Trella understood how the PR game was played. She wouldn’t fault this move.
The warmth that had pinkened her cheeks drained away, though. Her expression stiffened. “Of course. And we both know how unimpeachable your sense of obligation is. Most of my packing is done. I only have to shower and change. Shall I send a nanny to take him? After you’ve had time to post some selfies, of course.”
He had set himself up for that, but it still landed on target. “I’ll keep him,” he said in a tone that let her know she was walking a fine line.
She flipped her wet hair and walked away.
* * *
Trella fell asleep on the flight so they were in Madrid before she was alone with Xavier again. Physically she was recovered, but Tyrol was so little he needed to feed often, even if that meant waking him. She was up several times a night so tended to nod off midday. But rather than dozing, she would have preferred to spend the time working through Xavier’s surprise appearance.
Optics? Really? It was incredibly insulting. Her entire family had been used a million times over to sell magazines and promote products, all without their consent. She was tempted to tell him what she thought of him, but part of her disbelieved him.
For a minute, as they’d stood by the pool, she’d thought—But, no. His carnal look had been gone once he’d picked up Tyrol. She had imagined it. What kind of wanton did it make her that she had responded to blatant lust, anyway?
She had responded, though. She had run to the shower to cool off, slowing the race of her pulse and willing away the thrumming awareness in her loins.
Fat lot of good it did. Flutters of intrigue were still playing like butterflies in her middle, gaze straying to the cut of his pants over his butt and the sculpted muscles beneath his shirt as he paced in front of her. She had missed him!
Tyrol finished nursing and was fast asleep so she unlatched him and handed him off to a nanny, then she struggled to put herself together behind the screen of a receiving blanket that didn’t want to stay in place.
Yes, I’m half-naked under here. Stop staring.
A flush of heat went through her. It was a lusty reaction that had simmered at merely sensual while she’d been feeling squat, scared and vulnerable in a hospital. Or when he’d been on the other side of the planet.
Now she was more confident on so many levels, but still unsure of herself with her husband. This was as bad as his ambush in Innsbruck when he’d left her with nowhere to hide.
“Ready?” he said, tucking away the phone he’d been tapping while she’d nursed.
“For?”
“I’ve been waiting to look around. I haven’t seen the house, either.”
“Oh. Um, sure.” The mansion was on a small estate in La Moraleja, farther out of the city from the historical home in the Salamanca neighborhood that had been in her mother’s family for generations. This house was built with old-world touches like columns and wrought iron rails, but it was very modern, perhaps only a few years old.
“Did you lease it? Or...?” Surely he hadn’t purchased something for a long weekend?
“It belongs to a friend. We studied architecture together. He showed me the plans a few years ago. I’m interested to see how it all came together.”
He waved for her to lead him from the lounge to a small dining area that was likely used for intimate lunches. The gallery that overlooked the main door was above them. A row of tall windows afforded a view of the landscaped grounds.
“I didn’t know you were interested in architecture.” She watched him take in the elevator, set in a convenient location, but made unobtrusive by disguising it with the rise of the stairs. Why did a bit of small talk make her so nervous?
“I’m an architect.”
“Really! What have you designed?”
“My chalet.” He bypassed the entrance to the kitchen and opened a door to the patio, inviting her to exit ahead of him.
“You did well. I liked it.” A wind had come up beneath the overcast skies, making her hug her arms and try to tuck her wayward hair behind her ears as they walked past flower pots that lined the covered pool.
He was looking sideways at her.
“I wasn’t trying to escape because I didn’t like the floor plan.”
He rolled his eyes, which made her smile, but self-consciousness stuck like a burr, prickly and sharp. It was strange to be with him again, in person, alone, without nurses or valets hovering. With sexual awareness sizzling within her.
