CHAPTER 1

“But why didn’t Alyssa tell us last year that she had given birth to Jaime’s child?” Diego Francisco Martinez del Río, Duque de Altamira (Spanish for ‘Duke of Altamira’), demanded of his grandmother, lingering astonishment etched in the hard set of his sculpted cheekbones, his lean, darkly handsome face grim.

“We barely got to know Alyssa while your brother was alive.”

          Doña Jacintha’s fine-boned features reflected her regret about the way things went.

“How could we expect her to turn to us for help after Jaime had abandoned her?”

“Abuela (Spanish for ‘Grandmother’), I tried several times to set up a meeting with Alyssa. She always came up with excuses after excuses,” Diego reminded the older woman. “In the end, she insisted that she didn’t need our help and she made it clear that she no longer regarded us as being related to her.”

“Mi niño (Spanish for ‘my boy’), I’m pretty sure it was her pride speaking for her. I imagine is the only thing Jaime left her with. Now that we know that he must’ve deserted her when she was pregnant, my heart is even heavier with grief and disappointment,” Doña Jacintha confessed. ‘Yet when he married Alyssa, I truly believed that he might finally settle down.”

          Being an incurable cynic, Diego had had no such hopes regarding Jaime. After all, his younger brother had broken the heart of his own family long before he had graduated to create mayhem in their select circle.

          Although born with every advantage into the most élite stratum of Mexican high society, Jaime had started getting in trouble at an early age. His parents had found it impossible to control him.

          By the time Jaime had reached his early twenties, he had dissipated a substantial inheritance and defrauded several relatives and friends of large amounts of money. Throughout those troubled years, countless people had made repeated efforts to understand, correct and solve Jaime’s problems.

          All such attempts had been unsuccessful. Diego believed it had been so because his brother had got a huge kick out of breaking the law and scamming people. Then, three years ago, Jaime came to Monterrey to mend fences and announce his intention of marrying his beautiful English girlfriend.

          Overjoyed by his return, Doña Jacintha had insisted on throwing the wedding for the happy couple while at the same time giving them a large sum of money, as a wedding gift.

          The marriage, however, had failed and Jaime had returned to Mexico twelve months ago. Soon afterward, the younger man had lost his life in a drunken car crash.

“It astonishes me that Jaime could’ve kept such a secret from us,” Doña Jacintha lamented. ‘It is even sadder that Alyssa couldn’t trust us enough to share her child with us.”

“I’ve made arrangements to fly over to San Francisco tomorrow morning. From there I’ll take the limo up to Stinson Beach,” Diego told her, frowning when the elderly woman seated by the elegant marble fireplace continued to look deeply troubled. “Abuela, try not to give in to sorrow. Don’t blame yourself for other people’s faults or shortcomings. As a family, we did all that we could and we will now do our very best for Jaime’s daughter.”

          It was only that afternoon that Diego had received an urgent call from the family lawyer, who had in turn been contacted by Alyssa’s solicitor in the States. Diego had been sincerely shaken by the news that his brother’s widow hadn’t only given birth to a child six months earlier, but had died from pneumonia just a fortnight ago.

          He had been relieved that, independent though, Alyssa had evidently intended to be, she had still had the foresight and sense to nominate him in her will as the guardian of her daughter, Azura.

          At the family lawyer’s instigation, however, Diego had also agreed that, even though he had no reason to doubt that the little girl was his brother’s child, there should be a DNA testing just to put all uncertainties to rest.

          The lawyer had then informed him that Alyssa’s sister, Jacqueline, was currently looking after the child. Dismayed by that information, Diego had appreciated that his own intervention was immediately required.

          Jacqueline was far too young for such a responsibility and he thought it unlikely that her lifestyle would be proper to raise a child. Diego had met Jacqueline when she had acted as a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding.

          The pronounced differences between the two sisters had disconcerted his traditional family. While Alyssa was stylish and very classy, Jacqueline was her opposite. She had the potential to do great, but she preferred keeping an extremely low profile. Meaning she couldn’t care less about following the rules and acting gracefully.

          As Diego recalled those unexplained discrepancies his incisive gaze veiled. An involuntary memory of Jacqueline with her tumbling fall of toffee brown curls and glinting green eyes assailed Diego. Not a beauty in the classic elegant style of her sister, certainly.

