by Mindy Neff
She took a breath, reached deep for calm. “Maybe I am overreacting, but I’m scared. If that makes me paranoid in your eyes, then I’m sorry.” For reasons she didn’t want to get into, it upset her that this man would think her weak. She wanted to make an impression on him. A good one.
Which was silly, really. He was a prince. She was just a small-town Mississippi mother on the run. She’d never been to Hollywood, or gone sailing, or attended a Grand Prix or a bullfight. She’d never met anyone who had celebrity status and wouldn’t know the first thing about his world.
Her world revolved around her daughters and writing children’s books. Nothing fancy about that.
He slid his hand beneath her hair and touched the nape of her neck, gently, the butterfly caress raising chills along her arms.
“Ah, sweet Chelsa. I have again misspoken and wounded you. It is I who shall apologize.” His fingers kneaded her shoulders, his breath warm against her ear. “I am not judging you poorly. In my blundering way I am merely asking you to trust me.”
“Said the spider to the fly,” she muttered. She felt the length of him against her back. He was a man who touched and held as though it was second nature. A woman could read more into his instinctive actions and attentiveness than was safe.
And safety was definitely an issue right now.
“No, querida, I am not attempting to catch you in my web. I may be irresponsible at times, but I am not deceitful.”
She shouldn’t continue to allow him to hold her like this, with his hands at her shoulders and his virile body brushing hers, but she couldn’t seem to move. The sand beneath her feet might as well have been quicksand.
“I didn’t think Rick was deceitful, either.”
“Of course not. But will you judge all others by his behavior? Is that the message you would pass on to your little girls? Your animated water babies extend friendship to others. Can you not practice what you preach?”
“A fictional story is a far cry from real life.”
“Perhaps. But a part of you comes across in those pages. I am attempting to extend to you my friendship. All you have to do is reach out and accept it.”
“At one time that might have been easy. Now, though...” She shook her head. “How do you really trust someone, Tony?”
Suddenly the warmth of his body left her. Confused, she watched as he moved in front of her, his back to her, and glanced over his shoulder. Holding his arms straight out from his sides, he said, “It is simple. Catch me.”
“Wait!” She muffled an astonished laugh when he started to sway backward. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No. I am serious. Catch me.”
“I can’t. You’re too big. You’ll get hurt, and I’m not going to be responsible for a second concussion on top of the one you probably already have.” She glanced at the sand. He wouldn’t crack his head open, but still. “And it’s not that simple.”
“Yes. It is just that simple. I trust you not to let me fall.”
“That’s ridiculous. You don’t know—” Her words halted abruptly. Without warning he leaned back...and back. Good night, he was going to do it!
She leapt forward, hooked her arms beneath his and barely had time to link her fingers over his chest before she was accepting his weight, holding him, going down to the soft packed sand with him in her arms, breaking his fall.
Panting, her hip jarred slightly from the fall, she lightly punched his chest. “You idiot! You could have hurt yourself.”
“No. You would not let that happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
She made a disbelieving sound deep in her throat. “What if I’d turned my back at the last minute?” Somebody ought to put this man in a straitjacket for his own good.
His teeth flashed white in his too-handsome face. “But you didn’t. Just like you didn’t turn your back when I required rescuing from the surf.”
“I thought about it,” she muttered. “I didn’t know who was on that yacht.”
“But in the end you made the choice, at the risk of peril to yourself. That says more about you than you realize.”
“You’re giving me too much credit. Sophie and Emily put a guilt trip on me. Otherwise I’d have just gone back in the house.”
“Then my gratitude goes to your sweet daughters, as well. However, I believe you are fibbing.”
“I don’t fib.”
“You did just now.” Again his sexy smile flashed. “White lies are forgivable on occasion.”
She realized she was holding him in her arms. Her breasts were pressed against his back, his silky dark hair brushing her chin as he gazed up at her. Just like a lover. Intimately. Oh, he did that so well. Her legs were spread wide, cradling his hips, making her yearn.
And that yearning was out of the question.
She pushed at him, and he sat up. Crossing her legs, she sifted sand through fingers that trembled like an addict coming off drugs.
He faced her, mirroring her position, and touched the back of her knuckles. “Shall we reverse roles now?”
He was asking more than she could give. Blind trust. An absolute folly. He was watching her closely, waiting. The smell of the sea and the rhythmic ebb and flow of waves should have lulled her. In a perfect world this setting would invite soft whispers and confidences. Romance even.
But there wasn’t room in her life for whispers or romantic interludes. Only for sick dread and nerve-shattering anticipation.
White foam glittered in the light of the moon, but beyond the shoreline was only vast darkness. Although the balmy breeze held no chill, she shivered.
Across that ocean—somewhere—there was an unstable man who could make the world believe he was an innocent lamb, when in fact he was a nasty, devious, rabid wolf.
“Sometimes we think we know someone, but we really don’t. I didn’t know Rick.”
“We are all entitled to make mistakes.”
“Mine was a doozy.” Absently she trailed her fingers through the sand, drawing animated stick figures that would be washed away when the tide came in.
