“Luciana has begun,” he said with a grimace. Addie risked a glance at Guy. He was silently watchful, his expression unreadable, his eyes not meeting hers.
“What does that mean?” Addie asked.
“She is setting up for the party. There are people everywhere! The marquee goes up, the caterers have taken over the kitchen, the garden is being transformed – an ice statue is being sculpted – I cannot think for the noise.”
“I see,” Addie said sympathetically.
“And it’s been so long since I’ve been to the caves myself,” he said with a grin, “that I thought I would hitch along with you two.”
Addie’s eyes flew to Guy’s face now, in time to catch a hint of impatience in them.
“I’m sure it’s not what my grandson had in mind,” Santiago winked. “But I am allowed to be selfish at eighty five, am I not?”
“Eighty four,” Addie corrected with a wry smile. “And we’re thrilled you’re here, aren’t we, Guy?”
“Of course,” he nodded. His eyes were cold though, when they met Addie’s, his smile a very poor imitation. “I’ll get the ball rolling.”
It took only twenty minutes. Staff from the island withdrew the moorings, casting the boat away, and Guy took the helm himself, steering the yacht expertly while Addie sat with Santiago, sipping on an ice-cold lemonade.
Santiago was excellent company. Interesting, funny and undemanding, but a portion of her brain was ticking over the depth of Guy’s hatred for her. The way he made it obvious, at every opportunity he got, that he resented her being there.
So why had he asked her to come? Surely he could have paid an actual actress, someone who would have played the part and then disappeared into her bedroom once they were back on the yacht? Why Addie, whom he would obviously never forgive?
Unless, deep down, he couldn’t forget what they’d shared? Unless there was a part of him that wanted to rekindle their affair? A small part, if his behavior was anything to go on, but was that enough?
It was sex and lies. His statement, his condemnation, sent a shiver down her spine.
“Are you okay?” Santiago, as attentive and observant as his grandson, turned to face her.
“Someone must have walked over my grave,” she said with a shrug, as though it didn’t matter. As though Guy’s coldness hadn’t chilled her to the bone.
Except, it wasn’t coldness.
Guy was motivated by passion. A deep, searing passion that was full of fire and flame. There was nothing cold about his anger.
“You make him happy?”
She noted that it was a question, rather than an observation. Addie needed to bring her acting A-game, but she was rattled. Understandably so. The argument with Guy had stretched overnight and she had no idea what to do next. The foolish hopes she’d had for this week lay in tatters about her.
“I hope so,” she said, shifting a little, pulling her sunglasses down so at least her expressive eyes wouldn’t give her away.
“He’s a good man, my grandson. But he is useless with his heart,” Santiago sighed heavily. “I suspect you know this, though.”
Addie’s own heart was rabbiting so loudly against her ribcage that she felt like Santiago must surely be able to hear it.
“The business with Maria hurt him, you know?”
Confusion held her silent.
“It was very hard for him to trust. For many years I thought he would never let another woman get close to him,” he sighed heavily. “It is a pleasure to discover I was wrong.”
Who was Maria? And what had she done to Guy?
She tried to cast back through her memory for snatches of conversation that might shed a little light – and she drew a blank. Guy had never spoken of anyone named Maria.
“He doesn’t know I know,” Santiago said, after another minute. “I understand why that is. He had to keep the relationship a secret. His mother would have a heart attack.” Santiago lifted his brows heavenward, and more questions fired inside of Addie.
“How did you find out?” She prompted, really just to buy for time.
“It’s impossible to keep any secrets from me.” He laughed, a crackly sound that boomed across the ocean. The boat was moving, but not at high speed, allowing for a leisurely inspection of the island as they went.
“I’m sure,” Addie nodded with the appearance of calm, but anxiety was spreading along her spine, forming a bundle of nerves at the base of her neck. She had no trouble believing Santiago would be a tough nut to fool and yet they were doing just that, weren’t they?
“There could have been a scandal,” he said after a moment. “I made sure there wasn’t.”
Addie frowned. She couldn’t imagine Guy needing anyone to clean up his mess – whatever mess that was.
“Anyway, it was a long time ago,” Santiago smiled, his eyes appraising Addie’s face – or what he could see of it beneath the sunglasses. “I haven’t seen him happy with a woman in many years. Perhaps not ever. And I like you.”
Warmth spread through Addie and for the briefest, most illicit moment, she allowed herself to imagine this was real. To imagine that she was meeting Santiago as a genuine girlfriend. As she’d been six months ago.
Her heart stuttered at the very idea.
“I like you, too,” she murmured thickly.
She bit down on her lip, her eyes scanning the horizon. She needed to speak to Guy, only now, the backlog of questions she had seemed to be tying her up in knots, so that she couldn’t see the forest for the trees. How could she force him to speak to her, to explain to her, what she needed to know? How could she get him to listen?
*
“We have to swim the rest of the way,” Guy said the words with every appearance of contentment, but Addie heard the undercurrent. The resentment.
