by Romy Sommer
Three storeys of elegant white stone, classically proportioned and topped by a slate roof containing dormer windows. The servants’ quarters in a more elegant time, he was sure.
“Is this your place, or your soon-to-be hubby’s?”
She entered a code into the key pad beside the wrought-iron pedestrian gate and pushed it open. “Neither. It’s been in the Adler family for generations. I grew up here. But my father prefers the apartment he keeps close to his office.”
He followed her up the neat flagstone path to the mansion’s imposing front entrance, a pair of double doors between Grecian columns marked with a family crest. She unlocked the door and held it open for him.
“So you live here alone?”
Tessa shrugged. “I’m not alone. There’s a housekeeper, a gardener, two maids.”
“Is it just you and your father then – no siblings or wicked step-mothers?” He stepped into the hall, all marble floors and a staircase to match. “It looks like something out of Disney’s Cinderella.”
She grinned. “I promise I won’t make you wash the floors.”
“No, you have a housekeeper, a gardener and two maids for that.”
She laughed. “Don’t pretend like you don’t have someone to do your laundry and wash your floors back in LA!”
He followed her into the living room. No, not just a living room. A salon. This was no shabby chic crumbling manor. There were no faded curtains or antique sofas, no inherited portraits of long-dead ancestors. The living rooms on either side of the hall looked as though they belonged in a style magazine. Neutral shades of grey and brown, accented by neat white trimmings, clean, modern lines. Uncluttered and practically unlived in.
It made his Malibu beach house seem positively homely by comparison.
She shut the door behind them and the sudden silence echoed. “Would you like something to drink? Tea or coffee? A mineral water? Or something stronger?”
“Definitely something stronger.”
She crossed the room to an elegant antique cabinet inlaid with ormolu. “Whiskey, brandy or cognac?”
“Cognac.”
Tessa removed a Venetian glass decanter from the cabinet, the kind of fancy decanter set-dressers usually placed on period film sets, and poured a generous shot into a delicate crystal snifter. He took the glass and sipped. The rich golden liquid slid down his throat.
“If your father’s still alive, how did you come by your title? Isn’t the usual way to inherit it after he dies?”
She turned away, fussing with putting the decanter back in its place. “The title of Baroness is from my mother’s side. I’ll become a Countess when my father dies.” A small smile kicked up the corners of her mouth as she faced him again. “Countess Teresa Adler of Arelat.”
He imagined Fate laughing maniacally, delighting in the huge disparity between them. The Countess of Arelat and the peasant boy of Arelat.
He swigged from the glass and her gaze followed the move. A hungry gaze, but what she was hungry for, he wasn’t sure.
“Would you like some?” He held out the glass to her.
With barely a hesitation she took it from his hand and sipped, her gaze holding his as she eyed him over the rim of the glass. Then she handed it back and wiped her mouth.
He grinned. No way would she have done that if she were sober.
The air between them sparked, not the animosity of their first meetings as much as awareness. Or maybe it had always been this heightened state of awareness between them and he just hadn’t realised it.
Her eyes darkened and her chest rose and fell with every breath. Then she cleared her throat. “Why did you leave Los Pajaros?”
It was obvious what she was trying to do. She wanted to put distance between them, to dampen this sizzle before it got out of hand.
It was the sensible thing to do.
If he were sensible, he would take her cue and escape before he revealed the secret he’d kept hidden for over twenty years. He’d seen her safely home. He should say goodnight now and head back to his hotel.
It would be the right thing to do.
Only he didn’t always do the right thing. Or the sensible thing.
And he hadn’t asked the cab driver to wait.
He sipped the cognac and sat down on the nearest divan. “Why do you want to know?”
She sat beside him. “Because tonight we’re not keeping any secrets. No more lies, remember?”
There was a reason he’d kept his past a secret. But right now, drowning in her eyes, he couldn’t remember what it was.
He might still be able to walk in a straight line, but he’d entered that careless space where inhibitions loosened, where the gap between actions and repercussions became very wide indeed and he was likely to do something he’d regret in the morning. Like his publicist.
But this wasn’t morning yet.
“I was only fourteen and in and out of trouble. Most of it not of my own making, I might add. My uncle took me on as his boat hand for the summer. He ran a fishing charter for rich tourists. Most of those tourists were so full of themselves they didn’t even see me. Riff-raff like me didn’t exist except to serve them. And those were the pleasant ones.” He drew in a deep breath. “Then there were the kids who needed to prove how much better they were.”
“What did they do?”
“When you’re a snot-nosed kid who can get away with anything… whatever they wanted. Mostly it was just verbal. But there was one kid, full of himself because his father had some title.” He dropped his gaze, not wanting her to see the bitterness, the old hatred that still burned.
“What did you do?” Her voice was so low that if the silence about them hadn’t been so complete, he wouldn’t have heard.
He lifted his chin and met her gaze. Defiant. Just as he’d been back then. “I gave back as good as I got. And unlike me, he was no street-fighter. I put him in hospital with a broken jaw and cracked ribs.”
