Revealed: A Prince and A Pregnancy (8 page)

‘You should go back inside,’ he murmured.

‘You mean before I do something stupid?’

‘Yes.’

She moved towards him swiftly, right up until the part where she set her lips to his and nipped at his lower lip with her teeth. That bit happened excruciatingly slowly.

It took a second, or maybe a minute, before he could trust himself to breathe. He could feel his control slipping, slipping through his fingers, and the harder he tried to hold onto it, the faster it disappeared.

‘Go.
Now.
’ His words cut at her and drove her to step away from him, as they were meant to.

‘I won’t offer again,’ she said in the language of their youth.

A single snarling thought reared up from the dark places inside him, but he kept it to himself as she turned away and headed back inside.

She wouldn’t need to.

Simone farewelled the guests at the bar, collected her evening bag, and, with the last remnants of her poise, made her way to the kitchen to thank the chef and the wait staff for their services. She had every intention of
slipping out the kitchen’s back door alone after that, but the chef had other ideas, stolidly insisting that a pair of his waiters walk her across the garden to her guest room.

‘My room is two hundred metres away,’ she protested laughingly. ‘I’m hardly going to get lost.’

‘It’s dark,’ said the gallant chef. ‘You need an escort and if not my waiters then one of them can go and find Rafael. He can walk you across.’

‘Have you and Inigo been plotting?’ she said suspiciously.

‘Inigo doesn’t
plot
,’ said the chef, with a jowly grin. ‘He orchestrates. And here he is now, with your escort in tow. Never misses a beat.’

‘Inigo says I should walk you across to your room,’ said Rafael when he reached her.

‘It’s very dark,’ said Inigo.

‘And very late,’ added the chef. ‘You never know what you might find in the garden at this time of night. Territorial wombats…’

‘Ten-foot wallabies,’ said Inigo.

‘Spider webs!’ said the chef as if this would clinch the deal. ‘We couldn’t possibly send you on your way to the guest house alone.’

‘Inconceivable,’ said Inigo. ‘Don’t you
read
Agatha Christie? Fortunately, Rafael was just leaving. And might I just add, doesn’t he look
divine
this evening?’

Rafael winced. Simone couldn’t help the smile that crossed her lips or the encouragement of Inigo that sprang from them. ‘Yes, indeed. Very handsome.’

‘The breadth of shoulder,’ said Inigo, warming to his subject. ‘That face!’

‘Any time you’re ready,’ murmured Rafael.

‘Wait!’ said Inigo, scanning the chef’s collection of
kitchen-shelf dessert liqueurs and reaching for the Frangelico. He handed it to Rafael. ‘Nightcap.’

‘Nice touch,’ said the chef. ‘Although I’d have given him the Cognac.’

‘There’s the nicest secluded garden nook, about halfway to the house,’ said Inigo. ‘Perfect for—’

‘Move,’
said Rafael and Simone hastily complied and headed for the door.

A chorus of farewells followed their departure, the kitchen door closed behind them, and night air wrapped around them, cool and dewy after the warmth of the day.

‘You don’t have to—’

‘Stop,’ he said sharply. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

Simone stopped. Searched for conversation that would assure him that she’d not embarrass him with yet another unwanted advance. ‘Have you been in contact with Etienne de Morsay again?’

‘Yes. I put him off. Gabrielle was adamant about not wanting him to come here.’

‘Really? Did she say why?’

‘No.’ Rafael ran an impatient hand through his hair. ‘Not exactly. Nothing that made sense, at any rate. I’m meeting him in Sydney tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll get some answers then.’

Simone chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. ‘Did you ask Luc about him?’

‘No.’

‘You should have.’

‘He was a little preoccupied, Simone.’

‘Though he still had time to make wine, eat a manly breakfast and muster cattle before heading out to get married.’

‘Exactly.’

Simone hitched up her gown a fraction to keep it off the grass. Bridesmaid gowns weren’t really designed for grass.

‘Princess,’ he murmured.

‘Practical,’ she corrected smoothly.

‘It suits you,’ he said reluctantly. ‘The gown. The colour. Whatever you’ve done with your hair.’

‘Was that a
compliment
?’

‘Yes.’ Rafael glared at her.

Simone glared back. ‘Thank you.’

