To Win His Heart

by Rebecca Winters

  But Olivia ignored him and darted across the expanse where she could feel the ladder. In the time it would take him to slide out of bed, she’d climbed beneath the covers of her bunk.

  “Olivia?” The alarm in his voice was incredibly satisfying to hear. It proved he wasn’t totally devoid of concern for her.

  “I’m up here, cozy and warm.”

  He cursed in French again. “Then stay there! I won’t be long.”

  “Please don’t bother with a light tonight,” she begged him. “The stairs might be slippery. If you fell and injured yourself after all you’ve endured, I’d never be able to forgive myself. I’m the reason we’re stranded here. This whole situation is my fault,” her voice shook.

  “In case it’s a heavy rain, I need to shut the doors at the top and bottom of the stairs to keep the galley area watertight.”

  “I’ll do that! You get back in bed!”

  “For the love of heaven— Can’t you once in your hedonistic life think of someone else besides yourself and do as your told?”

  Hedonistic? He really saw her as a woman in pursuit of pleasure, devoid of conscience or concern for anyone else?

  Hadn’t everything she’d done for him today counted for anything?

  While she lay there wounded and seething with fresh indignation, she could hear him battening down the hatch.

  She prayed he would make it back to bed in one piece. But as soon as she heard him enter the room and get in his bunk, she was waiting for him and leaned her head over the side, armed with a new tactic.

  “You’re right about me, Luc. I’m not the kind of woman who can be faithful to one man. It isn’t in me. I love men too much. I thought I liked Fred and a dozen others before him. Then I met Cesar. It was fun for a while. But then I found myself attracted to his mechanic who wanted to spend time with me after the race.”

  “Etienne.”

  “I don’t remember his name. If he’s the one with the dark blond hair like Fabio, then yes.”

  “He’s married with three children.”

  “I found that out from one of the other mechanics. Whatever else you may think of me, I draw the line at getting involved with married men. So…I’ve been thinking about…us.”

  “Us?” he mouthed the word silkily.

  Her heart throbbed so hard in her throat, she almost choked. “Yes. You and me. Since Cesar knows I turned to you, and we’re probably not going to make it to Ischia after all, what do you say we take advantage of our situation for the duration of our trip.”

  “You mean you’ve decided you’re attracted to me now.”

  “Well, yes. Strictly on a physical level.”

  “Are you that desperate for a man?”

  If he happens to be you…

  “Not desperate. But we’re both here, and we’re alone. Why not make these moments as pleasurable as possible. No one else ever has to know.”

  She waited to hear his answer. When none was forthcoming, she took it as a yes and scrambled down the ladder with her heart pounding like a jackhammer.

  It was taking a gamble, the biggest of her life. But if she could just get him to kiss her, then maybe he would break down enough to admit he loved her. Greer had ended up proposing to Max. Olivia would do the same with Luc. She would confess she was painfully in love with him and wanted to marry him if he would have her. Whatever was in his past, they would deal with it together.

  The darkness gave her an edge. She couldn’t see Luc’s expression, and it seemed to bring her senses alive.

  Something told her it wasn’t pain that made his breath catch before it turned shallow the second she touched him. The skin on his upper arm felt warm to the touch. It pulsated with life.

  This close to his body she breathed in his own male scent. Intoxicated, she leaned over and brushed her lips against his hair-roughened chest. She’d wanted to do this for such a long, long time.

  He made no move to touch her back. She didn’t mind doing all the work. From the beginning he’d been a challenge. Like a wild stallion that had never known a rope around its neck, he’d put up an enormous fight.

  Gentling him was taking time and patience, but she was winning the fight. Even a thoroughbred who ran alone was vulnerable to a little comfort once in a while.

  She started to massage his shoulders, marveling at their strength and breadth. “Doesn’t this feel good?” she whispered. Being able to play with those corded muscles was ecstasy. A man and a woman had been designed with opposites in mind. Beautiful opposites that were meant to fit together as one pulsating entity.

