Bound by Blackmail Read online

  Bound by Blackmail

  By Kate Walker

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  SO THAT was Mercedes Alcolar.

  Jake lifted his glass to his lips and took a slow, thoughtful sip of the rich red wine it contained, swallowing it down without once taking his eyes off the woman who had just walked into the room.

  Mercedes Honoria Alcolar.

  The daughter of the great Catalan family at whose head was the world-renowned Juan Alcolar, owner and managing director of the Alcolar Corporation. This Mercedes was his youngest child, the only girl.

  She was a looker all right. But then he’d expected that. How could she be anything else when her father was so much the traditional ‘tall, dark and handsome’ that he stole women’s hearts if he so much as walked into a room? Her brothers did too, if the rumour mill was to be believed. Certainly, Ramón, his cousin and the one Alcolar he knew, was the sort of man who turned women’s heads and always had been.

  But Ramón was only this woman’s half-brother. They shared the same father, but Ramón’s mother had been Jake’s aunt, and it was that thought that brought a dark scowl to his face as he watched the Alcolar girl progress across the room.

  His mother couldn’t speak the name Juan Alcolar without spitting venom. A venom she reserved for all the other members of the Alcolar clan—except, of course, Ramón. Because for years they hadn’t known that Ramón was in fact an Alcolar. It was only ten years ago that they had discovered that he was the son, not of Reuben Dario, his aunt’s husband, but of her lover, the man who had got her pregnant and then abandoned her—for the second time.

  And that man had been Juan Alcolar.

  ‘That man’s daughter is coming to London,’ Elizabeth Taverner had announced furiously the previous weekend when Jake had called to visit her for the evening.

  ‘So I hear.’

  He hadn’t needed any further explanation as to who ‘that man’ was. There was no one else that Elizabeth referred to in that way and with just that bitter emphasis.

  ‘I understand that Antonia Sanders has said she’ll show her round—take her to a couple of parties.’

  His mother’s blonde head turned sharply in Jake’s direction, eyes as blue as her son’s flashing sharply.

  ‘Parties you’ll be going to?’

  ‘Parties I’ll be going to,’ Jake confirmed a trifle wearily. ‘But I doubt if I’ll meet the girl, and even if I do…Mother, it’s years since all that happened—a lifetime.’

  ‘A lifetime my sister never had,’ Elizabeth reminded him bitterly, her long, manicured fingers tapping restlessly on the gold brocade arm of the settee on which she sat. ‘Marguerite died because of that man!’

  ‘We don’t know that for sure…’

  ‘The doctors said—’

  ‘The doctors said that Aunt Marguerite had a weak heart; one that was made worse by the strain of pregnancy and childbirth—’

  ‘They can call it a weak heart, but to my mind she died because her heart was broken—and broken twice by the same man!’

  Jake privately doubted that anyone could die of a broken heart, but he bit his tongue and held back the comment now. It would only aggravate his mother’s mood, set her off on a tirade of anger and loathing that he had heard so many times before that he was frankly tired of it.

  ‘Well, I doubt very much that I’ll meet the woman, even if we do go to the same parties. And besides, I’ve kept away from her and her family for years now—I’m not likely to go rushing in to say hello just because we’ve discovered we’re not-quite-related by marriage.’

  ‘I should hope not. Certainly not after the way that her papa handled that takeover bid.’

  Another black mark against Juan Alcolar, Jake reflected now, still watching Mercedes Alcolar, in spite of himself.

  She was intensely watchable, that was the problem. Average height, but slim as a willow—apart from the rich, soft curves of her breasts under the clinging red and black dress. Her slightly olive skin looked soft and velvety, her oval face was enhanced by deep brown, almond-shaped eyes fringed by luxuriant black lashes above incredible slanting cheekbones and a lush, full mouth that barely needed the slick of lipstick to colour it more richly. Silken black hair was twisted into a neat knot at the base of her skull, leaving the whole of her long, elegant neck exposed, her only jewellery the cascade of silver that hung from the delicate lobe of each finely shaped ear.

  But it was the way she moved that caught his eye—and held it. She was sleek and sophisticated, walking with the elegance of a female cat, the sway of her hips, the slide of the long, slim legs a sensual temptation that kicked low and hard in his gut.

  Of course, she wasn’t to blame for the way her father had behaved, either in the past or more recently when a hostile takeover bid that Juan Alcolar had launched for a firm that Jake had had his eye on had caused a couple of very rocky years for Taverner Telecommunications. The company had been in danger of losing a lot of money and as a result, reluctantly, he had had to lay off staff.

  And Juan Alcolar hadn’t given a damn.

  ‘No…’ Jake muttered to himself, draining the last of his wine and replacing his glass on the nearest table. ‘I’m not interested.’

  Mercedes Alcolar might be the most beautiful woman he had seen in years—in his life—but if she was anything like her father then she spelled trouble.

