Mail-Order Prince In Her Bed (Silhouette Desire)

by Kathryn Jensen

  He slid a few inches away as if to better observe her. Nothing in his eyes or the set of his mouth helped her read his thoughts. Maybe it was better for her sanity that she couldn’t.

  “Of course you have a choice,” he said at last.

  “Don’t patronize me!” She pounded both fists hard into his chest in protest, shot to her feet, ready to run. But he was up too, fingers latched around her wrist before she could take a step away.

  “Oh no, you don’t. I’m not chasing you another mile through the countryside tonight.” He spun her around to face him again, held her tightly against his chest. “We need to talk about this.”

  “I don’t want a short-term affair with you or any other man!”

  “What about a long-term affair with a man who cares deeply for you?”

  She sniffled and glared up at him. She hadn’t heard the words love or commitment or marriage yet. But she sighed, understanding that he was trying, in his own way, to compromise. It just wasn’t enough for a lifetime.

  “Listen,” she whispered, “I know you believe that’s the most you can give. I respect that. But what if we made love and I ended up pregnant? Conveniently, you’ve already stated your position—no marriage. So what would happen then, Principe?”

  He looked incredibly sad. “I…Maria, I wouldn’t expect—”

  “You wouldn’t what?” she interrupted, suddenly overcome by tears, furious she hadn’t been able to contain them. “You wouldn’t expect me to have the baby, is that it? I’d be given your royal permission to terminate my pregnancy. And wouldn’t that just fit in perfectly with my plans for having a family?”

  He hauled her in closer and gave her one good hard shake. “Stop it!” he shouted. “Maria, listen to me for just one minute.”

  She gasped for breath but the tears seemed unstoppable.

  “I’m sorry for the turmoil I’ve caused you. But I’m grateful, more grateful than I can say for knowing you. You’ve given me hope. Can’t you see that?”

  She swallowed, then swallowed again. No. She wouldn’t let him do this to her, talk her out of her fury. It felt good to shout and spit and pound on something…and, oh damn, why was he staring at her that way?

  She looked away to avoid his steady blue gaze. She didn’t want to feel anything for him…not sympathy, not love, certainly not passion.

  “Maria, I honestly don’t know what to do about us.” He crushed her to his chest when she tried to pull away. “Please believe me. I’ve struggled with these feelings from the moment we met. If I hadn’t been thinking of your well-being that first day, I would have left you in that Washington office after announcing that Marco wouldn’t be making his appearance.”

  “You should have!” she snapped, lips pressed to his lapel.

  “You’re here, at least in part, for your own benefit. For your career. If we just keep our heads, you’ll walk out of this job with one scorcher of a résumé, and you know it.”

  “If you really care what happens to me, why have you done nothing but try to seduce me ever since I came here?” she demanded.

  He held her and didn’t answer for a long time. Clouds scudded across the moon. A dog barked in the distance. The air shifted, swirled in warm eddies around her bare shoulders. She breathed. Waited for him to say anything at all that would make sense of this mess.

  “You are a very desirable woman, cara. Please don’t place all the blame on me. I accept full responsibility for my actions. But for my emotions, I cannot speak. They are what they are.”

  She hated this feeling of being slowly drawn to his side of the battle, losing sight of her own best interests. Why was it always the woman who looked out for everyone else…at her own expense?

  “Having an affair with me or anyone else isn’t going to cure you of grief.” She reached out to touch his cheek then pulled her hand back quickly. Such gestures, she couldn’t afford, only got her deeper in trouble. “I just woke you up. Now you need to find someone willing to play on your terms.”

  The words burned across her lips. She hated what she was telling him. Go find yourself another woman. But it was the only way she could advise him. Clearly, this was not a man for whom celibacy was a permanent choice. And if it wasn’t her in his bed, well then…

  “It’s not as easy as that,” he stated, studying her intently. “I don’t want anyone else. Other women don’t affect me the way you do.” He brought his hand around the back of her neck and eased her head back.

