by Various
A lone surfer, she thought dully, noticing the shorts, the bare, bronzed back and broad shoulders. He was bent over, as if he was looking for something in the sand, but moving quickly so that the muscles of his back rippled in the sun.
And then she realised. He wasn’t looking.
He was writing.
Big letters in the sand—a message that she read incredulously through a mist of tears.
EMILY…I LOVE YOU.
She gave a desperate, incredulous sob, scrubbing the tears from her eyes so she could read it again, to make sure she wasn’t wrong. And as she did so the tanned, bare-chested man on the beach heard the helicopter and straightened up, tipping his head back. And she saw that it really was Luis, and that he wore an expression of torment that matched her own.
‘I was going to say you need someone who can tell you that they love you,’ Oscar said in a voice that was choked with emotion. ‘But I think that writing it in metre-high letters is even better.’
Her heart had risen up into her throat and was beating there, as if it might choke her. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. It didn’t matter. Oscar was already leaning into the front of the cockpit and asking the pilot to land.
The sand swirled upwards as the helicopter came down, the wind from the blades ruffling Luis’s dark gold hair as he stood, taut and unmoving in the centre of the storm, his head tipped back in an attitude of silent suffering, his perfect face mask-like. Throwing open the door Emily jumped down, her blue dress billowing up around her thighs, her eyes never leaving him.
Slowly, like a sleepwalker, she went towards him, stumbling slightly as her feet sank into the sand, pausing to kick off her shoes and then stopping altogether a few feet from him as she saw that his face was wet with tears.
‘Oh, Luis…’ she said in anguish. ‘Your father. I’m so sorry.’
He gave a curt, dismissive shake of his head, as if her compassion flayed him. Everything about him resisted approach and despite the tears he looked terrifyingly, fiercely remote. ‘I listened to what you said,’ he growled in a voice like rusty razor blades. ‘I’m going to try to do it my way. Be honest. Not hide anything. Do things from the heart.’ He made a sweeping gesture to the message in the sand. ‘Telling you I love you seemed like the most important place to start.’
A cry was torn from her throat and in an instant she had crossed the distance between them and he was opening his arms to her with a muffled groan of agonized surrender. As he folded her against his hard, hot body she could smell the musky scent of his damp skin and feel his heart smashing against his chest.
‘The only problem is I don’t know where to go from here,’ he muttered through gritted teeth, cradling her cheek with his palm. ‘I don’t know how to carry on if you’re not there to show me.’
‘I’m here,’ she gasped, reaching up to find his mouth, pressing hers against it. ‘I’m here, I’m here.’
He kissed her back, wildly and hungrily, as if to prove that she was real. ‘I’m not asking you to stay,’ he rasped, breaking away and burying his face in her hair. ‘I can’t do that to you. But neither could I let you leave without knowing how much I love you.’ He took her face between his hands and tilted it up towards him, so she was staring into his blazing golden eyes. ‘I wanted you to know that I don’t care about what the public think or what the papers say—I’ll love you whatever you do and wherever you are, and I’ll keep loving you in public and in private every minute of every day for the rest of my life.’
‘I don’t want to leave,’ she said in a broken whisper. ‘I don’t want to leave you, ever again, but it’s not that simple, is it? You’re King now—that means you have a duty to Santosa, and a public image to maintain and—’
He stopped her with another furious kiss. ‘I want my duty to be to you and our children before anything else,’ he said angrily. ‘I want my image to be of a man who, above all, is desperately, ridiculously in love with his beautiful wife. But I’m trying to give up being selfish so I don’t know if I can ask—’
‘Try,’ she said fiercely. ‘Oh, Luis, please try.’
‘Oh, Emily…’ he sighed, letting her go and taking a step back. Smiling crookedly he picked up the stick that he had dropped onto the sand. ‘Close your eyes and let me finish the message.’
Half laughing, half sobbing, she did as she was told. From a distance away, above the sound of the wind and the waves, Luis’s voice reached her, wrapping itself around her and making her shiver with love and longing.
‘Emily Balfour, if I promise to show you every day how much I love you…’ he shouted across the sand. ‘If I swear never to put protocol…or obligation…or any stupid, outdated ideas of what I should be and do before your happiness…or let anyone tell us how we should live and bring up the many children I want to have with you…would you really be mad enough to do this?’
He broke off and she opened her eyes. He was standing a little distance away, and stretching away from him on the sand were the words MARRY ME.
She couldn’t speak. Her throat closed up against the wild, racking sob of relief and joy and agonising, exquisite love that gathered there, so instead she extended one bare foot, pointing her toe and writing her answer in the damp sand as tears dripped down her face
YES.
And then she was running towards him and he caught her in his arms and gathered her to him, lifting her high. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her fingers twining in his tangled hair and he held her tightly against him as their mouths met. They kissed, on and on, oblivious to the wind whipping her hair across Luis’s bare shoulders and the waves breaking behind them, to Oscar waiting, damp-eyed, beside the helicopter and the paparazzi photographers and news crews beginning to gather at the top of the dunes.
