CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
M EL FLOPPED ONTO the lounger by the pool. She sighed and stretched, letting the sun relax tired muscles, and breathed in the sea air, scented with the fragrance of the nearby Ginger Thomas tree, its bright yellow blossoms out in force today.
It had been three days since they’d arrived at Rene’s estate on Mermaid Cay—a private island of rocky hills and mangrove swamps and a shoreline of secret coves and stretches of soft white sand gently lapped by the translucent blue of the Caribbean Sea.
The five-bedroom main house—which, according to the estate’s manager Marcia, had been constructed by Rene’s grandfather in the nineteen-fifties, not long after he’d purchased the uninhabited island—perched on a rocky ledge with an infinity pool and was surrounded by several equally well-appointed guest cottages. The villa’s commanding position overlooked a wide sandy beach edged by rock pools and the verdant beauty of the island’s interior, which included an abundance of frangipani, bay rum, tamarind and mango trees as well as the ubiquitous Ginger Thomas and a host of other flora and fauna which Marcia had identified.
The clean, elegant style of all the buildings was a mix of Colonial and European design made up of wide stone verandas, wooden walkways and bright airy rooms featuring all the mod cons while also having the ability to blend seamlessly into the landscape. Mel’s guest bedroom suite featured an outdoor rainfall shower, a luxury bathroom, a four-poster bed and an open terrace with a view of the pool.
No wonder she felt so relaxed after three days in this paradise.
Most of the journey here—which had included twenty hours of flying with a brief stopover in New York’s JFK to refuel and a forty-minute speedboat ride from St Thomas—had gone by in a blur of snatched sleep and panic after being swept up in their desperate attempt to escape the press storm. But in the days since, her anxiety over the photos and the future of her career—because how exactly was she supposed to be a benefit to Isabelle’s monarchy if she was now notorious as Rene’s ‘snowbound lover’—had settled. Surely, given enough time, the furore would die down and the press—and public opinion—would move on.
Isabelle had been in touch and Mel had even managed to do some remote working yesterday from the house’s study, negotiating an itinerary for the Queen’s upcoming trade tour in the US with her new husband.
She’d slept like the dead over the last two nights too, recovering after their snowbound ordeal, not to mention the long night in Rene’s arms when neither of them had done much sleeping.
The tranquillity of her surroundings and the easy-going way of life, far away from the publicity storm, had all helped her to relax and get things into perspective. That and the fact she hadn’t seen Rene since they had arrived.
Not once.
But what had been a welcome relief at first—because panicking about her response to him and their complicated, often antagonistic relationship had never been good for her stress levels—was becoming less welcome as each day passed.
When she’d woken up yesterday morning to another breakfast alone, she’d realised she missed him. If nothing else, his company had always been exhilarating. But she hadn’t been able to track him down all day, nor could she figure out what he was spending his time doing.
According to Marcia—and Fred, the villa’s gardener—the Prince was ‘busy working’. But because she hadn’t seen him yesterday evening either—when the resident chef had laid out another incredible meal for her on the table overlooking the beach—she had no idea what exactly he had been ‘busy working’ on. After all, Rene was famous, or rather infamous, for not taking his work as Saltzaland’s Prince that seriously, far too interested in his own pursuit of pleasure and beautiful women…
Except…
‘If it helps, I haven’t been able to take another woman to bed since the first time we made love either.’
She squinted into the sun, the bombshell he’d dropped en route to the airport four days ago making her heart clench and release—and the butterflies in her belly do backflips. She hadn’t wanted to believe him, had tried to convince herself in the days since that he had to have been lying.
But the more she thought about it—and she had thought about it a lot —the more she couldn’t figure out why he would lie.
Of course, he’d tried to qualify his abstinence as some kind of physical aberration, an inconvenient side-effect of their sexual chemistry and, by implication therefore, definitely not evidence of any kind of emotional connection. An emotional connection she’d spent four years trying to convince herself too couldn’t exist.
But what if it could?
What if she really was the first woman to ever have made a lasting impression on him? Because something else—another throwaway comment he’d made during their drive into the storm—had come back to her too during the last forty-eight hours while she’d had far too much time to overthink every aspect of their relationship.
‘I haven’t had an alcoholic drink in four years.’
She hadn’t registered the possible significance of that timing either when he’d said it.
But now she couldn’t stop obsessing about that, too. And tying herself in knots about what it might mean.
What if Rene wasn’t the man she had always dismissed him as—reckless, shallow, entitled, and impulsive—but someone else?
