THE touch on her face was as light as the caress of a butterfly’s wing, but Emily couldn’t suppress the shiver that rippled through her.
For the past eleven days she had been looking forward to this, the excitement mounting as the days went by. And now, finally, it was Saturday and every inch of her body was tingling, trembling with nerves and anticipation, so that just sitting still while the girl did her make-up was a major challenge.
It was the excitement of going to the ballet again, after all this time, she told herself. It had been more than six months since she’d last been to Covent Garden, just before Christmas when she and her mother made their usual trip to London for shopping and The Nutcracker—a tradition they’d followed since she was a child.
That seemed like a lifetime ago now.
Her eyes sprang open. The face that looked back at her, reflected from every angle by the triple mirror on the dressing table, was almost unrecognizable. Leaning forward she gave a little squeak of surprise and pleasure, batting her lashes and admiring the smoky-eyed effect that Eloisa, the make-up girl, had created with eyeliner and shadow.
‘Oh, you’re so clever! I look—’
‘Sexy.’ Eloisa spoke hardly any English, but she said this word with huge assurance, making Emily wonder fleetingly about the circumstances under which she’d picked it up.
‘I was going to say grown-up,’ she said ruefully, but Eloisa merely shrugged blankly and brandished a lipstick, making any further comment impossible.
Tipping her face up, Emily closed her eyes, and felt the butterflies rise up in her stomach once again as she parted her lips, and the darkness behind her lids was suddenly filled with images and memories. She almost gasped out loud as she felt the stroke of the brush against her quivering mouth, moving firmly, expertly over her lips…
‘OK. Pronto.’
Eloisa’s matter-of-fact voice brought Emily firmly back to reality and she opened her eyes, blinking guiltily and pressing her tingling lips together. Getting to her feet and going over to the full-length mirror she smoothed down the wine-red silk dress and raised a hand tentatively to touch the diamond comb that held her piled-up hair in place.
Gone was the wan, wide-eyed waif that Luis had brought with him to Santosa and in her place was a sophisticated dark-haired temptress. Thanks to the skill of the palace chef she had filled out, losing her previous gauntness so that her collarbones no longer stood out like coat hangers, and her pale breasts swelled slightly above the tight bodice of the red dress.
Standing behind her Eloisa sighed. ‘Bonita, senhora. Príncipe Luis e muito afortunado.’
Prince Luis.
Emily couldn’t be sure what the rest of the sentence meant, but those two words leaped out at her as if they’d been accompanied by a foot-high sign.
‘You go to the ballet?’ Eloisa asked now, briskly stowing her brushes and pencils and pots of powder back into an industrial-size silver tool box.
‘Yes.’ Emily reached for the crisp voile wrap that matched her dress. The ballet. That’s what she should be thinking of, focusing on. The ballet that she’d been looking forward to.
‘Ahh…fabuloso.’ Eloisa replied enviously. ‘Qual balé?’
Which ballet? Emily understood the question and opened her mouth to answer. And realised she couldn’t for the life of her remember.
Sitting at the desk in his private suite of rooms Luis tried to focus on the charity report in front of him, and not on the whisky decanter he could see from the corner of his eye.
He could really do with a drink. It had been a draining day, one of many in an exhausting, cheerless and seemingly endless week when he had visited his father numerous times—publicly, to appease Josefina—made several statements to the press, which had varied from the simply anodyne to the blatantly untruthful, and begun to look properly into the huge and horrifying implications of what would happen when the King inevitably died.
The night at the Purple Parrot seemed like a very long time ago indeed.
Sighing he forced his mind back onto the report, glancing once again at the name of the charity printed at the top of the page. The Santosan Preservation Trust, it said in gold embossed letters. Keeping Our Heritage Safe for the Future.
Luis grimaced. He was trying to go through the charities of which King Marcos Fernando was patron and decide which ones he would continue to support personally, but it was a massive undertaking. And one that carried a very real risk of death by boredom. We undertake to protect Santosa from the corrosive effects of the modern world, he read wearily, and preserve the values, traditions and environment which our ancestors worked so hard to establish.
Luis sighed deeply. There were few things more depressing than the thought of Santosa being locked for ever in some suffocating bubble, cut off from reality and the rest of the world, but a quick look at the names on the Santosan Preservation Trust’s board of governors—most of which made up the current government cabinet—told him that cutting royal ties with this particular charity might not be a popular decision. He put the paper on the growing pile of keepers and checked his watch.
She was exactly six minutes late. But since he’d practically been counting the hours until he would see her for the past eleven days, six minutes hardly mattered. Deus, it was ridiculous. He was like some hormonally unbalanced teenager. Impatiently he picked up the next report in the pile and opened it, hoping it was going to be something interesting enough to take his mind off the pull of desire low down in the pit of his stomach that had been with him almost constantly for more than a week.
