Читать книгу The Royal House of Niroli Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Пенни Джордан - Страница 33

‘I’VE changed my mind,’ Alex said, getting up from the chair as she came back to the kitchen. ‘You’re not an elf or a pixie—you’re a princess.’

Amelia knew her cheeks were glowing but there was nothing she could do to disguise it. ‘It’s a beautiful dress,’ she said softly. ‘Anyone would look like a princess in it.’

‘Do you think you should leave your father a note in case he gets back before you do?’ he asked.

She nodded and, quickly scribbling a message on the back of the note her father had left, she propped it up against his mug again.

Alex escorted her out to the car, shooing the hens away from her as they went. ‘Make way for Her Royal Highness Princess Amelia,’ he said. ‘Come on, ladies, be off with you.’

Amelia giggled as the hens scuttled off with ruffled feathers. ‘They’re not all ladies,’ she said, pointing to the proudly strutting rooster amongst them.

‘Sorry, mate,’ he addressed the rooster. ‘I didn’t see you there.’ He turned back to Amelia and grinned cheekily. ‘What a life he must have, all those ladies to himself with no competition.’

Amelia felt her cheeks grow warm as she thought about how many women had flown in and out of his life. His playboy lifestyle afforded him numerous opportunities to flit from one relationship to the other, and with his easy charm and unmistakable sexual potency she began to realise she was in very real danger of joining their number.

Alex tipped up her chin with one hand while he used the other to graze his knuckles over the bright pool of colour on her cheek. ‘Do you know you’re the first woman I’ve been able to make blush in years?’

She looked into his dark eyes, her pulse beginning to race as his knuckles caressed her again. Her heart felt as if it were growing in size, her legs as if they had been disconnected from the bones that were supposed to hold them upright.

‘I—I’m not used to this sort of thing,’ she said, her tongue sneaking out to unconsciously moisten her mouth.

‘What sort of thing?’

‘Flirting, joking, dating…that sort of thing.’

He looked puzzled for a moment. ‘How old are you?’

Her cheeks fired up again. ‘Thirty.’

‘Then you really have to make up for lost time,’ he said, and, stepping away from her, opened the car door. ‘I’ve got a whole six years on you.’

Amelia waited until they were on their way before speaking again. ‘I suppose you are very experienced in the ways of the world and find me something of a novelty.’ She hadn’t really intended to sound quite so priggish but it was too late to take the words back now.

‘To tell you the truth I find you delightfully refreshing,’ he said, sending her a quick glance, the white slash of his smile devastatingly attractive against the olive tone of his skin.

‘But you’re laughing at me all the same. I can tell.’

‘That chip on your shoulder will ruin that dress by stretching it all out of shape,’ he warned her playfully.

‘I haven’t got a chip on my shoulder.’

Alex flicked another glance her way and skilfully redirected the conversation. ‘You have two brothers, right? What do they do for a living?’

She let out a little sigh. ‘Rico, my older brother, recently lost his job at one of the vineyards. He hasn’t had a lot of luck with steady employment. Silvio, my younger brother, has been even worse. He’s been restless most of his life, flitting from one thing to another. He’s employed down at the main port but he doesn’t really talk about what it is he actually does.’

‘I guess that puts an extra strain on you,’ he said.

‘It does.’ She looked down at her hands in her lap. ‘I’ve had to take up some extra work…at the palace.’

She felt his gaze swing her way. ‘Doing what?’ he asked.

‘Nursing the king two nights a week.’

‘So what’s the old guy like?’ he asked.

‘His bodyguards don’t really encourage conversation with him,’ she said. ‘Besides, I prefer to play a low profile.’

‘Because of your family’s history?’

‘That and…other things,’ she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear self-consciously.

‘You’re not intimidated by all that monarchy stuff, are you?’ he asked, swinging another quick glance in her direction.

She met his eyes briefly. ‘So you’re not a monarchist yourself?’

He gave a little noncommittal shrug. ‘It’s an ongoing debate in Australia about whether we should become a republic. I haven’t really made up my mind. Too busy saving lives I guess.’

‘Your work is very demanding,’ she said, releasing a tiny breath to counteract the effect of his close proximity. ‘It’s a wonder you had the time to come over here to help our people.’

‘When I received a royal summons I was a bit intrigued, I can tell you,’ he said. ‘I had heard about the island before but, while it was somewhere on my list of must-see places, I wouldn’t have come right now, but my parents were keen for me to do it.’ He sent a quick smile her way and added, ‘I guess they want to dine out on it a bit. “Have we told you about our son who mixes with Italian royalty?” That sort of thing goes down a treat at a dinner party.’

‘But you’re not fazed by it all—or, if you are, you’re not showing it,’ she surmised.

‘I’m a doctor, Amelia. My first priority is to heal the sick and if I can do that in a way that helps the underprivileged then I’m more than happy. Don’t get me wrong, I come from a wealthy background which has given me some wonderful privileges, but my parents have always encouraged both Megan and I to give something back to the community and not just our neighbourhood one.’

