Much later Cesar lay awake in the dark room. Traces of the constriction in his chest brought on by Lexie’s questions were still there, faintly. Even though his body hummed with much more pleasurable sensations.
She was curled into him now, her naked curves keeping him at a level of near constant arousal. If it wasn’t so damned intoxicating he could almost resent her for her effect on him.
Her breath was feathering softly across his chest, light and even, and her hair was soft and silky. One hand lay right over the centre of his chest, where he’d felt the constriction most keenly earlier.
‘So how come you’re not married?’
Other women had asked him that question with a definite look in their eyes. Lexie hadn’t had that look. He never talked to anyone about his upbringing, but he seemed to be incapable of holding it in whenever those huge blue eyes were trained on him.
He’d told her...everything. He’d never even articulated his plans for the castillo to his friend Juan. He’d never told another soul. And when he’d told her something incredibly bleak had hit him. Bleak enough to drive him to taunt her, ask her if she pictured herself in that idyllic scenario.
And she’d looked for a moment as if he’d run a knife right through her belly. Pale. Stricken. Shocked. Clearly the thought was anathema to her, even though she’d joked about a dog.
Cesar went cold in the bed beside Lexie as something slid home inside him. The joke was on him, because for the first time in his life he was aware of a yearning sensation, a yearning for something he’d always believed to be utterly beyond his reach.
* * *
The following morning Lexie woke up alone in the bed. She sagged back against the pillows with not a little relief. Images from the night flooded her head and her cheeks reddened even as a tight knot of tension made her belly cramp.
She’d been able to drive away the demons for the night, but now they were back. The conversation with Cesar replayed in her head. The bleakness she’d felt when he’d spoken about the castillo, about leaving it behind so no child would have to endure what he had.
It shouldn’t be affecting Lexie like this. If anything it should be inciting a sense of protection within her. A sense that as long as she could count on Cesar’s obviously deeply rooted cynicism then she would be okay too.
But she couldn’t keep fooling herself. That discussion with Cesar had told Lexie that she wasn’t half as cynical as she’d always believed she was. It had told her that at a very deep core level she did harbour a fantasy. A fantasy of family and security and happiness. Fulfilment. It might not be dressed up in a vision of a cute cottage with a white picket fence and a dog and children, but it wasn’t far off.
And it made Lexie feel physically ill, almost as if she’d betrayed herself, to realise that. She’d been betrayed in the worst way possible by the very people who should have loved and protected her. And she’d always vowed to herself that she’d never allow that to happen again.
She’d vowed it. But deep down she hadn’t wanted to become that hard inside.
Lexie could see now that that was why she’d allowed herself to believe she could trust Jonathan Saunders, even briefly. Even then she’d been trying to prove to herself that she could trust again. That she could believe that she wouldn’t be betrayed. But he had betrayed her. And that should have proved to her that she’d been right all along not to trust. It should have shored up her defences. Made her even stronger.
But it hadn’t.
Because Lexie knew that any illusion of feeling in control of what was happening between her and Cesar Da Silva was exactly that. An illusion. And this man had the power to show her the
true extent of how flimsy her defences had always been.
CHAPTER NINE
‘WOULD YOU MIND if we returned to the castillo this morning? Something’s come up that I have to attend to in the vineyards.’
Lexie was in the bedroom and had just finished dressing in the jeans she’d worn the day before and a stripy Breton top. For a second Cesar’s words didn’t even compute because she was just drinking him in, looking impossibly handsome in jeans and a light wool sweater.
Then the words registered and relief rocked through her. She’d been dreading facing Cesar so soon after her recent revelations.
‘No,’ she said quickly—too quickly. ‘I don’t mind at all. There’s some heavy scenes next week so I’d appreciate some time to prepare...’
Anxiety at the prospect of what lay ahead for her gripped her again.
Cesar crossed his arms and lounged against the door. Instantly Lexie’s skin prickled with awareness. She could feel her nipples drawing into tight buds. Even more reason why she would relish some space from this man...
‘You don’t have to sound so eager.’
She blushed and glanced away for a second, feeling churlish. ‘It’s not that I want to leave...you’ve been so generous...’
Cesar closed the distance between them so fast her head spun. He looked stern. ‘You don’t have to thank me.’
Lexie said weakly, ‘Yes, I do... It’s polite.’