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Chris
Sally Wentworth
TIES OF PASSIONThe perfect match? Christ Brodey could have any woman he looked at - and he was looking at Tiffany Dean! On a strictly casual basis, though. As far as he was concerned, she was just another gold digger… . Tiffany had no money, no job and no chance of getting either. Her plan to gate-crash the Brodey's party for a magazine story was her last chance… .The deal: Chris could offer Tiffany his wealth and prestige - and in return she would be anything he wanted. But Tiffany discovered it was one thing to be a kept woman and quite another to be a kept woman in love… . Part 1 of Sally Wentworth's three-part series, Ties of Passion. Money, looks, style - the Brodey family have everything… except love.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u7be09f7c-bfd2-5545-b50a-c466905a6e8c)
Excerpt (#udfe401d4-727c-547e-b4dd-c3f7f1ac0713)
Dear Reader (#ufc532714-c20a-5013-ad8b-df4fcb370dc4)
Title Page (#u812c99fc-29dc-53ab-af4b-2424c0e1ce6a)
Prologue (#u0a39b56f-01b3-5d73-b457-2aa150c7b74c)
Chapter One (#ud5b20d36-4947-51a0-9155-b38ef1d9c812)
Chapter Two (#u64324f2f-00d3-5d5c-a6dd-4d8ff76257ea)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chris betrayed no emotion. After a moment he said, “What are the conditions?”
“I want a whole new wardrobe.”
His mouth quirked a little. “Of course.”
“And I want a thousand pounds when—when you grow tired of me.”
Something flickered in his eyes, but he said, “All right.”
Still watching her, he said on an odd note, “And just what do I get in return for all this?”
Tiffany looked at him and swallowed. “I’ll—I’ll be anything you want me to be.”
Dear Reader,
The wild and primitive scenery of the Douro valley. The white baroque palaces. What men would live and role here? Calum came first, a tall and golden god, but then Francesca pushed her way into my mind. Then Chris, very much a man of the world. A family, then—outwardly tamed, but with hidden emotions as deep and hot-blooded as the land they lived in. Three cousins who filled my imagination, fascinating, absorbing, clamoring to come alive. And three wishes that had to come true. Then I thought of an anniversary, and saw a girl, sitting entirely alone on the riverbank…
Sally Wentworth
Chris
Sally Wentworth
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_1d32a64c-8215-57f5-9ce2-40173061d042)
BRODEY HOUSE BICENTENNIAL
The magnificent eighteenth-century baroque palace of the Brodey family, situated on the banks of the River Douro in Portugal, will soon be en fête for a whole week to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of their company.
The House of Brodey, famous the world over for its fine wines, especially port and Madeira, has now diversified into many other commodities and is one of the biggest family-owned companies in Europe. Originally founded in the beautiful island of Madeira, the company spread to Oporto when Calum Lennox Brodey the first went there two centuries ago to purchase thousands of acres of land in the picturesque Douro valley. That land is now covered with the millions of grape-vines that produce the port on which the family fortune is based.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
Just like any family, every member of the Brodey clan will be in Oporto to welcome their guests from all over the world to the festivities.
Patriarch of the family, Calum Lennox Brodey, named after his ancestor, as are all the eldest sons in the main line, is reported to be greatly looking forward not only to the celebrations but also to the family reunion. Old Calum, as he’s popularly known in wine-growing circles, is in his eighties now but still takes a keen interest in the wine-producing side of the company, and is often to be seen by his admiring workers strolling among the vines to check on the crop or tasting the vintage in the family’s bottling plant near Oporto.
STILL HAUNTED BY THE PAST
Although the anniversary will be a happy one, in the past there has been terrible tragedy within the family. Some twenty-two years ago Old Calum’s two eldest sons and their wives were involved in a fatal car-smash while on holiday in Spain, all four being killed. Each couple had a son of roughly the same age and Old Calum bravely overcame his grief as he took the boys into his palace and brought them up himself, both of them eventually following in his footsteps by joining the company.
It was rumoured at the time of this overwhelmingly tragic accident that old Mr Brodey looked to his third son, Paul, to help run the business. Paul Brodey, however, was hooked on painting and is now a celebrated artist. He lives near Lisbon with his wife Maria, who is half Portuguese and is herself a well-known painter. The good news is, though, that their only child, Christopher, has joined the family firm on the sales side and is based mainly in New York.
Only one of Old Calum’s grandsons now shares the splendour of the palace, which is mainly decorated in Renaissance style, with him. This is the only child of his late eldest son, who, following the family tradition, is also called Calum—Young Calum, in this case. The younger Calum Brodey, around thirty years old and one of the most eligible bachelors in the country, if not in Europe, has virtually taken over the running of the company, but will be gracefully taking a back seat to his grandfather during the week’s festivities.
