by Various
‘So I see.’ He looked briefly at Emily, taking in the soft grey footless tights she wore, the little plum-coloured wrap-around cardigan and short, fluid skirt. ‘So that’s what you bought instead of proper clothes when you went shopping.’
‘Yes.’ She hesitated awkwardly. ‘But the things you ordered were waiting for me in my room last night. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.’
He made a small sound of impatience. ‘Judging from the dreadful things I’ve seen you in so far, I’m afraid I’d have to disagree. Yesterday’s funeral suit should be burned, and you can’t go out to a restaurant wearing a leotard and tights.’
Emily got to her feet, not meeting his eye as adrenaline pumped through her. He kissed her when it suited him, and yet he could barely disguise his contempt when he spoke to her. ‘Well, since I’m here to teach ballet, not go out to restaurants, that shouldn’t be a problem,’ she said with exaggerated courtesy, ‘but thank you anyway. Come on, Luciana, shall we go down to the gym and get started on your first lesson?’
‘Wait.’
They were almost at the door but the word stopped her in her tracks. She noticed the way Luciana’s grip on her hand tightened when he spoke.
‘Yes?’
She tried to keep her tone neutral, but failed spectacularly. The word might only contain three letters but every one of them bristled with defiance.
‘Has someone shown you the gym?’ he asked, crossing the room towards her. ‘I understand from Tomás that a barre has been fitted for Luciana’s ballet lessons.’
‘Yes, thank you. It’s perfect.’
‘And your room? Is your room all right?’
She laughed, thinking of the suite she had been shown to last night with its own sitting room and little sunny balcony. ‘You saw where I was living before, so, yes, thank you. My lavish suite of rooms is perfectly acceptable. Now, if that’s all—’
‘It isn’t.’ He came to a standstill in front of her, leaning against the doorway, his expression offhand. ‘I came here to ask you to have dinner with me tonight.’
She raised her chin, trying to hide her shock. ‘Is that a request or a royal command?’
He smiled, a thin smile that didn’t reach his expressionless eyes. ‘Would it make a difference to your answer?’
‘Yes.’
He sighed, and suddenly he looked very tired ‘Then it’s whichever will make you agree.’
For a heartbeat she didn’t reply. She was aware of Luciana’s tight hold on her hand. But mostly she was aware of Luis—the now-familiar, perennially intoxicating smell of him, the dark smudges beneath his eyes, the stubble on his hard jaw. ‘OK, then.’ She spoke in a low reluctant voice, as if the words were being drawn from her against her will. ‘If you’re asking as a human being, then we’d like to, wouldn’t we, Luciana?’
Emily just had time to register the flare of surprise in Luis Cordoba’s topaz-coloured eyes before she tore her own gaze away and turned her attention to the little girl at her side. Luciana blinked, biting her lip, clearly unsure how to react, so Emily dropped down to her level, smoothing a strand of dark hair back from her face. ‘It would be fun. We’ll dress up in something nice, and Uncle Luis can take us out for dinner,’ she said softly, taking hold of Luciana’s hands. ‘We can have burgers and chips and a cola float. Do you know what one of those is?’ Luciana shook her head mutely. ‘It’s a fizzy drink with ice cream on the top, and it’s my absolute favourite. What do you think?’
‘It sounds…nice.’
Emily straightened up, letting her gaze skim over Luis’s long legs, his hard stomach, as she did so.
‘Thank you. We’ll be ready at six.’
‘Excelente.’ Once more his smile stopped short of his eyes and his voice was cool and tinged with irony. ‘It looks like I have a date with two beautiful girls. Even by my standards that’s quite a result.’
Chapter Eight
LUIS would have said that his knowledge of Santosa’s nightlife was pretty much second to none, but the Purple Parrot was one restaurant that wasn’t on his personal radar.
The manager, almost hyperventilating with excitement at having the patronage of the Crown Prince, had shown them to a table on the veranda over the beach as agreed earlier with palace security, and while Emily studied the menu with Luciana, Luis looked around. At this hour the restaurant was busy with families; highchairs were stationed at nearly every table and toddlers knelt up on chairs, eating with their fingers. Luis shuddered, grimacing slightly at the plastic palm trees that held up the raffia-fringed canopy above them, the soft-toy parrots and monkeys and snakes that hid in their branches. It wasn’t the kind of place he’d usually choose to bring a woman for a date.
