliano intended the trip to the renowned Castillo Estate just outside Cordoba, Argentina, to be as brief as the summons that had brought him here.

He had only come out of respect for Matias, his older brother. Had Matias been in a position to speak, Emiliano would’ve made sure his brother relayed his refusal of the summons he’d received in London loud and clear to their parents.

Sadly, Matias wasn’t in a position to do any such thing.

The reason for that tightened his jaw, even as a brief tinge of sadness assailed him. Thankfully, there was little time to dwell on it as the car drew up in front of the extensive luxury villa in which several generations of proud, intractable Castillos had lived.

Oak double doors opened as he stepped out of the car.

Emiliano tensed, for a moment forgetting that neither his father nor his mother had deigned to open doors of their own accord for as long as he could remember. Not when they had servants to do it for them.

Mounting the steps, he nodded curtly at the ageing butler’s greeting. This particular member of staff wasn’t one he remembered and for that he was marginally thankful. He wanted no more memories triggered, or to go down the lonely, dismal path he’d done his best to try to forget.

‘If señor would like to come with me, Señor and Señora Castillo are waiting in the drawing room.’

Emiliano allowed himself the briefest of glances at the walls that surrounded the home he’d grown up in, the sturdy bannister he used to slide down as a child, the antique cabinet he’d crashed into and earned himself a long-since-healed fracture on his collarbone.

He’d had time to do all that because he hadn’t been the firstborn son. His time had been his own to use or misuse as he pleased, because only one person had counted in this household: Matias. But it was only as he’d entered his teenage years that he’d grown to fathom exactly what that meant.

Securing the button on his single-breasted suit, he refocused his gaze and followed the butler into the wide, sunlit reception room.

His parents were seated in twin wing-backed chairs that wouldn’t have been out of place in the throne room at the Palace of Versailles. But, even without the heavy accoutrements and almost-garish displays of wealth to punctuate their success, Benito and Valentina Castillo carried themselves with near-royal pride.

They both eyed him now with equal expressions of hauteur and indifference—both expressions he was used to. But Emiliano glimpsed something else beneath the brittle exteriors.

Nerves. Desperation.

He tucked that observation away, walked forward and kissed his mother on both cheeks.

‘Mama, I hope you are well?’

Her expression twitched only for as long as it took for her to give him a once-over, before settling back into prideful superiority. ‘Of course. But I would be better still if you’d bothered to answer us when we first reached out to you. But, as usual, you choose to do things in your own time, when it suits you best.’

Emiliano gritted his teeth and curbed the urge to remind them that it was the legacy of forgetful indifference they’d bestowed on him which had dictated his actions. Instead he nodded to his father, received a curt nod in return and selected an armchair to settle in.

‘I am here now. Shall we get on with why you summoned me?’ he said, then refused the offer of a drink from the butler.

His father’s mouth twisted. ‘Sí, always in a rush. Always, you have somewhere else to be, don’t you?’

Emiliano slowly exhaled. ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’ He was in the middle of a bidding war for a revolutionary social media programme back in London. The programme’s creators were being courted by at least half a dozen other venture capitalists. Despite his company being the biggest and most powerful of them all, he reminded himself that he’d been the underdog once, before a daring move had set him on his way to stratospheric success. This wasn’t a time to take his foot off the pedal.

He also had to approve the finishing touches for the birthday celebration his event planner had put together for Sienna Newman.

His vice-president of Acquisitions.

His lover.

Thoughts of the woman whose intellect kept him on his toes by day and whose body thrilled his by night fractionally allayed the bitter memories of his childhood. Unlike his past liaisons, she hadn’t been an easy conquest, her reluctance even to give him the time of day beyond the boardroom was a challenge that had fired his blood in the months before she’d even agreed to have dinner with him.

In his quiet moments, Emiliano still silently reeled at the changes he’d made in his life in order to accommodate his lover. The few who presumed to know him would agree—rightly, in this instance—that this behaviour wasn’t like him at all. His own disquiet in the face of the reservation he sometimes felt from Sienna made him question himself. But not enough to disrupt the status quo. Not yet, anyway. Although, like everything in life, it, too, had a finite shelf life. It was that ticking clock which made him even more impatient to be done with whatever this summons was all about and get out of this place.

