Читать книгу The Montoros Affair - Charlene Sands - Страница 14

Eight

The farmhouse’s great room looked brand-new and James couldn’t take all of the credit. It was because the house had good bones and old-world charm—qualities he’d never appreciated in anything before.

Hell, maybe he’d never even noticed them before.

Bella finished polishing the last silver candlestick and stuck it back on the mantel of the humongous fireplace, humming a nameless tune that he’d grown a bit fond of over the past day as they’d worked side by side to get their lover’s retreat set to rights.

“Did you hear that?” she asked with a cocked head.

“Uh, no.” He’d been too busy soaking in the sight of a beautiful woman against the backdrop of the deep maroon walls and dark furniture. “What was it?”

“The sound of success.”

She smiled and that heavy feeling in his chest expanded a tad more, which had been happening with alarming frequency all day. Unfortunately, the coping mechanism he’d used last night—grabbing Bella and sinking into her as fast as possible so his mind went blessedly blank—wasn’t available to him at this moment because a workman from the municipality was on his way to restore the water connection.

It was a minor miracle the workman had come out on short notice, given the typical local bureaucracy, but once James had mentioned that he was a representative for the Montoros, everything had fallen into place.

He’d have to make himself—and his distinctive green car—scarce. Just as he’d done this morning when the bloke from the electric company had come. But it was fine. The time away had given him an opportunity to talk through strategy with his sports agent, who mentioned a possible opportunity with Liverpool. No guarantees, but some shifting had occurred in the roster and the club needed a strong foot. Brilliant news at an even better time—the sooner James could escape Alma, the better.

“Yep,” he said and cleared a catch from his throat. “Only twenty-seven rooms to go.”

They’d started on the downstairs, focusing on the kitchen and great room, plus the servant’s quarters past the kitchen, where they intended to sleep tonight if the bed they’d ordered arrived on time, as promised. A lot had been accomplished in one day but not nearly enough.

Once they got the master bedroom upstairs cleaned up, James planned a whole silk-sheets-and-rose-petals-type seduction scene. He owed it to Bella since she’d been such a good sport about sleeping in the room designated for the help.

One thing he immensely appreciated about Bella: she joked around a lot about being high maintenance but she was the furthest thing from it. And he knew a difficult, demanding woman when he saw one, like his last semipermanent girlfriend, Chelsea. She’d cured him of ever wanting to be around a female for more than a one-night stand, a rule which he’d stuck to for nearly two years.

Until Bella.

Since he couldn’t lose his mind in her fragrant skin for...he glanced at his watch and groaned...hours, he settled for a way-too-short kiss.

She wiggled away and stuck her tongue out at him. “Yes, we have a lot of work left. But not as much as we would have if you hadn’t made all those calls. You’re the main reason we’ve gotten this far.”

The hero-worship in her gaze still made him uncomfortable, so he shrugged and polished an already-sparkling crystal bowl with the hem of his shirt so he had an excuse not to look directly at her. “Yeah, that was a brilliant contribution. Hitting some numbers on my phone.”

“Stop being such a goof.” Hands on her hips, she stepped into his space, refusing to let his attention linger elsewhere. “You’re a great person. I’m allowed to think so and don’t you dare tell me I can’t.”

That pulled a smile from him. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“Anyway,” she drawled with an exaggerated American accent, which only widened his smile, as she’d probably intended. “When I was cleaning the fireplace, I realized I really need to call my father. We can’t ignore the press release about my engagement to Will much longer.”

Though she kept up her light tone, he could tell some stress had worked its way into her body. Her shoulders were stiff and a shadow clouded her normally clear eyes.

“Maybe we can wait,” he suggested, and laced his fingers with hers to rub her knuckles. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.”

“I kind of want to get it over with.” She bit her lip, clearly torn. “But I also really like the idea of procrastinating.”

“Why?” he asked, surprising himself. He’d meant to say they should wait. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

He, of all people, understood avoiding conflict, especially when it involved an overbearing father. But the distress evident in the foreign lines around her eyes had to go and he would do whatever it took to solve the problem.

Maybe it wasn’t a good thing for him to encourage her to wait. Maybe she needed to get the confrontation over with. But how would he know if he didn’t ask?

