‘Do you often come away on this boat?’ she asked, watching in amusement—and unashamed appreciation—as he slipped into the warm splash pool.
‘Not as often as I’d like,’ he admitted, sweeping his wet hair from his brow and looking too sexy for comfort. ‘I usually bring work with me.’ He angled his head and eyed her wickedly. ‘I guess I brought manual labour with me this time.’
‘Manual?’ She arched her brows.
He held up his hands, then wiggled his fingers. ‘Hours and hours of hard, physical labour.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘Except you slept away so many hours...’
‘I woke once or twice,’ she informed him primly. ‘And found you fast asleep beside me.’ He’d been utterly gorgeous too—handsome and relaxed and not at all reserved. ‘Admit it,’ she dared him. ‘It wasn’t so bad.’
‘I think we both feel better for it.’ He rubbed his jaw with a grin.
She certainly felt better. She couldn’t stop smiling. The more she was with him, the less she could believe this was real. That quiet, reserved, emotionally distant Prince Antonio was warm and funny and kind when relaxed. When alone with her and away from the rest of the world he was charming and witty. And so gloriously sensual.
It was better than any fantasy. She just had to remember it wasn’t for ever.
He’d fallen silent. She realised he was studying her as much as she was studying him but that the laughter in his eyes had faded, replaced by a frown.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked before thinking better of it.
A shadow flickered in his eyes before he spoke. ‘It’s weird not to be working.’
She felt certain that wasn’t what he’d been thinking, but she didn’t challenge him on it. ‘You’re allowed a break. That’s what you told me, remember?’
‘You know what it is like to devote your life to your career. It would feel strange to miss a day of training for you, right? It’s a calling more than a career.’
‘I chose mine. You were born to yours.’
‘It’s in the blood, I guess.’ He reached out to take her foot, rubbing her scarred skin. ‘When did you choose ballet?’
‘I got my first personal trainer just before I turned two. And a ballet coach.’
His hands stopped the delicious massage. ‘A personal trainer when you were two?’
She chuckled at his outraged expression. ‘I was my mother’s cute accessory that she toted around until I grew too big for her to carry.’ She’d been the pretty little girl. Until she started to attract comment that she was more attractive than her mother. ‘I won a scholarship to study at a dance academy in England when I was ten and eventually she let me go. I loved it. There were no boyfriends, no cameras, no scandal. I could just get on with doing the thing I loved.’
‘But you were away from your mother?’
‘That wasn’t a problem,’ she said wryly. Keeping her mother’s secrets had been a burden she’d been too young for. And she hadn’t liked the vulnerability she’d felt as a teenager with those men around.
He hoisted himself out of the water to sit on the deck and reached for a towel. ‘So you weren’t close.’
‘It was complicated.’ Bella frowned. ‘I loved her very much, but she had a lot going on in her life.’
‘By a lot going on, you mean a lot of men.’
‘Yes.’ Bella refused to deny it. ‘She spent a large part of her life looking for love and she never found it.’
She’d been used and had used lovers herself.
‘Are you looking for love?’ Antonio asked.
Bella laughed. ‘I know what I’m not looking for.’ She gazed out at the darkening water. ‘Before I went home to Mother for a holiday one summer Matron at school taught me some self-defence moves. Ways to try to get away and a few lines to spin to get some distance if I needed them.’
‘Did you need to use them?’
She shrugged. ‘Fortunately I spent most of the holidays at other ballet summer schools or camps. I’d only see Mother for long weekends at the most. And when I did, there were lots of cameras. Cameras can actually make things safer.’
He inclined his head questioningly.
‘People are more aware of their own behaviour when they know they’re being recorded.’ She stretched her foot. ‘And I think my mother knew there was a safety net in having a boyfriend. It means you’re taken.’ She smiled. ‘It keeps others at a distance. Mostly.’
‘But you don’t do that too—there’s no safe boyfriend?’
‘Only the one when I was young and thought I was in love.’ She wrinkled her nose at her naïveté.
