Chapter Sixteen
An almost inaudible groan escaped Enrique, but he yanked his gaze away from Gabriela.
After he had finished eating, he flopped down on his belly, his head resting in the crook of his elbow, his powerful legs splayed.
His golden skin was covered in water droplets, clinging and sliding.
The sight made the strawberry taste like dust.
Gabriela realized that he could do to her, effortlessly, what she had needed a strawberry to do to him!
She lay down on her tummy on the blanket beside him, her head turned toward him.
They weren’t quite touching, but so close she could see the water beaded in the thickness of his lashes, and feel the puff of his breath on her wet skin.
She looked at his lips, and thought of the taste of them, yearned for it.
His lips had been better than that strawberry by a long shot!
But, he had chosen to be the sensible one, and really she should be nothing but grateful for his discipline and wisdom.
Still, she had to close her eyes hastily against the visual temptation of him.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Of course.” But there was trepidation in his voice, as if he feared she might ask why he had not resumed kissing.
“It’s a funny question.”
“The best kind,” he said, but he still sounded faintly wary.
“Who buys your underwear?”
She opened her eyes. He looked into her gaze, genuinely shocked.
“What?”
She closed her eyes again. “Well, obviously you can’t run down to Bella’s Department Store and rummage through the bins yourself.”
“Gabriela, I have absolutely no idea who buys what.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“So, you just open your bureau drawer and it’s magically stocked with everything you need?”
“That about sums it up, yes.”
“You don’t even know if it’s a woman or a man picking out your personal items?”
“For God’s sake, Gabby!”
He hadn’t called her Gabby since they were kids. She felt like a cat stretching upward toward a comforting scratch from familiar hands.
She liked it that he was off-balance; the legendary composure that had allowed him to break off that kiss seemed to be on very shaky ground.
“The reason I ask,” she said huskily, “is that they’re very sexy.”
She opened her eyes again. He was looking at her with extraordinary intensity.
“Who buys yours?” he asked huskily.
“Me, of course!”
“Because they’re very sexy, too.”
And here they were, a man and a woman, back at the point he had just backed away from, a man and a woman alone on a beach and feeling as if they were alone in the entire universe.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said, his voice raw with surrender. “I don’t know how we could have lost everything we once were to each other. But I don’t blame you for not answering my calls, after you told me about my mother interfering in your life.”
Something went very still inside her.
“What?” she said. “Not answering what calls?”
He frowned at her. “When I got home from school, the year you left. I must have left a hundred messages for you.”
“I never got a single one.”
“But it was your voice on the message.”
“How could it have been?”
But suddenly, she had a vague memory of one of the Queen’s staffers calling her to his office and giving her an answering machine as she was packing, getting ready to leave. He said because of the time differences, the Queen never wanted her to miss a call from her family.
Gabriela had actually been touched that the Queen understood how lonely she was going to be so far from home.
The staffer had showed her how to use it, and insisted that she “practice” making a recording. But had he given it to her? No, she remembered, he had said it would be shipped later, as an electronic device might flag her through customs.
She’d gotten to the US and received not the machine but a gift card saying that the original machine would not be used with American electrical outlets, which was true!
How naive she had been. And what extraordinary measures Queen Katalina had gone to sever the relationship between Gabriela and Enrique.
“You never got my letters, either,” she said, flatly.
“Your letters?”
“I wrote you for the longest time. Until I realized you weren’t going to answer.”
He took that in, drew in a deep breath and tried, not entirely successfully, to mask his anger.
“Once again, I find myself having to apologize for my family.”
He reached out and touched the wetness of her hair. Though there had been lots of physical contact as they played tag, this was different, a reopening of a door that she was pretty sure he thought he had shut. And certainly that his mother had thought was shut all those years ago.
She touched his chest, laid her palm flat against the warm, water-encrusted silk of his skin. Below the skin, she could feel the sinewy strength of him.
He leaned closer to her.
But this time, it was Gabriela who found the strength to pull away. She just wasn’t sure she had the fortitude to go down this path, only to be rejected again, only to find there were powers that be intent on keeping them apart.
