Page 1 of The Forbidden Cabrera Brother
CHAPTER ONE
SOMETHING, DANTETHOUGHTas he nursed his whisky and stared out at the floodlit manicured gardens that comprised the grounds of his Spanish estate, wasn’t making sense.
Behind him he could hear the muffled sound of voices and laughter—all those people, from dignitaries to old family friends, who had gathered to welcome Alejandro, his older brother by four years, and his fiancée.
It was a star-studded event, even though it had been arranged at fairly short notice. Such was the long arm of the Cabrera family’s influence that an invitation from them—especially, Dante recognised, one that would be hosted at his own sprawling mansion—pretty much guaranteed attendance.
Intricate lanterns twinkled up the long winding private avenue that led to his house. Behind him, on a warm summer night, the bank of French doors at the back of his house had been flung open wide to a vision of exactly what extreme wealth could get. The serving staff on high alert for empty glasses, the blaze of yet more lanterns adorning the strategically placed trees and illuminating the still splendour of his infinity pool, the massive ice sculpture of a couple, which his mother had insisted on having. And, of course, the very elegant, barely noticeable and extremely expensive trio of violinists providing subtle background music. Here, in this setting, the women in their high-designer elegance and the men, formally dressed, were birds of paradise at home in a setting with which they were largely familiar.
His parents, naturally, were bristling with excitement at meeting a woman who, as far as they were concerned, was roughly five years overdue. Tradition was tradition and, as the eldest in the family and now in his mid-thirties, Alejandro should have been duly wed and well on the way to producing an heir or two to the throne.
The vast fortunes tied up with the Cabrera name needed to be kept in the family and Roberto and Isabella Cabrera had been making noises about grandchildren for some time now. How else could the family lineage remain intact if both their sons decided that playing the field was a far better option than settling down to the rigours of domestic life?
Dante was as keen as his parents were for Alejandro to get married and have kids because if he didn’t, then it wouldn’t be long before their parents began looking to Dante to do his duty in that area and he most certainly wasn’t up for that.
So when Alejandro had phoned three weeks ago with the happy tidings that he was engaged, it had been champagne all round, a suitably lavish engagement party hastily arranged and expectations running high.
One small snag, though, was the fiancée.
Where the hell was she?
Shouldn’t the loving couple have arrived together? Holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes with undisguised adoration? It wasn’t as though they had been dating for years and had had time to settle into the comfortable routine of taking one another for granted. Oh, no, the fiancée had been produced like a white rabbit from a magician’s hat, so young love should still be fresh enough for the woman to have accompanied Alejandro to the opulent engagement party happening inside.
Except, she hadn’t and—Dante glanced at his watch before swallowing the remainder of the whisky—it was a mere two hours before the elaborate buffet was set out and the speeches began. Half an acre of lawn had been meticulously roped off so that tables could be laid out with no small detail spared, from the linen cloths to the magnificent arrangements of red roses, as befitting a couple in love. The seating was casual because it was a party, and yet it still managed to feel incredibly formal in its opulence.
He wondered whether the mysterious bride-to-be would deign to make an appearance in time or whether his brother would have to mumble his apologies while the guests tucked into finest prepared rib of roast suckling pig in the absence of his fiancée. Certainly, Alejandro was strangely phlegmatic about the woman’s appalling lack of manners. Maybe he had become a little too accustomed to the behaviour of a high-maintenance woman who felt that drama was some kind of selling point. Dante wryly thought that he had encountered a few of those himself.
He was about to turn away and head back into the sitting room, where champagne and canapés would be in full flow, when something caught his eye. In the twilight gloom, he glimpsed movement up the winding tree-lined private avenue that led to the courtyard in front of the house.
Standing still, he squinted and there it was again, a movement barely glimpsed between the trees.
He dumped his glass on the broad concrete ledge, straightened up and headed down the sweeping arc of stone steps that descended gracefully towards the open courtyard and then out towards the drive.
Caitlin could barely see. Up ahead, the lawns and a mansion of unseemly proportions were illuminated by the sort of floodlit extravaganza that could be seen from space. Here, as she half ran up the tree-lined avenue leading to the house, the path dipped in and out of the shadows. Any minute now and her already nightmarish trip would be compounded by an even more nightmarish ending, which would involve her tripping over something, breaking her ankle and having to be carried ignominiously into the house on a makeshift stretcher.
Everything had gone wrong, starting with her mother sobbing down the end of the phone just as she was supposed to be leaving for the airport, and ending with the taxi, booked by Alejandro to fetch her from the airport and deliver her to her own engagement party, for heaven’s sake, getting a flat tyre just when she didn’t need it.
Now, three hours late, she’d decided that creeping into the house and at least having the option of getting ready somewhere private was far the more sensible choice, rather than the screech of a taxi alerting everyone to her lateness.
She shuddered at the thought of all those assembled guests piling out of the front door to witness her dishevelled appearance. In his understated way, Alejandro had warned her that it was going to besomething of a bash—which, in Alejandro-speak, meant that there would be ten thousand people there, all waiting for her arrival.
As luck would have it, Alejandro was, as always, nowhere near his mobile phone and her quiet entry through a side door somewhere was disappearing with each reluctant step forward. She’d tried calling him a dozen times and every single time it had gone to voicemail and she was fed up of leaving increasingly despairing messages.
They were supposed to be in love! In the real world, he would be hanging on the end of the line, worried sick about where she was!
Caitlin thought of him and couldn’t help but smile because that was just Alejandro. He would have dumped his phone on a random table somewhere and would have to be reminded that she still hadn’t arrived, which was something of a big deal because the engagement party his parents had arranged had been for both of them.
Not for the first time, she felt a twinge of intense discomfort at this story they had concocted. Back in London, it had seemed almost inevitable because it had satisfied so many disparate concerns, but here...
She stopped in her tracks to catch her breath and gazed at the mansion towering ahead of her, ablaze with lights. The courtyard was massive, as big as a football field, and it was crammed with high-end cars of every description. They were parked at haphazard angles but, when she squinted, she could make out two men in uniform and she guessed that they would be in charge of parking so that any of the luxury cars could be moved at the snap of a finger. She shivered with apprehension.
Thiswas reality now. They weren’t in London any longer. They weren’t sharing their sob stories over a bottle of wine. A plan had been made and she had temporarily turned a blind eye to the fact that plans made in one country appeared completely different when viewed in another.
Posing as Alejandro’s fiancée had been the answer to both their problems and, in London, that solution had seemed a logical conclusion.
But here...
With the sounds of summer insects around her and the grandeur of a sprawling house reminding her that this was where a simple game was always going to lead...
