The Montoros Affair: The Princess and the Player / Maid for a Magnate / A Royal Temptation

At least Mr. Ramon’s assistant had managed to find the key to the property tucked away in a filing cabinet, a real plus. Assuming the key still worked, that was.

Now she just had to find the farmhouse. Tía Isabella’s urgency had taken root, not to mention a healthy dose of curiosity about how an old farmhouse counted as part of a legacy. There was no way Bella would actually give up.

Plus, finding the farmhouse was a project, her gift to Isabella. Bella needed a local with plenty of time on his hands and access to a vehicle to help her scour the countryside for this farmhouse. And who didn’t mind ditching her babysitters-slash-security guys.

Her phone rang. She glanced at it and frowned at the unfamiliar number. That was the second time today and the first caller had been Will. Dare she hope this might be the brother she’d rather talk to? “Hello?”

“You haven’t been to the beach all day.” James’s smooth voice slid through her like silk.

“Was I supposed to be at the beach?” With a wide grin, she flipped over on her back to stare at the ceiling above her bed, completely uninterested in cryptic maps now that she had a much better distraction.

“How else am I supposed to run into you?” he pointed out. “You never gave me your phone number.”

Because he’d never asked. “Yet it appears I’m speaking to you on the phone at this very minute.”

“A bloke has to be resourceful around this island if he wants to ask a princess out on a date. Apparently.”

A little thrill burst through her midsection. After walking away from James at the party, she’d mentally prepared for any eventuality. A woman didn’t get between brothers, and James, for all his squawking about being a bad boy, wouldn’t have pursued her if Will had called dibs.

And then there was always the possibility James would grow weary of all the obstacles between them. She didn’t have any guarantees she’d even hear from him again.

“This is your idea of resourceful? What did you do, hit up Will for my phone number?”

James cleared his throat. “I talked to him. About us.”

That was pretty much an admission of how he’d gotten her number. “Yeah. He told me.”

“Well, half my battle is won. My day will be complete if you would kindly get your gorgeous rear down to the beach.”

Scrambling from the bed, Bella tore off her shorts as she dashed for the dresser and wedged the phone under her chin to pull out a bikini. “What if I’m busy?”

“Cancel. In fact, cancel everything for the rest of the day.”

The rest of the day with James? She was so on board with that plan, she could hardly keep the giddiness in check. But she couldn’t let him know how much she was into him. That was rule number one.

“You’ll have to give me more than that in order for me to clear my schedule.” She whipped her shirt off one-handed, knocking the phone to the floor. She cursed and dove for it. “I’m American. We invented high-maintenance dating. Make it worth my while.”

Head tight to her shoulder so the phone didn’t try another escape attempt, she wiggled out of her underwear.

“Trust me, sweetheart,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve been all over the world. I’m more than capable of handling one tiny American. If you want to find out how worth it I am, walk out the door.”

“I’m not dressed,” she informed him saucily. Even someone as fashion savvy as Bella couldn’t tie a bikini with one hand. And for some reason, now that he knew she was naked, it was an oddly effective turn-on.

“Perfect,” he purred. “I like a woman who can read my mind. What am I thinking right now?”

If it was anything close to what she was thinking, a public beach was not the best place for them to be together. “You’re thinking that you’d better hang up so I can, you know, leave the house.”

His laugh rolled through her and then cut off abruptly as the call ended. She hummed as she threw on her bikini and covered it with a short dress made of fishnet weave.

She hit the foyer in under three minutes and almost escaped without her security detail noticing her stealthy exit, when she heard the voice of doom call out behind her.

“Isabella.”

Groaning, she turned to face her father since the cover up was just as see-through from the front as the back. The faster she withdrew from his clutches, the better. “Yeah, Dad.”

“I understand you told Will Rowling you weren’t interested in him. I’m very disappointed.”

Of course he was. He’d have to smooth things over with Patrick Rowling and figure out another way to make everyone miserable.

“That’s me. The disappointing daughter,” she admitted lightly, hoping if she kept her cool, the extraction might go faster. She had a man waiting patiently for her on the beach.

