The Trouble with Mojitos: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance

by Romy Sommer

  Nah. Life was too short to waste in a gym. She’d rather be out here trekking through the unexplored wilderness.

  Though the view wasn’t helping her temperature any. Rik’s jeans were fitted enough to give her an unparalleled view of a tautly sculpted ass and muscled thighs. She took a long swig of water from her bottle, but it didn’t help. Rik had more than just his torso going for him.

  Look, don’t touch. Look, don’t touch. Touch, don’t look.

  Damn.

  When the ground levelled off, bringing her eye level in line with his shirted back, she was almost disappointed.

  “You’ll need to send in labour in advance to create paths through this.” Rik paused and she nearly smacked into him. He held out a hand to steady her, and another swift rush of blood swept through her. Like she needed any more heating up. She was going to combust any moment.

  Focus. This was work, not play. “Won’t that destroy the environment?”

  “It grows back quickly. Another rainy season and no-one will ever know you were here.” He held back the fronds of an over-large fern to let her pass.

  “How much further?”

  “We’re there.”

  Her eyes grew wide as she looked past him. He hadn’t been messing with her. Tumbled down walls of stone peeked out through the foliage. She darted forward, pulling aside the branches and tracing the lines of walls. Not just one ruined building, but a whole settlement. It would need a team of people to clear the underbrush properly, but this was exactly the type of ruin the director wanted. She prayed her pictures would do the place justice, that he would see this as she could see it beneath the matted vines and ferns.

  “Give me the machete,” she said, holding out her hand.

  Rik frowned. “What for?”

  “I need to clear away some of these branches so I can get a decent picture.”

  “I’ll do it. It’s a man’s job.”

  She rolled her eyes. Clearly they did teach chauvinism in Prince Academy. But she wasn’t about to complain. Not when he stripped off his shirt again, giving her an unimpeded view of that magnificent torso gleaming with sweat as he worked. If she were a poet, she’d write a sonnet or two for those biceps. Her fingers itched to capture them on film.

  Oh what the heck …

  Perhaps Lee would forgive her a little lapse if she brought home a few drool-worthy pictures. She raised her camera.

  When he’d cut through a swathe of the overhanging foliage and a corner of one building stood free, Rik stepped back to admire his handiwork. “Will that do?”

  She nodded and focussed on her camera. Will it ever … “That’s perfect. Thanks.” The camera shutter whirred again.

  Though she didn’t need to, she took the folder from her bag and flipped through the printed pictures until she reached a sketch by the storyboard artist. She compared her pictures to the artist’s impression. A phenomenal match, down to the bromeliads and orchids in the trees. “This is the place!”

  “Yes it is.”

  But Rik wasn’t looking at the page, or at her. His gaze had fallen onto the stretch of wall he’d uncovered in his hasty clearance. He bent down to look at a heart-shaped inscription carved into a corner stone, like a piece of ancient graffiti.

  Kenzie bent too. “TT and CA. What does it mean?”

  He knelt beside the wall and rubbed the inscription reverently. “They were real. And they survived. If only my father … ” His voice caught.

  Not wanting to touch what she could only imagine was a complicated issue, she asked instead “Who survived?”

  “The pirate and his princess.”

  “From the legend – they were real?”

  “Of course. There’s a grain of truth in every legend. My father was fascinated by the story and collected every scrap of information he could find. It’s well documented that Governor von Kerkhoven lost his bride to a dark-skinned privateer, and in revenge he did his best to rid the Caribbean of pirates. But his bride was a daughter of the Count of Arelat, not a princess, and the jilted groom was no sorcerer, just a man with a small navy at his command. This settlement was only one of the casualties.”

  “I feel sorry for him,” Kenzie said. “Still doesn’t mean he had to act out. What happened to the girl?”

  “That’s always been the mystery. There was no record of either her or the pirate after they eloped. Until now.” He stroked his hand over the stone. “Thomas Taylor and Clara d’Arelat. So they survived the legendary battle and lived long enough to leave their mark here.”

