by Cat Schield
“The way you disappeared left me feeling anxious and out of sorts. I understood that we’d broken up, but what I didn’t get was how you could take off without saying anything. You should have explained your circumstances. I could have processed the situation and gotten closure. That’s what I need now. A few days to say goodbye properly.”
“And by properly you mean...?”
Her serious expression dissolved into one of unabashed mischief. “A few days of incredible sex and unbridled passion should do it.”
How could any man resist such an offer? Visions of her flat on her back with his hands skimming along her soft, delectable curves rose to torture him. A smile and a frown played tug-of-war on his face. But this was not the time to stop listening to the voice inside his head that reminded him he had to give her up. The smartest thing would be to avoid making more memories that would haunt him the rest of his life.
“Don’t you think it would be better if we didn’t let ourselves indulge in something that has no future?”
“I’m not going to pretend we have a future. I’m going to cherish every moment of our time together with the knowledge that in the end we’ll say goodbye forever.” She slid her fingers into his hair. Her thumbs traced the outline of his ears. “I can see you need more convincing, so I’m going to kiss you.”
He drank in the scent of honey and vanilla rising off her skin, knowing she tasted as good as she smelled. Her generous lips, rosy and bare of lipstick, parted in anticipation of the promised kiss. Nothing would make him happier than to spend the rest of his life enjoying the curve and texture of her lips. The way she sighed as he kissed her. The soft hitch in her breath as he grazed her lower lip with his teeth.
A tremor transmitted her agitation to him. He longed to inspire more such trembling. To revisit her most ticklish spots, the erogenous zones that made her moan. With erotic impulses twisting his nerves into knots, Nic snagged her gaze. Silver flecks ringed her irises, growing brighter as she stared at his mouth. His pulse thundered in his ears as the moment stretched without a kiss coming anywhere near his lips.
“Damn it, Brooke.”
He would not scoop the wayward strand of hair behind her tiny ear and let his knuckles linger against her flushed cheek. He refused to tug on her braid and coax her lips close enough to drift over his.
“What’s the matter, Nic?” Her fingers explored his eyebrows and tested his lashes.
Duty. Honor. Integrity. The litany was starting to lose its potency.
“In less than a week I’ll never see you again.” He locked his hands together behind his back. Tremors began in his arm muscles.
“I know.” She switched her attention to his mouth. Her long, red lashes cast delicate shadows on her cheeks.
Heat surged into his face. Hell, heat filled every nook and cranny of his body. Especially where her heart-shaped rear end rested. How could she help but notice his aroused state?
“We’d only be prolonging the inevitable,” he reminded her, unsure why he was holding out when he wanted so badly to agree to her mad scheme.
“I need this. I need you.” She stroked her thumb against his lower lip. “An hour. A day. A week. I’ll take whatever I can get.”
Nic counted his heartbeats to avoid focusing on the emotions raging through him. The need to crush her in his arms would overwhelm him any second. Denying himself her compassion and understanding in the days following the accident hadn’t been easy, but at the time he’d known that he had to return to Sherdana. Just because Brooke now knew what was going on didn’t give him permission to stop acting honorably.
He wasn’t prepared for the air she blew in his ear. His body jerked in surprise, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Stop that.”
“You didn’t like it?” Laughter gave her voice a husky quality.
“You know perfectly well I did,” he murmured hoarsely. “Our food is going to be here any second. Perhaps you should return to your own seat.”
“I’m here for a kiss and a kiss is what I’m going to get.” She was enjoying this far too much. And, damn it, so was he.
With a fatalistic sigh, Nic accepted that he’d let himself be drawn too far into her game to turn back. As much as he wanted to savor the expressions flitting across her face, he stared at the fishing boats bobbing near the cement seawall. Alert to her slightest movement, he felt the tingle on his cheek an instant before her lips grazed his skin.
“Let’s stop all the foreplay, shall we,” he finally said.
“Oh, all right. Spoilsport. I was enjoying having you at my mercy. But if you insist.”
Lightning danced in her eyes. She secured his face between her hands and grazed her lips across his.
“Again.” His voice was half demand, half plea. He hardened his will and inserted steel into his tone. “And this time put a little effort into it.”
“Whatever you say.”
He let his lashes drop as her mouth drifted over his again. This time she applied more pressure, a little more technique. As kisses went, it was pretty chaste, but her little hum of pleasure tipped his world on its axis. And when she nibbled on his lip, murmuring in Italian, desire incinerated his resistance.
“Benedette le voci tante ch’io chiamando il nome de mia donna ò sparte, e i sospiri, et le lagrime, e ’l desio.”
How was he supposed to resist a woman with a PhD in Italian literature? Although he knew what she’d said, he wanted to hear her speak the words again.
“Translation?”
“And blessed be all of the poetry I scattered, calling out my lady’s name, and all the sighs, and tears, and the passion.”
“Italian love poetry?” he groused, amused in spite of the lust raking him with claws dipped in the sweetest aphrodisiac.
“It seemed appropriate.” Her fingers splaying over his rapidly beating heart, she swooped in for one last kiss before getting to her feet. “I think I made my point.” With a satisfied smirk, she returned to her chair.