“You cannot continue behaving this way. Marriage to Rowling will settle you and nothing else seems to work to that end. You must repair your relationship with him.”

His hand flew up to staunch the protest she’d been about to voice.

“No, Isabella. This is a serious matter, among other serious matters I must discuss with you. However, I’m expected to accompany Gabriel to a royal function. Be here when I get back,” her father commanded.

“Sure, Dad.” She fled before he could tell her when he’d be back because then she could claim ignorance when she wasn’t here.

Her stomach tightened as she walked down the narrow cliffside stairs to the beach. Why couldn’t she have timed that better? The encounter put a damper on the joy she’d had since the moment she’d heard James’s voice.

When her toes sank into the sand, she scoured the sun-worshippers for a glimpse of the whipcord physique she couldn’t erase from her mind. James was easy to spot in a turquoise shirt that shielded his British complexion from the rays. Sunglasses covered his beautiful eyes and as always, he wore the expensive watch he never seemed to leave home without. He lay stretched out on a towel off to the side of the crowd, lounging in his own little cleared area.

“Thought you’d never get here,” he commented when she flopped down next to him. He paused and whipped off his glasses to focus on her intently. “What’s wrong?”

How bad was it that he made her so mushy just by noticing that she was a little upset? “Nothing. My father.”

“Say no more.” James shook his head and sat up to clasp her hand in his, squeezing it once. “I’ve been avoiding mine since the pictures hit.”

“What pictures?”

“You don’t know?” When she shook her head, he rubbed his face with his free hand. “Someone snapped us with me on top of you when you tripped over my chair the other day. We were on the front page of the Playa Del Sol newspaper. And probably all the other ones, too. I’m sorry, I figured you’d seen them. Or had a confrontation with your father about them.”

Oh, that explained a lot, especially Rafael’s use of his boardroom voice. “I learned the hard way to never search my name on the internet, so no, I haven’t seen the pictures. And I think I just narrowly missed that confrontation. The one I had was bad enough, but fortunately, he was too busy to give me a proper talking to. I’m supposed to be home when he gets back so I can obediently listen to his lecture. Oops.”

James flashed a quick grin. “You’re my kind of woman.”

“We seem to have a flagrant disregard for authority in common, don’t we?”

“When it makes sense,” James corrected. “You’re not sixteen. You’re a grown woman who can make her own choices. If you want to be with me, you should get that opportunity, authority figures aside.”

As much as she liked his point, she was still a member of the royal family and the idea of smarmy pictures floating around upset her, especially when the actual event had been so innocuous.

“So we’re both rebels, but only when presented with pigheaded fathers?”

“Exactly.” His thumb smoothed over hers and he had yet to return his sunglasses to their perch over his eyes. The way he was looking at her, as if he understood her so perfectly, they didn’t even need words—it took a massive amount of willpower to not throw herself into his arms.

Why were they outside in plain sight again? Her babysitters could lumber down the stairs from the house at any moment, squelching what promised to be an adventurous day.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for our first date,” she remarked with an exaggerated glance around. “Too many people and I’m pretty sure I remember something about getting naked. I readily admit to bucking authority when called for, but I am not a fan of sand in certain places. What shall we do about that?”

James’s blue eyes went sultry and he gripped her hand tighter. “A little bird told me you were high maintenance, so I was going to take you to dinner later at Casa Branca in Del Sol. But I see the huge gaping flaw in that plan since you would indeed have to be dressed for that.”

“It’s also pretty public. I’d love to escape prying eyes, security details and cameras for at least one night.” She frowned. Was nowhere sacred enough to spend time with a man she was just getting to know without fear of creating a whole brand-new scandal? “Can we go back to your place?”

They certainly couldn’t go to hers, not with the royal lecture pending.

“Ha.” James rolled his eyes, turning them a myriad of blues in the sunlight. “I can only imagine dear old Dad’s aneurism when I walk through the front door with you.”

No, neither of them were sixteen but it felt that way when they couldn’t even find a place to be alone without overbearing parents around. So it was time for an adult solution.

