LITMIR.BIZ

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and the sour smell of expensive, wasted wine.

      “Rodrigo? Is something wrong?”

      Coming back to himself, he shook his head. “There wasn’t much to see, after twenty years of neglect. Broken-down walls. Dust.”

      “I can imagine,” she said quietly, looking at him.

      A twinge went through him at the sympathy of her gaze. It was too close to pity, which implied weakness.

      Lola reached for his hand, her eyes glowing and warm. “But everything is different now.”

      For a moment, Rodrigo was lost in her eyes. Then he pulled his hand away.

      “Yes.” He turned on the Madrid sidewalk. “Come see.”

      As the chauffeur and bodyguard lingered outside, getting their bags from the car, Rodrigo led her into the lobby. Hiding a smile, he turned to see her reaction.

      Holding their baby, Lola looked with awe at the grandeur of the seven-story atrium, with the large oval staircase climbing all the way up, around each floor. Her steps slowed, then stopped, as she tilted her head back to look up at the stained-glass cupola crowning the top ceiling, beaming warm patterns of colored light against the marble floor.

      “Wow,” she breathed. “You paid for the lobby to be remodeled, as well?”

      “I bought the whole building. I remodeled all the other apartments and sold them at a fat profit.”

      She glanced at him sideways. “Nice.”

      “This way.”

      Rodrigo led her to the new large elevator that had replaced the rickety birdcage elevator he remembered as a child. His nanny had often taken him to play in Retiro Park, when his parents’ screaming became too loud. But usually the screaming was still going on when they returned, even hours later. They could always hear it before they even reached the top floor. So his nanny, looking stressed and sorry for him, would invent games allowing them to linger in the elevator.

      Now, the gleaming silver door slid open silently, and they rode it to the top floor. There, they had a view of the entire atrium, stretching seven stories below. At the penthouse door, Rodrigo paused for a moment. He realized he was listening. But the apartment was silent now. No one was screaming or smashing glass.

      His proud, aristocratic Spanish father—or at least, the man he’d believed to be his father—had been wealthy from birth, and bought a small Spanish movie studio, which was where he’d met Rodrigo’s mother, a spoiled, much younger American actress. He’d loved her—been obsessed with her—but she’d never loved him, only his money. She’d enjoyed taunting him with her affairs. His father’s rage had finally gotten the better of him, and he’d died of a stroke when Rodrigo was twenty-one. His mother had died a few years later, from a bad reaction to anesthesia during plastic surgery.

      He’d never met the chauffeur who had supposedly sired him. The man had died when Rodrigo was just a child.

      So many lies. So much deceit and rage. Rodrigo took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

      “What’s wrong?” Lola said cheerfully, coming up to the door. “Did you lose the key?”

      He looked back at her. Jett’s childhood would be so different. He was beginning to trust his wife as no one else. They had the same goals. They respected each other. And there was no messy emotion like love or jealousy to cloud anyone’s judgment.

      But he knew he’d never tell her about his childhood. There was no point. He wanted neither her sympathy nor her inevitable attempt at psychological analysis. There were some things a man dealt with better on his own.

      And his past was in the past. Over. Forgotten.

      “Don’t worry.” Reaching into his pocket, he held up the key. “I have it.”

      Pushing open the door to the penthouse apartment, he let Lola enter first, with the baby. As she passed him, Rodrigo’s gaze traced hungrily over the lush curves of his wife’s body.

      Her eyes were wide as she looked around the elegant, minimalist apartment with its large windows and view of the park and much of Madrid, beneath the Spanish sky. “This was your childhood home?”

      He remembered the screaming, the expensive clutter, the broken glass. “It didn’t always look like this.”

      “But still.” The edges of her lips lifted as she turned back to him. “You should have seen the place I grew up.”

      “A trailer,” he said. “On the edge of the California desert.”

      Lola’s hazel eyes went wide. Her beautiful face turned pale as she breathed, “How do you know that?”

      He came closer. “I had to find out what was true.”

      “You had me investigated?” He heard cold anger beneath her voice. He shrugged.

      “I had to know if I could trust you.”

      “And now?”

      Reaching out, he pulled her into his arms.

      “Now I do,” he whispered, and he lowered his mouth ruthlessly to hers.

       CHAPTER SIX

      SINCE THEY WERE in Madrid the day before the awards ceremony, Rodrigo decided to visit the set of his company’s new prestige film, a historical drama-romance of the Spanish Civil War currently being shot near the Plaza de Canalejas.

      But even there, as he discussed the production’s progress with the film’s director, his eyes rarely strayed from his wife.

      He couldn’t look away from her. The way her beautiful face lit up as she chatted with the cast and crew. The warmth of her hazel eyes. The joy of her smile.

      Lola was more beautiful than the star of any movie, he thought. Her long, highlighted hair swayed over her shoulders, caressing the tops of her breasts. She was dressed modestly, in her black coat and jeans that showed off her shape. As she pushed the baby stroller, she seemed utterly unaware of the fact that wherever she went, Rodrigo’s eyes followed her.

      Every other man’s, too.

      As she walked, her curvy body moved so gracefully and sensually, she seemed to be dancing to unheard music. Rodrigo frowned when he saw her speaking earnestly to the star of the film, a famous Spanish actress whom Rodrigo had once known well. Very well.

      Ten years before, when Rodrigo was just twenty-seven—in the first flush of success, having expanded the derelict Madrid studio he’d inherited from his father to twenty employees, including Marnie McAdam—he’d been briefly engaged to Pia Ramirez.

      He’d fallen in love with Pia before they’d even met, while watching her onscreen, where she’d played a poignant heroine who sacrificed everything for love before she died, nobly and beautifully, at the end of the film. Five years older than Rodrigo, she’d seemed equally lovestruck after their first date. Within two weeks, he’d proposed marriage, and she’d accepted.

      A month later, he’d been anonymously sent photos of Pia naked in bed with a man he didn’t recognize. Young and naive as he’d been then, it had nearly killed him.

      Little had Rodrigo known that this pattern would be repeated twice more, with two other women. A quick engagement, followed by an equally swift betrayal. With photographs.

      But a few months earlier, when the director had wanted to hire Pia for this film, Rodrigo hadn’t tried to stop him. Pia was talented and, at forty-two, still a major draw at the international box office. His other two ex-fiancées also still worked in the movie industry, and he’d never tried to hurt their careers. If you blacklisted everyone who betrayed you in Hollywood, you’d have no one left to work with.

      But now, as the director continued to talk anxiously about the film’s

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