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Her eyes lowered. What she wanted? It was better not to explore that. ‘It can’t happen again,’ she repeated instead.
‘There is unfinished business between us, with only one way to resolve it.’
Promise hummed between them, a fierce, undeniable pull into temptation and desire. She bit down on her lip to stop herself from agreeing with him verbally, but in her heart, she knew he was right.
All the reasons she had to keep him at bay paled in comparison to the fact that she wanted him, desperately—that she needed him with all of herself. Maybe here, on this little island, she truly was in an oasis, away from Annie and her duties to their daughter, away from the life she’d carefully built for herself. Maybe, just maybe, she could be reckless and no harm would come from that, this time. Ormaybe,she should run like hell rather than give into temptation for the second time in her life.
Alicia had been strong this past decade: strong when she’d stood up to her father; strong when he’d exiled her from Spain and stranded her in England with a grandmother she hardly knew; strong when she’d become a single mother at sixteen; strong as she’d raised Annie single-handedly...and she needed to be strong now.
‘You’re wrong, Graciano.’ She spoke quietly, but with a hint of steel. ‘There is nothing unfinished between us. You finished it, when you disappeared into thin air—when you refused to return my calls, when you ceased to exist in my life.’ She stood, knees shaking a little. ‘I know that my father treated you like dirt—worse than dirt—but you left without a backwards glance. You left without—’
‘Without what,querida?’ The term of endearment caused her to flinch. ‘Your father was not the only one who treated me like dirt. True, he spoke the words, but you echoed them with your silence.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What was I supposed to do? Stay and be arrested for a crime I never committed? For a crime so heinous—’ He let the words hang there, his pride obviously wounded. His nostrils flared and he crossed his arms over his broad chest, staring down at her with darkly intense emotions swirling in his eyes.
Alicia couldn’t bring herself to respond to that. The idea of Graciano being charged with rape after what they’d shared turned her blood to ice. But she couldn’t be derailed from the point she needed to hammer home. ‘All those years ago, that was the time to explore our unfinished business. Not now.’ She pulled herself up to her full height. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do, and the sooner I finish, and can get off this island, the better.’
CHAPTER FOUR
ALICIASTAREDATher laptop without seeing any of the information on the screen. She’d spent the afternoon researching—previous events Graciano had hosted, the companies he’d bought, the events his enormous corporation had thrown, anything that would give her an insight into what he wanted without actually having to talk to him about it.
Which was childish and stupid.
Despite what had happened between them, she’d come here to do a job, and she wasn’t about to ignore her obligations on that front.
Her ankle was still tender, but far better than it had been, courtesy of the painkillers he’d provided her with hours earlier before helping her to a guest room where she’d changed into a shirt with all the buttons in place.
But as she looked out at the glistening sea beyond her window, she couldn’t help but regret that she’d only packed business clothes.
It had been an act of defiance at the time, a demarcation of her purpose at Graciano’s. A statement of intent.
She’d planned to wear her suits and heels, to provide a starkly visible reminder to both of them, at all times, that she was there to work.
Had she anticipated, even then, that desire would overcome them? Probably, but she’d expected to make it through at least one hour without wanting to rip his clothes off.
She looked across at her bed ruefully, to the discarded shirt there, and grimaced, then turned her attention back to the screen.
It was hard work—not because it was difficult to pull together a profile on what Graciano’s events were like. She had a clear idea of that. But because events hosted by Graciano featured a lot of Graciano, and by necessity, she’d spent most of the afternoon staring at photographs of him dressed in custom tuxedos surrounded by stunning guests, many of whom were glamorous women looking at Graciano as though...as though they wanted everything Alicia did.
She moaned, dropping her head into her hands, mortified and made alive in equal measure by memories of what they’d done that afternoon. Her heart raced faster with adrenaline as she contemplated how wonderful it had felt to be kissed by him.
Except he wasn’t just a handsome man with whom she shared a past. The matter of Annie was a sharp knife pressing into her side, something she was struggling to make sense of.
Contacting Graciano once he was worth all the money in the world, just about, hadn’t been easy. There was a wall around him. His phone number was unattainable, his location unknown, security tight. Even when she’d woken in the middle of the night, body coated in the perspiration of the panicked, and she’d realised she couldn’t keep Annie a secret from her father, she’d had no ideahowto tell him.
Until he’d turned up at the charity auction, he’d been as out of reach to Alicia as any other billionaire or celebrity.
But they were here together now. The conversation could be had. And then what?
She groaned softly, closed the laptop and jerked to standing, a frown on her face that was a copy of the ache in her heart.
If Graciano had intentionally planned to seduce Alicia with his lifestyle, he couldn’t have chosen a better location. She’d expected to grab a piece of fruit for dinner, but when she walked slowly out of her room on an ankle that was feeling much better and went in search of the kitchen, she found a table for two had been set in the middle of the courtyard. She stopped walking, staring first at it—the white cloth, the wine bottle, the candles and crystal glasses—and then looked around, taking in the broader aspect automatically. It was her first opportunity to regard the courtyard properly, and now she saw details she couldn’t possibly have appreciated from the air.
A large staircase led up one side of the courtyard to a balcony that wrapped around the internal walls, and it was these walls that vines tumbled over, cascading like floral waterfalls towards the ground, creating a feast for the eyes and a heavenly fragrance. Bees hummed around the blooms and birds twittered overhead. Terracotta pots marked the base of each pillar, and fruit trees, perfectly topiarised and large, broke up the effect of the wall. The sky overhead was turning to dusky colours, and lights had come on around the walls, creating a warmth and ambience that made Alicia feel she was in a five-star resort—but even better, because it wasn’t so pristine and manicured.
There was whimsy and charm here, and so much history. She looked around once more, right as Graciano emerged into the courtyard, head bent as though deep in thought, so she had a moment to study him, and pull herself together, before he saw her.
He wore beige shorts and a loose white linen shirt, the quintessential image of relaxed charm—only Graciano, she suspected, never truly relaxed. It wasn’t in his nature. Even as an eighteen-year-old, there’d been a drive about him. It was why his father had employed Graciano at the homestead, rather than just the mission home.
‘That boy never stops,’Edward had marvelled, again and again. ‘Just look at him go.’
