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It was worth it for this.
Antonietta’s long, straight dark hair was still long, straight and dark, but just a vital inch shorter, and so glossy and thick that he put up a hand just to feel it.
And then he looked into dark eyes that were painted smoky and seductive. He took the coat from the doorman, just so he could help her into it himself, and handed her expensive shades.
‘Wear these,’ he suggested, ‘if you don’t want people at work to know.’
For Crown Prince Rafael was in Capri, and there was a stir in all the best restaurants, where they put a ‘reserved’ sign on their very best table in the hope that he might dine there tonight. And in the cobbled streets the locals soon heard that the Playboy Prince had a woman on his arm.
‘Who is she?’ they asked—because usually Rafe did not bring his dates in from his yacht, where he tended to party. Perhaps he was finally serious about someone.
His luxurious yacht would not fit into the Blue Grotto cove, of course, so a speedboat took them in. There they transferred to a small wooden row-boat with a single skipper.
‘We’ll have to lie down,’ Rafe told her.
‘Really?’ she checked, unsure if he was teasing.
‘Really.’
He wasn’t joking, but she wouldn’t have minded if he had been, for it was bliss to lie side by side with him.
And then they entered the grotto. And it was like sliding into heaven as they were bathed in sapphire light.
‘It’s wonderful...’ Antonietta breathed, for the water and its reflection was magical, the cavern illuminated spectacularly. And today, just for them, music was playing, inviting them further in. ‘I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.’
‘Nor have I,’ Rafe told her.
And she decided that even though he might have used that line many times she would let that thought go. For when he looked at her like that, when he kissed her so slowly, she felt like the only girl in his world. She felt as if she belonged.
Rafe felt Antonietta still in his arms and, concerned, he halted. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yes,’ she answered.
And all those years of searching, and yearning, and never quite fitting in, ended then, and she found her place in the world in his arms.
Oh, it made no logical sense, for it was not about theplaceshe was in, it was the connection she had found.
Only then did she understand what Aurora had meant when she had advised her to let go of her heart. For letting go meant no thoughts of tomorrow and a cold, indifferent end. And to let go meant she didn’t examine the impossibility of them. She just had to let her heart go and it would fly straight to Rafe.
‘Keep kissing me.’
‘I can do that,’ Rafe said.
He kissed her so deep and so long and with such smouldering passion that she felt as if she were floating, and that if he let go of her she might rise to the ceiling of the cove.
But even Blue Grotto kisses must end.
It was cold and getting dark when he held out his hand and helped her into the speedboat. Instead of going to his yacht, they headed to shore.
The Christmas lights of Capri were truly an amazing sight—not that he’d really paid attention before. They strolled through the square, with its carpets of fairy lights on the buildings and in canopies above them. It was like walking through a nativity scene, with towering musical trees draped in a million lights.
‘This is the best day of my life,’ Antonietta told him. ‘The best Christmas.’
Forthiswas her Christmas she decided. Tonight, here with Rafe.
It was cold, though, and their time on the water and the salty ocean breeze meant that not even his arm around her and her new thick coat could keep her from shivering.
‘Let’s go and eat,’ Rafe said.