She’d spent the last three days trying not to dwell on that disturbing possibility—and how much she was starting to miss his company—doing everything from going for long hikes to learning how to cook conch fritters with their chef Jevon, or jogging to the next cove for a swim. But it was becoming harder and harder for her to keep her desire to discover the real Rene while she was here on hold. Or to stop all the questions piling up in her head which had always remained unanswered.
And then there were those nightmares. The awful fear in his voice that night, the scars he wouldn’t talk about. What did that signify too? She’d considered him a bully when she was a child, and he’d confirmed as much. But she couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to discover about that boy. She knew his mother had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when he was still a baby, and that his father had been rigid and autocratic—according to Isabelle, who had met him several times—but why had Mel never considered that might have had some bearing on how Rene had behaved? Or the way he had gone totally off the rails as an nineteen-year-old, as soon as his father had died.
She grabbed the sunscreen she had left by the lounger before her morning snorkel and began to rub it on. The weather had been as idyllic as everything else here—a perfect twenty-six degrees, the sea breezes as invigorating as the tropical showers every afternoon—but her skin was still adapting to the sun after an Androvian winter.
It wasn’t the sun, though, that made her flesh prickle and hum, and her heart skip, when she spotted a lone figure running along the beach.
Rene .
Her heart did another clench and release, while her nipples tightened into peaks beneath the fabric of her bikini.
In running shoes, a loose vest and shorts, his hair damp and his muscles glistening with sweat in the morning sunshine he looked typically gorgeous. And overwhelming.
A hot rush of yearning pulsed in her abdomen, but instead of letting it scare her again she leapt to her feet and waved to attract his attention.
‘Rene!’
He glanced round and sent a brief wave back. But instead of running up the stone steps from the beach to join her on the pool terrace, as she had hoped, he continued running around the point, no doubt to one of the guest houses—because she knew from Marcia he hadn’t been sleeping in the main house.
Another big red flag which she had missed.
Rene was definitely avoiding her.
She grabbed the silk kimono on her lounger, found her sandals, then headed down the beach steps to follow him.
Time’s up, Rene.
They had seven more days at least before they could take a reliable pregnancy test. And, if nothing else, she wanted to finally know… everything . About the man as well as the boy. All the things she’d let ride or dismissed or allowed him to avoid answering. Didn’t she deserve that? Didn’t they both?
He had always fascinated her, but she’d stopped herself from looking deeper because of her own vulnerabilities—and the incessant yearning she had always struggled to control.
But it was way past time to stop hiding.
She was an adult now, they both were. And what if there had always been more to this relationship than just a physical craving? Things had shifted between them in the cabin. The connection they shared had deepened. But did that mean there could be more to their relationship than just sex?
It still terrified her to hope, to know she might be reading more into recent events—his decision not to sleep with another woman for four years, to stop drinking, to save her from the storm, then protect her from the fallout from those photos and the cruel headlines with the extreme decision to announce their engagement—than was actually there.
But she refused to be a coward any longer. If he didn’t care for her, could never love her, she wanted to know that so she could stop torturing herself with all the ‘what ifs’…
* * *
Once she arrived on the beach, though, he had disappeared. Luckily, the wet sand held the imprint of his tracks, past the rocks, towards the guest house at the furthest end of the estate. She followed his footprints, her determination to confront him building, along with that vague feeling of insecurity.
What if he’d been avoiding her because he was already bored with her?
What if he was angry about the possibility of a pregnancy, however slim?
It wasn’t until she got to the guest villa, artfully nestled in a grove of frangipani and hibiscus, the buds already giving off a sweet subtle fragrance, that the sound of running water hitting stone covered the lapping of the waves against the house’s private beach.
She stepped onto the veranda and followed the splashing sound to the back of the house, her heart stampeding into her throat. And all her erogenous zones.
Was he washing in the outdoor rainfall shower?
Her heart rammed into her larynx, making speech impossible, when she passed the corner of the house and spotted him, standing not ten feet away, with his back to her—his naked body glistening in the sunlight as water cascaded over the sculpted muscles and sinews.
Her gaze devoured the sight—tight glutes, strong back, impossibly broad shoulders, long legs roped with muscle and dusted with dark hair—as arousal barrelled through her system like a runaway train.
She couldn’t breathe. He was so incredibly beautiful, but as he stepped back, out of the water, to squeeze shampoo from the dispenser and began soaping his hair, the rivulets of water drained away from his skin and she noticed the scars, illuminated for the first time in the daylight.
