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She plunged her fingers into his hair and worshipped him with her lips, peppering kisses across his cheek, his chin, and the cruel scar on his forehead.
All they needed was quality time together, for him to see what she saw, for him to believe in what they could have together. And surely there couldn’t be a better way to pass that time than exploring and exploiting the wild rush which had brought them together in the first place?
* * *
Much, much later, she sat on his lap, naked but for the silk kimono as the sea breeze rippled over beard-roughened skin and he fed her titbits from their dinner table in the moonlight.
This is enough for now, her heart whispered, even as the burst of afterglow turned into the bright, scary bloom of intense emotion.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘WHEN EXACTLY AREyou two planning to do the test, Rene? Because we want to make sure we’re still ahead of the story if Miss Taylor turns out to be carrying your heir.’
Rene frowned at the computer screen, and the pragmatic look on his PR manager’s face on Teams. He’d known Jack Kendall since college, so they didn’t tend to stand on ceremony. But right now, he wished the guy wasn’t quite so damn blunt.
Rene shrugged. ‘I guess we can do it tomorrow morning,’ he offered, ‘without risking a false negative result.’
He’d been prevaricating for days now. Because he knew, whatever the result, once they had done the test, their time in Mermaid Cay would be over. They couldn’t stay here indefinitely, however much he might want to.
But he’d also been holding off because Melody hadn’t pushed. And somehow that bothered him more.
He’d set the parameters he’d needed to set a week ago and she’d seemed happy with that. But as each day passed—while they spent the hours snorkelling, swimming, taking lazy lunches by the pool and sitting out each night on the terrace to devour another of Jevon’s meals in between bouts of devouring each other—he could sense how dependent he was becoming on having her not just in his bed but also in his life.
Her forthright, open nature and her sharp wit had made it impossible for him to fob her off with the irresponsible playboy persona he had cultivated over the years for everyone else, even with Jack on occasion. She took him and his work seriously. And had figured out exactly how much he wanted his country to succeed, and that he cared deeply about his subjects and his responsibilities. She’d even taken to giving him advice on how to handle the official duties he had always considered himself so unsuitable for, thanks to his father’s bullying. In fact, her emotional intelligence and her astute understanding of the pressures and duty of monarchy had finally made him realise why Isabelle had hired her in the first place.
Like an arrogant, entitled ass he’d always assumed the Androvian Queen had simply wanted a companion, and had generously given her best friend the job. But he understood now, Melody had always had the sort of skills which would make her a major asset to Isabelle and her monarchy. And also, he thought now, as a consort to Saltzaland’s ruling Prince.
Of course, they hadn’t spoken about the possibility of marriage—because Melody seemed convinced that she wasn’t pregnant. The problem was, he was becoming certain, after spending the last week with her, that he would want to marry her now even if she wasn’t carrying his child.
He’d spent so much of his life hiding all his flaws and weaknesses, and the ugly truth about his relationship with his father, behind a mask of cynicism and indifference. But he hadn’t realised how lonely his life had been until this week. Until he had someone who understood him, who could see all those flaws and weaknesses, who knew about the darkness in his past and still had faith in his abilities.
But how the hell did he tell Mel he wanted to marry her, without exposing himself more? Or worse, exploiting the soft light he saw in her eyes now every time she looked at him? He knew enough about Mel—her strength of character, her courage and empathy—to know she would want him to love her before she would agree to marry him, whether she was pregnant or not.
But to him, love had always been just a word that people used to compel obedience or to expose vulnerabilities—after all, hadn’t his father pretended to love him while ‘disciplining’ him so harshly for every minor infraction?
He admired Melody, he enjoyed her company—she excited him and challenged him and delighted him, in bed as well as out—and he wanted to be able to protect her, but he could never love her. Not the way she probably wanted to be loved—fully and without compromise.
He was already in too deep to pull out. Enough that marriage seemed like a good compromise when it never would have before. But how did he get her to let go of all her romantic dreams without destroying her spirit and her confidence, the way he had several times before?
‘That’s great. Get in touch with the result as soon as you have it.’ Jack perked up. ‘Let me know how you want to proceed, then we can figure out how best to spin the result either way,’ he continued, making Rene’s head start to hurt. Jack had always been a shark when it came to creating narratives that would ensure Rene’s screw-ups—and his steadfast refusal to engage with the press—didn’t rebound on Saltzaland. That was why he’d hired the guy when they’d both graduated. But he was beginning to see the drawback with Jack’s methods now, because he was talking about Melody like a commodity instead of a person, the cold calculation in his expression repulsive.
‘The engagement announcement was a stroke of genius, by the way,’ Jack added. ‘You were right about that, and I was wrong. It’s worked a treat to switch the public perception of those photos from sleazy to romantic,’ he continued, his crude reasoning threatening Rene’s gag reflex.
The engagement announcement had been made on the spur of the moment to protect Melody from the fallout from those photos—and because he’d felt hideously guilty about the events of that first night when he had finally remembered all the details.
It had never been intended as a ploy, though, to push a favourable narrative for the Saltzaland monarchy.
‘All the press can talk about now is your whirlwind snowbound romance, and where the hell you are. FYI, looks like the press may have guessed you’re in the Caribbean, so probably best to clear out of the love shack in the next couple of days and return to Europe.’
Rene tensed. ‘Jack, I’m not enjoying the sarcasm,’ he said stiffly.
Jack simply laughed, not used to Rene taking exception to his caustic comments about his personal life. Probably because Rene had never taken his personal life that seriously either until now.
‘The point is, we don’t want an accidental pregnancy messing with the “true lurve” narrative,’ Jack said, doing sarcastic air quotes. ‘So, if you did hit the jackpot we should probably hold off on the news until we’ve set a wedding date. And got lots of shots of you two looking cute together. We don’t want the press thinking this is a shotgun wedding, ’cos that would be bad.’
Rene’s temper kicked in. What the hell? Did Jack think he intended to turn his own marriage into a publicity stunt?
‘Whatever,’ he snarled, needing to end the conversation before he lost what was left of his cool with the guy. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow,’ he said and clicked the ‘leave meeting’ button.