MARRIAGE IN MIND?
Another extraordinary tradition peculiar to the family is that all the men maintain their links with their mother country by marrying blonde English girls. Every son of the family for the past several generations has travelled to the UK and returned with a beautiful ‘English rose’ on his arm. Will Young Calum and Christopher carry on the tradition, we wonder?
The third Brodey grandson, Lennox, who now lives in Madeira with his beautiful and adored wife Stella, who is expecting their first child later this year, will be among the family guests. Stella, of course, is a blonde and lovely English girl.
Old Calum’s fourth child, his elegant daughter Adele, is married to the well-known French millionaire, the gallant and still handsome Guy de Charenton, an assiduous worker for the Paris Opera and for the many charities that he supports.
Although the Brodey family has many connections with the upper echelons of society, especially in England, it was Adele’s daughter and only child, the sensationally beautiful Francesca, who finally linked it to the aristocracy with her marriage to Prince Paolo de Vieira a few years ago. This marriage, which took place in the Prince’s fairy-tale castle in Italy, looked all set to have the proverbial happy ending, but, alas, this wasn’t to be and the couple parted after only two years. Since then Francesca’s name has been linked with several men, including lately Michel, the Comte de la Fontaine, seen with her on her many shopping trips in Paris and Rome.
To all the glamorous members of the Brodey family we extend our warm congratulations on their anniversary, and we are sure that all their lucky guests will have the most lavish and memorable time at the bicentennial celebrations.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_12543a03-e46e-5848-ba9a-032fb3ee68e5)
THEY were all there—the Brodeys—gathered together in the beautiful gardens of their magnificent baroque palácio near Oporto. All of them had come to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the House of Brodey.
This lunch party was the first in a week of festivities that would culminate in a grand ball, but today there were only about a hundred and fifty invited guests—and one gatecrasher.
Those guests who had received official invitations were mostly in the wine trade: buyers from France, America, Britain, even as far away as Australia; local shippers; expert viniculturists from the Brodey bottling plant in Vila Nova de Gaia and from their many quintas in the Alto Douro. There was a preponderance of men in dark suits, the women mostly wives or daughters invited out of courtesy.
The members of the family moved easily among them, working their way through the guests, their presence marked by the eddying circles of people around them. Perhaps the largest group was gathered around the head of the house, Calum Lennox Brodey; Old Calum, they called him, in his eighties now and his tall back a little stooped, but his eyes still bright with intelligence and enjoyment of life as he talked and laughed with his guests. A group of almost equal size stood near his grandson and heir, also named Calum, who ran the family business—or perhaps empire would be a better name for it, so wide were its interests now.
A girl—a tall, slender blonde in a flamboyantly coloured outfit that stood out from the dark business suits like a flame tree—broke away from one of the groups and went to take a glass of iced white port from one of the waiters. She was followed by a man in his late thirties, equally tall, with lean features and figure, and an air of suave charm that could only denote a Frenchman. He said something to the girl and put a possessive hand on her shoulder, but she shook him off and went to talk to some guests who were looking a little lost, smiling with warmth and putting them immediately at ease. Her name was Princess Francesca de Vieira and she was Old Calum Brodey’s granddaughter, and the man with her was a French count, rumoured to be her next husband.
There were also other members of the family from the Madeiran branch of the company at the party, but it was these three—Old Calum and his two grandchildren—that held the fixed attention of Tiffany Dean as she stood just inside one of the stone archways that led on to the terrace above the rich green lawns on which the guests stood. She knew so much about the Brodeys, had been studying them for the past two weeks, ever since she’d determined to gatecrash this party. There had been plenty of information about them, in the local Portuguese papers, of course, and in international magazines; Francesca especially had figured in the latter, her spectacular marriage to an Italian prince and her even more spectacular divorce having been grist to the mill for the gossip columnists and the even busier paparazzi.
Tiffany watched her, envious of the bright trousersuit and even more so of the other girl’s obviously innate air of self-confidence that could only come from never having to worry about money, from always having the best of everything. The best education, the best clotheseven the best men.
The younger Calum Brodey carried himself the same way, with the same slightly arrogant tilt to the chin that would have singled him out from the crowd even if he hadn’t been so tall and fair-haired. All the Brodeys were fair because it was a tradition among them that they always married blonde women—their ‘English roses’, as some romantically minded journalist had called them in an article Tiffany had read as part of her research into the family. Although she’d had no training, she had herself written a couple of articles for a magazine—light, female-orientated pieces—and her contact there, realising that an Englishwoman might stand more chance than a local, had asked her to try and do an inside story on the Brodeys, especially young Calum.
