“Okay,” a voice announced over Serafia’s shoulder. “I have met your requirements.”
She turned to find Gabriel standing behind her. She’d been expecting his arrival. It had been nearly two hours since she sent him out onto the dance floor with Helena Ruiz. He had danced with her and at least five other ladies Serafina had chosen for him. Her inner spiteful streak had led her not to choose Dita as one of the dance partners. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was because she knew the Gomezes were disingenuous, or if it was because the idea of him dancing and potentially falling for the statuesque beauty made her blood boil.
“You have,” she said with a pleased smile. “You’ve more than met them. You’ve exceeded them. Well done, Your Majesty. Any pique your interest?”
Gabriel arched an eyebrow at her and held out his hand. “Join me on the dance floor and I’ll tell you.”
There were quite a few pairs dancing now, so the two of them would not stand out as much as they would have earlier. Deciding there was no harm in it—and she had promised—she took his hand and followed him out into the center of the dance floor.
Gabriel slipped his arm around her waist and cupped her hand with his own. For the first twenty seconds or so of the dance, she found she could hardly breathe. Her bare skin sizzled where they touched, and her heart was racing in her chest. Fortunately Gabriel was a strong lead and she didn’t have to think too much about her feet. She simply followed him across the floor and focused internally on suppressing the physical reaction she had to his touch.
“So, find any chemistry out on the dance floor?” she asked, desperate for a distraction.
“Not until now,” he said, his green gaze burrowing into her own.
“Gabriel,” she scolded, but he shook his head as though he wasn’t having any of that.
“Don’t start. I’ve had enough of the reasons why I can’t have what I want. I don’t really care. All I know is that I want you.”
The power of his words struck her like a wave and she struggled to argue against it. “No, you don’t.”
“Are you honestly going to stand there and tell me you know my feelings better than I do?”
She shook her head, focusing her gaze on the golden ropes at his shoulder instead of the intensity in his eyes. “You might want me for tonight, for one of your one-night flings, but not for your queen.”
“Do we have to decide what it will be tonight?”
If she had to decide in the moment, she would say no. She was wrapped up in the sensation of being so close to him. Her body was rebelling against her, desiring him desperately even as she argued against the very idea of it. “You aren’t in Miami anymore, Gabriel. Every eye in the room is on you tonight. This feeling for me will pass and then you can focus on making a smart decision about your future. A future without me.”
“Serafia, you are beautiful. You’re the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen in real life or on a magazine cover. You’re graceful, elegant, thoughtful, smart and incredibly insightful. I don’t know why you find it so hard to believe that I could want you so desperately.”
Desperately? Her gaze met his, her lips parting softly in surprise. His words were said with such sincerity, but she simply didn’t believe a single one. She was too aware of her own faults to do that. She’d spent too many years having every aspect of her appearance ripped apart by modeling experts, their voices far louder than any of her fans’ praises. And even if he could see past all her imperfections, he didn’t know how broken she was. The truth of her past would send any man running. “You don’t want me, Gabriel. You want your teenage fantasy from ten years ago. That person doesn’t exist anymore.”
She pulled away from his grasp as the music ended and made her way through the crowd of people coming on and off the dance floor. Spying a set of French doors, she opened them and slipped outside into the large courtyard of the Rowling mansion. She kept going, following a path into the gardens. It was landscaped like the formal English gardens of Patrick’s homeland, so she continued on a gravel path along a long line of neatly trimmed shrubs until she came upon a clearing and a circular fountain.
She collapsed onto the stone ledge of the fountain and took a deep breath. She felt much calmer out here, away from the crush of people in the ballroom, but the sense of relief didn’t last long. Not a minute later, she heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel and spied Gabriel coming toward her on the garden path.
He approached silently and sat on the edge of the fountain beside her. She expected him to immediately give her the third degree for running out on him. It was incredibly rude, after all, and she kept forgetting he was the king. People were probably inside talking about her hasty departure.
But Gabriel didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He seemed to enjoy the garden as well, taking a deep breath and gazing up at the blanket of stars overhead. She did the same, relaxing as she tried to identify different constellations. Looking at the stars always made her problems seem less important, less significant. The universe was a big place.
When he finally got around to speaking, Serafia was ready to answer his questions. She was tired of hiding her illness, anyway. She might as well put it all out there, warts and all. It would likely put an end to their pointless flirtation and she could stop torturing herself with possibilities that didn’t really exist.
“What was that all about in there? Really? Why is it so impossible that I would want you as you are, right now?”
