Unexpectedly Wed to the Heir
Author
Lydia San Andres
Reads
18.2K
Chapters
23
His vow? To protect her! After dressmaker Aura Soriana's father passes away, her home and livelihood are left on the line. With only herself to count on, she's cautious when she meets handsome Eduardo Martinez, heir to a shipping empire, and has no time for his easygoing attitude and showy gestures! When Eduardo discovers Aura's home has been broken into, and the dangerous men pursuing her are linked to his family, the only way to keep her safe is to claim she's his fiancée! Yet if independent Aura's to meet him at the altar, Eduardo must face his past and show her she can rely on him…
Chapter One
Aura Soriano had been living in San Pedro for a little over two years and she could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had attended a Sunday concert at the park.
The summer’s oppressive heat had begun to lift, and it was late enough in the afternoon that the sunlight had lost some of its intensity, though most of the fashionable ladies in attendance still held silk-fringed parasols with polished wooden handles. A shame because Aura had really been hoping to get a glimpse of their hats.
In her capacity as a dressmaker, Aura was used to studying the latest fashions in the fashion plates and illustrated magazines she subscribed to. Today, however, was different—with her new store opening in less than a week, Aura was making note of the ribbons and trimmings favored by the fashionable crowd in order to tailor her next order of merchandise to suit their needs.
Most of the benches around her had been claimed by matrons, but the younger set had preferred to stand, all the better to show off their opulently trimmed frocks. Young trees cast dappled shadows on the crisp whites and soft ivories that had been in vogue all through the past decade, now adorned with sashes and ribbons in bright sherbet colors.
The small notepad and pencil in the embroidered handbag hanging from her wrist went unused as Aura tried not to be too obvious about scrutinizing the women who had gathered to hear the sprightly tunes being played by the municipal band. She could always sketch out anything that caught her eye once she returned home.
The stock she had purchased from abroad—several dozen yards of machine-made lace, carved mother-of-pearl buttons and embroidery threads in a wide array of shades—was already on its way to San Pedro. She’d agonized over what to order, hoping to strike just the right balance between new and unusual materials and colors and the safe standbys that would count for the bulk of her sales.
It had been mere optimism that had made her step out today to try to anticipate what she would add to her next order.
Optimism—and a slight wistfulness.
It wasn’t that she was lonely, of course. Aura was far too busy to even acknowledge such a possibility. But as she sewed late into the night, ignoring her stinging eyes and aching back, she was all too aware of the silence that permeated the house where she now lived alone.
In any case, the music was welcome and she had spied some—
One of the men in the crowd turned and Aura’s stomach sank as she recognized the features under the brim of a panama hat.
Rafael Marchena had been an associate of her father’s when the latter had still been alive, and he’d made a pest of himself over the past three months. She should have been flattered by his solicitousness—Aura didn’t know why it made her so uncomfortable, save that she didn’t particularly wish to talk about her father now that he was gone.
At the moment, Aura’s sole focus was on her store—on her survival. She did not have the time, or the patience, to fend off questions about how she was holding up.
But Aura was not a coward and she most definitely did not shirk her duties. So when Marchena spotted her and began heading her way, she squared her shoulders, commanded her lips to turn up into a semblance of a smile and prepared to endure the next several minutes with as much good grace as she could muster.
Her gaze wandered for just a second—long enough to see a little boy slip his fingers into a man’s pocket and emerge with several folded banknotes.
Marchena forgotten, she charged forward, saying sharply, “You there!”
Appearing not to hear her through the music, the little boy disappeared into the crowd. Acting on sheer instinct, Aura bounded in the boy’s direction—and was forced to come to an abrupt stop when the man whose pocket had just been burglarized stepped in her way.
“It’s all right,” he said quietly. He wasn’t particularly large, though he was almost a head taller than Aura herself, but his lean body filled her field of vision so completely that Aura might as well have been stopped by a brick wall. “Let him go.”
