Honour-Bound Groom / Cinderella & the CEO: Honour-Bound Groom

Reynard sat back down. “You’re serious,” he said flatly.

“Never more so,” Alex answered.

Whether he’d been kidding around or not, Reynard had hit on the very thing that would not only settle their grandfather’s concerns but would be a massive boost to the del Castillo name. Its ongoing effect on the people of Isla Sagrado would increase prosperity across the entire island nation.

While Isla Sagrado was a minor republic in the Mediterranean, the del Castillo family had long held a large amount of influence on the island’s affairs, whether commercial or political. As the family had prospered so, by natural process, did the people of Isla Sagrado.

Unfortunately, the reverse was also true.

“You expect each of us to simply marry the right women and start families and then, hey, presto, all will be well?” Reynard’s voice was saturated with disbelief.

“Exactly. How hard can it be?” Alex got up and patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a good-looking guy. I’m sure you have plenty of candidates.”

Benedict snorted. “Not the kind he’d bring home to Abuelo, I’d wager.”

“You can talk,” Reynard retorted. “You’re too busy racing that new Aston Martin of yours along the cliff road to slow down long enough for a woman to catch you.”

Alex walked over to the fireplace and leaned against the massive stone mantel that framed it. Carved from island rock, the hearth had seen generation after generation of his family sprawl in front of its warmth. He and his brothers would not be the last to do so. Not if he had anything to do with it.

“All joking aside, are you willing to at least try?” he asked, his eyes flicking from one brother to the next.

Of the two, Benedict looked most like him. In fact some days he felt as if he was looking into a mirror when he saw his brother’s black hair and black-brown eyes. Reynard took after their French mother. Finer featured, perhaps more dramatic with his dark coloring because of it. Female attention had never been an issue for any of them, even from before they’d hit puberty. In fact, with only three years in total separating the brothers, they’d been pretty darn competitive in their playboy bachelorhood. They were all in their early thirties now and had mostly left that phase behind but the reputation still lingered, and it was that very lifestyle that had brought them to this current conundrum.

“It’s all right for you, you’re already engaged to your childhood sweetheart,” Benedict teased him with a smirk, clearly still not prepared to take the matter seriously on any level.

“Hardly my sweetheart since she was only a baby when we were betrothed.”

Twenty-five years ago their father had saved his best friend, Francois Dubois, from drowning after the latter had accepted a dare from their father to swim off Isla Sagrado’s most dangerous beach below the castillo. In gratitude, Dubois had promised the hand of his infant daughter, Loren, to Raphael del Castillo’s eldest son. In a modern society no one but the two men had ever really given any credence to the pledge. But the two men were old-school all the way back down their ancestral lines and they’d taken the matter very seriously indeed.

Alex had barely paid any attention at the time, despite the fact that, virtually from the day she could walk, Loren had followed him around like a faithful puppy. He’d been grateful when her parents had divorced and her mother had taken her away to New Zealand, clear on the other side of the world, when Loren had been fifteen. Twenty-three years old at the time, he’d found it unsettling to have a gangling, underdeveloped teenager telling his girlfriends that she was his fiancée.

Since then, the engagement had been a convenient excuse to avoid the state of matrimony. Until now, he hadn’t even considered marriage, and certainly not in the context of Francois Dubois’s promise to Raphael del Castillo. But what better way to continue to uphold his family’s honor and position on Isla Sagrado than to fulfill the terms of the spoken contract between two best friends? He could see the headlines already. It would be a media coup that would not only benefit the del Castillo business empire, but the whole of Isla Sagrado, as well.

He thought briefly of the dalliance he’d begun with his personal assistant. He didn’t normally choose to mix business with pleasure, especially from within his own immediate work environment. But Giselle’s persistent attempts to seduce him had been entertaining and—once he’d given in—very satisfying.

A curvaceous blonde, Giselle enjoyed being escorted to the high spots of Sagradan society and entertainment. Certainly she was beautiful and talented—in more ways than one—but wife material? No. They’d both known that nothing long-term would ever have come of their relationship. No doubt she’d be philosophical and he knew she was sophisticated enough to accept his explanation that their intimacy could no longer continue. In fact, he’d put a stop to it right away. He needed to create some emotional space between now and when he brought Loren back to be his bride.

Alex made a mental note to source a particularly lovely piece of jewelry to placate Giselle and turned his mind back to the only current viable option for the position of his wife.

Loren Dubois.

