India Grey – Emily's Innocence (страница 9)
‘Does it really?’ he said softly, and with infinite scorn, as if what she had said was utterly facile. ‘And what if there are things the other person would be better off not knowing?’
She lifted her head, forcing herself to look at him. ‘Better for them, or better for you?’
He looked back at her. His eyes were narrowed, but for a fraction of a second she thought she saw something in them that was almost like uncertainty. ‘Better for you both.’
‘You have to trust the person enough to forgive you,’ she said, emotion turning her voice husky. ‘You have to give them a chance.’
He turned his head away from her and looked down. A lock of hair fell down over his eyes, making him look suddenly strangely unguarded. Emily felt a painful lurching sensation in her chest.
‘And your father didn’t do that?’ he said tonelessly. ‘He didn’t tell her, even when Mia came?’
Emily shook her head, not wanting to remember those dark days after Mia had shown up. Days that slipped by like sand in a bottle. ‘My father told us all to make sure she didn’t suspect a thing.’ She gave a bleak smile. ‘Mia pretended to be the new housekeeper, which wasn’t a great start to her life as a Balfour, but Mum had such little time left by then.’
Luis shrugged, leaning over to pick up the wine bottle from the bedside table. ‘There you are, then. At least he spared her the pain of finding out.’
‘What? So you think that makes it
A muscle jumped beneath the bronzed skin of his cheek. The room suddenly seemed very still. ‘I think it doesn’t alter the fact that your parents had a good, happy marriage,’ he said slowly.
Emily gave a snort of low, cynical laughter. ‘Oh, right. Your definition of a happy marriage being one where you can screw around as often as you like and it doesn’t matter as long as the other person doesn’t find out? What a lucky woman the future Crown Princess of Santosa is.’
‘That’s different.’ As if in slow motion she watched him reach out and catch the drip of wine that was running down her shin with his thumb. ‘When I marry it’ll be a business arrangement. Love will have no part in it, and I expect the future Crown Princess of Santosa will fully understand that.’
Emily turned to stone beneath his touch, terrified by the fire that was crackling along her nerves, like the fuse of a bomb. ‘A business arrangement?’ she rasped. ‘The terms of which will make it perfectly OK for you to sleep with whoever you like. And will she be free to do the same?’
‘As long as she’s discreet,’ he said softly, following the wet trail of the wine down her leg and over her ankle. ‘Jealousy is a nasty disease to which, thankfully, I’m completely immune. I’m a realist. Marriage fulfils a lot of needs—in my case practical, in your father’s case emotional. He loved Lillian, and one last fling before his wedding doesn’t alter that. It meant nothing.’
‘That’s the bit I don’t get,’ Emily said, forcing her mind to stay focused on the subject, and not on the sparks of pleasure his touch had ignited beneath her skin. ‘Why do it, then? Why have sex with someone if it means nothing?’
In the soft lamp light his face was beautiful but impossible to read. Thoughtfully he slid his hand beneath her instep, turning her foot round and studying it. Emily felt it flex helplessly, her toes curling downwards as if they had a life of their own. All the nerves of her body seemed suddenly to be concentrated in that foot, making it tingle as if with pins and needles. Distantly she remembered the sensation she used to get in her feet before a performance, how it felt as if they were coming alive.
‘If you have to ask the question you probably wouldn’t understand the answer,’ Luis said dryly, his thumb massaging her high arch. ‘Sexual attraction isn’t something you can rationalize, or sometimes even control. It’s called being human. Oscar might be your father but he’s still just a human being.’
‘I know that.’ Her voice was quivering and breathless.
‘And yet it seems to me that you want to punish him for it.’ He ran his fingertips over the hard, shiny calluses at the base of her toes, adding softly, ‘You have the most extraordinary feet.’
Sharply she pulled her foot from his grasp and stood, pacing over to the fireplace, desperate to get far enough away from him to think clearly—focus on the conversation they were having, not the very separate line of communication her body suddenly seemed intent on pursuing. ‘It’s not like that. I’m not punishing him. I just feel…betrayed. Everything feels like it’s falling apart…with my mother and Mia and now Zoe and that…that…
‘Except you.’ He had got up and followed her to where she stood. Her back was towards him but in the mirror above the fireplace their eyes met and she felt her blood heat as he smiled right into them. ‘As I recall, you resisted most forcefully last year.’
‘Yes.’ She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. ‘Because I want more than that.’
He dropped his gaze, and she felt a split second of relief. But then he slid his hand beneath her hair and she stiffened again, gripped by emotions and sensations she couldn’t identify or control. Or resist.
‘Than what?’ He said softly, gently stroking the back of her neck.
‘Than quick…meaningless…sex.’ She gasped.
‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.’ In contrast to her own voice, his was as smooth and slow and rich as sun-warmed honey.
‘And what makes you think I haven’t?’
It was a desperate attempt at bravado, but in the mirror she caught a brief glimpse of the golden gleam in his eyes as he bent his head and brushed his lips against her ear. Instinctively she flinched violently away from the thousand-watt electric shock that his touch sparked through her whole body.
He laughed softly. ‘That.’
Trembling, breathing as heavily as if she’d just run a marathon, Emily faced him. Cheeks flaming, she pulled the collar of the robe up around her neck and raised her chin defiantly and attempted what she hoped was a scornful laugh. ‘Just because I’m not willing to fall into bed with you the moment you click your fingers.’
Luis caught hold of the tie belt of the robe and pulled her gently towards him. ‘I see,’ he said gravely, wickedness glittering in the depths of his eyes, ‘you expect foreplay too, do you? Something like this…’
She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could make the words come out his lips had covered hers and darkness had exploded inside her head, obliterating everything but him: the heat and closeness of his body, the scent and taste of him. She was shocked rigid, shocked into helplessness, unable to think, to respond sensibly. She should be pulling away, but all she seemed to be capable of was standing as still and stiff as Joan of Arc at the stake with the flames licking up around her…
Devouring her.
She was trembling uncontrollably, parting her lips beneath the firm pressure of his, opening her mouth to the gentle probing of his tongue. A whispered, shuddering sigh escaped her as he moved his mouth from hers and began to kiss a path downwards to the angle of her jaw and her earlobe, and the hand that had been resting on her hip slid across her midriff, making her quiver and gasp as the feelings that had haunted her unsettled dreams since that night at Balfour zigzagged through her again.
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