He stared at his parents with a raised eyebrow, letting the silent censure bounce off him. He’d long ago learned that nothing he said or did would ever change their attitude towards him. He was the spare they’d sired but never needed. His place would be on a shelf, fed, clothed, but collecting dust and nothing else. So he’d left home and stopped trying.

‘When was the last time you visited your brother?’ his mother enquired, her fixed expression breaking momentarily to allow a touch of humanity to filter through at the mention of Matias.

The question brought to mind his brother’s current state. Comatose in a hospital bed in Switzerland with worryingly low signs of brain activity.

Emiliano weathered the punch of sadness and brushed a speck of lint off his cuff. ‘Two weeks ago. And every two weeks before that since his accident four months ago,’ he replied.

His parents exchanged surprised glances. He curbed the urge to laugh. ‘If this is all you needed to know, you could’ve sent me an email.’

‘It isn’t. But we find it...reassuring that family still means something to you, seeing as you abandoned it without a backward glance,’ Benito stated.

The fine hairs on Emiliano’s nape lifted. ‘Reassuring? I guess it should be celebrated that I’ve done something right at last, then? But, at the risk of straying into falsehoods and hyperbole, perhaps let’s stick to the subject of why you asked me here.’

Benito picked up his glass and stared into the contents for a few seconds before he knocked it back and swallowed with a gulp. The action was so alien—his father’s outward poise a thing so ingrained it seemed part of his genetic make-up—that Emiliano’s jaw threatened to drop before he caught himself.

Setting the glass down with a brisk snap, another first, Benito eyed him with fresh censure. Nothing new there.

‘We’re broke. Completely destitute. Up the proverbial creek without a paddle.’

‘Excuse me?’ Emiliano wasn’t sure whether it was the bald language that alarmed him or his father’s continued acting out of character.

‘You wish me to repeat myself? Why? So you can gloat?’ his father snapped. ‘Very well. The polo business, the horse breeding. Everything has failed. The estate has been sliding into the red for the past three years, ever since Rodrigo Cabrera started his competing outfit here in Cordoba. We approached Cabrera and he bought the debt. Now he’s calling in the loans. If we don’t pay up by the end of next month, we will be thrown out of our home.’

Emiliano realised his jaw was clenched so tight he had to force it apart to speak. ‘How can that be? Cabrera doesn’t know the first thing about horse breeding. The last I heard he was dabbling in real estate. Besides, Castillo is the foremost polo-training and horse-breeding establishment in South America. How can you be on the brink of bankruptcy?’ he demanded.

His mother’s colour receded and her fingers twisted the white lace handkerchief in her hand. ‘Watch your tone, young man.’

Emiliano inhaled sharply, stopped the sharper words that threatened to spill and chose his words carefully. ‘Explain to me how these circumstances have occurred.’

His father shrugged. ‘You are a man of business...you know how these things go. A few bad investments here and there...’

Emiliano shook his head. ‘Matias was...is...a shrewd businessman. He would never have let things slide to the point of bankruptcy without mitigating the losses or finding a way to reverse the business’s fortunes. At the very least, he would’ve told me...’ He stopped when his parents exchanged another glance. ‘I think you should tell me what’s really going on. I’m assuming you asked me here because you need my help?’

Pride flared in his father’s eyes for a blinding moment before he glanced away and nodded. ‘Sí.’ The word was one Emiliano was sure he didn’t want to utter.

‘Then let’s have it.’

They remained stoically silent for several heartbeats before his father rose. He strode to a cabinet on the far side of the room, poured himself another drink and returned to his chair. Setting the glass down, he picked up a tablet Emiliano hadn’t spotted before and activated it.

‘Your brother left a message for you. Perhaps it would explain things better.’

He frowned. ‘A message? How? Matias is in a coma.’

Valentina’s lips compressed, distress marring her features for a brief second. ‘You don’t need to remind us. He recorded it before his brain operation, once the doctors gave him the possible prognosis.’

