white architecture of the city, which ended in a row of casinos, each more magnificent than the next, lining the white-fringed harbour far below.
‘It’s so beautiful from up here,’ she said. ‘I had no idea this path even existed.’ And he felt a stab of remorse that he’d kept her largely locked away within the Castello walls, expecting her to be entertained with dusty books and language lessons when he wasn’t parading her in front of the world’s paparazzi, with not a hint of sharing with her the real beauty of the island that would now be her home.
And now her eyes sparkled, her smile broad as she surveyed the world over which she would soon rule by his side, and he couldn’t help but take her hand in his own as she stood there, marvelling at the view. Her eyes briefly darted to his, but she didn’t pull away, and he moved closer by her side, pointing out the peaks of craggy hills just visible behind the other side of the valley. ‘The island extends another fifteen kilometres beyond Velatte City to the south. Predominantly small villages situated amongst vineyards and olive groves or on the coast. And, of course, like any Mediterranean island, you will find the obligatory hotel resorts, although Montvelatte’s main tourism thrust has been via the casinos.’
‘So beautiful,’ she repeated. He watched her as her gaze scanned from one spectacular end of the valley to the other, her free hand held up to shield her eyes from the setting sun while the silken fabric of her skirt shifted and rippled around her legs in the barely there breeze.
‘Without a doubt.’
And she turned towards him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes questioning.
‘You could be happy,’ he said, ‘living here.’
And the lights in her eyes dimmed a little then. ‘Rafe,’ she said softly, so softly he felt his name on her breath even as he read it on her lips. Lips that beckoned him and drew him closer. Lips that made him ache with wanting her.
She shook her head, the barest, almost imperceptible movement from side to side, which he refused to accept as meaning she didn’t want his kiss. Not when her eyes gave him a different message and her lips were already parted and ready for him.
And so he cupped her warm cheek with his hand, and on a tiny track, below the Castello Montvellate and above the magnificent sweep of valley below, his world shrank to just one woman, and one moment in time.
And that moment held its breath and hovered between them, shimmering with intensity as he lowered his mouth to hers. She shuddered into the kiss, and he slid his hand around the back of her neck to steady her, weaving his fingers into her hair, the taste of her flooding his senses and firing his blood.
She tasted of sunshine and vanilla, of warmth and woman, and the way her lips moved under his told him he was not the only one involved in this kiss. She was there, every part of her. She was his. He gathered her to him with his free arm, finding that sweet spot in the curve of her spine that brought her fully against his aching length.
She gasped into his mouth but she didn’t fight, didn’t move away. Instead she settled even closer, the subtle squirm of her hips a sweet agony that he poured into his kiss, to her lips, to her cheeks, to her eyes. And everywhere he kissed just fuelled the need that had been building ever since she’d stepped out of that helicopter, a need that refused to be compartmentalized and set aside.
I want you, he wanted to whisper, while his teeth nuzzled at her lobe. She trembled as if he’d said the words and threw her head back, forcing her breasts harder against his chest, so that he ached to free them and reacquaint himself with their satin perfection, longed to draw their pebbled peaks deep into his mouth.
Instead, he dragged in a lungful of air, fighting the urge to take her, right here, right now, on this lonely path high above the city, knowing it was madness when the paparazzi made an art form of lying in wait and holding out for the perfect shot, and yet still having to fight the beast for supremacy.
She’d already made him wait so long—too long—but soon, he told himself, encouraged by her participation, there was no doubt in his mind that very soon he would have her again.
Hesitatingly, reluctantly, he slowed the kiss, drawing back as he loosened his arms around her. She opened her eyes, and he saw her bewilderment, sensed her disappointment and very nearly changed his mind.
‘We should get back,’ he said, wishing she would argue, wishing she would demand that he stay and kiss her again, needing a damned good reason to let her go. ‘I have a meeting I’m already late for,’ he said, trying to convince himself. ‘Besides which, we don’t want you catching a chill.’
And before his eyes her back seemed to stiffen, her expression cooling so quickly that he ached to turn back the clock and take back his words.
‘Of course,’ she said, tucking the hair that had so recently coiled thick and silkily around his fingers behind her ears as she turned away. ‘I’d hate to catch a chill.’
CHAPTER NINE
SHE was a fool. Forty-eight hours later, that was the only explanation Sienna could come up with as she paced to and fro under the dappled shade of the vine-covered terrace, her various text books lying open and abandoned on the table nearby.
Two nights ago she’d gone to sleep—eventually—with the memories of that cliff-path walk playing through her mind. They’d walked together along a cliff top path breathing fresh sea air scented with a myriad different wild flowers and herbs, and then he’d wrapped her hand in his as they’d gazed out over a view that was to die for. And then he’d kissed her, and the defensive walls she’d built around herself, and that he’d been unsettling ever since he’d found her poolside and asked her to walk with him, had been rocked apart.
He hadn’t pushed, hadn’t demanded a thing from her, and yet one simple kiss and all her defenses had been ready to crumble, like some impressionable teenager on her first date.
And for a moment there—just one tiny moment, when they’d looked out over the view and he’d asked her if she could be happy here—she’d almost imagined that he’d meant it, that he cared that she might be happy, and that he wanted her to stay. In that precious moment, and in the kiss that had followed, she’d felt the barriers she’d put up around herself tremble and shake, and her emotions tilt and slide within their unsteady walls …
And then, with one simple line, he’d firmed her emotions and her resolve. He hadn’t wanted her to catch a chill. The temperature must have been in the mid-twenties Celcius with no more than a slight onshore breeze, and he had been worried about her catching a chill.
And his concern hadn’t been for her benefit.
She’d ceased being someone who merited concern in her own right when she’d become his own personal incubator.
Of course he wanted her to be happy here—he needed to know the mother of his children wasn’t about to take off unexpectedly, with or without them—but he’d done nothing to ensure her happiness. Merely expected it, just like he expected her to marry him.
Sienna looked wistfully over to the vacant helipad, wondering what she’d be up to and where she’d be flying now if she wasn’t trapped here on this island. And then she remembered why she was trapped and that she probably wouldn’t be flying anyway, and her heart sank even lower.
She turned her eyes in the direction of the books that lay open and accusing in front of her, and she questioned herself why
