His Thirty-Day Fiancée

She cradled his face as she rocked her hips. “I would love to capture your expression on film.”

“There I have to draw the line.” He finger-combed her hair, bringing her mouth to his as he thrust again and again.

“I have to agree,” she murmured against his lips, eyes wide, intimate as they watched, touched, even talked, both completely into each other and the moment. “As much as I would love to take your picture right now, the last thing we need is someone hacking into my computer and finding naked photos of you.”

She’d surprised him there. But then he should be used to the way she lobbed bombshells his way. “You want to take risqué pictures of me?”

“I beg your pardon? I had something more artistic in mind.” She ground her hips against his as she continued to whisper her fantasy. “But yes, you would be totally, gloriously, naked.”

He throbbed inside the satiny clasp of her body. While he couldn’t imagine himself pulling some pretty-boy naked modeling session even for Kate, he absolutely enjoyed hearing her fantasize. “Artistic how?”

“You’re a mesmerizing man. The way light plays across the cut of your muscles in your arms, the six-pack ridges. Everything about you is stark angles. And shadows. The things I see when I look in your eyes…”

“Enough.” He kissed her hard to break off her words, uncomfortable with the turn her scenario had taken. To hell with giving over control. He rolled her to her back and she didn’t protest.

In a flash, she hooked her legs around his waist and took charge of her pleasure—of theirs—all over again. And it was every bit as combustible as before. The glide of sweat-slicked skin against skin, the scent of her with him lingering in the air. He couldn’t get enough of her. Even as they thrust toward completion, he knew the sex between them would always be thus.

And it hadn’t brought them any closer to resolving their argument.

A week later, Kate snapped a photo of Jennifer lounging in a hammock strung between two palm trees. Jennifer tucked in one earbud for her new iPod, boy-band music drifting from the other loose earpiece.

Click. Click.

Kate had photos galore, much to Harold Hough’s delight, although in his emails he kept pressing for one of the king. She could answer honestly that she hadn’t seen him. The monarch was still in the hospital. She hadn’t been allowed access.

Focusing on her favorite Canon camera and her job rather than her confusing relationship with Duarte, Kate swung the lens toward her next subject. Antonio straddled a paddleboard in the shallow tides with little Kolby in front of him, both of them wearing wet suits for the cooler waters. Click. Click.

These photos would be her wedding gifts to Shannon and Tony. Some pictures she considered off-limits to Harold Hough, the Intruder and the public in general. During the past week, she’d found herself more protective of the images than even Duarte. These people had welcomed her into their lives and they trusted her to represent them fairly in the media. She’d learned there were some moral lines she refused to cross, even for her sister.

Lifting the camera, she went back to work on images for her gift to the bride and groom. Two large dogs loped in the surf, the king’s trained Rhodesian Ridgebacks named Benito and Diablo. Click. The dogs might look scary but they were pussycats around the little boy.

A strange squeeze wrapped around Kate’s heart as she took a close-up of the child and his soon-to-be dad in matching wet suits. The towheaded little boy sported white zinc oxide on his nose and a big grin on his face.

Lowering her camera, she wondered how Duarte would act with his children someday. He wasn’t the lighthearted playmate sort like Tony, but she’d seen his gentle patience and understanding with Jennifer over the past week. Her heart went tight again.

Don’t think.

Duarte wore jeans and a lightweight pullover, wind threading in off the ocean and playing with his hair the way she longed to. From a distance he may have appeared casual, lounging back against a tree. But through her lens, Kate saw the iPhone in his hand and he sure wasn’t playing music. His brow furrowed, he seemed intent on business.

Their week together had been guarded to say the least. While the king stayed isolated in the hospital, they’d settled into an unspoken standoff, participating in five-star family dinners. Smiling at movie nights in the home theater. Sailing. Swimming. Even going to the gym with a stationary bike for her to work off all the meals while Duarte completed a martial arts workout looking like sex personified.

Most would have considered the week a dream vacation.

Except Duarte hadn’t apologized for his autocratic move in bringing Jennifer to the island without consulting her. And she simply couldn’t tell him never mind, it didn’t matter. Because it was important.

