”Síi.” He bent his head and kissed Kyra’s upturned face. “She thanked me for getting you out from under her feet. I said it was a sacrifice but one any man would make to be certain his meals were served on time ”
He laughed as Kyra swung out in front of him and mimed a look of fierce indignation.
“And here I thought you were about to give me a compliment! I suppose I should have known bet—”
Her breath caught as Antonio swept her into his arms and kissed her passionately.
“You have made me happy, too, querida,” he said softly, framing her face in his hands. “Is that a compliment more to your liking?”
“You know it is.”
“And is it one you can return?”
Kyra smiled into his eyes. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life ”
Antonio lifted her face to his. “Is this true?”
“Yes. Oh, Tonio, I…”
“What? What were you going to say, sweetheart?”
That I love you.
The words were there on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them. If only Antonio would say them first, if only he would take her in his arms and kiss her and say, Kyra, mia querida, I adore you.
“Kyra?” In the gathering darkness, Antonio’s eyes were as deep and unfathomable as the sea. “Tell me what you are thinking.”
It was hard, but she managed a quick, gently teasing smile.
“Only that—that somewhere in Caracas, there’s a thief who’ll never know he did a good deed by snatching the purse of an unsuspecting gringa.”
Antonio smiled, though it took some effort. What had he hoped she would say? Something more, something that would free him to tell her—to tell her…
He frowned, put his arm around her shoulders, and they began strolling through the garden again.
“Sí,” he said. “It is strange what misfortune can sometimes bring.”
Misfortune? It had been the happiest day of her life, Kyra thought as she leaned her head against his shoulder. She had found paradise.
Yesterday, after they’d made love the first time in the stable, Antonio had taken her back to the house. There, in the quiet of his room and the softness of his bed, he had made love to her again, this time with a slow thoroughness that had left her twisting in his arms, begging him to end the sweet torment.
At night, they’d dined by candlelight on the patio, Antonio incredibly handsome in a tuxedo, she feeling flushed and silly in his spruce green silk robe with the cuffs rolled back. But Antonio kept telling her how beautiful she looked.
“More beautiful than any woman I have ever known,” he’d said, until she almost believed him, and if Dolores had been surprised to find that the morning’s scullery maid had turned into a princess by evening, she’d hidden it well. And there’d been a curve to the housekeeper’s lips that had warmed Kyra’s heart.
After dinner, they’d danced on the moonlightdrenched patio. Eventually, they hadn’t been dancing at all; they’d only been swaying in each other’s arms, kissing and caressing and whispering until Antonio had swept her into his arms and carried her up the stairs to his room.
The night had passed in a haze of slow, tender exploration and explosive, fierce passion, and awakening in his arms this morning had been the most wonderful part of it all.
And today…Kyra’s breath caught. Today, they’d saddled horses and ridden along the beach to a halfmoon cove ringed by coconut palms.
“How beautiful this is,” she’d said, and Antonio had said yes, she was right, she was, indeed, beautiful.
“Not me,” she’d said, turning to him and laughing. “That isn’t what I meant, Antonio.”
But then she’d looked into his eyes, those blazing, sapphire eyes, and in a heartbeat she was in his arms and he was bearing her down beneath him to the hot, white sand.
The memory sent a shiver of pleasure racing along her skin. Antonio’s arm tightened around her
“Are you chilly, querida? Sometimes, at night, the breeze that comes in off the sea can be cooler than one would imagine”
“No, I’m fine. I was just thinking about…” She felt color sweep into her face “Never mind. It’s not important”
“Was it a good thought or a bad one?”
She laughed softly. “A good one, but don’t bother trying to find out what If I told you any more, you’d be insufferable.”
Antonio chuckled. “I am already insufferable, according to you Isn’t that one of the things you called me over the past few days?”
“Well, you were.” Kyra smiled. “Insufferable, impossible, unbearable—but I suppose if you weren’t, you wouldn’t have dragged me off to your lair.”
Antonio turned her toward him. He stroked her hair back from her face, his fingers following the shell-like curve of her pink earlobe.
“You mean,” he said with a little smile, “I would not have brought you here if you had not been stubborn, foolish and altogether impossible.”
“Me? Impossible?” Kyra laughed softly. “You’re the impossible one, Tonio, not me.”
Antonio’s thumbs swept over the arc of her cheekbones.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
“Say what again?”
“The name you call me.”
“Tonio? Isn’t it all right
? I mean, if you don’t like me using it—”
He kissed her. “I love you using it. It is just that no one has ever used a—what do you call the little name?”
“A nickname.” Kyra frowned and pulled back in his arms. “Wait a minute No one’s ever called you Tonio before?”
He laughed at the look on her face. “Why are you so surprised?”
“What did they call you, then?”
“When?”
“Well, when you were little.”
A muscle knotted in his jaw. “Many things,” he said. “But none you would call a nickname.”
“I don’t understand.”
Antonio shrugged. “It is not important.”
“But-”
“Come, tell me about yourself.” He smiled down at her as they began walking back to the house. “What were you called when you were a little girl?”
Kyra laughed. “What do you mean, when I was a little girl? As far as my brothers are concerned, I’ll probably never outgrow being called Little Sister or Squirt.”
Antonio laughed, too. “Squirt? You were squeezed out? Is that it?”
“No!” She smiled. “That’s not what ‘Squirt’ means when it’s a nickname. It refers to—to something small and insignificant.”
“This is a term of affection?” he said, his brows lifting.
“If you knew Cade and Zach and Grant,” she said, “you’d understand.”
“You have three brothers?”
“Yes. Although sometimes, when they’re busy poking their noses into my life, it feels as if it’s more like a dozen.”
Antonio nodded. “They are concerned for your welfare,” he said. “You are fortunate, having a family that loves you.”
“I know, but-”
“I had no family.”
The simple words were harsh and almost without inflection. Kyra stopped walking and swung toward him.
“No family? But Dolores said—”
“What?” Antonio’s tone grew sharp. “What did that foolish old woman tell you?”
“Nothing, really. Just that she and your mother came from the same village and that your father was a Spaniard.”