“My father really wants me to fall in line, like Gabriel did. When Rafe abdicated, it was kind of a big deal.” She sighed. “I get that. I really don’t want to cause problems because of my own selfishness.”

“But you’re not,” he countered. “How is it a problem that you want to choose the bloke you marry?”

“Because my father says it is.” Her mouth flattened into a grim line. “That’s why I want to put off dealing with all of this. I’m just not ready for all of the expectations that go along with restoring the monarchy. I mean, I always knew our family had come from a royal line, but that was so long ago. Why is it so important to my father all of a sudden?”

She seemed a little fragile in that moment so he pulled her into his arms, shushing her protests over the state of her cleanliness.

“I wish I could tell you why things are important to fathers,” he murmured. “Mine has yet to explain why it’s so horrifying to him that I don’t want a job at Rowling Energy. Becoming a world-class football player might make some dads proud.”

“Not yours?” she whispered, her head deep in his shoulder.

Her arms tightened around him, which was oddly comforting. What had started as an embrace he’d thought she needed swiftly became more precious to him than oxygen.

“Nah. Will’s his golden boy.”

“Why don’t you want to work at Rowling?”

It was the first time anyone had ever asked him that.

Most people assumed he wanted to play football and there was little room for another career at his dad’s company. But even now, when he had few choices in continuing his sports career, he’d never consider Rowling an alternative.

His father wasn’t the listening type; he just bulldozed through their conversations with the mindset that James would continue to defy him and never bothered to wonder why James showed no interest in the family business.

“It’s because he built that company on my mother’s grave,” he said fiercely. “If she hadn’t died, he wouldn’t have moved to Alma and tapped in to the offshore drilling that was just starting up. I can’t ever forget that.”

“Is someone asking you to forget?” she probed quietly. “Maybe there’s room to take a longer view of this. If your father hadn’t moved to Alma, you wouldn’t have discovered that you loved football, right?”

“That doesn’t make it okay.” The admission reverberated in the still house and she lifted her head to look at him, eyebrows raised in question. “I love football but only because it saved me. It got me out of Alma at an early age and gave me the opportunity to be oceans away. I can’t be on the same small island as my father. Not for long.”

When had this turned into confession time? He’d never said that out loud before. Bella had somehow pulled it out of him.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly and snuggled back into his arms, exactly where he wanted her.

“I’m sorry you’ve got the same issues with your father. But there’s always gossip in a small town. We’re going to be dealing with a scandal over the press release once someone catches on to us shacking up in this love nest. But I support whatever decision you make as far as the timing,” he told her sincerely, though he’d be heavily in favor of waiting.

He wasn’t royalty though. She had a slew of obligations he knew nothing about; he could hardly envision a worse life than one where you had to think about duty to crown and country.

“I think that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

Puzzled, he tipped her chin up, and a tear tracked down her cheek. “Which part? When I called this jumble of a house a love nest or described our relationship as shacking up?”

She laughed through another couple of tears, thoroughly confounding him. Just when he thought he finally got her, she did something he couldn’t fathom.

“Neither. The part where you said you support me, no matter what. It makes me warm, right here.” She patted her stomach.

He almost rolled his eyes. That was laying it on a bit thick, wasn’t it? “I do support you, but that’s what peop—lovers...people in a rela—” God, he couldn’t even get his tongue to find the right word to explain the status of what they were doing here.

Maybe because he didn’t know what they were doing here.

“Yeah,” she said happily, though what she was agreeing to, he had no idea. “That’s what you do. I get that. You’ve always done exactly the right thing, from the very beginning. ”

He scowled. “I don’t do that.”

He didn’t. He was the guy who buckled when it mattered most. The guy whose team had been counting on him and he’d let them down. The guy who ran from conflict instead of dealing with it. Hadn’t she been listening to anything he’d said about why he played football?

His character had been tarnished further with the hooker incident. James Rowling was the last person anyone should count on. Especially when it came to support. Or “being there” for someone emotionally.

