The man seemed harmless enough; then again, Gabriel didn’t see a ring on the man’s hand. He didn’t intend to leave Serafia alone with him.
“I’m looking forward to it, as well. May I steal away Miss Espina?” he asked.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
Gabriel nodded and scooped up Serafia’s arm into his own. He led her away into a quiet corner behind the staircase where they could talk.
“Is everything going all right?” she asked.
Gabriel nodded. “I think so. My dad is pressuring me to mingle with the ladies, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.”
Serafia sighed and patted his forearm. “You’ve done your fair share of wooing ladies, Gabriel. This shouldn’t be very difficult for you.”
“That was different,” he argued. “Picking up a woman at a nightclub for a little fun is nothing like shopping for a wife. It feels more like a hunt anyway, except I’m the fox. I’m surprised one of the hounds hasn’t ferretted me out from our hiding place by now. Would you stay with me for a while?”
“Not while you dance!”
“Of course not. But go around with me while I mingle for a while. I think I’ll be more comfortable that way. You might remember people’s names.”
“Gabriel, you need to be able to—”
“Please...” he said, looking into her eyes with his most pathetic expression.
“Okay, but you have to promise me you will ask no fewer than two ladies to dance tonight. No moms or grandmothers, either. Eligible, single women of marrying age. And not me, either,” she seemed to add for good measure.
“If I dance with two women who meet your criteria, would you be willing to dance with me just for fun?”
Serafia gave him a stern look, but the smile that teased at the corners of her full lips gave her away. “Maybe. But you’ve got to put in a good effort out there. You’re looking for a queen, remember. If you don’t find a good one, your father will do it for you, like poor Bella.”
“You’ve heard about that?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes. I overheard Patrick discussing the idea of it with Will.”
“How’d he take it?”
“About as well as Bella would, I expect. But my point is that you need to get out there and make that decision yourself.”
“Fair enough.” Offering her his arm, he led them back into the main area of the room. As they slipped through the crowd, he leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Who would you choose for me? Where should I start?”
Serafia looked thoughtfully around the room, her gaze falling on a buxom, almost chubby redhead whose fiery hair was in direct contrast to her personality. She was a shy wallflower of a girl who had barely met his gaze when they were introduced.
“Start with Helena Ruiz. Her family is in the seafood business and they provide almost all the fresh fish and shellfish to the area and to parts of Spain and Portugal, as well. And,” she added, “unlike the others, she seems to be reluctantly hunting for a husband. She reminds me very much of a lot of the girls I work with in my business. Choosing her first might be good for her social standing and her self-esteem.”
Gabriel was pleased with Serafia’s choice and her reasoning behind it. It was one of the things about her that really stuck with him. She wasn’t just concerned about making over his outside, but his inside, as well. In their training sessions, they’d discussed charities he’d like to support and causes he wanted to rally behind as king. Parliament and the prime minister would draft and enforce the laws of Alma, but as king, he would have a major influence over the hearts and minds of the people. He had a platform, so he needed to be prepared to have a cause.
In such a short time, Serafia had not just made over his wardrobe. She had made over his soul. He felt like a better person, a person more deserving of a woman like her. He’d never felt that way before in his entire life. He’d always been second to Rafe, not good enough in his father’s eyes. His mother had recognized the value in him, but even she couldn’t sway his father’s opinion.
Since he returned home from Venezuela after the kidnapping, he’d been a different man. He’d stopped seeking everyone’s approval, especially his father’s. With his mother traveling the world and unable to call him on it, he’d settled happily into his devil-may-care lifestyle. It had suited him well and no one had questioned the change in him. But Serafia had. She had the ability to see through all his crap, and it made him think that perhaps he could open up to her, really trust her, unlike so many others in his life.
As he left her side and approached the doe-eyed Helena, he knew Serafia had made the right choice. The bright, genuine smile on the girl’s face and the pinched, jealous expressions of some of the other girls proved that much. He led her out onto the dance floor for the first official dance of the evening. Helena was nearly trembling in his arms, but he reassured her with a smile and a wink.
Serafia made him want to be a better man. She helped him become a better man. He could think of no other woman who should be at his side but her. And he would tell her that.
Tonight.
Six
“Okay,” a voice announced over Serafia’s shoulder. “I have met your requirements.”
She turned to find Gabriel standing behind her. She’d been expecting his arrival. It had been nearly two hours since she sent him out onto the dance floor with Helena Ruiz. He had danced with her and at least five other ladies Serafina had chosen for him. Her inner spiteful streak had led her not to choose Dita as one of the dance partners. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was because she knew the Gomezes were disingenuous, or if it was because the idea of him dancing and potentially falling for the statuesque beauty made her blood boil.
“You have,” she said with a pleased smile. “You’ve more than met them. You’ve exceeded them. Well done, Your Majesty. Any pique your interest?”
Gabriel arched an eyebrow at her and held out his hand. “Join me on the dance floor and I’ll tell you.”
There were quite a few pairs dancing now, so the two of them would not stand out as much as they would have earlier. Deciding there was no harm in it—and she had promised—she took his hand and followed him out into the center of the dance floor.
