by Dani Collins
“An undersecretary from your State Department called. It’s not a promise to vote in favor, but it’s a promising sign they’re leaning that way.”
“Oh!” The impulsive clap of her hands sent bubbles exploding like flakes off a snowball. “That’s wonderful.”
“That’s thanks to you.” He eased into place behind her, his muscular body buoying hers as he pressed her to relax back into him.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sure it was your father’s influence at play.”
“Mmm.” She let her head loll against his shoulder, absently playing with his fingers where he roped his forearm across her collarbone. Her brow pleated. She wanted him to be happy, wanted peace for his country—who wouldn’t wish peace for everyone in the world? But a pang sat in her chest. She wished something more personal had brought him to her this evening.
“It’s a very big step,” he said, drifting his hand down the slippery slope of her breast. “Do you know how many countries hesitate to make a move because they fear instigating something with yours? If America supports us, the other two-thirds of the votes I need would fall into place fairly quickly. I know I said I wouldn’t force any dress-up on you, but there may be a few state dinners in our future.”
She bit back a huffing laugh. So not surprised.
Just say no, Tiffany.
But refusing to play her part meant refusing this relationship. Despite it’s misty future, she wasn’t ready for it to end.
Especially when Ryzard lightly toyed with her nipple, making her murmur approval and slide against him. Was he manipulating her with her own responses, she wondered distantly? He was hardening against her, so he did want her.
Still, she hated herself a little for being so weak and easily managed. If she couldn’t have the same effect on him, she at least wanted to break through his control. Rolling over, she grasped him in a firm hold, the way she’d learned he liked, and nipped his bottom lip.
He jerked his head back. The gold flecks in his green eyes glinted like sparks off a sword. “It’s like that, is it?” he growled.
She grinned and sent a small tsunami across the ledge as she dragged herself onto her knees and straddled his thighs. As she kissed him with all the passion releasing inside her, she used her whole body to caress him, wiggling her hips to encourage the palms that shaped her backside.
Licking into his mouth, she reached to caress his thick erection again and started to take him into her.
“Draga, wait,” he rasped against her open mouth. “Protection.” He leaned away to reach for his pants.
Inhaling anguish along with a small dose of shame, she wondered what she had been thinking, offering unprotected sex. Was she that desperate for something permanent with him?
“Actually, let’s go to the bed,” he said, pulling away to leave the tub and let water sluice off him onto the floor. “It’ll be more comfortable.” He reached to draw her onto her feet, then lifted her out, carrying her wet and dripping into her bedroom, where he followed her onto the bed.
She bit him again as he tried to kiss her.
“What has got into you?” he asked, pulling her scratching nails off him and pinning them above her head in one hand.
“Not you,” she taunted, inciting him with the arch of her body into his. “What’s taking so long?”
With a bite of the packet and a stroke of a finger and thumb, he was covered and pushing into her, not rough, but not gentle. Inexorable. She was ready, but not entirely. The friction caused her to draw in a breath of both surprise and anticipation.
“Better?” he asked, holding himself so deep inside her, she released a little sob. He eased back. “Tiffany, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “Just make love to me.”
* * *
Ryzard did, because he couldn’t be with her like this and not thrust and withdraw and savor and bask. But he held out, making it last a long time for both of them, sensing a wall that needed prolonged lovemaking to erode. He blamed himself for the distance. He was struggling with having her here. It had been an impulse to ask her and he didn’t regret it, but he was still having a hard time adjusting.
For the moment, however, he closed his mind to his inner conflicts and opened himself to Tiffany.
She writhed beneath him, so beautiful in her struggle to resist the little death of orgasm, clinging to him as she hung on to their connection. It couldn’t last forever, though. Nothing could. His heart stopped. The whole world did. Ecstasy overtook them and nothing existed for him except her.
He stayed in that trance for hours, trying to sate their appetite for each other with repeated joinings. The wall between them receded and he didn’t worry about it again until the next morning, when she woke in his bed.
She glanced around with the perplexed befuddlement of the bubbleheaded blonde he sometimes teasingly called her. “Where am I?”
“The Presidential Bedroom,” he answered, shrugging into his suit jacket while he enjoyed the show.
The sheet slipped as she sat up. Her blue eyes blinked and she smoothed a hand over her tangled hair. “Why?”
“Your bed was wet,” he reasoned, distantly aware that wasn’t the whole truth. He had wanted her in here before he’d ever gone looking for her, but he was distracted by the shadow that passed behind her clear-sky irises as she looked around.
“Problem?”
She only lifted the sheet and glanced at her naked body. “Please tell me you put clothes on me when you carried me here.”
“You were awfully heavy. I couldn’t manage another ounce.”
Her baleful gaze held a dire warning that made him grin. He picked up her robe from the chair and tossed it to the foot of the bed in answer.
She stood to pull it on, not returning his smile. The niggling sense of being held off returned full force.
“Are you all right, draga?” he asked, moving forward to cup her cheek and force her to look up at him.
