Michelle Conder - The Most Expensive Lie of All

All the boys had noticed and wanted her attention.

So had Cruz, but he hadn’t done anything about it. Okay, maybe he’d thought about it a number of times, especially when she had thrown him those hot little glances from beneath those long eyelashes when she assumed he wasn’t looking, and, okay, possibly he could remember one or two dreams that she had starred in, but he never would have touched her if she hadn’t come on to him first. She’d been too young, too beautiful, too pure.

He found himself running his tongue along the edge of his mouth and the taste of her exploded inside his head. She sure as hell hadn’t been pure that night.

Gritting his teeth, he shoved her out of his mind. Memory could be as fickle as a woman’s nature and his aviator glasses were definitely not rose coloured where she was concerned.

‘You okay, hermano?’

Cruz swung around and stared at Ricardo without really seeing him. He liked to think he was a fair man who played by the rules. A forgive-and-forget kind of man. He’d stayed away from Ocean Haven and anything related to it after Charles Carmichael had given him the boot. Now his property had come up for sale and objectively speaking it was a prime piece of real estate. The fact that he’d have to raze it to the ground to build a hotel on it was just par for the course.

Of course his kid brother wouldn’t understand that, and he wasn’t in the mood to explain it. He’d left Mexico when Ricardo had been young. Ricardo had cried. Cruz had not. Surprisingly, after he’d returned home with his tail between his legs eight years ago, he and his brother had picked up from where they’d left off, their bond intact. It was the only bond that was.

‘I’m fine.’ He swung his gaze to Lauren. ‘And I’m not concerned about Aspen Carmichael. Old man Carmichael died owing more money than he had, thanks to the GFC, so there’s no way she can have that sort of cash lying around.’

‘No, she doesn’t,’ Lauren agreed. ‘She’s borrowing it.’

Cruz stilled. Now, that was just plain stupid. He knew Ocean Haven agisted horses and raised good-quality polo ponies, but no way would either of those bring in the type of money they were talking about.

‘She’ll never get it.’

Lauren looked as if she knew better. ‘My sources tell me she’s actually pretty close.’

Cruz ignored Ricardo’s interested gaze and kept his face visibly relaxed. ‘How close?’

‘Two-thirds close.’

‘Twenty million! Who would be stupid enough to lend her twenty million US dollars in this economic climate?’ And, more importantly, what was she using for collateral?

Lauren raised her eyebrows at his uncharacteristic outburst, but wisely stayed silent.

‘Hell!’ The burst of adrenaline he used to feel when he mounted one of his ponies before a major event winged through his blood. How on earth had she managed to raise that much money and what could he do about it?

‘Do you want me to start negotiating with her?’ Lauren queried.

‘No.’ He turned his ordinarily agile mind to come up with a solution, but all it produced was an image of a radiant teenager decked out in figure-hugging jodhpurs and a fitted shirt leaning against a white fencepost, laughing and chatting while the sun turned her wheat-blonde curls to gold. His jaw clenched and his body hardened. Great. A hard-on in gym shorts. ‘You focus on Joe Carmichael and any other offers lurking in the wings,’ he instructed his lawyer. ‘I’ll handle Aspen Carmichael.’

‘Of course,’ Lauren concurred with a brief smile.

‘In the meantime find out who Aspen is borrowing from and what exactly she’s offering as collateral—’ although as to that he had his ideas ‘—and meet me in my Acapulco office in an hour.’

Ricardo waited until Lauren had disappeared before tossing the rubber ball into the air. ‘You didn’t tell me you were buying the Carmichael place.’

‘Why would I? It’s just business.’

Ricardo’s eyebrows lifted. ‘And handling the lovely Aspen Carmichael will be part of that business?’

People said Cruz had a certain look that he got just before a major event which told his opponents they might as well pack up and go home. He gave it to his brother now. ‘This is not your concern.’

His brother, unfortunately, was one of the few people who ignored it.

‘Maybe not, but you once swore you’d never set foot on Ocean Haven again. So, what gives?’

What gave, Cruz thought, was that old Charlie had kicked the bucket and his son, Aspen’s uncle, Joseph Carmichael, couldn’t afford to run the estate and keep his English bride in diamonds and champagne so was moving to England. Cruz had assumed Aspen would be going with them—to sponge off him now that her grandfather was out of the picture.

It seemed he had assumed wrong.

But he had no intention of talking about his plans with his overly sentimental brother, who would no doubt assume there was more to it than a simple opportunity to make a lot of money. ‘I don’t have time to talk about it now,’ he said, making a split-second decision. ‘I need to organise the jet.’

‘You’re flying to East Hampton?’

‘And if I am?’ Cruz growled.

Ricardo held his hands up as if he was placating an angry bear. ‘Miama’s surprise birthday party is tomorrow.’

Cruz strode towards the changing rooms, his mind already in Hampton—or more specifically in Ocean Haven. ‘Don’t count on me being there.’

‘Given your track record, the only person who still has enough hope to do that is Miama herself.’

Cruz stopped. Ricardo’s blunt words stabbed him in the heart. His family still meant everything to him, and he’d help any of them out in a heartbeat, but things just weren’t the same any more. With the exception of Ricardo, none of his family knew how to treat him, and his mother constantly threw him guilty looks that were a persistent reminder of the darker days of his youth after he’d gone to the farm.

Charles Carmichael had been a difficult man with a formidable temper who’d liked to get his own way, and Cruz had never been one to back down from a fight until that night. No, it had not been an easy transition for a proud thirteen-year-old to make, and if there was one thing Cruz hated more than the capricious nature of the human race it was dwelling on the past.

He glanced back at Ricardo. ‘You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?’

Ricardo laughed. ‘You’ve cornered the market in stubborn, mi amigo. I’m just persistent.’

‘Persistently painful. You know, bro, you don’t need a wife. You are a wife.’

* * *

Aspen decided that she had a new-found respect for telemarketers. It wasn’t easy being told no time after time and then picking yourself up and continuing on. But like anyone trying to make a living she had to toughen up and stay positive. Stay on track. Especially when she was so close to achieving her goal. To choke now or, worse, give up, would mean failing in her attempt to keep her beloved home and that was inconceivable.

Smiling up at the beef of a man in front of her as if she didn’t have a head full of doubts and fears, Aspen surreptitiously pulled at the waist of the silk dress she’d worn to impress the polo patrons attending the midweek chukkas they held at Ocean Haven throughout the summer months.

In the searing sunshine the dress had taken on the texture of a wet dishrag and it did little to improve her mood as she listened to Billy Smyth the Third, son of one of her late grandfather’s arch enemies, wax lyrical about the game of polo he had—thankfully—just won.

‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured. ‘I heard it was the goal of the afternoon.’ Fed to him, she had no doubt, by his well-paid polo star, who knew very well which side his bread was buttered on.