The love one felt as a teenager, that first love—the lust, the heat, the newness of it all—made it intense. It had the power to sweep you off your feet. But she was an adult now, she didn’t need a fairy tale.
And waiting for her at the lighthouse was a man who could potentially be ‘the one’.
But therein lay the rub.
She had zero expectation that they’d found him.
In fact, Jasmine Walker was convinced ‘the one’ just wasn’t out there...
Or he was...but she ruined her chance with that particular man a long, long time ago.
* * *
What are you doing?
Freddie Highgrove let his gaze drift from the pretty white brick lighthouse to the impressive vista beyond. With the sun hanging low in the sky it cast everything it touched in a warm amber glow. The endless sea, the luscious vegetation, the white sand beach with its rolling granite boulders breaking into the water. It was all so very easy on the eye and he tried to feel nothing. Nothing at all.
But the grip he had over his chilled glass mimicked the tight hold around his heart and both told him otherwise.
There was only one woman he’d ever intended to travel here with.
Jasmine Walker. The one that had got away. The one that had run away, even.
The moment the pilot of the private jet arranged by the M dating agency had announced their destination, he should have ordered them to stay grounded and let him make his exit. Quick, sharp, painless.
Instead, he was waiting on the arrival of said date with a bitter taste in his mouth and no amount of the island’s chilled finest could see it off.
It was his own sorry fault too. Not M’s.
When Madison Morgan, the owner and very much the heart of M, had asked ‘When I say romance, what location do you think of first?’ he should have ducked it. Not said the first thing that had come into his dim-witted brain.
He gave a brutal laugh, the sound as harsh as it had been when she’d posed the question.
The Seychelles.
He could have said Paris, Rome—anywhere else—but no.
And why? Because of her. Jasmine.
Ten years and he couldn’t rid himself of the woman. And she hadn’t even been a woman then, not really. They’d been teenagers counting on a future so rosy it made him feel sick to think of it now. Sick and foolish.
He rubbed his freshly shaven jaw and tilted his head back to the setting sun. Now there wasn’t a romantic bone left in his body, he had no interest. No interest in a date of M’s choosing, or a marriage of convenience designed to elevate his illustrious family’s reputation.
So, what on earth was he doing here?
His lips quirked. He knew what he was doing, all right. He was delaying the inevitable, putting off his Scottish parents’ wish that he marry into the English aristocracy by convincing them he was finding his own ‘rich’ and ‘suitably entitled’ wife.
He ran a finger through the collar of his black polo shirt, the fabric, though breathable, felt too thick and heavy as he wished he was anywhere but here. Anywhere but about to sit down with some unsuspecting woman who through no fault of her own could never be the one for him. Regardless of what M may think.
Truth was, what heart he’d possessed had left with Jasmine ten years ago. And try as they might, his parents were going to be sorely disappointed if they were depending on his marriage to enhance their place in the world. As for grandkids, more lairds-in-waiting, it wasn’t happening.
Ten years ago—yes. It was all he’d wanted. Marriage. Kids. A family home filled with love and warmth. He would have taken that over his family’s wealth and status any day. But Jasmine had bailed on him.
Fifteen years of friendship. A year as lovers. A ring on her finger. And it hadn’t been enough to make her stay and fight.
His hand pulsed around his glass and he threw back the chilled liquid, not tasting a drop. He wouldn’t be that fool again.
‘Mr Highgrove?’
He turned at Monique’s voice, forcing a smile, and—
No.
He had to be seeing things.
It wasn’t.
It couldn’t be.
‘May I present Miss—’
‘Jas!’ It choked out of him. This had to be some kind of sick and twisted joke.
The Jasmine lookalike gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes—those eyes that had haunted his dreams, his nightmares too—wide. ‘Freddie?’
Monique frowned. ‘You two...’ she looked at Jasmine, looked at him ‘...know each other?’
He couldn’t respond. He felt like every grain of sand on the beach had made its way into his lungs, his chest, his body. He couldn’t breathe.
Monique cleared her throat. ‘It seems I needn’t introduce you after all.’ She clasped her hands together, her eyes dancing in the golden light. ‘How clever M has been on this occasion! Do please take a seat, Miss Walker.’ She gestured to Jasmine’s chair like the tension weighing heavy in the air didn’t exist. How could she not feel it? He couldn’t even move for it and neither could Jasmine. Her mouth was still agape, her pallor obvious in spite of her make-up and the warm glow of the evening.
