A Game of Vows Read online

  “You’re acting like I hurt you in some way, Hannah, but we both know that isn’t true. I gave you your own room. Your own wing of the penthouse. I never intruded on you, never once took advantage of you. I kept to our agreement and released you from our bargain after six months, and you left. With all the money I promised you,” he said. “You keep forgetting the money I gave you.”

  She clenched her teeth. “Because I didn’t spend it.” She hadn’t been able to. Leaving him, or more to the point, his family and the city that had started to feel like home, had felt too awful. And she’d felt, for the first time, every inch the dishonorable person she was. “If you want your ten thousand dollars, it’s in a bank account. And frankly, it’s pennies as far as I’m concerned at this point.”

  “Oh, yes, you are very successful now, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t feel it at the moment. “Yes. I am.”

  Eduardo advanced toward her. “You are good with finances, investments.”

  “Financial planning, strategies, picking stocks. You name it, I’m good at it.”

  “That’s what I want from you.”

  “What? Financial advice?”

  “Not exactly.” He looked out the window, his expression inscrutable. “My father died two years ago.”

  An image of the hard, formidable, amazing man that Eduardo had been blessed enough to call his father swam before her eyes. Miguel Vega had been demanding. A taskmaster. A leader. He had cared. About his business, about his children. About his oldest son, who wasn’t taking life seriously enough. Cared enough to back him into a corner and force him to marry. It was a heavy-handed version of caring, but it was more than Hannah had ever gotten from her own father.

  Eventually, that man, his wife, Eduardo’s sister, had come to mean something to her. She’d loved them.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice muted now, a strange kind of grief filling her heart. Not that Miguel would have missed or cared about her. And she didn’t deserve it. She’d lied to him. And as far as he was concerned, she’d left his son.

  “As am I,” Eduardo said. “But he left me in charge of Vega Communications.”

  “And things aren’t going well?”

  “Not exactly.” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “No, not exactly.”

  “Do you need me to look at your books? Because I can do that after I marry Zack.”

  He shook his head, his dark eyes blazing. “That can’t happen, tesoro.”

  “But it can,” she said, desperation filling her again. It was past bridal-march time. She could just picture the hotel, all decked out in pink ribbon and tulle. Her beautiful pink wedding cake. It was her dream wedding, the dream she’d had since she was a little girl. Not some traditional wedding in a cathedral, conducted entirely in Latin. A wedding that was a show for the groom’s family. A wedding that had nothing to do with her.

  It was a wedding with a groom who didn’t love her, but at least liked her. A groom who didn’t find the idea of taking vows with her to be a joke. He at least wanted her around. Being wanted on a personal level was new for her. She liked the way it felt.

  “Sorry, Hannah. I need you to come back to Spain with me.” He looked out the window. “It’s time I brought my wife back home.”

  “No is the same in both of our languages, so there should be nothing lost in translation when I say no.” Hannah took a step back; her calf connected with the soft edge of the mattress, her dress rustling with the motion.

  “Sorry, but this isn’t a negotiation. Either you come with me now, or I march you down the aisle at the hotel myself, and you can explain, in front of your guests, and your groom, exactly why you can’t marry him today. How you were about to involve him in an illegal marriage.”

  “Not on purpose! I would never have done this to him if I would have known.”

  “Once the extent of your past history is revealed, he may not believe you. Or, even if he did, he may not want you.” His lips curved up into a smile, his eyes absent of any humor. And that was when she had the very stark, frightening impression that she was looking at a stranger.

  He was nothing like the Eduardo she’d once known. She didn’t know how she’d missed it. How it hadn’t been obvious from the moment she’d seen his eyes in the rearview mirror. Yes, he had the same perfectly curved lips, the same sharply angled jaw. The same bullheaded stubbornness. But he no longer had that carefree air he’d always conducted himself with. There were lines by his eyes, bracketing his mouth. A mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile.

  Maybe the death of his father had taken a serious toll on him. But she didn’t care. She couldn’t afford to care. She had to look out for herself, just as she’d been doing all of her life. No one else would. No one else ever had.

  “Bastard,” she spat.

  “You’re getting repetitive,” he said dryly.

  “So what? You expect me to come back to Spain and just … be your wife?”

  “Not exactly. I expect you to come back and continue to act as my wife in name only while you help me fix the issues I’m having with Vega Communications.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t need anyone to know there are issues. Not my competitors, I don’t need them smelling blood in the water. Not my mother, she has no need to worry. My sister … I don’t want to worry her, either. No one can know.” There was an edge to his voice, evidence of fraying control. She could work with that. She could definitely work with that.

  The pieces started falling into place in her mind. “So you think it can look like a reconciliation five years in the making. Your wife is suddenly back in Barcelona and hanging on your arm. Rather than letting anyone in on the fact that you needed to bring in outside consultation to help straighten up your finances?”

  “That’s the sum of it,” he ground out.

  It made sense now. All fine and good for him to sweep in like a marauder and demand her cooperation. But all that sweeping was hiding very real problems.