Gabriel slipped his arm around her waist and cupped her hand with his own. For the first twenty seconds or so of the dance, she found she could hardly breathe. Her bare skin sizzled where they touched, and her heart was racing in her chest. Fortunately Gabriel was a strong lead and she didn’t have to think too much about her feet. She simply followed him across the floor and focused internally on suppressing the physical reaction she had to his touch.
“So, find any chemistry out on the dance floor?” she asked, desperate for a distraction.
“Not until now,” he said, his green gaze burrowing into her own.
“Gabriel,” she scolded, but he shook his head as though he wasn’t having any of that.
“Don’t start. I’ve had enough of the reasons why I can’t have what I want. I don’t really care. All I know is that I want you.”
The power of his words struck her like a wave and she struggled to argue against it. “No, you don’t.”
“Are you honestly going to stand there and tell me you know my feelings better than I do?”
She shook her head, focusing her gaze on the golden ropes at his shoulder instead of the intensity in his eyes. “You might want me for tonight, for one of your one-night flings, but not for your queen.”
“Do we have to decide what it will be tonight?”
If she had to decide in the moment, she would say no. She was wrapped up in the sensation of being so close to him. Her body was rebelling against her, desiring him desperately even as she argued against the very idea of it. “You aren’t in Miami anymore, Gabriel. Every eye in the room is on you tonight. This feeling for me will pass and then you can focus on making a smart decision about your future. A future without me.”
“Serafia, you are beautiful. You’re the
most stunning woman I’ve ever seen in real life or on a magazine cover. You’re graceful, elegant, thoughtful, smart and incredibly insightful. I don’t know why you find it so hard to believe that I could want you so desperately.”
Desperately? Her gaze met his, her lips parting softly in surprise. His words were said with such sincerity, but she simply didn’t believe a single one. She was too aware of her own faults to do that. She’d spent too many years having every aspect of her appearance ripped apart by modeling experts, their voices far louder than any of her fans’ praises. And even if he could see past all her imperfections, he didn’t know how broken she was. The truth of her past would send any man running. “You don’t want me, Gabriel. You want your teenage fantasy from ten years ago. That person doesn’t exist anymore.”
She pulled away from his grasp as the music ended and made her way through the crowd of people coming on and off the dance floor. Spying a set of French doors, she opened them and slipped outside into the large courtyard of the Rowling mansion. She kept going, following a path into the gardens. It was landscaped like the formal English gardens of Patrick’s homeland, so she continued on a gravel path along a long line of neatly trimmed shrubs until she came upon a clearing and a circular fountain.
She collapsed onto the stone ledge of the fountain and took a deep breath. She felt much calmer out here, away from the crush of people in the ballroom, but the sense of relief didn’t last long. Not a minute later, she heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel and spied Gabriel coming toward her on the garden path.
He approached silently and sat on the edge of the fountain beside her. She expected him to immediately give her the third degree for running out on him. It was incredibly rude, after all, and she kept forgetting he was the king. People were probably inside talking about her hasty departure.
But Gabriel didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He seemed to enjoy the garden as well, taking a deep breath and gazing up at the blanket of stars overhead. She did the same, relaxing as she tried to identify different constellations. Looking at the stars always made her problems seem less important, less significant. The universe was a big place.
When he finally got around to speaking, Serafia was ready to answer his questions. She was tired of hiding her illness, anyway. She might as well put it all out there, warts and all. It would likely put an end to their pointless flirtation and she could stop torturing herself with possibilities that didn’t really exist.
“What was that all about in there? Really? Why is it so impossible that I would want you as you are, right now?”
“It’s impossible for me to believe it because I know how seriously messed up I am, Gabriel. The truth is that I don’t have a congenital heart defect and I didn’t spend a year having surgeries to correct it.”
Gabriel frowned at her. “Well, then, what really happened to you?”
Serafia sighed and shook her head. “No one knows the truth but my family and my doctors. My parents thought it would be easier for me if we told everyone the cover story, but that was all a lie. I had a heart attack on that runway because I had slowly and systematically tried to kill myself to be beautiful. The modeling industry is so high pressure and I couldn’t stand up to it. I swallowed the lies they told me along with the prescription diet pills. I barely ate. I exercised six to eight hours a day. I abused cocaine, laxatives...anything that I thought would give me an edge and help me drop those last few pounds. My quest to be thinner, to be prettier, almost made me a very attractive corpse.”
She was terrified to say the words aloud, but at the same time, it felt as if a weight was lifted from her chest. “The day I collapsed on the runway, I was five foot nine and ninety-three pounds. I was nothing but a walking skeleton and I received more compliments that morning than I ever had before. After I collapsed, I knew I had to leave the modeling industry because the environment was just too toxic. I had to spend a year in rehab and inpatient therapy for anorexia. I had to be completely reprogrammed, like I’d left some kind of cult.”
Gabriel didn’t recoil or react to her words. He just listened until she got it all out. “Are you better now?” he asked.