“But he—”
“I noticed. And it’s all right. I only had a few pesos in my pocket and he likely needs them more than I do.” The man nodded toward the peanut seller. “I’ve seen the two of them before—I think they’re siblings. She’s fearfully proud, wouldn’t take an extra few cents when I paid her for the peanuts, though I insisted. I feel better knowing her brother is more...shall we call it enterprising?”
His warm laugh trailed over Aura, who tightened her grip on her embroidered handbag. She was used to agonizing over every cent—letting someone make off with the contents of one’s pocket was an incomprehensible folly.
“That’s certainly an odd way of going about doing acts of charity,” she remarked. “Aren’t you concerned that you’re just encouraging him to pick someone else’s pocket?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” the man admitted, before lifting his shoulders into a shrug. He had the kind of smile that Aura suspected would make most people automatically break into a smile of their own just to look at it. “Whoever they encounter next will have to handle that particular moral quandary. Would you like some peanuts?”
“Would I—”
She must have still been a little dazed by what had just happened, because instead of politely declining and going on her way, Aura found herself accepting the small brown bag. The aroma rising from it made her mouth water.
Aura was reasonably sure she had never met this man before, but he had such a friendly demeanor that she found herself smiling back at him as she popped a roasted peanut into her mouth.
It wasn’t just his demeanor, or even his infectious smile, that she found attractive. Practiced as Aura was at divining a person’s shape through their garments, she could tell that he had the lean, athletic build of a sportsman. This impression was corroborated by the reddish tinge on his dark brown skin, which spoke of plenty of time spent outdoors.
His dark eyes were bold, and only the humor in them saved them from being impertinent as his gaze swept over Aura and his beautiful lips spread into another bright smile.
“Didn’t I meet you at one of Paulina de Linares’s dances?”
Aura shook her head. “I don’t believe so.”
“Then it must have been at the horse show hosted by Julián Fuentes and his wife.”
“I don’t go out into society much,” Aura told him. And definitely not the kind of society he seemed to belong to—if the obvious quality of his fashionably cut suit hadn’t given him away, the easy confidence in his voice and the way he moved revealed plenty about his privileged background. “I doubt you would have come across me, señor, unless you’re in the habit of patronizing ladies’ dressmakers.”
The latter came out with just a tinge of defensiveness. But if she expected that knowing she was far from the society woman he had mistaken her for would dampen his obvious interest in her, she was wrong.
“A dressmaker? The way you were prepared to charge after the pickpocket, I would have taken you for an undercover member of the Civil Guard.”
Embarrassment flooded Aura.
“Don’t get me wrong,” the man continued before she had a chance to say anything, “I thought it was delightfully brave of you to want to protect a grown man from a little boy.”
Part of Aura wanted to bristle at his teasing tone, but there was something almost affectionate in it, as if they were already acquaintances who could take the liberty of gently ribbing each other without repercussions.
She cocked her head. “I wouldn’t have tried if you hadn’t looked like you needed protection.”
He burst into laughter. “Dressmaker, protector of innocents and a wit—is there anything you can’t do?”
“Resist a roasted peanut, evidently,” she replied, holding out the small brown bag, which was much lighter than when it had been pressed into her hands.
He surrendered his claim to it with a gesture. “I don’t really like peanuts. I only made the purchase to help the girl.”
Aura couldn’t help but think it was foolish generosity, when so many other people in the park were patronizing the girl’s cart. Still, she was enjoying the peanuts. She’d scrimped and saved for so long in the interest of getting the funds together to open her store, she’d fallen into the habit of denying herself even the smallest treats.
“I hope you don’t think me too forward for asking,” he continued, “but I’ll need to know your name for when I write to the captain of the Civil Guard with a recommendation to hire dressmakers to fortify his ranks.”
She laughed, and said, “It’s Aura.”
“Laura?”
“Aura,” she corrected. “Short for Aureliana, though no one ever calls me that.”
“That’s an interesting name,” he said curiously. “I don’t think I’d ever heard it before.”
“It’s an amalgam of the two things my father loved best—my mother, Ana, and gold.” Aura felt her lips twisting wryly as she thought about her father’s inability to hang on to either of those things.
As if sensing a need to distract her from her own thoughts, the man shrugged. “Much more interesting than my own name. Which is Eduardo, by the way. A pleasure to meet you, Aura.”