She frowned, as if struggling to trace a memory. Then her eyes widened. “Elijah.”
Of course she knew him. Just as he’d suspected.
“He was a few years ahead of Stefan at the Academy.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “He came back from his summer holiday with his jaw wired up.”
Christian’s chest froze. He couldn’t breathe. But it wasn’t anger or fear that immobilised him. He’d tamed the violence within him long ago. Dominic had taught him to redirect it.
But would Tessa understand that he wasn’t that same angry child anymore? Or would she pull away, putting the distance between them that she’d so wanted? That they both needed.
He wouldn’t blame her, but the thought of losing her friendship now, over this, was a wrench. Her aloofness he could bear, but her contempt…
“Elijah was a bully. He had it coming.” She bit her lip and focused back on him. “But his father was head of the Bank of Westerwald, and in the same mould as his son. How did you get off without them pressing charges?”
“I didn’t.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what happened, but the charges were dropped. My mother said the mayor arranged a pardon for me, though I can’t think why. My uncle knew him, but he wanted nothing more to do with me after that. He said I was bad for business.” Christian frowned. “Then my mother got the job in the States and within a month we moved. She said California was a fresh start for us both and we’d left the past behind, so we never spoke of it again.”
And he hadn’t spoken of it in twenty years. Not even to Dominic.
The fear of discovery had haunted him all these years, a weight around his neck. How close he’d come to reform school, to a permanent record. How much he’d wanted to kill Elijah. If his uncle hadn’t intervened, he might have. And then there would have been no pardon.
He rubbed his hand over his eyes. The relief at having shared his terrible secret was incredible. But at what cost?
He risked a glance at Tessa. She wore that closed, impenetrable expression once again and his hear
t sank.
At what cost?
She took the crystal glass from his hand and downed the rest of the cognac. “Do you know that Elijah died?”
What? Shock rocketed through him. He hadn’t been hurt that bad… he’d walked away… Christian was on his feet, without realising it.
Tessa set down the glass and jumped up too. “Not that! I didn’t mean you!” She laid a hand on his arm, distress burning through her inscrutable expression. “He was running a drug factory out of his family’s ski lodge and tried to cheat the dealers he was supplying. They killed him. They’re the ones who escaped en route to court.”
Her hand slid down his arm, until her fingers entwined with his. His heart beat erratically, a frantic, giddy pace, and he had no idea whether it was her news or her touch that caused it.
Who would have thought that the nobleman’s heir who had everything would end up murdered, and the bastard outcast with nothing would end up a movie star?
Maybe Fate wasn’t laughing after all.
She looked down at their intertwined hands, hers so pale against his darker one. Then she looked up at him, and the mix of emotions in her face scorched through him. Anxiety, sympathy, relief. And lust.
Now he knew what she was hungry for.
And she hadn’t judged him. She hadn’t mocked him. She hadn’t pulled away.
He took both her hands in his. Unconsciously she licked her lips. Whether it was the alcohol in his veins or that sensual movement that set fire to his blood, he didn’t know.
To hell with Sensible.
He let go of her hands and wove his fingers through her hair, loosening the knot at the back of her head. Pins scattered to the floor; something for the maids to gossip about in the morning. Her hair tumbled loose about her shoulders, long and straight and soft as silk between his fingers. On a sigh, she closed her eyes.
“Tessa. Tess.” He wove a strand of her hair between his fingers. God, her hair was so pale against his skin, and it smelled of flowers. A light, innocent fragrance.
He stroked a finger down her cheek, to rest at the corner of her mouth, and her breath quickened.
“Look at me,” he said. “I want to see what you’re feeling.”
“I don’t feel. I think.” But she obeyed. Her eyes opened. There was only one emotion left there for him to see. Burning, feverish desire.
The volcano unleashed.
“Tonight you’re feeling.”
She smiled up at him, eyes wide. With her barriers down and her inhibitions loosened, she was a different person. Softer, gentler, passionate. This was the woman in his dreams.
“I don’t feel numb anymore.” Cautiously, almost afraid, she reached out and laid a hand on his chest, right above his heart. His pulse kicked up at her light touch.
“I didn’t even realise how numb I felt inside until I met you. Now I’m feeling all these feelings…what have you done to me?”
“I haven’t done anything. It’s all you. You’ve left your comfort zone.” Taken a job she’d never done before, met people outside of that exclusive little clique she’d always lived in. She’d done what he was too afraid to do.
She nodded. “I was safe inside my bubble.”
“And you don’t feel safe now?” He stroked a hand down her hair and she sank her forehead against his chest.
“No, I don’t feel safe with you,” she mumbled into his sweater. “I haven’t felt safe since the day I met you.”
She wasn’t referring to being outside her comfort zone or even the distant danger from escaped convicts. He knew, because he felt the same. She tilted his world on its axis. She challenged him, provoked him, made him want things he shouldn’t want.
She was the one woman he should run from, the one woman he couldn’t have, yet he wanted her with a greater ferocity than he’d ever felt before.
