“Reunion.” She laughed a little under her breath, but the sound didn’t mask her anxiety. “Is that what this is?”
“You have been in the wind for five years, Teresa,” he said, his voice low enough that only she could possibly hear him. “I think we both deserve to mark this…occasion.”
In seconds, a waiter appeared tableside and uncorked the champagne. After pouring some for Rico and getting a nod of approval, he poured two glasses and then disappeared, leaving them alone again.
Teresa took a long sip, then sat back, closed her eyes and sighed.
That soft, breathy sound shot through Rico like a bullet. His body was hard as stone and his mind was struggling to keep the memory of her betrayal sharp and clear so that his body and heart couldn’t surrender again. He’d already lived through that once. He wouldn’t do it again.
“I’m surprised your father agreed to the deal I offered him.”
Her eyes opened and brown eyes met blue. “Did you think he wouldn’t?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea how a thief thinks.”
She sucked in a breath. “Are you going to be throwing that word around for the whole month?”
“It’s appropriate, don’t you think?” He paused for a sip of his champagne and let the bubbles slide down his throat. In the flickering candlelight, her golden-brown eyes glittered. “If not for your family’s occupation, we wouldn’t be here.”
Her eyes never left his face. “And you’ll never let me forget it.”
“Why would I?” He set the crystal flute down and stared at her, meeting her accusing glare with one of his own. He was the one who had been cheated, lied to, stolen from. How she had the nerve to act like the injured party was beyond him. But he wasn’t going to let her get away with it. “You don’t like the word thief? Which would you prefer? Criminal? Burglar? Or perhaps cat burglar would be more specific.”
Her fingers swept up and down the slender stem of her champagne flute. His gaze caught the motion and fixated on it. He imagined that small, dainty hand sliding across his body and it took everything he had not to reach out and grab her. Drag her to him across the bench seat and haul her across his lap where she could feel what she was doing to his body. He wanted his hands on her again. He needed to feel the flash and heat of her body against his.
This month was either going to satisfy his need for payback—or kill him.
“The Coretti family has been doing what they do for generations.”
Just like that, it was as if ice water had been poured in his lap.
“And that makes it all right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You used me for your family’s sake and then left when the job was finished.”
Her eyes went soft and then hard again in a blink. As if she’d deliberately shut out whatever it was that had caused that momentary weakness. “I’ve told you. I didn’t know they were going to take the dagger until the job was done.”
“Very convenient.”
“Nothing convenient about it,” she muttered, then lifted her chin and met his gaze squarely. “If you think it was easy for me to leave you, you’re crazy.”
“Easy or not, you did it,” he said and as memory and anger roared into life inside him, his accent became more pronounced. He heard it in his whispered words, but couldn’t seem to tame it. “I have never been used before or since. That makes you special, Teresa. And I won’t rest until you’ve returned my property and paid for what you did.”
“I have paid,” she told him and her voice sounded unbelievably weary. “For five years, I’ve paid for what I did, Rico. But it doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You won’t believe me.”
“No,” he agreed. “I won’t. That’s the downside of being a liar. Even when you claim to be telling the truth, no one will listen.”
How the hell could he? She’d ripped him in two when she disappeared. Never before or since had he allowed a woman to slip into his life as Teresa Coretti had. She’d crept past his defensive shields and burrowed her way into his heart. His soul. In the short time they were together, she’d given him more than he had ever hoped to find.
Then she’d been gone.
And the cold that had filled him once he’d learned that she and her family had used him had never really ebbed. Being beside her now, he felt sexual heat, but even that wasn’t enough to burn off the stinging chill of the memory of her betrayal.
All around them, couples leaned across tables, laughing and talking in soft murmurs that added to the romance of the room. But here at his table, there was a distance between him and Teresa that might as well have been a brick wall.
“Then why are we here?” she asked after several long moments of silence. “If you don’t want to talk to me or hear my side of things, why didn’t you just lock me in your bedroom?”
Good question. But the answer wasn’t one he was ready to give her. How could he admit to her that having her standing there in his room had pushed every one of his buttons? She’d been too close, the situation too intimate. He’d needed time. Time to think about exactly how he wanted this to go. Time to get his own raging need under control. Because he wouldn’t be led around by his sexual desire. This time, where Teresa was concerned, he wouldn’t allow his brain to be clouded by desire.
“Have to eat.” His tone was dismissive and the sentence short and sharp. He wanted her to know that it didn’t matter to him that she was sitting beside him smelling like hot summer nights.
“Fine. We’ll eat.” She took another long drink of her champagne, then sighed heavily. “Then maybe you can tell me exactly what you expect of me for the next month.”
His body stirred. Oh, he expected plenty. “I think you already know.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I suppose I do. Not getting enough action from the models and actresses you squire around?”
One eyebrow arched. “Been keeping track of me? Flattering.”
“Not really,” she said with a sniff. “It’s hard not to know what you’re up to when you’re splashed across magazines and newspapers—complete with pictures of you and the bimbo of the week.”
