CHAPTER 15
“We’re not telling Grace and Raul about this,” Eve said to Luis, gesturing between them as they rode the elevator back up to the terrace.
“Not yet,” Luis said, capturing her hand to press his lips against her palm. Delicious shivers radiated over her skin.
Or ever.
The door slid open, and Luis stepped back to let her exit first. As she headed toward the pool, he called, “Wait a moment. We can rinse the sand off our feet here.”
She turned to see what she had thought was a small fountain pouring water into a bronze basin. Luis held out his hand to her. “Stand in the pool and run your feet under the water,” he said. “I’ll balance you.”
She had never thought cleaning sand off her feet could be a sensual experience, but the water was warm, and Luis’s grip was powerful. She lifted one foot at a time to let the water spray over it, leaning on Luis’s strength.
“Your turn.” She stepped out of the basin and tugged him into it. He had no need of her support, but he held on to her hand anyway. He had narrow feet with high arches, and when he flexed his toes in the cascade of water, the well-defined muscles in his calf bunched and shifted. It was strangely intimate to ogle his bare feet, and desire surged through her again.
Then he pivoted on one foot to run the arch of his other one up the inside of her calf. She gasped and jerked her gaze up to his. He was smiling with a roguish glint in his eyes. “I hope to explore higher tonight,” he purred.
She dipped one foot in the water and flicked it upward to spatter droplets over his trousers. Surprise widened his eyes before he leaned in to say, “I could throw you in the dungeon for that…and come visit you every night.”
His words rippled through her, stoking the ache between her legs. “Would I be tied up for your visits?”
He sucked in a quick breath and then threw back his head to laugh. “Dios mío, you beat me at my own game.”
Eve grinned at him, but inside she was a roil of arousal.
“There you are!” Grace came around the corner with Raul on her heels. “Aren’t you starving?”
All the sexual heat in Luis’s eyes was quenched in a nanosecond. He dropped Eve’s hand and stepped out of the fountain in one smooth movement without any sign of discomfort. “Have you not been eating the tapas?” he asked.
“Of course,” Raul said. “But Annamaria keeps lurking at the door, which means dinner is ready.”
“When one is enjoying the beach, time passes swiftly,” Luis observed.
Eve almost choked at his description of what they’d been doing, but she cleared her throat to say, “I was treated to the story of how the Pirates’ Surprise got its name.”
“Will you tell it again at dinner?” Grace asked.
“There is nothing I like better than sharing the history of Caleva,” Luis said with a smile. “Shall we go in?”
As the sexual fog cleared from Eve’s brain, she looked at Grace and Raul standing side by side. This was Grace’s true family, the one she was related to by blood. A pang of grief wrenched at Eve’s heart. She had the unhappy sense that Grace was slipping away from her with every minute her daughter spent here in Caleva.
Being a mother meant letting go, allowing your fledgling to fly to her new destiny. But why did Grace’s destiny have to be so far out of Eve’s reach?
Eve paced around her suite’s living room, trying to sort through the hurricane of conflicting emotions roaring in her brain. She had barely been able to eat the delicious dinner, and she had probably had too much wine. But that was the only way she could manage to smile and nod and pretend everything was normal when it was so far from normal, she didn’t even know what to call it.
She needed to get to know Raul, to judge whether he was really as welcoming to his new half sister as Luis claimed. He was a charmer, smooth and polished, with a flashing smile and a ready wit. He and Grace teased each other—and their father—with outward ease. Yet Eve still had no sense of who the prince truly was behind that handsome fa?ade.
Then there was the pain and pride of watching Grace fit right into the family dynamic. Her daughter was not intimidated by the company of a king or a prince. Eve couldn’t help being impressed with Grace’s poise and confidence. Somehow, she seemed to have raised a young woman who could handle being a princess. But the more comfortable Grace was, the less likely it was that Eve would continue to be a large part of her life.
Eve sagged onto a chair as the truth of that lanced through her with a physical agony. It wasn’t even the distance between Iowa and Caleva. It was the distance between a vet tech and a princess.
The hardest part of dinner, though, had been the sizzle of awareness that crackled between her and Luis. Eve leaped up to pace again. Every time Luis looked at her, she felt his mouth slanting against hers. The heat and arousal and ache slammed into her all over again, just from seeing the desire lighting his eyes.
If Grace and Raul had noticed the charged atmosphere, they hadn’t given any sign. They must be blind. She smile-grimaced. More likely, they just couldn’t imagine their parents being interested in sex, especially with each other.
After dinner, Luis had given them a tour of the house, so now Eve knew where the master suite was. Was she really going to go there?
She burned with the need to touch him again…but she had a responsibility first. Eve took three deep breaths, shoved Luis out of her mind, and went to her door, yanking it open to find Grace outside with her hand raised to knock.
“Great minds,” Eve said. “I was about to knock on your door.”
“I figured you would want to talk,” Grace said, giving her a peck on the cheek. “I want to talk.” She dropped onto a chair and hooked one knee over the upholstered arm.
“And I want to hear all about your conversation with Raul.” Eve sat in the chair across from her daughter. “First, tell me what you think of him as a person.”
Grace tilted her head back to look at the ceiling for a minute before she spoke. “He’s like he was at dinner. Really nice, funny, smart, considerate, polite. He made me feel like he was genuinely happy to have a half sibling. He told me to ask him anything and he would answer it.” She shook her head. “But he has such a different life that it was hard to know what to ask. And he takes things for granted that sort of freak me out.”
“Like what?”