He offered her a hand, and Aura shifted the bag of peanuts to her left in order to shake it. Her fingers must have been slightly greasy from the roasted snack, but Eduardo hardly seemed to care as he gave her hand a gentle pump and lingered for a few seconds with their palms touching.
There was nothing at all improper in it, but Aura felt herself suffused by a curious heat that had nothing to do with the patch of sunshine on the back of her neck. Was her life really so solitary that a simple handshake could make her knees quiver as though they’d been filled with flan?
Or maybe it wasn’t the handshake at all, but the light in his eyes as he gazed down at her, his lips slightly parted. His cheerful charm had sharpened into an intensity that snatched her breath away even as it made her want to step closer, all the better to bask in his admiring scrutiny.
Whatever magnetic pull had ensnared them shattered as seven sharp chimes came from the nearby clock tower. Aura stepped back with a short gasp, almost dropping the paper bag she’d been clutching. She pressed it back into Eduardo’s hands, instead, berating herself for having let the afternoon get away from her when she still had a commission to finish and deliver to a client by that evening.
“I’m so sorry,” she told Eduardo, “but I really have to go.”
“Can I do anything to persuade you to stay?” he asked, flashing her a smile that seemed designed to make her knees fail altogether.
The accompanying gleam in his eyes made it clear that he knew exactly what effect that smile had on other people—and that he was not above deploying it to get his way.
She answered it with a wry look. “You seem like the kind of man who rarely hears no for an answer. Unfortunately, I’ll have to disappoint you.”
His fingers tightened on hers, but she was already slipping them out of his grasp.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Likewise, of course, but—”
Aura didn’t let him finish. She had too many things to do, and no time to waste on silly flirtations that would lead nowhere. Tossing him one last, distracted smile, she hurried along the path back out into the street.
Maybe it was an intrinsic part of his personality—or, more likely, a skill he had honed over twenty-six years of being in the exact middle of a large brood of cousins, all of whom had very strong and very distinct personalities—but Eduardo Martínez had long been designated the official peacemaker of the family.
So it was no surprise when, at the first sign of strife in the front room of Martínez & Hijos, the shipping company owned by his grandfather, his cousin Gregorio let out an exasperated sigh and looked up from his ledgers long enough to wipe his spectacles and ask Eduardo, “Will you handle it?”
“I always do,” Eduardo replied, setting down his pen and stretching lightly.
He’d only come into the office they shared to pen a quick note to the dock administrator. Repairs were being made to the dock, which made it necessary to use rowboats to unload the larger freight steamers of the shipments they carried. The administrator had only two at his disposal, but that was all right because Eduardo had three in San Pedro and three more in Santo Domingo, and he was willing to loan them out in exchange for an unspecified favor at a later date.
Gregorio could revel in his ledgers and price lists. What Eduardo most enjoyed was dealing with people and putting his considerable resources toward helping things run smoothly.
Folding the note and passing it to the messenger, Eduardo followed the sounds of an argument to the front of the office, a large room crowded with desks and the sound of six or seven clerks clattering on typewriters. The source of the altercation seemed to come from one of the desks, where a clerk was impatiently explaining something to a woman standing with her back to Eduardo.
“What seems to be the problem?”
The woman turned, and Eduardo almost let out an audible gasp. He suppressed it just in time, but he couldn’t hold back a delighted smile as he took in the high cheekbones, bold eyebrows and the eyes that snapped with inner fire. She’d run away from him before he’d had much of a chance to ask the important details, like her last name and whether she wanted to see him again. Eduardo had talked about it at such length at dinner the night before that both Gregorio and their other cousin María del Mar had threatened to stuff Eduardo’s serving of roast chicken down his own shirt if he didn’t change the subject.
And here she was.
The irritated clerk, whose name was Ruiz, stepped out from behind his desk, suddenly much more accommodating than he had been a moment before. “Don Eduardo, this is la señorita Aureliana Soriano. She—”
Eduardo didn’t let him finish. “It’s you. I was hoping to see you again.”
