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“I just needed some fresh air,” she said desperately, wishing he’d leave her alone.
A beam of light from a second-floor window of the manor house illuminated the hard lines of Santiago’s powerful body in the black suit and well-cut cashmere coat. As their eyes met, electricity coursed through her.
Santiago Velazquez was too handsome, she thought with an unwilling shiver. Too sexy. Too powerful. Too rich.
He was also a selfish, cynical playboy, whose only loyalty was to his own vast fortune. He probably had vaults big enough to swim in, she thought, and pictured him doing a backstroke through hundred-dollar bills. In the meantime he mocked the idea of kindness and respect. She’d heard he treated his one-night stands like unpaid employees. Belle’s expression hardened. Folding her arms, she waited as he strode through the snow toward her.
He stopped a few feet away. “You don’t have a coat.”
“I’m not cold.”
“I can hear your teeth chattering. Are you trying to freeze to death?”
“Why do you care?”
“Me? I don’t,” he said mildly. “If you want to freeze to death, it’s fine with me. But it does seem selfish to force Letty to plan yet another funeral. So tedious, funerals. And weddings. And christenings. All of it.”
“Any human interaction that involves emotion must be tedious to you,” Belle said.
He was nearly a foot taller than her own petite height. His shoulders were broad and he wore arrogance like a cloak that shadowed him in the snow. She’d heard women call him Ángel, and she could well understand the nickname. He had a face like an angel—a dark angel, she thought irritably, if heaven needed a bouncer to keep lesser people out and boss everyone around. Santiago might be rich and handsome but he was also the most cynical, callous, despicable man on earth. He was everything she hated most.
“Wait.” His black eyes narrowed as he stared down at her in the faint crystalline moonlight frosting the clouds. “Are you crying, Belle?”
She blinked hard and fast to hide the evidence. “No.”
“You are.” His cruel, sensual lips curved mockingly. “I know you have a pathetically soft heart, but this is pushing the limits even for you. You barely knew Letty’s father, and yet here I find you mourning him after the funeral, alone in the snow like a tragic Victorian madwoman.”
Normally that would have gotten a rise out of her. But not today. Belle’s heart was too sad. And she knew if she showed the slightest emotion he’d only mock her more. Wishing desperately that Santiago hadn’t been the one to find her, she said, “What do you want?”
“Darius and Letty have gone to bed. Letty wanted to come out and look for you but the baby needed her. I’m supposed to show you to your guest room and turn on the house alarm once you’re brought in safe and sound.”
His husky, Spanish-accented voice seemed to be laughing at her. She hated how, even disliking him as much as she did, he made her body shiver with awareness.
“I changed my mind about staying here tonight.” The last thing she wanted was to spend the night tossing and turning in a guest room, with no company but her own agonizing thoughts. “I just want to go home.”
“To Brooklyn?” Santiago looked at her incredulously. “It’s too late. Everyone wanting to get back to the city left hours ago. The ice storm just closed the expressway. It might not reopen for hours.”
“Why are you even still here? Don’t you have a helicopter and a couple of planes? It can’t be because you actually care about Letty and Darius.”
“The guest rooms here are nice and I’m tired. Two days ago I was in Sydney. Before that, Tokyo.” He yawned. “Tomorrow I leave for London.”
“Poor you,” said Belle, who had always dreamed of traveling but never managed to save the money, even for an economy ticket.
His sensual lips curved upward. “I appreciate your sympathy. So if you don’t mind wrapping up your self-indulgent little Wuthering Heights routine I’d like to show you to your room so I can go to mine.”
“If you want to go, go.” She turned away so he couldn’t see her exhausted, tearstained expression. “Tell Letty I’d already left. I’ll get a train back to the city.”
“Are you serious?” He looked down at her skeptically. “How will you reach the station? I doubt trains are even running—”
“Then I’ll walk!” Her voice was suddenly shrill. “I’m not sleeping here!”
Santiago paused.
“Belle,” he said, in a voice more gentle than she’d ever heard from him before. “What’s wrong?”
Reaching out, he put his hand on her shoulder, then lifted it to her cheek. It was the first time he had ever touched her, and even in the dark and cold the touch of his hand spun through her like a fire. Her lips parted.
