HE MADE IT HAPPEN.
Antonietta waited at the cottage while Rafe headed off to change. She would have loved to do the same, but apart from her red silk dress there weren’t many options.
She pulled on some tights, and her most comfortable boots for all the sightseeing ahead, and decided she would just have to do.
By the time Rafe returned, dressed in black jeans and a jumper topped with a fine grey woollen coat, his helicopter was out of the hangar.
Antonietta had only ever heard the choppers, or seen them arriving and leaving, but now she sat in Rafe’s private one, her stomach lurching as it lifted into the sky.
Capri was well known for the capricious nature of its weather, but it turned on the sun today, and the ocean was azure beneath them. She stared at the white cliffs as they approached the island.
‘There it is...’ Rafe spoke to her through headphones and pointed down to his yacht in Marina Grande—possibly the most exclusive marina in the world.
But Antonietta was not looking at it. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the Christmas decorations in Capri,’ she said, with her hands pressed to the window. ‘And to eat struffoli. I can’t believe you’ve brought me here!’
They were not in Capri to see the Christmas lights and eat struffoli, Rafe thought to himself. He had brought them here for the opulent privacy of his yacht and an awful lot of sex.
Yet his self-proclaimed cold indifference seemed to elude him around Antonietta, and he did not want to disappoint her.
As if his yacht had ever disappointed!
But Antonietta clearly thought they were here on some sort of day trip, so a word was had with his pilot in rapid French, and Rafe had to quickly rethink their day...
‘You’ll freeze in what you’re wearing,’ he told her as they sat in a sumptuous café and shared a plate of the famous struffoli. ‘You need to get something warmer to wear.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘We’re going out to the Blue Grotto,’ Rafe said. He’d go anywhere if it meant getting her out of those appalling tights—and for once he wasn’t thinking about sex. ‘You’ll need to rug up.’
‘It’s closed in December,’ she told him, for she had heard the tourists on the next table grumbling about it.
‘It’s not closed for me.’
And so they headed to Via Camerelle, with its designer boutiques, and he sipped coffee and insisted that the pale grey woollen dress that hugged her slender frame required a coat, and boots in the softest suede.
‘And you’ll need a dress and shoes for tonight,’ Rafe told her.
‘I have to be back at work tomorrow,’ she told him.
‘And you shall be,’ Rafe told her. ‘Get a dress.’
He told her he had an appointment to keep, and suggested that while she waited for him she might as well get her hair done.
‘Rafe,’ Antonietta protested. ‘Please don’t try to change me.’
‘I don’t want to change you,’ Rafe said. ‘But I have never known a woman to turn down a couple of hours in a salon in Via Vittorio Emanuele just to wait in a car.’
The suited men were back. Hovering discreetly, but annoyingly present. And Antonietta could tell they were less than pleased with her.
So, yes, she chose to get her hair done—rather than sit in a car with a driver who looked at her through slightly narrowed eyes.
That was the very reason Rafe needed some time away from her. He headed to the private royal residence for a less than straightforward meeting with his aides and minders, who were all appalled that he had brought a woman onto shore. Not just that, the same woman who had been in the August Suite the other night.
‘She has not been vetted,’ his advisor warned. ‘And you still haven’t had her sign the NDA.’
Neither would he. For this was too precious. And he told them none too gently to back off, and that he would deal with the fallout that would inevitably come from a run-in with the King.
It was worth it for this.
Antonietta’s long, straight dark hair was still long, straight and dark, but just a vital inch shorter, and so glossy and thick that he put up a hand just to feel it.
And then he looked into dark eyes that were painted smoky and seductive. He took the coat from the doorman, just so he could help her into it himself, and handed her expensive shades.
‘Wear these,’ he suggested, ‘if you don’t want people at work to know.’
For Crown Prince Rafael was in Capri, and there was a stir in all the best restaurants, where they put a ‘reserved’ sign on their very best table in the hope that he might dine there tonight. And in the cobbled streets the locals soon heard that the Playboy Prince had a woman on his arm.
‘Who is she?’ they asked—because usually Rafe did not bring his dates in from his yacht, where he tended to party. Perhaps he was finally serious about someone.
His luxurious yacht would not fit into the Blue Grotto cove, of course, so a speedboat took them in. There they transferred to a small wooden row-boat with a single skipper.
‘We’ll have to lie down,’ Rafe told her.
‘Really?’ she checked, unsure if he was teasing.
‘Really.’
He wasn’t joking, but she wouldn’t have minded if he had been, for it was bliss to lie side by side with him.
And then they entered the grotto. And it was like sliding into heaven as they were bathed in sapphire light.
‘It’s wonderful...’ Antonietta breathed, for the water and its reflection was magical, the cavern illuminated spectacularly. And today, just for them, music was playing, inviting them further in. ‘I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.’
‘Nor have I,’ Rafe told her.
And she decided that even though he might have used that line many times she would let that thought go. For when he looked at her like that, when he kissed her so slowly, she felt like the only girl in his world. She felt as if she belonged.
