Fated for Sanchez

By Kristin Ravelle

"Stylish and Smexy: A Real Gem!"

"... exquisitely crafted romance..."

Lilli Eden has tried to forget the summer she spent in Malaga, Spain, at her friend, Jimena’s, and her older brother, smouldering Sanchez. They shared heated glances all that summer but nothing more for Sanchez was engaged. Or that's what Lilli thought.
Four years on Lilli feels she’s finally grown past their youthful, searing physical attraction for Sanchez Varellano but upon gaining control of her parents’ trust fund, she discovers her deceased Uncle Jeremy had secretly invested it in a Varellano business expansion. Sanchez now holds the purse strings to her and her younger sister Lucie’s futures for several years.

Sanchez has been dealt a hand by fate and intends to use it, and not to just redress an old Varellano family score. He has a private agenda of his own for the ravishing Lilli.

The Eden and Varellano families share a painful history that binds them together. Can Lilli take a chance with Sanchez for dreamt of futures for her and Lucie or will it finally drive them apart. Or will fate be on the side of their love this time?

Sweet/spicy heat, Mediterranean Men. Stand-alone novel, HEA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristin Ravelle
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463156872

Kristin Ravelle

Welcome Readers, Spring is on its way and if you're looking for some new HEA sweet heat reads check out Fated for Sanchez, my contemporary romance now available at Smashwords, and with a new, hot cover! If you love delicious, dark Alpha males, check out swoon worthy Sanchez ~ "Stylish and smexy..." Wintery fairy tales, especially The Snow Queen, are one of my personal faves. Cursed Ice Prince, my take on the SQ, is now available exclusively here at Smashwords! A love born through an evil enchantment... between mortal Kai and powerful elemental Anyu (SQ). Clean romance and winter legends and lore ready for cozy reading evenings. It's right to say I'm an eclectic writer and that comes through in my odd mix of cross genre titles. But in the end, I think we all love to read stories with a little bit of magic... ! For fresh, pretty wedding and birthday celebration invitations and paperie, please visit my Zazzle shop at https://www.zazzle.com/store/paperie_artemisia ! best in 2020 Kristin

Book preview

Fated For Sanchez

Copyright 2019 Kristin Ravelle

Ontario, Canada

Smashwords eBook Edition 2019

ISBN #9780463156872

Cover designed by Kristin Ravelle

With Public Domain Images from Pixabay

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

This eBook is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

Kristin Ravelle asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

SERENATA

The night soaks itself

along the shore of the river

and in Lolita’s breasts

the branches die of love.

The branches die of love.

Naked the night sings

above the bridges of March.

Lolita bathes her body

with salt water and roses.

The branches die of love.

The night of anise and silver

shines over the rooftops.

Silver of streams and mirrors

Anise of your white thighs.

The branches die of love.

Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), born Fuentes Vaqueros, Spain.

Poet, Playwright, and Theatre Director

FATED FOR SANCHEZ

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Sanchez in London

Chapter 2- Fated Family History

Chapter 3 – Regrets of Geoffrey

Chapter 4 – Inexplicable Sanchez

Chapter 5 – Engagement

Chapter 6 – Malaga Again

Chapter 7 – Lucie Leaves for Barcelona

Chapter 8 – Lilli at Spa Cortz

Chapter 9 – Poisonous Valeria

Chapter 10 – Valeria’s Betrayal

Chapter 11 – Popstar Mateo

Chapter 12 – the Varellano

Chapter 13 – Lilli Gets to Work

Chapter 14 – Sanchez’ Accident

Chapter 15 - EPILOGUE

About Kristin

Cursed Ice Prince – Free Excerpt

Kristin Online

Chapter 1 – Sanchez in London

Sanchez scowled at the sudden turn of weather. London’s limpid January morning surrendered its grey calm in the space of one moment to a blinding snow storm. It was a volatile state he recognized very close to the current state of his own mind.

He impatiently signaled the driver who caught his look in the rear view and stopped the crawling pace of the private hire car. Sanchez exited the back door of the ink-blue vehicle only to be assaulted by the frigid onslaught of whirling snow. Quickly leaning into the strong wind he moved from the traffic-jammed sedan to the entrance doors of the Vauxhall Towers a block along.