It just confirmed how shallow and reprehensible he was, he thought bitterly. All the time he’d been sitting at his dying father’s bedside, or going through the complicated practical and constitutional issues associated with the king’s failing health and his own accession to the throne, all he could think about was Emily Balfour’s mouth, her slender, supple body, glistening with water from the bath, her feet….
Deus, her feet…
He gritted his teeth and frowned. The problem was he wasn’t used to wanting something—or someone—and not being able to have it. Since his mother had died his life had been about sublimating real emotions for sexual satisfaction, about instant gratification and taking what he wanted, when he wanted it, and the combination of his looks and his title had ensured no woman ever refused him.
Until he’d met Emily Balfour. Until he’d kissed her beneath the cherry blossom and she’d pulled away, and he had seen the fear in her wide blue eyes and realised what he had become.
There was a discreet knock at the door, and the duty footman appeared. ‘Senhora Balfour, Your Highness.’
She was wearing red. At first that was all Luis was aware of, other than that she was the most extraordinarily beautiful girl he had ever seen.
Woman, not girl, he corrected himself mentally, as his gaze moved slowly over her. The dress had a close-fitting bodice that showed off the narrowness of her frame and her small, perfect breasts, while the billowing full skirt that fell to just above her ankles emphasized her hips. And, he noticed with a pang, made it possible to see her feet.
Without realising it he had got up, and suddenly he was aware that he was standing by the desk, the pen still in his hand, staring at her. He threw the pen down and ran a finger round the collar of his evening shirt as he went towards her.
‘Sorry,’ he said curtly, leaning down to give her a perfunctory kiss on each cheek. ‘I’m just catching up on some paperwork. I was miles away.’
He pulled away from her quickly, as if she were red hot. Which she was, he thought darkly. Dangerously so, in every sense.
She lowered her eyes with a sweep of impossibly long black lashes, and Luis felt a moment of relief to be shielded from that direct blue gaze. ‘I’m sorry—if you’re busy I can always wait outside until you’re ready…?’
‘No.’ The word came out as an autocratic bark. Deus, Josefina would be thrilled at such uncharacteristic regality. ‘That won’t be necessary. Would you like a drink before we go?’
She looked up at him uncertainly. ‘Are you having one?’
‘I can’t.’ No matter how much he needed one. He nodded in the direction of one of the rows of windows which looked out over the circular sweep of lawn beyond the formal garden. The helicopter waited there, the setting sun glinting on the royal crest on the side. ‘I’m flying.’
Her eyes widened. ‘We’re going in that? Alone?’
‘Yes. It’s the quickest way to travel to the mainland. Not as comfortable as the jet, of course, but more direct. Is that a problem?’
‘No…no, of course not,’ she stammered, but not before he had seen the expression of alarm flicker across her face and knew that she was thinking of Rico.
‘Good,’ he said blandly, picking up his mobile phone and walking towards the door. He had been about to reassure her that it was quite safe, but that was an untruth too far. ‘Shall we go, then?’
The diaphanous wrap she wore brushed against the back of his hand as she walked past him through the door, and he caught a fleeting breath of the delicate scent of her skin. ‘You look beautiful, by the way.’
That much at least was true.
Being a Cordoba is about saying the correct thing, not the honest thing. Wasn’t that what he’d said that night at the restaurant? That’s the deal and you can’t change it.
No, well, he could at least have made it sound a little bit like he meant it when he said she looked beautiful.
Emily’s heels sank into the soft earth as she walked across the lawn to the waiting helicopter, hampering her efforts to keep pace with Luis’s swift stride. Not that she really felt like it now. She’d been looking forward to this evening for so long, and the moment she’d seen him of course she knew there was no point in trying to convince herself that her excitement had much to do with the ballet.
It was him.
The truly humiliating thing was he’d been right all along. She was the immature, inexperienced kid he had accused her of being, and she had a whopping great, embarrassing school-girl crush on him.
Ahead of her one of the uniformed personnel standing by the helicopter pulled open the door and Luis jumped lithely up into the cockpit, then turned round to hold out a hand to her. Emily faltered, unwilling to take it, unable to look at him in case he saw the longing in her eyes.
‘Thanks but it’s fine. I can manage,’ she muttered, gathering her skirt up and climbing inelegantly in beside him. Not that he noticed. Already he had turned away from her and was un-hooking the headset that was suspended above the control panel, flicking switches, checking dials and signalling to the crew circling around them on the ground.
‘Put on your headset—we’re ready for take-off.’