Rafe felt Antonietta still in his arms and, concerned, he halted. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yes,’ she answered.
And all those years of searching, and yearning, and never quite fitting in, ended then, and she found her place in the world in his arms.
Oh, it made no logical sense, for it was not about the place she was in, it was the connection she had found.
Only then did she understand what Aurora had meant when she had advised her to let go of her heart. For letting go meant no thoughts of tomorrow and a cold, indifferent end. And to let go meant she didn’t examine the impossibility of them. She just had to let her heart go and it would fly straight to Rafe.
‘Keep kissing me.’
‘I can do that,’ Rafe said.
He kissed her so deep and so long and with such smouldering passion that she felt as if she were floating, and that if he let go of her she might rise to the ceiling of the cove.
But even Blue Grotto kisses must end.
It was cold and getting dark when he held out his hand and helped her into the speedboat. Instead of going to his yacht, they headed to shore.
The Christmas lights of Capri were truly an amazing sight—not that he’d really paid attention before. They strolled through the square, with its carpets of fairy lights on the buildings and in canopies above them. It was like walking through a nativity scene, with towering musical trees draped in a million lights.
‘This is the best day of my life,’ Antonietta told him. ‘The best Christmas.’
For this was her Christmas she decided. Tonight, here with Rafe.
It was cold, though, and their time on the water and the salty ocean breeze meant that not even his arm around her and her new thick coat could keep her from shivering.
‘Let’s go and eat,’ Rafe said.
‘I want ravioli caprese while I’m here,’ Antonietta said, ‘and chocolate torte...’
Any restaurant in Capri would serve that. And all the best restaurants, he knew, would have a table reserved for them.
Yet he was sick to the back teeth of restaurants.
There was somewhere else he wanted to take Antonietta.
‘Come on, then.’
He called for his driver, and as he saw Antonietta into the vehicle he told the driver where they were headed.
The driver asked him to repeat the location.
‘You heard,’ Rafe said, although he knew it was unheard of for him to take a date to one of his family’s private residences.
They drove slowly up a hill and then turned in at a concealed entrance. She peered out of the darkened windows for a sign that might tell her the name of the restaurant he had chosen, but there wasn’t one. Antonietta looked over to Rafe for an explanation as some gates slid open and they drove slowly up a steep path canopied in trees.
‘Where are we going?’
‘My family has a private residence here.’
‘You family?’ she croaked. ‘They won’t be here?’
‘Of course not,’ Rafe said. ‘I thought it might be pleasanter than a restaurant.’
Antonietta wasn’t so sure... A polite greeting awaited them, but she could sense the caution in the staff when they arrived.
The entrance to the villa was vast, with high vaulted ceilings that seemed to shrink her as they stepped inside. Rafe took off his coat and handed it to the butler, who waited for Antonietta to do the same.
Rafe could feel her discomfort as she handed over her coat and was already ruing his decision to bring her here as he led her through to the lounge.
A huge fire was waiting, and Antonietta stood and warmed her hands as the butler poured drinks.
‘They must have been expecting you,’ she said, referring to the fire and the fleet of staff. ‘But from their surprise I thought you had arrived unannounced.’
The surprise was Antonietta.
Not that he told her.
‘They are used to me arriving at all hours,’ Rafe said. ‘I’m sorry if it feels awkward to be here. I never thought...’
‘No,’ Antonietta said. ‘I’m glad to be here. I’m just...’
She was just overwhelmed—not by her surroundings, but by the fact that he had brought her here. The fact that this man, who had told her he was cold, had lit a flame in her heart. How this man, who was a prince, somehow made her feel not just equal but as if she had found her missing part.
‘I’m hungry!’ she said, because that felt safe.
‘Then let’s get dressed for dinner.’
They climbed the stairs, and it felt so different from the monastery—for, no matter how luxurious, that was still a hotel. This was a home, with pictures lining the stairwell, and though it might be one of many homes there were personal touches that no hotel could replicate.
When she stepped into his bedroom it was Rafe’s books upon the shelves and his chosen artwork on the walls.
And there was his bed.
A high, ornate, dark wooden bed, dressed in jade velvet. She couldn’t resist sitting on the edge and bouncing up and down. It felt as delicious as it looked.
He took her leg and removed one of her gorgeous suede boots.
‘I would love to sleep here,’ she said.
She wanted to know what it was like to sleep in Rafe’s own bed, and to know a little more of his life.
‘Then do.’
‘I have to be back for work,’ she reminded him as he removed the other boot. ‘I have a shift in the Oratory.’
But she forgot about work after that, liking how deftly he undressed her, lifting her bottom as he removed her stockings, and her panties too, and then pushed her shoulders down so she toppled back onto the mattress.
She lifted up onto her elbows and watched as he parted her legs and exposed her. And then examined her with desirous eyes. She should be shy, Antonietta thought. Yet she was not.