Bloody English weather, the English lawyer had cursed not twenty minutes earlier to Sanchez over his cell phone. That was likely the only thing he and Señor Rosen would agree upon Sanchez reflected cynically as his lengthy pace cut through swirling icy winds to the office building.

The man was competent enough for conveying information, Sanchez quickly summarized the lawyer mentally, but whatever Rosen’s negative recommendations, Sanchez refused point blank to postpone this meeting with Lilli Eden.

Did Rosen actually expect to use the terrible weather to stall proceedings? Sanchez set his jaw at its most obstinate angle. Nothing on earth had the power to change the tragic event decades ago that had now grown twisted implications through time; a tragedy that could only be said to have been organized by fate.

He thrust hard on the rotating glass doors against the powerful wind vacuum just to be propelled forward into the Vauxhall gold-glass atrium on a heavy blast of snow.

Fate. What was she really? Unpredictable, sometimes cruel, and always impartial, Sanchez saw her for her capriciousness. He didn’t like unpredictable, but how to manage a force of nature?

He shook the snow from his cashmere coat and took in the cavernous interior of the Vauxhall, an ostentatious base for even a successful lawyer. In the end he rued, fate did whatever suited her. A man could put his oars in but usually ended up with damage control at best.

Time for damage control for an old, significant loss to the Varellano. He’d push a personal agenda of his at the same time he decided obstinately as he scanned the atrium with keen, perceptive eyes.

Office staff surged into the cathedral-height lobby from the unexpectedly frigid blast that howled on the other side of the glass. Sanchez was used to the admiring female glances that usually came his way but he had no interest in any of the women he saw. There was only one female Sanchez had even a remote desire to look upon.

Desire? Christo, would he even recognize the more mature Lilli Eden in the flesh? He gripped his long, elegant fingers tightly in his deep, velvety coat pockets.

Four long years. Nearly one of these Lilli had wasted in the arms of Geoffrey Atherton. Sanchez wanted only to grind the man into the dust not for his obscene family wealth, but for the way he used it as a notorious womanizer.

Jeremy Eden’s death three months ago had finally triggered things, including the exposure of certain unknown facts to Sanchez; facts that had quickly changed everything for him and had him cursing why he’d waited this long.

Lilli without doubt would walk through those glass doors this morning despite the raging elements. This was one meeting he was certain she would take great pains to attend for today the management of the Eden family trust was to be transferred into her care.

Sanchez mentally reviewed the investment deal he’d made with Jeremy Eden the year before with scorching criticism. He considered himself to have a highly astute business sense but unusual for him he had completed the deal with Eden without once having met the man.

He must have been loco, insane, to close the agreement without his customary precautions.

As for Eden, his actions had been those of an imbecile. The man had responded on his own initiative to the Varellano Initial Public Offering and released the loan funds immediately upon signature of their deal.

Sanchez recalled his intense satisfaction at Eden’s unexpected offer. He attributed it to the bond running back two generations between the Eden and the Varellano families, a powerful and, he at least would even say, a fated bond.

At the exact time of Eden’s IPO offering, there had been problems at the opening of the new Spa Cortz in Almeria, their newest location equipped to cater to the most demanding clientele. The building caught fire in a violent spring lightning storm and the back offices had been destroyed.

His Malaga HR manager had badgered him into madness with unending calls for decisions she felt only he should make. He should have found another situation for Valeria years ago despite the fact that she was stepsister to his dead cousin, Sanchez reminded himself again of the need for action on that front.

But with the Eden investment loan a done deal, he’d swiftly dropped that line to fully concentrate on repairing and opening the spa. It was the first time he’d left his lawyer to finish a deal. A bad mistake.

Sanchez drew a perfectly manicured hand through thick hair and watched the rapid stream of professionals scurrying in to escape winter’s wrath.

Now, Jeremy Eden too was dead.

The investment loan still stood firm, though revelation from his lawyer of the exact source of the funds had rocked Sanchez to the core. Jeremy Eden had been a sentimental fool who had gambled with the Eden family trust in one single ill considered move.

