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‘Did you think I was going to torture myself solo?’
But she was trembling from top to toe. How could she possibly dance with him? Alarm sirens blared but she couldn’t heed them. He drew her into his body and she let him, his large frame wrapping around her, one hand in the small of her back, the other holding her hand close to their shoulders.
‘There’s no music,’ she said as he began to move with, as she’d guessed, impeccable timing.
‘There is the beat of the waves hitting the coast. The birds overhead. Listen, and you’ll hear it.’
She turned her head, pressing her cheek to his chest so the fast beating of his heart added to the background song nature was weaving around them. He was right; there was music everywhere. She closed her eyes, breathing in, tasting his masculine, spiced scent, letting it flood her body with strength and need.
Time ceased to exist. They danced—for how long, she couldn’t have said. For a long time, and not enough, their bodies enmeshed, their steps in perfect unison. The sun set and the stars shimmered, the night sky a perfect inky black overhead. Alicia felt the illicit pleasure of this moment, of being held by him as though it were normal, their bodies brushing together in the seemingly innocuous task of dancing, when really, magic was weaving around them, making them both want—need—so much more.
That need terrified her, and despite the nirvana of the moment, Alicia forced herself to stiffen in his arms, to stop swaying in time to the magical music he’d made her aware of and look up at him. All her futures, all her hopes, distilled into that one single look. She was standing on a precipice, a terrifying drop before her, and yet she moved closer to the edge, lifting a hand to his chest, fingers splayed against the fabric of his shirt.
‘I win.’ The words were husky, and the sting of tears made her throat hurt.
At sixteen, she’d wanted him with her whole heart. She’d never really recovered from that.
But he’d walked away, she reminded herself quickly. True, she’d failed to defend him the morning after her birthday, when Edward Griffiths had found them asleep in a field, limbs entwined, only a flimsy blanket for cover. But he’d disappeared, and when she’d tried to explain, to apologise, he’d refused to let her explain. He’d been so brutal in his rejection.
It had broken her heart.
It was still broken.
What other explanation was there for her celibacy since? She had told herself it was because of Annie, that being a single mother took all her focus, but that didn’t explain her disgust at the idea of dating any other man. Graciano’s rejection had left her terrified of experiencing that same pain again.
Yet here she was, dangerously close to him in every sense, her heart beating a frantic, desperate tattoo, all for him. She knew she had to stay away, or at least harden her heart before it could hurt anew, but closeness was addictive, and suddenly, Alicia was tired of fighting herself.
‘I think we should call it a draw.’
She lifted a brow, her pulse tripping over itself. ‘I’m not sure that’s fair.’
‘Dancing is subjective.’
‘So you entrapped me in a bet I could never truly win?’
His smile was sheer arrogant masculinity. ‘I don’t like to lose.’
Her stomach squeezed. Conscious of how she stood, in the circle of his arms, she pulled back, the walls of her world splintering, but she was determined not to let them shatter completely. There was a secret she held deep inside her, a secret she’d sworn she’d keep. But the longer she spent with Graciano, the more at risk that secret became—the more she wanted to tell him everything.
Fear sliced through her. She couldn’t even imagine how Graciano would react to the news that he was the father to a nine-year-old girl. Just the idea of having that conversation drained all the colour from her face and she had to turn away from him abruptly, to face the ocean, to hide the response from him.
She alone had borne the consequences of the night they’d shared, and that had seemed right. After all, it had never been ‘just sex’ for her, which meant their baby was not a burden, despite what it had cost Alicia—despite the way a bomb had blown up in her life.
Her decision-making had been sound, but standing beside him now, it felt like a grenade with the ring pulled. She didn’t know how to stave off the devastating explosion.
‘Okay. You go first,’ she said, to buy for time, needing to distract him from the way the past was rushing at her, haunting her, terrorising her.
‘Tell me about your life.’
‘That’s not a question.’
‘No. I suppose it’s not.’
A small smile lifted her lips. ‘Want to try again?’
He considered that a moment. ‘Have you always wanted to work in events?’
Alicia’s lips pulled to the side. ‘I’ve always been organised—’
