LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      This is especially for Sinead O’Connor (lovely friend), who brought me to my first tango lesson, which infected me with the tango bug.

      This is also especially for Ann Murphy, who enriches my life and my tango world on a regular basis, with much thanks.

      And, lastly but not leastly, this is for tangeuros and tangeuras everywhere!

      CHAPTER ONE

      DON RAFAEL ORTEGA ROMERO looked at the girl standing across the room from him. He knew she would be no different from her social peers in their privileged circles in Buenos Aires: rich and spoilt. She was paler than her contemporaries, but he guessed that came from her English father. Her mother, Maria Fuentes de la Roja, was Argentinian aristocracy through and through. His brain felt slightly fuzzy around the edges and he cursed himself mentally; one shot too many of whisky wasn’t going to help him out of this predicament, or the feeling of entrapment he’d lived with for years.

      It was Isobel Miller’s eighteenth birthday tonight, and he’d finally come to meet her face to face. Because this was the woman…He amended that now with a twist in his gut. This was the girl he’d been promised to in marriage since he was eighteen years old.

      ‘You can’t make me marry you!’

      Isobel’s chest rose up and down with her agitated breath. She’d never felt so threatened and intimidated in her life. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, and she felt frumpy and awkward in the too tight and fussy satin dress her mother had made her wear for her birthday celebrations that night.

      The man across the room just looked at her coolly and said, in a deep voice that sent a disturbing frisson of awareness through her, ‘I’d like to say that your reluctance is refreshing, but I doubt you really mean that—especially when you know you have no choice in the matter. When your grandfather sold your family’s estancia to my father, he rewrote your destiny.’ His mouth thinned into a bitter line. ‘They both got what they wanted—your grandfather got money from the sale with the assurance that the estancia would return to the family through you by walking away with a watertight marriage agreement.’

      Isobel struggled to comprehend. ‘You mean…you mean that your father was played? But that’s—’

      ‘Hardly.’ He cut her off, his voice grim. ‘My father didn’t get played by anyone. He had a bone to pick with your grandfather and he was the only one willing to make an offer on a property too huge for many others to contemplate buying. But he made sure he got what he wanted in return—a dynastic marriage between his son—me—and someone from a suitably impressive lineage—you. Your family fortunes leave much to be desired at this time, but that is neither here nor there. Your family are still considered pillars of Buenos Aires society. Ten years ago, when the deal was done, your grandfather only received half of the estancia’s worth. My father, using his profession as a lawyer to best advantage, made sure that your family would only receive the other half on the day of our wedding—on your twenty-first birthday.’

      Isobel reeled. She’d known about this since she’d turned sixteen, known that this day might come. But she’d pushed the prospect away, deep down where she wouldn’t have to think about it, hoping that if she didn’t acknowledge it, it wouldn’t manifest itself. The thought of an arranged marriage to one of Buenos Aires’s scions of industry had been too barbaric to contemplate, and going to secondary school in England and living most of the time with her father’s family there had helped cushion her from the truth.

      But the reality was manifesting itself in front of her right now, mocking her paltry hopes that it might never happen. Panic clawed upwards through Isobel’s throat, constricting it slightly. ‘It’s not my fault that my grandfather felt compelled to sell the estancia and broker such a deal.’

      It was hard for her to cling onto any sense of reality right now. It had been hard enough to contemplate coming back to Buenos Aires after leaving school in England with the prospect of telling her parents she wanted to go to Europe to pursue her love for dancing. She’d always found the more conservative society of Buenos Aires constrictive—especially after spending time with her more relaxed and down-to-earth English relations, who would frequently debate around the dinner table. They hadn’t known about her arranged marriage, and she’d never mentioned it to them, mortified at how medieval it would sound.

      Her years of relative freedom in England had given Isobel an objective view of her privileged upbringing, and she knew with a passion that she could never slot into the life of a pampered millionaire’s wife—which was what so many of her Buenos Aires girlfriends were doing, despite their own schooling in exclusive schools all around the world.

      Don Rafael Ortega Romero gave a short sharp laugh now, making Isobel flinch minutely, and she felt her heart kick when she saw a flash of white teeth. ‘Are you really that naive, little Isobel Miller? Our whole privileged society is based on unions of strategy and convenience. Marriages have been arranged for many, many generations. I’ll give you that this particular one seems to be a little more arbitrary than most, but really it’s no different.’

      He smiled, and it was devastatingly cynical. ‘If we all believed in true-love matches, the upper echelons would collapse into anarchy in the morning—and believe me, I’ve first-hand knowledge of that.’

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