“Great,” she beamed, her smile overly bright for Santiago’s benefit. “But what about you?” She turned to the older man, her expression dubious.
“No, no. It is enough to see the caves from here,” he said with a sage nod. “Besides, someone has to keep the yacht safe from pirates, eh?”
“Or their ghosts,” Addie agreed with a nod and a somber expression.
Guy was impatient, though. “Can you dive?”
She looked at him, and then towards the water. It was crystal clear, she could see all the way to the bottom. “Of course.” She nodded, lifting her shirt over her head and tossing it onto a sun lounger. “You sure you don’t want to join us?” She teased Santiago.
But he was reclining, his eyes on the caves of the island, apparently miles away.
“Come on,” Guy said, pulling his own shirt off, and stripping down to his shorts.
She did the same, so that she was in just a bikini, and without any further prompting, she climbed over the railing so she was standing on the wrong side of the ledge, and leaped into the air, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, bombing herself right into the ocean with a laugh. Water splashed in all directions, and both Santiago and Guy wore their fair share of it.
She caught a hint of Guy’s expression – the challenge she’d laid one he was tempted to accept – before seeing the smile spread across Santiago’s aged face. She duck-dove under the water, breast-stroking her way towards the island, lifting up only to take a breath. She felt the water shift as Guy reached her, his own powerful stroke changing the currents that ran around her. His fingertips brushed against her side and when she came up for her next breath, she faced him, her eyes meeting his.
She trod water – it was still too deep to stand – and cast a look back towards the boat. They were far enough from it to speak without fear of being overheard, and yet she was silent. Nervous.
She turned to the caves once more – doubt filling her. “They just look like little holes,” she said with a lift of her shoulders.
“Yes,” he nodded, grimly, apparently willing to continue their feud even now.
He pulled away, stroking easily through the w
ater. She followed after him.
Once they were close enough to touch the rock wall that seemed to rise out of the ocean, Guy turned to face Addie. “After you.”
She lifted a brow. “How do I know you’re not planning to do away with me in there?” It was a joke. He didn’t laugh.
“Santiago is watching us like a hawk. You should smile, and laugh, and then swim your lovely little lying body straight into the cave.”
She glared at him, and anger exploded inside of her. Anger at his unfairness and cruelty, anger at life. “Or I could do this.” She closed the distance between them, wrapping her legs around his waist under water to hold him tight to her, and she kissed him, a kiss that he obviously wasn’t expecting. A kiss that stole their breath and enflamed their hearts.
“Ava,” he ripped his head away but kept their bodies close. Beneath the water, she could feel his desire stirring and an ancient, feminine heat made her proud, and made her need. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know, Guy. Am I fooling your grandfather? Lying to him, like you asked me to? Or am I kissing you because I want to, because I love being with you? Because I couldn’t sleep for needing you all over again?” She rolled her hips over his arousal, having the satisfaction of seeing his eyes flash with something like heated awareness, as his hands found the naked flesh at her back and ran over it.
“You said sex was a silver lining to having me here. So?”
His eyes flared wide. “You can’t seriously be suggesting…”
“That you take me into this pirate cave and have your wicked way with me? That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Her heart stood still. Fear and doubts mingled inside of her, but she knew how badly she needed this. She needed the satisfaction that came from being with Guy, but also the clarity. The certainty that this was what made sense. And she could only hope he felt the same.
“This is absurd,” he said with a shake of his head, but he kicked through the water, moving them towards the tiny, rounded entrance. Addie held her breath as they swum under it, her legs still wrapped around Guy’s waist, her eyes locked to his face, studying every single flicker of emotion she saw there. But then, the light changed. It was much darker in the cave, but high above them, there was a hint of sun streaming in.
“There are small holes that lead to the sky,” he said. “Openings that the pirates carved to allow air in. To weaken the rock. They were terrified of drowning in here – of being boarded up by the authorities if they were discovered, so they made sure they had an escape route.”
His hands ran along her spine, finding the clasp of her bikini top and unpinning it without stalling his speech. “There used to be a thick rope that dropped from the ceiling. I imagine they’d use it for climbing.”
Addie could hardly concentrate on what he was saying. Her breasts bobbed on top of the water, between them, her bikini top held balled in his hand, against her back. He swam easily through the water, until suddenly, his feet found purchase on the bottom of the ocean and he was walking, Addie still wrapped around his waist. At first, it had been hard to see, but as her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that there were little patches of ground. The caves here were covered it scratches. Drawings? Writing?
“Ancient graffiti,” he said, his smile genuine. It did funny things to her pulse, seeing a glimpse of the old Guy. But it brought a sense of fear, too, because Addie didn’t want him to stop being this version of himself. He was Dr Jekyll and Mr Heartbreak, and that duality was robbing her of any certainty.
He lay her down on the ground; it was cold and damp beneath her back. She didn’t care.
There was such a sense of magic in the caves, in the air around them, that Addie felt it run across her flesh, causing her veins to sparkle with something that felt a lot like power. Determination and strength.
“Guy,” she murmured, staring up at him.