She was from one of the oldest families here on Isla Sagrado, and had always taken great pride in her heritage. Even though she’d been gone for ten years, he’d wager she was still Sagradan to her marrow—and as devoted to her father’s memory as she had been to the man during his lifetime. She wouldn’t hesitate to honor the commitment made all those years ago. What’s more, she’d understand what it meant to be a del Castillo bride, together with what that responsibility involved. And she would now be at the right age, and maturity, to marry and to help put the governess’s curse to rest once and for all.

Alex smirked at his brothers. “So, that’s me settled. What are you two going to do?”

“You have to be kidding us, right?” Benedict looked askance at Alex, as if he’d suddenly announced his intention to enter a monastery. “Lanky little Loren Dubois?”

“Maybe she’s changed.” Alex shrugged. It mattered little how she looked. Marrying her was his duty—his desires weren’t relevant. With any luck she’d be pregnant with his child within the first year of their marriage and too busy thereafter with the baby to put any real demands upon him.

“But still, why would you choose her when you could have any woman alive as your wife?” Reynard entered the fray.

Alex sighed. Between them his brothers were as tenacious as a pair of wolves after a wounded beast.

“Why not? Marrying her will serve multiple purposes. Not only will it honor an agreement made between our late father and his friend, but it will also help relieve Abuelo’s concerns. And that’s not even mentioning what it will do for our public image. Let’s face it. The media will lap it up, especially if you leak the original betrothal story as an appetizer. They’ll make it read like a fairy tale.”

“And what of Abuelo’s concerns about the next generation?” Reynard asked, one eyebrow raised. “Do you think your bride will be so happy to ensure our longevity? For all you know she may already be married.”

“She’s not.”

“And you know this because?”

“Abuelo had an investigator keep tabs on her after Francois died. Since his stroke last year, the reports have come to me.”

“So you’re serious about it then. You’re really going to go through with a twenty-five-year-old engagement to a woman you don’t even know anymore.”

“I have to, unless you have any better suggestions. Rey?”

Reynard shook his head. A short sharp movement of his head that bore witness to the frustration they all felt at the position they were in.

“And you, Ben? Anything you can think of that will save our name and our fortunes, not to mention make Abuelo’s final years with us happier ones?”

“You know there is nothing else,” Benedict replied, resignation to their combined fates painting stark lines on his face.

“Then, my brothers, I’d like to propose a toast. To each of us and to the future del Castillo brides.”

One

New Zealand, now …

“I have come to discuss the terms of our fathers’ agreement. It is time we marry.”

From the second his sleek gray Eurocopter had landed on the helipad close to the house she’d wondered what had brought Alexander del Castillo here. Now she knew. She could hardly believe it.

Loren Dubois studied the tall near stranger commanding the space of her mother’s formal sitting room. Her eyes drank in the sight of him after so long. Dressed all in black, his dark hair pushed back from his forehead and his brown-black eyes fixed firmly on her face, he should have been intimidating but instead she wondered whether she’d conjured up an age-old dream.

Marry? Her heart jumped erratically in her chest and she tried to force it back to its usual slow and steady rhythm. Years ago, she’d have leaped at the opportunity, but now? With age had come caution. She wasn’t a love-struck teenager anymore. She’d seen firsthand what an unhappy alliance could do to a couple, as her parents’ tempestuous marriage had attested. She and Alexander del Castillo didn’t even know one another anymore. Yet, for some reason, the way he’d proposed marriage—in typical autocratic del Castillo fashion—made her go weak at the knees.

She gave herself a swift reality check. Who was she kidding? He hadn’t proposed. He’d flat out told her, as if there was no question that she’d accept. It didn’t help that every fiber in her body wanted to do just that.

Wait, she reminded herself. Slow down.

It had been ten years since she’d laid eyes on him. Ten years since her fifteen-year-old heart had been broken and she’d been dragged to New Zealand by her mother after the divorce. A long time not to hear from someone by any standards, let alone from the man she had been betrothed to from the cradle.

Even so, a part of her still wanted to leap at the suggestion. Loren took a steadying breath. Although their engagement had always been the stuff of fairy tales, she was determined to stay firmly rooted in the present.

“Marry?” she responded, drawing her chin up slightly as if it could give her that extra height and lessen Alex’s dominance over her. “You arrive here with no prior warning—in fact, no contact at all since I left Isla Sagrado—and the first thing you say to me is that it’s time we marry? That’s a little precipitate, wouldn’t you say?”

“Our betrothal has stood for a quarter of a century. I would say our marriage is past due.”