The Trouble with Mojitos (10 page)

Kenzie’s heart beat hollowly inside her chest. Was he angry with her? Disappointed? Perhaps she should she have pretended not to know.

She resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. She wasn’t ready to lose him yet. This was supposed to be their special day, not the end of the party. Instead, she gripped the seat, her entire body stiff with tension, and waited for the axe to fall.

The gravel drive twisted through a plantation of tall leatherwood trees, alive with the brightly coloured parrots whose chatter became deafening as the jeep thundered passed. Then the trees fell away and Kenzie gasped.

The gabled house looked like a Hollywood designer’s fantasy. The perfect Caribbean colonial mansion: ornate and sprawling, surrounded by elegant colonnaded verandahs, and its white stucco walls were bright in the sun’s glare.

Rik stopped the jeep at the bottom of a flight of stairs leading to the main entrance and cut the engine.

“Officially this island belongs to the government, but it has been the royal residence for more than a century.”

He still hadn’t looked at her.

Kenzie twisted her hands in her lap. “Rik … ”

“How long have you known?”

She swallowed hard. “Since the first night we met. I … ” oh dear, this wasn’t going to sound good. “I read the letter in your pocket and recognised the crest.”

He nodded slowly, finally turning to face her. His eyes were shrouded and distant, and her heart sank.

If only he would tell her what he felt …  anything to put her out of this dreadful suspense. She almost wished he’d shout and tell her she’d invaded his privacy and betrayed his trust. Anything but this heavy, oppressive silence.

The door at the top of the stairs opened and a woman emerged, coffee-coloured skin, a mop of dark hair turning steely grey, and eyes to match. Her eyes widened as she took them in, then she hurried down the stairs towards them, face breaking into a beaming smile.

Rik climbed out of the jeep. “Hello Marjorie.” He wrapped the older woman in a bear hug, and she squeezed him back tightly. She looked as if she was about to cry.

Kenzie sat unmoving in the jeep, feeling very much like an intruder. An outsider. Unwanted. It was a feeling she’d had her whole life, one she hadn’t experienced since the day she’d met Rik, but now it was back in spades, and worse than ever.

“Where have you been? You’ve had us all worried sick!” Marjorie said. “There’s a pile of letters and messages from your family waiting inside, in case you ever showed up.”

“I’ve been staying at Adam’s villa.”

The woman’s eyes widened in horror. “You’ve been right here in the islands and you didn’t come to see me?”

Kenzie wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. Rik blushed like a naughty schoolboy caught in a prank.

With a look bordering on desperation, he turned to her. “Marjorie, I’d like you to meet Kenzie.”

But he still wouldn’t make eye contact.

Well, at least it was better than a slap in the face. Putting on her professional smile, though her legs felt like rubber, Kenzie climbed out of the jeep. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She held out her hand for a shake, but instead, Marjorie hugged her. Caught off guard, Kenzie could do nothing but hug her back. The older woman smelled of cinnamon and sugar, like every birthday and Christmas rolled into one.

“So are you the reason Rik’s been keeping a low profile?”

Kenzie was sure she blushed as vivid as Rik had. “We only met a few days ago.”

Marjorie sent Rik a searching look. Then she looped her arm through Kenzie’s and led her up the stairs towards the house. Rik trailed behind.

Kenzie had never seen a house as beautiful as this. Charlie’s ancestral pile of grey cold stone paled into insignificance beside this house. The entrance was a grand double volume space, warm and full of light, with a double marble staircase rising up to a gallery above.

For an instant, Kenzie pictured a Christmas tree there, in the space between the two flights of arcing stairs. She blinked and the image disappeared.

Marjorie led them across the hall and through a set of French doors onto another verandah. The gardens dropped in terraces of green lawns and bright-coloured flowerbeds to a rocky beach far below.

“Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll fetch some tea.” Marjorie patted Kenzie’s arm and let her go. Kenzie had an overwhelming urge to cling to the older woman for safety. She dragged in a steadying breath instead.

“You need a shave, young man,” Marjorie said as she passed Rik in the doorway.

Kenzie turned away to look out over the gardens. She tensed as Rik came to stand beside her. He leaned a hip against the stone balustrade and crossed his arms over his chest.