‘Your family sounds wonderfully supportive,’ Amelia said, thinking sadly of all she had missed out on in hers.

‘They are. I am very lucky.’

‘How old is your sister?’ she asked after a little silence.

‘She’s twenty-five.’

‘That’s quite an age gap between you—eleven years,’ she observed.

‘I know, but it was a long time after my adoption papers were processed before they could adopt another child,’ he said.

Amelia swung her gaze to look at him again. ‘You’re… you’re adopted?’

‘Yes, and very proud of it.’ His dark eyes met hers briefly. ‘My adoptive parents are fabulous people. I owe them a great deal. When you think about it, I could have ended up with much worse.’

She waited until he’d brought the car to a stop outside one of the restaurants in Santa Fiera before asking, ‘Have you ever thought of tracing your biological parents?’

He met her gaze across the small width of the car. ‘Now and again I’ve thought of it but I haven’t done anything about it. I guess my main reason has been to save my adoptive mother the hurt she might feel if I were to go looking for the woman who gave birth to me. It’s a sensitive subject. My adoptive mother was unable to have children of her own. She grieved terribly that she couldn’t give my father what he most wanted. Of course, the reproductive technology available today would have solved her problems in an instant. But she is the only mother I’ve ever known, even though I was what was considered in those days a late adoption.’

Amelia felt the small silence begin to tighten the air in her chest. ‘How late?’ she asked, glancing at him.

‘I was two years old.’

A tiny shiver passed over the back of her neck, lifting each and every fine hair. ‘So…so you don’t recall anything at all of your infancy? I mean, before you were adopted?’ she asked.

He answered her question with a question of his own. ‘Tell me, Amelia, what’s your very first memory?’

She thought about it for a moment. ‘I was about three, I think, when my mother made me a fairy dress with wings on the back of it. She told me later how she had made it from the material of her wedding dress and veil. I can’t really remember anything before that.’

‘That’s about average for most people. Neurological studies have shown that the infant brain is not mature enough to store reliable memories until about the age of three.’

‘What about in terms of emotional and physical abuse?’ she asked. ‘Surely if the infancy was traumatic enough there would be some trace of it in the child’s later behaviour?’

‘Perhaps, but that would not necessarily be because the child actually remembered what had happened, but more of an instinctive feeling in an evolutionary sense that life was unsafe and chaotic during that time.’

Amelia mused over his answer as they walked into the restaurant. They were led to a table near the windows that overlooked the beach of the main tourist area, which had been recently developed on the island, the casino, restaurants and health spa attracting large crowds during the spring and summer months.

The waiter handed them menus and the wine list and left them alone to decide.

‘What wine do you recommend?’ Alex asked, looking at the list in his hands.

‘I’m not much of a wine connoisseur but the Porto Castellante Blanco is known as the signature wine of the island. The Niroli vines have been cultivated since Roman times,’ she said, recalling what Rico had told her while he had been working at the vineyard. ‘It’s said that the Niroli vines produce the queen of white grapes.’

‘Let’s give it a go, then,’ he said, and signalled to the waiter.

Amelia tried to relax as their wine was poured a short time later but she was way out of her comfort zone and felt sure it showed. She glanced at the other couples and parties dining and wished she could appear less gauche, but she had so rarely eaten out and was terrified in case she picked the wrong piece of cutlery.

Alex picked up his glass and raised it in a toast against hers. ‘Here’s to mending the broken hearts of Niroli.’

She lowered her gaze for a moment, a shadow passing over her features.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Confession time, little elf.’ He reached across the table and tipped up her chin with his finger, his dark eyes meshing with hers. ‘If you tell me who broke your heart I’ll tell you who broke mine.’

‘I can’t imagine you having your heart broken,’ she said, her gaze slipping away from his to stare into the contents of her glass.

‘It happens to the best of us, believe me,’ he assured her as he leaned back. ‘My work gets in the way a lot. I guess that’s why I’ve reached this age without settling down.’

‘Is that what you want to do some time? Settle down?’ she asked, taking a tentative sip of wine.

‘I don’t know.’ A small frown brought his dark brows closer for a fraction of a second. ‘I thought I wanted to once but it didn’t work out.’

Amelia wondered if she’d been wrong about assuming his heart was unbreakable. He acted like a carefree playboy, but she couldn’t help wondering now if it was a cover-up for deeper hurt.

‘What about you?’ he asked, his expression lightening once more. ‘Are you like most other young women living in hope that Prince Charming will come along one day and sweep you off your feet?’

She gave him a twisted smile as she reached for her wine again. ‘It’s a nice fantasy, but hasn’t anyone told you there aren’t enough princes to go around?’

He smiled back at her. ‘You could always settle for an ordinary bloke. How about me? Want to run away and get married and have my babies?’

Amelia’s mouthful of wine burst from her mouth and sprayed across the table to pepper the front of his shirt. She gasped and choked and died a thousand deaths of embarrassment, but all he did was hand her his napkin and chuckle with amusement.

