Читать книгу The Dreaming Of... Collection - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 40

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE DINNER JACKET he wore felt tight, restrictive. And someone had turned up the temperature in the private dining room. Or had it been turned down?

Dios...

Reyes passed a finger underneath his collar and moved the food around on his plate.

‘I would need to fly to Europe at least twice a month. I have a standing appointment for full works at my favourite spa in Switzerland.’ Carefully styled blond hair curtained to one side as the duchess tilted her head. ‘That won’t be a problem, will it?’

The bread basket. Suddenly, Reyes needed it more than he needed to breathe.

‘Reyes...you don’t mind me calling you Reyes, do you? Or do you prefer Rey?’ She smiled.

Perfect teeth. Perfect hair. Perfect manicure.

No character-forming scars on her body. As Jasmine had across her palm. Or that thin two-inch scar on her shoulder.

He growled under his breath. He was sitting opposite a beautiful, poised woman who was warm enough for his people to fall in love with. Visually, the duchess was the antithesis of his mother and Anaïs, and that alone would sway his people, who’d hated Queen Isolde Navarre, towards her.

And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about the reluctant thief with the body that called to his like a siren to a sailor.

He forced himself to focus on his dinner companion. After another minute, he threw down his napkin, stood and smiled down at the duchess.

‘We won’t need to worry about what you’ll call me. After tonight we’ll most likely never meet again.’

He entered his suite twenty minutes later. It was barely nine o’clock so he knew Jasmine would still be up. He told himself he was searching for her to give her a piece of his mind about how appallingly his evening had gone.

He had a right to, after all.

When the living room proved empty, he contemplated leaving the dressing-down till morning. Going to the bar, he poured himself a cognac and walked out onto the penthouse terrace.

He heard the splash of her swimming before he rounded the corner to where the private pool was located.

Despite warning himself that he needed to stay away, he couldn’t stop his feet propelling him forward until he was standing on the edge of the aqua-tiled pool, staring at her stunning figure as she swam underwater.

Her arms and legs kicked in a graceful flow, the sight of her scantily clad figure robbing him of breath and sanity. That feeling of skating on the edge of his control escalated to the point where he was in a foul mood by the time she broke the surface.

‘You failed.’ His snarl was deep and ruthless enough to make him inwardly grimace.

Nevertheless, he felt a measure of cheap satisfaction when she whirled to face him. ‘Actually, I was winning. Twenty laps without stopping is an achievement for me.’

‘I don’t mean your swim. I mean you failed with the duchess.’

A single frown line marred her perfect skin. ‘Okay. I guess that’s why you’re back early? What happened?’

Her legs continued to swirl lazily underwater as she stared up at him. Reyes’s groin pounded hard as he followed the sexy movement.

When she raised her eyebrows, he dragged his gaze away, tried to find words to enumerate the duchess’s faults. None came to mind. ‘She lacked the qualities I need.’

Jasmine’s eyes shadowed. She glanced away, then back at him. ‘You did the kissing test?’ An odd note in her voice made something jerk in his chest. He didn’t have time to examine it because she kicked away from the edge. Her breasts bounced, and he nearly swallowed his tongue as flames spiked into his groin.

‘I didn’t need to. I knew she would fail.’

‘Wow, you’re psychic now?’ Her tone had returned to normal. She swam towards the steps.

He followed, mesmerised by the curve of her spine and the roundness of her behind. He watched her rise from the pool and pluck a towel from the chair. His fingers tightened around his glass when she patted the towel over her body.

Focus! ‘Perhaps you need to be reminded of my earlier statement. You failed.’

‘You have two more candidates. Maybe you’ll strike it lucky second time round. If not, three times will be the charm.’

The restlessness that prowled through him intensified. ‘You’ll come with me tomorrow.’

She froze and stared at him with wide, wounded eyes. ‘I’d rather not, Reyes. I’m not the one marrying these women!’

He exhaled harshly. Ploughing a hand through his hair, he glared at her. ‘I...need you.’

Her eyes widened further. He kicked himself for uttering words he had no business saying. ‘No, you don’t. I’ve done my bit. It’s time to do yours.’

‘Dios! Have you always been this infuriating?’

Her face fell. ‘You think I’m infuriating?’

Reyes was overcome with a desire to placate her. Take that look off her face. Replace it with one of those stunning smiles that lit up his insides.

He pondered the feeling, adding extreme puzzlement to the many emotions he felt around this woman.

This woman should be in jail somewhere dark and harrowing, not enjoying the luxury of a Parisian emperor suite, wearing a sexy bikini, and swimming in his pool.

‘Yes. You’re infuriating. And you’re also supposed to be good at your job. So far you’re doing a pathetically poor attempt. Were you in my permanent employ I’d have fired you a long time ago.’

She looked down at the floor for several seconds, before she glanced back up. ‘Wow, you don’t hold back when you really get going, do you?’

He dragged a hand through his hair. ‘I had a call on my way back. My father had a better health day today than the doctors have seen in the last six months. I missed it, Jasmine. I missed it because I’m attending dinners and vetting potential brides just so my people’s faith in me can be restored. You think I should go easy on you for that?’

