Christmas at the Castello(13)

"Eventually, yes, I will."

Her fingernails dug into the leather seat rest at the nonchalant expression on his face. "What do you mean, eventually?"

He looked at her then, an expression of deadly intent in his eyes.  "I've taken a week off work. My friend Arthur Kent has offered us the  guest cottage on his private island."

"Why?" The question was delivered in a tone just short of shrill.

"Because," he drawled, "you and I are about to put our marriage back  together for the sake of this baby, Diana. It's just you, me, this  island and a whole lot of soul-searching to do."

Her breath jammed in her throat. "You can't be serious."

He sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "I've never been so serious about anything in my life."

That night at his apartment flashed through her head. The extreme  destruction they had wreaked together... How it'd felt as if he'd gutted  her as a hunter did a prime piece of kill...

She shook her head. "It will never work. Nothing about us works anymore, Coburn."

An emotion she couldn't read flickered in his eyes. "I think we proved  in creating this disaster that some things still do work."

Heat stained her cheeks. "Sexual compatibility does not make a relationship."

"But it is an integral part of it." He moved his gaze over her face,  raked it down over her body in a blatant perusal, then brought it back  up again. "If we have to build some kind of a foundation on my ability  to make you beg, so be it. We aren't leaving this island until we learn  how to communicate, sweetheart. If getting you off gets me into your  head, I won't hesitate to play that card."

Her nails dug harder into the leather. She had both hands on her seat  belt ready to pounce on him when the attendant came into the cabin to  check they were buckled up. She fell back into her seat, temples  pounding.

Coburn's gaze glittered. "Hang on to that emotion a little longer,  tiger. We're alone on the island until Thursday night. Soon you can let  it all out."

As if. She pressed her lips together mutinously. She might be having a  baby with him, but she was not spending the week on a deserted island  trying to put their marriage back together. Or sleeping with him again.  Definitely not that.

The first thing she was going to do when they stepped off the plane and  she was alone was call her father and get him to charter a plane to  come get her.         

     



 

Except it was the middle of the night when they touched down on the  runway. A waiting car and driver drove them to a dock on the edge of the  palm tree-strewn island, and there they transferred to a boat. She took  in the inky dark sea that loomed around them as they zoomed across it  toward a tiny island ahead that glimmered with a handful of lights.

They were in the middle of nowhere. Literally. Panic settled into her bones, deep and jarring.

When they reached the shore, she stepped out into the steamy night air  that carried the scent of a dozen tropical flowers and the salt of the  sea. There was only a canopy of palm trees fronting a lush forest. She  couldn't see anything beyond.

Coburn ushered her into the Jeep SUV waiting for them, then slid in  beside her. The road they traveled was a narrow, bumpy passageway. She  closed her eyes against the nausea that rose in her throat from too much  motion. Too much emotion. Fatigue overtook her again. She fought it,  but it'd been as if she'd had a sleeping sickness since she'd gotten  pregnant, and she hadn't slept well in Africa.

"Sleep," Coburn instructed beside her. "We've got a good twenty-minute ride across the island."

More to avoid him, she rested her head back against the seat and let  her eyes close. She would call her father in the morning. Then the  cavalry would be on its way.





  CHAPTER SEVEN

DIANA AWOKE TO brilliant sunshine, a pure, magnetic version of it that  reflected off the turquoise sea in a blinding display of light that cast  everything in a warm, resonant glow. She would have lain there,  reveling in it, had the thought of exactly where she was not flashed  through her head at that precise moment. And whom she was with.

A fuzzy memory of Coburn carrying her in from the car, half-asleep, and  up to this room followed it. She had woken only long enough to ensure  herself he was sleeping somewhere else before she'd buried her face in  the lavender-scented sheets and surrendered again to unconsciousness.

She flicked her gaze to the door. She needed to get out of here.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she reached for the short  robe draped over the back of a chair and pulled it on. With barely a  glance at the beautiful nautically themed room with its huge canopied  four-poster bed and multiple views across the sparkling sea, she found  her purse on a chair near the window and rummaged through it for her  phone. Rummaged some more. Frowned. She had definitely put it in there  when they'd left Africa. It was the one thing she wouldn't leave behind.

Coburn. Heat, the combustible kind, spread through her like wildfire.  Yanking the door to her room open, she flew down the hallway to the  other bedrooms in search of her target. But they were all empty,  including the one Coburn had commandeered. Spinning around, she left the  room and went down the stairs two by two to the living room. The  beautiful airy space that overlooked the sea was empty. So was the  magnificent library with its ten-foot-high built-in bookcases and scads  of priceless old volumes lining them. She turned on her heel and walked  toward the kitchen, the only place she hadn't checked. It was empty,  too. If she knew Coburn, he was out for a ten-mile jog or taming the  water with some sort of boat or machine.

Combing the kitchen, she searched for a phone. When she didn't find one  there she went back to the library. It didn't have one, either. What  kind of a house didn't have phones? Had Coburn gotten rid of them along  with her cell phone?

Her heart slammed into her chest. She could not be kidnapped on a  private island. She could not. She spied Coburn's laptop on the desk.  Pouncing on it, she tried to log on, but it was password protected. A  curse escaped her lips. Really?

She went back to the kitchen, looking for something, anything that  would tell her where she was. She was rifling through drawers when  Coburn strolled lazily into the kitchen in shorts and a T-shirt soaked  with perspiration. She froze, hand in the drawer.

"Looking for something?"

She pulled her hand out of the drawer, closed it and leaned against the  counter. "My phone, actually. You wouldn't happen to know where it is?"         

     



 

"I took it," he responded casually. Conversationally. "You can't have it."

Her blood boiled in her veins. She pushed away from the counter and  crossed the kitchen to stand in front of him, her body vibrating with  fury. "Give me my phone."

"No. We are here to work through our issues, Diana. I'll not have you calling Daddy so you can orchestrate a rescue."

"That would be difficult when I don't know where I am."

"Double insurance."

She looked at him in disbelief. "You can't keep me here like this. Kidnapping is a crime."

His mouth curved. "You are my wife. That would be kind of hard to  prove." He waved a hand at her as if she was a six-year-old in need of  diversion. "Why don't you go put on a bathing suit and come for a swim?  The sea's like bathwater."

Her boiling blood heated to a ferocious roll. He was holding her here  against her will, had taken her phone and now he wanted her to go  swimming with him? Was he insane? She flew at him, her fingernails  poised to inflict maximum damage. He caught her easily, his fingers  manacling around her forearms. "I take it that's a no?"

She struggled against his grip. "You can't do this. Let me call my  father right now and I will consider giving you partial custody of this  child by not siccing the police on you for kidnapping."

He tightened his fingers around her wrists, his blue gaze ice-cold as  it rested on her face. "You left me no choice, Di. You walked away from  me without telling me we were having a baby. If I take you back to New  York you will disappear again and I will be talking to you through our  lawyers. And since I intend for us to make this marriage work for the  sake of our child, that is not happening. We are hashing this out right  now, this inability to coexist together."

"In a week? I understand you are angry. I understand we have things to  work out with regards to this baby, but I am not staying married to you,  Coburn."

"Why?" His gaze lashed her face, all belligerent testosterone. "Don't  you think it's better for our baby to grow up with both parents?"

"If we didn't hate each other, yes."

His gaze narrowed. "We have a lot of emotions in the mix right now, but hatred isn't one of them."

She wasn't sure what to call it, but whatever it was, it wasn't a good  basis for a marriage. "We can't make this work. We've proved that."