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He couldn’t leave it alone, could he? He should be bidding her good afternoon and running very fast in the other direction. But she constantly provoked his interest, and it was oh-so-deliberate. She wasn’t walking away either and he’d bet it was because she felt the attraction sizzling between them just as much as he did.
Hell, everything he’d learned about her thus far indicated she liked the hint of naughtiness to their encounters...because they weren’t supposed to be attracted to each other.
“I have a tendency to get into trouble.” She waggled her brows. “These guys are here to keep me honest. Remind me that I have royal blood in my veins and a responsibility to the crown.”
That was too good of a segue to pass up. “Really? What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, the worst kind,” she stressed and reached out to stroke his arm in deliberate provocation. “If you’ve got a reputation to uphold, you’d best steer clear.”
The contact of her nails on his bare arm sang through him. This was the most fun he’d had all day. “Sweetheart, I hate to disillusion you, but I’ve managed to ruin my reputation quite nicely all by my own self. Hanging out with you might actually improve it.”
“Huh.” She gave him a wholly inappropriate once-over that raised the temperature a few thousand degrees. “I’m dying to know. What did you do?”
“You really don’t know?” That would be a first.
When she shook her head, he thought about glossing over it for a half second, but she’d find out soon enough anyway. “Mishap in Rio. Some unfortunate photographs starring me and a prostitute. I swear, money never came up, but there you go. The world didn’t see it as an innocent mistake.”
Gaze locked on his, she squeezed his arm. “Man after my own heart. Of all the things I thought we might have in common, that was not it. I’m recovering from my own photographer-in-the-bushes fiasco. Cretins.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Sorry.”
A moment of pure commiseration passed between them. And it spread into something dangerously affecting. They shared a complete lack of reverence for rules, their chemistry was off the charts and they were both in Alma trying to find their footing. It was practically criminal that he couldn’t explore her gorgeous body and even more attractive mind to his heart’s content.
But he couldn’t. While he might have competed with Will over women in the past, this one was different. James wasn’t in a good place to start anything with a woman anyway, especially not one who would live in the public eye for the foreseeable future. She needed to be with Will, who would take care of her and not sully her with failure.
Not to mention that his father seemed to have struck some kind of bargain with the Montoro family. Until James knew exactly what that entailed, he couldn’t cross the line he so badly wanted to.
She’d flat out told him he’d have to be the strong one, that he should stop tempting her. So that was the way it had to be.
James smiled and slipped his own sunglasses over his eyes so she couldn’t read how difficult this was going to be for him. “Nice to see you again, Bella. I’ve got an appointment I’m late for so I’ve got to dash.”
Casual. No commitment to calling her later. Exactly the right tone to brush her off.
She frowned and opened her mouth, but before she could say something they’d both likely regret, he added, “You should ring Will. Cheers,” and whirled to take off down the boardwalk as fast he could.
Being noble tasted more bitter than he would have ever anticipated.
Three (#u95456b5c-1bd8-59ae-8557-b83e323f81fb)
James’s rebuff stayed with Bella into the evening.
Apparently he wasn’t of the same mind that a match between the Rowlings and Montoros could work just as easily between James and Bella as it could with his brother.
Being forced into a stiff, formal dinner with her father didn’t improve her mood. Gabriel and Serafia were supposed to be there, too, which was the only reason Bella agreed, but the couple had yet to show.
Five bucks said they’d lost track of time while indulging in a much more pleasurable activity than dinner with Little Sister and Frosty Father. Lucky dogs.
Bella spooned up another bite of Marta’s gazpacho, one of the best things the chef had prepared so far, and murmured her appreciation in case her father was actually paying attention to her today. But her mind was back on the boardwalk outside El Gatito. She’d have sworn the encounter with James would end with at least a kiss in the shadows of a storefront. Just to take the edge off until they got behind closed doors and let the simmering heat between them explode.
“Isabella.” Her father’s voice startled her out of an X-rated fantasy that she shouldn’t have envisioned at all, let alone at the dinner table.
Not because of the X factor, but because it had starred James, who had cast her off with the lovely parting gift of his brother. Call Will. As if James had already grown tired of her and wanted to be clear about what her next steps should be.
“Yeah, Dad?” He must have realized that they were actually sitting at the same table. For once. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d eaten together.
“You should know your great-aunt Isabella has decided to spend her last days in Alma. She arrived this morning and is asking after you.”
Sudden happy tears burned Bella’s eyelids. “Oh, that’s the best news ever. Isn’t she going to stay here with us?”
“The restoration of the monarchy is topmost on your aunt’s mind.” Rafael’s gaze bored into her; he was no doubt trying to instill the gravity of royal protocol. “Therefore, she is staying in Del Sol. She wished to be close to El Castillo del Arena, so that she may be involved in Gabriel’s coronation to the extent she is able.”
Bella swore. Del Sol was, what? An hour away? Fine time to realize she should have taken her father up on the offer of a car...except she hadn’t wanted to learn all the new traffic laws and Spanish road signs. Too late now—she’d have to take the chauffeured town car in order to visit Tía Isabella.
