by Donald Robyn
Chilled, Rosa lifted herself on one elbow and watched him dress. ‘Here?’
‘It’s possible,’ he said casually. ‘Not likely, I agree, but we have to be circumspect. Anyway, you need a good night’s sleep.’
She flushed. ‘I think I’d probably sleep better if you were with me,’ she said thoughtfully.
A distinctly predatory smile sent hot shivers down her spine. ‘I doubt if you’d sleep much at all,’ he countered.
Laughing and pink, she acknowledged the probable truth of that.
He sobered. ‘So sleep well, my treasure.’
But once he’d gone, her tiredness left her. Outside the sea hushed onto the beach, and crickets sang in the olive trees on the rocky headland.
Sick at heart, she forced herself to face the future. There was no one else in line for the succession; by default the throne would come to her.
Panic kicked beneath her ribs. How could she govern with any degree of authority or wisdom?
She knew little of political science, even less of economics and nothing of constitutional policy—her career path couldn’t have been better chosen to deprive her of the right sort of skills.
Even when most other countries elected to become republics, the islanders had clung to the monarchy. Things had moved slowly over the years because the king was deeply conservative, and most of his subjects seemed content with the status quo.
A woman ruler would be viewed with huge suspicion.
Yet what would be the alternative? The sort of civil war that had almost wrecked Niroli only a generation ago?
Hours later she was still awake, eyes hot and aching as she mulled over impossible schemes to secure some sort of future for her and Max. Goaded by restlessness, she scrambled out of bed and walked barefoot across to the doors that opened onto a balcony. Her nightdress floating around her, she paced across to the balustrade, searching for some ease of mind in the calm serenity of the familiar view.
Tiles still warm from the heat of the day were smooth beneath her bare feet. No wind ruffled the black and silver garden or the olive groves on the headland. The crickets had finally given up their shrill calls; no nightingale sang in the trees, no tiny brown frogs croaked. The only sound was the soft hush of the sea on the shore.
Mind buzzing, she tried to work out how she was going to deal with any summons from the king, but her wayward brain kept returning to the fact that Max didn’t love her, and she loved him. Skin heating, she recalled the moments when she must have made that pretty obvious.
Oh, he’d been everything any woman would ever want in her first lover, she thought sadly—gentle, considerate, sexy as hell, tender and fierce by turns…
He’d taken her to heaven and somewhere much more earthy in his arms, then brought her back down without treating her like a novice.
A reminiscent little shiver tightened her skin. He’d made her feel cherished, she thought, and a silent sob ached in her throat. His experience hadn’t intimidated her; he’d used it to convince her that she was every bit as desirable as any of the women he’d known previously, every bit as worth taking to bed.
She would always love him for that.
Now, listening to the sound of silence, she tried to be grateful that he hadn’t told her the easy lie.
He could have said it. ‘I love you.’
Three small words people said in the heat of desire. She had friends who’d been told that, only to discover that what their lovers had meant was, ‘I want you.’
They’d expected her friends to understand it was a lie, the thing a man said to a woman in the heat of passion or when she wanted reassurance.
But Max had too much integrity to pretend a love he didn’t feel.
The ache in her heart turned into an emptiness that would echo through all the years ahead.
Instinct warned her that once she’d donned the massive crown of Niroli, heavy with gold and pearls and ancient diamonds, she’d never see Max again.
He was worthy of those symbols, a leader strong enough to wear the crown, to carry the sceptre with its relic of the first ruling king, a huge ruby that had decorated the hilt of the sword he’d wielded when he’d turned an island of robber counts and bandits into a nation.
Rosa knew she wasn’t worthy. She’d be nothing more than a hollow person, a decorated doll trotted out to appease the islanders, always conscious that she was very much a substitute.
Max’s voice, pitched to reach only her from the next balcony, made her jump. ‘What is it, Rosa?’
‘I won’t be able to do it,’ she said desperately, her mind darting this way and that. Her hands clenched on the balustrade, and without looking across she blurted, ‘Max, I don’t know how to rule a village, let alone a country.’
Silence stretched between them, taut with tension and unspoken words as she gripped the stone until her knuckles whitened.
Still in that quiet voice, he said, ‘Go back into your room. Don’t switch on your light.’
Head buzzing, she walked inside. The door into the passage opened and Max came noiselessly in. The moon through the shutters gave enough light for her to see that he was still dressed.
Before he could say anything she said, ‘I’m sorry. You have enough to think about without hearing me whine. Go back to bed.’
‘The prospect of ruling Niroli is not an easy one for any of us.’ He came across and slid his arm around her shoulders, hugging her to him.
Gratefully she leaned against him, taking courage from his strength. ‘The whole business must be hell for you!’
‘Difficult,’ he admitted. ‘And, yes, I know it’s going to be more than difficult for my mother and the king, even if we manage to keep it quiet. But it won’t be hell. I never wanted to rule.’
She shuddered. ‘Neither do I. Max, I’m so scared. I haven’t the training in business you have, I don’t know how to organise anything bigger than a lab.’
