“Of course I remember. And you shall have Orion. But you know what I meant.”
He decided to let that remark go, but if she thought this was the last evening they would spend together, she didn’t know who she was dealing with. “Tell me your plan.”
“You’re sure? A moment ago you seemed reluctant to hear it.”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, all right, then.” She whispered her scheme in his ear.
Chapter Four
“I
t just might work,” he said, admiring the way the bright lights brought out hints of auburn and gold in her hair.
“Of course it will work.”
“All right, then. I’m game.” They turned together for his hotel, neither looking back to see if they were being followed. Why bother to look? Of course they were being followed. The paparazzi were relentless. As they entered the lobby, he got out his cell and called his driver.
He led her straight through to the elevators. They got on and rode up to his floor—after which they changed elevators and went back down to the mezzanine level.
They took the service stairway to the first floor again and slipped out the side door, where the car he’d called for was waiting, the engine running. The driver, Talbot, held the door for her. Noah jumped in on the other side.
“Where to?” Talbot asked once they were safely hidden from prying eyes behind tinted windows. Alice rattled off a quick series of directions. The driver nodded and pulled the car away from the curb.
Noah raised the panel between the front and rear seats.
Alice glanced at him and grinned. “Alone at last.”
He wrapped his arm around her and drew her closer. “If I kiss you, will you run away again?”
She gazed at him steadily, eyes shining. Then she shook her head. “Not while the car is moving.”
He bent closer and brushed his lips across the velvet flesh of her temple. “Remind me to tell Talbot never to stop....”
“It’s a tempting idea, being here with you forever....” She tipped her face up to him.
He brushed his mouth across hers, giving her a moment to accept him. When her lips parted slightly on a small tender sigh, he deepened the contact.
She let him in. He tasted the wet, secret surfaces behind her lips, ran his tongue along the smooth, even edges of her pretty white teeth.
Another sigh from her, deeper than the one before.
And he tightened his arm around her, bringing her closer so he could taste her more deeply still.
When she brought her hand up between them and pushed lightly against his chest, he lifted his mouth from hers just enough to grumble, “What now, Alice?”
Her eyes had the night in them. “Dami told me to stay away from you. He says you’re a heartbreaker.” Bad words scrolled through his mind, but he held them in. She added, “My sister Rhia told me not to listen to Dami.”
“I like your sister already.” He kissed her again, quickly, a little more ruthlessly than he probably should have. “And I’ll talk to your brother.”
Her fingers strayed upward. She stroked the nape of his neck. He wished she’d go on doing that for a century or two. “Please don’t talk to Dami about me. It’s none of his business. He doesn’t get to decide who I see or don’t see.”
Noah had pretty much expected Damien to warn Alice off him. He’d considered explaining his real goal to Dami up front when he’d told Dami he wanted Orion—but he’d decided against it.
Damien wouldn’t have believed him anyway. And Alice might be convinced to let him off the hook for a lot of things. But even before their first meeting, he’d known enough about her to figure out that she would never forgive him for telling her brother his real intentions before he revealed them to her.
And come on. He’d never planned to tell her
or
her brother everything. He’d assumed the whole truth wouldn’t fly with either of them. The idea had been to meet her, pursue her and win her. To sweep her off her pretty feet.
But now that he’d come to know her a little, he was having second thoughts about the original plan. She was honest. Forthright. And after the near disaster of his playing along when she mistook him for a stable hand, he’d learned his lesson: she expected him to be honest, too.
Which brought him to that other thing, the thing he hadn’t been prepared for. The way she made him want to give her everything, to be more than he’d ever been.
It was getting beyond his pride now, way past his idea of who he was and what he’d earned in his life. It was getting downright personal.
She
mattered
to him now, as a person. He didn’t really understand it or want to think on it too deeply. It was what it was.
And it meant that he would knock himself out to give her whatever she needed, whatever she wanted from him. Up to and including the unvarnished truth.
So, then. He hadn’t decided yet. Should he go there—go all the way, lay the naked truth right out on the table for her?
It was dangerous, a bold move.
Too bold?