Emiliano couldn’t fault the pain in her voice or the sadness in her eyes. And, not for the first time in his life, he wondered why that depth of feeling for his brother had never spilt over for him.

Pushing the fruitless thought aside, he focused on the present. On what he could control.

‘That was two months ago. Why are you only telling me about this message now?’

‘We didn’t think it would be needed before now.’

‘And by it, you mean me?’

His mother shrugged. Knowing the iron control he’d locked down on his feelings where his parents were concerned was in danger of breaking free and exploding, he jerked to his feet. Crossing the room to his father, he held out his hand for the tablet.

Benito handed it over.

Seeing his brother’s face frozen on the screen, the bandage around his head and the stark hospital furniture and machines around him, Emiliano felt his breath strangle in his chest. Matias was the one person who hadn’t dismissed him for being born second. His brother’s support was the primary reason Emiliano had broken away from the glaringly apathetic environment into which he’d been born. He knew deep down that he would’ve made it, no matter what, but Matias’s unwavering encouragement had bolstered him in the early, daunting years when he’d been floundering alone on the other side of the world.

He stemmed the tremor moving through him as his gaze moved over his brother’s pale, gaunt face. Returning to his seat, he pressed the play button.

The message was ten minutes long.

With each second of footage that passed, with each word his brother uttered, Emiliano sank further into shock and disbelief. When it was over, he lifted his gaze and met equal stares that were now less indifferent and more...concerned.

‘Are you... Is this for real?’ he demanded.

‘You’re hearing the words from your brother’s lips and still you doubt it?’ his father asked, a trace of shame lacing his stiff demeanour.

‘I don’t doubt what Matias is saying. I’m questioning whether you truly gambled away millions that you knew the company couldn’t afford!’

His father slammed his hand on the table. ‘Castillo is my company!’

‘It’s also Matias’s birthright! At least, that’s what you drummed into him from the day he was born, was it not? Wasn’t that the reason he all but broke his back to make it a success? Because you pressured him to succeed at all costs?’

‘I am no tyrant. What he did for Castillo, he did willingly.’

Emiliano barely managed to bite back the swear word that hovered on his tongue. ‘And for that you repay him by frittering away the profits behind his back?’

‘The deal we made with Cabrera was supposed to be a sure thing.’

‘A sure thing? You were duped by a man who spotted an easy score a mile away.’ He stared down at the screen, still unable to believe the tale Matias had told. Bankruptcy. Destitution for his parents. Absurd promises made. Regret that the burden now fell on Emiliano’s shoulders.

The naked plea in his brother’s eyes and solemn tone not to let the family down.

That last entreaty, more than anything else, was what kept Emiliano from walking out the door in that moment. Even though what Matias was asking of him—the request to honour the deal his parents had struck with Rodrigo Cabrera—was so ludicrous, he wondered why he wasn’t laughing his head off.

Because every single word was true. He could tell just from looking into his parents’ eyes.

‘You really are serious, aren’t you? You struck this bargain that Matias would marry Cabrera’s daughter if the deal went south and the loans became due?’ he rasped with renewed disbelief. ‘Isn’t she still a child?’

A brief memory of a little girl in pigtails chasing around the ranch during family visits flitted through his mind. Matias, as usual, had been patient and caring with Graciela Cabrera, but Emiliano, fully immersed in dreams of escape, could barely remember her, save for a few exchanges at the dinner table.

‘She’s twenty-three years old,’ his mother supplied. ‘She may have had a few wild escapades that have left her parents with more grey hairs than they wish, but she is more mature now. Matias was her favourite, of course, but she remembers you fondly—’

‘I don’t care how she remembers me. What I care about is that none of this set-up rang any alarm bells for you!’ He seethed, unwilling to rise to the subtle dig. ‘From a supposed family friend!’

For the first time, his father had the grace to look embarrassed. But the expression didn’t last long. He regrouped, as was the Castillo way. ‘We are where we are, Emiliano. The burden of our family’s fortunes now rests with you. And don’t bother taking out your chequebook. Cabrera has made it clear he wants only one thing. You either marry Graciela Cabrera or you can sit back and watch your mother and me lose everything.’