‘But you weren’t really in love with him?’
‘I wanted to be.’ She’d wanted to be loved. To feel secure. To be held and cared for. To be safe. To have someone want her—all of her—and just her.
‘What happened?’
‘I thought he was honest and strong. He wasn’t. He let me down.’
‘How?’
She didn’t like the thundercloud that had appeared on Antonio’s face. ‘He didn’t really want me. He wanted the...fame...of being with me. I was the prize.’ She rubbed her arm. ‘But he expected more from me. What with my family history...’
‘More?’
‘A sexpot between the sheets,’ she said bitterly. ‘Like my siren of a mother. The famous lover of all those powerful men...’
‘And you’re not a sexpot.’ He leant forward and cupped her cheek. ‘Not for just anyone.’
She felt her flush rising. ‘Don’t tease...’ she whispered.
He gazed at her, his expression utterly solemn. ‘I’m not a sexpot for just anyone either.’ And then he smiled.
She laughed a little, as he’d intended her to. ‘He was seeing someone else on the side.’
‘Because he was a jerk,’ Antonio stated simply. ‘Not because of anything you did or didn’t do.’ He reached out and lit one of the candles in the table, casting a small glow in the darkness. ‘And since then?’
She shrugged. ‘There hasn’t been anyone serious.’
‘You don’t like trading on your sex appeal.’
She paused. ‘I don’t want to be ungrateful. I know how incredibly lucky I am compared to so many other people—to live on San Felipe, to have secured the financial backing for my business, to have access to all those clothes...some women would love that. But I want to be able to do what I really want to do. So all this “show” is only ’til the club becomes a commercial success. I need to earn for a couple of years, then I intend to step back and do something else.’
‘But you must love it in part—no one can fake it for that long. All those photos. All that dancing.’
‘I adore dancing.’ She leaned forward. ‘And I guess I do quite like the clothes.’ She chuckled. ‘I like feeling like I look okay—it’s the way I was raised and old habits die hard—it’s a weird paradox. But I don’t want that to be all I’m known for. When I was dancing, I had that as well.’
‘So what is going to replace it?’ He looked at her curiously. ‘You must have some ideas if it’s not the club.’
‘No, that’s a means to an end. I couldn’t get the backing I needed for what I really want to do.’ It wasn’t going to be a money spinner, but she needed only enough for herself to live on.
‘And that is?’
She paused, then laughed at her own self-consciousness. What did it matter if he knew? ‘I want to establish my own ballet school. I want to have my own academy and teach.’ She felt her flush rising again. ‘I know it won’t exactly make me a fortune, but it’s what I love and I want to share it.’
‘You want to teach ballet?’ Surprise glinted in his eyes.
‘Yes.’
He nodded but then frowned again. ‘Why San Felipe? If not to taunt Salvatore?’
‘I came for some holidays here with my mother. She had another friend here, for a time.’ She knew he’d understand she meant another lover. ‘I always loved it here. The beaches are beautiful
, the city old and majestic.’ She shrugged with a soft smile. ‘You know it has a magic about it.’
‘And your mother’s friend?’
‘The relationship didn’t last, of course. He passed away a few years ago.’ She sighed. ‘So there you have it, why I’m here. It’s not that exciting at all, you see.’
Silent, he ran his fingers along her scarred shin as if he could somehow smooth it away. ‘Why did you never ask for an investigation or press charges?’
‘About the glass?’ She faltered, but then pressed on. She’d worked hard to reconcile her decision. ‘I didn’t want them to see how much they’d hurt me. They’d win if they saw that. I’ll never let them see how much they got to me,’ she said in a low tone, keeping her head high.
‘You’re not bulletproof,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She tried to shrug it off.
‘It matters immensely. You had the thing you love most stolen from you. You were stolen from us—the audience.’
She smiled softly at his support of her. ‘It just is what it is. I’ve accepted it and I’m moving on. I’m a survivor.’ She was determined, and proud to be.
