Page 52 of A Caribbean Heiress in Paris
Luz Alana’s eyes widened at the mention of the arrival in Scotland while Evan nervously fisted his hand around the ring in his trouser pocket. He ran the pad of his finger over the aquamarine stone and cringed internally. Maybe she wouldn’t like it or would think it was too simple. He should’ve bought her something new, something that didn’t have the significance this ring had. He didn’t need to give her a ring at all given the circumstances of their arrangement. But the moment she’d left his flat he’d thought of nothing else but seeing his mother’s ring on her finger. He could not stop muddying the waters with this woman.
“Is Clarita settling in?”
Why was he stalling? This was merely a formality.
“She’s very happy to have other children to travel with.” Luz always brightened when the conversation turned to her sister, which in turn made him want to ensure the child was treated like a empress. “Thank you for setting up a time for them to meet yesterday. She was anxious, and it helped to spend time with the twins before we left.”
“Of course.” He nodded, maddeningly polite, as an oppressive silence descended between them.Just give her the damn ring.He’d prevaricated when he’d collected her that morning. He’d failed to do it in the carriage, he’d waffled as they’d gone to the cargo cars toonce againinspect her rum was stowed properly. Here he was, still unable to do something that ought to be a simple part of this ruse they were undertaking.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, a brittle smile on her lips. She was wary of him because he’d behaved like a damn child after he’d bedded her, and now he was making it worse with all this brooding.
“I have something to give you,” Evan finally said as he closed the distance between them and pulled the ring out of his pocket.
“Oh,” she gasped as he took her gloved hand and pulled on it until he was touching her delicate fingers. The now-familiar snap of electricity crackled when their fingers met and with newfound urgency he slid his mother’s ring onto her finger. “You didn’t have to,” she told him even as she lifted the hand to look at it more closely. The platinum band, with its oval cabochon-cut aquamarine surrounded by a cluster of thirty-four tiny diamonds, looked like a small flower on her finger.
“You are my betrothed,” he told her in matter of explanation, with a voice that sounded like he’d swallowed fistfuls of sand.
“It’s beautiful.” She sounded odd, but he could not make out the expression on her face. “Aquamarine,” she said softly, looking it over. “It’s my favorite stone.” She looked up then, eyes bright with something he did not dare examine. “The same color as the ocean in the Caribbean. Like the larimar.”
The words all stuck in his throat.
“It was my mother’s,” he finally managed. She looked almost stricken. She opened her mouth, and he braced for her to say they must keep things impersonal, that he was blurring the lines she’d so carefully laid down. But she only smiled and moved to kiss him on the cheek.
“I’ll take care of it while it’s in my possession.”
A knife to the heart. Evan thought himself immune to cutting words, and yet this woman’s thoughtful consideration had pierced him to the core.
They stood there in that dismal quiet until he could not take it anymore, and he pulled her to him.
“Oh hell, Luz Alana, I’ve made a shambles of this.” She let him engulf her in his arms, looking up at him with those dark eyes and an even darker expression.
“Are we friends again?” She looked furious, even as she pressed close.
I don’t want to be your friend. I want to be your sentinel, your squire, the body that covers yours every night.
“We were never friends, Luz Alana.”
Her eyes narrowed into slits at his querulous remark.
“We’re something bigger than that. We’re coconspirators. We each hold the other’s future in our hands.” One of those little surprised gasps escaped her lips, and he gave up all pretense. He covered her mouth with his and fed his gnawing hunger.
“Don’t make me wait again,” she rebuked, clasping her hands around his shoulders. She opened to him, tongue caressing his with deftness. No shyness, no demure pretense.
Not his lioness.
He feasted on her mouth, hands roaming down to that generous rump to squeeze. She yelped, and they smiled against each other’s mouths.
“I want you,” he said, between fevered kisses, on her jaw, her neck. As always, the latest ladies’ fashions presented themselves as barricades between himself and this woman’s skin. “I could take you right there.” He looked to the plush damask-covered chaise, making her balk. He refrained from tearing open her bodice, but he was tempted. “I’d lift your skirts and slip inside.” She moaned in between deep, lush kisses. “I can’t stop thinking about the way you hold me. That tight, exquisite heat.”
“We can’t,” she said weakly, even as she exposed more of her throat for him to kiss. “Not while we’re with your family. It will send the wrong message.”
That dampened his fervor, and he pulled away to look at her. Her mouth was a vivid pink and bruised from his kisses. He imagined seeing those pillowy rosy lips stretched as she pleasured him.
“Evan, are you even listening to me?”
He shook his head like a wet dog, addled by the things he wanted to do to this woman.
“Don’t worry about my family,” he reassured her. “You’ll learn to pretend they’re not there, like I do,” he said meaningfully, and she laughed, eyes bright with amusement.