  And those problems meant she had a lot more power than she’d thought she’d possessed thirty seconds earlier.

  Her lips curved into a smile, the heated adrenaline she always felt when presented with a battle spreading through her chest, her limbs. “You need me. Say it.”

  “Hannah …”

  “No. If I’m going to even consider doing this, you admit it. To me, and to yourself. You never would back then, but now … now I’m not a scared college student trying to hold on to my position at school.” She met his eyes without flinching. “Admit that you need me.”

  “You were never a scared college student,” he bit out. “You were an angry one. Angry you’d been caught out and desperate to do anything to keep it secret.”

  “Well, now you’re sounding a little desperate.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and cocked her hip to the side. “So, at least say please.”

  His lip curled into a sneer, a muscle in his jaw ticking. He was weighing his options. “Please.”

  She tilted her chin up and smiled, the sort of smile she knew would make his blood boil. “Good boy.”

  The feral light in his eyes let her know that she’d just about gone too far. She didn’t care. He couldn’t screw up her day any more than he already had.

  He didn’t move for a beat. She could see him, calculating, making decisions. For a moment she thought he might reach out and grab her. Take her in his arms and … strike her? Certainly not. No matter what Eduardo was, he wasn’t a monster. Kiss her?

  That he might do. The thought made her stomach tighten, made her heart beat faster.

  She saw him visibly relax. “A lot of confidence and attitude coming from a woman who could face criminal charges if the right words were spoken into the wrong ears.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “But you showed your hand, darling,” she said, turning his use of endearments back at him. “I may be over a barrel, but you’re tied to me. If I go over the cliff, you’re coming, too. I migh
t be stuck, but you’re just as stuck. So, let’s be civil, you and I, huh?”

  “Let’s not forget who stands to lose the most,” he said, his voice hard.

  She examined his face, the hard lines etched into it. Brackets around his mouth, creases in his forehead. Lines that had appeared sometime in the past five years, for they hadn’t been there back when she’d first met him. “I have a feeling you might have a bit more to lose than you’re letting on.”

  “What about you? At the least you stand to lose clients, your reputation. At the most?”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. It was possible she could lose … so much. Everything. That she could face criminal charges. That she could find herself with her degree revoked. That she could find herself back in Arkansas in a single-wide mobile home that had a lawn with more pink plastic flamingos than it had grass.

  She couldn’t go back to that. To that endless, blank hell that had no end. No beginning. No defining moments. Just an eternity of uncomfortable monotony that most people she’d lived around had tried to dull with the haze of alcohol or the high of drugs.

  No. She wasn’t taking any chances on returning to that life. Not ever.

  “Your point is taken,” she said. “Anyway … I can’t go and marry Zack now, no matter what, can I?”

  “Not unless you want to extend your list of criminal activity.”

  “I didn’t hurt anyone, Eduardo,” she said stiffly.

  Eduardo surveyed the slim, cool blonde standing in front of him, arms crossed over the ornate bodice of her wedding dress. His wife. Hannah. One of the images in his mind that had remained bright and clear, no matter how thick the fog was surrounding other details, other memories.

  His vision of her as a skinny college student with a sharp mind and more guts than any person he’d ever met, had stayed with him. And when he’d realized just how much of a struggle things were becoming with Vega Communications, it had been her image he’d seen in his mind. And he’d known that he had to get his wife back.

  His wife. The wife who had never truly been his wife beyond her signature on the marriage certificate. But she was a link. To his past. To the man he’d been. To those images that were splintered now, like gazing into a shattered mirror. He had wondered if seeing her could magically put him back there. If she could make the mirror whole. Reverse things, somehow.

  Foolish, perhaps. But he couldn’t get her out of his mind, and there had to be a reason. Had to be a reason she was so clear, when other things simply weren’t.

  Thankfully, he’d managed to get his timing just right. And in his new world, one of migraines and half-remembered conversations, good timing was a rarity he savored.

  “Does that make falsifying school records all right, then?” he said, watching her gray-blue eyes turn a bit more gray. A bit more stormy, as she narrowed them in his direction.

  He personally didn’t care what she’d done to get into university. Back then, he’d selected her to be his intern based on her impeccable performance in college, and not on anything else. Clearly she’d been up to the task, and in his mind, that was all that mattered.

  But he’d use every bit of leverage he had now, and he wouldn’t let his conscience prick him over it. Hannah knew all about doing what had to be done. And that’s what he was doing now.

  “I don’t suppose it does,” she said tightly. “But I don’t dwell on that. I gave myself a do-over in life, and I’ve never once regretted it. I’ve never once looked back. I messed up when I was too young to understand what that might mean to my future, and when I did realize it … when it was too late …”

  “You acted. Disregarding the traditional ideas of right and wrong, disregarding who it might hurt. And that’s what I’m doing now. So I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said, aware that no sincerity was evident in his voice. He felt none.

  She was testing him, needling him, trying to make him angry. It had worked, but it wouldn’t divert his focus. She was his focus.

  “So you think that makes it okay?” Her full lips turned down.

  “I’m not overly concerned with questions of morality at the moment. I need to drag Vega back up to where it belongs.”