“You do.” Her clear blue eyes locked with his and she wouldn’t let him look away. “You look in the mirror and see the mistakes your father has insisted you’ve made. I look at you and see an amazing man. You did hard physical labor all day in a house that means nothing to you. Because I asked you to. You’re here. That means a lot to me. I need a rock in my life.”

She had him all twisted up in her head as the hero of this story. She couldn’t be more wrong—he was a rock, all right. A rolling stone headed for the horizon.

It suddenly sounded lonely and unappetizing. “I can’t be anyone’s rock. I don’t know how.”

That had come out wrong. He intended to be firm and resolute, but instead sounded far too harsh.

“Oh, sweetie. There’s no instruction manual. You’re already doing it.” She shook her head and feathered a thumb over his jaw in a caress that felt more intimate than the sex they’d had last night. “You’re letting someone else cloud your view of yourself. Don’t let your father define who you are.”

He started to protest and then her words really sank in. Had he subconsciously been doing that—letting his father have that much power over him?

Maybe he’d never realized it because he’d refused to admit the rift between him and his father might be partially his own fault. James had always been too busy running to pay attention. Even now, his thoughts were on Liverpool and the potential opportunity to play in the top league. But more importantly, Liverpool wasn’t in Alma—where the woman who had him so wrongly cast in her head as the hero lived. He was thinking about leaving. Maybe he was already halfway out the door.

Which then begged the question—what if he buckled under pressure because he always took off when the going got tough?

* * *

The new bed was supremely superior to the floor.

Bella and James christened it that night and slept entwined until morning. It was the best night of sleep she’d ever had in her life.

But dawn brought a dose of reality. She hadn’t been back to the Playa del Onda house in almost forty-eight hours. The quick text message to Gabriel to explain her absence as a “getaway with a friend” hadn’t stopped her father from calling four times and leaving four terse voice mail messages. She hadn’t answered. On purpose.

With the addition of running water and electricity, the farmhouse took on a warmth she enjoyed. In fact, she’d rather stay here forever than go back to the beach house. But she had to deal with her father eventually. If this matter of the engagement announcement was simply a test of her father’s resolve versus her own, she wouldn’t care very much about the scandal of being with James.

But it wasn’t just about two Montoros squaring off against each other. It was a matter of national alliances and a fledgling monarchy. She didn’t have any intention of marrying Will, but until the Montoros issued a public retraction of the engagement story, the possibility of another scandal was very real. This one might be far worse for Gabriel on the heels of the one Rafe had caused. And hiding away with James hadn’t changed that. She had to take care of it. Soon.

“Good morning,” James murmured and reached out to stroke hair from her face as he lay facing her on the adjacent pillow. “This is my favorite look on you.”

“Bedhead?” She smiled despite the somberness of her thoughts.

“Well loved.” He grinned back. “I liked it yesterday morning, too.”

Speaking of which... “How long do you think we can reasonably hole up here without someone snapping a picture of us together?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Forever.” When she arched a brow, he grinned. “I can fantasize about that, can’t I? As long as I keep jetting off when people show up, what’s the hurry?”

Her conscience pricked at her. James was leaving the timing of forcing the issue to her, but a scandal could be damaging to him as well. It was selfish enough to refuse to marry Will, but she wasn’t really hurting him as long as they were up front about it. A scandal that broke before the retraction could very well hurt James and she couldn’t stand that.

“I think I need to talk to my father today,” she said firmly. “Or tomorrow at the very latest.”

James deserved what he’d asked for—the right to take her out in public, to declare to the world that they’d started seeing each other. To take her to a hotel, or dinner or wherever he liked. It wasn’t fair to force him to help her clean up this old farmhouse just so she could avoid a confrontation.

Except she wasn’t only avoiding the confrontation. She was avoiding admitting to herself that her own desires had trumped her responsibilities. Hurricane Bella had followed her across the Atlantic after all.

“I’ll drive you back to Playa Del Onda,” he said immediately. “Whenever you’re ready.”

A different fear gripped her then. What if they got everything straightened out and she and James could be together with no fear of scandal—only for her to discover things between them were so amazing because of the extreme circumstances? The white-hot attraction between them might fizzle if their secret affair wasn’t so secret any longer.

That was enough to change her mind.

