understood the need for publicity stunts more than she. She’d lend Rafael her support, and he’d do the same for her at the premier of Bare Souls. She never doubted he’d be there for her.
But would he once he’d learned what she’d kept from him?
“Besides,” he continued, “I’ve thought of nothing except getting you alone.”
“Very well,” she said. “Get me out of here.”
Rafael kept his thoughts secreted on the short boat ride from the yacht to the dock. He’d said nothing when the boat had picked up speed and Leila had taken his hand in a death grip.
The tremors rocketing through her told him everything he needed to know then. She wasn’t fine by any stretch of the imagination. She was putting on a brave front, and if there was one thing he understood, it was how to stand tall in the face of adversity.
His troubled childhood had taught him that bitter lesson!
That’s when he’d buried his own pain of being William Wolfe’s unwanted bastard into learning the intricacies of computers, discovering what made them work, and what to do to make them work better.
He suspected Leila did the same with her modeling. That was her escape, or perhaps her triumph and celebration, over her bout with anorexia.
His gaze lifted to La Croisette and the cluster of fans, paparazzi and celebrities moving about. The tents crowding the beach were the same, though the lights were more subdued. More intimate.
At one time they’d have enjoyed the nightlife. Now he selfishly wanted Leila to himself. The question remained if she was still eager to be alone with him.
“Would you like to take in the sights before turning in?” he asked, stopping well before the flood of lights spilling from the Palais du Cinéma.
She looked at the active scene they’d soon walk into and shivered. “No. I’ve no interest in becoming one of the hundreds in the nightclubs.”
He released a sigh of relief. “What about the secluded beach? Just us walking, like we used to do.”
Music danced on the balmy night air, but he felt the shift in her mood from tense to relieved.
“I’d enjoy that, as long as it takes me away from the spotlight.”
He couldn’t agree more, and was relieved she felt the same. There was a change in Leila that he’d never seen before, and wasn’t quite sure how to deal with. But part of her seemed closed off even to him. Distant. What had happened this past year while they had been embroiled in their careers to put those shadows in her vibrant eyes?
Rafael certainly intended to find out once they were alone. He eased them past the barriers that served to keep the onlookers out and took a trail that wound to a secluded stretch of sand. It wasn’t wide and it wasn’t pretty, but it was quiet.
“I applaud you for avoiding the paparazzi and the guards,” she said, pausing to slip off her heels before they started down the warm sandy coast.
“I was lucky.” Just like he’d been all the times he’d sneaked into Wolfe Manor so he could play with his half brothers and sister, defying his father’s edict.
He shook off those old painful memories and held on to the good ones. He’d made a solid connection with his siblings over the years, though he didn’t keep in touch with all of them. But then his family had remained fractured, with each of his half siblings emotionally or physically scarred by their father.
Rafael had worried that he would not be able to love another person up until the day he’d met Leila. Even during that first year of marriage he’d wondered if what he felt was real. If he’d awaken to discover it had all been a dream.
He glanced down at Leila now, whose features seemed suddenly lighter, freer. He surrendered to his own smile, for there was something about defying the norm that made his own adrenaline surge.
“Feeling better?” he asked, twining his fingers with hers as they struck off down the beach.
“Much. The air is so refreshing.”
He made a sound of agreement, though every breath he took drew her sweet scent deeper into his soul. The tension of being the object of so much attention began easing, yet he sensed Leila hadn’t let go of it yet.
“I’ve missed this,” she said at last.
“The beach?”
“The peace and quiet with you.”
The exact opposite of her lifestyle. Right now at this moment their separate worlds were miles apart. But if they didn’t put a stop to this madness they’d lived with for a year, their marriage would surely suffer. Perhaps it already had.
“Why push yourself so hard in your career now? “
“If I don’t fight to stay on top of it I could end up on the fringe of this business outside of a year.”
Rafael suddenly felt tension seep into his bones. Surely this would happen anyway once they started the family they’d agreed on? Or had that changed?
“It sounds as if you intend to keep working.”
“I do,” she said without hesitating.
Was she serious?
He wanted a wife and the family he’d long to have. A home. A normal family that he’d always been denied.
He wanted Leila back in his life now, not off somewhere on a shoot dragging their children along. Leaving him behind. Lonely. Forgotten. Rejected.
“And what about children, Leila? I thought we’d agreed that when we started a family, you would be a full-time mother. You’d place our children above everything, and most certainly above your career. Are you telling me now that has changed? “
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