When Da Silva Breaks the Rules

by Abby Green

  In a bid to try and disguise her discomfiture Lexie turned back to where she was frying some eggs and bacon, glancing over her shoulder. ‘I hope you don’t mind... I found some food in the fridge. Are you hungry?’

  She was babbling now.

  Cesar just leant back against the island in the kitchen and said huskily, ‘I’m starving.’

  But the look he sent up and down Lexie’s body told her he didn’t mean for food. She bit her lip and tried to ignore her body’s reaction. Was this even normal?

  Somehow she managed to make something resembling breakfast and coffee, and to serve it up without it ending up all over the floor.

  The state-of-the-art kitchen in Cesar’s apartment led into a large open-plan dining/living space. She sat down at the table there and noticed that there were Sunday papers, and—thankfully—that Cesar had put a top on.

  He saw her glance at the papers and explained, ‘The concierge drops them in if I’m here.’

  Lexie spotted something that piqued her interest and pulled one of the more tabloid-looking papers out of the pile—only to realise that the press had managed to catch her and Cesar on their open-top bus tour.

  There were also pictures of them walking hand in hand back to the apartment.

  Something about that sent acute disappointment to her gut. It had been a spontaneous moment. This tainted the memory. She said faintly, ‘I never imagined they could have known that we’d be doing that.’

  Cesar took a sip of coffee and said, almost absent-mindedly, ‘I called my assistant—told her to tip them off anonymously.’

  Something cold slithered into Lexie’s gut. She put down her fork and looked at Cesar and brought up a dim recollection of him on his phone briefly at one stage on the bus.

  ‘But....’ Lexie was about to ask him why when she stopped herself. Of course he’d wanted to tip them off. They were meant to be courting the press—for both their benefits. Why waste an opportunity to document it?

  ‘But...?’ he asked.

  She hated to think it, even to acknowledge it, but she felt betrayed. And she shouldn’t be feeling that. Because if she did then it meant that Cesar had attained a significance for her that she had no control over.

  She forced a smile and shook her head. ‘But nothing. Of course you should have tipped them off. It was a good opportunity to let them see us.’

  Cesar watched Lexie continuing to eat her breakfast and something twisted inside him. She looked so young, so innocent.

  When he’d woken up alone in the bed his immediate reaction had been irritation that she’d left. He’d been about to go and find her when he’d remembered her tears, that incredible outpouring of emotion, and like a coward he’d stopped. Not sure if he was ready to face that searing blue gaze in the morning light.

  The look in her eyes just now, though, made him feel like a heel. His own conscience mocked him. Making that call to his assistant yesterday had come out of a gut reaction to how Lexie’s lit-up face and smile had made him feel. A gut reaction to doing something so out of his comfort zone. Cesar didn’t do quirky, fun sightseeing tours with lovers. He didn’t engage with the public. But he had—and moreover he’d found himself enjoying it.

  He was dark and brooding, and most people ran a mile when they saw him. But not when he was with Lexie.

  And that, frankly, had terrified him. So he’d called Mercedes and once he’d instructed her to alert the press he’d felt that he hadn’t lost his mind completely.

  Now, absurdly, he felt guilty.

  Lexie was taking a sip of coffee, wiping her mouth, avoiding his eyes. Cesar reached out and took her hand. He saw her tense and that guilt intensified. Damn her.

  Warily she looked at him.

  Carefully Cesar said, ‘Our becoming lovers was inevitable. Diverting the media is a beneficial consequence for both of us.’

  Lexie blinked. Cesar saw how her expression became inscrutable, hidden.

  ‘Of course. I know that. Don’t worry, Cesar, I’m not some soft-hearted teenager who is weaving fantasies around a happy-ever-after scenario. I know that doesn’t exist. Believe me.’

  Something about the harshness of her tone caught at Cesar’s chest, making it ache even as everything within him urged him to agree with her, to feel relieved.

