Ruined by the Marquess: A Forced Marriage Historical Romance (Arranged Marriage Historical Romance Traditional Regency Romance) (Alpha Male Matchmaking Romance Historical Victorian Romance) (5 page)

Kris was still thinking about that beautiful girl who’d distracted him that morning at the college. What was her name??? Rachel! Yes, she was Rachel. Beautiful name, Kris thought to himself. He’d seen her for the first time and so he assumed that she was a fresher.

Though Kris was quite popular among the fairer sex due to his good looks, he did not date much. He usually kept to himself at the college too and was sort of an enigma for many girls. He got his fair share of indecent proposals but every time, he turned them down as politely as he could. He was not looking for a serious relationship at this point in life and he was not the sort of guy to do casual hook ups.

There was only one thing on his mind at the moment- he wanted to finish college and then somehow venture into real estate. He even had a friend who was willing to become his partner. He had seen his mother struggle with finances after his dad’s sudden death and this tragedy strengthened his resolve to earn so much money that none of his dear ones would have to undergo the same fate for centuries to come.

Kris got up from his bed and moved towards his study table. His apartment was pretty basic and small, but that was all he could afford at the moment. He once again read all the notes that he’d jotted down at the college today. When he took out his economics notes, Rachel’s face once again appeared before his eyes. Was that girl some sort of an enchantress? No other woman had ever had that sort of effect on him!

“Watch out, Kris! You have to avoid that sweet temptation at all costs!” he said to himself.

                        *************************************

Next morning, Rachel entered the Economics class and her eyes involuntary studied all the faces to locate that one face that she’d been wanting to see so desperately. She couldn’t fathom why but the thought of seeing Kris again was making her insides melt.

To her dismay, she found him already seated beside a robust blonde who was eyeing him in a very strange manner. She found an empty seat right behind him and quickly walked towards it before anyone else could take it. While passing by Kris, she hoped that he’d look up and say hello, maybe? But he did nothing of the sort. In fact, Rachel could swear that he deliberately drowned his head in a thick book lying before him so that he could avoid looking at her.

“What a jerk!” she thought to herself. “If he doesn’t want to acknowledge my presence, then so be it! I’ll also pretend that I don’t know him.”

Rachel however knew that it was easier said than done. Every little movement of his captured her attention. The way his muscles flexed when he bent down to pick something, the way he kept fiddling with his pen….Rachel noticed everything. She was also witnessing from behind how the girl sitting beside him was trying every tactic she knew to catch his attention, but to no avail.

What was wrong with this guy? It seemed that he was averse to female company in general. Could it be possible that he was gay?

The mere possibility of a man as macho as Kris being gay made her laugh out loud before she could stop herself. The whole class fell silent all of a sudden and Professor Adam looked at her questioningly.

“Is there something that you’d like to share with us Miss Wright? As far as I know, there isn’t anything particularly funny in the demand-supply curve that I am trying to explain at the moment.”

Rachel felt all the eyes in the room turn towards her, including two deep brown ones that belonged to a man she wanted to throttle at the moment.

“Uhh… I am sorry, Professor. I was thinking about something else.” Rachel wanted to die!

“And is that ‘something’ more important than this lecture?” Professor asked her again, a little sternly this time.

“No, of course not! I apologize Professor and assure you that I’ll pay proper attention from now on.”

Rachel heaved a sigh of relief after the lecture got over. As she was trying her best not to look at Kris as he was gathering his stuff and preparing to leave, she heard him call out her name.

“Hi Rachel!”

“Oh, hi Kris! I thought that perhaps you suffered from short term memory loss as you hardly recognized me this morning,” she blurted out.

He merely raised one of his eyebrows at her sudden outburst and his lips tilted a little to give a hint of a smile.

“I am sorry! That came out wrong. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

“It’s okay! Are you new here?”

“Yes, yesterday was my first day in this college,” Rachel smiled. She was beginning to feel a little better now that Kris was acting normally.

“I hadn’t seen you before yesterday so I guessed you might be a fresher.” Both of them exited the class together.

“So, is this your first year in college too?” Rachel asked him.

“Yes,” came the curt reply. But Rachel was thankful that at least he was talking to her. They kept walking in comfortable silence for a few moments and though Rachel had to attend a lecture in the adjacent block, she didn’t want to leave his company just yet. “Are you British?” she asked him before she could stop herself. When he looked at her with an amused grin plastered on his very handsome face, she clarified, “Actually I happened to see your full name on the one of the papers yesterday….”

“My father was a Spaniard. I was born and brought up in London though.”

“Hmmm…. So you must have been to Spain?” What a foolish question!

“Yes, a lot of times. In fact, I have much of my extended family there.”

“Hmmm…” Some more silent moments passed by as they walked aimlessly.