‘I think I must have jumped the gun a bit. Maybe I should have kept that for our second date.’

‘I can’t believe you said that…’ She glanced around to see if anyone had seen her mortifying moment, but to her relief no one had appeared to, or if they had they were too polite to stare. She brought her gaze back to his. ‘You’re joking…right?’

He leaned forward again and took one of her hands in the warmth of his, his dark gaze holding hers. ‘What if I wasn’t?’

She pulled her hand out of his, her mouth tightening with reproach. ‘Please don’t make fun of me. I might not have the experience of other women my age, but I’m not a complete fool.’

‘I had no intention of making fun of you. It kind of slipped out. I didn’t even know I was going to say it until the words were out of my mouth—honestly.’

She gave him a hardened little glare. ‘I know what you’re up to but it won’t work with me. You’re only here for a month and you’re looking for a playmate to pass the time.’ She got to her feet and thrust her napkin on the table. ‘Go and find someone else to warm your bed. I’m not interested.’

Alex gave the waiter a handful of notes and brushed past the other diners to follow her, finally catching up to her a couple of blocks down the street. ‘Amelia, listen to me.’

‘Go away.’

‘Damn it, will you stop walking so fast and listen to me for a minute?’

She swung around to face him, her chest heaving, her eyes flashing with green and brown sparks of fury. ‘You really take the prize for the biggest ego. I thought my first lover was bad, but you surpass him in spades.’

He stood watching her without speaking, a small smile tipping up the edges of his mouth.

‘Stop looking at me like that.’ She glared at him crossly.

‘Like what?’

‘You keep smiling at me.’

‘You make me want to smile.’

‘I don’t want you to smile at me.’

‘Then you’re going to have to stop doing that.’

‘Doing what?’

‘That little thing you do with your mouth.’

She scowled at him. ‘What little thing?’

He took her hands in his and pulled her up against him.

‘That pursed-lipped thing. You do it all the time. It drives me crazy. It makes me want to kiss you.’

‘That’s…that’s ridiculous,’ she said, staring at his mouth.

‘Is it?’ He pressed a hand to the small of her back and brought her even closer.

‘O-of course it is…You hardly know me…’

‘I know. It’s never happened like this before.’

‘I don’t believe you. You’re just saying that to tempt me into allowing you to kiss me.’

‘Is it working?’

‘Is…is what working?’ She was still staring at his mouth, her gaze mesmerised by its sensual contours, made all the more captivating by the gentle curve of his smile.

He lowered his head until his lips were so close to hers they almost grazed them as he spoke. ‘I’ve wanted to kiss you from the first moment I saw you on my back fence.’

Amelia knew if she moved her lips to form a single word the battle to keep him at bay would be lost. She stood, totally transfixed, her body tingling all over at the feel of his pressed so closely, his maleness against her femaleness, his muscular strength against the yielding softness of hers.

But then, almost without her realising she was doing it, her tongue sneaked out to moisten her lips and involuntarily brushed against his bottom lip, sending sparks of electricity right through her.

‘You really shouldn’t have done that, little elf.’ This time his lips did graze hers, his warm wine-flavoured breath mingling with her quickly expelled one.

‘I—I didn’t mean to do that…’ she breathed, her lips buzzing with sensation as they moved against his.

He pressed a soft, barely touching kiss to her mouth. ‘Sure you did.’

‘No…’ She kissed him back, softly, shyly. ‘No…no…I didn’t…’

He smiled against her lips, making them instantly vibrate with intense longing. ‘You’re lying to me. You really want to kiss me. I can tell.’

‘No…it’s you that wants to kiss me.’

He lifted his head a fraction, just enough to meet her gaze, his eyes dark and gleaming with desire. ‘You’re right. That’s exactly what I want to do.’

Amelia watched as his gaze dipped to her mouth, the thick black lashes fanning down over his eyes, his head coming down…

‘Wait!’ She placed her flattened palm to his chest.

He lifted his head to look down at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘We’re standing in the middle of the street,’ she whispered as some people strolled by.

‘Are we?’

‘You know we are.’

He looked down at her mouth again. ‘I forgot about that.’

She gave a small, embarrassed laugh. ‘Just as well I reminded you. We could have made complete fools of ourselves.’

‘I guess we’ll have to do this some other time, then.’

‘I guess.’

He held her gaze for a long moment without speaking.

‘I’m sorry about dinner,’ she began awkwardly. ‘I shouldn’t have rushed out of the restaurant like that.’

‘We can always go back in and start over,’ he suggested. ‘I’m sure the waiter won’t mind. Besides, I’m starving.’

‘So…shall we do it?’ she asked after a tiny pause.

‘Do what?’ he said, looking at her mouth again.

‘Go and have dinner.’

‘Oh, I thought you were talking about the other thing.’

She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘What other thing?’

‘This other thing,’ he said, and before she could do a thing to prepare herself his mouth came down and set fire to hers.