“I’ll probably never be ready. Let’s shoot for tomorrow.” That was too soon. The thought of losing her allure with James made her want to weep. “Let’s get some more work on the house done today. It’ll give me time to gear up. Is that okay? Do you have something else you need to be doing?”

“Nothing I would rather be doing, that’s for sure. I’m completely open.”

“Me, too.”

And for some reason, that didn’t sit well, as if she was some kind of Eurotrash princess who had nothing better to do than lie around all day getting it on with a hot athlete. That was like a tabloid story in and of itself.

The urn from the great room popped into her head. Usefulness created worth and she wanted to feel that her life had worth.

“You know what I’d like to do?” she said impulsively. “Find out if there’s a wildlife conservation organization in Alma.”

James, to his credit, didn’t register a lick of surprise. “I’ll help you find one.”

Of course he’d say that, without questioning why. His unwavering support was fast becoming a lifeline. “I was involved in one back in Miami. I like taking care of poor, defenseless creatures. Especially birds. We had wild macaws on the grounds at our house and I always felt like they were there as a sign. I miss them. I miss feeling like I’m doing something to give back, you know?”

“It’s a good cause,” he agreed. “There are some estuaries on the east side of the main island. Lots of migratory birds and fish live there. Surely there are some organizations devoted to their preservation. If not, you’re in the perfect position to start one.”

Her breath caught. At last, a use for the title of princess. If her brother was running the show, he could give her backing in parliament to get some state money set aside. Fund-raisers galore could come out of that. “Thanks. I love that idea.”

“If we’re going to Playa Del Onda tomorrow, you want to swing by the Playa branch of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and see if they have any information on wildlife conservation?”

“Definitely. And then I’d like to come back and put together a serious renovation plan for the house. But I’m not suggesting you have to help,” she amended in a rush.

Good grief. Everything that came out of her mouth sounded as if she was ordering him around, expecting him to play chauffer and be a general Alma guide. He might have his own life to live. Or he might realize the thrill had worn off.

“I want to help,” he insisted. “My assumption is that we’re still planning to lie low, even after you clear things up with your father. So that means we need a place to go. I like it here.”

She let out the breath caught in her lungs. She shouldn’t read into his response. But for some reason, it made her feel a little better that he wasn’t already planning to ditch their relationship once it wasn’t secret any longer. “I do, too.”

She’d started thinking she might like to live in the farmhouse permanently. It wasn’t too far from Del Sol, so she could visit Tía Isabella occasionally. If she planned to stay in Alma, she had to live somewhere. Why not here? No one else cared about it.

As she lay in the bed James had ordered and smiled at him in the early morning light, it occurred to her that he was the only reason she’d even thought about a permanent place to live. As if James and forever were intertwined.

That was enough to propel her from the bed with a quickly tossed-off excuse about taking a shower now that she could.

As the water heated up, she berated herself for dreaming about life beyond the next few days. It was one thing to question whether James would lose interest once they could go public with their affair, but it was another entirely to assign him a permanent place in her life without even consulting him.

What would his place be? Boyfriend? Official lover? She’d be living in the public eye far more in Alma than in Miami. What if James didn’t want that kind of scrutiny? She wouldn’t blame him, especially given the past scandals that dogged his steps.

Of course, she didn’t know his thoughts one way or another. Maybe he’d be done with their affair in a few days, regardless of the status of their relationship. Maybe the whole concept of being her long-term lover had little appeal.

What was she thinking?

What had happened to the girl who used to flit from one guy to the next with ease? Or for that matter, the girl who flitted from party to party? Living out here in the country would make it really difficult to stay in the scene. No jetting off to Monte Carlo or Barcelona for some fun on the Mediterranean when Alma grew too dull. But when she exited the bathroom and saw the beautiful, surprisingly romantic man still in the bed they’d shared last night, sprawled out under the covers like a wicked fantasy, all of that drained from her mind. What party—what other man, for that matter—could compare to that?

“Give me a few minutes and we’ll get started,” he promised. “Let’s check out the upstairs today.”

God, she was in a lot of trouble. She should be the one thinking about cooling things off, not worrying about whether James planned to.

But the thought of ending things with James made her nauseous.

What was she going to do?