Chapter 15 #4
“Once the first shock wore off, and I saw how happy it made Pater to have a daughter, I couldn’t dislike Grace.
” He looked away to dig into the feelings he had never put into words before.
“It might have been more of a problem if she had been a man. But a daughter didn’t challenge me…
or Gabriel, who is like a second son to my father.
She expanded the family in a different way.
” He smiled at Erica. “Pater wanted to have a horde of children.”
“How sad that he didn’t.” Her smile was melancholy. “What a gift Grace must have seemed when he found her.”
“And how ironic that the gift was given to him by that bruja Odette Fontaine,” Raul said, letting his hatred boil in his voice.
“Holy shit! What?!” Erica jerked upright in her chair. “What does Odette Fontaine have to do with Grace?”
Hostia! What the fuck had he just said? He felt so comfortable with this woman that he had blurted out the most tightly kept secret of the royal family.
No one outside the family and Mikel knew that Odette was Grace’s birth mother.
They had fabricated a very effective cover story about Grace’s supposedly dead mother.
Now he had carelessly exposed the horrifying truth.
“I should not have told you that,” he said with urgency. “You can never tell anyone else. No one!”
“Tell them what? I don’t know how Odette is part of this—” She gasped. “She’s not… She couldn’t be… She’s Grace’s mother ?”
“You. Cannot. Tell. Anyone.” Raul put every ounce of command in his voice.
“Oh, Dios, no! I would never… I just can’t believe it.” She was still so shocked that she didn’t grasp what a huge mistake he had made.
He wanted to rewind the clock to the moment before he had made his unforgivable revelation.
Instead, he scanned Erica’s face, her eyes still wide with surprise.
She was Gabriel’s pilot, handpicked by Mikel.
Everyone who worked for the royal family signed an airtight nondisclosure agreement.
She seemed to care about him as a man, not just a prince.
She wouldn’t share this most sensitive piece of information with anyone else, no matter how juicy it was.
“But why did Odette not tell your father before?” she asked.
He had to step carefully now, weighing every word.
“For the same reason she tried to kidnap me. She wanted to punish my father for not marrying her and making her queen. That’s why she kept his child from him.
” He wouldn’t mention that Odette had also tried to shoot him and poison his father. At least he could keep those secrets.
“Your poor father. I never thought I would say that about el rey .” Erica’s eyes went soft. “Thank goodness he had you and el duque .”
She reached across the table to take his hand again, her grip firm and warm. Her touch felt so good, so right, but it was a dangerous temptation.
“I am honored that you entrusted me with this…this revelation,” she said. “I want you to know that I will never speak of it to anyone but you. On my honor as an officer and a Calevan.”
She looked directly at him, her shoulders square, her voice ringing with conviction.
“Thank you. I trust your word.” But it didn’t matter if she was as trustworthy as a bank vault. He was still at fault.
How could he have let his guard down that completely? And with a woman he’d known for less than a week?
That could not happen again.
He pulled his hand away from hers.
It felt like a door had slammed shut in Erica’s face.
Raul went from intimate lover to distant prince in the split second it took for him to slide his hand out of her grip.
The wicked gleam in his eyes, the seductive curve of his lips, all vanished as though they’d never been there.
Now he studied her with a wary gaze that held nothing but misgivings.
He doesn’t trust me to keep the secret of Grace’s birth mother.
That struck like a knife blade at her chest, making her gasp. How could this man who had just given her a screaming orgasm believe she would betray such a profound secret?
He doesn’t know me at all.
That connection she had felt—and thought he felt too—was a mirage, evaporating the moment it was tested. Princes didn’t forge bonds with commoners; they just had sex with them.
No, that wasn’t fair. Raul hadn’t treated her that way. There was more to their relationship than the physical. Just not enough more for him to believe her promise of total discretion.
She looked down at the food on her plate. His distrust ate at her like battery acid, making her stomach churn so she couldn’t force herself to eat another bite.
“I…um…maybe we could walk on the beach?” she said. The hell with his ankle. She needed to move to keep the emotions boiling inside her from erupting. “Or would that be too hard with crutches?”
Relief flitted across his face. “I think I can handle the sand.” His smile was strained but still held enough charm to wallop her heart. “Let me just grab my shirt.”
There it was. The final nail in the coffin of their time. He was covering himself up to raise another barrier between them. No more baring his skin or his soul.
Tears pricked at her eyes, but she blinked them back as they walked down the stone steps to the beach.
The surf was high, and she shuddered at the sight of those powerful waves slamming down on the sand with a roar. But her fear was muted by the misery of Raul keeping two feet of empty air between them as they strolled.
“You can see La Sorpresa de los Piratas.” Raul nodded toward the volcanic islet rising from the sea, his voice as impersonal as a tour guide’s.
She looked out at the famous Calevan landmark, and now the tears streaked down her cheeks.
Lifting her hand on the pretense of brushing back her hair, she wiped the betraying tears away.
Turning back to Raul, she found his gaze focused down the beach, so all she could see was his profile sharply outlined by the afternoon sunlight.
“I think I should go home,” she said, unable to bear this terrible awkwardness between them.
He flinched but didn’t look at her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have….” He made a vague gesture that might have been an apology before he shook his head. “Maybe that would be better.”
He was exquisitely courteous as they gathered their belongings and climbed into the SUV that would take her home.
She would have preferred to sit in silence, but he seemed to feel obligated to carry on a polite conversation about unimportant nothings.
She could barely put a coherent sentence together in response as the agony of his total withdrawal ripped at her.
When the SUV pulled up in front of her apartment building, relief swamped all other feelings.
“I wish…” Raul stopped and took a deep breath. “It was my fault, not yours. My apologies.” He held her gaze for a long moment. “You deserve more than I can give you.”
He leaned over to press his lips softly against hers. She closed her eyes to hide the tears swimming in them again. Suddenly, his hands were on her shoulders, pulling her hard against him as he devoured her mouth almost with desperation.
She grabbed his arms to bring herself even closer, the tears trickling down her cheeks even as she tried to envelop herself in this last heartbreaking kiss.
Because she could feel the goodbye.
He released her as quickly as he had embraced her. For a moment, his eyes burned with all the desire and yearning she felt. Then he reached across her to push open her car door.
She couldn’t help herself. She reached up to brush back a lock of his hair mussed by their kiss, the curling silk of it a poignant pleasure against her fingertips.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Don’t be,” she said on a choked sob before she swung her legs out of the car and stepped onto the sidewalk.
Their gazes tangled for a long moment before he slammed the car door closed.
She trudged up the stairs to the building’s front door, keying in the code to open it. As she pulled the door open, she heard Raul’s SUV pull away.
Only then did she give in to the agony searing through her heart.