Billionaire, M.D.

French doors and colonial pillars merged seamlessly with the natural beauty of hardwood floors accentuated by marble and granite. She knew she could spend weeks poring over every detail, but in its whole, she felt this was a place this formidable man had wanted his family to love, to feel at home in from the moment they set foot in it. She knew she did. And she hadn’t technically set foot in it yet.

Then she did. He opened a door, wheeled her in then helped her out of the chair. She stood as he wheeled the chair to one side, walked out to haul in two huge suitcases that had evidently been transported right behind them.

He placed one on the floor and the other on a luggage stand at the far side of the room, which opened into a full-fledged dressing room.

She stood mesmerized as he walked back to her.

He was overwhelming. A few levels beyond that.

He stopped before her, took her hand. She felt as though it burst in flames. “I promise you a detailed tour of the place. Later. In stages. Now you have to rest. Doctor’s orders.”

With that he gave her hand a gentle press, turned and left.

The moment the door clicked closed behind him, she staggered to lean on it, exhaled a choppy breath. Doctor’s orders. Her doctor…

She bit her lip. Hours ago, she’d consigned her husband’s body to his parents. And all she could think of was Rodrigo. There wasn’t even a twinge of guilt toward Mel. There was sadness, but it was the sadness she knew she’d feel for any human being’s disability and death. For his loved ones’ mourning. Nothing more.

What was wrong with her? What had been wrong with her and Mel? Or was there more wrong with her mind than she believed?

Her lungs deflated on a dejected exhalation.

All she could do now was never let any of those who’d loved and lost Mel know how unaffected by his loss she was. What did it matter what she felt in the secrecy of her heart and mind if she never let the knowledge out to hurt others? She couldn’t change the way she felt, should stop feeling bad about it. It served no purpose, did no one any good.

With that rationalization reached, she felt as if a ten-pound rock had been lifted off her heart. Air flowed into her lungs all of a sudden, just as the lovely surroundings registered in her appreciation centers.

The room-if a thirty-something-by forty-something-foot space with a twelve-foot ceiling could be called that- was a manifestation of the ultimate in personal space.

With walls painted sea-blue and green, furniture of dark mahogany and ivory ceilings and accents, it was soothingly lit by golden lamps of the side and standing variety. French doors were draped in gauzy powder-blue curtains that undulated in the twilight sea breeze, wafting scents of salt and freshness with each billow. She sighed away her draining tension and pushed from the wood-paneled door.

She crossed the gleaming hardwood floor to the suitcases. They were more evidence of Rodrigo’s all-inclusive care. She was certain she’d never owned anything so exquisite. She wondered what he’d filled them with. If the outfit she had on was any indication, no doubt an array of haute couture and designer items, molding to her exact shape and appealing to her specific tastes.

She tried to move the one on the floor, just to set it on its wheels. Frantic pounding boomed in her head. Man-what had he gotten her to wear? Steel armor in every shade? And he’d made the cases look weightless when he’d hauled them both in, simultaneously. She tugged again. “?Parada!”

She swung around at the booming order, the pounding in her head crashing down her spine to settle behind her ribs.

A robust, unmistakably Spanish woman in her late thirties was plowing her way across the room, alarm and displeasure furrowing the openness of her olive-skinned beauty.

“Rodrigo warned me that you’d give me a hard time.”

Cybele blinked at the woman as she slapped her hand away from the suitcase’s handle and hauled it onto the king-sized, draped-in-ivory-silk bed. She, too, made it look so light. Those Spaniards-uh, Catalans-must have something potent in their water.

The woman rounded on her, vitality and ire radiating from every line. Even her shoulder-length, glossy dark brown hair seemed pissed off. “He told me that you’d be a troublesome charge, and from the way you were trying to bust your surgery scar open, he was right. As he always is.”

So it wasn’t only she who thought he was always practically infallible. Her lips tugged as she tried to placate the force of nature before her. “I don’t have a surgery scar to bust, thanks to Rodrigo’s revolutionary minimally invasive approach.”

“You have things in there-” the woman stabbed a finger in the air pointing at Cybele’s head “-you can bust, no? What you busted before, necessitating such an approach.”

From the throb of pain that was only now abating, she had to concede that. She’d probably raised her intracranial pressure tenfold trying to drag that behemoth of a bag. As she shrugged, she remembered Rodrigo telling her something.

She’d been too busy watching his lips wrap around each syllable to translate the words into an actual meaning. She now replayed them, made sense of them.

Rodrigo had said Consuelo, his cousin who lived here with her husband and three children and managed the place for him, would be with her shortly to see to her every need and to the correct and timely discharge of his instructions. She’d only nodded then, lost in his eyes. She now realized what he’d meant.

He didn’t trust her to follow his instructions, was assigning a deputy to enforce their execution. And he certainly knew how to pick his wardens.

She stuck out her hand with a smile tugging at her lips. “You must be Consuelo. Rodrigo told me to expect you.”

Consuelo took her hand, only to drag her forward and kiss her full on both cheeks.

Cybele didn’t know what stunned her more, the affectionate salute, or Consuelo resuming her disapproval afterward.

Consuelo folded her arms over an ample bosom artfully contained and displayed by her floral dress with the lime background. “Seems Rodrigo didn’t really tell you what to expect. So let me make it clear. I received you battered and bruised. I’m handing you back in tip-top shape. I won’t put up with you not following Rodrigo’s orders. I’m not soft and lenient like him.”

“Soft and lenient?” Cybele squeaked her incredulity. Then she coughed it out on a laugh. “I wasn’t aware there were two Rodrigos. I met the intractable and inexorable one.”

Consuelo tutted. “If you think Rodrigo intractable and inexorable, wait till you’ve been around me twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, the first twenty-four seconds were a sufficient demo.”

Consuelo gave her an assessing look, shrewdness simmering in her dark chocolate eyes. “I know your type. A woman who wants to do everything for herself, says she can handle it when she can’t, keeps going when she shouldn’t, caring nothing about what it costs her, and it’s all because she dreads being an imposition, because she hates accepting help even when she dearly needs it.”

“Whoa. Spoken like an expert.”

“?Maldita sea, es cierto!-that’s right. It takes one mule-headed, aggravatingly independent woman to know another.”

Another laugh overpowered Cybele. “Busted.”

“Si, you are. And I’m reporting your reckless behavior to Rodrigo. He’ll probably have you chained to my wrist by your good arm until he gives you a clean bill of health.”

“Not that I wouldn’t be honored to have you as my…uh, keeper, but can I bribe you into keeping silent?”

“You can. And you know how.”

“I don’t try to lift rock-filled suitcases again?”

“And do everything I say. When I say it.”

“Uh…on second thought, I’ll take my chances with Rodrigo.”