The Secret That Shocked De Santis

‘Do you play cards?’ He sprawled back in the seat opposite her as the plane levelled out. ‘Doesn’t every soldier carry a deck?’

‘Not all. I do. But I prefer Patience to poker. I’m guessing you’re a poker player?’

‘And I’m guessing you prefer a challenge of skill and strategy over chance and fate?’

‘You’re a quick learner too,’ she acknowledged.

‘Observant.’

He wasn’t just a pretty prince...

‘What about a board game instead?’ He stood and opened one of the storage compartments.

‘You have board games on the plane?’ Somewhat bemused, she watched him pick out the third box from a stack. ‘It’s not all lap-dancing flight attendants and whisky?’

‘Maybe later—if you’re lucky,’ he drawled.

‘You’d give me a lap dance?’ She gazed up at him, for a moment indulging in a vision of him slowly stripping his formal uniform from his body.

He turned and his eyes locked on hers—clashed in a slam of suggestion and want. He actually flushed. Heat burst within her. The plane was suddenly very, very hot. His eyebrows were raised and she looked away, burning up.

He unfolded the playing board on the table between their chairs. He handed her a pile of plastic pieces and sat back down in his seat. ‘See if you can defeat my army and we’ll negotiate.’

Swallowing, she put one of the plastic toys upright on the board with a click, pushing away the unruly X-rated images in her head. ‘Soldiers, huh?’

‘It’s the closest I’m allowed to get to any battlefront,’ he muttered, faux mournfully.

‘You know you can play with this soldier any time?’ she murmured, still enjoying the way she’d made the colour in his cheeks deepen with her lap-dance request.

‘I intend to—once I’ve conquered her every last defence.’ The truly relaxed, flirtatious Eduardo had returned. ‘I’m thinking lap-dancing and whisky...’

But they played the board game for the duration of the flight. It didn’t take long for him to run through the rules and for her to grasp the idea. He was a good tactician, but so was she. Both advanced quickly to secure large tracts of the board. Both claimed territory the other had held. Both took prisoners. Both held the board steady on the table through the descent. And once the plane had landed and slowed to a stop Eduardo met her gaze with a belligerent edge to his jaw.

‘I’m not leaving until you have capitulated control of the south-west quarter,’ he said.

‘Well, I’m not leaving until I have your ultimate surrender,’ she answered smugly.

‘You do not do things by halves, do you?’ He shook the dice furiously. ‘And you never give in.’

‘As if you do!’

Their eyes met again, the frisson of tension building. She liked it that he was as determined, as competitive, as dominant as she. She liked so damn much about him. And the more she got to know him, the more she liked. Which made her even more determined to beat him—to have something over him, just the once.

She had no idea how much time passed before his phone buzzed. He ignored it the first time. And the second. It wasn’t until the seventh consecutive buzz of the device that he finally reacted.

With an irritated sigh he read the messages and then looked up, his expression grim. ‘We have to go to the palace—now.’

He sent a quick text reply and less than a minute later the aircraft door was opened.

The back of her neck prickled as she saw the uniformed attendants. ‘How long have we been sitting here?’

‘Too long,’ he admitted wryly.

She stood and realised he was right. ‘I’m stiff.’ She considered herself to be fitter than most, but the sailing had used muscles she didn’t know existed.

‘If you’re lucky—’ Eduardo paused at the top of the stairs and turned back to send her a heated look ‘—I’ll give you a massage when we get home.’

‘Don’t forget the lap dance.’

She stepped out after him. He took her hand and walked her into the terminal. More uniformed staff whisked them along a private corridor and out to a waiting limousine before she could believe it. Her smile faded when she saw Matteo sitting in the car waiting for them, an iPad in his hand.

‘Problem?’ Eduardo asked as he opted to sit beside his lawyer.

‘I’m sorry, Eduardo.’ Matteo glanced back at the screen. ‘I tried, but there was no way to hold back the flood.’