“Was there ever a time when you could count on your husband?”
She didn’t have a ready answer. Maybe at first Maybe not at all. She shrugged.
“Did he ever promise not to let you fall?” he pressed.
“No...I never asked.”
“Will you ask me?”
He said it so softly, his Latin accent washing over her like the thrilling caress of a welcome breeze. She didn’t understand his persistence. This was a man reputed to get itchy feet when he stayed in one place too long, spent too much time with one woman. “Why?”
“Because you never ask anything of others. You take it all on your shoulders. You did not trust your husband, even if it was a subconscious mistrust. You earned your teaching degree to have something to fall back on. You wrote your books, yet hid behind the name of another. Why was that?”
“Because he gambled.” Her head jerked up. Antonio had a way of lulling her into admissions she didn’t mean to impart. She sighed. “I wanted desperately to stay at home with my children, and that’s why I toyed with the idea of writing. I had to work because I needed money for groceries, for the girls’ clothes, for the rent.”
She pushed her hair back from her face. “When I was offered the contract for the water babies series, it was like a dream come true. I nearly told him....” She rubbed her palms on her knees, feeling pitiful that a wife could not tell her own husband of her success. “You guessed right. In the end I hid it from him, let him believe it was just a hobby. He wasn’t home all that much anyway, so it was fairly easy.”
“And why did you feel the need to hide?”
“If he’d seen the checks, he would have squandered the money, wanting to invest it in his next get rich scheme.”
“He would have stolen from you and his children.”
“No—”
“Yes. It is the same thing.
”
He was right. And it made her feel ashamed that she’d married a man who was like that, allowed him to hoodwink her so.
“I have an obscene amount of money,” he said, causing her to take a mental step back in order to catch up. “I would ask nothing of you...except for one thing.”
The skepticism that reared its ugly head was unavoidable. “What?”
“That you trust me with your friendship.” He got to his feet, pulled her up with him and stepped behind her. “No, do not turn or look at me.”
She did anyway, glancing over her shoulder, confused and wary.
His elevated brows told her he understood how difficult it was for her, that he was prepared to give her slack—to a point.
“Fall back, querida. I will catch you.”
His patience, and his utterly sincere, trustworthy look caused a chink in her armor. “You’re too far away. If I did decide to play this silly game—and I haven’t yet made up my mind—you’d have to come closer.”
He shook his head. “This is far from a game, bella. Trust that I will be there when it matters.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. Her voice trembled and she straightened her spine against the weakness.
“Yes, you can. Do it.”
She hesitated, thinking about it. She was nuts. Truly, certifiably nuts, yet a small part of her wanted to prove something.
Actually, more like a really big part of her. She hadn’t always been so cynical. At one time she’d been vibrant, full of joy, looking forward to each new day and experience. Was that same woman who’d looked at the world through rose-colored glasses still inside her?
“If you let me fall, you’ve had it.”
He tisked. “And ruin my sterling reputation? Never. Come on, Chelsa.”
The rush of adrenaline made her dizzy as she vacillated back and forth between courage and cowardice. She started to raise her arms out to her sides, then hesitated.
He sighed. “Have your girls never leapt from a high place and expected you to catch them?”
Her arms faltered. “Yes. What kid hasn’t?”
“And did you catch them?”
“Of course I did. But that’s different. I’m their mother.”
“It is the same principle, Chelsa.”
She didn’t think so. And doggone it, his voice sounded even farther away. She started to turn her head.
“No. Do not look. Just leap.”
“That’s so totally irresponsible.”
“I am not asking you to be irresponsible. We are conducting a test, a lesson. Show me that steel I know is running through your backbone, Ms. Lawrence.”
Well, he certainly knew how to push her buttons. Her arms whipped right out to her sides as though they’d been jerked by a puppeteer at a children’s party.
Her heart pounded and her palms grew slick. The doubting voice inside her told her this wasn’t going to work.
“Come closer.”
“Trust me, bella. When you need me, I will be close enough. You have my word. Fall back.”
She closed her eyes, and gathered her nerve. Arms out to her sides, she leaned back. Blood rushed to her head, adrenaline shot through her and the world spun.
For a split second she felt herself free-falling.
Then terror swamped her, catching her off guard like a monster rising out of a green mist.
She didn’t want to play.
He was the daredevil. Not her. This wasn’t a sure thing, and she’d learned to avoid anything that wasn’t an absolute. She wanted to call it off.
He wouldn’t make it in time, he was too far away.
But she was past the point of no return, too late to stop the momentum, too late to even bend her legs and break the fall.
She opened her mouth to scream, yet her lungs shut down. Time ground to a halt, like a freeze frame on a video. As though trapped in a surrealistic world of distorted images, her peripheral vision sharpened. Powdery Mediterranean sand rushed up to meet her in excruciatingly slow motion.
Every muscle in her body knotted in anticipation of impact, of pain. And oh, she knew about pain, the tearing of a dream, the shredding of insides, of a heart. In a mere fraction of a second, that pain would radiate to encompass a bruised body, too.