  She told herself to resist. She told herself she didn’t have to stay here, didn’t have to listen any longer. Didn’t have to stand on a rock-strewn hillside in the middle of the night and be kissed.

  If that was what he was about to do.

  So what was taking him so long?

  “You see,” he said, “when you look up at me like this, I can almost hear you asking to be kissed. Then I can’t refuse.” He bent down and brushed his lips lightly over hers. The bare soles of her feet lost all sense of contact with the pebbly ground. Her head seemed to float free of her body. Balance was chancy at best. Maria reached out to grab his arm for support.

  “Don’t, Antonio.” As soon as she felt steady she brought her arms between them protectively.

  He kissed her again. More firmly.

  “You said all I had to do was say no, and you would stop. Those are the rules. Your rules.”

  “But only if you mean it,” he whispered.

  “I mean it!”

  “Your body tells me otherwise.”

  “My body is a freakin’ traitor! Stop it.”

  He pulled back to observe her. Slowly, she dared to look up to meet his gaze. It was a mistake. With his body so close to her, the scent of him still in her nostrils, the warmth of his arms around her, she was full of him. No longer capable of fighting off fate. And that was what she finally decided it had been.

  Fate.

  It came to her as an epiphany, ripe with sudden realization, rather than from lack of rational thought. Maybe it was only at that moment, that she understood the depth of her own hunger for love.

  Maria closed her eyes and let this new way of looking at things sink in deeper. Like rain trickling down into drought-parched earth. Think outside of the box—that was what her training in advertising had taught her.

  What if leaving Antonio turned out to be the worst mistake of her life? What if fate meant him to be her only true love, for all of her life? Maybe if she didn’t risk everything for him, she’d never be given a second chance.

  How often in one lifetime could a person expect to find the perfect mate? Tragically, some women never did. And here she was closing the door on a remarkable man. A man she respected, who had been good to her. How did she know that when she next opened a door, Mr. Right would be standing there? Would ever be standing there.

  She was twenty-five and, technically, still a virgin. She had waited. No one had even come close to exciting her…until Antonio came along. She wanted him with all of her soul. Desperately. With every breath she took. If she walked away from him now, would she merely be denying him pleasure, or refusing herself her one chance at happiness?

  “The groves down there—” she pointed, her voice husky with emotion “—they’re some of yours?”

  “Yes,” he answered, frowning as if he didn’t understand the reason for her question.

  “And those little stone huts?”

  “The trulli. Yes, they are on my property. The path below circles back toward the masseria.”

  “Are they…occupied?” she asked, lifting her chin to meet his gaze dead-on.

  A dark fire flickered in his eyes. “I keep one trullo for myself, for pruning and harvest seasons. I sleep in the field then, as my father and grandfather did.”

  “Take me there.”

  He looked bewildered by the possible meanings of her words.

  She nodded in silent answer.

  “You are certain, cara? I know I’ve bullied you. I’ve—”

  Her finge
rtips rested over his lips. “Been aggravatingly persistent, yes. But not bullied.” She sighed and looked across the fields toward the walled main house and its surrounding buildings. “I can’t be with you up there. But here, away from everyone… Please, let’s go to your trullo and—”

  He kissed her gently to silence, took her hand and led her down the hillside to the ancient stone dwelling that was as old and proud and forever as the land itself.

  To an extent, the trulli resembled igloos. Instead of ice, they had been made of hand-hewn stone blocks. This one’s cone-shaped roof was topped with a curious ball-shaped symbol in stone. As Maria ducked inside the low doorway, she caught a whiff of wood smoke then the faint aroma of herbs and flour, baked and shared within the thick stone walls for centuries.

  Memories, she thought. Memories have been made here, by loving generations. Children had been nourished, the elderly cared for. And who knew how many lovers had come here to be alone, perhaps begin a new generation.