“If something was wrong, why would I tell you?”
His smile increased. “Because you hate me.”
“And?”
“So whatever it is, you can tell me. Because you don’t give a damn what I think.”
“True,” she said wryly. It was tempting. She pressed her lips together. “But you might tell the world.”
“Do I ever share secrets?”
“No,” she was forced to admit. “But you do say mean and insulting things. You are heartless and rude and...”
“Only to people’s faces. Never behind their backs.” His voice was low. “Tell me, Belle.”
Clouds covered the moon, and they were briefly flooded in darkness. She suddenly was desperate to share her grief with someone, anyone. And it was true she couldn’t have a lower opinion of him. He probably couldn’t think less of her, either.
That thought was oddly comforting. She didn’t have to pretend with Santiago. She didn’t have to be positive and hopeful at all times, the cheerleader who tried to please everyone, no matter what. Belle had learned at a young age never to let any negative feelings show. If you were honest about your feelings, it only made people dislike you. It only made people leave, even and especially the ones you loved.
So Santiago was the only one she could tell. The only one she could be truly herself with. Because, heck, if he permanently left her life, she’d throw a party.
She took a deep breath. “It’s the baby.”
“Little Howie?”
“Yes.”
“I had a hard time with him, too. Babies.” He rolled his eyes. “All those diapers, all that crying. But what can you do? Some people still seem to want them.”
“I do.” The moon broke through the clouds, and Belle looked up at him with tears shimmering in the moonlight. “I want a baby.”
He stared down at her, then snorted. “Of course you do. Romantic idiot like you. You want love, flowers, the whole package.” He shrugged. “So why cry over it? If you are foolish enough to want a family, go get one. Settle down, buy a house, get married. No one is stopping you.”
“I... I can’t get pregnant,” she whispered. “Ever. It’s impossible.”
“How do you know?”
“Because...” Belle looked down at the tracks in the snow. The moonlight caused strange shadows, mingling her footsteps and his. “I just know. It’s medically impossible.”
She braced herself for his inevitable questions. Medically impossible how? What happened? When and why?
But he surprised her.
Reaching out, he just pulled her into his arms, beneath his black cashmere coat. She felt the sudden comfort of his warmth, his strength, as he caressed her long dark hair. “Everything will be all right.”
She looked up at him, her heart in her throat. She was aware of the heat of his body against hers.
“You must think I’m a horrible person,” she said, pulling away. “A horrible friend for envying Letty, when she just lost her father. I spent all day holding her sweet baby and envying her. I’m the worst friend in the world.”
“Stop.” Cupping her face, he looked down at her fiercely. “You know I think you’re a fool...existing in a pink cloud of candy-coated dreams. Someday you will lose those rose-colored glasses and learn the truth about the heartless world...”
She whispered brokenly. “I—”
He put his finger on her lips. “But even I can see you’re a good friend.”
His finger felt warm against her tingling lips. She had the sudden shocking desire to kiss it, to wrap her lips around his finger and suck it gently. She’d never had such a shocking thought before—she, an inexperienced virgin! But as little as she liked him, something about the wickedly sexy Spaniard attracted —and scared—her.
Trembling, she twisted her head away. She remembered all those women he’d famously seduced, those women she’d scorned as fools for being willing notches on his bedpost. And for the first time, she sympathized with them, as she herself fully felt the potent force of his charm.
“You’re lucky, actually.” Santiago gave her a crooked half grin. “Babies? Marriage? Who would want to be stuck with such a thankless responsibility as a family?” He shook his head. “No good would have come of it. It’s a prison sentence. Now you can have something better.”
She stared at him. “Better than a family?”
He nodded.
“Freedom,” he said quietly.
“But I don’t want freedom.” Her voice was small. “I want to be loved.”
“We all want things we can’t have,” he said roughly.
“How would you know? You’ve never wanted anything, not without taking it.”
“You’re wrong. There has been something I’ve wanted. For four months. Someone. But I can’t have her.”
Four months. Suddenly, Belle’s heart was beating wildly in her chest. He couldn’t mean...couldn’t possibly mean...
