Читать книгу The Montoros Affair: The Princess and the Player / Maid for a Magnate / A Royal Temptation - Charlene Sands - Страница 11
ОглавлениеThe small cockpit of James’s car filled with the scent of Bella instantly. It was exotic, erotic and engaging, flipping switches in his body he’d have sworn were already wide open from the visual of Bella at the beach in that little bikini.
How was it possible to be even more turned on when you were already blind from lack of release?
She’d changed into a little white sundress that hugged her curves. The tiny straps begged for a man’s hands to slip them off her shoulders, kiss the smooth flesh and then keep going into the deep V of her cleavage.
It was going to be a long, long drive through the interior of Alma as they looked for an abandoned farmhouse Bella insisted they could find. Problem was, he wanted her now, not in two hours after they crisscrossed the island in his green Lamborghini, which was hardly invisible.
As they clicked their seatbelts, his phone buzzed and he glanced at it out of habit, already planning to ignore whatever it was. Nothing could be more important than Bella.
Except it was a text message from Will. Who never texted him. Frowning, James tapped the screen of his phone and read the message.
I had nothing to do with this, but thought you should know.
Nothing good was going to come of clicking the link Will had sent, but forewarned was forearmed, so James did it anyway.
Montoro Princess to Wed the Heir to Rowling Energy.
The headline was enough. He didn’t need to read the rest.
With a curse, he tilted his phone toward Bella. “Now taking bets on which of our fathers is behind this.”
She glanced at it and repeated his curse, but substituted the vilest word with a more ladylike version, which put a smile on his face despite the ill-timed, fabricated announcement.
“Mine,” she announced with a snort. “Control and dictate is exactly his style.”
“Sure you’re not describing my father?” James returned. “Because that’s his MO all day long.”
“No, it’s my father. Definitely. But it doesn’t matter.” She grabbed his phone, switched it off and stuffed it in the bag at her feet. “You can’t have that back. No more scandals, interfering fathers and marriage alliances. Just drive.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And now. Before my babysitters figure out I’m not in the house.”
Since that sounded fine to him, he backed out of his beachside parking place and floored the gas pedal, heading west out of Playa Del Onda.
“This is a gorgeous car,” she commented with apparent appreciation as she caressed the dashboard lovingly in a way that immediately made him want her hand in his lap instead of on his car. “I dated a guy in Miami with an Aventador, but it’s so flashy without any real substance. The Gallardo is more refined and I love the color.”
God, she was going to kill him before the day was over. “You know cars? I can’t begin to tell you how hot that is.”
She shrugged with a musical laugh, knocking one of the straps of her dress askew and drawing his attention away from the road. Dangerously.
“It’s hard to live in a place like Miami without gaining at least some passing knowledge. I’ll let you in on a secret, though. We girls always judge a man by his car. Mercedes-Benz? Too serious. Porsche? Works too hard. Corvette? Too worried about his hair.”
James laughed in spite of the discomfort going on down below that likely wouldn’t ease for an eternity. “So my Lamborghini is the only reason you wanted to go out with me?”
“The car test only works if you haven’t met the guy yet. We’re strictly talking about taking someone’s measure in the parking lot.”
He shifted to take a hairpin curve as they wound away from the beach into the more sparsely populated inland roads of Alma. Since he had no idea what they were looking for, he’d drive and let her do the surveying.
“Then I’ll go with my second guess. You wanted to go out with me because I’m a witty conversationalist.” He waggled his brows and shot her a sly smile. “Or door number three—I know a trick or two between the sheets.”
He’d meant to be flirtatious, but now that it was out there, he realized the conversation with Will still bothered him a bit. Bella had said on numerous occasions that marriage wasn’t her thing. Regardless, establishing the ground rules of what they were doing here couldn’t hurt.
“Both.” Blond hair swinging, she leaned on the emergency brake between them, so close he imagined he could hear her heart beating. “We have all night long and I do love a good conversation, especially in the dark. But if you forced me to choose, I’d go with door number three.”
Brilliant. So they were both on the same page. They were hot for each other and wanted to burn it off with a wild night together. “Just so you know, with me, sheets are optional.”
