Marriage Made in Blackmail by Michelle Smart

Author:Michelle Smart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-05-02T18:21:02+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

CHLOE FINISHED HER lunch with Jalen on the beach then headed to the main villa where Luis had spent the morning working.

Butterflies rampaged through her belly, the product, she told herself, of nerves that they were going to sign their pre-nuptial agreement, not excitement at seeing him again. That was a ludicrous notion. He’d only left her bed four hours ago.

But it frightened her how much she had missed him in those four hours apart.

No, she told herself firmly, it was the sex she missed. Two days of doing nothing but making love was bound to affect her and, as a lover, although she had no one to compare him to, Luis was amazing. They were amazing together. So long as they kept things physical then everything was fine.

She still struggled to understand why she had divulged her relationship with her father to him. She’d crossed an invisible line there and had only just stopped herself from crossing it again when they had been talking about Jalen.

There had been an undercurrent running behind Luis’s questions about the boy, and she’d recalled the fleeting concern she’d seen on his face when Jalen had been scolded by his father.

Scared of being alone with her thoughts, she had sought Jalen out, assuring Sara repeatedly that he was no bother at all. She liked the little boy’s company. There was no artifice to him, everything laid out in that innocent way only a child could manage.

Sara opened the door with a welcoming smile and invited her to wait in one of the living rooms while she let Luis know she was there.

The living room in question was an enormous elegant space with a distinctly feminine touch to it. Chloe stared at all the clutter and boxes filling it with awed disbelief. How did any one person accumulate so much stuff?

A huge, elaborately framed portrait at the front of a stack of frames resting against the wall caught Chloe’s attention. It showed a young, strangely old-fashioned beautiful woman with thick curly black hair, posing elegantly with an enigmatic smile.

‘I’m sorry about the mess,’ Sara said, slipping back into the room. ‘We are packing up Marietta’s things to get them shipped to her. It’s taking us a lot longer than we thought it would.’

Chloe smiled then pointed at the portrait. ‘Is that Marietta?’ The armchair the sitter had posed in was in the corner of the room.

‘It is.’

Something sharp stabbed into Chloe’s heart. So this was the woman who had sold her yacht and her island to Luis in the space of days.

Her stomach curdled again to imagine the incentives Luis must have brought to the table to convince her so quickly.

The ghost of Marietta had haunted her since she had arrived at this beautiful island, a phantom reminder that, to Luis, women were disposable.

‘She was only eighteen when this was painted,’ Sara explained. ‘Her father had it done to celebrate her coming of age.’

‘He must adore her,’ she said, unable to contain her wistfulness.

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