A Devil in Disguise

by Caitlin Crews

  “You,” he said, as if she had missed his point, “have no idea what love is.”

  For what felt like a long time—whole ages, perhaps centuries—Dru could only stare at him, stricken, too deeply shaken even to weep. She felt cracked open, as if she yawned wide and he was the brash, bright light exposing all of her darkness to the air.

  And it hurt so much and so deeply that she dimly suspected she hadn’t yet got to the real pain—that this was only the shock that preceded it.

  “And you do?” she asked eventually. Belligerently, though her voice quaked.

  Cayo’s eyes were brilliant. Dark and gold and molten fire, burning her alive. He reached over and took her hands in his, and she should have jerked away. But instead, she exulted in the feel of his skin against hers after all this time. It pumped through her like heat, as though her own blood betrayed her, as though there was no part of her that wasn’t his no matter what she told herself. Or told him.

  “Let me tell you what I know,” he told her, his voice low, intense. Urgent. His accent was thick and melodic then, wrapping around her, caressing her. “I want you. I want you in ways that I don’t understand. I can live without you, but I don’t want to. I don’t see the point.”

  “Cayo—”

  “Callate,” he ordered her. He shifted back on his heels, dropping her hands though she still felt as if he touched her, as if he surrounded her. She folded her hands over what was left of his heat. “I tried. I let you go. You came back.” His fierce face looked almost harsh. Stark and serious. “You only love what you cannot have, and I have never been anything but a monster. I’ve never wanted to be anything but what I am.” His cruel mouth moved slightly, hinting at that curve. “Until now.”

  Something swelled up in the space between them, precarious and new. Dru felt the tears trickle down her cheeks but made no move to wipe them away. She could only see Cayo. And like one of those hummingbirds that Dominic had inked into his skin, she felt something flutter up and hover, skittish and shy, like some kind of gift. Hope, she thought, and that great cavern inside her, that terrible emptiness that had eaten her alive for so long, began at last to shrink.

  She didn’t want pain. She didn’t want that masochistic streak. She wanted him. She always had. And she was tired of hiding. It was time to stop. Past time.

  This time she was the one who reached out. She sat forward and ran her hands along his severe jaw, then held his fierce, impossible face between her hands. She felt the heat of him moving through her, warming her from the inside out.

  “If I am not a martyr,” she said, her voice small but strong, “and you are not a monster, then who do you suppose we are?”

  “That’s the point,” he said, his hands coming up to cover hers, his gaze melting into hers, the world shifting all around them and the fire that always burned between them bright and hot and true. Making them something more than they were before. Soldering them together. Welding them, finally, into one. Not clay, but tempered steel. “I want to find out. With you.”

  “I think we can do that,” she whispered, and then she tipped forward and kissed him, like a vow.

  He found her sprawled out on one of the loungers on the private deck off the owner’s suite on the great yacht, her lovely curves displayed to mouthwatering perfection in a wickedly simple bikini.

  She smiled as he approached, but did not set aside her tablet until he lifted her bodily into the air and captured her mouth with his. He had not seen her in almost a full twenty-four hours and felt as desperate as if it had been years.

  He set her to her feet carefully, enjoying the slide of her against him.

  “What is it?” she asked, her clever eyes moving over his face.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long, narrow white box and handed it to her. She looked up at him for a moment, then looked down and opened the box. She gasped. And Cayo tensed, not certain this had been the right thing to do.

  Dru pulled the pendant into the air and stared at it, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Hummingbirds …” she whispered. Two birds nestled together on the silver chain, in the bright and bold colors that could only be Murano glass. They sparkled in the golden sunlight, looking very nearly alive. And when she looked at him again, her eyes were wet, but she was smiling.

  “You won’t forget him,” Cayo said, his voice rough. “And neither will I.”

  She threw her arms around him and kissed him then. For a long time. Soft and sweet. Making both of them sigh.

  It had been eight months now since that scene in her cramped Clapham bedsit. Eight months of Dru in his life, testing him and changing him, making him wonder how he’d lived without her for so long. He could no longer imagine any possible scenario that did not include this woman, who had somehow made him the man he’d never believed he could be. Flesh and blood. Alive. Not a monster, after all. Not as long as she loved him.

  “When are you going to marry me?” he demanded when they were both breathless and she was boneless against him.

  “When you deserve it,” she said, pulling away from him. She wiped at her eyes and then she looked at him as if she thought that eventuality was highly unlikely, and he laughed.

  “Must I bribe you into it?” he asked. “You won’t take a house. Land. Atolls or islands.”

  He waved a hand and she followed the gesture, looking out over the deep blue of the Aegean Sea toward the sunny, green little island that stretched there off the side of the yacht. Private and uninhabited. And his. She had insisted that he visit all of his properties or sell them, and so he had, leaving the minutia of his affairs more and more in the capable hands of his fleet of vice presidents. Delegating. This Greek island, one of the Cyclades not far from Mykonos, was the last on the list. He found he liked it. And the process of exploring them all, with her.

  “No,” she agreed. “I don’t want your property. But …”

  “Yes?” She amused him. Fascinated him.

  “Perhaps a company.” Her gray eyes gleamed as she fastened the pendant around her neck. The hummingbirds seemed to dance and shimmer against her skin. “Just a small one.”

  “Why am I unsurprised that the life of leisure bores you?”

  She only smiled. “You have that boutique advertising agency in New York, don’t you, that is currently in dire need of leadership?”

  He was aware she knew full well that he did.

  “What do you know about managing an advertising agency?” But his tone was indulgent and in any case, he had no doubt that this woman could do anything she chose to do, and well.

  “I managed you for five years,” she said dryly. “I imagine a company filled with artistic Americans could only be a breeze in comparison. A bit of holiday, really.”

  “I love you,” he said, because he did, and because he could think of nothing that pleased him more than the idea of her doing this with him. Building all of this with him. Making it their empire, not his. Making it matter. “You can run whatever you want, mi amor. But I will have to insist that you marry me.”

  She only watched him, her gray eyes clear and sparkling, and he reached over to take her hands in his, pulling her to him. The sun spilled all over her, bathing her in light, and still she shone brighter.

  “There is a little-known clause in all my contracts,” he said softly, pressing kisses to her cheek, to the freckles across her nose, to her sweet mouth. “All Vila Group subsidiaries must be run by a Vila. So you see how it is. My hands are tied.”

  Dru laughed and threaded her arms around his neck.

  “You know how I love a sacrifice,” she teased him. “I suppose it’s a good thing, then, that I love you enough to make such a huge one.”

  “It is,” he said gruffly, but he smiled, and then kissed her again, sealing it.

  And it would be, he thought. A very good thing, and they would spend their whole lives making it better. He had no doubts.

  He was Cayo Vila. He didn’t take no for an answer, a
nd he didn’t know how to fail.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

  First published in Great Britain 2012

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.

  Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,

  Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  © Caitlin Crews 2012

  ISBN: 978-1-408-97453-7