  Although the structures looked dwarfishly whimsical from a distance, she could see they served a purpose. The walls appeared to be nearly three-feet thick, strong protection against the elements and, perhaps, from the wild creatures and robbers that once roamed the land.

  Gradually, her eyes adjusted to the dark. Vague objects took on form within the roughly plastered walls of the single room. A small, splintery table. Two spindle-back chairs, stained with weathering. A compact, free-standing wooden cupboard. A bed.

  This last had a wood frame, hemp mesh supporting the mattress, which was covered with a coarse but clean cotton ticking. She imagined from the soft bulges and hollows that it might be filled with straw.

  The rustic nature of the furnishings appealed to her. Maria felt one with the ages. Sharing something precious with women through time who had sought and found nests in which to love their men.

  “It’s not very elegant,” Antonio spoke apologetically from behind her. He wrapped his arms around her like a comfortable shawl, and she turned within them to smile up at him.

  “It’s perfect,” she said, leaning her cheek against the hard wall of his chest.

  He kicked the door closed. Cut off from the moonlight, the room went black. She felt him lean down. His lips brushed hers, delicately, carefully. “Hold on a moment,” he whispered.

  She felt him move away, then he was working his way around the room, shifting things on shelves. The single sharp scrape of a struck match was followed immediately by a brilliant orange glow. Shadows flew up and across the arch of aged plaster above them.

  Maria met Antonio’s eyes across the room. A score of emotions shimmered in his dark gaze. Defining any one of them was impossible.

  “Are you frightened?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  How could she be afraid of him? The way he’d always treated her let her know that he would never hurt her, at least not physically and not intentionally. What she felt in her heart was another matter. But he’d been painfully honest with her. Perhaps that was worth more than what most men gave. He’d never tried to manipulate her.

  At Klein & Klein there was a saying: “Any publicity is good publicity.” It didn’t matter whether or not a client was misquoted, an author got a mediocre book review or an actor’s latest performance was panned. You took any mention in the press you got, then put a positive spin on it.

  That’s how she now felt about Antonio.

  He had offered her a wonderful job, a chance to see a new and exciting part of the world, and his body. His soul and his heart, he’d made clear, were his to keep. So she would take from him what he could give. She wouldn’t deprive herself of the experience he offered her. And when their time together was over, she would hold her head high, walk away from him, into another life without him. He could keep what was dear to him, and she would cherish her pride.

  And, if the man she was meant to marry ever did come along? Well, if he didn’t understand her having slept with another man she’d truly cared for, then maybe he didn’t have the compassion she’d want in a husband.

  Antonio reached out to Maria and took her in his arms. A voice within scolded him for bringing her here, despite her apparent willingness. How dare he take from her the one treasure she had hoped to share with another man! But he wrestled accusing words to the back of his mind. Later, he supposed, he would kick himself. Maybe even hate himself for what he was about to do. But now he must pay attention to Maria.

  He would take her carefully. He would make sure she felt only joy in these precious moments they shared. And when their time for parting came, which he hoped would not be soon, he would protect her as best he could from heartache.

  And there was more he could do for her.

  “Maria,” he whispered, folding her in his arms.

  “Yes,” she breathed against his chest.

  “No promises.”

  “I know.”

  “Except for one.” He tenderly kissed the soft blond curls on the crown of her head. “If you should ever need help of any kind. Ever need money, advice, names of people who can help you professionally or otherwise, come to me. I won’t turn you away.”

  She stared up at him. “I don’t want your money, Antonio.”

  “Just remember. Someday, you may need a benefactor. I’ll do anything I can to help you, cara. Anything.”

  Her eyes, bright with silver highlights among the gray irises, slid away from his. “You don’t need to buy off your guilt,” she whispered. “I’ve made my decision for my own reasons.” She sighed. “Maybe it was destiny that I’d meet you and we’d have this affair before I could move on with the rest of my life.”