“Playa Del Onda is practically like Miami.” Bella grumbled, mostly to herself. “You’d think she’d prefer the coast.”
Her father put his spoon by his plate even though his bowl of gazpacho was still almost full. It hadn’t been long enough since the last time they’d dined together for her to forget that meant a subject of grave importance was afoot and it wasn’t her aunt’s preference of locale.
“I have another matter to discuss. How was your first meeting with Will Rowling?”
Biting back a groan, she kept eating in a small show of defiance. Then she swallowed and said, “I haven’t scheduled it yet.”
Her father frowned. “I have it on good authority that you spoke to him today. On the boardwalk.”
Spies? Her father had stooped to a new low. “I wasn’t talking to Will. That was James.”
Oh, duh. Her brand new security-guards-slash-babysitters had spilled the beans. Too bad they were the wrong beans.
Rafael’s brows snapped together. “I cannot make myself more clear. Will Rowling is the man you should be pursuing.”
Bella abandoned her spoon and plunked her elbows on the table to lean forward, so her father didn’t miss her game face. “What if I like James better?”
Never mind that James had washed his hands of her. Regardless, it was the principle of the thing. Her father liked to try and run her life but failed to recall that Bella’s typical response was to tell him to go to hell.
“James Rowling is bad news wrapped with trouble,” Rafael shot back with a scowl. “He is not good enough for my daughter.”
It seemed as if James had quoted this exact conversation to her yesterday on the beach. What was he, psychic? James’s comment about the photographs that had gotten him into trouble crossed her mind and she realized there must be more to the story. She actually knew very little about the man other than the way he made her feel when he looked at her.
She eyed her father. What if Rafael had told James to brush her off? Would James have listened? She wouldn’t put it past her father to interfere and now she wished she’d chased James down so she could ask. Shoot. She’d have to arrange another accidental meeting in order to find out.
“Maybe I’d like to make that decision on my own.”
“Perhaps you need a few more facts if you’re determined to undo the work I’ve already done on your behalf.” Her father rubbed his graying temple. “Will Rowling is the next CEO of Rowling Energy, and he will be of paramount importance to your brother’s relationship with the entire European oil market. How do you suppose the Montoros will lead a country rich with oil if we do not have the appropriate alliances in place?”
“Gabriel’s smart. He’ll figure it out,” she said, but it came out sounding a little sullen. As smart and capable as Gabriel may be, he’d never been king before and besides, Alma hadn’t had a king in a long time, so her brother would be a bit of a trailblazer.
She owed it to Gabriel to give him a leg up.
“Have you given any thought to Will Rowling’s feelings, Isabella? You haven’t reached out to him in the three days since you’ve arrived. You could not have insulted him more if you tried.”
No, she hadn’t thought of that. She swore. Her father had a very small point. Miniscule. But a point nonetheless. How would she feel if Will had come to Miami to meet her and then didn’t call her, choosing instead to flirt outrageously with her best friend, Nicole, for example?
She’d hunt Will down and tell him to his face what a dog he was. So why should she get a pass to do whatever pleased her? It didn’t matter if her father had scared off James—this was about doing what she said she’d do.
“I’ll meet Will. Tomorrow, if he’s free,” Bella promised and turned her attention to eating. The faster the gazpacho disappeared, the faster she could as well.
It didn’t go down as well this time. Righteousness wasn’t as fun as it looked in the brochure.
* * *
Will Rowling took Bella’s call immediately, cleared his schedule for the next morning and agreed to take her on a tour of Alma. He’d been very pleasant on the phone, though his British accent sounded a bit too much like James’s for her liking.
When Will picked her up at 10:30 a.m. on the dot, she flung the door open and actually had a bad Captain Obvious moment when she realized Will looked like James, too. Duh. As common as fraternal twins were among the moneyed set of Miami, she’d never actually met a set of identical twins.
She studied him for a long second, taking in the remarkable resemblance, until he cleared his throat and she found a dose of manners somewhere in her consciousness. “I’m so sorry! Hello. You must be Will.”
“I don’t know if I must be, but I am Will,” he agreed.
Was that a joke? Trying not to be too obtrusive, she evaluated his expression but it was blank. With James, she never had to wonder. “I’m Bella, by the way.”
“I assumed so. I have your picture.”
Of course he did. And this was her house. Wasn’t this fun? “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, if you are.” With a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he held out a hand toward his car, and waited until she left the house to follow her so he could help her into the passenger seat.
Will climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled his seat belt carefully before starting the car, which guilted Bella into fastening hers as well. Seat belts. In an itty-bitty place like Alma, where nothing happened.
She sighed and pasted on a bright smile. “Safety first.”
Usually she trotted that line out during a condom discussion. She almost cracked a joke along those lines, but something told her Will might not appreciate the parallel. Sinking down in her seat, she scouted for a topic of discussion. They were supposed to be seeing how they meshed, right?
Will must have had a similar thought process because he spoke first. “Thanks for arranging this, Bella. I’m chuffed to show you around Alma, but I’d like to know what you might be interested in seeing. Anything jump out at you? I’m at your command.”