  “Do you have any idea how desirable you are to me?” Unable to resist, she found his chin with her lips. “Um. You have a little beard growing there.”

  She felt the rasp of his jaw over and over again before her lips slowly moved to his ear. “I love everything about you, Lucien de Falcon. In fact I think I need to take a little bite out of you.”

  Her teeth grazed his earlobe. She relished the sensation of his hair brushing against her nose. In the next breath she buried her face in its vibrant texture. Maybe it was because she was so blond, but there was something erotic about kissing hair as black as midnight.

  Instinct caused her mouth to travel over his forehead to well-formed brows as dark and luxuriant as his hair. “Your eyelashes are tickling my cheek.” She smiled before kissing each eyelid, then his aquiline nose. The kind that added a hawk-like quality to his features, denoting his aristocratic Falcon heritage. It set him apart from other men.

  “You’re the most breathtaking man I’ve ever known,” she confessed. Still on her knees at the side of the bunk, she cradled his face in her hands and started nibbling at the corner of his mouth.

  The journey to get this close to Luc had been long and arduous. Almost two months in all. Now that she’d arrived, she intended to take her time and savor what she’d been yearning for.

  “I didn’t know you had a little scar there,” she said when she felt the tiny ridge at the other corner. “It’s not visible, but it tells me something about you, even if you won’t. So does the tiny nick on your neck.”

  She kissed both spots again, then closed her mouth fully over his, aching for him to sweep her away. “Darling? Help me out,” she begged, feeling feverish at this point.

  Just when she was afraid the miracle would never happen, a tremor passed through his powerful body. Suddenly she wasn’t doing all the work anymore. His mouth began to respond.

  At first it was like the soft, experimental caress of love’s first kiss between two young teens who’d been anticipating the moment, yet couldn’t quite believe it was really here.

  Olivia was running on primal instinct now. Her lips opened of their own accord, unaware of what she was unleashing. Beyond control, all she knew was that the driving force of her desire was coaxing him to take their kiss deeper.

  With her mouth fastened on his, she climbed on the mattress, needing to get closer to him. She would be careful not to hurt his leg.

  “Finally,” she murmured in rapture when she felt his arms close around her. “I’ve waited so lo—”

  Her cry was replaced by little moans because the startling hunger of his kiss had engulfed her. He caught her to him in an explosion of need. The pleasure was so exquisite she felt it to the tiniest nerve ending in her body.

  They moved and breathed together, arms, mouths and bodies locked in a melding as old as time itself. She forgot where she was. Time…place…nothing had any meaning except to go up in flames with the man she loved beyond reason.

  Suddenly he shifted her away from him. Caught up in a frenzy of overwhelming passion, she was slow to understand she might have done something to injure him. In a clumsy movement, she rolled off the bed and stood up, but her legs were trembling like jelly.

  “Forgive me if I hurt you. I didn’t mean to.”

  “No harm was done,” came his answer in a voice devoid of emotion. Without light she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but she sense
d a stunning change in him. The blood pounded in her ears.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Playtime is over.”

  She weaved on her feet. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you do, but a woman like you chooses not to pick up on the signals. I don’t recall inviting you to join me in my bed. Because of your history with men, you just assumed you would be welcome.

  “Perhaps your ‘one for all, all for one’ motto is the by-product of being the youngest in a set of triplets, but to be frank, the thought of making love to my brother’s latest pit babe sickens me. I don’t know how I can make myself any clearer than that.”

  A thousand knives seemed to be stabbing her heart at once. She held back scalding tears only through the greatest strength of will.

  “I don’t know, either. How come you didn’t push me away sooner?”

  “I must admit I was curious to see if there was a conscience hiding somewhere inside that tempting body of yours that would stop you before I did.”

  Her breath caught. “I noticed you waited until you’d kissed me back first!”