She didn’t quite meet his eyes, only saying with an ironic twist to her mouth, “Let’s just say it’s a good thing I had a warm bath to loosen my muscles before we played for gold in that triathlon last night.”
“Shall I rub you down?” he offered, stroking a hand down her back in concern. He was ready to insist, wanting the physical connection to her even if it wasn’t a sexual one. The way she stayed resistant to his touch bothered him.
“I thought it was verboten for me to be in here? I’ll be fine. I’ll have a hot shower and do my stretches.” She kissed him, but it was a minimal brush of her lips against the corner of his mouth before she disappeared.
He frowned as he crossed to pick up his phone from the nightstand. Absently he straightened the snapshot of him and Luiza on horseback, wondering if he was imagining the wedge between him and Tiffany.
It was probably for the best if there was one, he reasoned. This was an affair. They couldn’t afford to develop deeper feelings.
Still, he left his room with a pain cleaved into his chest.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TIFFANY TRIED TO ignore the fact that Ryzard was in love with a dead woman and soak up what he offered her: generous lovemaking and a boost to her confidence.
On his catamaran, she’d quit trying to hide herself from his crew. Three days in Bregnovia and she was even more comfortable in her own skin. He kept threatening to take her along on his public appearances and she always managed to talk him out of it, but part of her longed to go on a date the way they had at Q Virtus.
Pressing a strapless dress in sunset colors to her front, she decided to have a pretend date with him tonight. She imagined that like all men he had a thing for short skirts and low necklines. She’d knock his socks off.
An hour later, she’d run the straightening iron over her hair
to give it a sheen and applied a final layer of glossy pink to her lips, making them look pouty and ripe. The dress offered her breasts in half cups, hugged her waist and clung so tightly across her hips she could barely walk. The gladiator sandals didn’t help, but man did she look hot. The fact her scars were fully revealed by the itty-bitty dress didn’t faze her.
She paused to consider that. A light coat of concealer downplayed the mottled scar on her face, but she wasn’t about to smear her whole body with the stuff. Ryzard wouldn’t notice or care either way. He thought she was gorgeous exactly as she was. It was such a painfully sweet knowledge, she had to stop and cradle it and blink hard or ruin her carefully applied makeup.
Digging her nails into her palms, she focused on the sting to clear her head, aware she was dangerously close to tumbling into love with him. It was because he was her first, she reasoned. He was gorgeous and smart and so patient with her moodiness and baggage. He commanded everything around him with calm ease, and that would make anyone feel safe and protected and cherished.
The real tell would be when they separated. She couldn’t hide from her parents forever. The one stilted conversation with her mother had centered on exactly how long she intended to be away.
Tiffany hadn’t wanted to admit she was afraid to leave. Would Ryzard miss her if she went home for a week? Or would it be the end of their associations?
She shook her head, having learned to be present in a moment, especially if it lacked pain. No one had a crystal ball telling what would come next. For now, she and Ryzard were together and happy.
With a calming breath, she searched him out in his office. He was watching his favorite newscaster and remained behind his desktop screen as she entered, head bent in concentration as he listened, expression grim and contained.
“What’s happening in the world to make you look so severe?” she teased as she sidled up to him. “A beautiful woman just walked in. Whatever you’re watching, forget it and notice me.”
His arm came around her waist, grasping her close and tight, but his other hand caught hers before she could press his head down for the kiss she wanted. The look in his eyes was not easily interpreted, and the voice beside her startled her out of trying.
“Should we continue this later?” the newscaster asked.
“No,” Ryzard answered.
Tiffany cried out in surprise and jerked against Ryzard’s arm, but he held on to her without laughing.
“I thought you were watching a broadcast,” she gasped, covering her heart.
The familiar face on the screen gave a tight smile of acknowledgment.
“I didn’t realize I was walking into a video call. I apologize. Oh, gosh,” she realized with a belated hand going to the bad side of her face. “I can’t imagine what you think of me, making an entrance like that.”
“I was already aware you two were close,” the talking head said. He was a globally known face, one who’d elevated from foreign-correspondence stories to hard-hitting investigative stories and in-depth analyses of world politics.
At the moment she didn’t have much choice with regard to how close she was to Ryzard. His arm was like a belt of iron, pinning her to his side, his tension starting to penetrate as she read zero amusement in his expression over her mistake.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, instinctively bracing herself.
“We had company after our dive,” he replied.
“Paparazzi?” She tried to step back, but he kept a tight grip on her.
“It doesn’t matter, Tiffany.”
“Of course it matters! Otherwise your friend here wouldn’t be calling to warn you. Is it photos or video?”
“Photos.” Ryzard fairly spat the word.
“The photographer knew I would never touch something purely to incite sensation,” the newscaster said. “So they didn’t offer them to me or I would have kept them off the market completely. Instead I heard about it secondhand and I’ve suggested a countermeasure to draw attention from their release.”
