Santa Fe Fortune & How to Marry a Matador

best friend Evie calling her on the phone about some recent catastrophe that had occurred… Jess’s mind raced, putting pieces of the puzzle together.
    Fernando Garcia de la Vega’s emerging telecommunications firm had been a long-term associate of her multinational corporation headquartered in New York. While Jess wasn’t super tech-savvy, she knew how money worked. Trained in the banking industry, she’d earned her stripes by helping arrange the takeover of United National Savings & Loan’s domestic division by InTrust Corp. While she’d really been the second in that job, her magnanimous superior had given her the bulk of the credit. The offer to head up the foreign acquisitions office at Global Financial Telecom had come just two weeks later. She’d accepted the post with a mixture of joy and trepidation. There she was at twenty-eight, and—according to everyone else—finally making her way. Inwardly, she feared she’d bitten off more than she could chew. She’d never handled such a large responsibility alone. What if she made a disaster of it all and failed everybody in the process?
    While Global Financial had started as a bank, it quickly expanded into the lucrative computing field, piloting the first purse-size, all-purpose computer. With computing and telecommunications becoming so intricately linked, interest in other types of personal electronic devices followed. So far, Jess had done a reasonable job, impressing her stern, middle-aged boss Madeline with her string of unlikely successes. She didn’t know how her mergers had always come through, but it appeared as if she had an invisible good luck charm buried somewhere deep in her pocket. Each time she got assigned to something new, Jess silently feared her luck would run out. Now, it appeared it finally had.
    Jess shut off the water and reached for a towel, her gaze panning toward the bedroom. How could she have let herself get swept away? So what if Fernando was gorgeous, intelligent, and had an accent to die for? That was no reason to go shedding her clothes and getting married! Jess cinched the towel around herself, realizing she had that in the wrong order. The marriage part had come before the hopping into bed. But why had she done it? She wasn’t that old-fashioned, for heaven’s sake. Sleeping with a man after a few too many sangrias and a momentary lapse in judgment was one thing. Saying “I do” under the arch of an orange tree in the courtyard of some small church whose name she couldn’t pronounce was something else entirely.
    Jess warmed at the memory of Fernando kissing her by the main plaza’s fountain, sweetly at first—and then with the passion of a parched man determined to drink her in. Her face flashed hot as she further recalled Fernando’s skilled, masculine touch once he’d brought her back to his lair. The ranch was breathtaking in its desolate beauty, rows of olive trees threaded by moonlight, a faraway vineyard trailing over burnt hills.
    She hadn’t even known he’d come from a family of matadors or had once worked as a bullfighter himself. These were stories he told to few people, he’d assured her with a tender caress before leading her up the stairs. While the townsfolk of La Esperanza del Corazón viewed him as a hero, in Madrid Fernando was just a successful businessman. Neither the family he came from nor the world he’d left behind had any bearing on his corporate potential. So he’d shuttered away his past, vowing to reserve its unveiling only for those special parties with whom he might share a future. He’d led her to his bed then, saying that their impromptu marriage had been a blessing, something he’d never wish undone—no matter how she might think of him tomorrow. And, when he’d offered to show her the scar that tore from his upper left thigh to his navel, she’d found it impossible to say no.
    Jess moistened a washcloth from a nearby stand with cool water and pressed it to her chest. Fine trickles slid south, gliding into her cleavage.
    Okay, so she’d admit it. Ever since they’d first met six months ago, she’d been reduced to a handful of putty each time he’d given her that deep, expressive look with those impossibly unnerving eyes. Still, she’d steeled herself against him, understanding that when he was being flirty, it was likely in the interest of his own financial gain. That was just what Fernando was: untrustworthy. Which was precisely why she had no reason to trust