  “You’re a delicious flavor treat. The trick is to enjoy a small taste rather than to sate one’s self with fruit from the basket others have picked over first. When I decide to fully indulge myself, I will pluck the sweetest fruit of my choosing from off the tree and swallow it whole.”

  Both sisters had warned her Luc wasn’t like other men. They were right. His demons were too daunting for her to fight without more information.

  But he had responded to her.

  No man could have kissed her with such soul-destroying intensity if she’d sickened him that much. He would never have let her get that far otherwise.

  What she needed was input. The kind only an insider could provide, if he was willing…

  She climbed back up to her bunk and spent the rest of the torturous night huddled under the covers while she thought out her new plan. Toward morning the elements decided to cooperate. The storm passed over, and the light patter of the rain ceased.

  As soon as the first light of dawn filtered into the cabin, she stole out of bed and climbed down the ladder, careful not to make a sound. Luc was in a deep sleep. She could tell by his breathing.

  It was vital he stay unconscious for a while longer since she intended to undo the ropes and start rowing toward the mainland. Her impetuosity had gotten them into this predicament. Now she needed to rely on her ingenuity to get them out on the double quick in order for her latest strategy to work.

  She tiptoed to the bathroom. After putting on her bathing suit and T-shirt, she slipped into her sneakers. Quietly opening the doors at the bottom and top of the stairs, she climbed out on a deck still damp from the night’s storm. However the mist had lifted enough to give her the visibility she needed.

  In a few minutes she’d untied the ropes and had climbed back in the boat. She used the oar to shove off, giving it a hard push for maximum glide. When she couldn’t touch bottom anymore, she started paddling, first on one side, then the other.

  Within ten minutes every muscle in her body was killing her, but her determination to put her new plan into action had become a driving force. Though progress was slow, even after she got the hang of it, the island had almost disappeared from view. That was a good omen.

  She rested for two minutes, then began the back-breaking process all over again.

  Within a half hour she’d reached her exhaustion level and sank down on the bench for a breather. That’s when she heard the sound of an engine off to the left. Pretty soon she saw a light plane flying over the water. As it came closer, she noticed it had pontoons.

  Olivia started jumping up and down, waving her arms.

  The plane circled, then landed and taxied toward the boat. A man dove overboard and swam toward the Gabbiano. When he reached it and climbed the ladder, she let out a surprised cry.

  “Nic! What are you doing here? How did you know we were in trouble?”

  His captivating white smile was reassuringly familiar. “Giovanni forgot to tell Fabio that when the wiring gets wet, it causes a short and the power goes off.”

  She rolled her eyes. “We already found that out last night.”

  “He called Fabio because he was worried you and Luc might be caught in the storm, so Fabio called me. According to one of the children near the dock, they saw you head east when you left Vernazza.

  “Since you girls were so fascinated by Monte Cristo’s history on your first trip, I figured it might be your destination. Therefore I instructed the pilot to search this area first.”

  “Luc and I came across it by accident. Between you and me, the fascination has worn off. It’s just a pile of rocks.”

  He grinned. “Where is my cousin?”

  “Right here,” came Luc’s deep, grating voice. Olivia looked over her shoulder and found herself trapped by his enigmatic gaze. “The question is, what are we doing out in the middle of the Mediterranean this time around?”

  Nic folded his arms, eyeing both of them with speculation. “I found Señorita Olivo rowing the boat for all she was worth with one oar. That’s quite a feat, even for several sailors twice her size and strength.”

  “I was looking for help.”

  Luc stood there in cutoffs, disheveled and un-shaven, yet hateful as he was, she’d never seen a more attractive man in her life. After being kissed by him last night, after experiencing his embrace if only for a little while, she would never be the same again.

  But his grim demeanor reminded her she was a long way from being able to claim victory.

  “Well we couldn’t just sit on Monte Cristo and do nothing!”

