CHAPTER ONE

      BELLE LANGTRY HAD hated Santiago Velazquez from the moment she’d laid eyes on him.

      Well, not the exact moment, of course. She was only human. When they’d first met at their friends’ wedding last September—Belle had been the maid of honor, Santiago the best man—she’d been dazzled by his dark gorgeousness, his height, his broad shoulders and muscular body. She’d looked up at his dark soulful eyes and thought, Wow. Dreams really do come true.

      Then Santiago had turned to the groom and suggested out loud that Darius could still “make a run for it” and abandon his bride at the altar. And he’d said it right in front of Letty!

      The bride and groom had awkwardly laughed it off, but from that moment, Belle had hated Santiago with a passion. Every word he said was more cynical and infuriating than the last. Within ten minutes, the two of them were arguing; by the end of the wedding, Belle wished he would do the world a favor and die. Being the forthright woman she was, she couldn’t resist telling him so. He’d responded with sarcasm. And that had been their relationship for the last four months.

      So of course, Belle thought bitterly, he would be the one to find her now, pacing the dark, snowy garden behind Letty and Darius’s coastal estate. Crying.

      Shivering in her thin black dress, she’d been looking toward the wild Atlantic Ocean in the darkness. The rhythmic roar of the waves matched the thrumming of her heart.

      All day, Belle had held her friend’s adorable newborn as Letty wept through her father’s funeral. By the end of the evening reception, the pain in Belle’s heart as she held the sweetly sleeping baby had overwhelmed her. Gently giving the baby back to Letty, she’d mumbled an excuse and fled into the dark snow-covered garden.

      Outside, an icy wind blew, freezing the tears against Belle’s chapped skin as she stared out into the darkness, heartsick with grief.

      She would never have a child of her own.

      Never, the ocean sighed back to her. Never, never.

      “Belle?” a rough voice called. “Are you out here?”

      Santiago! She sucked in her breath. The last man she’d ever want to see her like this!

      She could only imagine the arrogant sneer on the Spaniard’s face if he found her crying over her inability to have a child. Ducking behind a frost-covered tree, she held her breath, praying he wouldn’t see her.

      “Belle, stop trying to hide,” he said, sounding amused. “Your dress is black, and you’re standing in the snow.”

      Gritting her teeth, she stepped out from behind the tree and lied, “I wasn’t hiding.”

      “What are you doing out here, then?”

      “I just needed some fresh air,” she said desperately, wishing he’d leave her alone.

      A beam of light from a second-floor window of the manor house illuminated the hard lines of Santiago’s powerful body in the black suit and well-cut cashmere coat. As their eyes met, electricity coursed through her.

      Santiago Velazquez was too handsome, she thought with an unwilling shiver. Too sexy. Too powerful. Too rich.

      He was also a selfish, cynical playboy, whose only loyalty was to his own vast fortune. He probably had vaults big enough to swim in, she thought, and pictured him doing a backstroke through hundred-dollar bills. In the meantime he mocked the idea of kindness and respect. She’d heard he treated his one-night stands like unpaid employees. Belle’s expression hardened. Folding her arms, she waited as he strode through the snow toward her.

      He stopped a few feet away. “You don’t have a coat.”

      “I’m not cold.”

      “I can hear your teeth chattering. Are you trying to freeze to death?”

      “Why do you care?”

      “Me? I don’t,” he said mildly. “If you want to freeze to death, it’s fine with me. But it does seem selfish to force Letty to plan yet another funeral. So tedious, funerals. And weddings. And christenings. All of it.”

      “Any human interaction that involves emotion must be tedious to you,” Belle said.

      He was nearly a foot taller than her own petite height. His shoulders were broad and he wore arrogance like a cloak that shadowed him in the snow. She’d heard women call him Ángel, and she could well understand the nickname. He had a face like an angel—a dark angel, she thought irritably, if heaven needed a bouncer to keep lesser people out and boss everyone around. Santiago might be rich and handsome but he was also the most cynical, callous, despicable man on earth. He was everything she hated most.

      “Wait.” His black eyes narrowed as he stared down at her in the faint crystalline moonlight frosting the clouds. “Are you crying, Belle?”

      She blinked hard and fast to hide the evidence. “No.”

      “You are.” His cruel, sensual lips curved mockingly. “I know you have a pathetically soft heart, but this is pushing the limits even for you. You barely knew Letty’s father, and yet here I find you mourning him after the funeral, alone in the snow like a tragic Victorian madwoman.”

      Normally that would have gotten a rise out of her. But not today. Belle’s heart was too sad. And she knew if she showed the slightest emotion he’d only mock her more. Wishing desperately that Santiago hadn’t been the one to find her, she said, “What do you want?”

      “Darius and Letty have gone to bed. Letty wanted to come out and look for you but the baby needed her. I’m supposed to show you to your guest room and turn on the house alarm once you’re brought in safe and sound.”

      His husky, Spanish-accented voice seemed to be laughing at her. She hated how, even disliking him as much as she did, he made her body shiver with awareness.

      “I changed my mind about staying here tonight.” The last thing she wanted was to spend the night tossing and turning in a guest room, with no company but her own agonizing thoughts. “I just want to go home.”

      “To Brooklyn?” Santiago looked at her incredulously. “It’s too late. Everyone wanting to get back to the city left hours ago. The ice storm just closed the expressway.