Not that this was a date, he reminded himself acidly. It was another duty; a PR exercise, order of Josefina and the press office.
He looked across at Emily. She was wearing a short indigo-blue cotton dress, presumably one of the things selected by the girl in Harvey Nichols. It was loose, falling in soft pleats from a low neckline and, unlike any of the other stuff he’d seen her in, it suited her to perfection. She looked young and incredibly pretty as she sat beside Luciana, her head bent over the menu, her ponytail falling over her shoulder and exposing her delicate collarbone and the back of her neck. The rapier-sharp arrow of lust that skewered him caught him off guard and made his breath catch in his throat.
Emily straightened up and smiled warily across at him. If she knew what he was thinking she wouldn’t be smiling at all, he thought acidly.
‘Thank you for bringing us,’ she said with clipped English courtesy. ‘It’s a great place.’
‘I might have known you’d like it.’
The Balfour blue eyes held his for a moment, the darkening in their clear depths showing her anger, but then they were hidden by a sweep of her dark, thick lashes as she looked back down at Luciana.
‘Have you decided what you’d like to eat, sweetheart?’
Guilt came down on him like the night as he watched Luciana lean closer in to Emily’s side, pointing shyly at the menu. Guilt was his default emotion as far as his niece was concerned, and from the moment Emily had added the little twist to his dinner invitation earlier he’d known this wasn’t going to be a relaxing evening. But that comment about this being Emily’s kind of restaurant had been below the belt.
Unseeingly he looked out over the beach below, where the fierce heat had gone out of the sun and it was beginning to dip down towards the flat sea. The truth was the strength of his response to her unsettled him, and it was as though he had to make jokes about her being a child to distract him from the fact that his body was all too aware of. Emily Balfour might have been a naive kid last year, but now she was all grown up and ripe for the taking.
By someone, he reminded himself sourly. Certainly not by him.
‘…if that’s OK?’
Luis shook his head slightly, snapping back to reality. Emily was looking at him from the opposite side of the table, her expression cool and slightly challenging.
‘Sorry.’
‘I said, we thought it would be good to get one of the big dishes, for sharing, if that’s OK with you?’
‘Fine. Whatever.’
As he motioned to one of the half a dozen waitresses who were hovering, gawping in open admiration, Emily clamped her jaw together and tried to squash the fury that was billowing up inside her. Dinner had been his lousy idea, so now the least he could do was try to cover up how bored he was. As the prettiest waitress virtually sprinted towards the table and gave a breathless curtsy Emily turned her head in disgust, following the direction in which he’d been looking a moment ago.
Ah. So that explained his utter lack of interest in her and Luciana, she thought irritably, watching two lithe surfer girls splashing about in the sea. She didn’t expect him to be interested in her, not when there were so many gorgeous women around, desperate for the opportunity to be on the receiving end of Prince Luis’s meaningless char
m, but at least he could show a bit more interest in his niece, for pity’s sake.
Determinedly blocking out Luis’s voice as he talked to the waitress in husky Portuguese that made it sound as if he was describing the plot of an erotic film, Emily mustered a smile and turned back to Luciana. Her heart turned over. The child was obviously not used to being out like this and was sitting very stiffly, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes downcast. She might have been taught everything in the royal rule book about manners but someone had clearly forgotten to initiate her into the art of enjoying herself.
‘Don’t look now,’ Emily whispered, ‘but I can see something looking down at us from that tree behind Uncle Luis.’
Instantly Luciana lifted her head and looked anxiously up into the plastic palm tree. Seeing the furry toy monkey peeping through the branches her face relaxed into a smile.
‘If I was an animal I’d love to be a monkey,’ Emily rattled on. Anything to avoid having to listen to Luis flirting with the waitress. ‘I bet they have loads of fun, swinging in the trees all day. What would you like to be?’