“My life is none of your business.” He scowled at her and left it at that. He didn’t care for the disapproval in her voice. She was the one who had walked out. Who was she to pass judgment on anything he did? Let her think what she would. Her opinion of him meant less than nothing, didn’t it?
“You’re right. It’s not my business. But answer one question for me. Why didn’t you just let me go five years ago? Why stop the divorce and go to the trouble of sending me a forged decree?”
His fingers clenched around the delicate crystal stem and Rico had to force his grip to relax before the glass simply shattered in his hand. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and even, despite the anger churning within.
“You ran. From me.” His gaze caught hers and he noticed the flicker of…was it shame shining in her light brown eyes? If so, he was glad to see it. “I’m a King, Teresa. We don’t lose. Ever.”
She pulled in a long, shuddering breath. “So this is a game? A competition? I can leave but only when you say so?”
“If this is a game, it is one you devised,” he reminded her. “But it is one I will win.”
“You’re wrong,” Teresa said softly, with a slow shake of her head. “No one’s going to win.”
His heart fisted in his chest and that tight knot of pain told him she was probably right. By the time they were through, there would be no winners.
Only survivors.
“Are we interrupting?”
He knew that voice. Scowling, Rico turned to the man standing beside his table. He slanted a hard look at his cousin Sean, then smiled at the lovely, very pregnant woman by his side.
“Would it matter if I said
yes?” Rico asked his cousin.
“No,” Sean said.
“Yes.” Melinda spoke up at the same time. She gave her husband’s arm a light swat, then shrugged and looked at Teresa. “We are interrupting, but honestly, I just had to get out of the house.”
Sean wore slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt. Melinda’s long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail gathered at the base of her neck. Her blue eyes looked tired and she was dressed in a long skirt and a clingy top that emphasized her pregnancy.
“You mentioned you were going to dinner,” Sean put in, already helping Melinda slide across the leather seat. “And we thought that sounded like a great idea.”
He settled at the end of the booth, directly opposite Rico, and gave him a grin. Rico blew out a sigh, but short of tossing his cousin out, there was no way to get rid of him. Besides, Melinda was much too nice to be treated badly because of her idiot husband.
“Hey, champagne!” Sean spotted the bottle nestled in a silver ice bucket and signaled to a waiter for another glass. Remembering his wife, he also ordered a bottle of sparkling water.
While they waited, Rico looked at Teresa. “This is my cousin Sean King and his beautiful wife, Melinda Stanford King.”
“Stanford?” Teresa asked. “Any relation to Walter Stanford? The man who owns this island?”
“He’s my grandfather.”
Rico watched Teresa curiously as the two women fell into an easy conversation. She had known about Walter Stanford. So she’d done some research on Tesoro before arriving on the island. To help her family? Or to find out more about Rico and where he was living now?
She laughed at something Melinda said and the delicious sound settled over him like a warm blanket. Seeing her now, he wasn’t looking at his betrayer, but simply a woman so lovely it took his breath away. And he realized that the tightness in his chest was easing.
Maybe it was a good thing Sean had horned in on dinner. Having the other couple here was definitely easing the tension at the table. Though it would no doubt return when the evening was over and they were back at Rico’s house.
“So,” Sean asked with a smile as the waiter arrived and poured Melinda a glass of the sparkling water. “What’s new?”
Rico glared at him. Sean’s sense of humor could be irritating at the best of times. Tonight was not the best of times.
“I should ask that of you,” Rico said. “When we spoke earlier, you were watching a game. What made you decide to come here instead?”
“This promised more action than what was happening in that game. Dead boring.” He took a sip of champagne, then leaned his head toward his wife. “Besides, Mel’s getting a little twitchy. Waiting for the baby to make a move can make you restless. Thought she’d have a good time getting out of the house.”
“Please,” Melinda said with a laugh. “It wasn’t just me trying to get out for the evening. You were going stir-crazy.”
“Maybe a little,” Sean allowed and draped one arm around her shoulders.
Shaking her head at her husband, Melinda turned to Teresa. “Sean tells me you’ve been living in Europe the last few years. What do you do for a living?”
Rico slanted a look at her and waited for her answer. He, too, was interested in how she’d spent her time the last five years. When he’d known her, she’d been one of the chefs at his Cancún hotel. Had she kept her love for cooking, or had that been part of the ruse she’d used to get close to him? How could she be so familiar to him and yet feel like such a stranger?
Teresa glanced at him briefly, as if she’d guessed what he was thinking. Then she turned her full attention to Melinda. “I’m a chef. I’ve been working at different restaurants in Europe for the last few years.”
Melinda frowned a bit. “No home base?”
“No,” Teresa said with another glance at Rico. “I move around a lot.”
To avoid being found, no doubt, he thought, even though he wondered why. It wasn’t as if she had known he was looking for her. So why hadn’t she gone back to her family? The ones who had been important enough to her to betray her husband?
