Page 8 of Expecting His Billion-Dollar Scandal
Luca felt as though he’d been punched in the gut and he was breathing heavily as he turned away to open the bottle of champagne. Hell, she might be fine with this scenario but he was in desperate need of a drink. He only wished he’d thought to bring something a little stronger. A bottle of whisky would have done the trick. Instead, he popped the cork on the champagne, which was still cold thanks to the sleeve into which it had been put, and he extended one of the two plastic glasses to her.
‘Are there rules about drinking and sailing?’ he asked, sitting on a rock while she tidily spread an oversized rug on the sand.
‘I’ve brought lots of water.’ She smiled and sipped some champagne. ‘And lots of food. That should take care of the alcohol.’
‘If it doesn’t, we could always spend the night on the beach.’ Their eyes tangled and he slanted a smile at her. ‘I guess living here, that’s something you must have done a million times...?’
Luca knew that he was shamelessly fishing for information but he wanted to find out more about her, dig a bit deeper, which was something he was seldom inclined to do when it came to the opposite sex. He’d long discovered that the women he dated were all largely gifted in the art of talking about themselves. There was almost no need to ask questions.
‘Not once,’ Cordelia murmured thoughtfully. ‘Although there are loads of bays and coves around here and, yes, there were always parties during the summer holidays.’
‘But you didn’t go to them.’
She swallowed some more champagne and grimaced. ‘When I was twelve, one of my friends had a birthday party on a cove not far from this one. Of course, adults were there. Since then, I’ve only ever sailed to one of these coves on my own.’
‘No reckless teenage parties with contraband alcohol and furious parents hunting down their wayward offspring to drag them back home?’
‘Not for me.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because...’ The sun was beating down but the rug was under the shade of a tree and there was just enough of a balmy breeze to make her feel sleepy. He’d left the rock at some point and was on the rug with her, sitting up, but then he lay flat, staring up at the cloudless blue sky, and she followed suit. ‘Because my father was very protective. My mother died when I was young. I told you that, but after she died, Dad, somehow, developed a crazy fear that if I ventured too far, something bad would happen. Of course, I didn’t notice it at all when I was young, but the older I got...the more I realised that I didn’t have the same freedoms as loads of kids my age. But then, my brother died and everything got...so much more difficult.’ She paused and gathered herself.
‘You had a brother? I had no idea.’
‘Why would you? Dad never talks about Alex. In fact, when he died, Dad made sure that all the framed photos of him were taken down. Alex was my twin.’
She was surprised and then moved when she felt Luca link his fingers through hers. Her mind was engaged in the past, but she still felt a jolt of electricity run through her body. The warmth of his fingers was so good, so reassuring and it was the first physical contact they had shared since she looked after him. Excitement leaped inside her but she told herself that this was just the normal gesture of someone empathising with what she had just said. The equivalent of a hug. Hugs weren’t sexual. A brotherly hug from a friend didn’t end up in a steamy kiss. But she still liked the touch of those fingers...and the thought of a steamy kiss was...well...in her head before she could take defensive measures to keep it out.
‘Your twin!’
He levered himself into a half-sitting position and leaned over her, to stare at her with startled, concerned eyes.
Cordelia dealt with that by closing her eyes. His fingers were still linked with hers and having him so close to her, close enough to feel his warm breath on her cheek, was too much to handle.
‘Everything changed after Alex died,’ Cordelia said. ‘I’d planned on going to university, even though I knew that Dad would have to resist phoning twice a day to make sure I was all right. I think he always felt, deep down, that he should have been able to protect my mum, that he should have been there with her when she went to London, then she wouldn’t have been hit by that car and everything would have been all right. If he couldn’t protect Mum, then he would devote his life to protecting me. But going to university?’ She sighed. ‘I’d worked out that it was just something I had to do. Alex was destined to help Dad in the fishing business and eventually take it over. It was all he’d ever wanted to do whereas I...’
‘Whereas you...?’
‘I had dreams of leaving here, seeing what was out there. It would have been the right thing to do for me and for my dad. Instead, those dreams died with Alex. I had no choice but to step into his shoes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad life, but there’s a big world out there and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ll never get to see it.’
She opened her eyes to find that he was still staring down at her and she smiled.
‘I’m not about to start weeping and wailing on you,’ she said.
‘I have no objection to a weeping and wailing woman,’ Luca lied. He could have expanded. He could have told her that weeping and wailing set his teeth on edge. He’d had his fill of watching the antics of his father’s ex-wives, the emotional dramas played out for public consumption when the marriages began to unravel. He could remember one memorable occasion when one of his father’s birthday celebrations had descended into full-blown farce when an inebriated wife number three had decided to spill the beans on everything she hated about men, and about his father in particular. So weeping and wailing? No chance.
‘Liar.’ But the smile was more heartfelt this time. ‘Men hate women crying on them.’
‘You speak from experience? Some guy turn on you because you cried?’
‘No!’ She couldn’t resist any longer and she reached out and stroked the side of his face and noticed that her fingers were trembling. It was only a stroke, but it felt as daring as if she’d done a striptease. Her nipples were pinched into tight, sensitive buds and heat had bloomed between her thighs.
The warm sun, the champagne, the sharing of these confidences...and this enigmatic stranger. The mix was heady and combustible.
‘No guys?’ He held still her hand and then opened it and, eyes still on her, he kissed her palm, then licked it, the delicate trace of his tongue on her skin.
She sighed and trembled, caught between an urge to pull back because this was dangerous territory and a need to go further because she’d never done a dangerous thing in her entire life and the temptation was overpowering.