Ordinarily Tiffany would have refused—such an invasion of privacy wasn’t her scene—but circumstances had forced her to accept. The first reason was of course her almost complete lack of money; she had been out of a job for so long that she was already on the breadline and fast becoming desperate. The second was more personal. She remembered her contact, a junior editor, coming to see her and offering what seemed like a huge sum if she could get close to Calum, dig up some new gossip. ‘With your looks and your blonde hair,’ the man had said persuasively, ‘it will be easy for you. Just try to find out what goes on behind the public face they all show to the world. There’s no harm in it; they’re used to publicity and love it even if they say they don’t.’
Tiffany was shrewd enough to know that that probably wasn’t true, and despite her poverty would have refused the assignment. But she had a grudge against the Brodeys. It was through them that she’d lost the job that had brought her to Portugal in the first place. Not that she’d ever come even close to meeting any of them, of course; she had been a very insignificant cog in the large business project of which the Brodey Corporation was the principal financial investor. And it had been the Brodeys who had been the first to back out when the recession hit, making the other investors follow suit so that the project collapsed, leaving herself and all the other workers out of a job. It was her seething resentment at this uncaring ruthlessness that had finally overcome her scruples and misgivings and made her accept the on-results-only assignment. So she had gatecrashed the party, knowing it was her last chance. Her last desperate throw of the dice.
It had been far easier to get into the palácio than she’d dared to hope; Tiffany had waited until there was a queue of cars at the gate and people had started to get out impatiently and walk down the driveway, then she had merely joined a small group and walked in with them, not even needing the sentence about joining her husband inside that she had carefully rehearsed in Portuguese in case she was asked to show her invitation. But now that she was here she had to think of a way of getting herself introduced to Calum Brodey, hopefully in a way that would attract his attention. Once he’d noticed her all she had to do was hold his attention long enough for him to get interested in her. If her luck changed. If he even bothered to look at her.
Biting her lip, Tiffany determined to be positive. Taking a deep breath, she walked down the terrace steps to join the party.
A waiter came around the side of the house carrying a tray of filled glasses. Seeing Tiffany without a drink, he paused so that she could take a glass. As she did so another hand, male, reached out from behind her to take one. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a tall, broad shouldered man in a light-coloured suit. She went to walk on, but he said, ‘Hi, there. You look as if you might speak English.’
His accent immediately identified him as North American, from the States probably.
Tiffany hesitated a moment, then nodded. ‘Do you have some kind of problem?’
‘Only that I don’t speak Portuguese and I hardly know anyone here. I saw you standing over there, watching everyone, and figured you might be in the same boat.’ He held out his free hand and gave her an engaging grin. ‘The name’s Sam, Sam Gallagher.’
Again Tiffany hesitated; she didn’t want to get stuck with the American, but on the other hand it might be useful to have a man in tow for a while. So she smiled in return and shook his hand. ‘I’m Tiffany Dean.’
He gave her an appreciative glance, his eyes running over her slim, petite figure in the silk suit it had cost her last penny to hire, and coming back to her face. Amusement came into his eyes as he saw that she raised a cool eyebrow, but he merely looked at his glass suspiciously and said, ‘What is this stuff?’
‘Don’t you know? It’s white port. The “in” aperitif all over Europe. I wouldn’t know about the States. Is that where you’re from?’
‘How’d you guess? Yeah, I’m from Wyoming.’
‘Do they drink a lot of port there? Are you a vintner?’
‘A wine-seller? Hell, no.’
‘I thought everyone at this party was connected with the wine trade in some way,’ Tiffany remarked. But she was making small talk, her eyes going past Sam, searching the crowd for Calum Brodey. She saw him momentarily, crossing the lawn to speak to a red-haired woman who seemed to be connected with the caterers. After the woman had nodded and hurried away, he turned back to mingle again. Tiffany began to move in his direction.
Sam, following her, said, ‘No, I have a friend who works over here with a shipping company. He couldn’t make it today so he gave me the invite. It’s quite some party. Much bigger than I expected. Do you know these Brodeys?’
She gave a casual shrug. ‘Everyone does. They’re one of the leading families in Oporto. That’s the head of the family, over there.’ She gestured towards old Mr Brodey. ‘He’s talking to one of his grandsons, Lennox Brodey, and his wife—the blonde, pregnant woman,’ she pointed.
Looking at the couple, Tiffany felt a surge of wistful jealousy. They looked so happy together, were obviously deeply in love, the woman radiant in her pregnancy, the man openly solicitous for her welfare. Two of the lucky ones, not forever being knocked down by malignant fate until one was too punch-drunk to dare to hope any more.
She nodded to where Francesca de Vieira stood among a small crowd of attentive men. ‘That’s his granddaughter, in the flame-coloured outfit.’