  Affair, he thought. The word sounded crass and common, beneath her. Feelings he had shut down for so very long, ways of thinking about a woman, about Maria…they soared far above the common. Except there was this hunger. This craving for her that had colored everything between them from the moment they’d met.

  How could you explain that other than as pure lust?

  Antonio wanted to argue with her, to shake her and shout that she wasn’t just a mistress, wasn’t just half of a tawdry affair. But he could grasp no satisfactory definition for what had been happening between them in the past months. A surge of frustration, of rage with himself built. But as he gazed down at her these were immediately replaced by the most basic of male needs.

  He wanted her.

  He needed her as he’d needed no other woman in his life.

  “How do you do this to me, woman?” he growled, pressing his lips over hers with an urgency that shocked him.

  He had never needed anyone. Not even Anna. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, a traditional marriage of two families, conceived by the matriarchs of the family—his grandmother and hers. Yes, he’d loved her then, and some part of him would probably always miss her. But Maria had touched places in his heart that Anna had never reached. Her power over him was frightening. And exciting.

  He kissed her violently, clasped her to him with a strength that denied all his pleas that they would have no future. She didn’t resist him. Returned his kisses with a heat of her own.

  He felt around behind her, found the zipper of her gown, dealt with it. Raking the garment from her shoulders he sent the straps of her bra after it. Bare shouldered, lovely. The fullness of her breasts invited him. He pressed his palms over them, and she arched into them.

  “You are so very beautiful.”

  “You don’t have to say that!” she assured him, her eyes bright and eager.

  “I don’t have to do anything. I want to tell you how lovely you are, because it’s the truth.”

  She just smiled, as if she still didn’t believe him. Linking her arms up and over his shoulders, around his neck, she gazed up at him with steady gray eyes. Her breasts filled his hands, and he could feel the nipples rising, tickling the rough skin of his palms as he moved them in slow patterns over her flesh.

  He wanted her as if he’d never known a woman’s
body before.

  Lifting her from her feet, he carried her to the bed, laid her down. She let him finish undressing her, offering no resistance but letting him do all the work. He ringed her slim ankles with this fingers, smoothed them up over her calves, her knees, thighs…then back down again. Repeating the motion, he watched her eyes widen as his hands rose, caressing her long, silky limbs. Stopping just short of paradise. He could read her desire, knew she wanted more.

  As did he.

  There was another instant when he questioned himself. She was his employee, his guest in a country that wasn’t her own. In so many ways, she was still an innocent. And she had never changed her mind about wanting a husband.

  All things considered, he was her worst nightmare. He was the end of her perfect dream.

  Yet even at this late moment, when his body urged him to take all she offered, when his need for her was crossing an invisible border between fiery urgency and lethal desperation, he slowed down. Gave her a chance to end it. One word from her, and he’d have escorted her back to the reception, still a virgin.

  He wouldn’t like it. But he would suffer without complaint. For her. One word.

  She never said it.

  Maria pulled him down on top of her. He was still fully clothed, and she lay beautifully naked beneath him, on his straw mattress, in the dwelling of his ancestors. Men who had fought for this land, won it from the Greeks who had originally brought the first olive trees across the Aegean to plant and nurture here. Men who had built castles to defend their countryside from Saracens, invaders from the North, and ultimately rival dukes.

  From a tradition of powerful warrior aristocrats, he had been bred. They were in his blood. They were his heritage. But tonight Principe Antonio Boniface felt helpless at the touch and sight of this gentle American woman who asked so little of him. She didn’t want his money, his title or property. All he could give her at this moment was her womanhood, in all its glory.

  Yes, he’d shown her a great deal already because she’d been curious. Now she wanted more from him, but it wasn’t curiosity that had finally placed her in his bed. She felt something for him. Something important and tender and maybe close to love. It was because she was so sincere, so trusting, that he didn’t want to frighten her or leave her with any but the most delicious memories.