Cesar took a sip of coffee and said, almost absent-mindedly, ‘I called my assistant—told her to tip them off anonymously.’
Something cold slithered into Lexie’s gut. She put down her fork and looked at Cesar and brought up a dim recollection of him on his phone briefly at one stage on the bus.
‘But....’ Lexie was about to ask him why when she stopped herself. Of course he’d wanted to tip them off. They were meant to be courting the press—for both their benefits. Why waste an opportunity to document it?
‘But...?’ he asked.
She hated to think it, even to acknowledge it, but she felt betrayed. And she shouldn’t be feeling that. Because if she did then it meant that Cesar had attained a significance for her that she had no control over.
She forced a smile and shook her head. ‘But nothing. Of course you should have tipped them off. It was a good opportunity to let them see us.’
Cesar watched Lexie continuing to eat her breakfast and something twisted inside him. She looked so young, so innocent.
When he’d woken up alone in the bed his immediate reaction had been irritation that she’d left. He’d been about to go and find her when he’d remembered her tears, that incredible outpouring of emotion, and like a coward he’d stopped. Not sure if he was ready to face that searing blue gaze in the morning light.
The look in her eyes just now, though, made him feel like a heel. His own conscience mocked him. Making that call to his assistant yesterday had come out of a gut reaction to how Lexie’s lit-up face and smile had made him feel. A gut reaction to doing something so out of his comfort zone. Cesar didn’t do quirky, fun sightseeing tours with lovers. He didn’t engage with the public. But he had—and moreover he’d found himself enjoying it.
He was dark and brooding, and most people ran a mile when they saw him. But not when he was with Lexie.
And that, frankly, had terrified him. So he’d called Mercedes and once he’d instructed her to alert the press he’d felt that he hadn’t lost his mind completely.
Now, absurdly, he felt guilty.
Lexie was taking a sip of coffee, wiping her mouth, avoiding his eyes. Cesar reached out and took her hand. He saw her tense and that guilt intensified. Damn her.
Warily she looked at him.
Carefully Cesar said, ‘Our becoming lovers was inevitable. Diverting the media is a beneficial consequence for both of us.’
Lexie blinked. Cesar saw how her expression became inscrutable, hidden.
‘Of course. I know that. Don’t worry, Cesar, I’m not some soft-hearted teenager who is weaving fantasies around a happy-ever-after scenario. I know that doesn’t exist. Believe me.’
Something about the harshness of her tone caught at Cesar’s chest, making it ache even as everything within him urged him to agree with her, to feel relieved.
She stood up to take their plates and Cesar caught her wrist, said gruffly, ‘Leave it. My housekeeper will attend to it later, when we’re gone.’
He tugged her towards him until she put down the plates and fell, resisting, into his lap.
She huffed out, ‘What are you doing?’
The feel of her soft, lithe body against his made a lie of every one of Cesar’s last words. All he could think about was how much he wanted this woman. But Lexie was stiff in his arms and that made him feel slightly desperate.
His hand was on her waist and he could feel a sliver of silky skin under her top. He explored underneath, over the indent of her naked waist and higher. Already he could feel the effect, the softening and relaxing of her body into his.
‘Lexie...’
Slowly she turned her head to his, and for a moment there was something unguarded in the depths of her eyes. Something very raw and pained. But it didn’t make Cesar want to run.
His exploring hand came into contact with the bare swell of her breast. No bra. And just like that lust surged between them, red-hot and powerful. Their mouths connected, their kiss deepened, Lexie groaned softly and Cesar cupped the full weight of that breast in his hand.
Weakly he drowned out the clamouring voices in his head that told him he was deluding himself if he believed that he was half as in control of this as he would have Lexie believe.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘LET’S GO AGAIN, folks.’
Lexie clenched her jaw. This was the thirteenth take, and if she fluffed her lines one more time the crew would want to wring her neck. Including herself. The director called action and by some miracle Lexie managed to get through the dialogue with no mishaps.