Strong arms slid under her, banded around her.
The world tilted as Antonio broke her fall, swept her up into his arms and cradled her close to his chest.
“Shh. I’ve got you, querida.”
She wasn’t even aware of the tears that trickled down her face until he ran his lips over the salty tracks. Her heart thundered in her ears.
She felt like a fool.
And she felt like the most cherished woman on earth.
He sat with her, held her there in the sand, stroked her hair and ran his thumb beneath her eyes, over her cheeks.
She looked up at him, expecting teasing triumph. What she saw was something else entirely. Intensity. Seriousness. Compassion.
And desire.
That last emotion registered an instant before his lips covered hers. Softly. Oh, so softly.
Her body went limp, melting into his, meeting the kiss and reveling in it. It had been so long, so very long since she’d felt so cherished, so safe. Her mind went blank of every responsibility she had, of every worry.
The smell of the sea and the man wrapped around her like a comforting cocoon. Yet comfort wasn’t in any way the right description for what he made her feel. She curled in his lap, feeling his arms tighten around her. Her own arms went around his neck, her fingers delving into his hair.
He kissed her with an expertise that stole her breath. The scratch of his whiskers on her face would leave marks, but she couldn’t think about that now. She could only feel. Heat, flashing and incendiary, whipped through her.
Her ankle-length sundress had ridden up on her legs, and she felt his hand at her thigh, burning through the cotton, his fingers stroking the sensitive skin just beneath the raised hem.
With a verve she’d repressed for way too long, she angled into the kiss, urging him to take it deeper, to take her higher.
Maybe it was her own hungry moan, or maybe it was the rogue wave crashing against the rocks that finally penetrated her sensual web, startling her. Reluctance was keen, but she managed to pull back.
Feeling drugged, her nerve endings ultrasensitive, she lifted her head and met the sensual gleam in his dark eyes.
Good night, what in the world had possessed her to allow things to go this far? She had an idea she wouldn’t soon forget this man’s touch, his taste. And like a coveted dream just out of reach, it would haunt her nights and her days.
“You said you’d wait for an invitation,” she whispered. His palm was like a sensual brand against her thigh. A warm ocean breeze licked over her exposed skin that hummed with exquisite stimulation. A stimulation so heightened, it bordered on pain.
“Yes. And your expressive eyes have given it.” He stared at her for so long, searching. “Do you deny it?”
No, she couldn’t. She straightened and untangled herself from his lap, feeling a little bereft when he let her go so easily. If she didn’t know better, she’d imagine he was as shell-shocked as she.
Which was a ridiculous fancy. This was a worldly man, used to casual encounters. It showed just how far out of his league she was that she should read more into a look, or a touch, than was there.
Trying for a modicum of sophistication, she said, “Your reputation is well earned. You pack quite a kiss, Prince Antonio.”
He winced. “Ah, querida, I had not expected you to toss reputation and hearsay in my face.”
“Are you saying it’s unwarranted?”
His look was unreadable. “Depends on which part we’re discussing.”
“I think you know.”
His dimples flashed. “I court danger, yes. And I love women. But I am not the carousing tomcat you might think.”
“Well...” She didn’t know what to say. Sudde
nly she felt embarrassed by her own passionate part in the kiss. She’d pounced on him like a starving woman at a feast. Pathetic.
Nerves zinging, she twisted her hands, then ran her damp palms down the sides of her dress and cleared her throat. “It’s late. I should check on the girls and go to bed.”
The minute she voiced the intention, another wave of heat suffused her body. If she didn’t force her feet to move, she was going to do something stupid. Like invite him to join her.
His sexy grin told her he knew exactly what she was thinking. Squaring her shoulders, she returned the grin, feigning a savoir faire she was far from feeling, and blew him a kiss. “In your dreams, Prince.” She turned to go in the house.
“Chelsa?”
She paused, keeping her back to him. Otherwise he would see her desire, see her for the fraud she was, see that it was taking every shred of good sense she possessed to keep from extending her hand...and begging. “Yes?”
“You are already in my dreams. Where would you like me to sleep?”
She whipped around. Darn him for being such a mind reader. “What—”
“Apparently I have appropriated your bed, and I am much too gallant to put you out of it two nights in a row. Although I find the idea of sharing a bed with you highly appealing, I do not think that is what you had in mind.” His smile was boyish, his dark brows raised in apparent innocence. “So that I do not overstep my welcome, where would you like me to retire?”
With me was not an acceptable reply. And his gallantry created a problem. Last night she’d bunked with the girls since the sofas in the front room were actually a grouping of love seats, not nearly big enough to stretch out on. And if they were too small for her, there was no way they’d accommodate Antonio’s six-foot-plus frame.
Of course, there was always the hammocklike glider on the porch, but that still offended her sense of hospitality. One did not banish a prince to the porch.
Where was a decent etiquette book when you needed it? In deference to his title, she should be the one to sleep on the porch, and she might have if it didn’t make her feel so vulnerable.
She needed locked doors made of solid wood, not a mere screen with a flimsy latch.
