Master of Her Innocence (Bought by the Brazilian) by Chantelle Shaw Page A

wasn’t as if it meant anything to either of us.’ She assured herself that her emotions had not been involved, and she was certain it hadn’t meant anything to Diego. ‘What happened after you were brought here?’
    ‘I must have been knocked out cold and when I came round I was lying on a bed and a beautiful woman, who I’ve just learned is your sister, was leaning over me.’ He grinned. ‘For a couple of minutes I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.’
    ‘I doubt you would be allowed in,’ Clare muttered, feeling a hot surge of jealousy because Diego thought Becky was beautiful.
    ‘Becky told me she had been kidnapped, but I didn’t make the connection between the two of you because I believed your story that you were a nun going to teach at a Sunday school.’ His expression hardened. ‘You don’t look at all like your sister.’
    ‘Which explains why Becky is one of the most photographed models in the world and I’m an accountant,’ she muttered.
    Enzo halted outside a door and knocked. He looked nervous, and Clare’s heart jumped into her throat. ‘I wonder who Rigo is,’ she whispered.
    ‘His name is Rodrigo Hernandez and he heads the biggest drugs cartel in western Brazil, with smuggling routes across the borders into Colombia and Peru,’ Diego explained in a low voice. ‘He also operates a huge prostitution racket, has been linked to several high-profile kidnappings and has a reputation for extreme violence.’
    ‘Quiet,’ Enzo growled, before he opened the door. ‘Rigo will see you now.’
    Clare was aware that her life and Becky’s depended on the outcome of her meeting with the dangerous man inside the room. She felt sick with fear and her feet seemed to be rooted to the floor so that she could not move. A hand grasped hers and she jerked her eyes to Diego’s.
    ‘All right?’ he asked softly. He squeezed her fingers when she nodded. ‘That’s my girl.’
    As they walked into Rigo’s office, Clare gained an impression of walnut-panelled walls, a richly patterned carpet and heavy velvet curtains that were drawn across the windows and blocked out the daylight. The stark white light from a lamp illuminated the spirals of smoke that rose up from the tip of the cigar that the man sitting behind the desk held clamped between his lips.
    Rodrigo Hernandez was dressed in a sober grey suit and tie and looked more like a well-to-do lawyer than a violent drugs lord who was one of the most wanted men in South America. But his black eyes were pitiless, Clare thought, and his cold smile sent a shiver through her.
    ‘Miss Marchant. I see you have brought a friend with you. Take a seat, both of you.’
    ‘Diego agreed to drive me to Torrente, but I didn’t tell him the real reason for my trip. He’s not involved in any of this and you should let him go.’
    ‘ Should is not a word I am familiar with,’ Rigo said in a pleasant voice that was somehow utterly terrifying. Clare looked into the black holes of his eyes and sat down abruptly before her legs gave way.
    ‘I have the money you asked me to bring.’ She put the briefcase on the desk and, at a nod from Rigo, one of his henchmen opened it and took out a number of prayer books. ‘Oh.’ She had forgotten about the books and blushed at the reminder of how she had deliberately misled Diego into believing she was a nun. She avoided looking at him. ‘I meant to deliver them to the Sunday school.’ She picked up the book of Keats’s poems that she had put into the case for safekeeping and slid it on to her lap.
    ‘Five hundred thousand pounds,’ Rigo’s assistant confirmed when he finished counting the money.
    ‘Now you know that all the money is there, will you allow my sister to go free as...as was agreed?’ Clare’s voice faltered when Rigo stood up and walked around the desk. She held her breath as he touched her hair and wound a long auburn curl around his fingers.
    ‘Such a beautiful colour,’ he murmured. ‘I sense, Miss