  She spelled trouble anyway, whatever she was like. His mother would hit the roof if she thought that he had even spoken to the girl, let alone found her attractive. And no doubt her father would feel the same. Everything he had ever heard about the man spoke of an unbending arrogance, a pride in his Catalan heritage, his position in society, that kept him distant from the common herd of humanity.

  It was as he was turning away, planning on heading for the door, that something caught his eye, made him glance back, his searching gaze meeting the wide, dark chocolate eyes of Mercedes Alcolar head on.

  Just for a moment their eyes locked; held. He couldn’t look away and neither—it seemed—could she. She looked like a startled fawn frozen into stillness by some sudden disturbing sound, staring, unblinking, straight at him.

  But then she blinked and suddenly her whole face changed. The stunned look vanished, evaporating like a mist before the sun, and a totally different expression took its place.

  If he hadn’t known that she was still standing there, and that he had been watching her all the time, Jake might almost have believed that someone else had come into the room and taken her place. Her beautiful, expressive features simply froze, a cold masklike look settling over them as if they had suddenly become formed in ice. Her sensual lips stiffened, tightened into a thin, hard line, and her neat chin came up so that she was suddenly looking at him down the slope of her aristocratic, straight little nose.

  Even the glorious shining brown eyes seemed to glaze over and turn icy, cold and distant as the rocks at the bottom of the sea on a bitter winter’s day.

  And,
seeing it, Jake felt as if something of the cold, or a splinter of ice, had slid into his heart right then and there. Mercedes Alcolar might be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen but, right now, she also looked like the coldest, the haughtiest, the most arrogant female he had ever had the misfortune to encounter.

  And who the hell are you? that look seemed to say. Who are you and how dare you even look in my direction?

  Her father had looked that way on the one occasion that Jake had actually come close enough to see him. They had both attended some media function in a huge Madrid hotel and something had displeased Juan Alcolar. Some question that an enquiring reporter had asked had annoyed him and he had turned just that sort of a ‘Who the hell are you?’ look on the unfortunate man before turning and walking out without another word.

  And who the hell are you, to look at me like that, Señorita Alcolar? He addressed the Spanish woman in the privacy of his thoughts. Don’t you know that we dropped the feudal system here centuries ago? You may be aristocracy in Spain—but here you’re just ordinary.

  Oh, you liar! his senses reproached him, something twisting sharply inside him. You total, abject liar! Never in a million years could this woman be described as ordinary, not even as the worst possible term of disparagement. She was gorgeous—but the trouble was that she knew it.

  And he was determined that he wouldn’t let her see how she affected him. That down-the-nose look, the icy stare, told him that she was only too well aware of the effect she had on men, and only condescended to acknowledge it when it suited her. And this time it obviously didn’t suit.

  Quite deliberately he let his eyes flick over her once, up and down, then away again, as if totally uninterested. Not even sparing her another glance, he turned on his heel and walked swiftly away. The brief, twenty-stride journey to the door seemed to last for ever, but he refused to let himself even hesitate, fighting a nasty little battle with the almost overwhelming urge to look back, just once, to see how she had taken his dismissal of her.

  If that was Mercedes Alcolar, then he wanted nothing to do with her.

  ‘Oh, damn!’ Mercedes muttered under her breath, furious with herself and the stupid way she had reacted. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

  She’d done it again. Gone and behaved in that ridiculous, stupid way that always seemed to take over her at the worst possible moment. Always, when she was at her most unsure and uncomfortable, when she felt ill at ease and like a fish out of water, then her wretched, stupid face had to go and freeze up like that the minute anyone looked at her.

  She knew what she looked like. She had caught sight of herself just once, in a huge, ornate mirror overhanging the large fireplace in her father’s dining room, and she had been horrified—appalled. Had that cold-faced, cold-eyed creature really been her? It had to have been—the woman she’d been able to see had been wearing the same dress as she had, had had her hair in the same style. And yet the woman in the reflection had looked icily haughty, arrogant as hell, and she had most definitely looked as if she’d been determined to freeze out anyone who’d approached her.

  The reality couldn’t have been more different.

  The truth was that deep inside she had been scared stiff. She had never been at her best at social gatherings, and the bigger they were, the more she quailed inside.

  And this event was big.

  ‘Everybody who is anybody will be there!’ Antonia had announced as they had dressed and primped beforehand, struggling for space in the tiny bathroom of her friend’s one bedroomed flat. ‘Marlon and Heidi throw such wicked parties! You’ll really see some of the big names in the media world.’

  Which was guaranteed to set Mercedes’ nerves fluttering even before they left the house.

  ‘You will stick with me, won’t you, Tonia?’ she asked just as the taxi drew up outside the huge, imposing entrance and the car door was opened by a uniformed servant. ‘You won’t leave me alone?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Her friend laughed. ‘But don’t worry—this is going to be fun!’