Alarmed by a dangerous wobble in her voice, she folded her lips, clamping down tightly on the rest of her fears.
He said quietly, ‘That’s exactly how I felt when I realised I was next in line.’
‘But you’ve had executive experience,’ she wailed. ‘I haven’t. And you’re a leader—you always were. I wasn’t even a monitor at school!’
‘Hush,’ he said, smoothing back the tumbled mass of hair from her brow. ‘You’re clever, you’re popular with the people and you’ll learn.’ His voice altered and he pulled her around into his arms properly, holding her so that she could feel his very obvious erection. ‘You’re too tense,’ he said, his voice thickening subtly. ‘I think I can give you something else to think about.’
She gave a voluptuous little wiggle, delighting in his instant response. ‘Are you manipulating me with sex?’ she asked daringly.
His smile was white and definitely buccaneering. ‘I suspect I am. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all,’ she said demurely.
He picked her up and dropped her onto the bed. ‘No, don’t take off your nightgown,’ he said, when she sat up to do just that.
She wondered why, but he was shedding his clothes and she was happy to watch him. He came down beside her and held her against him.
‘Why do you want me to stay clothed?’ she asked, caught by an odd unease.
‘Because I don’t trust myself,’ he said, and banished her next question with his kisses.
When she was pliant and sighing in his arms, he slid the ribbon straps down over her shoulders, baring her breasts, and began kissing them, taking his time.
It was heaven; Rosa pushed from her mind the fact that he must have made love to a lot of women to be so knowledgeable about how female bodies responded.
In a very short time she no longer cared.
Max made love to her with utter absorption, his mouth and hands skilled and tormenting, gentle when she needed gentleness, then fierce, until her hips were twisting on the bed, her breath coming in short, sharp pants between her famished lips.
Wild sensations rioting through her, she learned what it was like to be worshipped with lips and hands and intense, savage words, to be kissed all over, to be caressed until she moaned with delicious frustration.
And then, at last, when she could bear it no longer, to be brought to instant satisfaction with his mouth.
Shuddering in the shattering aftermath, she clutched his sweat-slicked body and said hoarsely, ‘But you—what about you?’
He hugged her. ‘It’s all right.’
‘No,’ she said with feverish intensity, ‘it’s not all right. It was wonderful, but I need to—I want to do something for you.’
He was silent for so long she wondered if she’d said something totally outrageous. Uncertainly, she looked up at him, her gaze picking out the honed contours of his face, and her heart overflowed with passionate regret. She intended to take everything she could from these precious days, because the memories were going to have to last a lifetime.
‘Please,’ she whispered, and kissed one dark, flat nipple, incredulous when she felt it stir beneath her tongue.
It seemed that what she liked applied to him too.
Eyes gleaming, he lifted her face and scrutinised it. ‘Then I am at your command,’ he said, an undernote of raw hunger sending more thrills through her.
He rolled over onto his back, and spread out his arms. A little nervously, Rosa began to touch him, her hands fluttering across smooth sleek skin, tracing firm muscles, the hollows and curves of his body.
And where her hands went, her mouth followed; in the most elemental way of all she explored him, kissing, licking, noting with keen satisfaction when he became very taut and still, his hands clenching at his sides. In the end, a groan was torn from his throat.
‘Sadist,’ he ground out.
Laughing, she kissed his mouth, and stretched herself out along him. His body jerked beneath her; with a muttered curse he pushed her off and got off the bed.
‘Protection,’ he stated in a driven voice before she had time to react to the brutal rejection.
No! Despair and defiance surged darkly through her. A baby of Max’s…But it was impossible.
Nevertheless, every cell in her body thrilled to the thought, even as she watched him search for the small packet.
When he came back to the bed he said, ‘Are you sore?’
Rosa wanted to say, ‘You can’t hurt me,’ but she knew she was wrong. Honestly she said, ‘Probably, but I don’t care.’
He lay down beside her and pulled her on top of him. ‘You can regulate the process better this way.’
‘The process?’ she spluttered and laughed and he laughed too, and with laughter and passion and infinite care, she guided him into her.
He was right. She could control their love-making, and it had a whole new feel to it, voluptuously different yet just as exciting as it had been the first time. When at last they reached the peak she cried out, and collapsed onto him in rapturous release.
He held her there, his chest rising and falling as he dragged air into his lungs, his big body shuddering, his arms wonderfully secure around her.
Sated, secure as she’d never been before, Rosa went to sleep in his arms, but she woke the next morning once more alone in the big bed. Stretching a body that ached pleasantly in all sorts of new and interesting ways, she smiled into her pillow and sat up.
Whatever the future had in store for them, she’d make the most of the time they had. She’d banish every fear and worry from her mind, and concentrate on enjoying this time with Max.
‘What would you like to do today?’ Max asked over breakfast, eaten beneath the feathery canopy of a silk tree in the courtyard.
‘What I did yesterday,’ she said coolly, blushing when he smiled at her.
‘I think we can manage that, but we should go out to dinner soon.’
She sent him a mischievous glance, meeting the burnished green-gold sheen of his gaze with a smile. ‘Why?’