The clerk cleared his throat, as if to recall Eduardo to the business at hand.
Ignoring him, Eduardo asked, “What seems to be the problem?”
Ruiz immediately launched into an explanation, but Eduardo held up a hand and looked at Aura.
“I put in an order for a great quantity of merchandise for the store I’m opening,” she said. “Sewing notions and fabric, mostly. It was meant to arrive today—I received confirmation that it did—only, when I went to inspect the crates, there was nothing there.”
Eduardo nodded. “Things are a bit of a shambles right now, as the facilities at the docks haven’t been able to keep up with the demand for imported items. We’re petitioning the public works office to build a new warehouse for the inspection of new arrivals, but in the meantime we’re forced to deal with the confusion. I’m sure that if we send someone to search more thoroughly—”
“You misunderstand me,” she said crisply. “My crates are here. They’re just...empty. Well, not empty—they’re full of rocks.”
“Rocks?” Eduardo frowned. “But that makes no sense. Unless—”
“Whoever took my things wanted to make sure that the theft wouldn’t be noticed until it was too late.”
That was deeply troubling. It was one thing for a crate or two to go missing, quite another to think that at some point between them being unloaded from the ships and inspected by customs officials and their receipt by Martínez & Hijos’s own warehouses, someone had been able to access their contents.
Replacing them with rocks was a clever idea, admittedly. The burly men he employed to transport the crates would have noticed if a crate was too light. But why would anyone go to all that trouble just to take fabric and sewing things?
Unless they thought that Aura’s crates contained something else? Martínez & Hijos did plenty of business with prosperous merchants, some of whom imported wines and liquor and other objects of great value.
“I have no idea how this happened,” he told Aura, “but believe me, I mean to find out. You’ll have your things before you know it—I promise you.”
Eduardo had a reasonably good idea of the kind of response he could expect when he was at his most charming—young women swooned, matrons were reduced to giggling behind their fans and gentlemen of all ages began pounding Eduardo on the back and proffering their undying friendship.
Which made Aura’s reaction all the more surprising. Her chin rose, her eyes narrowed slightly. “I don’t need promises, Don Eduardo,” she said, and he winced at the polite, distancing honorific. “I just need to know that the matter will be looked into.”
“It will. And I’ll write to the suppliers on your behalf, if I have your permission to do so. The mistake might have occurred on their end.”
She gave him a curt nod.
Eduardo couldn’t figure out what he had said, or done, to make her so cold toward him. Hadn’t she seemed to find him amusing the day before? Had he inadvertently insulted her?
Then again, she had just cause to be annoyed.
“In the meantime,” he said, “is there anything else I could do to help?”
“No,” she said immediately. “I don’t need help.”
But he had seen the look of dismay on her face when he hadn’t come up with an immediate solution to her problem.
Affecting nonchalance as he discreetly removed his checkbook from his pocket, he moved to one of the desks to fill out an empty check. “We have a policy of refunding our clients for losses incurred while employing our services.”
She glanced down at the check but didn’t make a move toward it.
“Is it company policy to refund clients with personal checks?” she asked quietly.
“It is when your family owns the company,” Eduardo told her, giving her his most charming smile—which she received with a frown.
“I appreciate the gesture, but it won’t be necessary. I’m sure my things will turn up. Maybe you’d like for me to write out an inventory of everything that was in the crates.”
Eduardo waved her toward the empty desk, which he knew was supplied with pen, ink and paper. “Please do. And don’t forget to add a way for us to contact you.”
She nodded in a way that made it clear she was dismissing him. From his own office, no less. Aura Soriano wasn’t just bold in the face of diminutive pickpockets; she was fearless in ways that Eduardo had only begun to glimpse. She had a smile that could rival the sun—and that couldn’t hide the sadness lurking in the depths of her dark brown eyes.
Eduardo had never met anyone who intrigued him as much as this young woman did. And that was saying a lot, because Eduardo had always been outgoing and he had a knack for meeting new people that often astounded the more reserved Gregorio. Aura was like no one he had ever met, and Eduardo was determined that this shouldn’t be the end of their acquaintance.