Could Santiago Velazquez, the famous New York billionaire, a man who had supermodels for the asking, really want Belle—a plump, ordinary waitress from small-town Texas?
Their eyes held in the moonlight. Sparks ran through her body, from her earlobes to her hair to her breasts to the soles of her feet.
“I want her. I can’t have her,” he said in a low voice. “Not even if she were standing in front of me now.”
“Why not?” she breathed.
“Ah.” His lips twisted. “She wants love. I see it in her face. I hear it in her voice. She craves love like the air she breathes. If I took her, if I made her mine, she would turn all her romantic longings on me. And be destroyed by it.” He looked down at her, his eyes dark and deep. “Because as much as I want her body, I do not want her heart.”
Behind the soft silver halo on his black hair, she could dimly see the shadow of the manor house, and hear the ocean waves pounding on the unseen shore.
Then Belle’s eyes suddenly narrowed.
He was playing with her, she realized. Toying with her. Like a sharp-clawed cat with a mouse. “Stop it.”
“What?”
She lifted her chin. “Are you bored, Santiago? Do you want some company in your bed and I’m the only one around?” She glared at him. “Other women might fall for your world-weary playboy act. But I don’t believe a word of it. If you really wanted me, you wouldn’t let anything stand in the way, not my feelings and certainly not the risk of hurting me. You would seduce me without conscience. That’s what a playboy does. So obviously, you don’t want me. You’re just bored.”
“You’re wrong, Belle.” Roughly, he pulled her against his body, beneath his expensive black cashmere coat. She felt his warmth as his dark eyes searched hers hungrily. “I’ve wanted you since Darius and Letty’s wedding. Since the first time you told me to go to hell.” His sensual lips curved as he cupped her cheek and looked down at her intently. “But whatever you think of me, I’m not in the business of purposefully making naïve young women love me.”
Her whole body was tingling with energy, with fear, with a feeling that could only be desire. She fought it desperately.
“You think I’d immediately fall in love with you?”
“Yes.”
She gave an incredulous snort. “You have no problems with your ego, do you?”
His dark gaze seared her. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.” She gave a careless shrug. “I do want love, it’s true. If I met a man I could respect and admire, I might easily fall in love. But that’s not you, Santiago.” She looked at him evenly. “No matter how rich or sexy you might be. So if you want me, too bad. I don’t want you.”
His expression changed. His eyes glittered in the moonlight.
“You don’t?” Reaching out, he ran his thumb lightly against her trembling bottom lip and whispered, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she breathed, unable to pull away, or to look from his dark gaze.
He ran his hand down her arm, looking down at her as if she were the most beautiful, desirable creature on earth. “And if I took you to my bed, you wouldn’t fall in love?”
“Not even remotely. I think you’re a total bastard.”
But even as she spoke, Belle couldn’t stop herself from shivering. She knew he felt it. The corners of his lips twisted upward in grim masculine satisfaction.
Softly, he ran his hand down through her hair. Her body’s shivering intensified. As she breathed in his scent of sandalwood and firelight, she felt the strength and power of his body against hers, beneath his long black coat.
“Then there’s no reason to hold back. Forget love.” He gently lifted her chin. “Forget regret, forget pain, forget everything fate has denied you. For one night, take pleasure in what you can have, right here and now.”
“You mean, take pleasure in you?”
She’d tried to say the words sarcastically, but the way her heart was hammering in her chest, her tone came out wrong. Instead of sarcastic, she sounded breathless. Yearning.
“For one night, let me give you joy. Without strings. Without consequences. Stop thinking so much about the future,” he said in a low voice, his hand cupping her cheek. “For one night, you can know what it feels like to be truly, recklessly alive.”
His black eyes seared hers, and the cold January night sizzled like west Texas in July as an arc of electricity passed between them.
Give herself to him for one night, without consequences? Without strings?
Belle stared up at him, shocked.
She’d never slept with anyone. She’d never even gotten close. She was, in fact, a twenty-eight-year-old virgin, an old maid who’d spent her whole life taking care of others, while failing to achieve a single dream for herself.