‘If we wait until later it might be too obvious that we’re not just cousins who decided to holiday at the same time,’ he said drily. ‘And there are definitely paparazzi about.’
‘In that case,’ she conceded easily, ‘perhaps we’d better go tonight.’
Any obvious signs of their new relationship wouldn’t come from him, she thought as she got ready that evening. It was impossible to read what he was thinking or feeling behind the magnificent mask of his features.
She’d have to rein in the blushes that still heated her skin when he surveyed her in a certain way; she’d be reserved and a little distant. Which meant cosmetics. After making up carefully—refined but not overtly sexy, Kate would have called the look—she got into the black dress with its saucy white polka dots, left her hair loose and casual, and slipped on the only pair of sandals she’d brought with her.
They chose a small restaurant in the biggest town on the island, and were greeted with pleasure by the proprietor, although he immediately said, ‘A table inside, Highness? There is a photographer around.’
Max asked, ‘How long has he been here?’
‘Three or four days.’ The proprietor shrugged and spread his hands. ‘He is not with the journalist as far as we can tell, but both are asking too many questions. It is because of the succession,’ he said, nodding sagely as he looked at Max.
Some unspoken message passed between them. Aloud, Max said, ‘Then we’ll eat inside, thank you.’
‘We do not gossip about our family,’ the restaurant owner said energetically, snapping his fingers at the waiter. ‘You will permit me to offer you wine from my brother’s vineyard? You enjoyed the nineteen ninety-five last time you dined here; this is the nineteen ninety-nine vintage.’
Max said, ‘My cousin and I would be honoured. A magnificent year.’
The proprietor snapped his fingers again, and the waiter approached with the bottle. As he opened it with a flourish the owner resumed, ‘We are waiting for you to come back to the island and do for us what you have done for the wine-makers of Niroli.’
Max tasted it, then raised his glass in salute. ‘You don’t need me,’ he said calmly. ‘This is superb.’
The owner smiled and bowed. ‘Thank you, Your Highness. I’ll tell my brother that you approve. Because of your success on Niroli he has worked hard to improve both his grape-growing and his wine-making methods.’
Clearly, Max was hugely popular. Taking a tiny sip of her wine, Rosa thought bleakly that he deserved the throne.
Last night, in spite of her resolution to ignore the problem of the succession, she’d lain listening to his breathing and tried to work out some escape from the tangle they were in.
It was hopeless. For them to be together without scandal and a constitutional crisis, their total lack of relationship needed to be established, and there was no way of doing that without proclaiming Queen Eva’s infidelity to the world.
Yet the king would never let that happen; his pride wouldn’t allow it. And although she ached to walk away from the whole legacy of inheritance and tradition, in her heart she understood the old man who’d fought a savage civil war to hold his country together. He came from a different age; to him, the only thing that mattered would be that his family continued to rule Niroli, no matter how badly.
Heart swelling, she glanced at Max. It took all her will-power to look at him with nothing more than the pleasant affection one would give a cousin.
He said, ‘What would you like to eat?’
Transferring her smile to the owner, she said perceptively, ‘You know what I like.’
‘Fettucini with pesto and pine nuts,’ he returned immediately, beaming. ‘Even when you were a child on your mother’s knee you wanted my fettucini.’
‘It means home to me,’ she told him. ‘My mother’s cook couldn’t make it like you.’
‘Ah, because the secret ingredient is love. And although love might be hard to reveal, it
is always noticed.’ He bowed and left them.
‘I wonder what he meant by that,’ she said uneasily.
Max shrugged, his eyes hooded. ‘Nothing. Or a veiled warning. Whatever it was, we don’t have to worry about Vincenzo talking. He’s discreet and insular, as are most of the islanders.’
Quelling an urge to look around, she said, ‘Do you really think—’
‘Relax. No paparazzo will come in here.’
In spite of the magnificent food, Rosa’s tension increased as the evening wore on. She was relieved when at last it wound down with compliments to the chef and the proprietor, farewells and smiles. The car was drawn up outside, but as they left the restaurant a flash popped several times.
After one direct glance at the photographer, Max ushered Rosa into the front passenger seat before getting behind the wheel.
Once in, she shivered, and leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, pretending to be tired. Max’s anger, a dark force, pulsed in the car as he set it in motion.
Back at the villa she stopped at the foot of the stairs and said, ‘How long has the press been snooping on the island?’
He paused, then said deliberately, ‘Since Giovanni and I sent samples to be tested.’
Rosa froze, scanning his shuttered face. ‘Do you think there’s a connection?’
‘There shouldn’t be,’ he said, his voice dispassionate.
‘But you suspect there might be.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But someone at the clinic could have a contact with the media. It doesn’t seem likely, because they’d already know the truth, but it is a possibility.’
Her mind working frantically, she said, ‘Is that why you came here?’
‘Partly,’ he admitted after a pause. He examined her pale face with hooded eyes. ‘I wanted to make sure that the villa was checked for bugs and that security was up to scratch, but the sensible thing would have been to stay away. As that wasn’t an option, we have to behave as normally as possible.’