“It’s impossible for me to believe it because I know how seriously messed up I am, Gabriel. The truth is that I don’t have a congenital heart defect and I didn’t spend a year having surgeries to correct it.”
Gabriel frowned at her. “Well, then, what really happened to you?”
Serafia sighed and shook her head. “No one knows the truth but my family and my doctors. My parents thought it would be easier for me if we told everyone the cover story, but that was all a lie. I had a heart attack on that runway because I had slowly and systematically tried to kill myself to be beautiful. The modeling industry is so high pressure and I couldn’t stand up to it. I swallowed the lies they told me along with the prescription diet pills. I barely ate. I exercised six to eight hours a day. I abused cocaine, laxatives...anything that I thought would give me an edge and help me drop those last few pounds. My quest to be thinner, to be prettier, almost made me a very attractive corpse.”
She was terrified to say the words aloud, but at the same time, it felt as if a weight was lifted from her chest. “The day I collapsed on the runway, I was five foot nine and ninety-three pounds. I was nothing but a walking skeleton and I received more compliments that morning than I ever had before. After I collapsed, I knew I had to leave the modeling industry because the environment was just too toxic. I had to spend a year in rehab and inpatient therapy for anorexia. I had to be completely reprogrammed, like I’d left some kind of cult.”
Gabriel didn’t recoil or react to her words. He just listened until she got it all out. “Are you better now?” he asked.
That was a difficult question to answer. Like an alcoholic, the danger of falling off the wagon was always there. “I’ve learned to manage. I’ve put so much strain on my heart that my day-to-day life is a very delicate balancing act. But for the most part, yes, the worst of it is behind me.”
He sat studying her face for a few minutes. “I can’t believe anyone had the audacity to tell you that you were anything but flawless. I mean, you’re Serafia—supermodel extraordinaire, catwalk goddess and record holder for most Vogue Italia covers.”
Once again, she started to squirm under his praise. “When you say things like that, Gabriel, it’s really difficult for me to listen and even harder for me to accept. I was told for so long that I was fat and ugly and would never make it in the business. Even when I made it to the top, there’s always someone there to try and knock you down. The modeling industry can be so venomous. You’re never thin enough, pretty enough, talented enough, and both your competition and your customers feed you those criticisms every day. You believe something after you hear it enough times. Even all these years later, after all the therapy, there’s a part of me that still believes that and thinks everything you’re saying is just insincere flattery.”
Gabriel reached out and covered her hand with his own. It was comforting and she was thankful for it, even as it surprised her. She expected him to finally see her flaws and run, but he didn’t.
“It might be flattery, Serafia, but it’s true. Every word. If I have to say it each day until you finally believe it, I will. I know how hard it can be to trust someone once that faith is abused. Once it’s lost, it’s almost impossible to get back, but I want to help you try.”
There was a pain in his expression as he spoke. The lines deepened in his forehead with his frown. She knew something had happened to him in South America. Perhaps now, perhaps here, after she’d told her story, he might finally tell her his. “How do you know? What happened to you, Gabriel?”
With a sigh, he sat back and looked up at the sliver of a moon overhead. “I was fresh from college and my father named me VP of South American Operations. As part of my job, I had to travel to our various shipping and trade ports in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Chile. Dealing with Venezuela was controversial, but my father had decided that the country had oil and needed it shipped. Why shouldn’t we profit from it instead of someone else?
“I saved Caracas for my last stop and things had gone so well in the other locations that I wasn’t wary any longer by the time I arrived in Venezuela. I went down there and spent a few days getting acclimated and met with the team there. One evening, my guide and translator, Raoul, offered to take me out for an authentic Venezuelan dinner. The moment we stepped outside, a van pulled up by the curb. Raoul hit me on the back of the head with something and I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was lying on a stinky, lumpy mattress in a cold, dark room with no windows. My wrists and ankles were tied with thick rope.”
Serafia could barely believe what she was being told. How had she never heard about this before? She wanted to ask, but she didn’t dare interrupt.
“When my captor finally showed up a few hours later, he told me that I was being held for ransom and as soon as my family paid them, I’d be released.”
“Did they pay them?” she asked.
He avoided her gaze, swallowing hard before he spoke. “No. I was in that underground room in virtual darkness for over a week. Every day the guy would come down and bring me a jug of water and some food, but that was it. After about the sixth day alone with my thoughts, and with constant taunts from my captor that my family hadn’t paid the ransom yet and must not care if I lived or died, I came to the conclusion that if I wanted out of this place, I’d have to save myself. And I decided that when I did, I was going to live the life I wanted from that moment on.”
