by Various
That much at least was true.
Being a Cordoba is about saying the correct thing, not the honest thing. Wasn’t that what he’d said that night at the restaurant? That’s the deal and you can’t change it.
No, well, he could at least have made it sound a little bit like he meant it when he said she looked beautiful.
Emily’s heels sank into the soft earth as she walked across the lawn to the waiting helicopter, hampering her efforts to keep pace with Luis’s swift stride. Not that she really felt like it now. She’d been looking forward to this evening for so long, and the moment she’d seen him of course she knew there was no point in trying to convince herself that her excitement had much to do with the ballet.
It was him.
The truly humiliating thing was he’d been right all along. She was the immature, inexperienced kid he had accused her of being, and she had a whopping great, embarrassing school-girl crush on him.
Ahead of her one of the uniformed personnel standing by the helicopter pulled open the door and Luis jumped lithely up into the cockpit, then turned round to hold out a hand to her. Emily faltered, unwilling to take it, unable to look at him in case he saw the longing in her eyes.
‘Thanks but it’s fine. I can manage,’ she muttered, gathering her skirt up and climbing inelegantly in beside him. Not that he noticed. Already he had turned away from her and was unhooking the headset that was suspended above the control panel, flicking switches, checking dials and signalling to the crew circling around them on the ground.
‘Put on your headset—we’re ready for take-off.’
Emily did as she was told, relieved at least that, both wearing headsets, they would be spared the need to make polite conversation. Not that Luis, given his obvious preoccupation, would have bothered anyway.
With a roar the rotor blades started up and the ground swayed and receded beneath them as they rose vertically into the sky.
It was a beautiful evening. Within moments they were suspended in a soft, forget-me-not blue sky with the palace spread out below them like some elaborate doll’s house belonging to a spoiled child. It was an incredible view, but Emily found herself more preoccupied with the sight of Luis’s strong, golden hands on the helicopter’s cyclic. The cockpit was small enough for her shoulder to be almost touching his, and the whole of the side of her body nearest him tingled and buzzed, as if tiny magnets beneath her skin were pulling her towards him.
It was going to be an uncomfortable journey.
They had left the palace behind now and were heading over the trees and flat, rolling grassland of the royal estate out towards the sea which glittered ahead of them, and the realization that she was cut off from the rest of the world with him sent a spasm of panicky longing ricocheting through her.
‘OK?’
She jumped as his voice came through her headset, caressing her ear with an intimacy that made her shiver. Glancing across at him she felt her stomach constrict. He was wearing the same aviator sunglasses he’d worn the day he’d kissed her on the tarmac at the airport, and combined with the exquisitely tailored dinner suit and black tie, the effect was nothing short of devastating.
‘Fine,’ she murmured faintly, forcing herself to look away. ‘Just admiring the scenery. What’s that down there?’
Luis followed her gaze to the slate-roofed building nestling in the trees beneath them. ‘La Guarita,’ he said in husky Portuguese, and Emily felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. ‘It was built by one of my more extravagant ancestors to be used as a hunting lodge.’
Emily nodded gravely. It could have been the local supermarket for all she cared, but the sensation of his voice in her ear was exquisite and she didn’t want it to stop. ‘A hunting lodge? It’s not very rustic. Tell me more about this ancestor of yours.’
Luis threw her a twisted smile. ‘On one condition. That afterwards you tell me the plot of this ballet we’re going to see.’
‘Done.’
A fat lot of good that had been, Luis thought savagely, staring at the stage in a welter of boredom a couple of hours later. Emily had done her best, but try as he might he just couldn’t reconcile the story she had told him about some peasant girl who had fallen in love—with a nobleman, or a huntsman?—with the ridiculous leaping and writhing that was happening on stage.
He slumped back in his seat and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Mind you, if he’d actually been listening properly to what she was saying rather than just enjoying the sweetness of her voice in his ear he might have understood a whole lot more. But he was finding that it was impossible to concentrate on anything much when she was around, and that was seriously beginning to bother him.