  She stood up to take their plates and Cesar caught her wrist, said gruffly, ‘Leave it. My housekeeper will attend to it later, when we’re gone.’

  He tugged her towards him until she put down the plates and fell, resisting, into his lap.

  She huffed out, ‘What are you doing?’

  The feel of her soft, lithe body against his made a lie of every one of Cesar’s last words. All he could think about was how much he wanted this woman. But Lexie was stiff in his arms and that made him feel slightly desperate.

  His hand was on her waist and he could feel a sliver of silky skin under her top. He explored underneath, over the indent of her naked waist and higher. Already he could feel the effect, the softening and relaxing of her body into his.

  ‘Lexie...’

  Slowly she turned her head to his, and for a moment there was something unguarded in the depths of her eyes. Something very raw and pained. But it didn’t make Cesar want to run.

  His exploring hand came into contact with the bare swell of her breast. No bra. And just like that lust surged between them, red-hot and powerful. Their mouths connected, their kiss deepened, Lexie groaned softly and Cesar cupped the full weight of that breast in his hand.

  Weakly he drowned out the clamouring voices in his head that told him he was deluding himself if he believed that he was half as in control of this as he would have Lexie believe.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘LET’S GO AGAIN, folks.’

  Lexie clenched her jaw. This was the thirteenth take, and if she fluffed her lines one more time the crew would want to wring her neck. Including herself. The director called action and by some miracle Lexie managed to get through the dialogue with no mishaps.

  There was an audible sigh of relief around the set. Everyone was tired. It was the end of the third week and fatigue was setting in. The prospect of another week here and then two weeks in London stretched like a never-ending horizon line.

  As they called that scene complete and started to set up for the next one Lexie was whisked back to the unit base for a costume-change. She relished the time to try and gather her scattered and fragmented thoughts.

  Since the previous cataclysmic weekend, and their return to the castillo from Madrid on Sunday, Lexie had been avoiding Cesar at every opportunity. It didn’t help that he was almost constantly on set—hence her fluffed lines and general state of being flustered. But today he hadn’t shown up, and that had nearly been worse.

  Lexie was terrified that she’d gone and fallen for the first man who had come along and kissed her whole body awake—much like Sleeping Beauty in the fairy tale.

  That was why she’d been avoiding Cesar all week. She felt as if she wasn’t in control of these new and overwhelming desires. It was like having a car and not really knowing how to drive it—being afraid that if she got behind the wheel it would careen off the road and cause mayhem and destruction.

  She felt feverish, excited. Exactly like the soft-hearted teenager she’d mocked only days ago.

  That weekend he’d only had to pull her onto his lap and kiss her before she’d been reduced to a puddle of lust, letting him take her back to bed and make love to her again and again. Showing her the heights her body could attain with just the barest sweep of his clever fingers against her body’s core.

  He had no idea who he was dealing with. The dark secrets Lexie harboured. But every time Cesar touched her she felt more and more exposed—as if sooner or later she wouldn’t be able to stop it all tumbling out. Baring her sou
l to him.

  So she’d been avoiding him. Like a coward. Even though all she could think about and dream about and yearn for was him.

  It was affecting her work. And it didn’t help that one scene in particular was due to be shot at the beginning of the following week and Lexie was dreading it, but unable to say anything to anyone about it.

  After her dresser had left Lexie waited for the call to go back to set, pacing up and down her trailer, repeating her lines, trying to force all other thoughts out of her head.

  When a knock came on her trailer door she said distractedly, ‘I’ll be out in a minute,’ assuming that it was the call for set. But then the door opened and Lexie whirled around, copious amounts of silken layers rustling as she did so, only to see Cesar coming up the steps and entering.

  Immediately the relatively big space was tiny. He closed the door behind him. He looked dark, gorgeous. Intent.

  Lexie was breathless, and it only had a little to do with her costume. ‘You shouldn’t be here—they’ll be calling for me in a minute.’