“So are you a gold digger or did you just fancy sex with a royal?”

The red haze descended. “Neither.” Kenzie didn’t get angry often, but when she did it was impossible to stem the flood. She rounded on him. “I didn’t want this! All I wanted was an introduction to the mayor. I most certainly didn’t want complications. You kissed
me
remember?”

He frowned. Either he didn’t like being called a complication, or he didn’t like the idea that she wasn’t as keen as he was. Either way, tough. He could lump it if he didn’t like it.

She leaned in, struggling to keep her voice low. “You’re the one who brought me here. I could quite happily have gone on pretending you were just another bad boy out for a good time.”

But now the truth was out there, and it changed everything. He wasn’t a pirate, and he was nothing like the bad boys she’d dated before, and the biggest truth, the one she really didn’t want to face, was that this was a man she could lose her heart to. Prince and all.

“So you’re not going to sell your story to the press? ‘
How I bagged a prince!’
”

She jumped back as if she’d been burnt. How dare he! How dare he think she’d stoop so low? Her voice shook. “Not everything is about you.”

She wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her with his mistrust and his presumption. “You
used
to be a prince. But now you’re nothing. No, you’re less than nothing, because you’re not even a productive member of society. You drift through life taking what you want and thinking of no-one but yourself.”

Perhaps it wasn’t Rik she was talking about any longer, but her words achieved their mark. He flinched away from her as if she’d struck him.

“And
I’m
not for the taking, Rik!”

His eyes glittered. “Now there you’re wrong.” He stepped closer, boxing her in against the balustrade. “You’ve been mine for the taking from the moment I met you, and I’ll prove it.”

His hands were in her hair, his mouth crushed down on hers. She wanted so badly to fight him off. She wanted to put her hands on his chest and shove him away.

Her hands made it as far as his chest. And there they stayed.

How could she fight him off when her own body gave in and betrayed her at the first touch of his lips on hers? When her knees melted and her very core turned to liquid heat.

She pressed against him and felt the answering hardness in him. His arm wrapped around her, pulling her tighter against him as he deepened the kiss, punishing her, persuading her.

When they finally broke apart, breathing heavily, neither moved.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m a jerk.”

“Yes. You are.” She struggled to breathe. “And I’m sorry I said you are nothing. That was cruel and inexcusable.”

His grip on her tightened. “But true. I’ve spent these last few months wallowing and feeling sorry for myself. It’s time I snap out of it and stop thinking only of myself.”

Their gazes snagged, held. The ground suddenly seemed unsteady beneath her feet. Lord help her, but she was in trouble.

“I would never, ever go to the media,” she said fervently, needing him to believe it.

He stroked her fringe away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “I should have told you who I was right from the beginning. I wasn’t honest with you, but I want to be.”

She shook her head. On this they would have to agree to disagree. He should never have told her who he really was at all.

At the sound of the clatter of teacups, they leapt apart. Rik hurried to take the silver tray from Marjorie’s hands, then they sat at a wooden table on the verandah and Marjorie poured the tea.

The older woman glanced between them, and Kenzie felt her face heat up again. She could only imagine how wanton she must seem, with her hair mussed and her lips bruised by Rik’s kiss. It took all her effort to play at being civilised and make polite conversation while her blood thrummed in her veins and her body screamed for Rik’s hands back on her skin.

They sipped tea and ate cinnamon buns fresh from the oven, while Rik and Marjorie caught up with news of people they both knew. Marjorie had been his nanny, Kenzie discovered, though when her charges had left for boarding school she’d returned to her homeland and taken this position as housekeeper.

“Your mother calls every week,” Marjorie said.

Rik stiffened. Kenzie was learning to recognise that look – it meant he didn’t want to talk about it.

Either Marjorie hadn’t recognised it, or she didn’t care. She bulldozed on. “She misses you and wants to talk to you. Call her.”

Rik shook his head, subtly but unmistakeably.

“She’ll be at Max’s engagement party. You’ll be able to talk to her then.”

“I won’t be there.”

That was news to Kenzie. She scrutinised his expression, but he was doing his impression of a mask again.

She shouldn’t get involved. She didn’t want to get involved. But it also didn’t take a genius to know that the brooding look Rik wore so much of the time covered a deep hurt. She’d known from that first night they’d met that something was broken inside him.