  “How is it you’ve managed to let it get so bad?” she said, again, not hesitating to throw her own barbs out.

  There was no way in hell he was talking about his shortcomings. Not now. Maybe not ever. It wasn’t her concern.

  “We all have strengths,” he said tightly. “It’s the budget I’m having an issue with. Investments. Taxes. I am not an expert.”

  “Hire someone.”

  “I did. He didn’t do his job.”

  “Basically, you didn’t notice that he was screwing up?”

  The thought of it, of trying to keep track of that, plus the day-to-day running of Vega, made his head swim, made his temples pound. His breath shortened, became harder to take in. Panic was a metallic taste on his tongue.

  Would he ever feel normal? Or was this normal now? Such a disturbing thought. One he didn’t have time to dwell on.

  “I didn’t have time,” he gritted.

  “Too busy sleeping around?” she asked.

  “Different heiress every night,” he said, almost laughing out loud at his own lie.

  “Better than toying with the domestic staff, I suppose. Or blackmailing interns into marriage.”

  “Ours was a special case,” he said.

  “Oh, yes, indeed. I suppose that’s why I feel suffused with a warm glow of specialness.”

  He chuckled, gratified when Hannah looked stymied by the reaction. She wanted to make him angry. He wouldn’t allow it. One of the gifts of his head injury, one of the few. It had cooled his passions, and while that had been inconvenient in some ways, in others, it had proven valuable. He was no longer hotheaded. Usually. No longer impulsive. According to some, he was no longer fun. But he didn’t know how to fix that. He found he didn’t care anymore. Another gift.

  “Well, it is your big day. Shouldn’t a bride feel special?”

  She uttered a truly foul word and sat on the edge of the bed, the white skirt of her dress billowing out around her. Like an angry, fallen, snow angel. “Low.”

  “Do you love this man? The one you were meant to marry today?” He found that did trouble his conscience, even if it was only a bit of trouble.

  She shook her head slowly. “No.”

  He shook his head. “Using someone else?”

  “Hardly using him. Zack doesn’t love me, either. Neither of us have time for some all-consuming passionate affair. But we like each other. I like him. I don’t like the idea of him being stood up. I don’t like the idea of humiliating him.”

  “More humiliating, I think, if he finds out his almost-wife has been lying to him. About so many things.”

  She looked down at her fingernails. “Zack has his secrets. He doesn’t think anyone realizes it … but he has them. I can tell. And I know better than to ask about them.”

  “And that means …”

  “He would have accepted that I had mine. We didn’t share everything.”

  “I doubt he intended to share you with another husband.”

  “Well, it’s not going to happen now.” A brief expression of vulnerability, sadness, crossed Hannah’s features. And as quickly as he’d glimpsed it, it disappeared. Clearly, she had some amount of feeling for her lover, no matter what she said.

  “Plans change.” As he knew all too well.

  “I have to call … someone,” she said, her heart twisting.

  “It’s too late to salvage the day.”

  “I’m aware,” she snapped. “Just … give me a minute.”

  She pulled her phone from her purse.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “My assistant. She’s in the office minding things since I’m away. Shelby?” Her tone turned authoritative.

  She paused for a moment, her cheeks turning a dull pink. “I know. I can’t … I can’t go through with it.
It’s complicated. And I can’t get to the hotel.” She gave him a pointed look. “Can you drive over and … and tell Zack?”

  “Tell him what?” Eduardo heard her assistant’s shriek from where he was standing.

  “That I’m sorry. That I wish I had been brave enough to do it differently but I can’t. I know it’s rush hour and it’s going to take forever, but please?” Hannah paused again.

  “Thank you. I … I have to go.” She hit the end call button and rounded on him. “I hope you’re pleased with yourself.” He wasn’t, not then. But this wasn’t about how he felt. This was about what had to be done. This was about trying to fix Vega. Trying to fix himself.

  “Not really. But I promise you in the end you will be.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Once everything is resolved I will give you permission to speak of your part in the resurrection of my family’s company.”

  He hadn’t intended on giving her that much. The offer shocked him. He wasn’t usually spontaneous anymore.

  “Really?” she asked, her expression guarded, but the interest in her eyes too keen for her to conceal entirely.

  “Really. I promise, in the end, I’ll divorce you and you can crow your achievements. What I don’t want is anyone undercutting the business while it’s vulnerable. But afterward, say whatever you like, drag me through the mud, talk about my inadequacies. It’s only pride,” he said. Pride he’d had to give up a long time ago. He clung to what he could, but it was limited.

  “You’ll really divorce me this time? Forgive me for not trusting you.”

  “If you don’t move around like a gypsy, then you should get papers letting you know when everything is final.” The first aborted divorce hadn’t been intentional. Another side effect of the accident that had changed everything. But, this side effect happened to be a very fortunate one indeed.

  “Fine. We have a deal.” Hannah extended her slender hand and he grasped it in his. She was so petite, so fine-boned. It gave the illusion of delicacy when he knew full well she possessed none. She was steel beneath that pale skin.