“That sounds great,” Melinda said. “I love living on the island. Couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.” She reached out and caught Sean’s hand in hers. “I do love to travel, though, so I envy you that. But I really can’t empathize with the chef thing. I’m a terrible cook.”
“True,” Sean put in. “She made tacos last week and even the dog wouldn’t eat them. And he’ll eat anything.”
“Thank you,” Melinda said wryly.
Her husband gave her a hard, fast kiss. “Didn’t marry you for your cooking abilities,” he said with a grin. “We can hire cooks.”
“Thank goodness. Or we’d starve,” Melinda put in. “Though right now, I’m looking too well fed to be starving.”
“You look gorgeous,” Teresa said.
“That’s what I’ve been telling her.” Rico smiled gently at his cousin’s wife. “A pregnant woman is nothing but beautiful.”
“And big,” Melinda put in. “Don’t forget big.”
“When’re you due?” Teresa asked.
“Officially? A week.” The woman winced and shifted position uncomfortably. “But it feels like any minute to me.”
Sean shivered dramatically. “Don’t say that. At least wait until we get home again.”
Melinda patted his hand. “Sean’s practiced making the hospital drive from our house five times.”
“Smart,” Teresa said.
Rico snorted.
Sean sneered at him.
“The hospital is only ten minutes away,” Melinda said with an indulgent smile for her husband.
“There could be traffic,” he said, defending himself.
“On Tesoro?” Rico laughed and shook his head at his cousin. “The landmass is so small, if you were on the other side of the island it would still only take you twenty minutes to reach the hospital.”
“Fine, fine.” Sean poured his wife another glass of sparkling water, then topped off his own champagne. “Just wait until your wife is pregnant. Then we’ll see how funny you think this is.”
Silence dropped over the table with a thud of awkwardness. Teresa winced. Melinda slapped her husband’s arm again. Rico frowned and Sean took a deep drink of his champagne. “Going to be a long night.”
Five
Going to be a long night.
Sean King’s words echoed over and over again in Teresa’s mind as she waited in Rico’s bedroom hours later. He’d already promised that they would sleep in the same bed. But there was no way she could relax until he was here.
She figured she now knew how a sacrificial virgin must have felt just before being tied to an altar stone. Of course, she was no virgin—that ship had sailed long ago. But the nerves were there. The anxiety about what she should do. He’d said nothing would happen between them unless she initiated it. So. Should she?
In spite of the anxiousness holding her in its grip, Teresa was…aroused. And she’d thought that over the years she had managed to bury what she’d felt for Rico. She had never met another man who could stir up her insides with a single look. She had thought that Rico was her one chance at happiness and when she’d left him, she had accepted that she would never have him again.
Now she was here, and Teresa was forced to admit, at least to herself, that the thought of going to bed with Rico again had her body burning in anticipation.
It had been so long since he’d touched her. So long since she’d felt the intimate slide of his body into hers. The mental images crashing through her mind made her legs tremble so badly that she was forced to drop into the closest chair. Teresa took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hoping for calm. Calm, though, was impossible to find.
She looked around his
bedroom, noting that the space was done in shades of soothing white, from cream to ivory and every shade in between. There were splashes of color in the paintings on the walls and the jewel-toned pillows stacked on the bed wide enough to qualify as a soccer field. The bamboo floor gleamed like old honey in the soft lighting. The chair she sat in was one of two drawn up before a now cold fireplace of river stone. A table between the chairs held a carafe of lemon water, left there by one of Rico’s efficient yet nearly invisible staff.
She poured herself a glass of water and drank half of it down, hoping to ease her dry throat. But there was no help there, either. She wasn’t thirsty, she was needy.
Oh, she hated to even let that thought race through her mind. Hated knowing that her body and heart were still vulnerable to Rico even after five years.
When she’d first met him, he had been open, warm. He’d drawn her in so easily, sweeping her into an affair and a romance and into marriage before she’d even had time to notice how quickly things were moving between them. Even if she had noticed, she wouldn’t have cared. It had all felt so right. As if they’d somehow been fated to find each other. She had loved completely, for the first time in her life, and she had hoped it was forever.
Now his warmth was gone, covered by a veneer of ice that put a hard glint in his pale blue eyes, and Teresa knew that she was to blame for the change in him. She set her water glass aside and scrubbed her hands up and down her arms, as if she could chase away the chills dancing along her skin. Despite the sexual heat simmering inside her, the cold sensation of impending disaster just wouldn’t dissipate.
“Where is he?” she muttered aloud, more to hear a sound in the stillness than for anything else. “What’s he waiting for?”
Why wasn’t he storming into the bedroom and finding a way to make her beg for him?
Another rush of heat swamped her and she pushed up from the chair. Her knees were weak, but her will was strong. Whatever game Rico was playing, she wasn’t going to cooperate. She refused to sit still and worry herself into what her mother used to call a state. Rico expected her to just sit here in this lush cell and await his arrival. No doubt he knew exactly what she was going through and was enjoying it.
Her Return to King's Bed Page 6