Although, she didn’t understand why she felt so compelled to make her point. They would be out of each other’s lives in another two weeks or so when she took the photos of Tony and Shannon’s wedding. She should just enjoy the sex and let the deeper issues float away like palmetto fronds on the waves.

And the sex was most definitely enjoyable.

While their days together might be tension packed, the nights were passion filled. In her bed or his, they never planned ahead but somehow found their way into each other’s arms by midnight, staying together until sunrise.

Pictures. Right. She’d forgotten.

Click, click, click. She captured Duarte in photos just for her personal collection when she left the island. After all, she would probably need proof for herself that it all happened in the first place. Every moment here felt surreal, a dream life she’d never been meant to live.

She shifted the lens.

Shannon sat cross-legged on a beach blanket with a basket, arranging a picnic lunch. “Okay, y’all,” she drawled, nudging her glasses in place, “we have roasted turkey and cheese with apricot-fig chutney on a baguette, spinach salad with champagne vinaigrette, and fresh fruit tarts for dessert. And for Kolby…” She pulled out what appeared to be lunch meat rolled in tortillas. Her blonde ponytail swished in the wind as she called out to her son and future husband. Click. Click. “Caterpillars and snakes.”

Jennifer swung a leg over the side of the hammock and toe-tapped it into motion, rocking gently. “Tortillas as snakes? You’re a fun mom, Shannon.”

The young mother placed the deli rollups on a Thomas the Tank Engine plate. “Anything to make mealtime an adventure rather than a battle.”

Swiping moisture off the lens, Kate refocused on her sister. “This reminds me of home in the summer, with picnics by the shore.”

Before life had turned vastly complicated.

Jennifer adjusted her pink polka-dot visor. “Except it’s January. I could get used to no snow.” Her younger sister glanced at Duarte leaning against the tree at her feet. “Why did you wanna live somewhere so different from here? This is perfect.”

“Not that different.” He looked over patiently, tucking away his iPhone in a waterproof backpack. “Living on Martha’s Vineyard reminds me of the parts of home that meant most to me, the rocky shore, the sailboats.”

Something in his voice told Kate by “home” he meant San Rinaldo, not this island. For Duarte growing up, the luxury here must have seemed a poor substitute for all he’d lost. The sun dimmed behind a cloud.

Slipping from the hammock to stand beside Duarte, Jennifer pulled out her earbud and wrapped the cord around the iPod. “And when your toes get too cold, you can simply visit one of your other resorts.”

“Like your sister travels with her job.”

Kate’s finger twitched on the next shot.

Her sister scrunched her nose. “Yeah, but the postcards aren’t as fun anymore.” Jennifer’s face cleared. “I still have the one she sent me from an airport in Paris when she was on her way to somewhere else. I don’t remember where, but the postcard has the Eiffel Tower on it. Cool, huh?”

“Very cool, Jennifer.”

“Hey.” Shannon smiled from the blanket. “Duarte and Kate can fly you to the Eiffel Tower in their family jet.”

Kate gasped and bit her tongue hard to keep from snapping back while Jennifer chattered excitedly about the possibility of such a trip. Shannon had no way of knowing she’d raised Jennifer’s hopes for nothing. Kate nearly staggered under the weight of her deception. The future Medina bride had no idea this whole engagement was a farce. Kate hadn’t foreseen how many people would be affected—would be hurt—by this charade. Including herself.

What a time to realize she didn’t want this to end in two weeks. She wasn’t sure what the future held, but how amazing it would have been to date Duarte for real, let a real relationship follow its course. Her thumb went to the engagement ring, turning the stone round and round. Her camera slid from her slack grip to thud against the sand.

Oh, God. She dropped to her knees and dusted the camera frantically. She didn’t have the money to replace her equipment. She knew better than to get caught up in some fairy-tale life that included flights to Paris and inherited family jewels, for crying out loud. What was the matter with her?

A shadow stretched beside her a second before Duarte knelt near her, offering her lens cloth. “Need this?”