Awareness tightened the atmosphere as she let her gaze travel down his chest and rest on the bulge in his pants. He could hardly keep his attention on the road. Who wanted to watch the scraggly countryside of Alma when a goddess sat in the adjacent seat?
“By the way,” she said. “I think we just passed the road we were supposed to take.”
With a groan, he did a quick U-turn and drove down the street barely noticeable in the overgrowth of trees and groundcover. “I didn’t know we had directions. Maybe you could speak up earlier next time?”
“Sorry, I’m a little distracted. Maybe you could stop being so sexy for a couple of minutes.” Fanning herself as if he’d heated her up, she trailed a finger down his bicep muscle and toyed with the crook of his elbow.
“Me?” he growled. “You’re the one in that knockout dress. All I can hear in my head is your voice on repeat, when you said the next time we were together, you’d be naked.”
“Oh, did I forget to tell you?” She kissed the tip of her finger and pressed it to his lips, but she pulled away too quickly for him to suck the finger into his mouth the way he wanted to. “I’m naked under this dress. Wanna pull over?”
He nearly whimpered. “I cannot possibly explain how much I would like to do exactly that. But we are not getting it on in the car like a couple of horny teenagers. You deserve to be treated right and that includes a bed and me taking my time enjoying you.”
Besides, they might be headed into the heart of rural Alma, but the roads were not deserted. They passed cars constantly. People knew who drove the only green Lamborghini on the island and all it would take was one idiot with a camera phone for another risqué picture of James and Bella together to land in the public eye. It was a dirty shame he hadn’t tinted the windows on his car.
Until they straightened out the marriage announcement, it would create so much less of a jumble if they kept a low profile.
“Then drive faster,” Bella suggested, and her hand wandered over to rest on his inner thigh, where she casually stroked him. Innocently, as if she touched him all the time, except she hadn’t touched him like that before and his vision started to blur with unrequited lust.
He stepped on the gas. Hard.
“Where are we going?” Driving around until they stumbled over a farmhouse that may or may not exist had started to sound like the worst idea he’d ever agreed to.
“This is the main road to Aldeia Dormer, right?” When he nodded, she pointed at the horizon. “The assistant I talked to thought she remembered that the farmhouse was on the outskirts, before you hit the village. If you keep going, we’ll find out.”
“What if I just take you to a hotel and we check in under an assumed name?”
He had plenty of practice with parking in an obscure place and passing out discrete tips to the staff so he and his lady friend could duck through the kitchen entrance. Why hadn’t he insisted on that in the first place? The text from Will had muddled him up, obviously. There was a former castillo-turned-four-star-bed-and-breakfast on the south side of Playa Del Onda that he wouldn’t mind trying.
She shook her head with a sad smile and it was so much the opposite of her normal sunny demeanor, he immediately wanted to say something to lighten the mood. But what had caused such an instant mood shift?
“My aunt asked me to find the farmhouse. It’s important to her and maybe to Gabriel. She said it was part of the Montoro legacy. We’re already so close. I promise, if we don’t find it soon, I’ll reconsider the hotel.”
Her earnestness dug under his skin and there was no way he could refuse. “Sure. We’ll keep going.”
Okay, maybe she was a little different from other women he’d dated. He certainly couldn’t recall catering to one so readily before, but that was probably due to the degree of difficulty he’d experienced in getting this one undressed and under him.
They drove for a couple of miles, wrapped in tension. Just when James started to curse his flamboyant taste in cars, they crested a hill, and she gasped as a white farmhouse came into view.
Wonders of wonders. “Is that it?”
“I’m not sure.” Bella pursed her lips as he drove off the main road onto the winding path to the farmhouse and parked under a dangerously dilapidated carport.
Would serve him right if this ill-conceived jaunt through Alma resulted in a hundred grand worth of bodywork repairs when the carport collapsed on the Lamborghini. “I thought you said it was off this road.”
“Well, it’s supposed to be. But I’ve never been here before,” she pointed out. “Maybe there are a hundred white farmhouses between here and Aldeia Dormer.”
“Only one way to find out.” He helped her from the car and held her hand as they picked through the overgrown property. “Don’t step in the tall weed patches. There might be something living in them you’d rather not tangle with.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you’re here, then. I’ll let you deal with the creepy crawly stuff.”
“I’ll be your hero any day.”