Her chest pulled tightly.

She’d tried before to fix the people she loved and every time she was the one who ended up hurt. She couldn’t fix Rik. But there was one thing she could do for him.

She set her teacup down. “What are the chances I can get a guided tour?”

Rik cast her a grateful smile and rose to hold her chair for her as she stood. Ever the gentleman. “Will you excuse us, Marjorie?”

The older woman smiled indulgently. “I’ll have lunch ready right here at one.”

Rik took Kenzie’s hand to lead her back into the house, but as she passed Marjorie, the older woman laid a hand on her arm. Her voice was low enough that Rik wouldn’t hear: “Rik doesn’t bring a girl home after just a few days.”

@KenzieCole101: Scrap that. I think I hate surprises.

Kenzie didn’t really want a guided tour, she’d only suggested it so he could escape the kind of inquisition she was all too familiar with, but she got one anyway. Rik traipsed her through formal reception rooms and dining rooms able to seat dozens, the high ceilinged library, the ballroom … 

Why anyone would need a ballroom on a remote and otherwise unoccupied tropical island was anyone’s guess, but the space quite literally took her breath away. Even with the shutters closed, streaks of golden light fell in patterns across the gleaming parquet floor.

Beneath a curved high ceiling, the room was graceful and elegant. A room made for dancing. Closing her eyes, she imagined a band at the furthest end of the room, a jazz band, white suited, dark-skinned, the deep steady bass sweeping the dancers around the room.

The place must be a bitch to dust, though. She was glad she didn’t have to do it.

“This place shouldn’t be left standing empty. This is a house for parties and … ” She blinked as the thought blinded her. “And film shoots.” She turned to Rik. “There are so many amazing locations around these islands. All it needs is someone with vision, someone who could facilitate the shoots and make sure that film companies have what they need, and this could become a real hot spot.”

She almost trembled with excitement, every neuron in her brain firing on all cylinders. This was a job she could do. It felt like the job she was born to do. She had the vision, she knew what film companies would need, she could stay … 

She blinked and shook her head. She was also a woman, and a woman with no Caribbean connections.

“The palace at Neustadt is much more impressive,” Rik said. “The tour guides call it Baroque, but really it’s more Rococo in style.” He faced her. “I’m sorry. I must be boring you.”

“Not at all. An amateur interest in architecture is what got me into this job in the first place.”

Lee had been up all night, working on a set design for a period television show. After Kenzie had made the dozenth cup of coffee, she’d glanced over Lee’s drawings and picked them to shreds. It was after she’d brought out her photo albums to prove a point that Lee suggested she make a career change. Photographing locations sure beat every other job she’d ever had.

Rik led her upstairs, to the private apartments. High-ceilinged, full of sunlight and space. What a place for kids to grow up. She shut down that thought. It must be the heat … that made it twice in two days she’d thought of Rik and kids in the same breath.

Not going to happen. Remember the last time she’d contemplated starting a family with someone?

Rik opened the door on a bedroom the same size as the entire Shoreditch flat she and Lee shared.

“Oh wow, look at that bed!” She took a running dive for the four poster and landed in a giggly heap right in the centre. It was just as lusciously comfortable as it looked. She lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling where a rattan fan churned, setting the diaphanous white curtains of the four-poster dancing.

Rik climbed on the bed beside her, lying mere millimetres away as he also stared up at the ceiling. “I always liked it here. Some of the best moments in my life were spent right here in the islands. No press, no schedules, just our family together.”

“And now you get to stay permanently.”

“I’m not here permanently. I’m just passing through, until I figure out who I am and what to do with the rest of my life.”

She propped herself up on an elbow to look at him. “You’re wallowing again. It’s time you get over yourself. You’re the same person you always were. None of us are the sum total of our job descriptions.”

“Being the hereditary ruler of Westerwald was more than a job description. Without that title, I don’t even have a name.”

She sat up, angry with him again. “We’re also more than an accident of our births. Do you even know how lucky you are? You get to start over with a fresh slate. You can re-invent yourself. You can be anyone you want to be.”

That feeling she’d had on the yacht, the night they’d sailed back from dinner at Christianstad, washed over her. In that moment she’d felt like a new person, a better person.