Did he mean that in the double-entendre way? A provocative rejoinder sprang to her lips that she’d have let fly if she’d been in the car with James. Should she flirt with Will, the way she normally did on a date, or would that just lead to him taking her up on it, when she wasn’t even sure she wanted him to? Maybe she should just be herself, but what if Will hated her immediately? Would her father lay another guilt trip on her?
All of this second-guessing was making her nuts. She wasn’t with James, and everyone—including James—wanted her to make nice with the proper Rowling. Yeah, she’d looked up James last night, finding far more information about him than she’d expected, and little of it would fit the definition of the word proper.
No one, not even James, had thought it relevant to mention the man was a professional soccer—football in Europe, apparently—player. Since he appeared to have quite a bit of fame, maybe he’d assumed she already knew. Regardless, bad press followed James around like it did her. No wonder her father had nearly had a heart attack when she mentioned James’s name. He was the very opposite of the proper brother.
Proper pretty much covered Will’s personality. Five minutes in, and judging by the stiff set of Will’s shoulders, he wasn’t as much of a fun time as his brother. Hopefully, she’d judged wrong and would soon discover otherwise.
“Thanks,” she responded. “I’ve only seen the coast and a bit of Del Sol. Why don’t you pick, since this is your home?”
“No problem.” He shot her a small but pained smile, cluing her in that this whole set up might be as difficult for him as it was for her.
She should give him a break. “So, Will. How long have you lived in Alma?”
An innocuous enough subject, hopefully, and given the brothers’ accents, it was a safe bet they hadn’t been born here.
“Since I was seven. My father moved us here from England.”
“Oh, that must have been quite an adventure.”
She’d lived in Miami her whole life and living someplace new did have appeal for that reason alone. If only this arranged marriage business hadn’t soured the experience of coming to Alma, she’d be having a blast. And that was why she still didn’t think of it as her home... She still reserved the right to go back to Miami and play aunt instead of princess if the royal pressure grew too great.
Though with Tía Isabella’s arrival in Alma, going home held much less appeal.
Will’s face remained expressionless, but he tapped his pinky on the steering wheel in a staccato rhythm as he drove north out of Playa Del Onda along the coastal road that circled the main island.
“The move was difficult,” he said shortly and paused so long, she wasn’t sure he planned to continue. But then he said, “My mother had just died.”
“I’m sorry,” Bella murmured. “That would be difficult on young boys.”
All at once, she realized this was James’s history as well as Will’s. And now she was absurdly interested in learning more. The gorgeous deep blues of the bay unfurled as far as the eye could see on her right but she ignored the spectacular view in favor of watching Will.
“Thanks.” He glanced in the rearview mirror and double-checked the side mirrors before changing lanes. Will Rowling might very well be the most careful driver she’d ever met. “Look, let’s just get all of it out on the table, shall we?”
“Depends on what you mean by all and table,” she countered, a little puzzled by his abrupt change of subject.
Was this the part of the date where he expected her to air all her dirty laundry? She’d never had a long-term relationship, never wanted one, never thought about what went into establishing a foundation for one. Maybe they were supposed to spill deep, dark secrets right off the bat. She was so not on board with that.
“About the arranged marriage,” he clarified. “We should clear the air.”
“I’m not a lesbian looking for a fake husband and I don’t have a crazy uncle chained up in the closet, if that’s what you’re fishing for.”
He flashed a brief smile, the most genuine one yet, giving her a glimpse of what he might be like if he loosened up a little. “I wasn’t fishing. I meant, I wanted to tell you that marriage wasn’t my idea. I’m not after your title or your fortune.”
“Oh. Then what are you after?”
The smile vanished as his expression smoothed out into the careful nothingness he’d worn since the first moment. “Aligning myself with the Montoros through marriage is advantageous for Rowling Energy. It would be fitting if we suited each other. That’s the only reason I agreed to meet you.”
Ouch. That was kind of painful. Was she actually disappointed his motives for this pseudo-date nearly matched hers word for word? Well, not really, but no woman liked to find out a man was only interested in her connections. At least he’d admitted it up front.
All on the table, indeed.
“Yeah. I get that. My father pretty much insisted that I get on a plane and fall in love. Not necessarily in that order.” Her lips twisted into a grimace automatically. “Since we’re on the subject, would you really go through with it?”
“Marriage, you mean?” A shadow darkened his gaze though his eyes never left the road. “Rowling Energy is on the brink of gaining a starring role on the world’s oil stage. Our alliance makes very good sense. My assumption is that you thought so as well.”
“Wow.” Bella blinked. Had he memorized that careful statement in one sitting or had he repeated it to himself in the shower for the past week so he could get it out without stumbling? “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
If she’d ever had any shred of doubt about her ability to tolerate an arranged marriage, it had just been crushed under the heel of Will’s ambition. There was no way she’d marry anyone unless the words deliriously happy, scorching passion and eternal love entered into the conversation about a hundred times first, and even then, vows would be far, far in the future.
His eyebrows rose slightly. “Meaning?”
She rolled her eyes. “I just hadn’t pegged you for a romantic. That’s all.”
“It wasn’t intended to be romantic,” he explained, and she had the distinct impression he really thought she’d needed the clarification.