“New plan,” Bella chirped. “I’ve heard a rumor of an abandoned farmhouse that’s part of our family’s royal property. But I don’t know where it is. I need someone with a car and a good knowledge of the roads in Alma to help me find it. Know anyone like that who’s also free to drive around with me?”

“James’s Abandoned Farmhouse Locators, at your service.” He bowed over her hand with mock ceremony. “Let’s plan on making a night of it. We’ll get some takeout. Do you want to run back upstairs to grab a few things?”

“Give me five minutes.” She mentally packed an overnight bag. Had she brought that smoking hot lingerie set she hadn’t worn yet?

“Four.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “That bikini is killing me. I want to untie it with my teeth and take a good hard look at what’s underneath. Then my mouth will be busy getting acquainted with every inch of your naked body.”

She shuddered as his words lanced through her core with a long tug. “I’ll be back in three.”

Six

The small cockpit of James’s car filled with the scent of Bella instantly. It was exotic, erotic and engaging, flipping switches in his body he’d have sworn were already wide open from the visual of Bella at the beach in that little bikini.

How was it possible to be even more turned on when you were already blind from lack of release?

She’d changed into a little white sundress that hugged her curves. The tiny straps begged for a man’s hands to slip them off her shoulders, kiss the smooth flesh and then keep going into the deep V of her cleavage.

It was going to be a long, long drive through the interior of Alma as they looked for an abandoned farmhouse Bella insisted they could find. Problem was, he wanted her now, not in two hours after they crisscrossed the island in his green Lamborghini, which was hardly invisible.

As they clicked their seatbelts, his phone buzzed and he glanced at it out of habit, already planning to ignore whatever it was. Nothing could be more important than Bella.

Except it was a text message from Will. Who never texted him. Frowning, James tapped the screen of his phone and read the message.

I had nothing to do with this, but thought you should know.

Nothing good was going to come of clicking the link Will had sent, but forewarned was forearmed, so James did it anyway.

Montoro Princess to Wed the Heir to Rowling Energy.

The headline was enough. He didn’t need to read the rest.

With a curse, he tilted his phone toward Bella. “Now taking bets on which of our fathers is behind this.”

She glanced at it and repeated his curse, but substituted the vilest word with a more ladylike version, which put a smile on his face despite the ill-timed, fabricated announcement.

“Mine,” she announced with a snort. “Control and dictate is exactly his style.”

“Sure you’re not describing my father?” James returned. “Because that’s his MO all day long.”

“No, it’s my father. Definitely. But it doesn’t matter.” She grabbed his phone, switched it off and stuffed it in the bag at her feet. “You can’t have that back. No more scandals, interfering fathers and marriage alliances. Just drive.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And now. Before my babysitters figure out I’m not in the house.”

Since that sounded fine to him, he backed out of his beachside parking place and floored the gas pedal, heading west out of Playa Del Onda.

“This is a gorgeous car,” she commented with apparent appreciation as she caressed the dashboard lovingly in a way that immediately made him want her hand in his lap instead of on his car. “I dated a guy in Miami with an Aventador, but it’s so flashy without any real substance. The Gallardo is more refined and I love the color.”

God, she was going to kill him before the day was over. “You know cars? I can’t begin to tell you how hot that is.”

She shrugged with a musical laugh, knocking one of the straps of her dress askew and drawing his attention away from the road. Dangerously.

“It’s hard to live in a place like Miami without gaining at least some passing knowledge. I’ll let you in on a secret, though. We girls always judge a man by his car. Mercedes-Benz? Too serious. Porsche? Works too hard. Corvette? Too worried about his hair.”

James laughed in spite of the discomfort going on down below that likely wouldn’t ease for an eternity. “So my Lamborghini is the only reason you wanted to go out with me?”

“The car test only works if you haven’t met the guy yet. We’re strictly talking about taking someone’s measure in the parking lot.”

He shifted to take a hairpin curve as they wound away from the beach into the more sparsely populated inland roads of Alma. Since he had no idea what they were looking for, he’d drive and let her do the surveying.