“I have another lecture in about 5 minutes,” Kris told her, looking at his watch.

“Oh, yeah! Even I have to attend a lecture in the second block and I think I am already late.”

“Goodbye then.”

“Goodbye.”

Rachel could feel it in her heart that this was not a goodbye, in fact this was sort of a new beginning!

Rachel and Kris soon started spending every free minute that they could steal from their busy college schedule in each other’s company. Kris loved her outgoing and cheerful personality and no matter how much he tried to explain himself that theirs was just a casual friendship, deep down he knew that Rachel meant much more to him than just a normal friend. In a few days, he’d come to know that she came from a wealthy, conservative family in Kent and how desperately she wanted to break free from the traditions and prove to her family that she could manage their family business just as efficiently as her father and other male cousins.

Rachel, on the other hand, had already fallen for Kris. No matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to get him out of her head. While in college, she kept waiting for her lectures to get over so that she could spend some time with him. She often felt guilty for hiding her relationship with Kris from her parents but then what would she tell them? They had not even been on a single formal date as yet and she wasn’t completely sure of Kris’s feelings for her. Moreover, she feared that she might be called back to Kent if her father got to know about their secret affair (that is, if she could call what she had with Kris an affair at all!) They were good friends who understood each other pretty well but Kris had never given her a reason to believe that he was as attracted to her as she was to him.

She knew for sure that she was more than a friend to him, the way he looked at her sometimes, the way he cared for her, the way his eyes shone whenever they were together…. They’d even come close to sharing a kiss once but then all of a sudden, Kris had backed out. Utterly disappointed, Rachel had assumed that perhaps he didn’t want to offend her. If only he knew about her true feelings for him!

                  ******************************************

“Rachel, I have some good news for you!” Shelly was sounding too excited.

“What is it Shelly?” Rachel had been down with fever for almost a week now. She’d been missing college and she’d been missing Kris even more. He’d called her a few times and had even sent her a bouquet of her favorite yellow roses but after so many days of not seeing him in person, she longed to be in his company once again.

“Look who’s here to see you!” Shelly’s voice was bubbling with excitement.

Rachel could almost feel his presence. She jumped out of bed to see a smiling Kris standing in the doorway holding a small bunch of yellow roses.

“Hi Rachel!”

“Oh, hi Kris! What a pleasant surprise!” Rachel felt her entire world shine once again with a thousand lights as soon as she saw him.

Kris hadn’t realized until the past few days how much he’d grown fond of Rachel. Who was he kidding, he’d actually fallen in love with her! No matter how much he tried to stay aloof, no matter how much he tried to not get emotionally attached to her, the woman had finally managed to get under his skin. God only knew how he spent the last six days without seeing her! He had promised himself that he’d never meet her out of college, that would help him maintain a safe distance from her, but the torture of spending six long days without catching a glimpse of her had weakened his resolve and thrown that promise out of the window. And now here he was, standing at her doorstep like a man who had finally spotted a lake after being thirsty for days on an end!

The sound of Shelly loudly clearing her throat finally brought the two of them out of their trance and they realized that they’d been openly staring each other since the past few seconds.

“Now if you both have had your fill of staring at one another, I have an important announcement to make! Rachel, I am going to the supermarket to fetch some groceries and after that I have an appointment with the dentist, so guys, you have this place all to yourselves for the next couple of hours! Make the most of it,” Shelly said all of that in one long breath and winked at Rachel before hurriedly leaving the apartment.

Rachel felt her face go a crimson red!

“Shelly can be absolutely outrageous at times! I..I don’t know why she said what she said. I mean, obviously we are just good friends and you know, it’s not like we’ve been missing each other and….”

Kris silenced her with a long, sweet kiss…. a kiss that was both fierce and gentle, a kiss that held passion and promise, a kiss that shook Rachel to her very core. At last, she’d got what she’d been craving for since months. When their lips parted, Rachel couldn’t stand on her feet. Her mind was reeling with the after effects of that amazing kiss and she held onto Kris with both her hands.

“I’ve missed you, sweetheart!” he whispered in her ear.

“I’ve missed you more,” she managed to say once she got her voice back. They both held each for sweet long moments before he finally made her sit on the bed.

“Are you feeling better now?” Kris asked her, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. That simple gesture made her heart swell with a feeling she couldn’t put a name to.

“Yes, much better now that you are here,” she smiled.

“Rachel, God knows how much I tried not to get emotionally involved with you. I…I wanted to keep things simple, I tried everything in my power to keep our relationship a platonic one, but I think I failed.” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

“I am glad you did!” Rachel responded cheekily after a brief pause at which Kris laughed out loud. That was just like his Rachel, impulsive and spontaneous! “You have no idea how much I waited for this,” Rachel looked at him with so much love reflecting in her eyes that Kris felt compelled to kiss her once again. Now that he’d gotten a taste of those luscious lips, he wanted to explore them again and again.

