Czytaj książkę: «The Spanish Millionaire's Runaway Bride»

CHAPTER ONE

RICCARDO OCHOA DROVE under the portico of the Midnight Sins Hotel on the Las Vegas strip. He got out of his rental—a black Mercedes convertible with white leather interior—and tossed the keys to the valet.

“Don’t take it too far,” he told the twentysomething kid dressed in neat-as-a-pin trousers and a white shirt. “I don’t intend to be long.”

He turned to enter the hotel and almost ran in to a gaggle of giggling women. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

They stopped. Wide-eyed and no longer giggling, the women stared at him.

He hadn’t been living in New York City for years without recognizing that his Spanish accent intrigued American women. As did his dark hair, dark eyes and the fact that he worked out five days a week. To them, he was exotic.

The woman wearing a strapless red velvet dress took a step closer. Her brown hair had been pulled into curls on top of her head. Her green eyes were sultry, seductive. “Are you going inside?”

He smiled at her. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Maybe I should ditch my friends and join you?”

If he hadn’t been there on business, he probably would have taken her up on her offer for a few hours of drinking and gambling. Just some fun. That might have morphed into a night of romance, but that was it. Not because he didn’t believe in relationships. He’d seen them work. His cousins Mitch and Alonzo had married beautiful women and were as happy as two guys could be.

But some men weren’t built for that kind of life. Riccardo had tried it and had had his heart ripped out of his chest and stomped on—publicly—when his fiancée left him two days before their wedding to reunite with her ex. Gowns had been bought. Tuxes had hung in closets. White-linen-covered tables had lined the rolling lawn of Northern Spain’s Ochoa Vineyards, and she’d walked out without a backward glance.

Humiliation had caused him to swear off relationships, but over the next few years, he’d grown to appreciate the benefits of being single. Not to mention rich. When a man had money, the world was at his fingertips. Though it was his cousin Mitch who had started their company, Ochoa Online, Riccardo took the income Mitch’s websites generated, invested it and made them millionaires, on the fast track to become billionaires. He more than earned his keep.

Which was why he was in Vegas. With the creative genius behind Ochoa Online away on an extended honeymoon, and one of Mitch’s best customers having trouble with his daughter, Riccardo had to shift from moneyman to client problem solver.

“Sorry.” He took the hand of the woman in red velvet and caught her gaze before kissing her knuckles. “I’m here on business.”

She swallowed. “Maybe when your business is done?”

“I’m picking somebody up and driving us both back to the airport.” Morgan Monroe, daughter of Colonel Monroe, owner of Monroe Wines, had run from her wedding. The Colonel wanted her home not just to explain, but for damage control. “I’ll be here two hours, tops.” He released her hand. “Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to meet on my next trip.”

“Maybe.”

He nodded at her and her friends. “Goodbye, ladies.”

The little group said, “Goodbye,” and he walked toward the hotel door, which opened automatically. The sleek, modern lobby welcomed him.

He stopped at the concierge. “I’m looking for Morgan Monroe.” Unlike his ex, Cicely, who’d at least given him two days’ warning, Morgan Monroe had walked halfway down the aisle before she’d turned and run. Her dad had asked his staff to monitor her credit cards and the next day this hotel had popped up. “I’m told she’s a guest here.”

The fiftysomething gentleman didn’t even glance at his computer. “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t give away guest information.”

“I’m only asking because her father, Colonel Monroe,” Riccardo said, deliberately dropping the name of her famous father, “sent me.”

The man’s face whitened. “Her dad is Colonel Monroe?”

Riccardo unobtrusively slid his hand into his trouser pocket to get a one-hundred-dollar bill. “The same.”

“I love his wine.”

“Everybody loves his wine.” He eased the bill across the polished counter. “He just wants me to make sure she’s okay.” And bring her home. But the concierge didn’t need to know that.

The man casually took the bill off the counter and stuffed it into his pocket. “It’s against policy to give you her room number, but friend to friend,” he said, motioning for Riccardo to lean closer, “I can tell you I saw her going into the casino about an hour ago. I also happen to know she plays penny slots and loves margaritas. She’s been in the same spot in the far right-hand corner every afternoon since she got here.”

Though Riccardo groaned internally at the thought of getting a drunk woman into his car and onto a plane, he smiled appreciatively at the concierge. “Thank you.”

He turned away from the serene lobby and faced the casino. Twenty steps took him down a ramp, out of the quiet and into a cacophony of noise. Bells and whistles from slots mixed with cheering at the gaming tables and blended with keno numbers. He inhaled deeply. He loved a good casino.

But he didn’t even pause at the rows of slot machines or the game tables, where an elderly gentleman appeared to be hot at blackjack. He made his way through the jumble of people and paraphernalia to the penny slots in the far right-hand corner.