“I’m serious,” she said, trying to hide her nervousness. “I know you don’t need my approval, but I thought it felt cozy despite the open plan. You obviously placed the windows very carefully. Each view was a well-framed photograph of the natural world—what?” she demanded as his look grew penetrating. “I’m an artist. I notice when care has been taken for a particular effect. Don’t you? Look at these stairs.”
She waved at the way they curved down from the upper terrace.
“Most people see convenience, but the placement balances the turret on the other side, which is probably the master bedroom, situated to overlook—” She turned to look across the expanse of grounds, charmed as she noticed the brook and the wooden bridge. “Oh, that’s lovely, isn’t it?”
“He wanted to put the master bedroom on this end,” Xavier said. “At the top of the stairs, closer to the pool. I suggested the turret and told him to curve the stairs.”
She pivoted to face him, watching his gaze track the upper terrace, profile dark with critique, but also...envy?
“What else have you designed?”
“Nothing. My attention is needed elsewhere.” He said it without emotion, but she felt the pang that he refused to betray.
“You’re frustrated.”
His lids came down so the heat of his gaze glowed fiercely behind the veil of his spiky lashes. “We’re talking about that, are we?” His attention dropped to her mouth.
Suddenly they were poolside again. Such a hard streak of sexual heat shot through her, it physically stung from the base of her throat, behind her breastbone, sank like a hot coal in the pit of her belly and radiated warmth into the juncture of her thighs. Her heart took off at a gallop while birds took flight in her midsection.
“I meant as an artist!” She blushed, embarrassed at how quickly and blatantly she reacted to a simple look.
His mouth deepened at the corners. He pushed his hands into his pockets. “There are many ways to apply form and function to the role I occupy. I don’t have to design something.”
“It’s not the same.” She was still flustered, stewing in heat and being confused by it. “I told you about the time I was depressed? It was because the medication made it impossible for me to create. The need was there, but when I sat down to draw or sew, it was like sending a bucket into an empty well. I wasn’t having panic attacks, but I didn’t see any point in being alive if I couldn’t...” She held up her hands.
“I’m not depressed.”
“But you’re denied.”
“So what?”
“It’s something you need.”
“It’s something I want. Desire can be ignored in favor of more important things.”
“We’re not talking about architecture, are we?” She let her hands fall and blinked, eyes watery from the wind. Or so she hoped he believed.
A long silence followed where only a distant wind chime rang.
“Are you really here because of optics?” It made her lungs feel heavy and raw.
He hissed out a long breath. “I came because I wanted to.” He set his teeth after he said it, as though absorbing some inner thought that displeased him, then said in a voice rife with subdued turmoil, “But we don’t get everything we want, bella. You know that as well as I do.”
He wasn’t mocking her. He was saying it with deep understanding of the things she would never have—a carefree childhood, another pregnancy. She choked up, wanting to ask if he had come because he’d wanted to be with her, but she was too scared of the answer.
So she only said, “Have you forgotten my name? You’re calling me bella.”
“It’s not an endearment. It’s who you are. It’s what you are.” The last bit sounded as though it came out against his will.
She wanted to believe him, but her misshapen heart was so very conscious of her flaws. Of the fact he had rebuffed her.
“I’ve never felt beautiful.” She toed a pebble. “I was the messy one, always grass-stained and needing my hair combed. After my kidnapping, the press called me ‘the fat one,’ because I comfort-ate. I starved myself in retaliation and cut my own hair and looked like a Goth for years, dark circles under my eyes, makeup smudged and face pale from not sleeping properly. It took ages after I got my panic attacks under control to look as healthy and happy as my sister.”
She squinted as she looked up, startled to find she had his full attention. That wasn’t pity in his expression, though. He was engrossed, which made a squiggling sensation tremble in the pit of her stomach.
“You asked me that night in Paris, remember? You asked if I was as beautiful as my sister. I thought it was funny to say yes because I was impersonating her. The only time I feel beautiful is when I look like her.” She knew better intellectually, but deep down, she still had a lot of demons.