Luciana thought for a moment. ‘Leão.’ She bared her little white teeth and held out her hands like claws.
Emily clapped her hands in delight. ‘A lion!’ It seemed an unlikely choice for a child who was as timid as a tiny kitten. But that, she realised, was probably the point of the fantasy. ‘I can see you as a lion,’ she said, very seriously. ‘Especially as you have such beautiful, strong teeth. What do you think Uncle Luis would be?’
Male chauvinist pig is the obvious answer, she thought crossly as they both regarded him across the table. And then she remembered the night at Balfour when he’d stepped out in front of her from beneath the snowy blossom tress and pulled her into the shadows. A wolf. With his golden eyes glinting with wickedness he’d reminded her of the wolf in Red Riding Hood.
‘Do I get the impression that you two are talking about me?’ he asked dryly, as the waitress departed with a final coy curtsy.
Emily cleared her throat, which suddenly felt painfully dry. ‘We’re talking about if people were animals what animals they’d be,’ she said in a ridiculous, husky voice. ‘Luciana would be a lion.’
Luis’s elegant, arched eyebrows shot up, indicating that his reaction was the same as hers had been. As he opened his mouth to speak Emily shot him a warning look, and he turned to Luciana with a nod of approval. ‘Good choice. You’ve definitely picked the best animal to be. What about Emily? What would she be?’
Luciana pointed timidly up at the monkey.
Luis made a tutting sound. ‘Oh, dear, Emily,’ he said, looking straight at her in that direct, deadpan way that he had. The way that made you forget that there was anyone else in the room. In the world. Damn him. ‘I’m afraid you absolutely could never be a monkey. They’re far too undisciplined and uncouth. Sorry, but you’ll have to think again.’
‘I don’t know, then,’ she laughed nervously, trying to dispel the heat in her cheeks. ‘What do you think, Luciana?’
Luciana’s forehead creased into a frown again, but Emily was pleased that this time it was one of pure concentration, not of anxiety. Watching her, you could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she considered the matter. Finally she looked up at Luis and said something in quick, breathless Portuguese.
He nodded slowly, and replied in the same language. For a moment, listening to his velvety voice caressing the cadences of his native tongue Emily had to hold herself very rigid to suppress the shudder of helpless longing she could feel gathering inside. As the two of them carried on their conversation she battled to bring herself back under control, so it was a few moments before she realised that they were both looking at her. She glanced from one to the other in mock alarm.
‘What?’
There was a twinkle of merriment in Luciana’s huge, dark, chocolate-coloured eyes that Emily hadn’t seen before, but which gave her a little thrill of pleasure. A little thrill of a different kind of pleasure than she got from the dull gleam in Luis’s eyes as she looked across at him.
‘We’ve decided what animal you should be.’ He lounged back in his chair, his long fingers toying idly with the menu as he regarded her. ‘It wasn’t easy. Luciana suggested a gazelle, whereas I thought you’d make a rather good flamingo, with all those bizarre ballet contortions you do, but in the end we agreed that neither of those were quite right.’
A hint of a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth, and Emily found herself unable to take her eyes off his lips. ‘Go on,’ she said slightly breathlessly.
‘Well, in the end, after much careful consideration and debate—’ he glanced at Luciana, who clasped her hands together shyly ‘—we came up with the answer. You tell her, Luciana.’
‘Cavalo! Cavalo!’
‘Cavalo?’ Emily looked uncertainly from one to the other. ‘I don’t know what that is, but I don’t like the sound of it.’
‘A horse.’
‘A horse?’ she repeated in mock outrage, turning to Luciana who had clapped her hands to her mouth and was giggling excitedly—a sound which made Emily’s heart sing. ‘You think I’m like a horse?’