  Cesar crossed his arms. ‘Here seems to be the only place I can find you without you avoiding me or hiding in your room.’

  Lexie flushed, her whole body tingling just to be near him. She couldn’t deny the sheer excitement that gripped her, the anticipation at the look in Cesar’s eye. Especially when his gaze dropped to the swells of her breasts, made even more provocative than usual in the dress.

  Lord, she wanted him right now. Here. Like some lurid parody of the stories she’d heard of actors and actresses behaving badly while shooting on location.

  Cesar came towards her and Lexie had nowhere to escape to. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into him. Her body sang and, bizarrely, something inside her calmed. She felt more centred.

  ‘Why have you been avoiding me all week?’ he growled.

  ‘Work...I need to concentrate on my work,’ Lexie blurted out weakly.

  His eyes flashed. ‘Well, you’re singularly to blame for me not being able to concentrate on a single thing.’

  ‘Really?’ Inordinate pleasure snaked through Lexie to hear that. To imagine this stern, unflappable man being distracted because of her. She felt like smiling.

  ‘I don’t play games, Lexie.’

  She blanched. ‘You think...you think I’m playing some game?’

  His jaw was set, stern. Her belly swooped.

  ‘Cesar...I’m not playing a game... I was avoiding you because last weekend... It’s just been a long time for me.’ Try for ever, said a small voice, but she blocked it out. ‘I’m not used to this—I don’t have affairs.’

  Flustered, she ducked her head. Cesar put a finger to her chin to tip her face back up.

  His gaze dropped to her cleavage and his voice was rough. ‘Dios...do you know what it does to me to see you in these dresses?’ His eyes met hers again and his arm tightened around her. ‘Come to my apartment this evening.’

  Resistance was futile. Lexie felt herself dissolving, aching to say yes, let him take control so she didn’t have to think or analyse. Just be.

  ‘Okay.’ She smiled, unable to keep it in.

  Cesar was about to kiss her when a knock came on the door and a PA called out, ‘Lexie, they’re ready for you.’

  Cesar stopped and Lexie almost groaned. ‘Okay, thanks,’ she called back.

  Then he smiled, and it was wicked. ‘I’ll cook dinner. Come by when you’ve wrapped. Bring a weekend bag.’

  Lexie almost rolled her eyes, ‘My room is in the castillo. If I need anything surely I can just—?’

  Cesar cut her off. ‘Just...do it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lexie said again, her smile turning wry at his autocratic tone.

  She let Cesar lead her out to where her driver was waiting in the car to take her back to the set.

  * * *

  The following day Lexie grumbled good-naturedly, ‘Why can’t you tell me where we’re going?’

  Cesar stopped abruptly and Lexie almost careened into him. He caught her hands and held them. The breeze had mussed up his hair. He looked vital, and so gorgeous that she sighed with pure appreciation. He looked darker too, all dressed in black.

  He was mock stern. ‘Just do as you’re told.’

  Lexie saw a staff member carrying their bags to a waiting helicopter. It was sitting on a landing pad at the back of the castillo.

  Cesar had woken her early that morning and she’d stretched like a satisfied cat amongst his very tousled sheets before she’d even really realised the enormity of where she was.

  In Cesar’s bed, in his private apartment. After a night of lovemaking that had almost brought her to tears again. She’d only held them back with gritted teeth, determined not to let him see her get so emotional again.

  But she couldn’t help it. With every touch, every kiss, this man was rebuilding the very fabric of her soul. A fabric that had been torn apart brutally years before.

  As instructed, she’d packed some things the previous evening and had gone to his apartment after work to find him waiting for her, busy in his kitchen making dinner. The sight had been so incongruous and so...sexy that Lexie had struggled to affect a nonchalance she hadn’t felt.

  Before she could say anything else Cesar took her by the hand and led her to the helicopter, bundling her inside. Lexie gave up trying to figure out where they were going and did as she was told, putting on earphones and buckling up.

