Bound by the Millionaire's Ring(30)

She poured herself a glass of cordial, stripped naked next to the pool  and waded down the steps. As the water lapped at her knees, then her  thighs, she sat-as she did every evening-and let the agony she ignored  all day overtake her.

Because this beautiful life did not make her happy. She missed Ramon. So  badly. The tears coming out of her eyes were drawn directly from her  heart, squeezed out with each clenched beat.

With her elbows sitting in the water, braced on her submerged thighs,  she let her tears run through her fingertips, certain she was what  filled this pool every day, not the underground spring her attendant  claimed.

And when she heard a footstep, and flung up her head, mortified to have  her attendant catch her like this, she was even more appalled to see a  man. The man who had reduced her to this.

She cupped some water, splashed her face to clear her eyes and, yes,  Ramon still stood there in a pair of his scrupulously tailored pants.  His crisp button shirt was open at the throat and strained across his  chest as he set his hands on his hips.

She couldn't meet his eyes. She ducked her head, crossed her arms across  her front and drew her feet up a step. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting my sister," he said flatly.

"Wrong room."

"I've been worried about you."

"I don't want to talk to you, Ramon. Not like this. Let me get dressed."         

     



 

In her line of vision, she saw him toe off his shoes, then his pants  skimmed down and landed in a ball of charcoal, quickly topped by navy  colored shorts and a pair of black socks.

She clenched her eyes shut, not watching the rest. "What are you doing?"

"You sounded uncomfortable that you were naked and I was clothed." The water rippled and he sighed. "This is nice."

"You are such an impossible man." She hid her face behind her hands,  huddling to protect her nudity, still feeling teary, but for an entirely  different reason. Some horribly sick part of her wanted to hope, but it  was so futile. "They have pools elsewhere, you know. With your  connections, I'm sure you could get your own right here in the palace."

"I spoke to your father. He sounds well."

Her parents were muddling along, waiting until her father was fully  recovered to plan their wedding. They weren't yet falling apart, but it  was early days. She wouldn't get her hopes up any more than she would  with Ramon. Why was he here?

"Isidora. Look at me."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you'll talk me in to whatever stupid thing you want me to do  and I refuse, okay? You have come to the well once too often."

The water swished and she mentally pictured his strapping form gliding  toward her. Her pulse tripped. Water swayed against her, licking  sensually, teasing her into wanting to open her eyes.

"Ask me why I spoke to your father." His voice was at the far end of the pool.

"No."

"No matter what I ask of you, you're going to say no? Is that what I'm hearing?"

"That sounds like a trick question. I refuse to answer."

"The trouble with an intelligent woman," he muttered.

"Better than being a stupid one."

"Do you feel stupid for loving me?"

Present tense, like he knew how deeply she had fallen for him. Fresh tears pressed the backs of her aching eyes.

"No." She finally lifted her head and opened her eyes.

He had his arms outstretched against the pool's edge, shoulders  gleaming, hair wet, cheeks stubbled and rugged. The desert sky was  fading to mauve and the pinprick strings of white lights that wound  through the trees were coming on.

It was magic, pure magic.

Not real.

A line of fire stretched from the back of her throat to spread burning  fingers around the walls of her heart. "But I would be stupid to let you  take advantage of my love again. I won't, Ramon."

"I want you to marry me, Isidora."

"That's-" Cruel. "Why? What happened? Never mind. I don't want to know. No, Ramon." She started to rise.

He pushed off from the end, striking through the water like a crocodile,  barely giving her time to react beyond pressing backward into the hard  edge of the step behind her before he was right there, eye-to-eye, arms  caging her, water sluicing a pattern down his chest hair between them.

"Why not?"

"Because I won't go through that again." She put up a hand to ward him  off, but he eased onto one elbow, then another, so he bracketed her very  tightly, practically nose-to-nose.

"We're good together."

"Sexually? You can get that anywhere."