From the moment they’d stepped out of the car that had brought them from the helipad he had sensed the tautness in her body, and once again he was reminded of a racehorse—alert and quivering with nerves, but strong and true and courageous beneath the delicate exterior. Walking beside him up the wide marble steps to the opera house she had allowed him to take her arm, but he could feel the distance she placed between them like an invisible force field. At least the photographers were unaware of it as they snapped excitedly away. Finally it seemed Josefina would get what she wanted.
If only, he thought with cutting self-mockery, there was a chance that he would too.
His gaze shifted back to where she was sitting, leaning forward in her seat, her hands gripping the edge of the box as she looked down over the stage. There was nothing overtly sexy about the scarlet dress she wore—except perhaps the colour—but on her even the demurely high back that showed only a narrow crescent of creamy skin on her shoulders seemed to be excruciatingly provocative. It took all his willpower just to stop himself from reaching out and touching the single curl that spiralled down from the nape of her neck.
Despairingly he pulled his mobile phone from the pocket of his jacket and glared down at the screen. The next hour was going to be hell anyway, so he might as well pile on the torture and get through some emails as well. Boredom beat frustrated lust any day.
The huge full moon cast a soft luminescence over the stage. Emily kept her eyes fixed unblinkingly on it as the audience below rose from their red velvet seats. It had been a breathtaking, heartbreaking performance and the tumult of applause went on and on.
Only she sat frozen and still.
On the stage the dancers swept forward again to bow to the enchanted audience, the white dresses of the ballerinas billowing out as they made their deep, graceful curtsies, their faces uniformly composed in spite of the wrenching sadness of the dance they had just finished. For as long as she could remember Emily had wanted only to be like them—flawless and doll-like in white tulle and satin shoes. For years she had devoted her life to training her body, rigidly controlling and disciplining it to achieve that cool, remote perfection.
And she had. Only to realise—too late—that she’d missed the point all along. Being a dancer wasn’t just about precision or perfection or lucky shoes.
It was about emotion.
And that was something she’d deliberately, ruthlessly, shut out since the day her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It was how she had got through Mia’s arrival and the realization that her father had betrayed and lied to them all. It was what had enabled her to calmly and quietly walk away from Balfour the day after her mother’s funeral.
But it was also what had taken away her ability to dance.
She stumbled to her feet. Groping behind her for her wrap she caught sight of Luis, and realised that she wasn’t the only one in the audience not clapping. Lounging back in his seat, he had his mobile phone in his hand and was tapping away at it. In the greenish light of the screen his face was a mask of boredom.
He looked up. She was caught in the dark vortex of his gaze, and in that moment she understood that the terrifying, uncontrollable emotions she had spent the past six exhausting months trying to run away from she hadn’t escaped at all, because they were inside her all
along.
Slowly he unfolded his long, lithe body from the seat and stood in front of her, his face expressionless. At some point during the performance he had surreptitiously undone his top button and his black silk tie, which now hung loosely around his neck. He looked frighteningly beautiful.
‘Finally.’ His lips twitched into a crooked smile. ‘I thought it would never end. You don’t look like you enjoyed it much either.’
‘I loved it,’ she said, her voice hollow and fierce.
‘Really?’ His arched brows rose in surprise. ‘Well, that’s lucky, I suppose, because I have a proposition for you.’ He reached down and picked up her wrap, which was trailing over the back of the chair, and in one practised movement settled it lightly over her shoulders, his fingers brushing her skin for the merest fraction of a second.
Emily steeled herself against the shuddering awareness that gripped her, but then he was taking her hands and drawing her gently backwards so they were concealed behind the heavy velvet curtain that hung down at the side of the royal box and she felt herself go rigid with panic.
‘Wh-what are you doing?’ Her voice came out as a frozen whisper, and he dropped her hands immediately, his face curiously blank.