Leaning across the table Luis took hold of her ponytail and ran his fingers through its length. His face bore that sardonic expression, but his eyes had darkened and gleamed like antique topaz. ‘Absolutely,’ he said gravely. ‘A young thoroughbred.’ She flinched as his he brought his hand to her face and stroked the backs of his fingers across her cheek ‘Delicate, nervy, but all taut muscles and quivering energy beneath that restrained surface…’
Emily was transfixed. It was as if the touch of his hand on her cheek had cast some spell over her, and she was powerless to move. Or think properly. She could do nothing but gaze helplessly into those eyes while he added in a voice that was little more than a low murmur, ‘Unbroken, of course…’
Adrenaline and indignation and stinging hot desire crashed through her and she felt her mouth open to protest at his audacity, but the waitress was coming back, balancing the tray of drinks expertly on one hand while she executed another neat curtsy, and Luis was pulling away, leaning back in his chair, his attention already somewhere else.
Discipline, focus, control. Gathering together the shreds of her equanimity, Emily forced herself to turn to Luciana, whose face lit up as the waitress placed in front of her an enormous drink with a cloudy head of ice cream frothing on the top.
‘What is it?’ Luciana whispered uncertainly.
‘A cola float, as described by Miss Balfour earlier,’ Luis replied with a faint smile. ‘And since she said it’s her favourite, I thought she might like one too.’ He reached over to the waitress’s tray. ‘There.’ He handed her a tall flute of golden liquid, topped with a scoop of ice cream. ‘A champagne float. The grown-up version. Now you can’t say I treat you like a child.’
Beyond the shade of their palm-tree canopy the sun had turned pear-drop pink in a sky the colour of parma violets, and the beach was almost empty. The tide was coming in, each successive wave wreaking further damage to a large and intricate sandcastle Emily had noticed earlier.
That’s what’s happening to me, she thought darkly, taking a sip of ice cream and champagne. Slowly, inexorably, her defences were being broken down, and although she knew what was happening there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Luciana touched her arm very tentatively, bringing her thoughts back to reality. ‘Emily? We didn’t think of an animal for Uncle Luis.’
‘No, we didn’t!’ She forced herself to look at him narrowly over the rim of her glass. It wasn’t easy. He was so heart-stoppingly handsome that looking at him directly was a bit like staring at the sun, and doing it now made her realise how much time she spent when she was with him trying to avoid it. ‘Do you think,’ she began slowly, ‘that since you and Uncle Luis are in the same family he could be a lion too? After all, the lion is supposed to be the king of all the animals.’
Luis took a mouthful o
f beer and put his glass down, shaking his head. Suddenly all traces of laughter had left his face. ‘Exactly,’ he said acidly. Then he looked down at Luciana and gave a twisted smile. ‘Luciana is Rico’s daughter. She’s a regal lion through and through. But me…’ His laugh had an edge of bitterness to it. ‘Not so much.’
There was a small silence.
‘A tiger,’ Luciana suggested. ‘Uncle Luis could be a tiger?’
Emily put her arm around her and gave her a little squeeze. ‘Good idea. Uncle Luis can be a big, sleek tiger.’
Watchful. Predatory. Beautiful. It suited him very well.
‘Here’s dinner,’ growled Luis. ‘Be careful or I’ll eat it all up. And you too.’
They ate deep-fried king prawns, garlicky chicken, acarajé fritters and succulent chunks of tender steak straight from huge heaped plates in the centre of the table, accompanied by lots of French fries. At first Luciana was stiff with horror at the idea of eating with her fingers, but bit by bit, under Emily’s gentle encouragement, she got used to the idea.
Luis was tempted to feign awkwardness himself, just so Emily would have to feed him little mouthfuls from her own fingers. But, he thought, staring moodily out over the darkening ocean, it would definitely test his promise to Rico if she did.
The pear-drop sun had fallen right into the sea now and the sky beyond the palm-tree canopy was a soft sherbet pink, dotted with the first tiny diamond stars. The beach was empty, the sea flat and mirror smooth.
A perfect evening.
Across the table, Emily sucked her fingers and leaned back in her seat. The pink light gave her skin a rosy glow, so that she looked like a poster girl for some miracle cosmetic cream. Some of his ex-girlfriends paid thousands to achieve the same effect, he thought, with a twist of wry amusement. Fruitlessly, of course.
‘That was gorgeous. I think I have to admit you were right about the horse thing. I’ve certainly eaten like one.’