          Even so, Diego had found his attention continually returning to the youngest, smallest bridesmaid that day and he had been equally quick to notice that there wasn’t a man in the room able to escape her appeal. But her apparent appeal had been very short-lived, Diego reminded himself grimly, his expressive mouth curling with disdain.

          Jacqueline had been sparkling, sexy, and intensely feminine. But as he had discovered after a while, she had also been a slut. Watching her trail back into her hotel at dawn with her youthful lover and with her clothing disheveled from a night of passion on the beach had been a salutary lesson.

          Clearly, Jacqueline had been no more particular in her habits than the many tourists who came to Monterrey to indulge in rampant casual sex and an excess of alcohol. Well, he dodged that bullet.

“A little girl... My first great-grandchild,” Doña Jacintha remarked with a tentative smile softening her rather severe features and quite touched by the thought, she looked in her grandson’s direction. “Azura… Such a unique, wonderful name for a little lady. Oh, Diego, a baby will transform this hacienda. (Spanish for ‘manor’)”

          Diego resisted a dismayingly strong urge to wince while inwardly acknowledging that he still was in no great hurry to embrace fatherhood. He was barely thirty years old.

          He had yet to experience the faintest glimmer of a desire to produce the next Martinez del Río generation and had never had the slightest interest in babies. In fact, he generally was keeping himself away from friends with kids. Doubtless, the perceived charm of a howling baby lay in the fond eye of its parent and magically enabled the parent to overlook the fact that babies were horrifically noisy and messy.

“I imagine so, Abuela,’ Diego murmured wryly, resolving to have the nursery suite in the little-used east wing renovated at speed.

          Also, he would ensure that a full complement of staff was hired to service the child’s every need. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he liked his life just as it was. He had had to work incredibly hard for a very long time to repair the damage done to the Martinez del Río family fortunes by Jaime’s ceaseless depredations.

          While his brother had been running wild and free on his ill-gotten gains, Diego had been working twenty-hour days. Self-indulgence, personal interests, and relaxation had all been luxuries out of Diego’s reach.

          Having since amassed sufficient wealth to be judged one of the most successful billionaires in the world, Diego now relished his own highly sophisticated existence, his fantastic social life, and his freedom to do exactly as he liked.

          Still, he was equally well aware that change was in the air. Jaime’s daughter was now his personal responsibility. It was his duty to take charge of the orphaned infant and bring her from California back to Mexico.

          ‘This is what I must do,’ Diego conceded. ‘This baby is part of this family and I will do my best to provide for her and raise her as though she is my own daughter.’

“Diego, you’ll have to get married… You know that…” his grandmother murmured in a soft, light voice.

          Startled by that disturbing declaration, Diego swung back to gaze at the old lady, who was carefully addressing her attention to her needlework.

          A little flicker of amusement appeared in his dark golden eyes while looking at his grandmother. Diego was well aware that his grandmother was eager for him to find someone and get married real soon.

“With all due respect, Abuela… I don’t think it will be necessary for me to sacrifice my life in order to take care of this baby.”

“Diego, every baby needs a mother. I’m too old to take on the role and the staff can’t be expected to fill the gap. And you… you travel a great deal,” Doña Jacintha reminded him. “Only a wife could ensure the continuing level of care and affection which a young child will require.”

          As Diego listened, the amusement slowly evaporated from his gaze.

“I don’t need a wife.”

          Glancing up without apparent concern, Doña Jacintha treated her grandson with an understanding smile.

“Well, at this point, all I can offer you is my deepest admiration. Obviously, you’ve already thought this matter over…”

“I really have. Every single aspect of it,” Diego added rather drily, quite unimpressed by his sly grandmother’s pretense of innocence.

“Even so… You’re prepared to sacrifice all your free time for your niece’s benefit. After all, with only you to depend on, Azura will need so much more of your attention.”

          That angle hadn’t occurred to Diego. His brilliant eyes grew bleak. He was most reluctant to contemplate that level of commitment. He couldn’t imagine assuming the role of a hands-on parent in constant demand. The very idea of such a thing was ridiculous.

          Hell, he was the Duque of Altamira, head of an ancient and noble family line, as well as being a powerful and influential businessman on whom many thousands of employees depended. His time was too valuable. His importance to the success of his business projects was limitless.

          What did he know about children? Babies? At the same time, the very idea of embracing the imprisonment of marriage banged the equivalent of a sepulchral cell door shut in Diego’s imagination and made him pale.