“You escaped?” Serafia asked, near breathless with suspense.
“My rusty metal bed frame was my savior. I used it to slowly cut through my bindings. It took almost all day to do it. When my captor opened the door to bring my evening meal, I was waiting for him. I leaped on him, beating his head against the concrete floor until he stopped fighting me. Once I was sure he was unconscious, I took his gun and keys, locking him in the room. It turned out he was my only guard, so I literally went up the stairs and walked out onto the busy streets of Caracas. I made my way to the US embassy, told them what had happened and I was back in Miami by sunrise.”
Serafia was nearly speechless. “Did they ever catch the people responsible?”
“Raoul was arrested for his part in the conspiracy, but he was just a facilitator paid a flat fee for delivering me at a special place and time. They found my captor still locked in the room where they kept me. Anyone else who was involved got away with it. But really, in the end, I wasn’t angry with them. I was angry with my family. They knew what could happen if they sent me down there.”
“What did they say when you showed up at home?”
Gabriel stiffened beside her and shrugged. “They welcomed me home and then tried to pretend it never happened. But I could never forget.”
It was a horrible story to hear, but suddenly so much of Gabriel’s personality suddenly made sense to her. He never got close to anyone and got a lot of grief from his family for being superficial. Even Serafia had been guilty of judging him, thinking he cared more about partying than worrying about anything serious. She’d accused him of being reckless, but when they were both faced with death, they reacted differently. She became supercautious, nearly afraid to live life for fear of losing it for good. He had done the opposite: living every moment to the fullest in case it was his last. Who was she to judge him?
Serafia reached out and took his hand. She felt a surge of emotion when they touched. When she looked at him, for the first time she was able to see the sadness in his green eyes, the wariness behind the bright smile. The bad boy facade kept people away and she had fallen for it. She didn’t want to keep him at arm’s length any longer.
Gabriel gripped her hand in his, letting his thumb brush across her skin. It sent a shiver of awareness down her spine, urging her to lean in closer to him.
“I know that’s a lot of information to process,” he said. “I didn’t tell it to you so you’d feel bad for me. I told you because I wanted you to understand that we’re coming from a similar place. No one is perfect. We’re all messed up somehow. But it’s how we deal with it that matters. I’m an expert at pushing people away. You’re the first woman I’ve ever met who had made me want to try to trust someone again. Stop thinking that you don’t measure up somehow, because you’re wrong.”
Serafia gasped at his bold words. She couldn’t hold back any longer. She lunged forward, pressing her lips against his own before she lost her nerve. It had been a long time since she had trusted herself in all the various areas of her life, and romance had fallen to the bottom of the stack. What good was she to a man in the state she was in? Especially a prince? Still, she couldn’t help herself. And neither could Gabriel.
He met her kiss with equal enthusiasm. He held her face in his hands, drawing her closer and drinking her in. He groaned against her lips and then let his tongue slip along hers. His touch made her insides turn molten with need and wore away the last of her self-control.
At last, Gabriel pulled away, their rapid breaths hovering between them in the night air. “Is it too early to make our exit?” he asked.
Serafia shook her head and looked into his eyes. “I think the prince can leave whenever he wants to.”
* * *
It wasn’t as simple to leave as Gabriel had hoped. He’d had to make the rounds, thank Patrick for his hospitality and avoid the cutting glares of his father, but within half an hour, he and Serafia were in the back of the royal limousine on their way home to Playa del Onda.
When they climbed inside, Gabriel couldn’t look away from the high slit in her pink gown and how it climbed nearly to her hip as she sat. He wanted to run his hands over that bare skin. His palms tingled with the need to reach for her, but there was a forty-five-minute drive home from the Rowling Estate.
Eyeballing the limousine’s tinted partition, Gabriel called out to his driver, “We’re going to need a little privacy back here, please.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” In an instant, the heavily tinted glass slid up, blocking them from their driver’s view and making for a more private drive home.
“What are you doing?” Serafia asked.
Gabriel turned to her, placing his hand on her knee. “I want you. Right now. I can’t wait until we get back.”
“We’re in a car, Gabriel. The driver is right there. The royal guard are in the SUV right behind us.”
“They can’t see us.” His hand glided higher up her leg, brushing at the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. “Whether or not the driver hears us is up to you.”
“I don’t know about this,” Serafia said, biting her full bottom lip.
