LITMIR.BIZ

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Six

      “Married?” Shannon choked on the word, her eyes so wide with shock Tony was almost insulted. “No! No, definitely not.”

      Her instant and emphatic denial left zero room for doubt. She wasn’t expecting a proposal. Good thing, since that hadn’t crossed his mind. Until now.

      Was he willing to go that far to protect her?

      She turned away fast, her hands raised as she raced back into the sitting area. “Tony—Antonio—I can’t talk to you, look at you, risk kissing you again. I need to go to bed. To sleep. Alone.”

      “Then what do you want from me?”

      “To end this craziness. To stop thinking about you all the time.”

      All the time?

      He homed in on her words, an obvious slip on her part because while she’d been receptive and enthusiastic in bed, she’d given him precious little encouragement once they had their clothes back on again. Their fight over his simple offer of money still stung. Why did she have to reject his attempt to help?

      She paced, restlessly lining up her shoes beside the sofa, scooping Kolby’s tiny train from a table, lingering to rearrange the blue flowers. “You’ve said you feel the same. Who the hell wants to be consumed by this kind of ache all the time? It’s damned inconvenient, especially when it can’t lead anywhere. It’s not like you were looking for marriage.”

      “That wasn’t my intention when we started seeing each other.” Yet somehow the thought had popped into his head out there on the patio. Sure, it had shocked the crap out of him at first. Still left him reeling. Although not so much that he was willing to reject the idea outright. “But since you’ve brought it up—”

      Her hands shot up in front of her, between them. “Uh-uh, no sirree. You were the one to mention the M word.”

      “Fine, then. The marriage issue is out there, on the table for discussion. Let’s talk it through.”

      She stopped cold. “This isn’t some kind of business merger. We’re talking about our lives here, and not just ours. I don’t have the luxury of making another mistake. I already screwed up once before, big time. My son’s well-being depends on my decisions.”

      “And I’m a bad choice because?”

      “Do not play with my feelings. Damn it, Tony.” She jabbed him in the chest with one finger. “You know I’m attracted to you. If you keep this up, I’ll probably cave and we’ll have sex. We probably would have on the plane if the steward and my son hadn’t been around. But I would have been sorry the minute the orgasm chilled and is that really how you want it to be between us? To have me waking up regretting it every time?”

      With images of the two of them joining the mile-high club fast-tracking from his brain to his groin, he seriously considered saying to hell with regrets. Let this insanity between them play out, wherever it took them.

      Her bed was only a few steps away, offering a clear and tempting place to sink inside her. He would sweep away her clothes and the covers— His gaze hooked on the afghan draped along the end corner of the mattress.

      Damn. Who had put that there? Could his father be deliberately jabbing him with reminders of their life as a family in hopes of drawing him back into the fold? Of course Enrique would, manipulative old cuss that he was.

      That familiar silver blanket sucker punched him back to reality. He would recognize the one-of-a-kind afghan anywhere. His mother had knitted it for him just before she’d been killed, and he’d kept it with him like a shield during the whole hellish escape from San Rinaldo. Good God, he shouldn’t have had to ask her why he was a bad choice. He knew the reason well.

      Tony stumbled back, away from the memories and away from this woman who saw too much with her perceptive gray-blue eyes.

      “You’re right, Shannon. We’re both too exhausted to make any more decisions today. Sleep well.” His voice as raw as his memory-riddled gut, he left.

      * * *

      Dazed, Shannon stood in the middle of the sitting room wondering what the hell had just happened.

      One second she’d been ready to climb back into Tony’s arms and bed, the next they’d been talking about marriage. And didn’t that still stun her numb with thoughts of how horribly things had ended with Nolan?

      But only seconds after bringing up the marriage issue, Tony had emotionally checked out on her again. At least he’d prevented them from making a mistake. It was a mistake, right?

      Eyeing her big—empty—four-poster bed, she suddenly wasn’t one bit sleepy. Tony overwhelmed her as much as the wealth. She walked into her bedroom, studying the Picasso over her headboard, this one from the artist’s rose period, a harlequin clown in oranges and pinks. She’d counted three works already by this artist alone, including some leggy elephant painting in Kolby’s room.

      She’d hidden the crayons and markers.

      Laughing at the absurdity of it all, she fingered a folded cashmere afghan draped over the corner of the mattress. So whispery soft and strangely worn in the middle of this immaculately opulent decor. The pewter-colored yarn complemented the apricot and gray tones well enough, but she wondered where it had come from. She tugged it from the bed and shook it out.

      The blanket rippled in front of her, a little larger than a lap quilt, not quite long enough for a single bed. Turning in a circle she wrapped the filmy cover around her and padded back out to the balcony. She hugged the cashmere wrap tighter and curled up in a padded lounger, letting the ocean wind soothe her face still warm from Tony’s touch.

      Was it her imagination or could she smell hints of him even on the blanket? Or was he that firmly in her senses as well as her thoughts? What was it about Tony that reached to her in ways Nolan never had? She’d responded to her husband’s touch, found completion, content with her life right up to the point of betrayal.

      But Tony… Shannon hugged the blanket tighter. She hadn’t been hinting at marriage, damn it. Just the thought of giving over her life so completely again scared her to her toes.

      So where did that leave her? Seriously considering becoming exactly what the media labeled her—a monarch’s mistress.

      * * *

      Tony heard…the silence.

      Finally, Shannon had settled for the night. Thank God. Much longer and his willpower would have given out. He would have gone back into her room and picked up where they’d left off before he’d caught sight of the damn blanket.

      This place screwed with his head, so much so he’d actually brought up marriage, for crying out loud. It was like there were rogue waves from his past curling up everywhere and knocking him off balance. The sooner he could take care of business with his father the sooner he could return to Galveston with Shannon, back to familiar ground where he stood a better chance at reconciling with her.

      Staying out of her bed for now was definitely the wiser choice. He walked down the corridor, away from her and that blanket full of memories. He needed his focus sharp for the upcoming meeting with his father. This time, he would face the old man alone.

      Charging down the hall, he barely registered the familiar antique wooden benches tucked here, a strategic table and guard posted there. Odd how quickly he slid right back into the surroundings even after so long away. And even stranger that his father hadn’t changed a thing.

      The day had been one helluva ride, and it wasn’t over yet. Enrique had been with his nurse for the past hour, but should be ready to receive him now.

      Tony rounded the corner and nodded to the sentinel outside the open door to Enrique’s personal quarters. The space was made for a man, no feminine touches to soften the room full of browns and tans, leather and wood. Enrique saved his Salvador Dali collection for himself, a trio of the surrealist’s “soft

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