“There are a lot more people in the world drinking orange juice than there are drinking champagne.”

“A perfect reason to stick with champagne.” Isabela lowered her thick lashes over her dark eyes.

“I’m sure we’re boring Anna with this family chitchat.” Naldo leaned back in his chair. “I invited her here tonight to discuss an agreement over the land.”

“I hardly see why one acre makes any difference one way or the other.” Isabela took a sip of her wine. “If you had any sense you’d carve the whole thing up into a subdivision. With all those snowbirds looking for a piece of Florida sunshine, the real estate market is booming.”

Irritation flared in his gut. “You know I’ll never sell.”

“No? We’ll see.”

Anna’s gaze jumped from him to Isabela like someone watching a tennis match. Her obvious intelligence was on high alert. At the awkward lull in the conversation, she frowned. “I can kind of see why your father left my mother the land, but what did he mean by the cookbook?”

“She was the cook, wasn’t she?” Isabela didn’t bother to look at her as she picked up an asparagus stalk between two long fingers and crunched it.

“Well, yes, but I don’t know what book he was talking about. I found a few cookbooks in the cottage, and mom kept her favorites in the kitchen here at the house, but do you know which one he meant?”

Naldo shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. That was a whole different can of worms he’d rather not open at all. With Letty gone and business-minded Anna in her place, it could prove to be complicated and expensive in ways his father had never intended.

“Who knows?” Isabela mopped up some dip with a tiny celery stalk. “Daddy was obviously going soft in the head. Why in Heaven’s name would he care about a cookbook? What he should have done was divide the estate equally between his two children instead of following some disgusting, outdated and sexist tradition.”

Naldo resisted the urge to growl with exasperation. “You receive enough money every month to live like a queen. You know the De Leon family is where we are today exactly because we have never veered from the path of tradition. How many other families can claim more than four hundred years of stewardship on the same property?”

“In Europe, plenty. If the family was based there, perhaps I’d be able to live with a little dignity.”

“Dignity would be about all we’d have left after European estate taxes.” Naldo took a bite of asparagus.

“What rubbish. You’re rich as Croesus, you just don’t want to share with your own flesh and blood. Tradition be damned.”

Naldo held her cold gaze. “Tradition is the lifeblood of this family.”

Isabela stared back. “Tradition.” She drew the word out, and her plum lips widened into a mocking smile. “I suppose that explains this intimate dinner I interrupted.”

“Anna and I are old friends. I’m delighted to renew our acquaintance.”

What was Isabela up to? He didn’t want to think about her. Right now he’d like to ditch this spoiled dinner and acquaint himself with the feel of Anna’s lithe body on fresh cotton sheets. He knew her lips tasted like ripe strawberries, but what did the nape of her neck taste like? And those eager nipples?

As he pondered these intriguing questions, Anna’s eyes narrowed in a way that did dangerous things to his libido.

“How sweet, but aren’t you worried about stirring up old rumors, darling?” Isabela swirled wine around in her glass. “I’m sure tongues are already wagging after the will reading, though I suppose it hardly matters. Everyone from here to Palm Beach knows about Daddy’s little affair.”

Naldo clenched his fists. “Your flair for the dramatic is impressive.” He glanced at Anna, who was busy eating and showed no sign of comprehension, thank goodness. “We both know our father chose to honor Mother’s memory by staying single after her death.”

“He hardly had any choice, under the circumstances.” Isabela’s eyes narrowed and Naldo wondered for a single grim instant if she was going to reveal the truth about their mother’s death.

Something the family had vowed never to speak of.

The silence throbbed with tension.

“Relax, Naldo.” Isabela ran a fingertip around the rim of her wineglass, sending a squeal into the thick air. “All I mean is that men will be men. But even in this charmingly egalitarian nation, one would hardly expect a De Leon to marry his own cook.”

“What?” Anna looked up.

“Ignore her.”

Anna stared at Isabela. “Are you saying that your father…and my mother?”

“Don’t listen to foolish gossip,” Naldo hissed.

Isabela laughed, an ugly sound like breaking glass. “Oh, Naldo. Only men like you and Father would think they could keep an affair secret for years. After all, what do other people’s thoughts and feelings matter when you are the lord and master of all you survey?” She tossed her napkin onto the table. “All this warm family reminiscing is giving me indigestion. I’ll take supper in my room.”