“Then I’ll go with my second guess. You wanted to go out with me because I’m a witty conversationalist.” He waggled his brows and shot her a sly smile. “Or door number three—I know a trick or two between the sheets.”

He’d meant to be flirtatious, but now that it was out there, he realized the conversation with Will still bothered him a bit. Bella had said on numerous occasions that marriage wasn’t her thing. Regardless, establishing the ground rules of what they were doing here couldn’t hurt.

“Both.” Blond hair swinging, she leaned on the emergency brake between them, so close he imagined he could hear her heart beating. “We have all night long and I do love a good conversation, especially in the dark. But if you forced me to choose, I’d go with door number three.”

Brilliant. So they were both on the same page. They were hot for each other and wanted to burn it off with a wild night together. “Just so you know, with me, sheets are optional.”

Awareness tightened the atmosphere as she let her gaze travel down his chest and rest on the bulge in his pants. He could hardly keep his attention on the road. Who wanted to watch the scraggly countryside of Alma when a goddess sat in the adjacent seat?

“By the way,” she said. “I think we just passed the road we were supposed to take.”

With a groan, he did a quick U-turn and drove down the street barely noticeable in the overgrowth of trees and groundcover. “I didn’t know we had directions. Maybe you could speak up earlier next time?”

“Sorry, I’m a little distracted. Maybe you could stop being so sexy for a couple of minutes.” Fanning herself as if he’d heated her up, she trailed a finger down his bicep muscle and toyed with the crook of his elbow.

“Me?” he growled. “You’re the one in that knockout dress. All I can hear in my head is your voice on repeat, when you said the next time we were together, you’d be naked.”

“Oh, did I forget to tell you?” She kissed the tip of her finger and pressed it to his lips, but she pulled away too quickly for him to suck the finger into his mouth the way he wanted to. “I’m naked under this dress. Wanna pull over?”

He nearly whimpered. “I cannot possibly explain how much I would like to do exactly that. But we are not getting it on in the car like a couple of horny teenagers. You deserve to be treated right and that includes a bed and me taking my time enjoying you.”

Besides, they might be headed into the heart of rural Alma, but the roads were not deserted. They passed cars constantly. People knew who drove the only green Lamborghini on the island and all it would take was one idiot with a camera phone for another risqué picture of James and Bella together to land in the public eye. It was a dirty shame he hadn’t tinted the windows on his car.

Until they straightened out the marriage announcement, it would create so much less of a jumble if they kept a low profile.

“Then drive faster,” Bella suggested, and her hand wandered over to rest on his inner thigh, where she casually stroked him. Innocently, as if she touched him all the time, except she hadn’t touched him like that before and his vision started to blur with unrequited lust.

He stepped on the gas. Hard.

“Where are we going?” Driving around until they stumbled over a farmhouse that may or may not exist had started to sound like the worst idea he’d ever agreed to.

“This is the main road to Aldeia Dormer, right?” When he nodded, she pointed at the horizon. “The assistant I talked to thought she remembered that the farmhouse was on the outskirts, before you hit the village. If you keep going, we’ll find out.”

“What if I just take you to a hotel and we check in under an assumed name?”

He had plenty of practice with parking in an obscure place and passing out discrete tips to the staff so he and his lady friend could duck through the kitchen entrance. Why hadn’t he insisted on that in the first place? The text from Will had muddled him up, obviously. There was a former castillo-turned-four-star-bed-and-breakfast on the south side of Playa Del Onda that he wouldn’t mind trying.

She shook her head with a sad smile and it was so much the opposite of her normal sunny demeanor, he immediately wanted to say something to lighten the mood. But what had caused such an instant mood shift?

“My aunt asked me to find the farmhouse. It’s important to her and maybe to Gabriel. She said it was part of the Montoro legacy. We’re already so close. I promise, if we don’t find it soon, I’ll reconsider the hotel.”

Her earnestness dug under his skin and there was no way he could refuse. “Sure. We’ll keep going.”

Okay, maybe she was a little different from other women he’d dated. He certainly couldn’t recall catering to one so readily before, but that was probably due to the degree of difficulty he’d experienced in getting this one undressed and under him.