“When he’s not in the palace or here, he has a bodyguard or two following him around all the time. He doesn’t think it’s weird when people bow to him. He spent a year in the Calevan militia and can fly a helicopter. He goes shopping either before a store opens or after it closes. He’s met a ton of famous people and has some of their personal cell phone numbers.” Grace shook her head again. “That doesn’t even cover the official and governmental stuff he does as the future king. All of that boggles my mind, but he loves it.”
Grace had the option of stepping into the royal succession after Raul. Would she want that?
“Raul is Luis’s son, so I’m not surprised that he is good at what he does,” Eve said with careful neutrality. “What are your thoughts about all this?”
Grace unhooked her leg from the chair and sat up. “Here’s the interesting thing. Being the prince gives you a platform, and Raul can do a lot of good. His support of the charities he’s passionate about has brought serious money and attention to their missions. Think about what I could do for animals with a platform like that! Not to mention having real input into the new veterinary school.”
Raul was in on the seduction too. Had Luis asked him to tempt Grace, or had Raul jumped on the bandwagon on his own? Raul would want his father to be happy. Luring Grace to Caleva would accomplish that.
Eve quelled her resentment and jammed on her mom hat. Grace’s eyes blazed with crusading spirit. The world needed young people like her who wanted to make a difference. Here was her daughter being offered the opportunity to have a significant impact for a cause she cared about.
“That would be really exciting,” Eve said. “And you would do a terrific job.”
“We would do a terrific job.” Grace locked her gaze with Eve’s. “Mom, if I move to Caleva, will you come with me? I know it’s asking a lot, but I just can’t see myself here without you. We’re a team. And now that Nana Nelle has passed, we don’t have any close family in Iowa anymore.”
With the unconscious obliviousness of the young, Grace hadn’t factored in Eve’s network of friends built over the years. Or the fact that Eve had a job she loved ninety percent of the time and a house she had lavished loving care and sweat on to make it a home. Not to mention what Grace didn’t yet realize—that Eve would not be an integral part of her daughter’s new world here in Caleva. As an American commoner, Eve would always be an outsider to the royal family, no matter how cordially they might treat her.
“Of course I’ll come to Caleva with you,” Eve said, her heart melting that Grace would want her here so much, even as a flicker of panic rose at the thought of flinging herself into the unknown. “Does that mean you know what you want to do?” She held her breath.
“No.” Grace massaged her temples. “It’s such a big decision.”
“You can bounce your thoughts off me, you know.”
“My thoughts are still so scattered that I don’t know where to start. Every time I think I have my mind wrapped around the fact that my father is a king, my brain explodes again.”
“Sweetie, that’s to be expected.” Eve knelt in front of Grace, taking her daughter’s hands in hers. “No one could be prepared for such a huge revelation. You’ve handled it with amazing poise.”
“Things were so much simpler when it was just you and me in Iowa,” Grace said, squeezing her mother’s hands.
“I know.” Eve sighed. “But we can’t turn this ship around. You have to navigate a new course, whatever you decide it will be.”
“It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s exciting too,” Grace said.
Eve sighed again, but differently this time. She was excited for her daughter, for all that was opening up before her, but she hadn’t been wrong when she’d sensed Grace slipping away from her.
They talked for another hour before Grace yawned widely. “I’m going to go enjoy that amazing bed with all its adjustments.”
Eve had secretly hoped Grace would want to sleep with her, as she had back in Ames. That would take her decision about Luis out of her hands. “I love you, sweetheart,” Eve said, giving Grace a hug and a kiss.
“Love you too, Mom. You’re the best.”
Eve closed the door behind Grace and leaned back against it, tilting her head to rest on the wooden surface. The weird thing was that she wanted to discuss Grace’s dilemma with Luis. He would be brilliant at analyzing all the pros and cons and coming up with a solution. But he had his own agenda.
Which brought her back to her other quandary. She pushed away from the door just as her phone pinged with a message. She swept it off the coffee table to see that the text was from Luis.
The choice is yours, but I hope you will choose me.
So simple. So direct. Not a seduction, a plea. It was perfectly calculated to get past all her defenses.
How could she not choose him, this man who made her ache with the longing to touch and be touched, who made the air in any room he entered dance with electric energy, who drew her to him like a jaguar luring his prey with his lethal beauty?
This man who had suffered because he was born to be a king. The pain that lived behind his eyes tugged at her heart while his hypnotic blue gaze and long, lean muscles tempted her body.
She closed her eyes, and the memory of how her body had come alive at his touch burst through her. She hadn’t felt such a sensual yearning in years. Didn’t she deserve some pleasure?
She didn’t answer his text because she didn’t want to think. She slipped out of her suite and glided silently down the hall, alert for the sound of others stirring. Silence surrounded her as she followed the route Luis had guided them all along earlier, regaling them with stories about the artworks, the previous owner, and the technology embedded in the house. No one would have known that he was also instructing his lover on how to reach his bed.
Her steps slowed as objections raised their ugly heads. Luis was a king, a man whose behavior was scrutinized and held to high standard. Could their short fling be kept a secret? If it was revealed, how much would it damage him in the public eye? Even worse, how would Grace and Raul feel about their parents having a relationship that was based on sex? Except her attraction wasn’t just about sex, and that was what made this affair dangerous.
Yet she kept going until she arrived at the floating staircase that led from Luis’s office to the master bedroom. The cryptocurrency billionaire had liked to work at all hours, so he had stacked his sleeping quarters above his working quarters.
Her foot on the bottom step, she hesitated. She could turn back now and Luis would never know she had come this far.