The sun had vanished but now the stars had come out to shine. And the moonlight glittered over the water. He fetched one of the blankets that were folded on one of the sofas and brought it back to where she was nestled in the cushions.
He paused at the solitary candle flickering on the low table. ‘You want to stay out here with me tonight?’
She nodded and watched him blow the candle out.
The dreadful thing was she’d stay with him wherever he asked, for as long as he wanted. Yes, she was falling for him, but she also agreed because he shouldn’t be out here alone.
He’d been on the front page of today’s paper, standing in the hospital garden that honoured Alessia. In his midnight-blue suit with his pale, emotionless eyes he’d looked so isolated. She wished he wouldn’t shut himself away so completely. She wished he’d open up like this even more. There was a warm, funny, compassionate guy locked away in there and someone—never her—should help him be happy.
He should be happy.
But she wasn’t the woman who could make that happen for him. She was the woman who had him only for now.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE WAS WOKEN with a kiss. She smiled—how could she not when he looked at her like that? He was tousled and stubbled and tired about the eyes and so very sexy.
She’d told herself she wasn’t going to sleep at all during their night on deck under the stars, but he’d teased her so long and made her come so hard her body had waved the white flag not long before dawn.
‘What time is it?’ she asked him.
‘Stupidly early,’ he admitted apologetically. ‘But there’s something I wanted you to see.’
Holding the soft blanket to her, she sat up on the deck and realised he was in nothing but swimming trunks and a life jacket and was dangling a bikini from his hand.
‘You think I’m going to wear that?’
‘Or just the life jacket, I don’t mind.’
She snatched the bikini from his hand and wriggled into it as he laughed.
The sky was pale blue from the first fingers of sunlight, the ocean still and beautiful and fresh and nothing could mar its beauty. She snuggled against his waist as he rode the jet ski, laughing at his show of speed and control. But he suddenly slowed right down and all but cut the engine. Then she saw what was swimming towards them in a joyous streak of energy.
‘Dolphins,’ she breathed.
‘A whole pod.’ He nodded, turning to see her face. ‘They’re often out this way to feed.’
And play. The creatures leapt and somersaulted as if it were the dolphin Olympics.
‘There are hundreds of them.’ She laughed in delighted awe. She’d never seen anything as beautiful or exhilarating in her life.
‘You want to swim with them?’ He was smiling at her, looking the most carefree and vital it made her heart flip in her chest.
‘Can we?’
‘Sing to them,’ he said, handing her a dive mask he’d stowed in his vest. ‘They’ll come check you out.’
‘Sing?’
‘Anything.’ He chuckled at her look.
But she slipped into the water and tried what he suggested. To her amazement three of the curious creatures swiftly circled around and around her. She floated face-down, eyeing the beautiful animals until she had to lift her head and gasp for breath. Antonio surfaced next to her, smiling triumphantly.
‘Antonio.’ She breathed hard. ‘They’re amazing.’
‘I know.’ He hauled himself back onto the jet ski and leaned down to give her a hand. ‘You know they’re one of the few creatures to mate just for the fun of it?’ He chuckled. ‘They feed and play and make love all day. Not such a bad life, is it?’
‘Not bad at all.’
She watched as he looked out over the beautiful waters again and that carefree expression slowly faded from his eyes. He glanced at her ruefully. ‘We’d better get back to the boat. Breakfast will be waiting.’
Their time was almost up.
Back on board, she showered, disappointed when he didn’t join her in there. In the bedroom the clothes she’d arrived in were somehow cleaned and pressed and waiting for her. She blushed at the thought of those nameless, invisible servants knowing she was here and no doubt knowing why. She dressed then went to the lounge. Antonio sat at the laden table, already showered and dressed and waiting for her.
‘I’ll never forget that, thank you so much.’ She smiled across at him.
He had been so kind to her, she’d never forget any of it.
