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He couldn’t say he liked the way she smiled at him then. It was too sad, for one thing. An almost wry curve of her lips. While in her endless blue gaze, there was a certain knowledge he did not care to identify.
When, he could not help but recall, the girl he’d known would have looked at him with eyes filled with tears had he even obliquely suggested she might have lied to him. That was how open she’d been. A bright summer’s day, always.
He still missed the heat of her, the endless clear blue.
And he hated her for that weakness.
“You sound like a man who has had the pleasure of his own choices for most of his life.” She inclined her head slightly, far too regal for his taste. “That sounds lovely. You will have to tell me what such a life entails. Because I find myself standing at a precipice. Behind me, a life of duty and obligation but it turns out, none of it was mine. And before me...who knows?”
None of this was going the way Joaquin had planned. The kiss burned within him, still. As if she was the one who had dealt him a punishing kiss, so that his lips might bear the stamp of it. When he had meant to do that to her.
He let go of her and stepped back, glad that the grand fountain in the center of the lobby made the tumbling noise it did, for he felt certain if it did not, he would have heard his own heart. It was beating far too fast.
When Joaquin had often thought that his enemies were right and he had nothing but ice water where his veins should have been.
“You seem to be missing your staff,” she said when the silence grew between them. Proving that she no longer rushed to fill a moment of quiet, the way she had five years ago. Heedless, reckless. So eager to please. He had been braced for haughtiness from the woman who had a palace to make demands on her behalf. For peremptory orders and the kind of entitlement he had always despised. Instead, she had all but wriggled like a puppy every time he’d glanced in her direction. “If you’ve fallen on hard times, that was definitely not mentioned when I booked. Or in any of the papers that regularly print various takes on your hagiography.”
“I cleared the island,” he said gruffly.
As if it was an admission.
She smiled again, but it was as distant as the first. “Not on my account, I hope. I’m perfectly capable of hiding in plain sight. It’s why I booked a villa, so that all anyone looking will see is a woman in a large sun hat, minding her own business.”
“I’m afraid there are no villas available,” he told her smoothly, getting his feet under him again here. At last. “If you wish to stay here, there will be...alternate arrangements.”
He was glad he’d let go of her. Glad that he’d put some space between them. Because he had acted on instinct the moment she’d walked into the lobby. There had been no thought. No plan. He’d simply walked to her, put his hands on her, tasted her.
He did not regret those things. But now, reason could return. He could take this moment to truly get the measure of her.
Joaquin moved away from her, over toward the rough-hewn wall so he could lean against it and observe her as he’d intended to do from the start.
She was still, bar none, the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld. He’d seen pictures of the real Princess they’d unearthed off in America somewhere. She was lovely, certainly. Yet to his mind, that Amalia shined far brighter than her dusty old mausoleum of an assumed family had always been clear. He’d seen pictures of Queen Esme, with her regal nose and aristocratic chin, which was to say, not much of one. Amalia was etched in delicate lines, each and every one of them highlighting her perfection.
He told himself he was lucky this time. Because this time, he knew that each and every hint of delicacy in her bearing was a lie.
“Alternate arrangements?” she echoed lightly, looking almost entertained. “How mysterious.”
As if this was some clever little cocktail party in that palace of hers, where every moment of biting repartee was rewarded.
When the truth was, she was in his house.
And they would play by his rules.
“I was in love with you,” he told her, with bite. And all the fury of the past five years. He saw her jolt at that and thought,Good.But it was not nearly enough. “I would have given you the sun and the moon and the stars, had you but asked. Instead, you pulled rank. And now when I think of those things I felt, the memory leaves me nothing but shame.”
He watched her face closely, looking for... But he wasn’t sure what he wanted to find. Uneasiness? Regret?
He was Joaquin Vargas. He needed none of those things.
She gazed back at him, her expression carefully unreadable. Or almost unreadable. Her eyes were a shade too blue. And then, because he saw the darkness there, he looked for other tells. She was too still, perhaps. Her hands were in fists even though she tucked them against her body as she folded her arms over that wrap she wore, as if hugging it closer.
The years had taught her to hide. But he had always been talented at finding his way to hidden things. She stood little chance.
“I owe you an apology,” she said, but her voice was so...unruffled. Joaquin wanted to rage. He wanted to shout. He wanted to...mess her up, or better still, watch her as she messed herself up. Instead, all she did was gaze at him, as if this was nothing but a tranquil bit of talk. Not important. Not the least bit meaningful. “I was young and overwhelmed. I have regretted being cruel to you every day since.”
And Joaquin could not understand why this woman got to him the way she did. Still.
It was an outrage.