They drove for a couple of miles, wrapped in tension. Just when James started to curse his flamboyant taste in cars, they crested a hill, and she gasped as a white farmhouse came into view.

Wonders of wonders. “Is that it?”

“I’m not sure.” Bella pursed her lips as he drove off the main road onto the winding path to the farmhouse and parked under a dangerously dilapidated carport.

Would serve him right if this ill-conceived jaunt through Alma resulted in a hundred grand worth of bodywork repairs when the carport collapsed on the Lamborghini. “I thought you said it was off this road.”

“Well, it’s supposed to be. But I’ve never been here before,” she pointed out. “Maybe there are a hundred white farmhouses between here and Aldeia Dormer.”

“Only one way to find out.” He helped her from the car and held her hand as they picked through the overgrown property. “Don’t step in the tall weed patches. There might be something living in them you’d rather not tangle with.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m glad you’re here, then. I’ll let you deal with the creepy crawly stuff.”

“I’ll be your hero any day.”

Her grateful smile made his chest tight with a foreign weight because he felt like a fraud all at once. The only heroic thing he’d ever done in his life was give Bella an opportunity to be with Will if she chose. When had he last expended any appreciable effort looking out for someone else’s welfare?

He could start right now, if he wanted to. No reason he couldn’t keep an eye out for opportunities to throw himself in front of a bullet—figuratively speaking—for an amazing woman like Bella. If she’d smile at him like that again, the payoff wasn’t too shabby.

The farmhouse’s original grandeur still shone through despite the years of neglect. Once, the two-story clapboard house had likely been the home of a large family, where they gathered around an old wooden table at supper to laugh and tell stories as dogs ran underfoot.

As if he knew anything about what a family did at supper. Especially a family whose members liked each other and spent time together on purpose. Did that kind of lovely fairy tale even exist outside of movies? He swallowed the stupid lump in his throat. Who cared? He had no roots and liked it that way.

The property spread beyond the house into a small valley. Chickens had probably clucked in the wide backyard, scolding fat pigs or horses that lived in the wooden pens just barely visible from the front of the house. The fences had long fallen to the weed-choked ground, succumbing to weathering and decay.

James nearly tripped over an equally weathered rectangular wooden board hidden by the grass and weeds. He kicked at it, but it was solid enough not to move much despite the force of his well-toned football muscles. Metal loops across the top caught his attention and he leaned down to ease the board up on its side.

“It’s a sign,” Bella whispered as her gaze lit on the opposite side.

James spun around to view the front. In bold, blocky letters, the sign read Escondite Real. “In more ways than one.”

Unless he missed his guess, this was indeed the property of royalty. Or someone’s idea of a joke.

“No one told me to brush up on my Spanish before I came here. What does it say?” Bella asked with a mock pout.

“Royal Hideaway. Is this where your ancestors came to indulge in illicit affairs?”

Mischievously, she winked at James. “If not, it’s where the current generation will.”

“Illicit affairs are my favorite.” Taking her hand again, he guided her toward the house.

“Look. It’s beautiful.”

Bella pointed at a butterfly the size of his palm. It alighted on a purple bougainvillea that had thrived despite the lack of human attention, the butterfly’s wings touching and separating slowly. But the sight couldn’t keep his attention, not when Bella’s face had taken on a glow in the late afternoon sunlight as she smiled at the butterfly.

God, she was the most exquisite woman he’d ever seen. And that was saying something when he’d been hit on by women renowned the world over for their beauty.

“Let’s check out the inside.” He cleared the catch from his throat, mystified by where it had come from. Women were a dime a dozen. Why didn’t Bella seem like one of the legion he could have in his bed tomorrow?

It didn’t matter. Will hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen when James cleared the air with him. The watch on his wrist wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Bella fished a set of keys from her bag. The second one turned the tumblers in the padlock on the splintered front door. It opened easily but the interior was dark and musty. Of course. There wouldn’t be any electricity at an abandoned farmhouse. Or a cleaning crew.