Infierno. Sanchez itched to light up one of his aromatic cigarillos at the thought of Eden’s idiocy. How had the man managed his own bank account?

Still, Eden’s sentimentality had paved open the doorway for him to seize not only what he felt the Edens owed the Varellano, but to claim a personal prize of his own.

A violent gust of icy air blew in a single straggler through the revolving doors. A woman blew in wearing a winter trench that flapped about her wildly, escaping the clutch of her cold, unclad fingers. She was forced to keep her back to the wind gusts in order to capture the edges of her protective coat. At the same time, the partial slit up the back seam suddenly flew up revealing her slender, rounded backside, encased in a mulberry-coloured wool dress. Tall, deep-brown leather boots reached to the modest hemline.

Sanchez’ gaze riveted over her slender back. It curved sweetly to her rounded hips and he was momentarily bedazzled by such an unexpectedly sensual vision. She instantly jerked down her coat and then stood again revealing her flushed, oval face.

A jag of heated recognition shot straight through the entire length of his body. Sanchez watched in strange fascination as she turned up her eyes to his, deep azure then darkened aqua, like the Mediterranean at his hacienda in Malaga. Finally they shifted to complete non-recognition. But then it wasn’t likely that Lilli would recognize him instantly after the years that had passed he reasoned.

Keeping his head turned slightly, he carefully watched her walk to the elevators. She removed her wool hat, shaking off the snow. Glossy mahogany tendrils fell out over her shoulders, undulating in an undertone of wood-dark reds that contrasted with her petal perfect skin. Even her lush, raspberry stained mouth seemed imbued with life, an invitation for masculine attention. He found himself unable to remove his surreptitious, transfixed gaze.

Lilli had grown into a stunning woman he realized in a kind of sensual shock. He’d known four years ago that she was going to grow into a beauty, but he hadn’t known just how much of one.

Somehow she still radiated an unaffected air that he found difficult to accept knowing what he did about her and Atherton.

Would it make any difference? He instantly and harshly questioned himself. The critical factor in his mind was only that she was not married. That and a few other essential bits of information provided by the agency had been all he’d needed to know.

He wouldn’t allow that there was something open and vulnerable in her sea-deep eyes. And it definitely didn’t matter that his body kicked into ferocious life at the mere luscious sight of her as if four years had never slogged by. None of that mattered, he thought brusquely, grinding such feelings competently out of existence to keep focused.

She stepped up to the elevators somewhat self-consciously, not allowing him further eye contact. The steel doors hissed open, then shut, and she was gone from his view. Sanchez removed a cigarillo from his silk-lined breast pocket. An unhealthy vice he decided as always, but something of a needful one. And he stepped back out into the blizzard to have a smoke.

Lilli punched in the 22nd floor the instant she stepped into the lift. Who was that so-sexy male? She couldn’t remember being so intensely looked over by anyone in her entire life than by the striking Latino standing in the Vauxhall atrium. Her scalp flushed a dark shade of heated crimson from of his deep-eyed assessment of her that he’d nearly managed to keep imperceptible.

There was something distinctly familiar and unsettling about him. Lilli tried to make the mental connection while watching the floor buttons light up in succession.

Wealthy without doubt, high society Latin, she considered. Certainly no regular tube-riding London male wore a cream cashmere coat to the office, or at least no one in her social group did. A man with a very expressive jaw line. Lilli shook herself mentally. No time to fantasize about handsome foreign men for today her life was about to seriously change.

Surprised that Walter hadn’t postponed things on account of the sudden snow storm, she nevertheless eagerly forged her way to his office. Control of her parents’ sizeable trust fund was to be transferred to her today. The transfer hadn’t been due for another year under her parents’ stipulations if Jeremy had lived, but a devastating illness had claimed her uncle’s life at shocking speed.

At least Uncle Jeremy had been released from the misery of pain, Lilli thought sadly of his drawn features as he had become paler and weaker at the end. Modern life had always been particularly hard on him as he was such a sentimental man. Still, he