No one was there.

He looked to the left, then the right. He’d walked so far back the noise of the casino was only a dull hum behind him. The vacant slots around him were also silent.

Confusion rumbled through him. Though Monday afternoons typically weren’t as busy as weekend afternoons, the entire corner was weirdly quiet.

“I’m telling you. When you have as little money as you guys have, you can’t play the stock market.”

Riccardo’s head snapped up.

“But my cousin Arnie netted a bundle playing the market!”

“Because of a lucky guess.” The woman talking sighed heavily. “Look, your primary goal should be to make money without losing any of your initial investment.”

Curious, Riccardo followed the sounds of the conversation. He walked down the row and turned right, then stopped. Two cocktail waitresses, an old guy in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, a young guy in a hoodie and two women leaned against the corner machine as a slim blonde in jeans and gray canvas tennis shoes counseled them.

“You can’t guarantee you’ll keep your initial investment buying individual stocks. Mutual funds mitigate the risk.”

One of the waitresses saw Riccardo and nudged her head in his direction. The woman doling out investment advice turned, and Riccardo’s mouth fell open.

He knew it was stupid to think Morgan Monroe would still be in the wedding gown she’d had on when she bolted from St. Genevieve church on Saturday, but he also hadn’t expected to see Colonel Monroe’s high-society daughter in blue jeans and canvas tennis shoes. Her long blond hair hung past her shoulders in tangled disarray. Her enormous blue eyes speared him from behind the lenses of oversize tortoiseshell glasses.

“Get lost, buddy.”

He also hadn’t expected her to snipe at him. Oh, he’d been sure there’d be a little resistance to his putting her on a plane and taking her back to Lake Justice, home of her father’s enormous wine empire. But everything he’d read about Morgan portrayed her as a demure, sweet woman who loved charity work and took in stray cats.

Either the press had absolutely got her wrong, her dad had a really good PR machine, or Morgan Monroe had snapped.

Considering she’d gotten halfway down the aisle at her eight-hundred-person wedding and then turned and run, he was guessing she’d snapped.

He suddenly wondered if that’s what had happened with Cicely. If she’d snapped when she’d called off their wedding—

His heart chugged to a stop. He hadn’t thought about Cicely in years and today he couldn’t stop thinking about her, comparing his situation to Morgan Monroe’s. He didn’t like remembering the humiliation any more than he liked being reminded that it was his own damn fault. Arrogance had made him believe he could make her love him, though she’d told him time and again that she had an ex she couldn’t forget. And pride sure as hell went before his fall.

So, what was he doing getting involved with another runaway bride? Was he nuts?

No. He was helping a client. Plus, the situations were totally different. Cicely had been his fiancée. Morgan was the daughter of the owner of the biggest vineyard on Mitch’s wine website. Riccardo did not intend to get involved with her beyond taking her home to her dad. This wasn’t just a favor for their best client. It was the only way to keep the beloved, world-renowned Colonel from dumping them to start his own wine website and becoming their competition.

* * *

Morgan Monroe barely held back a sigh of annoyance with the guy staring at her. He was good-looking, obviously rich—if his tailored white shirt and Italian leather loafers were any indicator—and clearly confused, just standing there as if he had no idea what to do.

Guessing he had been startled to find someone doling out investment advice by the penny slots, she gave him the benefit of the doubt, and said, “There’s a sea of machines behind you. You can play any one you want. And if you go at least a row away, you won’t even hear us.”

The surprise on his face was replaced by chagrin. “Holding a little stock seminar, are you?”

His voice wasn’t exactly condescending. She really couldn’t tell what it was. But if he thought she would let him insult these people who needed her help, he was mistaken.

“If I were, it would be none of your business.”

The chagrin became a wince. “That’s not true. I’m actually looking for you... Morgan.”

Her chest squeezed. She’d expected her dad to come searching for her. But this guy didn’t look like a private investigator. She glanced at the black trousers and fitted shirt again. Open at the throat, the white shirt revealed tan skin, as if he summered in the Mediterranean. With his accent, he probably did.

“You’re a PI?”

“No. I’m a friend of your father.”

That was infinitely worse. A PI she could handle. A friend of her dad’s? That would take some finesse.

She turned to her group. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m going to need a few minutes. Just stay here. I’ll be right back.” She walked toward her dad’s minion, pointing at the raised circular bar in the middle of the room. “There’s a table open up there.”

Heading for the bar, she assumed the guy would follow her. She used the two minutes of skirting people, slot machines and gaming tables to remind herself she was twenty-five, educated and in desperate need of some time alone. No matter how this guy approached this, she could say, “Tell my dad I love him and I’m sorry he spent a lot of money on the wedding...but I needed some air.”

