The Spanish Billionaire's Hired Bride Read Online Free PDF

your damn lawyers to write it into a clause!”
    He cocked his head to one side, showing no apparent concern for her wounded feelings. “There’s also the matter of contraception. I hate to be crude, but we don’t want any accidents prolonging this marriage, do we? I don’t anyway. We can’t afford to take any risks.”
    “You’re not listening to me, I will not sleep with you, so there are no risks and it’s my body, not yours, so I’ll do what I want with it.”
    “In that case, I’ll have my lawyers draft a clause to cover that too, because I don’t think you’ll be able to resist temptation and I never leave anything to chance. Three months and we both go our separate ways.” He ran his fingertips along the square ridge of his jaw. “We’ll be thoroughly sick of each other by then.”
    “You can’t force me to agree to any of this.”
    “I wouldn’t dream of forcing a woman to do anything.” His expression was dark, his slow smile lethal. “If you don’t like the terms and you don’t want the money after all, then … walk away.”
    “This is monstrous!”
    “This is a business deal that’s very much skewed in your favor, so you’d be advised to stop complaining and hand in your notice here immediately.”
    “I can’t! I have to give a month’s notice. I’ll lose my reference—”
    “Then I’ll sort this little problem out for you too as we have no time to waste. I’m astonishingly kind after all, don’t you think?”
    “You’re mad.”
    “And once we’ve dealt with Antonella I need to pay someone a visit, tell him our good news. He’ll be so pleased…”
    “So you have at least two friends ?”
    “This one’s more of an acquaintance. The guy who bet me I’d never settle down and marry before I was thirty.” He laughed to himself. “Want to come along for the ride, or wait until the big day before you meet?”
    “I’ll pass on that.”
    Ricardo turned his head to look at her and smiled like he’d been injected with Botox—cold and without genuine expression. “Of course … you’re still employed to clear up Antonella’s mess until I secure your release, aren’t you? You’d better be a good girl and get all this stuff to the kitchen then.” He flicked a hand towards a congealed-looking Margarita. “It’s attracting flies.”
    .
    Helen watched a mosquito hover around the mirror for a few seconds, and as soon as it strayed over the tiled bathroom backsplash she swatted it with the back of her hand. She noticed that cold bathrooms had a certain smell to them, and a silent, still aura. A sanctuary. But only for a few moments. Ricardo was waiting for her to join him and the Condesa by the pool. Bloody Marys at eleven with pimento almonds. The Condesa loved that ritual. Sometimes it was cashews and Fino sherry, but always at eleven once the hairdresser had finished and left.
    Helen would have preferred to do the whole resignation thing alone, but her reason for leaving was so preposterous, so bizarre, she didn’t think the Condesa would believe her. Ricardo could deal with the utter insanity of their deal. He was presumably unhinged enough to pull it off without a second thought. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror just as she had the day before. She looked the same, yet harder, as if liquid steel had been injected into her veins. A glaze of ice had layered over her eyes. She had sold her soul to the devil with this fake marriage deal, but she had no choice if she was to save everything she had ever loved. There were mirrors all over the villa, like eyes, windows into the soul asking who was the fairest of them all? There was no question—Antonella, the wicked witch. Only sycophants need apply for Helen’s job once she’d gone.
    “Oh, there you are!” the Condesa said in a sing-songy voice when Helen approached the pool. “But empty handed?”
    “Er, yes.”
    “But it’s eleven o’clock, dear.”
    “Yes, I know but—”
    “We have something to