And she was. She’d left the past behind. Her career was opening up before her, full of promise. If she could do it, then Rik could too.

“There’s always a Plan B,” she said. “And usually it’s better than Plan A ever was.”

“My mother said something like that the last time we spoke, the night she told me she’d known all along I wasn’t my father’s child.” He stared up at the ceiling. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story.”

“I read an article or two, but I don’t really follow the gossip columns.”

“In Westerwald it was front page news.” He jumped off the bed and began to pace the room, scowling, shoulders hunched, the ultimate brooding bad boy. This was the Rik she’d met in the bar that first night. Moody, dangerous, and sexy as hell. Her heart thumped a discordant rhythm.

“My mother was pregnant when she married my father. At least the man I believed was my father. She knew she was pregnant with another man’s bastard and she married him anyway. Then she passed me off as his child. She had to know that one day the truth would out. She knew it would come back to bite us, to bite me, but selfishly she did it anyway. I’m just grateful my father never lived to know the truth. That he never found out how she lied to him his entire life.”

“Perhaps she did it for you. To give her unborn baby a chance at a better life and the kind of father he deserved.”

He snorted.

But then what would he know about how far a mother would go for her baby?

Rik stopped pacing and thrust his hands into his pockets. “Do you know what the worst is? It’s the stuff that didn’t make the papers. I was conceived in a darkened corner of Studio 54, and my mother was drunk at the time. At least that was her excuse for her lapse in judgment. That’s what she called it … called me … a lapse in judgment.”

And there it was, the hurt plain to see.

He wasn’t a bad boy. He never had been. He was a complicated, careful man who buried his hurt deep. And that was so much worse, because that made him a man she could truly fall in love with. A man she wanted to heal.

She resisted the urge to reach out and comfort him.

Who was she kidding? She’d learned a long time ago you couldn’t heal someone else’s heartbreak.

“And your biological father – do you know anything about him?”

Rik shrugged. “My mother told me his name. Robert Ellis … he was some sort of fashion photographer. Fashion! Of all the meaningless professions in the world.”

She forced herself to breathe deeply, to make her tone light. “Yeah, films are pretty meaningless too, but we all have to make a living somehow, you know. Or maybe you don’t. We don’t all have trust funds to finance our lifestyles.”

He straightened his shoulders, indignant. “I told you when we met that I’m not some spoilt rich kid living it up on inherited money. I was raised to make a difference in the world.”

“So make a difference in the world. You have money, you have influence, use both. You could do anything you wanted. You could climb Everest or run charities for orphans, or become a spokesperson for the sea turtles. You’re a celebrity, so use it.”

She’d never thought she’d be giving anyone advice to court the press, but since she wasn’t going to be around when it happened, she felt safe. Do as I say, not as I do.

“What if this is what you were meant to do?” she continued. “You have contacts and skills that could be useful to the islands. The Los Pajaros archipelago is the poor cousin to the rest of the Caribbean, virtually closed to the outside world. With good marketing and someone to manage it, it could become as popular and as profitable as the better known island groups.”

He smiled and his shoulders relaxed. “You make a good argument.”

She was grateful for that smile, grateful that the brooding darkness had been averted. She rose from the bed. This was all too heavy for an island fling. Too many memories stirred beneath the surface. She needed to get away.

“Everything always works out in the end.” She headed for the door. She prayed it was true.

***

They crossed the vast space of the entrance hall, heading back to the terrace.

“Back in the sixties my grandparents often had parties here,” Rik said. “And their Christmas party for the under-privileged children of the islands is the stuff of legend.” He sighed and stuck his hands in the pockets of his chinos. “Life was simpler then. By the time we came along, there wasn’t time for parties. Life just got too busy, my father always said. He taught us to sail, but he spent as much time locked away in his office as he did with us.”

She tried to imagine growing up as the child of a head of state, and failed dismally. The family bakery, though it had been in the Cole family for four generations, and large as it had grown, paled into insignificance beside Rik’s family business.

“It must have been hard on you, growing up like that.”

He shook his head. “It’s strange, but I don’t think my father really liked it here. Back home in Westerwald he was very different. He always made time for us. We were very close. He taught me to sail, and to play polo.” He swallowed. “We were so much alike. Everyone said so. I still can’t believe I’m not his son.”