For a split second he looked as happy as she felt, but then that reserve smoothed his features and that was when she couldn’t hold back any more. She didn’t want to see the vibrant man of the night return to that frozen state now they were about to leave.
‘You shouldn’t be alone,’ she said softly.
Antonio carefully put his tumbler of juice back down on the table. ‘Pardon?’
‘I said, you shouldn’t be alone. You should laugh more often. You deserve more happiness in your life.’
His blood iced.
‘Do you feel sorry for me?’ he asked quietly, but he was so close to the edge of anger.
Last night hadn’t lasted long enough. While she’d slept, he’d watched, like some sick stalker. But he’d been unable to rest any more, too conscious of time ticking. And now?
It wasn’t a clock but a bomb ticking. He did not want her to go there with him. He didn’t want to hear that lie the world believed. Not from her lips. He didn’t want her to believe that damn pious story. He was unworthy of her empathy and her generosity. He was unworthy of her.
‘Of course I do,’ she replied simply. ‘I’m very sorry you lost her.’
Alessia.
His gut clenched.
‘Is that why you’re here now, because you pity me?’ He stood up from the table and walked away so he couldn’t see her face. ‘You’ve been willing to let me do whatever I want with you because you want to make me feel better?’
He heard her small gasp of shock.
‘Why are you so angry?’ She stood too, following him to the centre of the room, standing defiantly straight and in his face as always. ‘I understand you don’t want to be hurt again—’
‘You understand nothing.’ It wasn’t about him getting hurt. ‘It isn’t about me. It isn’t fair to ask anyone to share the kind of life I lead.’
‘That’s just an excuse.’ She actually rolled her eyes at him. ‘Your kind of life can be managed. Media can be managed.’
‘Like how that worked out for you and your mother?’
She flinched but the cut didn’t stop her. ‘Look, I know I’m not the right woman for you, but she’s out there. You’re just too afraid to find her.’
Hearing her say that infuriated him. Did she really think she was somehow not worthy of him? She ha
d no idea who the worthy one in this room was. It sure as hell wasn’t him.
He wanted to shut her up. He should kiss her. Have her. Fast and physical so he could feel the best he’d ever felt in his life for a few minutes again...but he couldn’t because she was looking up at him all sincere and sweet and kind and that was what wasn’t right.
Her eyes were so luminous, so genuine. ‘You deserve to find love again.’
No, he didn’t. And there was the killer—he’d never found love in the first place.
Bu she misread his silence. ‘You do, Antonio. You’re a good man. You deserve—’
‘I deserve nothing,’ he snarled in guilt-drenched fury. ‘I destroyed her.’
Finally Bella was silenced.
And he was aghast at his slip and so, so angry. ‘You think you know what happened? You think you know me?’
‘Antonio—’
‘Stop,’ he said, wildly raising his hand. ‘Stop and just let me say it. You want the damned, bloody ugly truth?’
For once in his life someone would see him as he really was and it might as well be her. It might as well be the one woman he couldn’t stop wanting. And that was good, because she wouldn’t want him once she knew. And this would be over.
‘I broke up with her before she went away to university. The engagement thing had been more my parents’ wish than my own and I was young and didn’t want to be tied down. But Alessia was devastated. She begged me not to tell anyone. Wanted to keep it a secret until after she’d gone to England. And we’d let the press know we were no longer together after she’d been there a few months. I agreed. I could see she needed some time to compose herself...’ But in his mind he’d been free and he’d been so damned relieved.
‘A month or so later I went to see her when Eduardo first went over to study.’ He dragged in a desperate breath and carried on fiercely, frantic to get the bitter truth out. ‘She’d changed. She’d lost weight and was pale. She was nervy and wanted to get back together.’ He paused again, clenching his fist as he remembered how he’d treated her that day. ‘I told her that starving herself wasn’t going to win me back. I told her to get a grip on herself and stop the drama-queen crap. I was so hard on her.’ He’d told her he wasn’t in love with her and that that wasn’t changing no matter what she did.
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