This kiss was even more powerful than the last one. Both of them couldn’t seem to get enough of each other. When Rachel moved her hands from the nape of his neck to the wide expanse of his chest, Kris lost his last shred of self control.

He knew that this wasn’t right, he knew that he should’ve waited until both of them were ready to take this relationship forward, he knew that he might have to regret all of this later on, but at that precise moment, all his common sense seemed to have abandoned him. All he wanted was to make love to this beautiful woman who loved and trusted him with all she had.

Kris and Rachel experienced the most beautiful moments of their lives in the next two hours. He made love to her till the time she came apart in her arms and Kris could swear it was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. Exhausted with her first experience at lovemaking, Rachel fell into a dreamless slumber in his arms. Kris looked at the contented look on her pretty face and couldn’t believe his good luck. This amazingly beautiful woman loved
him
! He was the luckiest man on the planet.

Present

London- 4 April 2015

Ten years ago….. That was the last time Rachel had seen Kris. She could still vividly remember that distant look in his eyes when he’d come out of her father’s office.

                              *********************************

“Rachel, I need to go. But I promise you that I’ll be back, just wait for me, okay?”

“What are you saying Kris? Where are you going? When will you be back?” There were a thousand questions raging in her mind. What happened inside the four walls of her father’s office that changed his demeanor in such a manner? He’d gone inside a confident man and came out looking defeated and insulted. But there was also a determined look in his eyes…as if he’d made up his mind about something.

“I don’t have time to answer your questions Rachel. Just believe me this last time…. I will come back to you when the time is right.” Without a backward glance, he strode out of her father’s office and Rachel later realized, from her life too!

Her entire world came crashing down after Kris’s departure. She cried for months. Often, she would wake up in the middle of the night hoping all of this was a bad dream. But when she finally decided to accept reality, Rachel tried her best to move on in life. This was the least she could do for her parents, especially her father who’d trusted her and allowed her to follow her dreams.

Kris had betrayed her. All along, he’d made her feel that he loved her…and she’d been so naïve! Her father was not happy about their relationship since the very beginning and had even warned her on a lot of occasions.

“Rachel, you are too young to realize what’s good or bad for you. That man, Kris, he’s after your fortune….”

“Daddy!” she’d shouted, “Please do not make any false assumptions. You don’t even know him! He loves me more than anything else in the world.”

“Love is not enough to feed empty stomachs darling. What does that man have? He lives in a filthy, one bedroom rented apartment…”

“But he’s brilliant daddy and not everybody in this world is born with a golden spoon. You just wait and watch, Kris will earn big name for himself in the real estate market soon.”

“Ha! So he wants to enter the real estate market, huh? Don’t you see sweetheart? Why is he so interested in real estate? He knows that your family has been in this business since decades and he’s using you as a stepping stone to gain quick and easy money.”

But Rachel had never doubted Kris’s love for her. And since her father loved her so much, he’d at last agreed to give Kris a chance. And what had
he
done? He’d demanded that her father transfer 80% of his company’s shares in his favor! The fact that she tried to reach out to Kris multiple times but to no avail only proved her father right. The man was not willing to face her after the way he’d betrayed her trust.

                      ***********************************

Rachel couldn’t believe if this was really happening in her life. She looked down at the newspaper lying on her office desk- “Spanish Real Estate Tycoon Eyes London Properties.” The picture was all too real. Finally he’d kept his promise…. Kris Frances Villa was returning back to her life after almost a decade…

For the hundredth time that day, she studied his picture. His features had become sharper and that boyish charm had been replaced by harder lines that shouted attitude and arrogance. He looked even more handsome in the picture, but in a devilish sort of way.

“Why are you coming back, Kris? You ruined me once, but I will not allow you to hurt me again! Never, ever!” she said to his photograph.

Rachel got ready for her meeting with the new owner of Sunrise Developers. The company had been dealing with them since the past many years and had been recently taken over by another little known company. The new owner had decided to terminate their contract and she wanted to know the reason behind the decision.

“Miss Wright, the car’s waiting for you. You have a meeting with the new owner of Sunrise Developers and after that you’ll be heading to your father’s office for another meeting with the board of directors.”

“What’s the name of this new owner?”

“I have no idea ma’am. In fact, nobody really knows who he is. Some say that he’s a foreigner who is shifting base to London and some say that…”

“Never mind what people say! I have to make him see how profitable it is for both our companies to continue working together. Now let’s just hope that he’s not some stubborn old guy wary of new blood in the business!” smiled Rachel. She had earned quite a name for herself in the market in the past few years and she was very proud of her accomplishments. She had worked her ass off to be taken seriously in the male dominated business and had been a success so far.