Her grateful smile made his chest tight with a foreign weight because he felt like a fraud all at once. The only heroic thing he’d ever done in his life was give Bella an opportunity to be with Will if she chose. When had he last expended any appreciable effort looking out for someone else’s welfare?
He could start right now, if he wanted to. No reason he couldn’t keep an eye out for opportunities to throw himself in front of a bullet—figuratively speaking—for an amazing woman like Bella. If she’d smile at him like that again, the payoff wasn’t too shabby.
The farmhouse’s original grandeur still shone through despite the years of neglect. Once, the two-story clapboard house had likely been the home of a large family, where they gathered around an old wooden table at supper to laugh and tell stories as dogs ran underfoot.
As if he knew anything about what a family did at supper. Especially a family whose members liked each other and spent time together on purpose. Did that kind of lovely fairy tale even exist outside of movies? He swallowed the stupid lump in his throat. Who cared? He had no roots and liked it that way.
The property spread beyond the house into a small valley. Chickens had probably clucked in the wide backyard, scolding fat pigs or horses that lived in the wooden pens just barely visible from the front of the house. The fences had long fallen to the weed-choked ground, succumbing to weathering and decay.
James nearly tripped over an equally weathered rectangular wooden board hidden by the grass and weeds. He kicked at it, but it was solid enough not to move much despite the force of his well-toned football muscles. Metal loops across the top caught his attention and he leaned down to ease the board up on its side.
“It’s a sign,” Bella whispered as her gaze lit on the opposite side.
James spun around to view the front. In bold, blocky letters, the sign read Escondite Real. “In more ways than one.”
Unless he missed his guess, this was indeed the property of royalty. Or someone’s idea of a joke.
“No one told me to brush up on my Spanish before I came here. What does it say?” Bella asked with a mock pout.
“Royal Hideaway. Is this where your ancestors came to indulge in illicit affairs?”
Mischievously, she winked at James. “If not, it’s where the current generation will.”
“Illicit affairs are my favorite.” Taking her hand again, he guided her toward the house.
“Look. It’s beautiful.”
Bella pointed at a butterfly the size of his palm. It alighted on a purple bougainvillea that had thrived despite the lack of human attention, the butterfly’s wings touching and separating slowly. But the sight couldn’t keep his attention, not when Bella’s face had taken on a glow in the late afternoon sunlight as she smiled at the butterfly.
God, she was the most exquisite woman he’d ever seen. And that was saying something when he’d been hit on by women renowned the world over for their beauty.
“Let’s check out the inside.” He cleared the catch from his throat, mystified by where it had come from. Women were a dime a dozen. Why didn’t Bella seem like one of the legion he could have in his bed tomorrow?
It didn’t matter. Will hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen when James cleared the air with him. The watch on his wrist wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Bella fished a set of keys from her bag. The second one turned the tumblers in the padlock on the splintered front door. It opened easily but the interior was dark and musty. Of course. There wouldn’t be any electricity at an abandoned farmhouse. Or a cleaning crew.
“I guess we should have thought this through a little better,” James said. “At least we know we’re in the right place since the key worked.”
Any hope of stripping Bella out of that little dress and spending the night in a haze of sensual pleasure vanished as something that sounded as if it had more feet than a football team scrabbled across the room.
“Yeah. It’s a little more rustic than I was anticipating.” She scowled at the gloom. “I’m not well versed in the art of abandoned farmhouses. Now what?”
* * *
Bella bit her lip to staunch the flow of frustrated tears. Which didn’t exactly work.
This was all her fault. She’d envisioned a romantic rendezvous with a sexy, exciting man—one she’d looked forward to getting to know very well—and never once had it crossed her mind that “abandoned” didn’t mean that someone had picked up and left a fully functioning house, ready and waiting for her and James to borrow for a night or two. The most strenuous thing she’d expected to do before letting James seduce her was kill a spider in the shower.
Graying sheets covered in cobwebs and dust obscured what she assumed must be furnishings underneath. The farmhouse hadn’t been lived in for a long time. Decades maybe. The property may not even have running water. She shuddered. What had Isabella sent her into?
One tear shook loose and slid down her face.