‘I shall pour the champagne,’ Monique said as Jasmine stayed stock-still.
‘No.’
Both women jumped and Monique’s eyes narrowed on him. The ‘no’ had come from him... Oh, this wasn’t good.
‘Excuse me, sir?’
‘What I mean is...’ He softened his voice, working hard to relax his posture, but his heart was pounding, his pulse beating wild at the sight of Jasmine. His first glimpse in ten years, and it wasn’t just a glimpse, she was his date! ‘I will pour it.’
‘Of course.’ If Monique still considered his behaviour odd, she made no show of it as she beamed. ‘I will leave you to get reacquainted and bring your starters out when they are ready.’
She walked away, her whispered words carrying on the breeze. ‘Well, well, well, this has to be a first.’
A first he could have done without...
‘Take a seat, Jas.’ He waved his empty hand at her chair before pulling out his own. ‘I won’t bite.’
He couldn’t look at her as he said it, though. He was in shock. Utter shock.
‘Did you set this up?’ she whispered.
A laugh erupted through his chest, his eyes soaring to hers. ‘Are you serious?’
She was. He could see it in the accusatory glint to her brilliant green eyes, her glossy pink lips pursed.
This couldn’t be real.
Only it was...
‘Do you honestly think that of all the women in the world I would choose to bring you here?’
As intended, his words stung. He watched with forced satisfaction as her eyes flared and her throat bobbed. That beautiful slender throat in that petite little frame that had hardly grown in the time they’d been apart.
Compared to his six feet one, was she still only five feet three?
He remembered the day he’d measured her, pressed up against the wall of the kitchen in Highgrove Manor. Her refusing to believe that he was almost a foot taller than her, him proving a point, while enjoying every inch of her body trapped against his.
He breathed past the sudden rush of tension, the lustful hit the silly little memory sparked, and dragged his eyes from the alluring green of hers.
‘No, Jas.’ Like it needed stating in clearer terms. ‘I did not set this up.’
He reached for the champagne and poured two glasses, the gentle fizz of the drink as it bubbled up in the glass more pronounced for the silence now stretching between them.
And still she hadn’t moved.
He rested the bottle back in the ice and looked at her. Her blazing red hair was cut into a long, smooth bob that smacked of both sophistication and ma
turity. The black dress she wore clung to her curves and ended just above her knee with the smallest of front slits, and a pair of gold heels that gave her an added inch or two.
Classic. Smart. Disturbingly stunning.
And aside from her obvious shock, there was a confidence about her, an unfamiliar poise that made him shift in his seat.
‘I take it from the persistent shock on your face that you didn’t set this up either?’
‘How could I possibly...?’ She shook her head, her arms folding around her middle in a protective gesture that dug beneath his skin, wounding as much as it angered. It wasn’t him that had broken her heart. It wasn’t her that needed the protection.
And neither do you...you’re older and wiser and know better.
‘No.’ She wet her lips. ‘I didn’t set this up.’
‘In that case, why don’t you sit, and we’ll offer up a toast to this cruel twist of fate.’
She eyed him, wary and silent. Long, drawn-out moments when he thought she might turn and run—again.
But finally she stepped towards him, her scent carrying on a sudden breeze, and his chest spasmed.
How can she still smell the same?
He raised a hand to his face, a barrier to her scent as he masked it with his own and watched her lower herself into the chair opposite. He didn’t want to feast on the sight of her up close, of the flames from the firepit in the centre of the viewing platform flickering in her eyes, dancing over her skin and making her hair even more vibrant.
He sought distraction in the drinks he’d poured and took up hers, offering it to her. He realised his mistake the second her delicate fingers brushed against his. Their eyes collided and for the briefest of moments time fell away. They were in the Highgrove guest house, the fire roaring, a diamond ring fresh on her finger, champagne in hand.
He gritted his teeth and retreated back into his chair, taking his drink with him.
‘To us.’ He raised his glass to her, the vulnerability in her eyes holding him captive, and inwardly winced. He could practically feel her reaching inside his soul and stamping all over it anew.
‘To...’ She swallowed and wet her cupid’s-bow lips. ‘To us.’
Copyright © 2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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ISBN-13: 9780369712929
Falling for the Sardinian Baron
Copyright © 2021 by Rosanna Battigelli
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Falling for the Sardinian Baron Page 17