This time, he looked away. ‘I never really realised before tonight, exactly how much I asked you to give up for me,’ he said after they’d walked in silence for a while.

‘You mean my position in European society?’ Simone judged the risks involved with continuing with this line of conversation. The risk of further quarrelling was high. The chance of her and Rafael resolving their issues was low. She went ahead and plunged into the heart of things anyway. ‘I’d have given it up in a heartbeat for you, Rafael. But I had my father and Luc to consider as well, and in the end I couldn’t abandon them. They needed me.’

‘More than I needed you?’

She’d wanted this, Simone reminded herself grimly. This clearing of the air, never mind that the mirror he held up to her actions revealed her in an ugly light.

‘You needed to escape the chains that bound you to Caverness. You burned to make your own way in life, and you have. What had I to offer you, Rafael? Tell me that? An unbreakable link to a place you never wanted to return to and not one single skill that would come in useful outside of the niche that had been created for me.’

‘You underestimate yourself.’

‘Maybe I did. And maybe I realise that now. But I was eighteen, Rafael, and I was scared. You were my heart. Caverness was my home. And my duty lay with the House of Duvalier. I could not have all three. Right or wrong, I chose to stay. You chose to leave.’

‘I
had
to leave,’ he said curtly.

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘Josien…I know how she treated you…I knew you only stayed as long as you did in order to protect Gabrielle from her rages. I always knew you’d leave. I’ve never blamed you for that.’

‘I blamed you,’ he said. ‘Hell, I blamed you for everything. It got me through the early days of being alone.’

‘Happy to help,’ she said faintly.

His lips twisted. ‘I don’t know where I’m going with this, Simone. I don’t know what I want from you. Anger. Absolution. Affection. I’ve got
no
idea.’

That made two of them. ‘You know what I thought when Gabrielle told me the wedding would be held in Australia and that you were to be Luc’s best man?’ she said tentatively. ‘I thought that finally,
finally
, I might be able to make my apologies and move on. I wanted to let go of the thought of you.’ They’d reached her tiny courtyard. ‘I wanted to stop measuring every man I met against you.’

‘And have you?’ he asked quietly as he leaned against the wall, nightcap in one hand and watchfulness in his eyes.

‘Well, I certainly have a new measure of man in place.’ Unfortunately, it was still firmly based on him. ‘Whether it serves me any better than the old one remains to be seen.’ Simone fished the key to the sliding door from her evening bag and went about unlocking it and sliding the door wide open. Surrendering her shoes
at the door, Simone slipped inside, not daring to turn and see if Rafael had followed her.

She switched on the dining-room lamp, belatedly remembering that she’d left the room in a shambles and that the dining table had been awash with morsels of food meant to tempt Gabrielle into eating something before the ceremony. It wasn’t awash with food any more. Someone, probably the magnificent Sarah, had whisked it all away and tidied up in the process. ‘How do you think Sarah, Inigo, and the chef would feel about relocating to France?’ she asked, only half in jest.

‘I think Deidre who owns the guest house would shoot you.’ Rafael had ventured inside after all. Heaven help them both.

‘Just checking.’ Simone’s mouth suddenly felt very dry as Rafael set the Frangelico down on the counter and headed for the refrigerator. He found the jug of water and poured some into a tall glass. He poured one for her too. It sat there on the counter, untouched, a decision she did not want to make for fear that she would get it wrong. Princess or wanton? She could be either, and sometimes both, but Rafael did not want the wanton. No. For all his mockery, it was the princess he responded to. The princess who’d earned his compliments, and so it was that the princess stood before him now, trying desperately to appear composed and in control of her wayward emotions.

‘Are you heading off in the morning?’ he said.

‘Yes. Yes, to Sydney for a day before I fly out.’ She hadn’t wanted to linger. Not with Gabrielle and Luc gone and this so very clearly Rafael’s territory.

‘Whereabouts in Sydney?’

‘The Four Seasons.’

He nodded. ‘Will you be able to find it okay?’

‘The car has GPS.’

He nodded again. Conversation stalled. It was time to let go. Time to start dreaming of a life without an angel in it, avenging or otherwise.

Simone stepped woodenly towards him and held out her hand. She would weep once he’d gone but right now she gave him what he wanted and played the princess as she said goodbye. ‘Good luck with Etienne tomorrow.’