Without speaking, James took her hand and drew her into his embrace, which immediately calmed her. How had he known that was what she needed? She slid her arms around his waist and laid her head on his strong chest.
Goodness. His athlete’s physique did it for her in so many ways. He was shockingly solid and muscular for someone so lean and her own body woke up in a hurry. Sensation flooded her and she ached for him to kiss her again, as he’d done on the terrace—hot, commanding and so very sexy.
But then he drew back and tipped her chin up, his gaze serious and a bit endearing. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll drive into the village and pick up a few things. I hate to leave you here, but we can’t be photographed together. While I’m gone, see if you can find a way to clean up at least one room.”
His smile warmed her and she returned it, encouraged by his optimism. “You do have a gift for uncomplicating things. I’m a little jealous,” she teased.
“It’ll be smashing. I promise.”
He left and she turned her attention to the great room of the farmhouse. Once she pulled the drapes aside, sunlight shafted into the room through the wide windows, catching on the dusty chandelier. So the house was wired for electricity. That was a plus. Maybe she could figure out how to get it activated—for next time, obviously, because there was a distinct possibility she and James might make long-term use out of this hideaway. Being a princess had to be worth something, didn’t it?
Holding her breath, she pulled the sheets from the furnishings, raising a tornado of dust that made her sneeze. Once all the sheets were in a pile in the corner, she dashed from the room to give all the flurries a chance to settle. Using her phone as a flashlight, she found a broom in one of the closets of the old-fashioned kitchen.
“Cinderella, at your service,” she muttered and carried the broom like a sword in front of her in case she ran into something crawly since her knight had left.
By the time he returned, the sun had started to set. She’d swept the majority of the dust from the room and whacked the cobwebs from the corners and chandelier. The throaty growl of the Lamborghini echoed through the great room as James came up the drive and parked. The car door slammed and James appeared in the open doorway, his arms weighted down with bags.
“Wow.” He whistled. “This place was something back in the day, huh?”
She glanced around at the rich furnishings, which were clearly high-end, even for antiques, and still quite functional if you didn’t mind the grime. “It’s a property owned by royalty. I guess they didn’t spare much expense, regardless of the location. I wonder why no one has been here for so long?”
And why all these lovely antiques were still here, like ghosts frozen in time until someone broke the spell.
“Tantaberra liked Del Sol.” James set his bags down carefully on the coffee table and began pulling out his bounty. “My guess is this was too far out of the limelight and too pedestrian for his taste.”
A variety of candles appeared from the depths of the first bag. James scouted around until he found an empty three-pronged candelabra, screwed tapers into it and then flicked a lighter with his other hand. He shut the front door, plunging the room into full darkness. The soft glow of the candles bathed his face in mellow light and she forgot all about the mystery of this farmhouse as he set the candelabra on the mantel behind the brocade couch.
“Nice. What else did you bring me?” Bella asked, intrigued at the sheer number of bags James had returned with. She’d expected dinner and that was about it.
“The most important thing.” He yanked a plaid blanket from the second bag and spread it out on the floor. “Can’t have you dining on these rough plank floors, now can we?”
She shook her head with a smile and knelt down on the soft blanket to watch him continue unpacking. It seemed as if he’d thought of everything, down to such necessary but unique details as a blanket and candles. It was a quality she would never have thought to admire or even notice. And in James, it was potently attractive.
“Second most important—wine.” He plunked the bottle next to her and pulled out two plastic cups. “Not the finest stemware. Sorry. It was the best I could do.”
His chagrin was heartbreakingly honest. Did he think she’d turn up her nose at his offering? Well, some women probably would, but not Bella.
“It’s perfect,” she said sincerely. “If you’ll give me the corkscrew, I’ll pour while you show me what else you found in town.”
He handed her a small black-cased device of some sort. It looked like a pocketknife and she eyed it curiously until he flicked out the corkscrew with a half laugh. “Never seen one of these before?”
“My wine is typically poured for me,” she informed him pertly with a mock haughty sneer, lady-of-the-manor style. “Cut me some slack.”