“What point?”
“That we both could use closure.”
Over the course of the kiss he’d grasped what she wanted to do, but he’d worked diligently over the past month to come to grips with living without her and couldn’t imagine reopening himself to the loss all over again. And she’d just demonstrated he’d never survive a few days let alone a week in her company. He’d be lucky if he made it past the next hours. No. She had to go. And go soon. Because if she didn’t, he’d give in and make love to her. And that would be disastrous.
“I got my closure a month ago when I broke things off,” he lied. “But I understand that I’ve sprung a lot of information on you today that you’ll want to assimilate. Stay for a couple days.”
“As friends?” She sounded defeated.
“It’s for the best.”
Four
The discussion before lunch dampened Brooke’s spirits and left her in a thoughtful mood as she ate her way through a plate of moussaka, and followed that up with yogurt and honey for dessert. Nic, never one for small talk, seemed content with the silence, but he watched her through half-lidded eyes.
Telling him she was pregnant had just become a lot more complicated. As had her decision regarding the teaching position at Berkeley. Before Nic had broken it off with her a month ago she’d been confident that he was her future and she’d chosen him over her ideal job. When he left she should have returned to her original career path, but finding out that she was pregnant had created a whole new group of variables.
Gone was her fantasy that once Nic heard he was going to be a father, he would return to California and they would live happily ever after as a family. Since that wasn’t going to happen, the Berkeley job was back on the table. Brooke wished she could summon up the enthusiasm she’d once felt at the possibility of teaching there.
<
br /> And then there were the challenges that came with being a single mom. If she moved back to LA she would be close to her parents and they would be thrilled to help.
Thanks to Nic’s revelations she was a bundle of indecisiveness. They returned to Nic’s car for the ride back to the villa. He told her he would have Elena’s husband, Thasos, return the boat later. As the car swept along the narrow road circling Kioni’s tranquil bay, Brooke felt her anxiety rise and fall with each curve.
From this vantage point, halfway up the side of the scrubby hills that made up the island’s landscape, she could see beyond the harbor to the azure water of the Ionian Sea. Glen had described Ithaca as a pile of rocks with scrubby brush growing here and there, but he’d done the picturesque landscape a disservice.
“We’ll be to my house in ten minutes.” Nic pointed toward a spot on the hill where a bit of white was visible among the green hillside.
In the short time she’d been here, Brooke had fallen in love with Nic’s villa. It made her curious about the rest of his family and the life they lived in Sherdana. Did they live in a palace? She tried to picture Nic growing up in a fussy, formal place with hundreds of rooms and dozens of servants.
As the villa disappeared from view around another bend, Brooke glanced over her shoulder and estimated the distance back to the village. Two or three miles. The car turned off the main road and rolled down a long driveway that angled toward the edge of the cliff. When first the extensive gardens and then the house came into view, she caught her breath.
“This is beautiful,” she murmured, certain her compliment wasn’t effusive enough. “I didn’t see this side of the house earlier.”
“Gabriel found the place. We bought it for our eighteenth birthday. I’m afraid I haven’t used it much.”
Built on a hillside overlooking the bay, the home was actually a couple buildings connected together by terraces and paths. Surrounded by cypress and olive trees, the stucco buildings with the terra-cotta tile roofs sprawled on the hillside, their gardens spread around them like skirts.
The nearby hills had been planted with cosmos, heather and other native flowering plants to maintain a natural look. A cluster of small terra-cotta pots, containing bright pink and lavender flowers greeted visitors at the door. A large clay urn had been tipped on its side in the center of the grouping to give the display some height and contrast.
Nic stopped the car. Shutting off the engine, he turned to face her, one hand resting on the seat behind her head. The light breeze blew a strand of hair across her face. Before Brooke could deal with it, Nic’s fingers drifted along her cheek and pushed it behind her ear. She half shut her eyes against the delight that surged in her. Her stomach turned a cartwheel as she spied the thoughtful half smile curving his lips. Nic’s smile was like drinking brandy. It warmed her insides and stimulated her senses.
“Maybe tomorrow I can show you the windmills,” he said, his gaze drifting over her face. The fondness in his eyes made her chest tighten.
“Sure.” Her voice had developed a disconcerting croak. She cleared her throat. “I’d like that.”
She let out an enormous yawn while Nic was unlocking the front door. He raised his eyebrows and she clapped her hand over her mouth.
“I see you didn’t take my advice earlier about getting some sleep.”
“I was too wound up. Now I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. Feel like joining me for a nap?”
Only a minute widening of his eyes betrayed Nic’s reaction to her offer. “From what you’ve told me I have a bunch of emails to answer. I’ll catch up with you before dinner.”
All too familiar with Nic’s substantial willpower, Brooke retreated to the terrace where she’d first found him. In the harbor a hundred feet below, the water was an incredible cerulean blue, the color accentuated by the tile roofs of the houses that lined the wharf and scaled the steep verdant green hills cupping the horseshoe-shaped harbor.