He looked at her and something flickered behind his eyes. He ignored her hand. Put the tips of his fingers to her cheek and kissed her softly on the lips. ‘That’s for the princess who helped make my sister’s wedding day a memorable one.’

Her lips clung; she couldn’t help it. He meant too much to her, this man, and always had.

Rafael’s gaze sought hers, searing and tormented as his hand slid around to the back of her neck and he tilted her head, his lips hovering millimetres above her own. ‘Damn you,’ he whispered raggedly. ‘Damn you to hell, because this is for me.’

And then his lips crushed down on hers as he unleashed his passion and his fury, all of it, all at once, and dragged her with him to a place where a dark and sensual madness ruled them both.

He wanted her wanton and naked before him. He wanted to possess her until she convulsed around him and screamed out his name. Heaven help him, he wanted to break her, and remake her, and scar her soul the way she’d scarred his. ‘Say you want what only I can give you,’ he murmured as he backed her against the counter and his lips found hers again and then her cheek, and then the vulnerable spot behind her ear. ‘
Say
it.’

‘I do want it,’ she whispered, her hands inside his jacket, her fingers seeking the buttons on his vest, and then the shirt, and then her hands slid to his chest as she dragged her lips across his throat. ‘All of it.’ His jacket fell to the floor. He found the zipper of her dress and slid it south. Flesh, warm and fragrant. Softness and curves and a taste he’d never forgotten. Urgency, and madness as he finally got her naked and lifted her in his arms the better to take what he wanted and he wanted it all.

Flesh cleaved to flesh and lips upon lips as she gave and he took without care for the price.

A bed and some sheets and Simone in his arms, crying out his name as he buried himself deep inside her, one hand on the curve of her behind as he positioned her exactly where he wanted her and, with his heart pounding and his soul fighting to be free of its cage, began to move.

‘Slower,’ she whispered as her body responded instantly, hot and slick and tightening as she spoke. ‘It’s been too long for me. Rafael, please. You have to slow down or I won’t last a minute.’

He didn’t want her to. He wasn’t asking her to. ‘Say my name.’ He wanted her screaming, he wanted it now, and, calling on the ruthlessness that always lingered just below the surface, he sought her centre with his thumb and stroked. ‘
Say
it.’

She cried out as she came for him, a ragged word escaping her lips, a broken word, both curse and plea. She clawed at him to join her and he did, tumbling down after her, over her, as he gave himself up to unbearable pleasure and to hell with the pain that would come of it.
Simone surfaced hard from the depths of pleasure, gasping as tiny aftershocks rocked her body. Pleasure flowed, desire consumed, and Rafael’s touch gentled as he rolled to one side, still cradling her tightly in his arms.

He gave her no words, there were no words for this.

But touch, he gave her that, and the thundering of his heart beneath her cheek, he gave her that too.

‘Are you protected?’ he said gruffly.

‘From pregnancy? Yes.’ From losing her heart to this man all over again? She feared not. Simone eased up onto one elbow the better to study him. Rafe’s eyes glittered in the dim light, so boldly blue and almost sated. His lips curved as she slid over him and settled on top of him more fully, her hands either side of his head as her hair fell across one shoulder to curtain them both. ‘I want to spend the night with you,’ she said as her lips brushed his jawline.

‘Yes.’

‘The whole night.’

‘Yes.’ He drew her down for another kiss.
Not
sated, that kiss told her. Not nearly.

Good.

She let his possession of her mouth inflame her. She let the feel of his body beneath hers consume her. The hard and rippling planes of his chest. She wanted to go slow this time, to record and to remember, and, wordlessly, he made the world turn slow as he rebuilt the flames of desire caress by deliberately slow caress.

Only when she was on the brink of ecstasy did he enter her and with unerring certainty drive her once more towards oblivion; that place where the world fell away and there was only one anchor and his name was Rafael.
Rafael dozed in the aftermath of Simone’s lovemaking. He wanted to remain awake the better to remember every moment, but with his body urging him towards sleep and with Simone already embracing it, he knew he’d soon surrender to the pull of night. Rafe knew how to live in the moment. He knew how to seize it.

Keeping
it was the hard part.

One hand above his head and his other around the only woman he’d ever loved with all that he was. The only woman he’d ever exposed his scarred but steadfast soul to.