He sizzled with temper as he pierced her with a hot, green stare. "No. I can't. It's different when you love someone."

Her heart flipped and tumbled, creating such a jumble of emotions in her  that she pressed his shoulder, silently begging for space to assess and  understand. To keep her head so she wouldn't follow her foolish heart  into believing the impossible.

"Don't-don't say that. You don't even know me. You don't-"

"I know you." So askance.

"You know what I like in bed." She couldn't say it without her stupid  voice creaking and, yes, she was starkly aware they were naked. Why the  heck was he doing this to her like this, keeping her off-kilter and  completely defenseless? She was half seduced by his nearness alone and  refused to look down, even though she was quite sure she knew what that  firm shape was that was nudging her thigh.

"You-" She cleared her throat and kept her hand firmly on his shoulder,  holding him off. "You know that you can talk me in to anything. You  don't want a wife. You want a PA who puts out."

His expression edged toward thunderous. "Is this you demonstrating how  well you know me? Because I'm beginning to doubt your love."

She narrowed her eyes. Her love had been born so long ago, it was celebrating double-digit birthdays.

The corners of his mouth curled, which almost scored another hit, but  then he said gently, "That won't do, will it? The absolute worst thing I  could do to you is underestimate how much you care for me, isn't it?  You see? I do know you."         

     



 

He moved backward, but somehow he gathered her off the step and pulled  her with him. She instinctively clung, expecting to sink, but his hard,  warm body kept her afloat.

"I know that when you eat, you start with the vegetables. You eat as  much of what's good for you as you think you have to, then switch to  what you really want before you get too full and abandon what's left.  You're always trying to find the balance between what you think you  should do against not cheating yourself. Which is why you became my  lover. It's also why you walked away when the cost became too high."

She wriggled, trying to find her feet, but he was in control, tapping a  side wall so they gently rotated back to the steps. A moment later, he  settled on a stair low enough to submerge them to their shoulders, and  gathered her into his lap.

She kept herself sitting up straight, perched on his thighs, trying to ignore the light play of his fingertips against her hip.

"It's why you're holding me off right now, even though I would bet my  fortune that you are as physically ready to make love as I am." A slight  shift let her drift in to feel his hard flesh against her buttock.

She gasped and tried to angle herself away.

Even though he was hideously correct. A secretive throb was pulsing  between her thighs and she had to fight the urge to let her arms twine  around him, to let their lips meet and their bodies rub, and deal with  the reality of such foolishness in the morning.

His expression sobered. "I also know you have a capacity for forgiveness  that scares me, because I know you're going to be hurt-by me, by your  parents, by some other person who I'll want to kill for treating you  carelessly... I can't prevent it, though, because you lead with your  heart. You'll always put yourself out there, trying to save the world  one bolstering hug at a time. Emotional pain doesn't scare you. Hurting  people, letting them down, scares you. Why is that?"

She looked down, shocked by that. Profoundly shaken.

"Was it because your mother was so easily hurt? Because you saw how  traumatized Trella was? How broken we all were, and you had to do what  you could? That sounds like you, doesn't it?" His thumb kept up that  lazy pattern against her upper thigh. "Generous. So easy to love."

"Ramon," she protested weakly, closing her eyes to hold the burn inside her lids.

"Why else would I have gone to such lengths to push you away? Hmm? I was  half in love with you, scared to death. I didn't want to love you. No,  don't let that hurt. Listen."

He pulled her close even as her face contorted and she tried to press away, trying to turn from the anguish.

"Listen to me," he said, mouth against her temple, arms strong around  her cringing body, holding her together as the seismic shifts he was  sending through her threatened to crumble her apart. "I didn't want to  add to my list of people to worry about and fear for. I didn't want to  put a woman at risk by giving her my name. How could I ask anyone to  make children with me so we could fear for them? All of that scares the  hell out of me, Isidora. But my love for you is bigger than that."