Could be. And probably not tonight, anyway. It seemed much too soon....
She laid her soft hand against the side of his face. “Earth to Noah. Are you in there?”
“Forget about Damien.” He said it too fiercely, and he knew it. “Kiss me again.”
She laughed—and then she kissed him. And then she settled against him with her head on his shoulder and asked, “How did you meet my brother?”
He breathed in the scent of her hair. “I thought we were going to forget about Damien.”
She tipped her head up and grinned at him. “You wish—and seriously. How did you meet him?”
“At a party in New York a little over two years ago. We both knew the host. I struck up a conversation with him. We found we had a lot in common.”
“Fast cars, beautiful women...”
He shrugged. “I like your brother. We get along—as a rule, anyway.”
The car pulled to a stop.
“We’re here.” She straightened from his embrace. With reluctance, he let her go and lowered the panel between the seats.
“Will you be getting out, sir?” Talbot asked.
“Yes, thanks.” The driver jumped out to open the door for Alice. Noah emerged on his side. The car sat on a point near the edge of a sheer cliff with the sea spread out beyond. He could hear the waves on the rocks below. He caught her eye over the roof of the car. “It’s beautiful here.”
She grinned as though she’d created the setting herself. “I thought you might like it. There’s a path down to a fine little slice of beach. A private beach. Is there a blanket or two in the boot?”
There were two. Talbot got them from the trunk. He handed them to Noah and then got back in behind the wheel to wait until they were ready to go.
She’d left her wrap and bag in the car, but her gold sandals had high, delicate heels. Noah eyed them doubtfully. “Are you sure you can make it down a steep trail in those?”
“Good point.” She slipped off the flimsy shoes, opened the car door again, and tossed them inside. “Let’s go.”
Going barefoot didn’t seem like a good idea to him. “Alice. Be realistic. You’ll cut up your feet.”
She waved a hand. “The trail is narrow and steep, yes, but not rocky. I’ll be fine.” She gathered her gold skirts and took the lead.
The woman amazed him. She led the way without once stumbling, without a single complaint. Halfway down they came out on a little wooden landing with a rail. They stood at the rail together, the breeze off the sea cool and sweet, the dark sky starless, the moon sunk almost to the edge of the horizon now, sending out a trail of shifting light across the water toward the shore.
She said, “We all, my brothers and sisters and me, used to come here together, with my mother and father, when we were children. The observation point above, where we left the car, belongs to my family. The only way down is this trail. The high rocks jut out on either side of the beach, so intruders can’t trek in along the shoreline. We’ve always kept it private. Just for our family, a place to be like other families out for a day by the sea.”
“Beautiful,” he said. He was looking at her.
She waved a hand, the diamond cuff she wore catching light even in the darkness, sparkling. “But of course, now and then, the paparazzi fly over and get pictures from the air.” She sounded a little sad about that. But then she sent him a conspiratorial glance. “Come on.” And she turned to take the wooden stairs that led the rest of the way down.
The beach was sandy. He took off his shoes and socks and rolled his trouser legs. They spread one of the blankets midway between the cliffs and the water and sat there together. The breeze seemed chilly now that they were sitting still, so he wrapped the other blanket around her bare shoulders. He put his arm around her and she settled against him as she had in the car, as though she belonged there. For a while they stared out at the moon trail on the water.
Eventually, she broke the companionable silence. “I think I like you too much.”
He pressed his lips to her hair. “Don’t stop.”
She chuckled. “Liking you—or talking?”
“Either.”
She laughed again. And then complained, “You’re much too attractive.”
“I’ll try to be uglier.”
“But that’s not all. You’re also funny and irreverent and a little bit dangerous. And a heartbreaker, too, just like Dami said. I really need to remember that and not go making a fool of myself over you.”
He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face to him. “I have no intention of breaking your heart. Ever.”
She wrinkled her fine nose at him. “I didn’t say you would
intend
to do it. Men like you don’t go out to hurt women on purpose. They simply get bored and move on and leave a trail of shattered hearts behind them.”
He was starting to get a little defensive. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve broken a heart or two yourself in the past.”