She’d grown paler as he spoke, and tears filled her eyes by the time he finished.

Reyes felt like a toad for upsetting her. He cursed silently when her mouth trembled.

‘I wasn’t going to apologise again. I think saying sorry loses its power after the first dozen times. But once again, please know that I never wished for this to happen to you, Reyes. I was protecting those I love and misjudged the consequences. But what’s happening with your father is good news. You weren’t there to witness it but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s better.’

About to denounce her for her unwanted optimism, he paused in surprise when she leaned in close and kissed his cheek.

His breath punched out as her alluring scent engulfed him. Too soon, she stepped back and he fought down a keen sense of loss.

Rocking back on his heels, Reyes eyed her. ‘Why did you do that?’ He was shocked enough for his voice to emerge flat. At every turn this woman threw him for a loop.

‘You looked like you needed it. You’ll be back home soon enough and in control of things. And Santo Sierra will get better with you in charge. I’m certain of it.’

She secured the towel around her, grabbed another one and proceeded to dry her hair. He found himself transfixed, unable to take his eyes off her.

When she sat cross-legged on the lounger, Reyes fought to avert his gaze from her bare thighs. Seeing another scar on her knee, he frowned. From what he knew about her, he was aware her childhood hadn’t been a bed of roses. But the physical marks caused him to wonder exactly what had happened to her.

‘Did this happen to you in juvie?’ he asked tersely as he sat opposite her.

She followed his gaze and shook her head. ‘No. It was yet another product of my misspent youth.’

His fist clenched. ‘That’s not an answer, Jasmine.’

Her throat moved in a small swallow. ‘I was pinned between two gangs during a turf war on the council estate where I lived. This is the result of flying glass from a shattered window.’

He forced himself to release his hold on the glass before it broke in his fist. ‘Shattered glass from...?’

‘Bullets.’

Icy fury washed over him. ‘Your mother let you live in such a dangerous place?’ His voice sounded gruff and almost alien in his ears.

‘We had nowhere else to go.’ No self-pity, just a statement of fact. And yet he knew that the situation must have been gruelling. Why else would she have fought to never return to a place like that again?

Overwhelmed by the protective instinct that continued to build inside him, Reyes looked at her knee. He barely resisted the urge to run his hand over the jagged scar. Just as he fought to ask whether there were more signs of her traumatic childhood on her body.

It wasn’t his business. She was a transient presence in his life. He wasn’t even interested in punishing her for the theft of his treaty any more. Her life had been a difficult one. She’d made choices she wasn’t proud of, but she’d made those choices out of loyalty, a need to survive.

As much as he wanted to damn her for the turmoil she’d left behind, deep down he knew that, faced with the same choice, he would choose the same path. How many times had he shielded his own father from his mother’s misdeeds? Lied to protect his father’s feelings? Even knowing what his mother had been doing the day she died, he’d tried to keep the truth from his father for as long as possible.

Except Reyes didn’t want to let Jasmine go...not just yet.

What he wanted was to assuage the alarming, visceral need to flatten her on the nearest surface and rediscover the heady pleasures of her body.

His eyes rose to her face.

Awareness throbbed between them. Then she glanced away to the view of Paris at night.

‘I was about to order room service. Do you want some food?’ Her voice was husky, warm and sexy in that way that reminded him of their encounter in the darkened bedroom on his yacht.

He forced his gaze from her sensual mouth, and nodded. ‘Sí. I’m starving. Make sure you order an extra-large bread basket.’

She picked up the phone to make the call to his chef. Reyes traced the seductive line of her neck, and resisted the urge to jump into the pool to cool down his out-of-control libido.

* * *

Reyes dismissed the second candidate after a mere twenty minutes.

‘What was wrong with her?’ Jasmine asked, despite the heady pool of relief building inside her. Taking pains not to examine the feeling too closely, she hurried after him as he strode away from the restaurant on the Champs-Élysées.

‘Your notes said she had nothing to do with her father’s media business. That turned out not to be true.’ He rounded on her once they were in the car and driving away. ‘In case I haven’t made it quite clear, I detest the media. They made my and my sister’s lives a living hell when we were growing up, thanks to their insatiable interest in my mother and her infidelities.’ His mouth was pinched and the lines around it deep and pale.

‘I didn’t know that about your mother. I’m sorry.’

He inhaled deeply and loosened the blue-striped tie he’d worn with a pristine white shirt and a dark grey suit. A muscle twitched in his jaw as he exhaled. ‘Gracias. Perhaps I did you a disservice by not giving you enough time to prepare for this.’

It was the closest he’d come to an apology for the unreasonable demands he’d made for her assignment. But even though she nodded her acceptance, Jasmine couldn’t shift from his statement about his mother.

‘Did your subjects know...about your mother?’ she asked.

He wrenched at his top buttons and pulled his tie free. ‘Yes, they knew. They thought my father weak for not divorcing her and by the time she died in her lover’s car, she was very much a hated figure.’

‘So by definition...’

‘Sí, the whole House of Navarre hasn’t endeared itself to the people.’