Her head felt as if it was swimming with so many conflicting emotions: anger, betrayal, hope, elation.
And, even with all that, a desire to know him, in this deeper, more adult way, a desire to understand how his deep sorrows had changed him and become a part of him. Really, it seemed as if that should have come before the kiss they had just shared, and the one he was now inviting.
“Enrique, how are you still standing after the loss of Amelia, and your baby?”
He was startled by the question, but then he ran a hand through his still-wet hair and drew in a deep breath.
When he looked at her, she saw unmistakable relief in his dark eyes.
She realized he’d had no one to talk to, no one to take his heartaches to.
While it had seemed as if the world grieved with him, the fact was Enrique had carried the burden of his terrible loss alone.
And so he told her. He spoke of Amelia only with the deepest respect, even as he acknowledged he and his wife had been virtual strangers trying to navigate the intimacies of the situation they found themselves in, to the best of their ability.
Amelia had given up her home and the secret love of her life to fulfill her royal obligations to her family and her island.
“I know she tried to overcome it, but she had understandable resentment, and that came across as a certain coldness toward me, and an immersion in Marcello.
“But in our last year together, I felt we had turned a corner. We had genuine respect for each other, and enjoyed each other’s company. She began to love the island, and became involved in some very important local charities.
“It was Amelia who wanted the second child, and by wanting that, it felt as if, for the first time, she was embracing, not just life here, but me. There was a kind of hopefulness in both of us as we looked forward to her arrival, and some kind of new beginning between us.
“I remember Amelia showing me this tiny little dress she’d found, and me touching it, and something in my heart opening like a flower that had needed water and sun.
“It was the dress we buried her in.” His voice cracked, and Gabriela’s hand found his and held it. Tight.
She was not sure she had ever felt so honored by a confidence, as if some hidden part of Enrique—his vulnerability—had been laid before her.
The silence between them was long, but comfortable.
And then he said, his voice still hoarse with emotion, “That’s enough about me. I want to hear about you.”
And so she told him. About life in New York and her surprising affinity toward marketing, and finally, about Timothy and her broken engagement. “I think it’s time to go get Cello,” she said, a bit later, startled by how fast time had gone by.
As they pulled their clothes on over their underwear that had partially dried in the sun, but were still wet enough for the damp to seep through, she was aware of something different between them.
Something more mature, and deeper than it had ever been before. It was a feeling of finding a part of your heart that you did not know had been missing.
When Marcello tumbled out of Henri’s house, holding a balloon and a bag of party favors in his hand, it felt as if even her affection for him had been deepened by Enrique’s revelations.
“My present was Henri’s favorite,” he said. “Guess what we had?”
“What?” Enrique asked, his eyes settling on his son in the rearview mirror.
“Hot dogs! They are the best thing I ever tasted.”
“Are they?” Enrique said.
Gabriela shot him a look. “You haven’t had a hot dog?”
“Sorry. I keep trying to tell you I’ve led a sheltered life.”
“Have you, Gabriela?” Marcello asked.
“Oh, they sustain life in New York City. You can buy them at stands on practically every street corner.”
Marcello contemplated that as if he had just heard that heaven really did exist.
She felt as if she had made the same discovery when Enrique’s lips had beckoned to hers, when she had tasted him.
But once you had tasted heaven, how did you ever stop yearning for it?
By the time they pulled back up at the Olivera cottage, Marcello was fast asleep. Enrique got him from the back seat, and stood, for a moment, looking at her.
So much in his eyes, the same overload of confused feelings that she herself was experiencing. Regret. Hope.
And most dangerous of all. Hunger.
She passed him the Lido’s bag with the books in it.
“What’s this?”
“A little gift for you and Marcello.”
“As if you haven’t given us enough, already. Thank you for today,” he said huskily.
It was there between them, like magnets being pulled together. He wanted to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him.
Instead, he turned and went to the vehicle behind them. One of the security men held open the door for him, obviously relieved that things were back under control.
But were they?