No. She couldn’t tell a perfect stranger she needed some air. That was stupid. Her dad would roar with fury if she sent this admittedly handsome guy back to him without something concrete.

She reached to pull out her chair, but Handsome Spanish Guy beat her to it.

Giving her a polite smile, he said, “My nanna would shoot me if I let a woman get her own chair.”

She sat. “Your nanna?”

“My grandmother.” He sat across from her. “She lives in Spain. Very much old-school. She likes men with manners.”

So did Morgan. And, wow, she loved this guy’s voice. Smooth and sexy with just enough accent to make him interesting.

But he was here because her dad had sent him. She shouldn’t be noticing that he was attractive. Plus, she’d just walked out on her own wedding. After leaving one guy at the altar two days ago, she was not in the market for another. No matter how gorgeous.

She cleared her throat. “Okay. My dad sent you to find me—”

“I didn’t have to find you. He knows where you are. He wants me to bring you home.”

She gaped at him. “He knows where I am?”

“Did you think I just strolled into this hotel on a lucky guess?”

“No.” As a former secretary of state and a current high-profile business owner, her dad had more money than God and resources to do things Morgan was only beginning to understand. She didn’t need to know how her dad had found her. The point was, he had.

She pulled in a breath and released it slowly enough to get her thoughts together. “Okay, Marco Polo, here’s the deal. The next two weeks had been blocked off for a honeymoon. My dad has an event in Stockholm two days after that, so I have to be home before he leaves. But that also means I don’t have to be anywhere for another twelve days.” She planted her backside a little more firmly on the chair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes, you are. You left your dad with eight hundred confused guests filling the bed-and-breakfasts in town, waiting to see if you’re okay, not to mention one very disoriented fiancé. You’re not dodging the damage control.”

She rose from her seat. “I didn’t want the eight hundred guests. Charles did. I didn’t want the wedding reception at the vineyard. That was my dad’s handiwork. I picked out the dress and my bouquet.” Her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears and the emotions that had hit her as she walked down the aisle spiraled through her again. The betrayal. The sense of stupidity for trusting Charles. The sense of stupidity for being so trusting—period.

She very quickly said, “If you’ll excuse me,” turned and headed back to her cluster of new friends, not willing to let this stranger see her cry. Damn it. She’d thought she’d worked through all this in the plane.

She raised her chin. She had dealt with all this on the commuter flight to JFK, while shopping for clothes to change into in the big airport and on the flight to Vegas. That reaction to talking about her wedding was simply a release of stress. She was not unhappy that she’d left Charles. She seriously didn’t care that her dad’s life had been inconvenienced. She’d told them and told them and told them that she wanted a small wedding. No one listened, and eventually she’d let it drop. Because that’s what she’d done since she was twelve, when her mom had died and she suddenly became lady of the house.

Not old enough to really know what to do, she’d taken her father’s advice on everything. That had become such a habit she didn’t even realize she’d let him pick the man she’d marry. For as much as her dad had nudged her in Charles’s direction with frequent dinners at their home and trips to London, Ireland and Monaco that coincided with trips Charles was taking, her dad had also groomed Charles to be his son-in-law.

They’d seemed like the ultimate power couple until Charles’s best man mentioned that fact at the rehearsal-dinner toast. Even he’d seen how Charles had been groomed and all Morgan had to do was wait until her father’s creation was finished to have the perfect man to add to their two-person family.

The crowd had laughed, but her chest had pressed inward, squeezing all the air from her lungs. His toast, no matter how lighthearted, had a ring of truth to it. No. More like a gong of truth. A whole Mormon Tabernacle Choir of truth.

And Charles’s response when she’d confronted him after the dinner? He’d needed her dad’s help. If marrying her was the price, he’d pay it.

When she’d gasped, he’d said he didn’t mean that the way it sounded. He loved her. She was beautiful. Wonderful. A woman so perfect she was more like a reward, not a price. He was sorry his explanation had come out all wrong.

For the hours that had passed between the toast and her trip down the aisle, she’d believed that.

But there was something about walking toward her destiny, dressed in all white, looking sweet and innocent while perpetuating something that felt very much like fraud, that caused her feet to stop, her heart to break. Her dad had controlled everything in her life, from where she’d gone to school to how she dressed and who she’d invite to their gatherings. The man she spent the rest of her life with would be her choice.

“You okay?” Mary, the lead waitress for the afternoon shift, studied her as she walked back to her little investment group beside the last row of slots.

She sucked in a breath and smiled. “I’m fine.” She was fine. Though Charles was history, she wasn’t writing off her dad completely. This was a hiccup in their relationship. A time for her to take a breath, sort out what she wanted, maybe come up with some new rules for how she and her dad would relate. Then she would go back to Lake Justice. Then they would talk.

And no gorgeous Spaniard with a sexy voice was taking her back before she was ready.