Sam followed her glance and she heard his sharp intake of breath. But that, she thought with some chagrin, was the kind of effect the other girl would always have on men. Drawing herself up, Tiffany fervently wished she were a foot taller, but then laughed rather scornfully at herself; no way was she ever going to grow so she had just better make the most of what she’d got. And her best assets, she knew, were her thick bell of blonde hair and a pair of large, long-lashed blue eyes set above a cute turned-up nose and a wide mouth. Not a beautiful face, but one that made people look twice, especially when she smiled or laughed, her whole face lighting up. Her figure, though unfashionably short in her own eyes, was also good enough to merit a second glance.
‘Do you live here in Portugal?’ Sam asked her as they walked on again.
‘Temporarily,’ Tiffany replied, in a tone that didn’t encourage him to go on. ‘I know hardly anyone here so I’m afraid I can’t introduce you.’
It was meant to put him off, to stop him asking more questions, to encourage him to go and find someone else, but Sam said, ‘No more do I, so I guess we may as well stick with each other.’
They were in the centre of the throng of guests now, and Tiffany would rather have been on her own. If Sam had known people, could have introduced her around, it would have been different, but she certainly didn’t want him at her side the whole afternoon. Finishing her drink, she handed him the glass and said with a smile, ‘It’s so hot; do you think you could find me another one of these? But with plenty of ice, please,’ she added so that it would take him longer.
‘Sure thing. Don’t go away; I’ll be right back.’
He moved towards the edge of the crowd, looking for a waiter. As soon as he was hidden from sight, Tiffany walked quickly to the part of the garden where she’d seen Calum Brodey. As she did so another group, consisting wholly of men, broke up amid a burst of laughter. One man turned away, a grin still on his face, and bumped into Tiffany.
‘Perdao!’ the man exclaimed, putting out a hand to steady her.
‘Er…Nño tern de que.’
He laughed. ‘You’re obviously not Portuguese.’
‘Oh, dear. Was it that bad?’ Tiffany smiled, her eyes lighting up.
‘Ten out of ten for effort.’
‘But not for pronunciation, I take it?’ Tiffany said ruefully. She glanced at his good-looking features under longish brown hair, thinking that his face seemed vaguely familiar. ‘But you don’t sound Portuguese either.’
‘I’m bilingual,’ he admitted. ‘Comes of having a mother who’s half Portuguese herself.’ Holding out his hand, he said, ‘I’m Christopher Brodey.’
Of course! That was where she’d seen his face before: in the articles that she’d studied. But as he wasn’t in the direct family line Tiffany hadn’t taken much notice of him. She tried to recall what she’d read and remembered that he had a reputation for being pretty wild in his youth. And he was still young, in his late twenties, she guessed, so maybe he still went in for fast cars, fast boats and fast women. But he might be useful.
So Tiffany shook his hand and gave him one of her best smiles as she told him her name.
‘Tiffany. That’s pretty. And unusual.’ His eyes went over her and he gave her the kind of smile that let her know he found her pretty and unusual, too. ‘I’m sure we haven’t met before or I’d have remembered. But then, I’m not often in Portugal nowadays.’ She raised a questioning eyebrow and he explained, ‘It’s my job to open up new markets for our wine, so I travel a lot.’
‘Really? That sounds exciting. And from what I’ve heard you must be a great salesman,’ she said flatteringly. ‘You sell all over the world now, don’t you?’
‘Not quite.’ He shrugged that off with a grin. ‘But I get around.’
He had an attractive smile, all crinkly eyes and boyishness. It wasn’t difficult to see how he’d got his reputation, with women anyway.
‘Where are you actually based?’ she asked.
‘That’s a difficult question. My parents live in Lisbon and have a villa in Madeira, where I lived while I was learning the wine trade. But now I spend most of my time in New York because the American market is really taking off.’
‘Oporto must be quite a come-down, then,’ Tiffany remarked, her interest caught.
Chris shook his head. ‘No, I like New York, but Portugal is home.’ Turning, he nodded towards the house. ‘And this is where I live when I’m here—with my grandfather and my cousin.’
Turning with him, Tiffany lifted her head to look at the palácio. It was so ornate, so beautiful. Two deep wings stood on either side of a magnificent entrance topped by the Brodey coat of arms, reached by fairytale staircases that branched on both sides. The walls were stark white but were relieved by the many windows topped with ornate stone pediments. There were statues on the gable-ends and huge pepper-pot chimneys on the roof, and next to the left wing a chapel that looked too delicate to hold the mass of columns and baroque stonework that covered it. And everything was so beautifully maintained, the gravel free of weeds, the box hedges of the parterres clipped to uniformity, the cherubs on the fountain in the lake sparkling in the sunlight.