And this time there was no need for statements from the press office or quotes from palace sources. The figures locked together on the beach, the writing in the sand, told the whole story.
Sophie’s Seduction
Kim Lawrence
Kim Lawrence lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!
To my two boys, who have grown into rather splendid young men
Chapter One
SOPHIE paused at the top of the steps and consulted her notebook. She turned to the pencilled map drawn in her own neat hand before glancing up to double-check the number on the door of the modest Georgian terrace. It was in a street filled with rows of similar houses, but then, as they always said, when it came to property it was all about location.
She shaded her eyes from the July sun as she directed her gaze towards the luxury cars parked along the tree-lined street. They seemed to suggest that, in estate-agent speak, this location could be classed as highly desirable.
She turned her attention back to the building. This was, she decided, definitely the place, though a further search revealed there was nothing as vulgar as a sign to identify it on the door.
Small but exclusive, her father had said, with a growing reputation for excellence. Exactly the sort of place, he had assured Sophie, for her to spread her artistic wings.
‘A springboard for future success!’ he had enthused. ‘You could go places with your talent, Sophie, you just need to get out there and show the world what you can do!’
So, no pressure, then.
Sophie had resisted the temptation to point out that a home-study course in interior decorating didn’t necessarily qualify her to achieve world domination in the field of interior design, not overnight anyway.
There would be no interview, it seemed, and when she had asked when she started the new job, her father’s reply had tipped her over into outright panic.
‘Monday
…this Monday…do you think I can?’
Her father had looked stern and Oscar Balfour could look very stern, but not normally with her.
She had never given him cause; she had always towed the line, and there had never been any major dramas in her life. She’d never needed rescuing, or been the subject of embarrassing headlines; there were no unsuitable men in her past…she was an open and fairly boring book.
Depressing when you thought about it.
‘I know you can.’
‘You do?’
‘I know, Sophie, that you and your sisters will not disappoint me. I have faith in you. Your sisters have all accepted a challenge.’
And if she didn’t what did that make her?
‘I know they have.’ And she missed them.
‘This is my fault,’ Oscar Balfour had insisted.
Sophie’s kind heart had ached to see the father she loved hold himself personally responsible and she’d said warmly, though not entirely truthfully, ‘You’ve been a wonderful father.’
As she hugged him she’d seen the tabloid open on his desk. Knowing it contained a particularly vicious editorial, she’d heard herself say, ‘I’ll do it.’
Sophie had left the room with an emotional lump the size of a golf ball in her throat, in a state of shock but determined not to let down her father and sisters; for once in her life she would act like a Balfour.
A week later and the lump was still there, but as she lifted a hand to knock tentatively on the half-open door it had been joined by a tight knot of anxiety lying like a leaden weight in her stomach.
She still felt in shock.
She knew none of this should have come as a surprise. Since the drama of the scandalous events surrounding the annual Balfour Charity Ball, she had watched as one by one her sisters had been sent away to prove themselves in the world without the cushion of the Balfour wealth and influence.
But time had passed and Sophie had waited nervously for her invitation to her father’s study, and when it hadn’t materialised she had relaxed a little, assuming she was safe—then…it came.
The sympathetic look she received from her father’s butler as she let herself in by a side door to the manor had made her wonder, but the tearful hug from the cook had confirmed it—she had not been overlooked.
Her father had, he said, taken his time to find the perfect position for her. Sophie, who knew that her perfect position was at home at the Balfour gatehouse with her mother, had tried to sound suitably appreciative of his efforts.
Sophie glanced at her watch; she was fifteen minutes early for her first day. Wondering if that made her appear eager or desperate she toyed with the idea of taking a walk and coming back later.
No, it was now or never—don’t be a wimp, Sophie, you can do this! Taking a deep breath she was looking around for the bell when she caught the door with her elbow and it swung inwards.
‘Hello!’
There was no reply.
Taking her courage by the scruff of its neck she stepped through the open door. The room she stepped into was laid out like a country house drawing room, the decor aimed at people who had as much money as taste.
The aroma of coffee was her first impression; the second was the lovely and clever use of texture and colour in the soft furnishing. It was clearly a showroom of sorts, though there were no price tags on either the beautifully displayed individual pieces of modern art or the equally fine antique items.
Sophie was both impressed and daunted, as this was a far cry from her little work room at the Balfour gatehouse with her drawing board, colour charts and wallpaper samples.
She brushed her fingertips along a beautiful vibrant-coloured kilim that had been draped over a leather chesterfield and struggled to see herself working here.
‘Hello?’ she called out again.
She was standing there feeling like a spare part and wondering what to do next when she heard the sound of voices; the noise was coming from the far end of the room, but she couldn’t see anyone. With a puzzled frown drawing her feathery brows into a straight line, she moved towards the sound of the voices when she realised that what she had assumed was a wall was actually a portable screen.
