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Her Accidental Spanish Heir
Caitlin Crews
This book is for you.
That I get to write these books at all, much less one hundred of them, is one of the greatest joys of my life.
Thank you for letting me tell you these stories, for loving these characters and for taking this journey with me over the past fifteen years—through glorious kingdoms, private islands, glamorous cities and too many marvelous palazzi to count all over the world. Here’s to at least one hundred more. I can’t wait to see where we go next!
With love and gratitude,
Caitlin
CHAPTER ONE
WhenIgetto the office that summer morning I am already grumpy, thanks to the usual vagaries of the New York City subway system, and it takes me a moment to realize that Tess is not just sitting at her desk, but issmiling.
Given that Tess Erdrich, my secretary and office manager, is what I can only call a battle-ax, this is surprising. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her smile before in our five years of working together. I’m not sure I like seeing it now.
“It’s a marvelous day,” she tells me, and now I’m terrified. Tess is a New Jersey native who has never expressed a single iota of enthusiasm about anything, ever. She beams at me, and I pull out my phone to call 911. “He’s here.”
That is not a sentence that makes any sense. I squint at her. “He who?”
“The only him,” she retorts, like I’m being coy. Or deliberately obtuse. Neither of which is in my wheelhouse and she should know that. “The big guy. The boss.Him.”
“Is this a religious thing?” I ask, lost. I’ve never pretended to speak Catholic and she’s always graciously pretended she doesn’t find that baffling.
“It’s the closest that I’ve personally come to God,” Tess throws back, and then gives me an exasperated look. “You’re slow today, Annagret. I am referring to our boss, the head of the firm, who finally deigned to make an appearance this morning.” She smiles then, very cat and canary, and this is no less terrifying. “Mr. Luc Garnier himself has reported for duty.”
That name goes through me like an electric current.
Luc Garnier, the owner and much sought-after head investigator at Miravakia Investigations, is so constantly busy that he is never here. Instead, he is forever caught up in the concerns of billionaires, kingdoms, and multinational corporations, dedicated to solving their problems with his keen eye and razor-sharp investigative abilities. He is always rushing from one secret job to the next, too in demand from all quarters to do more than message his instructions from his private plane as he moves from the Côte d’Azur to Saint Barts to Brussels, and back again.
He does not come to New York City office buildings without warning. And he certainly does not appear inthisone, no matter what.
Something I am absolutely, one hundred percent sure of.
Because I made him up.
Tess studies my face, her overly dramatic eyebrows rising at whatever look she sees there. I honestly can’t imagine what it might be as the shock of what she said still reverberates inside me.
“Well, well,” she says, drawing the syllables out. “And here I thought you were an ice queen through and through. Frozen solid, never to thaw. Turns out you do have a little spark in there after all. For the boss, no less.”
As I laugh that off, I realize I’m playing directly into whatever fantasy she has about me andthe boss. Because I’m clearly awkward and flustered, but I can’t explainwhy. I can’t explain any of this, so I do the only thing available to me. I let her see me flustered.
But not too flustered, because even Tess, who is occasionally shockingly romantic beneath her tough Jersey veneer, would find it unbelievable to see metooflustered.
“About time he shows his face,” I say, because surely that’s what someone would say if this was a real boss turning up to his own firm like this. I turn and march past her desk, as if I’m off to slay the dragon in its lair, my mind spinning wildly with every step.
Truth is, the Luc Garnier lie is one that I never expected would or could come back to haunt me like this. Not once I put it into play and was able to see how well it works.
I’d had the best of intentions at the start. When I decided that I could use what my literal wicked stepmother liked to call myalarming nosinessto my advantage, and instead of ending up on the streets as I’m sure she intended, I became a full-fledged private investigator.
She always did underestimate me.
I’d thought it would be easy enough. Put up a shingle, get to gumshoeing, and call it a day. But the sad truth of the matter is that people didn’t want to entrust their dirty secrets, questionable obsessions, and darkest truths to the overly perky twenty-year-old blonde girl I’d been then.
Looking back from the vantage point of these eight years I’ve spent acquiring culture, sophistication, and my own sharp-edged veneer to rival anything Tess’s Jersey can throw up, I’m not sure I can blame them.