‘Relax,’ he said wearily, ‘I’m not trying to ravish you behind the curtains, but in case you hadn’t noticed the entire audience have now shifted their attention from the stage to us.’
Emily darted a glance over her shoulder. Her breathing was shallow and uneven. Below them the lights had gone up and the hum of conversation had resumed as people put back their opera glasses and gathered their evening bags. Several of them still had their faces turned up towards the royal box. Frowning, she turned back to Luis.
‘Please—can we go now?’
‘Wait.’ His face was shadowed by the fall of the curtain, but she could see the dull gleam of his eyes and the flicker of a muscle in his cheek. ‘I have something to ask you first.’
The shadows closed in on her a little and she took a small, gasping breath.
‘It’s my father’s Silver Jubilee this year and there’s going to be some kind of event to mark it,’ he said dully. ‘The Brazilian National Ballet are scheduled to perform there. We’d like you and Luciana to dance with them.’
She opened her mouth to laugh at the irony, but instead it came out as a sob. She shook her head, biting down on her bottom lip as her fragile shell of control threatened to crack.
‘Impossible,’ she said in a tight, cold voice. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t. Now please, can we just go?’
Two men in suits had appeared at the doorway to the box, their ubiquitous headsets clearly marking them out as palace bodyguards. Luis seemed to hesitate for a moment, his face as cool and blank as marble, but then he gave a curt nod and the security men opened the door and went ahead of them, down the dimly lit VIP staircase that led directly to the main foyer.
Emily was glad of the gloom. Surreptitiously she sniffed and pressed the palms of her hands to her cheeks, desperately trying to stem the tears that had started to slide down her face in a silent stream and keep herself from being sucked down into despair.
The door at the foot of the stairs opened, letting in a blast of noise from the hallway beyond and the clear evening light. Emily blinked, instinctively wanting to hide her tear-stained face, but it was too late. The guards stood aside, holding the door open and motioning them to go through, to the car that waited at the foot of the steps outside.
Luis glanced down at her and in that split second she saw a flare of some unfathomable emotion in the depths of his eyes. His reactions were as swift and devastating as lightning. Instantly his arm was around her shoulders, sheltering her against the protective wall of his body as he pulled her forwards. He raised his other hand to wave to the crowd, but Emily understood that it was also shielding her from the glittering camera flashes and the glare of onlookers.
As they went out into the still-warm evening and down the steps she kept her body rigid, every atom of her being resisting the urge to melt against him. But then his grip on her relaxed as they approached the waiting car and an arrow of desolation shot through her. She raised her head just at she same moment he looked down at her.
Afterwards she couldn’t have said how it happened, or who made the first move. All she knew was that one moment he was reaching out to open the door of the car for her and the next he had taken her upturned face between his strong hands and their mouths had come together in a hard, helpless kiss.
It lasted only seconds. And then she was in the car and he was beside her and they were pulling away from the screaming, ecstatic crowd.
Chapter Eleven
IT WAS a heartbreakingly beautiful evening. As they flew back to Santosa the sun was setting over the sea, streaking the clear turquoise water with ribbons of rose and gold, and turning the white sand of the many beaches fringing the islands of the archipelago to pink sherbet.
Was this how it was for Rico, flying home that night? Luis wondered bleakly. It was oddly comforting to think that his last moments on earth had been like this—a foretaste of the paradise in which he was assured a place.
Unlike Luis.
Beside him Emily sat, taut and silent. They had barely spoken since they left the opera house, and although he had tried to say ‘sorry’ she had batted his apologies straight back in a way that told him this time things were different. She seemed angry with him, which he couldn’t blame her for in the slightest, but hell, he thought savagely, she couldn’t be more angry than he was with himself.
