Page 40 of The Caress

"It’s nothing." I lie, making a dismissive gesture. "Nothing important, anyway."

I should probably tell him the truth, but what is he going to do about it? James is his brother. He’ll probably be the next prime minister. Another confrontation between the two of them isn’t the way to de-escalate this situation.

"He’s going to stay in Malta for a few days," Keir says, making a face like he’s just tasted something sour. "Since he decided to fly all the way down here. I guess he has to make it look like we’re getting along, like we’re one big, happy family."

"Great," I sigh, already steeling my nerves for the next time I’ll have to see Keir’s evil little brother. "Is it too late for me to catch a flight back to New York?"

I think he can tell that I’m only half-joking. His frown deepens as he shakes his head. "No way. I need you here. I need you even more now that my crazy family is around." He leans back in his chair and is quiet for a moment before he continues. "I won’t stop you if you really want to go. But I hope you’ll stay."

"I’ll stay."

The words fall out of my mouth on their own, but what else was I going to say?

Of course I’m going to stay. We both know it. We both know why.

I love him.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

KEIR

It’s nearly midnight when I softly knock on Ella’s bedroom door. "Are you awake?" I whisper, opening it just enough to peer into the darkened room.

"I am now. What’s going on?"

"Sorry, I thought you might still be up." Now I feel like an idiot and an asshole for waking her. "Never mind. I’ll see you in the morning."

"Wait, Keir." She pushes her covers aside and walks over to the door to meet me. Wearing just an oversized t-shirt and no makeup, she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. "What is it? I haven’t been in bed for very long, and there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep now unless you tell me what’s wrong."

I hesitate a moment, my eyes traveling down to linger on her long, toned, dancer’s legs. "I, uh…" Fuck. This seemed like a good idea when I was running it through my head. Now it seems stupid. "There’s a movie playing at the cinema downtown that I thought you might want to see. There’s a twelve-thirty showing tonight."

Her expression changes from concern to confusion in an instant. "What? Tonight? "Twelve-thirty as in," she says, pausing to check the time. "Forty-five minutes from now?"

I nod. "Do you want to go?"

"Are you insane?" She laughs, then looks at the clock again. "And are you serious?"

"Yes and yes," I answer, trying not to join in with her laughter. "You don’t need to put on any makeup because it’s going to be dark in the theater anyway. We’ll wear hats and glasses so nobody will recognize us."

‘Are you serious?" she repeats. "You really want to take me to a movie now? In the middle of the night?"

I shrug. "I know it sounds crazy, but I figured we could both use a break. Isla is sleeping, and Mother is here if she needs anything. We’ll only be gone a couple of hours, so we’ll be back home before anyone wakes up and notices we’re missing."

"This really is crazy," she says, moving away from the door and grabbing a pair of pants that are draped across the chair in the corner. "And I’m totally not dressing up, just for the record."

"That’s fine. Perfectly fine. Like I said, we’re going incognito."

We're sneaking out of the villa like two teenagers past curfew in fifteen minutes. "I haven’t done something like this since boarding school," I confess. "I have to admit it feels a little silly."

"Probably because you’re wearing sunglasses after midnight," she snorts. "So incognito."

Yeah, maybe I haven’t thought this through very well.

Whatever.

I’m alone with Ella. That’s the whole point of this dumb plan. So it’s already a success in that regard. But I should probably still lose the sunglasses before I accidentally draw too much attention.

Malta isn’t very big, thankfully, so it isn’t a long walk from the villa to the center of the medieval town. Along the way, I point out a few of the more interesting sights, like the ancient church and one of the crusader castles.

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