Emily did as she was told, relieved at least that, both wearing headsets, they would be spared the need to make polite conversation. Not that Luis, given his obvious preoccupation, would have bothered anyway.
With a roar the rotor blades started up and the ground swayed and receded beneath them as they rose vertically into the sky.
It was a beautiful evening. Within moments they were suspended in a soft, forget-me-not blue sky with the palace spread out below them like some elaborate doll’s house belonging to a spoiled child. It was an incredible view, but Emily found herself more preoccupied with the sight of Luis’s strong, golden hands on the helicopter’s cyclic. The cockpit was small enough for her shoulder to be almost touching his, and the whole of the side of her body nearest him tingled and buzzed, as if tiny magnets beneath her skin were pulling her towards him.
It was going to be an uncomfortable journey.
They had left the palace behind now and were heading over the trees and flat, rolling grassland of the royal estate out towards the sea which glittered ahead of them, and the realization that she was cut off from the rest of the world with him sent a spasm of panicky longing ricocheting through her.
‘OK?’
She jumped as his voice came through her headset, caressing her ear with an intimacy that made her shiver. Glancing across at him she felt her stomach constrict. He was wearing the same aviator sunglasses he’d worn the day he’d kissed her on the tarmac at the airport, and combined with the exquisitely tailored dinner suit and black tie, the effect was nothing short of devastating.
‘Fine,’ she murmured faintly, forcing herself to look away. ‘Just admiring the scenery. What’s that down there?’
Luis followed her gaze to the slate-roofed building nestling in the trees beneath them. ‘La Guarita,’ he said in husky Portuguese, and Emily felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. ‘It was built by one of my more extravagant ancestors to be used as a hunting lodge.’
Emily nodded gravely. It could have been the local supermarket for all she cared, but the sensation of his voice in her ear was exquisite and she didn’t want it to stop. ‘A hunting lodge? It’s not very rustic. Tell me more about this ancestor of yours.’
Luis threw her a twisted smile. ‘On one condition. That afterwards you tell me the plot of this ballet we’re going to see.’
‘Done.’
A fat lot of good that had been, Luis thought savagely, staring at the stage in a welter of boredom a couple of hours later. Emily had done her best, but try as he might he just couldn’t reconcile the story she had told him about some peasant girl who had fallen in love—with a nobleman, or a huntsman?—with the ridiculous leaping and writhing that was happening on stage.
He slumped back in his seat and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Mind you, if he’d actually been listening properly to what she was saying rather than just enjoying the sweetness of her voice in his ear he might have understood a whole lot more. But he was finding that it was impossible to concentrate on anything much when she was around, and that was seriously beginning to bother him.
From the moment they’d stepped out of the car that had brought them from the helipad he had sensed the tautness in her body, and once again he was reminded of a racehorse—alert and quivering with nerves, but strong and true and courageous beneath the delicate exterior. Walking beside him up the wide marble steps to the opera house she had allowed him to take her arm, but he could feel the distance she placed between them like an invisible force field. At least the photographers were unaware of it as they snapped excitedly away. Finally it seemed Josefina would get what she wanted.
If only, he thought with cutting self-mockery, there was a chance that he would too.
His gaze shifted back to where she was sitting, leaning forward in her seat, her hands gripping the edge of the box as she looked down over the stage. There was nothing overtly sexy about the scarlet dress she wore—except perhaps the colour—but on her even the demurely high back that showed only a narrow crescent of creamy skin on her shoulders seemed to be excruciatingly provocative. It took all his willpower just to stop himself from reaching out and touching the single curl that spiralled down from the nape of her neck.
Despairingly he pulled his mobile phone from the pocket of his jacket and glared down at the screen. The next hour was going to be hell anyway, so he might as well pile on the torture and get through some emails as well. Boredom beat frustrated lust any day.
The huge full moon cast a soft luminescence over the stage. Emily kept her eyes fixed unblinkingly on it as the audience below rose from their red velvet seats. It had been a breathtaking, heartbreaking performance and the tumult of applause went on and on.
Only she sat frozen and still.
On the stage the dancers swept forward again to bow to the enchanted audience, the white dresses of the ballerinas billowing out as they made their deep, graceful curtsies, their faces uniformly composed in spite of the wrenching sadness of the dance they had just finished. For as long as she could remember Emily had wanted only to be like them—flawless and doll-like in white tulle and satin shoes. For years she had devoted her life to training her body, rigidly controlling and disciplining it to achieve that cool, remote perfection.
And she had. Only to realise—too late—that she’d missed the point all along. Being a dancer wasn’t just about precision or perfection or lucky shoes.
It was about emotion.