He waited, poised above her, his eyes holding hers without showing her a hint of his soul.
“This isn’t a lie.” And she pushed up, her elbows digging into the coarse sand, so that her mouth could claim his.
His denial screamed through his body, she heard it in the guttural curse he swore into his mouth, in the way his kiss was angry, and yet he didn’t pull away.
He kissed her back, and he stripped their clothes, and with a desperation that answered Addie’s he took her once more, his body commanding hers, making it sing and making it fly, until she was adding her voice to all the voices that had sung inside these caves before. Pirates, corsairs, buccaneers, and Addie, her words drenched by love and passion, and hope heavy in her heart.
*
Guy swam deeper into the cave, his arms pulling him away from Addie, away from the scene of their crime, and mentally he wished it were so easy to forget her as it was to remove himself physically from her.
This had been a mistake.
While it had been rewarding to see his grandfather’s relief, Guy wasn’t at all sure it had been worth it. A week with Adeline was nowhere nearly as open and shut as he’d expected. For while he hated and despised her, he could no longer deny that his feelings were anything but clean cut.
Desire, yes. But so what? Sex was sex.
Only it wasn’t.
He’d never shared this with another woman. There was something rare and unique between them. He’d felt it when he was in London, the first time they’d made love. It was like a part of him had been blown wide open, and re-formed itself in a new way, a way that Adeline had given him. He had craved her from that moment on, and he craved her even now, minutes after they’d been together. It was never enough.
He didn’t want to sleep with her hastily, like scratching a mutually-urgent itch. He wanted to chain her to his bed and make her his in every way, to possess her as he’d never done before.
But could he do that and then send Addie packing? Still end this madness when the time came?
Of course he could, because there was no other option. Guy wasn’t the same man he’d been in London, and she sure as hell wasn’t the woman he’d thought he cared for.
He could satisfy their desire, satisfy it completely, without wanting anything more from her.
And that’s just what he planned to do – starting as soon as he could get Santiago off his boat.
CHAPTER TEN
THE WATER IN THE caves was sublime. Cool and somehow thicker seeming than that of the ocean.
“The tunnels go for almost a mile,” he said, though Addie hadn’t realized he was even aware she was swimming behind him. “Though I’m sure there are more I never got around to discovering.”
The water was becoming shallower, so that her toes could just scrape along the bottom. “How fascinating,” she said, thinking how manifestly insufficient that praise was. “I’d love to map them.” Her hands reached up and ran along the roughened wall as they went.
She didn’t see the way Guy’s lips flickered into a small smile. “I have a very rudimentary map,” he said softly. “Drawn when I was about ten years old.”
“Were you really allowed to explore these caves on your own?”
His laugh was short. “Do you think anyone could have stopped me?” He turned, standing comfortably with his extra height, facing Addie. “I was a ten year old boy, querida, with the whole island to explore.”
Addie’s heart prickled, imagining him as he’d been then. “You came here often?”
“Si.” The word was accompanied by a simple dip of his head and, for some reason, Addie felt a tension in the response. As though he were hiding something from her. Curiosity arrested her.
“In the holidays?”
There was a pull in his eyes, a look of concentration, and then he blinked, clearing it. “School holidays, yes. Sometimes for longer.” He shrugged. “My grandfather employed tutors to maintain my schooling, though I had negligible interest in the curriculum.” His grin was more of a self-disparaging grimace.
“I can’t imagine that,” Addie murmured, swimming closer.<
br />
And, as though against his will, Guy’s hands reached for her, pulling her towards him, into the circle of his arms.
“Why?” His eyes scanned her face.
“Because your intellect is ferocious.”
His shoulders lifted. Such broad shoulders, tanned and covered in little water droplets that Addie longed to drop her head forward and run her tongue across.
“I didn’t like the prescriptive nature of school,” he said. “I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, not jump through whichever hoop my teachers deemed important. It felt like a waste of my time – something I had no intention of tolerating.”
Addie’s lips tickled with a smile. It was so like Guy. “And your grandfather didn’t agree?”
“On the contrary, Santiago has always understood. He left school when he was thirteen years old.”
“Really?” Addie’s brows lifted in surprise.
“Really,” Guy nodded, taking a few steps into deeper water, so that they were floating together, his hands running down her back. “The way he tells it, he spent his childhood shadowing his father and grandfather, sharpening pencils during meetings, listening, paying attention. He wanted to be a part of the business.”
“Just like you,” Addie murmured.
“Yes, just like me.”
“And your father?” She prompted.
Out of nowhere, something flew past, low and loud, so that Addie startled, pulling closer to Guy. “What the heck was that?”
“A bat,” he laughed hoarsely. “There are hundreds of them deeper in the caves.”
She shivered, a shiver that passed through her body and into his.
“Legend has it,” he said, his voice low and with a somewhat haunted quality, “that each bat is the spirit of a pirate that died in these caves.”
Addie’s eyes were huge. “You’re not serious?”
Blackmailed by the Spaniard Page 10