She rested her hands on the stone wall and pondered the nature of fate. Before she’d met Nic, she’d been pursued by any number of men who were ready to do what it took to win her affection. But instead of falling for one of them, she’d chosen a man who was far more interested in his rocket ship than her. All the while, she’d hoped that maybe his enthusiasm for his work could somehow translate into passion for her.
The explosive chemistry between her and Nic had seemed like a foundation they could build a relationship on. The way he’d dropped his guard and given her a glimpse of his emotions had left her breathless with hope that maybe his big-brother act had been his way of protecting his heart. Thanks to all her previous romantic escapades that Glen was only too happy to bring up over and over, Nic had regarded her as a bit of a loose cannon when it came to love.
Brooke turned her back on the view. She had a lot to think about. Following Nic to this island had proved way more interesting and enlightening than she’d expected.
While she’d only been his best friend’s little sister, it hurt that neither man trusted her with the truth. She didn’t blame Glen for keeping Nic’s confidences. Her brother wouldn’t have been the amazing man he’d been without his honorable side. But she could, and did, blame Nic for keeping her in the dark.
For five years he’d kept some enormous secrets from her. That knowledge stung. But now she had a secret of her own. Given what she now knew about Nic, what was her best course of action?
Despite her exhaustion after being awake for twenty-four hours, she paced, the sound of her sandals slapping against the stone of the terrace breaking the tranquil silence. Seeing Nic, kissing him and finding out that he was not the hardworking scientist she’d always known but a prince of some country she’d only heard of in passing, had her thoughts in a frenetic whirl.
And then there was the big question of the day. The one she’d been avoiding for the past hour. Was she going to tell Nic about her pregnancy?
In the wake of all she’d learned, was it fair to tell him he was going to be a father? He couldn’t marry her even if he’d wanted to. Nor would they be living on the same continent. Being the prince of a small European country meant he would be under the keenest scrutiny. Would he even want to acknowledge an illegitimate child? Yet was it fair to deny him the opportunity to make that decision?
Her best friend, Theresa, would help her answer some of these questions. She was the most sensible and grounded person in Brooke’s life. Brooke went down to the guesthouse, retrieved her phone from the bed where she’d left it and dialed Theresa’s number.
“Well, it’s about time you called me back,” Theresa started, sounding more like Brooke’s mother than her best friend. “I’ve left you, like, four messages.”
Brooke tried to shrug away the tension in her shoulders, but that was hard when she was braced against an onslaught of lecturing. “Five, actually. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner—”
“You know I’m just worried about you. The last time we talked, you were going to get your brother to tell you where Nic had gone.”
“I did that.”
“So where is he?”
“About two miles down the road from the most gorgeous Greek town you’ve ever seen.”
“And you know this Greek town is so gorgeous because...?” Theresa’s voice held a hint of alarm.
“I’ve seen it.”
“Brooke, no.”
“Yep.”
A long pause followed. Brooke almost wished she was there to watch her best friend’s expression fluctuate from annoyed to incredulous and back again.
“What about the Berkeley interview?”
“It’s in three days.”
“Are you going to make it back in time?”
In truth she wasn’t sure she wanted to. The idea of raising a baby by herself scared her. She wanted to be close to family and that m
eant living in LA. “That’s my intention.”
“What was Nic’s reaction when you showed up?”
“He was pretty surprised to see me.”
“And when you told him about the baby?”
Panic and longing surged through her in confusing, conflicting waves. Twenty-four hours earlier, coming to find him had felt necessary instead of reckless or impulsive. And in hindsight, it had been foolishly optimistic. She’d been convinced Nic would return to California with her once he knew he was going to be a father.
“I haven’t yet.”
“What are you waiting for?”
Brooke fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “Things got a little complicated after I got here.”
“Did you sleep with him again?”
“No.” She paused to smile. “Not yet.”
“Brooke, you are my best friend and I want nothing but the best for you,” Theresa began in overly patient tones. “But you need to realize if he wanted to be with you he would.”
“It’s not as simple as that.” Or was it? Hadn’t Nic chosen duty to his country over her? Once again Brooke pictured Nic in formal attire, standing between two other men who looked just like him. Beside them were two thrones where an older couple wearing crowns sat in regal splendor. “But he cares about me. It’s just that he’s in a complicated situation. And I couldn’t tell him over the phone that I’m pregnant.”
“Okay. I’ll give you that.” Theresa was making an effort to be positive and supportive, but clearly she didn’t believe that Brooke’s actions were wise. “But you chased him all the way to Greece. And now you haven’t told him. So what’s wrong?”
“What makes you think anything is wrong?”
“Gee, I don’t know. We’ve been best friends since third grade. I think I can tell when something’s bothering you. What’s going on?” Theresa’s voice softened. “Is he doing okay?”
As long as the two girls had known each other, Theresa never understood Brooke’s restless longing for the drama of romance. The thrill of flirting. The heart-pounding excitement of falling in love. Married to a man she’d dated since college, Theresa was completely and happily settled. Safe with a reliable husband. And although Theresa would never say it out loud, Brooke always felt as if her friend judged her because she wanted more.