“He was your father for thirty five years in every way that matters. So what if he wasn’t your biological father?”

“Blood is the only thing that matters.”

“Bullshit.”

When they reached the terrace, Marjorie was laying out a table for lunch beneath a trellis of magenta bougainvillea. Roast beef with all the trimmings, followed by fresh strawberries and cream. And rum punch.

How she’d managed such a feast for unexpected guests, Kenzie had no idea. If she and Lee had unexpected guests the best they could hope for was peanut butter sandwiches or Coco Pops.

She looked at the two place settings on the table. “Aren’t you joining us?”

“Not today.” The older woman’s expression held amusement. “It doesn’t take a mind reader to know you two want to be alone. But maybe next time you come back … ”

Kenzie looked away. There wasn’t going to be a next time. The countdown was already on. In twenty-four hours she’d be on a plane and leaving Los Pajaros, probably forever.

She didn’t know why that thought made her want to cry. A few days ago she’d hated everything about this place.

Marjorie left them alone, and they ate, making nothing but small talk, the heaviness of their earlier conversation banished.

Good, because she didn’t want to waste her last hours here in talk.

As they ate, their gazes lingered, their fingers brushed, setting her body humming again, like one of those wires that crossed vast expanses of wilderness. If the wire pulled any tauter, it would snap, and the spark would set fire to everything it touched.

She took her glass of rum punch and moved to lean on the balustrade overlooking the neat croquet lawn at the side of the house. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of freshly cut grass. In her mind’s eye she could see the lawn, golden in the afternoon light, filled with men in dinner jackets and women in big hats milling around as waist-coated waiters walked between them with silver trays of champagne.

She opened her eyes, banishing the vision. “This place must take an army of people to keep it maintained. Where is everyone?”

Rik moved to stand beside her. “Most of the staff go to Arelat on Sundays, to church and to spend the day with their families.” He removed the glass of punch from her fingers and set it aside. “We’re as good as alone here.”

She straightened, her stomach doing little leaps. Now
this
was what their fling was all about … not talk, but action. “And there’s that magnificent big bed upstairs … ”

“Who needs a bed?” He lifted her off her feet and sat her down on the sun-warmed balustrade, moving between her legs. His fingers slid over her crotch, teasing her through her jeans. She squirmed.

His eyes were so dark they were black holes, sucking her in.

“Not here, Rik. What if Marjorie were to come back out?”

He grinned. “Let’s hope she doesn’t.”

She moaned in pleasure, unable to hold back the sound or the impending climax. Just like that, she was so tantalising close she wanted to scream. She bit down on her lip, drawing blood, as the waves swept through her and she fell limp against his shoulder.

“You are a very bad man, Prince Fredrik.”

He laughed. “Just Rik. And don’t tell me you don’t love it.”

***

@KenzieCole101: In most fairy tales the bad boy turns into a prince. Just once I’d like to kiss a prince and have him turn into a steady dependable boy.

After lunch they said their goodbyes to Marjorie, promising to visit again, and Rik sailed them back to Los Pajaros, to his friend’s ultra-modern villa overlooking the sea like a god looking down from Olympus. No tin-roofed shack for the exiled prince. If this was just the guest villa, then Kenzie couldn’t imagine what the main house looked like.

He secured the yacht in the villa’s boathouse, then they walked hand-in-hand up the stairs hewn out of the rock face.

There were more stairs than she could count and the only way she’d made it up them last night was because Rik had promised her a bed at the end of it. The bed, and everything in it, had been worth the climb.

Halfway up, the stairs branched. Instead of leading her up to the villa this time, Rik led her down to a private beach, a narrow strip of dark sand, still wet from the outgoing tide and hemmed in by large boulders. They undressed and ran into the sea, laughing and splashing each other like children released from a day of school.

Kenzie had never swum naked in the sea before. Warm water caressed her bare skin, teasing unfamiliar places. She stood with her legs apart, enjoying the sensuous way the waves pummelled at her. She lifted her face to the sun’s kiss, past caring what it did to her skin, loving its sensual touch.

Rik moved to stand behind her, pressing against her bare bottom. His hands stroked over her breasts which were heavy and ached with need. She laid her head back on his shoulder as her limbs turned liquid.