“What kind of countermeasure? What are they saying?” She looked between the screen and Ryzard, panic creeping into her bloodstream.
“They don’t sell clicks by being kind,” Ryzard said brutally. “We’ll meet in Rome,” he told his friend on the screen. “You’re right that a face-to-face broadcast interview will have more impact than something thrown together remotely.”
“I’m not going on camera!” Tiffany cried.
“No,” Ryzard agreed with the full impact of his dictatorial personality. “But you’ll accompany me to the interview—”
She shook her head, growing manic. Part of her wanted to explode in rebellion, the other desperately needed to crawl away and hide.
“I need to go home.” Had her father heard yet? She struggled against Ryzard’s steely grip, then froze, thinking of her mother’s reaction. “My family will be livid. They’re already barely speaking to me—”
“Calm down.” He thanked his friend and promised to be in touch with his travel arrangements, then turned off the screen. “The sun will still rise tomorrow, Tiffany. No one has died.”
“It would be better if I had. That’s what they’ll be thinking.”
“Don’t talk like that. Ever.” He gripped her arms and gave her a little shake.
She quit struggling, but kept a firm hand of resistance against his chest. “We’re not one of these families who has a disgrace every minute, Ryzard. My accident was the worst thing Dad has ever had to field with the press. Given it was more tragedy than scandal, it didn’t do him any harm in the polls, but it was still a monumental circus. He won’t appreciate this.”
The look of wild outrage Ryzard savaged over her made her shrink in his hold. “Your father enjoyed some kind of political benefit from your near death?”
“He didn’t mean to! I’m just saying that’s how it works. Chris and I know that. We don’t go off and sleep with people who are shaking up the maps of an atlas, putting the UN on notice, then get ourselves photographed for the gossip rags so Dad has to make explanations for our behavior. This, what you and I are doing, has to stop. I have to go home.” She tried again to push away.
“So you can be shunned and cloistered? No,” he gritted through his teeth, holding her in place. “The photographer is the villain here, not you. Not us.”
“I’m still about to be vilified, aren’t I? And I don’t want...” Her voice wavered. Her muscles ached where she still held him off. “Home is my safe place, Ryzard. I’d rather be there when— How bad are they? The photographs, I mean.”
“Don’t think about them,” he commanded. “You’ll never see them if I have anything to do with it.” His voice sent a wash of ice from her heart to her toes, it was so grim. “But I can’t allow you to be away from me when they’re released. They’ll say I’ve rejected you, and that’s not true. Besides, it doesn’t sound as if your family will support you, so no, you stay with me.”
She drooped her head. “They would support me,” she insisted heavily. “The wagons get circled at times like this. And after it blows over, they would still be there for me. They do love me. It’s just complicated.”
“I will ensure it blows over,” he said, forcing her chin up and looking down his nose from an arrogant angle, but his touch on her gentled even if his voice didn’t. “You’re coming to Rome with me, Tiffany.”
She held back from pointing out she was perfectly capable of booking a charter flight and getting herself anywhere she darned well wanted to go. If he was only being authoritarian, she probably would have, but he sounded concerned. He sounded as if her feelings mattered, not just his image. That softened all the spikes of umbrage holding her stiff, making her shudder in surrender.
“Okay,” she acquiesced.
“Good girl.”
“Don’t push it,
” she warned, but turned her face toward the caress of his fingertips as he smoothed her hair back behind her ear. Her eyes drifted closed.
“I’d like your father’s contact number.”
“Oh, no, I’ll call Dad.” She straightened, but found herself still in the prison of his hold.
“No, Tiffany. This is my fault. I should have taken more care to shield you. He’s already uncomfortable with our relationship. I should have introduced myself before something like this made our first conversation an unpleasant one.”
“I really think—”
“We’re not negotiating, draga. We’ll stand here until you’ve given me his number, but I’d like to get to Rome sooner than later, so make this easier on both of us.”
“You’re unbelievable,” she choked.
“His people will have questions about the arrangements I’ve made. Quit being stubborn,” he pressed.
Her? Stubborn? Kettle. Black.
With a sigh of defeat, because she really didn’t want to face down her father and his people, she offered up his private mobile number.
* * *
How could he kiss something so hideous?
She didn’t know why she looked it up. She should have known better, but she’d been compelled to know what they were saying. It was horrid. Beyond cruel.
Ryzard had been furious when he had emerged from his shower and found her with his tablet in her lap, fingers white, throat dry, eyes unable to meet his.
“Why would you take a dose of poison? It’s self-destructive, completely against everything you are,” he’d growled, nipping the tablet away from her and tossing it across the room onto the bed.
Somewhere in his words she supposed a compliment lurked, but all she heard was disapproval. It made her cringe all the more.
The flight to Rome was exhausting and silent, his mood foul, but she hadn’t wanted to speak, either. She didn’t want him to notice her. She seemed like a burden, something he was carrying with him because he had to, not because he wanted her. How could he want anything to do with her when she was bringing shame on him like this?