Charlene Sands - The Montoros Affair - The Princess and the Player / Maid for a Magnate / A Royal Temptation

“Isabella, I—” Bella bit her lip before she spilled all her angst and doubt over what her father had asked her to do by giving Will a chance. Her aunt was tired and didn’t need to be burdened with Bella’s problems.

“The farmhouse. It’s part of the Montoro legacy, passed down from the original Rafael Montoro I, to his son Rafael II. And then to his son Rafael III. Remember the farmhouse, child,” her aunt wheezed out in the pause.

“I will.” Before she could change her mind again, Bella went for broke. “But I might take a different young man with me than the one my father wants me to marry. Would that be a bad thing?”

“You must make your own choices,” her aunt advised softly. “But beware. All choices have consequences. Be sure you are prepared to face them.”

Isabella’s shaking hand went slack as she slipped off into sleep for real this time. Bella took her leave reluctantly and slid into the waiting car her father had sent for her, wishing her aunt wasn’t so sick that they could only have half of a conversation.

What had Isabella meant by her warning? During the hour-long ride back to Playa Del Onda, Bella grappled with it. Unfortunately, she had a sinking feeling she knew precisely what her aunt had been attempting to tell her. Being born during a hurricane hadn’t infused Bella with a curse that meant she’d always leave broken hearts in her wake. It was her own decisions that had consequences, and if she wanted to be a better person than she’d been in Miami, she had to make different, more conscious choices.

Hurricane Bella couldn’t cut a swath through Alma, leaving broken pieces of her brother’s reign in her wake. Or broken pieces of her father’s agreement with Will’s father. Mentioning all of Bella’s ancestors hadn’t been an accident—Isabella wanted her to remember her roots.

Either she had try for real with Will and then tell him firmly it wasn’t going to work, or she had to skip the party. It wasn’t fair to anyone to go with the intention of running into James for any reason.

* * *

By the time the party rolled around, Bella was second-guessing the red dress. She’d never worn it before but distinctly remembered loving it when she’d tried it on at the boutique in Bal Harbour. Now that she had it on...the plunging neckline and high slit in the skirt revealed a shocking amount of flesh. But she’d promised Isabella she’d wear red, and it was too late to find another dress.

And honestly, she looked divine in it, so... Sexy red dress got the thumbs up. If she and Will were going to get along, he’d have to accept that she liked to feel beautiful in what she wore. This dress filled the bill. And then some. If a neckline that plunged all the way to the dress’s waistband caused a problem with Rowling’s business associates, better she and Will both find out now they weren’t a good match.

The chauffeur helped her into the back of the Montoro car. Thankfully, Will hadn’t offered to pick her up so she had an easy escape if need be. Please God, don’t let me need an escape.

Within ten minutes, the car had joined the line of Bentleys, Jaguars and limousines inching their way to the front steps of the Rowling mansion. Like the Montoros’ house, the Rowlings’ Playa Del Onda residence overlooked the bay. She smiled at the lovely sight of the darkened water dotted with lighted boats.

When Bella entered the double front doors, Will approached her immediately, as if he’d been waiting for her. His pleasant but slightly blank expression from earlier was still firmly in place and she bit back a groan. How long were they going to act like polite strangers?

Jaw set firmly, Will never glanced below her shoulders. Which sort of defeated the purpose of such a racy dress. What was the point of showing half her torso if a man wasn’t even going to look at it?

“Bella, so nice to see you again,” Will murmured and handed her a champagne flute. “That dress is stunning.”

Okay, he’d just earned back all the points that he’d lost. “Thanks. Nice to see you, too.”

His tuxedo, clearly custom-cut and very European, gave him a sophisticated look that set him slightly apart from the other male guests, most of whom were older and more portly. Will was easy on the eyes and commanded himself with confidence. She could do worse.

Will cleared his throat. “Did you have a nice afternoon?”

“Yes. You?”

“Dandy.”

She sipped her champagne as the conversation ground to a halt. Painfully. Gah, normally she thrived on conversation and loved exchanging observations, jokes, witty repartee. Something.

The hushed crowd murmured around them and the tinkle of chamber music floated between the snippets of dialogue, some in English, some in Spanish. Or Portuguese. Bella still couldn’t tell the difference between the two despite hearing Spanish spoken by Miami residents of Cuban descent for most of her life.

She spotted her cousin Juan Carlos Salazar across the room and nearly groaned. While they’d grown up together after his parents died, he’d always been too serious. Why wasn’t he in Del Sol managing something?

Of course, he looked up at that moment and their gazes met. He wove through the crowd to clasp Will’s hand and murmur his appreciation for the party to his hosts. Juan Carlos was the kind of guy who always did the right thing and at the same time, made everyone else look as if they were doing the wrong thing. It was a skill.

“Bella, are you enjoying the party?” he asked politely.

“Very much,” she lied, just as politely because she had skills, too, just not any that Juan Carlos would appreciate. “I saw Tía Isabella. I’m so glad she decided to come to Alma.”

“I am as well. Though she probably shouldn’t be traveling.” Juan Carlos frowned over his grandmother’s stubbornness, which Bella had always thought was one of her best traits. “Uncle Rafael tried to talk her out of it but she insisted.”

The Montoros all had a stubborn streak but Bella’s father took the cake. Time for a new subject. “How are things in the finance business?”

“Very well, thank you.” He shot Will a cryptic glance. “Better now that you’re in Alma working toward important alliances.”

She kept her eyes from rolling. Barely. “Yes, let’s hear it for alliances.”

Juan Carlos and Will launched into a conversation with too many five-syllable words for normal humans to understand, so Bella amused herself by scrutinizing Will as he talked, hoping to gather more clues about his real personality.

As he spoke to Juan Carlos, his attention wandered, and Bella watched him watch a diminutive dark-haired woman in serviceable gray exit by a side door well away from the partygoers. An unfamiliar snap in Will’s gaze had her wondering who the woman was. Or rather, who she was to Will. The woman’s dress clearly marked her as the help.

Will didn’t even seem to notice when Juan Carlos excused himself.

“Do you need to attend to a problem with the servants?” Bella inquired politely.

She’d gone to enough of her parents’ parties to know that a good host kept one eye on the buffet and the other on the bar. Which was why she liked attending parties, not throwing them.

“No. No problem,” Will said grimly and forced his gaze back to Bella’s face. But his mind was clearly elsewhere.

Which told her quite a bit more about the situation than Will probably intended. Perhaps the dark-haired woman represented at least a partial answer for why Will seemed both pained by Bella’s presence and alternatively agreeable to a marriage of convenience.

Bella had come to the party as requested by God and everyone and she deserved a chance with Will. He owed it to her, regardless of whether he had something going on with the diminutive maid.