He clenched his fists harder as she rose from her chair and sashayed out of the room.

“Naldo.” Anna’s voice was a whisper. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Nonsense.” He drained his wineglass. Grabbed the bottle and poured another glassful. Knocked it back.

“But it makes perfect sense. That he would leave her the land…” Anna gripped the table, her knuckles white.

Naldo still couldn’t believe his father had committed that final act of betrayal after the devastation his affair had already caused the family. The long liaison had been a brittle bone of contention between them. Never discussed, never resolved. A burr in their close and loving relationship that he’d always hoped would go away.

And now it never would because he was dead.

Naldo leaned back into his chair.

“I can see from your face that it’s true.” Anna lowered herself back into her chair. Those wide blue eyes tore into him like a laser. “I know you don’t want it to be, but it makes too much sense.”

“You’re right. I wish it wasn’t true.” He leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table, raw pain searing through him. Anger at the wrongs that would now never be righted. “It’s your mother’s fault that my father is dead.”

Four

“What?” Anna blinked. Cold disbelief at all she’d just heard warred with rising indignation.

“Her death killed him.” His eyes looked hollow.

“She died in an accident. How could it be her fault?”

Naldo stared at her for a moment, his face stony. “When my father got the phone call that your mother had been in a car wreck, I drove him to the hospital. By the time we arrived she was already in the morgue. When he saw her there…”

Anna froze at the image of her mother laid out in a hospital morgue.

Naldo took a deep breath. “He collapsed. I caught him as he fell, and they revived him right away.” His eyes narrowed. “But he never recovered consciousness. It was a massive heart attack. They kept him alive for three days, hooked up to machines, with wires all over his body. And then he was gone.”

Anna bit her lip hard. “He died of a broken heart,” she whispered.

Naldo’s black eyes seemed to look right through her. “He’s gone. That’s all I know.”

“I can’t believe she never told me.”

They’d been so close.

At least she thought they had. Of course she’d left home eight years ago to go to college, and hadn’t had the money, then the time, to come back for more than a handful of brief visits.

The charged atmosphere was interrupted by the arrival of the smiling new cook bearing two plates heaped with fragrant food. Fresh agony streamed through Anna at the memory of her mother doing just that. The cook stopped, perhaps caught off guard by Anna’s stricken face.

“Filet of sole in a dill sauce, with new potatoes and a medley of seasonal-”

“Thank you, Vicki. It looks delicious.” Naldo cut off her increasingly quavering announcement.

Vicki, who was young, plump and pretty, placed the plates in front of them and shot a sympathetic glance at Anna.

She tried to smile back.

When Vicki left, closing the door discreetly behind her, Anna stared at Naldo. “She never said anything. I had no idea.”

“Perhaps she knew it was wrong.” He stabbed his fish with a silver fork.

“But why wrong? Your father was a widower. She wasn’t ever married. They were both consenting adults. Middle-aged ones, at that.”

“My father made a commitment to my mother.” His mouth set in a grim line.

Anna expelled an exasperated breath. “Marriage is ‘until death do us part.’ I don’t doubt that he loved your mother with all his heart, but that doesn’t mean he had to die along with her. Didn’t you want him to be happy?”

“He was happy.” His intense stare pricked her skin.

“Yes.” She inhaled slowly. “Apparently he was happy with my mother.” It infuriated her that Naldo had planned to keep the whole affair a secret from her. What else was he keeping secret? “Is that why you were snooping around the house this morning? Were you looking for evidence to destroy?”

A frown line appeared between Naldo’s brows.

“You left footprints all over the house. Upstairs.”

He studied her for a moment, then sat back in his chair. “I was looking for something, yes.”

“What?”

“Some jewelry. Family heirlooms that my father gave to your mother.”

A cold sensation crept up her spine. “He gave my mom gifts and you thought you’d just take them back?”

“All of them have been in the family more than a century. They are part of the family legacy. They should be restored to the estate.”

“Are they worth a lot?”

“Yes. Naturally I intend to compensate you for their full value.”

“Oh, do you?” She didn’t believe him for a second. “If you meant to pay, why not just ask for them?”