In the back of his head a small voice told him ‘no’, but the magnetic pull between them was too strong to resist.
He lifted her chin, forced her to look him in the eyes. “You don’t look like a woman in love.”
She tried to look away, but he held fast.
“What does a woman in love look like?”
“Radiant. And she doesn’t look at other men.”
“I don’t look at other men.”
He leaned in close. “You’re not a very good liar, Tess.”
Something flickered behind her eyes. A mix of amusement and bitterness. “You should know. You lie for a living.”
“Yes, I’m a very good liar.” He snaked an arm around her waist. “It’s just one of the things I’m good at.”
He bent his head to trail kisses down the nape of her neck.
“I can rise above this,” she said. “I’m stronger than this.”
But she didn’t pull away. She stretched her neck, giving him better access.
“You’re wrong,” he whispered. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”
Then he kissed her. A gentle meeting of lips, a tentative touch. But then the spark flared and he lost the last hold on Sensible.
Fire and ice. Instant reaction.
She placed her hands on his chest, palms flat as if to push him away. But she didn’t. She kissed him back.
Her kiss caught him by surprise. Not the sting of burning ice, but furiously hot and bright, as if they stood in a darkened room and suddenly a spotlight had switched on.
Intense, illuminating.
His hands slid down her neck, over the soft swell of her breasts, to rest on her hips. He tugged her closer, hard against his body. She stretched into his touch.
The kiss lasted barely a moment, but it might have been a lifetime. When they broke apart, both breathless, both breathing heavily, the silence in the house was complete.
He could hear her heartbeat, was aware of every rise and fall of her chest.
He lifted her off her feet, laid her on the divan, and knelt over her, raining kisses down her neck to the tender spot at the base of her throat.
She arched against him, pressing herself into him. There was no way she could miss how much he wanted her. There was no way he could miss how much she wanted him. Not now that she’d finally let her immaculate self-control slip.
The release of all that pent-up passion was even greater than he’d imagined. She burned brighter, gave more, explored with her tongue and her hands.
He slid an arm beneath her back, raising her up into his kiss, and she twined her arms around his neck, holding him close. Another kiss that stretched time, another kiss that exploded something inside him. A kiss just as furious and mind-blowing as the first.
A kiss to lose himself in.
And then her hands slipped from around his neck, down to his chest. And she shoved. Hard.
He sprawled back, gasping for breath, stunned.
Tessa scrambled away, to the farthest end of the divan, and hugged her legs. “I can’t do this! What am I thinking?”
“We weren’t thinking,” he answered, though he knew it was a rhetorical question. The wild, passionate woman of a moment ago was gone.
But she wasn’t cold anymore. The Ice Queen look was gone too. In her eyes he read confusion and fear. And panic.
She swung her legs off the divan and rose, righting her dress, reknotting her scarf, patting down her hair, putting as much space between them as she could.
“This has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
“We haven’t done anything. Yet.”
She shook her head. “You need to go. Now.”
He didn’t want to go. He wanted to take her back in his arms and carry on where they’d left off. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to be burned.
But he scraped together the tattered remains of his willpower and rose too. “I’ll call for a cab.”
She shook her head. “That will take too long. You can take my car.” She fumbled in her purse, pulled out the coveted set of keys and tossed them to him.
“You’re not worried? I’ve b
een drinking.”
She shook her head, not looking at him. “Not enough to be over the limit.”
No, it wasn’t alcohol that had him intoxicated, though he still felt drunk on her kisses. He turned the keys over in his hand. This wasn’t what he wanted, but he’d settle for a distant second prize. Not that he had much choice.
She led him through a cavernous, dimly lit modern kitchen, to a side door into the garage, careful to keep a distance between them, as if she were afraid that the slightest touch might be an incendiary spark.
Inside the garage it was dark, so dark he could sense the tension pulsing between them. She flicked a switch and light flooded the room. Harsh, electric light, not the dazzling golden illumination her kiss had awakened in him.
“Will you be able to find your way back to the hotel?”
In the cab he’d been too wrapped up in her, too aware of her close proximity, of her perfume, to pay much attention, but he nodded. He’d figure it out.
She opened the car door in a not-so-subtle hint that she wanted him gone. He climbed in and started the engine, opening the window as she pressed the remote to open the garage doors behind him. He leaned out the window and grabbed her arm.
“Are you sure about this, Tess? Because something that feels this good can’t possibly be bad.”
She pulled her arm away and stepped back, withdrawing completely from him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He backed out and she closed the door behind him.
Her entire body ached. Literally, her entire body.
Tessa groaned and rolled her face into the pillows. She wasn’t sure which hurt more: her head or her chest. One felt tight and constricted. The other felt like it had exploded.
But she was awake now. Nauseous and awake.
She opened one eye. The room was murky. It had to be early still. Really early. Why had she woken so early?
Since the film production was moving into night shoots tonight, she only had to meet Christian at midday.
She buried her head in the pillows but it didn’t help. Her bladder was also about to explode. And she needed to take something for her head.