  Fun for Antonia, perhaps, Mercedes thought to herself, struggling to stick close to her friend as the other girl made her way through a series of enormous rooms, each of them more crowded than the next. Occasionally Antonia stopped to introduce her to someone, but the buzz of conversation was so loud, the crush of people constantly shifting and moving around her, that Mercedes barely even registered whom she was speaking to, let alone their names, before they moved on again.

  To make matters worse, she knew she was not really understanding half of what was said. Good as her English was, it wasn’t really up to coping with the shouted questions, the laughing comments, all pitched against the beat of the music and the clatter of glasses.

  And it was just when she was feeling her worst that she looked up and saw the man leaning against the far wall.

  Alex.

  Her first thought was that he looked like her brother Alex. But then realisation dawned and she knew that Alex could never be here—and, besides, this man wasn’t really that much like him.

  He was tall and rangy with dark brown hair and his eyes, what she could see of them because they were narrowed in sharp assessment, seemed blue, or something light that was not what she expected. But still, it was just some momentary trick of the light, or his height, or his colouring that had made her think of Alex. Because everything about this man told her that he was not like anyone. That he was totally, uniquely himself.

  And what he was was stunning. Dark and devastating and wholly male in a way that made him stand out from the crowds of beautiful people all around her.

  ‘Tonia?’

  She reached for her friend’s arm, wanting to draw her attention.

  ‘Who…?’

  But then the words shrivelled on her lips as she saw that he was staring straight at her.

  It wasn’t just that he was looking in her direction, but something about the way that he was doing so—some coldness in his demeanour, a frown between the narrowed eyes—that made her freeze. Her skin prickled with awareness, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck seeming to lift in wary response to that assessing frown.

  Immediately her defence mechanisms came into play.

  She didn’t know who the man was—or why he was staring at her like that. She only knew that she wasn’t going to let him outface her—that she was determined not to show, for a single second, the way that he affected her.

  The way that he disturbed her.

  She could feel her face tightening as if the skin had dried and were stretching taut over bone. Instinctively, she firmed her jaw, the movement clamping her mouth a little too much. Her head came up, chin lifting, in defiance.

  And it had totally the wrong effect.

  To her horror she saw the way his own expression hardened suddenly; the scathing contempt in the look that seared over her from head to toe and back up again.

  She felt judged by that look. Judged and found wanting, and totally, absolutely dismissed as being not worth any interest at all.

  And even as she recognised that fact, he turned and stalked away, leaving her shaking as if that burning look had had an actual physical effect on her, draining the strength from her legs, stripping away a protective layer of skin. She felt raw and vulnerable, and badly upset—and the worst part was that she had no idea why.

  ‘Mercedes?’

  It was Tonia’s voice, breaking into her miserable and shaken mood.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Oh—yes—fine.’

  She switched on a bright, vivid smile, one she hoped was convincing, pushing the memory of that cold, dismissive stare right to the back of her mind.

  She would forget him, she told herself. Forget him completely and never let him trouble her again. She only had another week here in England, and she wasn’t going to let some unknown man spoil her trip for her.

  Because this might be her only brief knowledge of what real freedom meant.
The freedom of being away from the rules and restrictions of Spanish society life.

  While she was here, she knew that she was supposed to be thinking of her future—or, rather, the future that Miguel Hernandez and his family hoped she would consider.

  She and Miguel had dated for a while and he at least had clearly hoped to take the relationship a lot further. Her father approved of him too, she knew. The Hernandez family was wealthy, established in business, eminently respectable. She could do much worse for herself—Papá hadn’t actually spoken the words out loud, but she had seen them in his eyes when he had spoken of Miguel. But even more revealing had been the expression on the faces of both of Miguel’s parents. For their son to marry the only daughter of Juan Alcolar would clearly be a dream come true to them. In their eyes she was the perfect potential daughter-in-law—a prize catch.

  Which had been why she had escaped to England on the pretext of taking time to think things over. Feeling the need to escape from the pressure of being viewed like a prize mare in a breeding programme, and not at all sure that her own feelings for Miguel could ever be anything more than warm affection, she had been enjoying herself so much in London—up until now.

  ‘Mercedes. Look.’ Antonia tugged at her friend’s arm, distracting her attention. ‘Over there—that’s…’

  In the noisy hubbub of voices, Mercedes missed the name, but looking where directed she recognised the handsome, clean-cut features of the latest English film sensation who had just come into the room, a petite, glamorous blonde on his arm.

  ‘Isn’t he just gorgeous!’ Antonia sighed, almost drooling into her champagne glass.

  A noncommittal, ‘Mmm,’ was all that Mercedes could manage. Anything more, and she’d have to explain herself. And right now explaining was not something she wanted to do.

  The man—because even in her thoughts the words seemed to appear in italics—was back. Unexpectedly he had come back into the room and was leaning against the wall some distance away. And he was watching her again. She could feel the burn of his gaze on her skin even though she didn’t dare to look in his direction.

  ‘Not my type,’ she added reluctantly when her friend clearly expected her to say something.