He glanced across at her. The setting sun gilded her perfect profile, sprinkling gold dust on her long, luxuriant lashes, her delicate slightly upturned nose, and he had to crush another debilitating spasm of want. Deus, he raged silently, staring out into the apricot heavens, wasn’t it punishment enough that he’d given it all up, without this cruel temptation, this constant, tantalising reminder of the pleasures that he’d forsworn?
‘I’m sorry.’
Her subdued voice came through his headset. Luis felt his whole body tense and he smiled grimly.
‘I think that’s my line,’ he drawled. ‘What are you sorry for?’
She was very still, her head bent. ‘For being so ungrateful earlier. For turning down what was a very…generous offer.’
The dancing. She was talking about the dancing, he realised. Oddly enough he’d forgotten all about that, but suddenly his curiosity was aroused. Which made a change from other, baser parts of him. ‘Good point,’ he said tersely. ‘So why did you turn it down? I thought you’d be pleased.’
Beneath them the shadow of the helicopter skimmed serenely over the silken sea, giving absolutely no indication of the electrifying tension that crackled inside the small space inside.
‘Because it’s out of the question. I just…can’t.’
‘Can’t, or won’t?’ Such was his awareness of her body beside him that he felt her startle at the harshness of his tone, but he didn’t seem to be able to soften it. ‘Naturally a suggestion like that wasn’t made without a bit of preliminary research, and according to the principal of your school you were the most talented dancer of your year.’
‘Was,’ she said bitterly. ‘Past tense.’
They were flying over a long stretch of innocuous-looking white sand, edged on one side by a clear sea that in the fiery light of the dying sun looked like pink champagne. It was here that the wreckage of Rico’s helicopter had been found, washed up at the base of the steep cliffs which cast their jagged shadows over the beach. Flying towards them Luis kept his voice carefully flat. ‘What changed?’
‘I did.’ She laughed, and the headset magnified the despair in it. ‘You were right—I was just a kid then, a silly, naive little girl. And then I grew up and the magic just…went. Like when you stop believing in fairy tales.’ Her head was turned away from him, but in her lap he could see that her hands were twisted together in a tight knot of anguish, almost as if she were trying to hold on to h
erself. ‘I can do the steps,’ she went on, in a low, toneless voice. ‘Go through the motions, and I can do it so perfectly that sometimes I can almost convince myself I might still be a dancer. But tonight…’ she faltered. ‘Tonight I realised how far from the truth that is. There’s no passion there. I just can’t feel it.’
Luis remembered what Oscar had said that night on the telephone. She doesn’t do anything in half-measures. Never has. Whatever she does she does passionately, with her whole heart and soul.
The cliffs were right in front of them now and suddenly from the benevolent golden sunshine of evening they plunged into cool gloom that only served to tighten the atmosphere in the confined space. Sharply Luis brought the helicopter upwards, and as he did so his arm brushed against hers. She gave a muffled cry and jerked away, as if he had burnt her.
It was like the first crack of thunder in a storm that had been brewing for hours. Swearing under his breath Luis steadied the helicopter and looked across at her, his heartbeat echoing loudly in his own ears.
‘Don’t tell me you don’t feel it,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not passionate because—’
‘I’m scared!’
The words seemed to be torn from somewhere inside her. Luis flinched, everything in him tensing as if against a blow. Adrenaline coursed through him so that it took all his skill and self-control to keep the helicopter flying straight. It was what he’d always known, since the night that he’d first met her. She’d seen through him, to the contemptible person beneath the veneer. ‘Of me?’ he said in a voice that dripped despair and self-disgust. ‘Deus, Emily—’
‘No. No.’ Emily splayed her hands out on her knees, staring down at them and speaking deliberately and carefully. She was aware of her heart beating, very hard, as if it was trying to break free of the restraints of the tight, red silk. ‘Not of you. Of me.’ She broke off with a ragged, self-mocking laugh. ‘There. That’s the reason I can’t do it. Because I’m scared of letting go. I’m scared of all the feelings inside me spilling out and…and…I don’t know, sucking me down, overwhelming me…’