Her heart throbbed painfully, threatening to block off her air supply, as the compassion she had worked so hard to suppress swelled.
The scars were all small—a nick here, a graze there, a mark that might be a burn—and would have seemed insignificant, but why were there so many of them? And why were they all in places where they would be unlikely to be seen? Across his buttocks, on the small of his back, under one shoulder blade.
She stood, unable to take her eyes from him, realising that whatever—or whoever—had caused these injuries, Rene had never led a charmed life as she had always assumed.
Perhaps they had been accidental, caused by the reckless life he had led in his late teens and early twenties, but whatever had caused those scars, he had kept the extent of the damage hidden from everyone, including her.
Suddenly, she felt sick with guilt, for judging him and never questioning the validity of all the things said about him in the press over the years. He was still frequently referred to as the ‘playboy prince’—but how could he be that man when he hadn’t slept with another woman, hadn’t even had an alcoholic drink in four years?
He finished rinsing his hair, then slapped one palm against the quartz tiles, while his other hand disappeared in front of him.
The fog of guilt and recriminations cleared in a rush, though, when his arm began to jerk in furious motion, and he groaned.
The wave of arousal slammed back into her at the realisation that he was pleasuring himself. And she gasped.
He glanced over his shoulder and his hot gaze fixed on her face.
‘Melody?’ he murmured, his eyes glazed with desire, his hand still wrapped around the turgid erection when he turned towards her.
Trapped, exposed and so in need of him, she stared back, a furious burst of compassion tangling with desperate yearning.
He straightened away from the wall, stroking the thick length, but his gaze remained locked on hers. Raw need drew tight in her abdomen and made her nipples swell and harden beneath the damp bikini.
He dipped his head. ‘Take it off,’ he said, his tone thick with desire, the command unmistakable…and undeniable. ‘I want to see you, too.’
She obeyed without question—in thrall not just to his need now but also her own.
The kimono slid off her shoulders and dropped to the deck, the silk rough against her oversensitive skin. But her fingers were shaking too hard to unhook the bikini bra. She heard his gruff chuckle, and embarrassment scorched her cheeks as she gave up trying.
Who was she kidding? She’d never been a seductress, had never even attempted to do a striptease for a man before now.
He crooked a finger. ‘Come here.’
She hesitated.
‘ Now , Melody, before I come get you,’ he said.
She did as he demanded, compelled to obey the urgent command. As he switched off the water and faced her, she couldn’t take her eyes from that thrusting erection, mesmerised by the length, the hardness, the girth, and the thought of having it lodged deep inside her again—branding her as his.
He tucked a knuckle under her chin when she reached him, his gaze aflame with heat when it met hers. ‘Turn around.’
She did as she was told. The bikini top snapped off and fell to the stone tiles. She covered her breasts instinctively, the weight swollen and heavy in her hands.
His arm wrapped around her waist to hold her steady as her knees weakened. The thick erection prodded her back as he devoured her neck with his mouth and his other hand delved into her bikini panties.
She sobbed, bucking against his hold, the touch too much, so much, as he found her clitoris and worked it ruthlessly.
She shot to peak, the orgasm brutal in its speed and intensity.
Hollowed out, floating in afterglow, she found herself scooped into his arms, her heart dangerously close to shattering too.
The guest bedroom, like hers in the main house, opened out onto the beach, the daylight dazzlingly bright. But when he dropped her onto the huge bed, then reached into the dresser, found a condom and ripped open the foil packet, it wasn’t the sunlight which left her dazed as the wave of afterglow cleared but the vicious yearning, not just for sex but for so much more.
‘Lose the panties,’ he demanded while rolling on the condom, his eyes fixed on her face.
She scrambled out of the bikini bottoms, everything inside her clenching and releasing, tensing and twisting with need, her heart most of all.
He cradled her hips, pulled up her knees to position her, then plunged deep in one ruthless, all-consuming thrust. Her body struggled to adjust—the too-stretched feeling overwhelming. But the frantic, furious strokes soon sent her soaring to another peak.
She clung to his shoulders, trying to control the rush of painful pleasure, the shattering weight of her heart pummelling her chest wall, even as her fingers slipped over damp flesh and touched the small scars.
He worked the spot he knew would trigger her orgasm with ruthless efficiency, the ragged pants of their breathing the only sound.
The pleasure built, twisting, torturing, tormenting, dragging her up, and forcing her over.
She cried out, flying free at last, but as he sank into her arms, his big body shuddering through his own vicious climax, weighing her down into the mattress, she held onto him and struggled to stop her heart from shattering too.