  “I’ll get the rope attached to the tether,” Nic interjected. “We’ll tow the boat back to Vernazza for electrical repairs.”

  Olivia smiled at him. “I’ve never been in a seaplane before. Are we riding with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Terrific!”

  Ignoring Luc, she climbed up on the side and leaped into the water to make her escape from him.

  Within a few minutes she and Luc were seated comfortably behind the pilot and Nic. The seaplane fairly skated across the surface of the water with the Gabbiano in tow. While Olivia drank her hot coffee, Nic looked over his shoulder at her.

  “What do you think?” No doubt he felt tension emanating from Luc and was trying his best to neutralize it.

  “I haven’t had this much fun in years. I feel like I’m at Disneyland on one of those children’s rides.” The two men in front burst into laughter. “This is the only way to see the Riviera. How much would you charge to escort me around on a ten-day trip?”

  “More than you could ever afford,” Luc muttered, his tone as black as the stubble on his jaw. She couldn’t understand his grim disposition. They’d been rescued and he was about to be rid of her. What more did he want from life?

  “When I’ve made my fortune, I’ll be able to afford anything I want and I’ll buy one of these. In fact I think I’ll take flying lessons so I can do everything myself.”

  “You’ll have to sell a lot of rocks first.”

  “Your encouragement to one who wasn’t born being fed by a silver spoon with the Falcon coat of arms does you great credit.”

  For the rest of the ride back, Olivia pretended Luc hadn’t come along. She concentrated instead on the magnificent view of the coastline. The rain had refreshed everything. The greens of the foliage, the pinks and yellows of the flowers were more vivid than usual.

  Vernazza was beginning to look like home. The pilot of the seaplane skimmed the harbor in a circle and came to a stop. He’d brought the Gabbiano close enough to the pier for some local fisherman to secure it at the end of the dock.

  Olivia was first out of her seat. “Nic? Luc shouldn’t use his leg anymore today. Last night he strained it unintentionally,” she deliberately stated in order to remind him of those moments he wanted to forget. She hoped he was tortured by them. “I’ll
go aboard and pack up our things.”

  Pleased when she heard Luc’s protest overruled by Nic in no uncertain terms, she dove from the open door into the water and swam for the boat. Once on deck she went below and changed into a blouse and skirt.

  After packing both suitcases, she went back up the stairs. Nic had come aboard. He stood by and watched as she reopened her bag and put the pouch of rocks on top of her clothes and toiletries. But when she lowered the lid, it wouldn’t close all the way.

  He smiled. “Whatever that is, I don’t think it’s going to fit.”

  “Yes it will.”

  She sat down on the lid and that did the trick. Gathering her purse in one hand, she took hold of her suitcase in the other. It weighed a lot more than before, but she didn’t mind.

  “Let me transport those bags to the plane.”

  “Only Luc’s,” she said when Nic started to reach for them. “He’s the one who needs to get back to Monaco and rest. Otherwise he’ll blame me when it takes his leg longer to heal. I couldn’t bear that on my conscience along with everything else.”

  “Everything else?” Nic shot her a questioning glance.

  With her emotions so close to the surface, she was in danger of giving herself away. “I—it was just a figure of speech,” she stammered. “I was starting to get nervous out there. Without power I wouldn’t have been able to cook us more fish even if I’d been lucky enough to catch another one.”

  He looked shocked. “You caught fish?”

  “Yes. Who would have believed?” She gave him a tired smile. “Thank you for everything, Nic. You’ve been a real lifesaver.”

  “Where are you going?” he questioned after she’d kissed his cheek.

  “Greer made me promise to take the train to Colorno and spend a few days at Max’s villa before I fly home to New York.”

  It wasn’t a lie. Her sister had told her she and Piper would always have a home with them. They would never have to wait for an invitation.

  Of course Olivia had no such intention of traveling to Colorno. There was only one detour she planned to make before leaving Italy, but nobody else needed to know about that, least of all Luc. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.