  “This could be a national monument,” she suggested. Or a theme park, but that just sounded tacky. Almost as tacky as having a film crew barge through here in a few months’ time.

  She snapped a few pictures of the inscription. If Rik happened to be in at least half of them, no-one but her need ever know. These pictures were for her alone.

  “So is that your work all done?” He rose, wiping grimy hands on his jeans.

  “It is. This place is amazing. It’s unbelievable that I’ve found everything on one island: beaches, lagoon, forest. Even the ruins. That’ll save the production a few bob rather than having to build a set. I guess we should start making our way back to the boat.”

  Not that she was in any hurry to leave, even if the hike was downhill all the way, with lunch at the end of it.

  ***

  This was not the way they’d come, Kenzie was sure. The forest seemed denser and less friendly. She’d lost all sense of direction, and the urge to photograph her surroundings had deserted her at least a mile back.

  “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto,” she muttered. A hanging vine slapped her in the face, and she came to a halt. “Uh, Rik … ”

  He paused to look back at her.

  “I don’t suppose you happen to have a GPS in that rucksack of yours? Or a compass?”

  He shrugged. “We don’t need a compass. I have an excellent sense of direction.”

  Yeah, and she had an excellent sense of trouble, but that didn’t stop her from plunging headlong into it.

  “So you’re sure this is the way we came?”

  He looked about them, as if noticing their surroundings for the first time. How many miles away had he been?

  “It’s not the same way, but as long as we’re headed downhill, we should reach the beach soon. Then we can follow the shoreline back to the boat.”

  She hoped so. This was a bloody big island, and her hiking boots were beginning to chafe. Not to mention, her water bottle was empty. And sweat had begun to pour down her back. That look might work on Rik, but on her it didn’t look anything like a wet tee shirt contest, she was sure.

  He resumed his forward surge and she followed in his wake. The path was more slippery now, mossy beneath their feet, with steep banks and sudden gullies hidden beneath a carpet of waist-high bushes that scratched and tugged at her. Not to mention the vines that dangled from the branches above, like snakes coiled ready to spring.

  The canopy overhead was too dense to judge where the sun was in the sky, but according to her watch it was past lunch time. Her stomach agreed with the watch.

  Which would make it the end of a normal working day in London. Not that a production company in full-on pre-production mode would be working normal hours.

  The noise of the forest escalated the further they travelled – the call of birds, the rustle of wind in the leaves, and a low roar that seemed to come up through the soles of her feet.

  Rik paused and waited for her to catch up. “I think we might be lost.”

  No kidding. And, typical man, he hadn’t believed he needed directions.

  Since they were stating the obvious, she added her two cents. “And we’re out of fresh water.”

  “That we may be able to do something about.” He cocked his ear and listened. “Follow the sound.”

  On the plus side, the nearer they got to that low roar, the more the trees thinned out and the patches of dappled light grew bigger and br
ighter. The forest no longer seemed quite so menacing beneath the cloudless sapphire sky.

  Then they emerged into a sunny glade.

  Kenzie caught her breath.

  There it was, the source of the sound. Amidst the emerald green of the forest, the stark white plume of a waterfall, falling down a rocky shelf into a pool before flowing away downhill.

  The air was richly fragrant here, heavy with the scent of wild frangipani flowers run amok. The colours too were vivid: rich greens, the delicate whites and yellows of the flowers, the brilliant flash of red and blue as a macaw skimmed through the treetops.

  “Wow – look at this place!” She clambered over the sun-warmed rocks at the waterfall’s base to reach the pool. Peering in, she splashed cool water on her face, her neck, her arms. Instant relief.

  The water was crystal clear beneath the bubbling surface, and small, bright fish darted through the shallows. Tentatively she cupped a hand in the water and tasted. Unbelievable. Completely fresh and sweet, untainted by human intervention.