That was a difficult question to answer. Like an alcoholic, the danger of falling off the wagon was always there. “I’ve learned to manage. I’ve put so much strain on my heart that my day-to-day life is a very delicate balancing act. But for the most part, yes, the worst of it is behind me.”
He sat studying her face for a few minutes. “I can’t believe anyone had the audacity to tell you that you were anything but flawless. I mean, you’re Serafia—supermodel extraordinaire, catwalk goddess and record holder for most Vogue Italia covers.”
Once again, she started to squirm under his praise. “When you say things like that, Gabriel, it’s really difficult for me to listen and even harder for me to accept. I was told for so long that I was fat and ugly and would never make it in the business. Even when I made it to the top, there’s always someone there to try and knock you down. The modeling industry can be so venomous. You’re never thin enough, pretty enough, talented enough, and both your competition and your customers feed you those criticisms every day. You believe something after you hear it enough times. Even all these years later, after all the therapy, there’s a part of me that still believes that and thinks everything you’re saying is just insincere flattery.”
Gabriel reached out and covered her hand with his own. It was comforting and she was thankful for it, even as it surprised her. She expected him to finally see her flaws and run, but he didn’t.
“It might be flattery, Serafia, but it’s true. Every word. If I have to say it each day until you finally believe it, I will. I know how hard it can be to trust someone once that faith is abused. Once it’s lost, it’s almost impossible to get back, but I want to help you try.”
There was a pain in his expression as he spoke. The lines deepened in his forehead with his frown. She knew something had happened to him in South America. Perhaps now, perhaps here, after she’d told her story, he might finally tell her his. “How do you know? What happened to you, Gabriel?”
With a sigh, he sat back and looked up at the sliver of a moon overhead. “I was fresh from college and my father named me VP of South American Operations. As part of my job, I had to travel to our various shipping and trade ports in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Chile. Dealing with Venezuela was controversial, but my father had decided that the country had oil and needed it shipped. Why shouldn’t we profit from it instead of someone else?
“I saved Caracas for my last stop and things had gone so well in the other locations that I wasn’t wary any longer by the time I arrived in Venezuela. I went down there and spent a few days getting acclimated and met with the team there. One evening, my guide and translator, Raoul, offered to take me out for an authentic Venezuelan dinner. The moment we stepped outside, a van pulled up by the curb. Raoul hit me on the back of the head with something and I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was lying on a stinky, lumpy mattress in a cold, dark room with no windows. My wrists and ankles were tied with thick rope.”
Serafia could barely believe what she was being told. How had she never heard about this before? She wanted to ask, but she didn’t dare interrupt.
“When my captor finally showed up a few hours later, he told me that I was being held for ransom and as soon as my family paid them, I’d be released.”
“Did they pay them?” she asked.
He avoided her gaze, swallowing hard before he spoke. “No. I was in that underground room in virtual darkness for over a week. Every day the guy would come down and bring me a jug of water and some food, but that was it. After about the sixth day alone with my thoughts, and with constant taunts from my captor that my family hadn’t paid the ransom yet and must not care if I lived or died, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted out of this place, I’d have to save myself. And I decided that when I did, I was going to live the life I wanted from that moment on.”
/> “You escaped?” Serafia asked, near breathless with suspense.
“My rusty metal bed frame was my savior. I used it to slowly cut through my bindings. It took almost all day to do it. When my captor opened the door to bring my evening meal, I was waiting for him. I leaped on him, beating his head against the concrete floor until he stopped fighting me. Once I was sure he was unconscious, I took his gun and keys, locking him in the room. It turned out he was my only guard, so I literally went up the stairs and walked out onto the busy streets of Caracas. I made my way to the US embassy, told them what had happened and I was back in Miami by sunrise.”
Serafia was nearly speechless. “Did they ever catch the people responsible?”
“Raoul was arrested for his part in the conspiracy, but he was just a facilitator paid a flat fee for delivering me at a special place and time. They found my captor still locked in the room where they kept me. Anyone else who was involved got away with it. But really, in the end, I wasn’t angry with them. I was angry with my family. They knew what could happen if they sent me down there.”
“What did they say when you showed up at home?”
Gabriel stiffened beside her and shrugged. “They welcomed me home and then tried to pretend it never happened. But I could never forget.”
It was a horrible story to hear, but suddenly so much of Gabriel’s personality suddenly made sense to her. He never got close to anyone and got a lot of grief from his family for being superficial. Even Serafia had been guilty of judging him, thinking he cared more about partying than worrying about anything serious. She’d accused him of being reckless, but when they were both faced with death, they reacted differently. She became supercautious, nearly afraid to live life for fear of losing it for good. He had done the opposite: living every moment to the fullest in case it was his last. Who was she to judge him?
Serafia reached out and took his hand. She felt a surge of emotion when they touched. When she looked at him, for the first time she was able to see the sadness in his green eyes, the wariness behind the bright smile. The bad boy facade kept people away and she had fallen for it. She didn’t want to keep him at arm’s length any longer.
Seduced by the Spare Heir Page 7