Instead of grinning back, he dropped to the blanket and took her hand. “This is a crappy first date. I wish I could have taken you to dinner in Del Sol, like I’d planned. You deserve to be waited on hand and foot and for me to make love to you on silk sheets. I’m sorry that things are so out of control for us right now. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
“Oh, James.” Stricken, she stared into his gorgeous aqua eyes flickering in the candlelight. “This is exactly what I’ve been envisioning since I got in the car back at the beach. I don’t need a three-hundred-euro dinner. I just want to be with you.”
“You’re a princess,” he insisted fiercely. “I want to treat you like the royalty you are.”
Good grief. Was all this because of the stupid joke she’d made about being high maintenance? Obviously he’d taken her at her word. Backpedaling time.
“You do that every time we’re together. Encouraging me to make my own choices about who I date. Bringing me to the farmhouse simply because I asked, without telling me it was crazy. Holding me when I cry. Being my hero by making this night romantic with ingenuity and flair, despite the less than stellar accommodations. How could I possibly find fault in any of that?”
A little overcome, she stared at him, hoping to impart her sincerity by osmosis. Because he was amazing and somehow verbalizing it made it more real. Who else in her life had ever done such wonderful things for her? No one. Tender, fledgling feelings for James welled up and nearly splashed over.
He scowled. “I did those things because you needed me to. Not because you’re a princess.”
Silly man. He didn’t get what she was saying at all. “But don’t you see? I need someone to treat me like me. Because you see me and aren’t wrapped up in all the royal trappings, which are essentially meaningless at the end of the day.”
That was the mistake her father had made, trying to pawn her off on Will. And Will was nearly as bad. Everyone was far more impressed with her royal pedigree than she ever was. Everyone except James. And now he was being all weird about it.
Just as fiercely, she gripped his hand. “I wasn’t a princess last year and if you’d met me then, wouldn’t you have tried to give me what I needed instead of trying to cater to some idea you have about how a girl with royal blood should expect you to act?”
“Yeah.” He blew out a breath. “I would. I just didn’t want this to be so disappointing for you. Not our first time together.”
Seriously? After the way he’d kissed her on the terrace? There was no freaking way he’d disappoint her, whether it was their first time or hundredth time. The location hardly mattered. She wanted the man, not some luxury vacation. If he thought dollar signs turned her on, she’d done something wrong.
“Our first time together cannot be disappointing, because you’re half the equation,” she chided gently. “I expect fireworks simply because you’re the one setting them off. Okay?”
He searched her expression, brows drawn together. “If you’re sure.”
She caressed his arm soothingly, hoping to loosen him up a little. The romantic candlelit atmosphere was going to waste and that was a shame. “Yeah. Now show me what else is in your magic bag.”
With a grin, he grabbed the last bag. He fished out a roll of salami, which he set by the wine, then lined up a wedge of cheese, boxed crackers and a string of grapes. “Dinner. I wish it—”
“Stop. It’s food and I’m hungry. Sit down and let’s eat it while you tell me stories about growing up in Alma.” Patting the blanket, she concentrated on opening the wine, her one self-appointed task in the evening’s preparations. It was tougher to pierce the cork than she’d anticipated.
Instead of complying with her suggestion, he took the bottle from her hands and expertly popped the cork in under fifteen seconds.
“You’ve done that before,” she accused with a laugh as he poured two very full glasses of the chilled white wine. It was pretty good for a no-name label and she swallowed a healthy bit.
“Yep. I’m a master of all things decadent.” He arched a brow and plucked a grape from the bunch to run it across her lips with slow sensuality that fanned heat across her skin instantly. “Hurry up and eat so I can show you.”
Watching him with unabashed invitation, she let him ease the grape between her lips and accepted it with a swirl of her tongue across the tips of his fingers. His eyelids lowered, fluttering slightly, and he deliberately set his glass of wine on the coffee table, as if to silently announce he planned to use both hands in very short order.
She shuddered as all the newly-awakened feelings for this man twined with the already-powerful attraction. She wanted to explore his depths and let the amazing things happening between them explode. Simple desire she understood and appreciated, but this went beyond anything simple, beyond anything she’d experienced before.
“Or we can do both at the same time,” she suggested, her voice dropping huskily as he trailed his wet fingertip down her chin and throat to trace the line of her cleavage.
“There you go again reading my mind,” he murmured and captured another grape without looking away, his gaze hot and full of promise. “Let’s see if you can guess what I’m thinking now.”