  She sighed in satisfaction.

  She might be lost, she might not have a plan for her life or know where her next pay check was coming from, but right at this moment there wasn’t any place she’d rather be than here beside this waterfall, soaking up the scents and sounds and colours.

  That feeling was back, the feeling she’d pursued her whole life, the sense of more she’d always yearned for. Except it was no longer a yearning. It was right now, right here.

  Not a person, or a job, but a place. A place so achingly beautiful that the rest of the world with its petty woes didn’t exist. A place where being lost didn’t even matter.

  Sometimes getting lost was the only way to find oneself. If they hadn’t have got lost, they’d never have discovered this waterfall.

  Rik squatted beside her, his proximity sending an increasingly familiar frisson of desire and confusion through her.

  He bent to fill his water bottle, casting her a sideways glance. “You’re all wet.” His gaze lingered on her chest and the lace bra that had become visible through the sodden white fabric of her tee shirt.

  She splashed him. “Now you are too.” She sat back on her haunches. “So what’s the plan?”

  He grinned. “I thought you weren’t big on plans? Aren’t you enjoying this adventure?”

  “I’ve had about as much adventure as I can take for one day. My blisters are killing me. If I wasn’t deathly terrified of snakes, I’d have taken off my boots and socks long ago.”

  His grin turned to a smirk. “Then you probably shouldn’t turn around right now.”

  She froze. He was kidding, right?

  “You’re kidding, right?” she croaked.

  He leaned close, his voice low. “Don’t move.”

  She didn’t. She couldn’t.

  He leaned even closer, so close his breath tickled her ear. “Just kidding,” he whispered.

  “Jerk!” she pushed his chest, all her adrenalin and anger and sexual frustration bubbling together. She pushed harder than she intended. Rik sprawled backwards into the pool.

  She didn’t bother to hide her laughter, but she was so busy laughing that when he lunged for her, she wasn’t quick enough. He pulled her down into the water, on top of him.

  His lungs forgot to breathe. Rik looped an arm around her waist and held her close. Her body moulded to his, sparking sensation wherever they touched. He was amazed the water didn’t start to boil around them.

  He’d thought of nothing but kissing her for two excruciating, maddening days. This was his moment. They were truly alone. No chance of a paparazzi camera or mobile phone in miles, as there’d been at the resort last night.

  Kenzie looked up at him through her long fringe of ginger hair, turned to red-gold in the sunlight. His fingers itched to stroke the hair back from her face. He felt something he’d never felt before, something primal and violent and unstoppable. Desire. Passion. He didn’t feel like a prince or a ruler or a hopeless drifter. He felt like a man. And he wanted to do what every man wanted to do with a beautiful woman.

  Her pupils were so large, so dark, that they swallowed her irises. He traced a finger down the curve of her cheek, coming to rest on her lips.

  But in the second he hesitated, she blinked as if waking from a trance, and pulled away. “Oh no! I’m not falling for that again!”

  What the hell did that mean? He frowned.

  She splashed to the pool’s edge, and climbed out onto a rock, so massive it was more ledge than rock. She unlaced her hiking boots and removed her socks to let them dry in the sun.

  He moved to perch beside her and did the same. They sat side by side, clothes dripping and bare feet trailing in the blessedly cool water. Birdsong and the waterfall’s roar filled the pregnant silence.

  He leaned back on his elbows and studied her. She was flushed again. Not from the heat, but that delicate shade of pink she turned whenever she blushed.

  He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to breathe, and it was obvious she felt the attraction too. So why did she resist?

  What was it about him she didn’t like?

  This was new terrain for him. As a prince, he’d had to be extremely careful whom he slept with, yet he’d never had a problem finding willing women. And he’d certainly never struggled to understand them before as he struggled to understand Kenzie.

  It was a horribly lowering thought that perhaps he’d never been particularly likeable. Perhaps he’d only been loved for his title and not for himself.