  Cesar leant over from his seat to help her just as the rotor blades started up outside, and adrenalin and excitement kicked in her belly.

  He grinned at her. ‘Don’t worry—you’ll like it, I promise.’ And then he pressed a swift kiss to her mouth and sat back.

  Lexie scowled at him, hating that his grin made her heart clench and that he could so easily affect her. But then her mind emptied as the chopper rose smoothly into the air and she saw the castillo drop away underneath them.

  Cesar had obviously asked the pilot to take a tour of the estate, and he pointed out vineyards and more land than she had ever realised belonged to him. It was truly mind-boggling. And sobering to realise the extent of his responsibilities.

  Then they were banking and heading away from where the sun had risen only a short while before. Lexie was transfixed by the changing landscape underneath them as they passed over low mountains and rivers.

  Eventually she could see that the sparse countryside was making way for more built-up areas. Cesar took her hand and pointed out of the main window of the helicopter. She could make out a smudge of blue...the sea?

  She glanced at him and he smiled. One of those rare smiles that made her want to smile back like a loon. She could see that they were flying over what had to be a city. The rooftops were terra-cotta, glinting in the sun. She saw a very majestic-looking castle on a hill.

  They seemed, impossibly, to be heading right for the city centre. Lexie could see a bridge spanning a huge river, and the way the city was spread out on hills. It didn’t look especially modern. There were trams and beautiful old crumbling buildings covered in coloured tiles.

  She gasped and turned to Cesar and shouted over the noise, ‘Lisbon?’

  He nodded. So that’s why he’d told her to pack her passport. A rush of incredible emotion and gratitude filled Lexie. She remembered standing in his study that day and exclaiming with a feeling of panic that she wanted to visit Madrid, Salamanca and Lisbon.

  So far he’d taken her to all of them.

  The helicopter set down on the rooftop of a building and Cesar helped her out. Lexie realised it was a hotel when the staff greeted them and led them inside where solicitous customs officials were waiting for them to check their passports. Cesar took her hand once they were done and she sent him a quick, dry look. ‘No queues for you?’

  Cesar s
miled. ‘My name, Da Silva, isn’t strictly Spanish in origin. It comes from a very distant Portuguese ancestor. So I’m allowed...certain liberties...’

  Lexie all but rolled her eyes as one of the staff got Cesar’s attention. She’d just bet he was allowed untold liberties for the promise of his favour and business opportunities. The fact that he was obviously a regular visitor to Lisbon told her that he didn’t take advantage of their respect and that made her feel soft inside.

  They went one floor down and were shown into the most sumptuous suite of rooms Lexie had ever seen.

  She explored on her own and found a terrace outside the bedroom’s French doors. She went out. The view was astounding. She could see the huge imposing castle up on a nearby hill, lots of steep streets with distinctive yellow trams. And then what had to be the River Tagus, spanned by a massive bridge.

  She felt a presence behind her and then arms came around her, hands resting by hers on the rail. Lexie shut her eyes for a second at the way her body wanted to melt, and when Cesar pressed close behind her she did melt into him, blocking out the voices screaming Danger! Danger!

  One of his hands disappeared and she felt her hair being tugged back gently, so her neck was bared. Breath feathered there and then she felt his mouth, warm and firm. Lexie’s hands tightened on the rail and the view became blurry.

  She turned around to face him and looked up. His eyes were heavy-lidded, full of something dark and hot. A pulse throbbed between Lexie’s legs.

  ‘I have a whole agenda laid out for you today, Miss Anderson.’

  Lexie arched a brow and tried to be cool. ‘Oh, you do?’

  Cesar nodded, and took some of her bright hair between two fingers. He tugged gently again and his eyes rose to hers.

  ‘And right now I have something very specific in mind.’

  Lexie was already breathless. ‘You do...?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And then, with devastating precision, Cesar’s mouth closed over hers and Lexie didn’t care where she was in the world as long as she was right in this moment.