The question she’d been trying to avoid asking ricocheted through her head.

Ask. This is your chance.

‘Back in Spain you said something about not wanting another destroyed life on your conscience. Did something else happen with your mother?’

His features froze and he remained silent for so long, she was certain he wouldn’t answer.

‘Five years ago, I almost got engaged.’

It was the last response she’d expected. Her mind blanked for a second. ‘What?’

His laugh was bitter. ‘You wanted to know why marrying wasn’t my first choice, so...’ He stopped and his face contorted with bitter recollection. Jasmine wanted to tell him to stop, wanted to wipe whatever wretched memory was causing the distress on his face. He spoke before she could form the appropriate words.

‘Anaïs Perdot and I met the last time I was here in Paris. It was my first diplomatic tour. Her father was doing a lot of business in Santo Sierra and Anaïs and I grew...close.’

Jasmine didn’t want to guess what memory was making his jaw clench. She held her breath as he continued. ‘Her parents were eager for a match. I suppose on paper we were an ideal couple. She was young and exciting. For a while she made me forget that I was the son of a queen who didn’t feel any remorse about dragging the family name through the mud with her infidelities. Hell, she even helped me to forge an easier relationship with the father I detested because I thought him weak for not stopping my mother’s behaviour.’ His chest heaved on a deep exhale.

‘For a while?’ she ventured.

His lips firmed. ‘Her parents thought Anaïs should live in Santo Sierra for a while before we announced our engagement. Within weeks, my mother got her claws into her.’

‘How?’

He shrugged. ‘It started off as lunches and shopping sprees while I was busy with matters of state. Then they turned into late-night parties when she wouldn’t return to the palace until the early hours, and then not at all.’

Jasmine frowned. ‘Behaviour not exactly befitting a future queen, but European royalty have been known to indulge in much worse antics.’

His eyes turned arctic. ‘Really? How many female members of your royal family have been photographed having sex with another man the week before their engagement was announced?’

Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, my God! What did you do?’

Reyes stared at her for several more seconds before he shook his head. ‘I handed over an obscene amount of money to the camera-wielding blackmailer to prevent the pictures hitting the papers. And I set back my relationship with my father by having our biggest fight yet when he refused to lift a finger against my mother for her part in Anaïs’s behaviour.’

‘I’m so sorry, Reyes.’ She laid a hand on his arm and felt his palpable tension.

‘That wasn’t the worst of it. The day I told Anaïs it was over, she went to my mother. My mother convinced her that I was merely throwing a tantrum; that I would get over it. And then she talked Anaïs into partying one more night. On their way back from the club, they were involved in a hit-and-run accident. Anaïs claimed my mother was driving. My mother claimed the opposite. The result was that a teenager was left paralysed for life, his plans to become a doctor shattered.’

‘And still your father did nothing?’

Reyes pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘After I threw Anaïs and her family out of my life, she decided to share her version of her time in Santo Sierra with the media. My father finally tried to do some damage control, but it was too late. We were vilified in the media. My mother’s behaviour spiralled out of control. A few months later, she was dead. That’s when the first ramblings of unrest began.’

‘And your father’s illness just compounded the problems.’

That sadness she’d glimpsed on his face that first night in Rio appeared again. ‘I never really got a chance to tell him that I regretted our fight. Last night would’ve been a good opportunity, had I been home.’

‘You’ll be home in a matter of days. You’ll get your chance.’

He fell silent for a stretch of time, then he sent her an intense glance. The imperious ruler of one of the world’s richest kingdoms was back. And despite the determined look on his face now, Jasmine couldn’t help but feel desperate heartache for what he’d suffered. She realised her hand was still on his arm and lowered it to her lap.

‘You understand now why finding the right candidate is imperative?’ he asked.

Despite her heart taking a cliff-dive, she nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’

Again her heart wrenched at the thought that weeks from now he would be a married man. It would be a marriage of convenience, of course, but one he intended to commit to for a lifetime.

He would be out of reach for ever.

Last night, sharing a relaxing dinner with him, she’d wondered what it would’ve been like if they’d met under different circumstances. Then she’d kicked herself for the absurd thought.

Their backgrounds were too diverse for that to have happened in any lifetime. As she’d thought in Rio, they were two ships passing in the night, never to meet again.

But they’d met once...and again. Right at this moment, they could share a lifetime connection.

Because of Reyes’s tight schedule and his edict that she wasn’t allowed anywhere on her own, she hadn’t been able to get her hands on the pregnancy test yet.

Instead she’d ordered it online and was expecting it to be delivered to the hotel today.

Until it arrived and she was forced to confront whatever consequences it brought, she would concentrate on carrying on as normal. Reality would come soon enough. Certainly before Reyes left for Santo Sierra.

And if her suspicions were right and she really was pregnant...

Reyes’s door opened, and the driver bowed. ‘Your Highness.’

Her heart lurched as she watched him struggle to suppress painful memories behind a bland façade. Again, the need to comfort him grew until she gripped her handbag to stop herself reaching for him.

Jasmine prayed the last candidate would be what Reyes wanted, while studiously ignoring the spear of pain that lanced her heart.