  “I wonder if Thomas and Clara ever came here? This is the perfect place to fall in love, isn’t it?” Kenzie’s babble pulled him back from that dark place he was growing far too familiar with.

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in love.”

  Kenzie faced him, eyes widening in surprise. “You’ve got to be at least thirty four or thirty five. How can you never have been in love?”

  “And you have?”

  “Of course. Several times. I was madly in love with all my boyfriends in the beginning.”

  “How many boyfriends have you had?”

  She counted on both hands. “Three. How many have you had?”

  He laughed. “I’ve never had any boyfriends.”

  “Okay then – how many serious girlfriends have you had?”

  What constituted serious? Someone he’d given more than a passing thought to when she wasn’t in his bed? He pretended to count on both hands before he looked up at Kenzie. “One. And I planned to marry her.” Even though she was the one woman he’d dated who he hadn’t slept with.

  Kenzie screwed up her face. “I thought you said you’d never been in love.”

  “What does love have to do with marriage? Since you’ve no doubt fallen out of love with all of those boyfriends you were ‘madly in love with,’ surely you must know passionate love doesn’t last?”

  He’d had enough time to reflect on this these last few months. That last night in the castle at Waldburg, when he’d faced his mother and demanded the truth, had only confirmed his beliefs. She had confessed to being wildly in love with his father. Not Christian, Archduke of Westerwald, but some fashion photographer she’d met in New York.

  But the photographer hadn’t wanted her. She’d been just another random conquest to him. When her manager suggested marriage to a prince, the heir to a European principality, she’d jumped at the chance to get away, to start afresh. She hadn’t known she was pregnant until after she’d arrived in Westerwald, and by then it had been too late to back out. So she’d passed off her bastard child as another man’s.

  They’d had a happy marriage, Rik knew that. But it had been a marriage of convenience not of passion. Passion didn’t last. Love didn’t last. Only mutual convenience did.

  “You might be right.” Kenzie worried her lower lip. “So let me get this straight: you’ve only ever had one girlfriend, who you weren’t in love with, and you don’t do one-night stands? Are you sure you’re even into wo
men?”

  Moments ago she’d had his erection pressed against her stomach as he’d been about to kiss her, and she still doubted him? He raised an eyebrow. “Do I seem gay to you?”

  “My gaydar’s usually pretty good, but I’m always open to being proved wrong.” Her next words were spoken so softly, he nearly missed them: “It would be easier if you were.”

  “I’m not gay. I like women.” The tightness of his jeans right now was proof enough of that.

  True, there’d been remarkably few women over the years who’d made the grade. He’d left the womanising to Max. As the older brother, the heir, he’d always had to be more circumspect. It didn’t look good for a future Archduke to change partners too often. And he certainly couldn’t risk sleeping with anyone who might sell her story to the media. The kind of women who were attracted to the limelight usually weren’t the kind of women who made suitable Archduchess material. He’d only met one who’d been truly suitable.

  Teresa had been raised to be a princess. She was intelligent, she knew how to behave, came from an impeccable lineage, and nothing fazed her. Best of all, she was a woman who did not allow her passions to rule her.

  She deserved to be a princess, and he hoped for her sake she still would be…though Europe was rapidly running out of eligible princes.

  One thing was certain – that door had closed for him. It was just another piece of his well-ordered life that had crumbled to dust. No-one was going to wave a magic wand, erase the past and make him a prince again. There was no going back, and there was no point dwelling on what he’d lost. That much he’d learned these past few months. He shrugged off the dark thoughts, and grinned as Kenzie’s stomach made an audible rumble.

  “Until we get back to the boat, how about some mangoes to stave off the hunger pains?” Without waiting for her assent, he got to his feet and climbed across the rocks to the far side of the clearing. Beneath the mango tree, over-ripe fruit lay scattered in the grass, bruised and broken, but on the branches above he managed to find a few pieces the birds and monkeys hadn’t got to yet. He returned to Kenzie’s side with his hands full.