There was no kiss, no preamble. And her legs were pliant, rather than resisting, as Rafe placed them over his wide shoulders.
‘I have to taste you,’ Rafe said.
‘Then do.’
He had been right to bring her here. Rafe knew it then. She deserved better than exposed temple grounds, and she did not need the ghosts of his past on the yacht, nor another nameless hotel, Rafe thought as he parted legs that were still cold from their day out.
She was warm there though.
He looked at her glistening folds and all he could do was taste...
Antonietta did not know, had not even imagined, that a mouth could deliver such bliss. His unshaven jaw was rough, and though his tongue was soft it made her feel exquisitely tender. There was no desire to pull away. He tasted her slowly and leisurely as her heart seemed to beat in her throat. He explored her more thoroughly, just a little roughly, and her thighs trembled as he tasted her deeply, dizzied her with light suction, then with decadent flicks with his tongue.
And never—not once—did she ask him to stop.
He was probing, and thorough and she found that she was panting, desperate—but for what she didn’t quite know. Her hands went up and grasped at the bedcover, but it kept slipping away, like her own control.
‘Rafe!’ she pleaded—except she didn’t know for what she was pleading.
She was back in the Blue Grotto on the crystalline waters. She was floating again, yet held by his mouth. She could hear her own voice calling his name as her fingers knotted in his thick hair.
He moaned into her, and his mouth was more insistent now. He was kneeling up and pulling her deeper into him. There was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide from the bliss he delivered. Every nerve in her body seemed arrowed to her centre, every beat of her heart felt aimed at her sex—until she sobbed and shattered and pulsed to his skilled mouth.
And he tasted her all through it. Even as her orgasm was fading he tenderly caressed those last flickers from her and then knelt back.
His swallow was the most intimate sound she had ever heard.
* * *
Antonietta dressed for dinner in the silver-grey dress she had bought earlier that day, then sat at the large dressing table and got ready. Her hair fell into perfect shape as she ran a silver comb through it and Aurora’s red lipstick was worn again.
Rafe had never known a woman to take so little time to get dressed for dinner and to look so breathtaking when she did. But it was not the dress, nor the hair that had transformed her. It was the sparkle in her eyes, Rafe realised, and he felt proud that he had brought joy to her.
‘You look amazing,’ he told her.
‘Thank you.’ She smiled and then added, ‘You always do.’
And never more so than now. Rafe had shaved, his raven hair was brushed back, and he had changed into a deep navy suit.
She understood better the merits of dressing for dinner, for she felt a certain thrill that he had dressed so smartly, so immaculately, even though they were not to be seen, for they were not going out. Rafe had shaved and dressed with care only for her.
He took her up to a moonlit terrace, looking out to the Faraglioni rock formations. They sat at a beautifully dressed table, under burners that kept them as warm as a real fire.
‘I can’t believe I’m here,’ Antonietta said.
‘I can,’ Rafe said.
It felt right.
Dinner was served, and somehow it was an intimate affair, and she gasped when ravioli caprese arrived.
‘How did the chef know?’
‘I told him,’ Rafe said. ‘Though we might have to wait a little while for the chocolate torte.’
‘I don’t mind waiting,’ Antonietta said. Then asked, ‘Do you come here a lot?’
‘Not often,’ Rafe said. ‘My father uses it as a retreat, but I tend to give it a miss and stay out on my yacht.’ He saw her slight frown. ‘Growing up, I would come here sometimes in summer.’
‘With your family?’
‘No. My mother felt holidays were pointless. I came here with the nanny, and later I would bring friends.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Vetted, of course.’
‘But I am not vetted.’
‘You have been by me,’ Rafe said. ‘And I like everything I see.’
‘You have my discretion.’
‘I know that.’ And for the first time in his life he really did.
‘This has been the perfect day.’
‘An unplanned day,’ Rafe admitted. ‘I was going to take you to my yacht, but then you said you wanted to see the Christmas lights and eat struffoli...’
‘You were taking me to your yacht?’ Antonietta checked. ‘For what? Sex?’
‘And fine dining.’ Rafe smiled. ‘Thankfully, I realised just in time that you wanted a day trip.’
And now he had been so honest, she could be honest too. ‘I just wanted a day with you, Rafe.’
Well, she’d got it. Rafe had given her a perfect day. And yet the moon moved too fast behind the clouds, and their time together was slipping away.
Dessert was served, and it was delicious—especially when fed to her from his silver spoon.
The second Rafe dismissed the staff she slipped from her side of the table to his knee and they tasted each other again.
She wanted his bed. His velvet bed. She wanted to lie there tonight and to wake with him tomorrow and for their time together to never end.
‘We should head back,’ Rafe told her. ‘If you have to be at work.’
She heard the unsubtle emphasis.
‘I do,’ Antonietta said. ‘I can’t let them down...’
Rafe would be gone soon, and right now work was the only constant she had.
‘I have to get back.’
‘I know that.’
‘But not yet...’
Not before he took her to his velvet bed.