And that was something she’d deliberately, ruthlessly, shut out since the day her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It was how she had got through Mia’s arrival and the realization that her father had betrayed and lied to them all. It was what had enabled her to calmly and quietly walk away from Balfour the day after her mother’s funeral.
But it was also what had taken away her ability to dance.
She stumbled to her feet. Groping behind her for her wrap she caught sight of Luis, and realised that she wasn’t the only one in the audience not clapping. Lounging back in his seat, he had his mobile phone in his hand and was tapping away at it. In the greenish light of the screen his face was a mask of boredom.
He looked up. She was caught in the dark vortex of his gaze, and in that moment she understood that the terrifying, uncontrollable emotions she had spent the past six exhausting months trying to run away from she hadn’t escaped at all, because they were inside her all along.
Slowly he unfolded his long, lithe body from the seat and stood in front of her, his face expressionless. At some point during the performance he had surreptitiously undone his top button and his black silk tie, which now hung loosely around his neck. He looked frighteningly beautiful.
‘Finally.’ His lips twitched into a crooked smile. ‘I thought it would never end. You don’t look like you enjoyed it much either.’
‘I loved it,’ she said, her voice hollow and fierce.
‘Really?’ His arched brows rose in surprise. ‘Well, that’s lucky, I suppose, because I have a proposition for you.’ He reached down and picked up her wrap, which was trailing over the back of the chair, and in one practised movement settled it lightly over her shoulders, his fingers brushing her skin for the merest fraction of a second.
Emily steeled herself against the shuddering awareness that gripped her, but then he was taking her hands and drawing her gently backwards so they were concealed behind the heavy velvet curtain that hung down at the side of the royal box and she felt herself go rigid with panic.
‘Wh-what are you doing?’ Her voice came out as a frozen whisper, and he dropped her hands immediately, his face curiously blank.
‘Relax,’ he said wearily, ‘I’m not trying to ravish you behind the curtains, but in case you hadn’t noticed the entire audience have now shifted their attention from the stage to us.’
Emily darted a glance over her shoulder. Her breathing was shallow and uneven. Below them the lights had gone up and the hum of conversation had resumed as people put back their opera glasses and gathered their evening bags. Several of them still had their faces turned up towards the royal box. Frowning, she turned back to Luis.
‘Please—can we go now?’
‘Wait.’ His face was shadowed by the fall of the curtain, but she could see the dull gleam of his eyes and the flicker of a muscle in his cheek. ‘I have something to ask you first.’
The shadows closed in on her a little and she took a small, gasping breath.
‘It’s my father’s Silver Jubilee this year and there’s going to be some kind of event to mark it,’ he said dully. ‘The Brazilian National Ballet are scheduled to perform there. We’d like you and Luciana to dance with them.’
She opened her mouth to laugh at the irony, but instead it came out as a sob. She shook her head, biting down on her bottom lip as her fragile shell of control threatened to crack.
‘Impossible,’ she said in a tight, cold voice. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t. Now please, can we just go?’
Two men in suits had appeared at the doorway to the box, their ubiquitous headsets clearly marking them out as palace bodyguards. Luis seemed to hesitate for a moment, his face as cool and blank as marble, but then he gave a curt nod and the security men opened the door and went ahead of them, down the dimly lit VIP staircase that led directly to the main foyer.
Emily was glad of the gloom. Surreptitiously she sniffed and pressed the palms of her hands to her cheeks, desperately trying to stem the tears that had started to slide down her face in a silent stream and keep herself from being sucked down into despair.
The door at the foot of the stairs opened, letting in a blast of noise from the hallway beyond and the clear evening light. Emily blinked, instinctively wanting to hide her tear-stained face, but it was too late. The guards stood aside, holding the door open and motioning them to go through, to the car that waited at the foot of the steps outside.
Luis glanced down at her and in that split second she saw a flare of some unfathomable emotion in the depths of his eyes. His reactions were as swift and devastating as lightning. Instantly his arm was around her shoulders, sheltering her against the protective wall of his body as he pulled her forwards. He raised his other hand to wave to the crowd, but Emily understood that it was also shielding her from the glittering camera flashes and the glare of onlookers.
As they went out into the still-warm evening and down the steps she kept her body rigid, every atom of her being resisting the urge to melt against him. But then his grip on her relaxed as they approached the waiting car and an arrow of desolation shot through her. She raised her head just at she same moment he looked down at her.
Afterwards she couldn’t have said how it happened, or who made the first move. All she knew was that one moment he was reaching out to open the door of the car for her and the next he had taken her upturned face between his strong hands and their mouths had come together in a hard, helpless kiss.
It lasted only seconds. And then she was in the car and he was beside her and they were pulling away from the screaming, ecstatic crowd.