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‘Why do you think?’ Her eyes were pleading with his. ‘I was mortified. I couldn’t believe the things he’d said to you.’ To his surprise, tears filmed her eyes. ‘I couldn’t believe I’dlethim speak to you that way. But you have to understand—’
Sympathy was a danger he hadn’t expected. He couldn’t soften to her. ‘I understand that you chose to let him think me a rapist rather than tell him the truth.’
‘I did tell him the truth,’ she said urgently, swallowing, her fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt. Surprise flashed through him, then swiftly, disbelief. He couldn’t believe her—he didn’t want to. ‘I did. I just couldn’t do it right then. I was too...shocked. Scared.’ Her breath smelled like vanilla. He inhaled it, his arousal jerking against the fabric of his boxers.
Hell, he hadn’t wanted a woman this badly in a long time. Possibly not for ten years.
He ignored her claims. He couldn’t process them. His body was in sensory overload. ‘And did you think I’d come back to you?’
‘No,’ she whispered, shuddering. ‘I knew it wasn’t possible. He’d have never allowed it.’
‘And you always do what your father wants.’
She blinked down, away from him, shielding her thoughts from his gaze. ‘I was sixteen.’
‘Old enough to give yourself to me,’ he reminded her firmly.
‘And so what? Did you think I’d run away from home to live on the streets with you because we slept together? Is that what you wanted?’
It was like being doused with ice-cold water, reminding him of where her true priorities had lain. She’d chosen her ‘nice’ life of comfort rather than to stand by him. She’d wanted material security instead of the loyalty and love he’d thought they shared.
‘After that morning, I didn’t want a thing to do with you,’ he corrected without any emotion in his voice. ‘I don’t believe in second chances.’
She pulled back a little, but kept her hand in his shirt. ‘I just...needed to speak to you.’
‘And yet, your actions were the making of me,querida. I left Seville, I grew up, I changed. I forgot all about you.’
Her eyes barely met his. ‘Good for you.’
‘Yet here we are, ten years later, and I can’t help but wonder...’
‘What do you wonder?’ she asked, unable to keep the husky note from her voice.
‘What it would feel like to kiss you,’ he said simply, eyes skimming hers, seeing the awakening there, the desire, unmistakable. ‘Not as we were then—teenagers—but here, now, two adults, with experience behind us...’
‘Graciano...’ His name was a plea. For sanity, or seduction?
‘Do you wonder the same?’
Her lips parted, and it was Alicia who moved closer now, her eyes hooked to his, uncertainty and fear in their depths, and a strange, angry mix of emotions in his gut that he would be ashamed to analyse later.
‘I can’t,’ she said, so close to him he felt the words rather than heard them.
‘You don’t want to?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Is it? Why?’
Her lips quirked downwards. ‘Because you’re you,’ she responded softly.
‘We are completely alone here,’ he said gruffly. ‘Neither of us has to be ourselves for the next week.’
Her eyes widened.
‘Besides, a kiss is just a kiss.’
She made a throaty sound, her fingers in his shirt twisting, holding on to him as if for dear life. ‘I don’t know if that’s true.’