Gabriel brushed his fingertips along the lacy barrier of her panties, making her gasp. “You may have reformed me, but there’s still a little bad boy inside me.” He stroked harder, making her stiffen and close her eyes. He leaned into her, placing a searing kiss against her neck before he whispered, “Let’s both be bad tonight.”
He gripped one strap of her gown, easing it down her shoulder, and then dipped his head to taste her flesh, nibbling on the column of her throat, the hollow behind her ear and the round of her shoulder. He slipped one hand behind her, finding the zipper of her gown and tugging it down enough to allow her gown to slip farther and expose the round globes of her large breasts.
They were more glorious than he’d ever imagined after seeing her in bikinis and skimpy gowns on magazine covers. “So beautiful,” he murmured as his gaze devoured her. They were full and heavy, tipped with tight mocha nipples that he immediately covered with his hands and then his mouth.
Serafia bit her lip hard to keep from crying out as his tongue flicked across her skin. He teased her flesh, and then sucked hard at her breast. The hand he’d kept beneath her gown continued to stroke her, finally slipping under the lacy edge of her panties to feel the moist heat of her desire hiding beneath it.
“Gabriel!” she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.
“Just lie back and enjoy it,” he replied, turning with her as she leaned back across the seat to rest on her elbows. When she shifted her hips, he was better able to slide her gown out of the way and part her thighs. He stopped touching her only long enough to slip off her panties.
When he returned, he leaned down, parted her flesh and stroked her with his tongue. Serafia squirmed and writhed against him, but he didn’t let up. He wrapped his arms around her thighs to hold her steady as he teased at her sensitive flesh again and again. Gabriel waited until he had her hovering on the edge; then he slipped one finger inside her. It sent her tumbling over, gasping and whimpering as quietly as she could manage while her release rocked through her.
When at last her body stilled except for her rapid breaths, Gabriel pulled away. While she recovered, he unbuttoned his suit pants and tugged them down. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled a condom from his wallet and slipped it over the length of him. When he turned back to Serafia, she was watching him with a twinkle of deviousness in her dark eyes.
He reached for her and tugged her into his lap, her thighs straddling him as the limousine raced down the highway. Gabriel gripped her waist as she eased down and pushed him inside her. He gritted his teeth and pressed desperate fingertips into her flesh as he fought for control. She felt amazing. When he was buried fully inside her, he held her still for a moment, then reached for her face. He pulled her forward and captured her lips with his own.
As his tongue slipped inside her mouth and stroked her, he started moving slowly beneath her. Pushing the pink organza of her gown out of the way, he gripped the curve of her rear to guide her hips. At first, their movements were deliciously slow, and he savored every pang of pleasure. As the intensity built, they moved more frantically. Serafia grasped his shoulders and threw her head back, a silent cry in her throat.
“Let go for me,” Gabriel pressed. “I want to watch it happen. You’re so beautiful when you come undone.”
She found her release again. This time, he held her close, not just watching, but feeling the pleasurable tremors running through her body and experiencing them with her. Her inner muscles tightened around him, coaxing his own release. As she collapsed against him, he wrapped his arms around her waist and thrust into her one last time. He buried his face in her neck, growling his climax against her flushed skin.
They sat together, not moving for several minutes. In the stillness, Gabriel was finally able to mentally catch up with everything that had happened in the last few hours.
The moment he had stepped out into the garden after her, he knew things would be different. He wasn’t going to let her keep pulling away from him, and if opening up to her about his own past was what it took, he was willing to do it. She...inspired him in a way no other woman had. It wasn’t just an attraction; it was more. She didn’t want anything from him. Unlike the sharks circling around the Rowling ballroom, Serafia didn’t need his money and she certainly didn’t want to share his spotlight. He felt that she was someone he could trust, especially after she shared her own story with him. Her past was different from his but he could tell that it had scarred her in a similar way. The difference was that he didn’t trust others and she didn’t trust herself. But she should. And he wanted to help her with that.
It made her ever more attractive to him, if that was possible. She wasn’t just the supermodel from his teenage fantasies. She was so much more. He just had to convince her of that.
“The car is slowing down,” Serafia noted. She climbed from his lap and quickly started pulling herself back together.
Gabriel turned and looked out the window. They were approaching the gate to the compound. “We’re home. Time to get dressed so we can go inside and I can take it all off you again.”
Serafia tugged the top of her dress back up over her shoulders and looked at him. “Really?”
How silly she was to doubt him on that point. “Oh yes,” Gabriel said in a tone as serious as he was capable of. “That was just to hold me over until we got home.”