Page 14 of The Bastard Heir
A fresh start. As if Castillo could just wipe away how it felt to grow up without his father. As if he could forget how helpless he’d felt every time he found his mother crying. As if he could forget the way people looked at him when it had become known that Tanner had married someone else. Castillo wasn’t a bastard, but having it known that your father had thrown you away to start another family was pretty damn close to the same thing. “Why do you deserve that, Tanner?”
“I probably don’t. I deserve as much of your anger as you want to throw at me. But that’s not going to bring either of us any happiness. Also, I’d like for you to call me Father, at least this week while people are here.”
Castillo shook his head and rose to his feet, setting his tumbler down on the mantel. “Thank you for your recommendation. Miguel wouldn’t have been accepted to the university without it and whatever favors you requested. I do appreciate that.” Castillo had also paid the tuition from the silver mine’s account. It was the least he could do after Miguel had almost been killed, but that’d be the only money he’d take. “But that’s the extent of this. I’m here because of Hunter, because he’s asked me to stand up next to him when he marries Emmy. Alejandro Reyes raised me as his own. He’s my father.”
“You’re just like him, Castillo. Too proud and stubborn. He wouldn’t accept any of the money I offered him over the years. If he had, maybe things would’ve gone better for him.”
Maybe he’d still be alive and the hacienda wouldn’t be a failure. Tanner didn’t say that, but that’s what he meant. Castillo hadn’t known about Tanner offering his grandfather money over the years, but it didn’t change anything. Turning, he walked from the room.
There was some rustling behind him, and he assumed Tanner or maybe both of the men got to their feet. Then he heard Hunter say, “Let him go, Pop.”
Whatever else Hunter said faded into the darkness as Castillo made his way to the stairs. He took them two at a time and found his bedroom. He’d take his things and move into the bunkhouse for the week. They’d need as many bedrooms as they could get for the guests that would arrive, anyway. He wouldn’t sleep under this roof, not while Tanner was here to see it as some sort of capitulation. Yet as soon as he walked into his bedroom, he realized that he couldn’t leave.
Caroline was down the hall and he needed to stay close to her. He cursed and kicked over the ottoman just before plopping down into the overstuffed chair before the cold fireplace. Thatwoman was going to be trouble. He’d have to watch her day and night to make sure she kept her end of their ill-advised bargain.
An unwelcome vision of her as she’d been on the train swam through his mind. She’d been soft and sweet in his arms, an almost direct contradiction to the woman he’d met earlier tonight. That woman had been all challenge and confidence. He wanted to figure out how both personalities melded together.
He sucked in a breath and leaned forward to hold his head in his hands. Spending time with her was going to be challenging. There was no denying that she intrigued him. He’d never met a woman so certain of herself and what she wanted. It didn’t help that he was attracted to her.
This was going to be a tough week.
Chapter Six
Caroline awoke the next morning more excited than she’d ever been in her life. Well, perhaps more excited was extreme. She’d been excited when she’d been accepted to the medical program. This feeling was simply a different kind of excitement, a new excitement. It was similar to when she was ten and she’d been given a pony for her birthday. She’d unwrapped the papers for her new treasure and had had to wait until Sunday when her father could drive her out of town to the stables to see it. The whole way there she’d felt like she might burst out of her skin because she was too wound up for it to contain her.
This excitement was like that. Only better. Because it wasn’t a mere pony who waited for her. It was Castillo. One of the most intriguing men she’d ever met in her life. Hunter Jameson was very handsome. A few of the men at the charity balls in Boston had been every bit as handsome. This man was handsome in a different way. He was dark sensuality mixed with rugged intensity, an enigmatic combination she’d never encountered before. And when she looked into his eyes, she saw that he knewthings that she’d never know on her own. Things that she wanted him to teach her.
Castillo. Even his name was exotic and mysterious. She said it to herself as she sat in front of the mirror at her dressing table. He’d called her Carolina. Not Caroline. Nothing so boring and normal as that. She’d lain awake in bed for hours last night just remembering the way his smooth voice had practically caressed the sounds as they came out of his mouth. If she wasn’t so befuddled by her reaction to him, she’d take the time to chastise herself for it. But that’d have to wait until after she saw him again. Right now she was too busy getting ready.
She tugged on one of the perfect sausage curls that fell across her shoulder and wondered if she shouldn’t have had Mary spend the time with the hot iron. Caroline had perfected a series of simple twists and pins years ago to deal with her heavy hair. It’s how she wore it every day at her father’s office. Father and Aunt Prudie were bound to know something was amiss if she was putting extra effort into her hair now, when it wasn’t even evening. Then she smiled at her own foolishness. If she was pretending to fall in love with Castillo, then they’d expect her take the extra time with her appearance.
She kept forgetting that. This was all pretend, only the flutters in her belly didn’t know that.
Standing, she ran her hands down the skirt of her morning dress. It was a sunny yellow with white tulle around the bodice to keep it modest and with just enough of a bustle to keep it fashionable. The fact that it went well with her coloring had only figured a little into her reasons for choosing it for this particular morning. The blush staining her cheeks in the mirror called her a liar. The truth was that she’d never felt this way about a man before. She’d found some handsome, but this level of attraction was beyond her experience.
She shook her head at herself as she made her way to the door to collect her father and go down to breakfast. There she hoped to see Castillo again. She practiced saying his name, trying to get the Spanish double L to sound the way it had when Hunter had said it.
“Castillo.” The sound of a man’s voice saying his name left her dumbfounded.
Castillo was leaning with one shoulder against the wall just outside her door with his arms crossed over his chest. He smiled and repeated his name, this time enunciating each syllable, taunting her. “Go ahead, try it again.”
Her cheeks flamed in embarrassment. “I thought…if we’re to pretend…I thought I should know how to say it correctly.”
Castillo inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Of course, Carolina.”
A shiver of pure pleasure snaked through her body at the sound of his voice saying her name again. It raised gooseflesh on her arms and made her skin tingle. Even her breasts seemed to tighten somehow, though Caroline had no firsthand experience with what that meant or even why it happened. She cleared her throat and pulled her shoulders back to disguise her reaction. Surely he couldn’t tell what he did to her.
He smiled as if he did know. His eyelids lowered slightly, heavy, and one corner of his mouth quirked upward, bringing her attention to his fuller bottom lip. He was dressed like a gentleman this morning in a plain yet perfectly tailored suit of dove gray. The coat was stretched across the broad width of his shoulders, emphasizing their strength. The men at the charity functions in Boston definitely did not have shoulders like that. His dark hair was parted at the side and pushed back from his forehead. It fell in rich waves just past his collar, too long to be fashionable but it looked appealing on him. He was a strangemixture of gentleman mixed with rugged handsomeness that she found very appealing.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“To watch you.”
He didn’t mean that with any sort of intimacy, quite the opposite actually, but the words plucked a chord of longing deep inside her. Across the hall, just a couple of yards back toward the staircase, her father’s door was cracked open. She lowered her voice a bit so her father wouldn’t hear. “And what if someone catches you here?”
“I’ll say that I’m enamored of you and can’t stay away.” His lips twitched as he tried to contain his smile. “You do look lovely.” His glance went from her hair to her morning gown before lighting on her face again.
Her heart pounded in her chest. Never had such a casual, possibly disingenuous compliment had such an effect on her. Instead of addressing that, she said, “The charade was my idea. I’d hardly change my mind about it.”
