Page 15 of Their One-Night Rio Reunion
Ana’s face grew hot again. She wanted to escape this conversation that seemed determined to stray into territory more personal than she’d shared with Caio in a whole year. It was as if the divorce and being sequestered on this island had ripped away any need to tread carefully around each other. It was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.
She lifted her chin and pushed down the sense of exposure. ‘I want to get a degree.’
Caio looked at Ana. He’d never seen her look so fierce. Well, he had—the night she’d agreed to marry him if it meant she could guarantee her brother the future he wanted.
Her fierceness made his blood simmer, while also catching at his chest. She reminded him of a cornered kitten, all at once defensive and proud. She looked a little wild. Undone. Reminding him of the girl he’d first met. Prickly. Combative. Distrustful. He was fascinated by her reaction.
‘So what do you want to do a degree in?’ he asked.
She shrugged, her face pink now. ‘I’ve always wanted to do an English degree. In England.’ She blurted the last bit out, then said in a rush, ‘But I’m not remotely cut out for university. No woman in my family has ever gone to university.’
Caio felt a surge of anger on her behalf. ‘Why would you think you’re not suited to it?’
‘Because I was never academic. I barely scraped through my exams each year. As my father liked to tell me, paying for my education was a waste of time and money.’
Caio shook his head. ‘I bet he didn’t say that to your brothers.’
Ana smiled, but it was tight. ‘Of course not. They weren’t the brightest either, but he made sure they got degrees from the best North American universities.’
Caio sat forward. ‘Ana, I can guarantee you that you’re brighter than all your brothers put together. I’ve met them. I know what I’m talking about.’
A surprised giggle escaped Ana’s mouth and she put her hand over it. The movement lifted her T-shirt, revealing a sliver of flat belly above her shorts. Caio’s mouth dried. He dragged his gaze up again, over the swells of her plump breasts under the thin material. He could see the outline of her very plain bra. She shouldn’t be arousing this raging fire inside him, but she was.
He met her gaze. It was serious now. She took her hand down and Caio looked at her mouth. Provocative. Lush. Why on earth hadn’t he tasted her when he’d had a chance? He couldn’t fathom it now.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘there’s not a hope that I’d get accepted on the basis of my exam results. It’s a pipe dream.’
Caio made a noise. ‘Don’t be so defeatist. You could apply as a mature student, and lots of universities accept students based on their current aptitude and desire to do a course, more than past results.’
‘I’d only accept a course on that basis, I wouldn’t want to buy my place just because I can.’
Caio felt a spike of admiration at Ana’s evident pride and desire to prove herself. He’d met very few people like her in his world. Most of them were only too eager to catch a free ride or take advantage of their wealth and influence. But not Ana.
Her integrity mocked his habitual cynicism. It made him feel weary. It made him conscious of this place—Ana was right—this island and villa oozed a kind of peace and contentment he’d never felt in a home before. It caught at him, made him wonder about another type of existence where you were born into a world where legacy, ambition, greed and cynicism weren’t the natural order. Where something else was.Family.Unconditional love. Acceptance.
Caio mentally shook his head to dislodge those rogue ideas. He’d been born into an extremely privileged world and, while he’d made his own way in the end, he’d be delusional not to acknowledge that he’d still achieved much of his success off the back of who he was. He didn’t need warm and fluffy family values. He needed his wits and his business acumen.
Ana turned away from him and his gaze caught on her shapely bare legs. Toned and slim. The bottom of her shorts was just short enough to give a hint of her buttocks. High and curved.
A solid knot of need tightened in his gut. It was bizarre, this attraction. It had been there from the moment he’d seen her, if he was honest, and she wasn’t remotely his type. He’d always gone for women who were taller. Women whose expressions were as carefully schooled as his. Women who were experienced...who knew the game.
Ana was the very antithesis of all that.
Caio broke out of his reverie when he saw Ana pick up the plates again. He put down his glass and stood up to help her, reaching for them and saying, ‘Here, let me do that.’
Ana turned around and wasn’t expecting Caio to be right behind her, hands outstretched. It all happened so fast it was a blur. But, mortifyingly, she knew even in that moment that it was his proximity that caused it. The plates toppled out of her suddenly unsteady hands and fell to the floor, smashing to pieces.
She immediately bent down and put out a hand to pick up part of a plate. She felt a sting in her finger.
‘Leave it—you’ve cut yourself.’ Caio’s voice was sharp.
Before she knew which way was up, Caio had his hands under her arms and was pulling her up, then lifting her into his arms to step over the smashed debris to the sink.
‘Your feet are bare too,’ she protested weakly, rendered insensible by the fact that she was pressed close to his chest and it felt so broad and hard. His arms were like steel bands around her.
‘I’m fine.’
He put her down by the sink and Ana had to lock her knees to stop herself crumpling like a doll. Blood was oozing from the top of her finger. Caio had her hand in his and was putting it under running water.
