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CHAPTER SIX
RAFEDIDNOTrecall his minders.
Antonietta removed her high heels and they walked hand in hand across the moon-drenched grounds of the monastery on a clear Silibri night.
Where there had been years of turmoil and angst, now there was clarity and certainty. For there was no thought as to the outcome, or to tomorrow, just the bliss of now and this night.
‘We can’t go through the foyer,’ Antonietta said.
‘Of course not,’ Rafe agreed. ‘I have my own entrance. Though you would...’
His voice trailed off and she felt his grip tighten on her hand. She looked up to see what had stopped him from speaking, though his stride did not falter.
Antonietta looked to where his gaze fell and there at the foot of the steps was a suited man—one of his security detail. She attempted a small joke. ‘He can’t stop you from entering, surely...?’
And then it was her voice that trailed off as she realised that of course it was notRafewho was the problem.
It was her.
But the security man said nothing. He merely stepped aside. And as Antonietta glanced up at Rafe she saw why—the man would surely not dare to question him, for the look Rafe gave him could freeze molten lava and halt a lion’s approach.
‘Is there a problem?’ Antonietta asked, recalling their conversation about ‘paperwork’.
‘Of course not,’ Rafe said, for he knew he would deal with the issues raised tomorrow. And there would be issues—of that he was certain. For Antonietta had been neither vetted nor approved. And the security guard had unnerved her.
Rafe could not know of her trepidation as he pushed open the French windows and they stepped into the lounge of his suite.
The turn-down service had been in and a fire was lit.
‘Would you like a drink?’ he offered.
She was about to decline, but then she glanced at the open doors to the bedroom and saw the vast bed. She decided she needed to pause things for a moment, if only to slow her heartbeat down.
‘Please.’
She took in a deep breath as he poured, and could not decipher whether it was terror or desire that coursed through her.
Both, she decided as they clinked glasses.
But a drink didn’t hold him back for long.
‘Come here,’ he told her, and put down his glass.
Antonietta did the same, and as she walked towards him it felt less seamless, and his kiss was different too.
It was thorough, it was hungry, and she felt her bravado fading.
She was tumbling with confusion, on an impossible see-saw as she kissed him back. Because he sent her skywards with his hands, with his mouth, with the way he held her against him.
He took her hand and guided it to where he was hard, and she felt as if the giddy high of the sky and then her nerves had her meeting the ground with a thud.
And she did not know how to reach the sky again.
And she could not fake her way through it.
‘Rafe...’ She had to tear her mouth from his, had to force her breathless throat to form words. ‘I’ve never...’
Rafe did not care if she had never been into one-night stands.