The voices were the other side and as she aproached they got louder.
She peered through a gap in the screen and saw another area laid out beyond, lit by a pair of stunning chandeliers. This time the style was strongly Gustavian; pale and deceptively simple, the light airy feel was further enhanced by a stunning antique mirror in an ornate carved white-painted frame that took centre stage.
The building was clearly a great deal larger than it looked from the outside.
She opened her mouth to speak, caught the word Balfour, and closed it again, revealing herself now might cause embarrassment to the people on the other side of the screen. Two women, by the sound of their voices, though all Sophie could see were the tops of their heads above the high back of a wooden bench.
She was about to move to the opposite side of the room when she heard the person who hadn’t yet spoken exclaim, ‘One of the Balfour girls—you’ve got to be kidding! Work here! Do they work? And risk breaking a nail, surely not.’
‘Miaow…if you were a society heiress to a fortune, would you work, darling?’
‘Let me see…’
Sophie heard both girls laugh.
‘But you’d have to share the fortune with…how many sisters are there?’
‘Are we including the one they’ve just discovered?’
Normally a pretty placid person Sophie felt her face flush with anger at this mocking reference—anger she felt on behalf of her half-sister Mia, who was the result of an affair their father had many years ago.
Oscar had welcomed the daughter he hadn’t known about into the family and despite the fact she hadn’t known her for long Sophie felt a special closeness to her beautiful half-Italian sister.
‘And then Zoe Balfour isn’t really a Balfour at all…maybe she’s the one that’s coming here?’ one of the voices speculated.
There was a certain malicious amusement in the voice that responded. ‘Yeah, maybe Daddy’s cut her off now he knows she’s not his. I do wish I could have been a fly on the wall at the 100th Balfour Charity Ball!’
Sophie’s hands clenched into fists at her side as she bit her tongue, longing to set the record straight, but she was hampered by the fact that she couldn’t, without revealing that she’d been eavesdropping.
Sure Zoe had been outed as illegitimate at the Balfour Ball and the ensuing scandal had caused their father’s serious overhaul of his parental style but as far as he and all of them were concerned Zoe was a Balfour no matter what her genetic parentage was.
‘So how many are there?’
‘Six, seven, who knows…but what wouldn’t I give to have their looks and money!’ came the wistful response.
Eight, thought Sophie, silently amending their total, and she seconded their wish, at least for the looks part anyway. The money part had never been a problem for her in that she didn’t have expensive tastes, but what the Balfour name gave her was the luxury of following her instincts.
And Sophie’s instincts drew her like a homing pigeon back to Balfour, where her mother lived in the gatehouse since the tragic death of her second husband. Sophie’s eyes misted as her thoughts touched on the man who had been a second father to his wife’s three daughters.
For a short time Sri Lanka had been home for Sophie but now the Balfour estate in Buckinghamshire was the one place she really felt she belonged, it was the place where there was no pressure to be something she wasn’t.
Unlike her sisters, she wasn’t an instantly recognisable face except to the people who worked on the Balfour estate and the locals in the village.
‘I have never provided you girls with challenges,’ Oscar Balfour had lamented. ‘Children need to be pushed, but it is never too late. I have been a negligent father, but I mean to make amends. Independence, Sophie,’ he’d said, i
ndicating the rule that she would find most valuable, though he warned it would not be easy for her to learn. ‘A member of the Balfour family must strive to develop themselves and not rely on the family name to get them through life.’
‘Which ever one it is you can be sure that we’ll end up stuck with her work and ours.’
Listening to the grunt of assent from the second girl Sophie gritted her teeth and thought she’d show them that this Balfour was not just a pretty face—actually, not a pretty face at all, but that she couldn’t do anything about.
However, she did have a work ethic and she would show them that she wasn’t afraid of hard work.
‘What was Amber thinking, taking her on?’
Sophie, unashamedly eavesdropping now, strained to hear as the other girl lowered her voice to a confidential undertone.
‘You know that diamond bracelet that Amber wears…?’
There was a pause when presumably the other girl had nodded. ‘Well, that was a little parting gift from Oscar Balfour.’
‘Amber and Oscar Balfour…wow! Why didn’t I know that?’
‘It was years ago, and it didn’t last long.’
‘Oscar Balfour…he’s quite attractive for an older man, isn’t he? Actually, quite sexy and he looks like he knows…’
Grimacing, Sophie had no desire to hear the women discussing her father in that sort of detail and covered her ears. When she uncovered them again one girl was saying, ‘And let’s face it—a Balfour girl working here…God, you couldn’t pay for that sort of advertising.’
‘That twin…Bella, the skinny one…?’
‘The impossibly gorgeous one?’
‘All right, the gorgeous one. Do you remember that time she was pictured wearing a dress from that charity shop and the shelves emptied overnight.’
Sophie did remember. She remembered when the subject had been raised during a family dinner.