She groaned. “I should have known you would say that. After all, I have no secrets. My whole life is available, with pictures,
lots
of pictures, in the pages of the
National Enquirer
and the
Daily Star.
” And then all at once she was shoving away from him, throwing off the blanket and leaping to her feet.
“Alice. Don’t...”
“I’m going wading.” She gathered up her gold skirts and ran to the water’s edge.
He got up and followed her, taking his time about it. Better to give her a moment or two to calm down.
When he reached her, she was just standing there, the foamy waves lapping her slender feet, holding her skirts out of the way. For a moment they stared out at the water together toward the sinking moon on the far horizon.
Then she confessed, “All right, that was a little bit bitchy. Not to mention over the top. Sorry.”
He said nothing, only reached out a hand, caught a loose curl of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. He really liked touching her—and he liked even more that she let him. “I was only saying that we’re more or less evenly matched.”
“But I don’t want to be shattered. I don’t want to shatter
you.
I want...” Words seemed to fail her.
He ran a finger down the side of her neck. Living silk, her skin. He drank in her slight shiver at his touch. “You want what?”
She gazed out over the water again. “I want to rip off my dress and dive in. Right here. Right now.”
A bolt of heat hit him where it counted. Gruffly, he suggested, “Fine with me. I’ll join you.”
She let her head drop back and stared up at the dark sky. “I can’t.”
“There’s no one here but the two of us.”
She lowered her head and turned to him then. “Oh, Noah. That’s the thing. I can never be sure, never be too careful. If someone just happened to be lurking back on the trail with a camera and got a shot of me cavorting naked in the waves with you... Oh, God. My mother would never forgive me.” She smiled then, but it was a sad smile. “If the paparazzi caught me in the buff now, I don’t think I would forgive
myself,
if you want the truth.”
“You’re being way too hard on yourself. You know that, right?”
“Maybe. I suppose. It didn’t used to bother me much. I used to simply ignore it all. I did what I wanted and if the journos had nothing better to do than to take pictures of me and write silly stories about me, so what? But now, well, I feel differently. I’m sick to death of being the wild one, the ready-for-anything, out-of-control Princess Alice.”
He had a good idea of what had pushed her over the line. “The pictures from that pub in Glasgow?”
She winced. “You saw them.”
“Yeah.”
“My mother was pretty upset over them.”
He blew out a slow breath. “I thought they were hot.”
“More like a hot mess.”
“
Hot
still being the operative word.”
She turned fully toward him and studied his face, a deep look, one that made him slightly uncomfortable. And then she said, “I think I really should go home now.”
Uh-uh. Not yet. Not this time.
He reached out. He couldn’t stop himself. He wrapped his fingers around the back of her neck and pulled her into him. “Kiss me.”
“Oh, Noah...”
“Shh.” He took her mouth. She made a reluctant sound low in her throat—but then she softened and kissed him back. When he lifted his head, he said, “I’ve got to get you away from here.”
She gazed up at him, eyes shining, lips slightly swollen from the kiss. “Away from where?”
“Away from Montedoro.”
She frowned. “That’s not going to happen. Tonight is our last night and—”
He stopped her with a gentle finger on her soft lips. “I don’t want this to be our last night. And I don’t believe that you do, either.”
Her slim shoulders drooped. “Noah. Be realistic.”
“But I am. Completely. And my point is, it’s a fishbowl here—beautiful, glamorous, but still. A fishbowl. Whatever we do together here, there will be pictures and stories in the tabloid press.” Plus, it was way too easy for her to escape him here on her own turf. He needed to get her onto his territory for a change. He went for it. “Come back to California with me tomorrow. Come and stay with me for a while.”
She pressed her lips together. “Oh, Noah. I really don’t think that would be a good idea.”
He wasn’t giving up. Ever. “Why not? You’ll love it there. And I want to show you my world. I want you to meet Lucy.”
“Noah, really. I can’t just run off with you. Didn’t I just explain all this? I’m trying to be more...discreet. Trying to behave myself for a change. Trying to stop throwing myself blindly into crazy situations.”