Page 10 of Their One-Night Rio Reunion
She’d been so angry she hardly been able to speak. He’d made her sit down, given her a glass of water, and then she’d explained that her father had reneged on his agreement to send her younger brother to art school in Holland.
It shouldn’t have surprised her that her father was capable of that, but it was the reason she’d agreed to marry Caio Salazar. Caio had asked her what she wanted in return for marrying him, and he’d promised to extract an agreement from her father that he would not stand in the way of Francisco’s dream to attend art college.
Caio had gone very still and left the room for a long moment. When he’d come back his tie had been off, and his jacket gone, shirt open. He’d poured himself a whiskey and said, ‘Call your brother tomorrow and let him know he’s still going to Holland. Nothing will stand in his way again.’
That had been the first time Ana had seen a different side to Caio and felt some sort of kinship. She’d had a strong sense that he was almost as angry as she that her father had reneged on the agreement. It had made her wonder about Caio’s relationship with his own family...only his mother had come to their wedding...
After that night, Ana had become more and more aware that the image of man she’d thought Caio was—a jaded playboy pretending to reform for the sake of his ambitions—was not truly reflective of the man she was coming to know.
For instance, he’d never seemed to mind that his life was suddenly devoid of loud thumping nightclubs and glamorous premieres. The events they’d attended had been on the more sedate and serious side.
He’d proved himself to be nothing like the men she knew—her father and older brothers. And, contrary to his infamous persona as a louche playboy, he’d either been the most discreet man on the planet or he’d embraced a year of domesticity and celibacy, showing a far more introverted side than the world at large would have expected of him.
She knew better than anyone how the press could magnify a situation and turn it into something lurid. Like when her mother had walked out on her family.
She’d left because she was bored. She’d felt she’d done her duty, providing an heir and some spares. And so she’d left. It had been devastating to Ana, to realise how little her mother loved her, and the rest of her siblings. Her father hadn’t been under any illusions—it had been an arranged marriage, after all. But his pride had been wounded.
The press had had a field-day, painting a melodramatic picture of a woman seeking love and solace with a younger and even richer man. Ana knew that it hadn’t been a lack of love driving her mother—it had been dissatisfaction and boredom—but they’d spun it into something else entirely, the truth being too prosaic and cynical.
Ana shook her head, as if that could clear the toxic memories. She refocused on the memory of Caio coolly taking her father to task for not following through on his agreement.
Now she felt even more churlish for not joining Caio for lunch. She should go back.
She stood up, took a few steps, and stopped. Maybe she was better just to avoid him... After all, when this was over and they returned to Rio she wouldn’t see him again. So why bother to make any effort now?
You just don’t want him to find out how much you want him, whispered a mocking little voice.
Ana was making a face at herself when she heard a sound and looked up to see a vision of masculine perfection, largely naked but for a short pair of snug swim-trunks, striding out from the trees onto the beach, a towel slung over his shoulder, shades covering his eyes.
He might as well have been naked for all the trunks barely covered. They only drew attention to the perfect curvature of Caio’s muscular buttocks.
The breath stopped in Ana’s throat. She must have made some sort of gurgling sound, because Caio glanced at her but didn’t seem surprised she was there. He said, off-handedly, ‘I figured it’s best to swim before eating. Join me if you like.’
Ana was no more capable of joining Caio than she was of moving. She managed to garble something about seeing to lunch and stumbled backwards, unable to take her eyes off the acres of gleaming olive skin moving smoothly over taut muscles.
Oblivious to the nuclear explosion happening inside Ana, Caio threw the towel and sunglasses down on the sand and launched himself into the water, arms scissoring powerfully through the waves.
The cooler confines of the open-plan kitchen were no comfort to Ana’s hot and prickling skin, which had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with Caio’s little exhibition back there.
She paced the space; the tiles were cool underfoot but provided no relief. Anger rose. Did he have no idea how that might affect her? Seeing all that naked flesh on display? Seeing the prominent bulge at the front of his shorts that left little to the imagination?
Her face flamed. Not that she needed her imagination for that. She’d seen him in the flesh.
This really was peak humiliation. Proof that she made so little impact on him that walking around in front of her half-naked was the equivalent of being in a locker room full of guys at his gym. Not that he went to a gym, because he had his own gym, but—
Ana scowled and shook her head.Not the point here!
The point was that she affected him so minutely that she could have been sunbathing naked on the beach for all he’d have noticed her as being a breathing, sexual woman. A woman who had hidden her responses to him so well that he now saw her as little more than furniture.
And who was to blame for that? Not Caio. Much as it pained her to admit it. He didn’t fancy her. Simple as that. And brutal as that.
She stopped pacing. She felt constricted in her clothes now. The silk shirt was clinging to her skin and the trousers digging in at her waist.
On an impulse she went up to the bedroom suite and looked at the clothes.
She noticed for the first time that there were evening dresses in the guests’ section. A glimmering opulent royal blue caught her eye. She reached in to pull the dress out. It was silk, and slippery through her fingers. It was stunningly simple but devastatingly sexy. A halter-neck design, with a deep vee in the front, almost down to the navel.
Ana’s skin grew hot at the thought of wearing this in front of Caio, of baring so much skin.
