* * *
Lexie hated that her body was humming with awareness for this man. Who was blissfully immune to the angry emotions he was arousing.
What a judgmental, supercilious, arrogant, small-minded—
‘I owe you an apology,’ he said tightly.
Lexie blinked. The anger inside her suffered a body-blow. ‘Yes, you do.’
His mouth was a grim line. ‘I had no right to judge you on the basis of those pictures.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Lexie snapped, but then she flushed again when she thought of another similar shoot she’d done relatively recently—albeit for a much more up-market publication and with a world-famous photographer. But still, she couldn’t exactly claim the moral high ground either... ‘It’s fine,’ she dismissed airily, ‘let’s forget about it.’
He sighed heavily then, and opened up the laptop that was on the desk in front of him. ‘You should see this.’
Trepidation skittered over her skin. Warily Lexie walked around the desk until she could see the laptop, acutely conscious of her proximity to him. When she saw the images, though, her belly swooped alarmingly.
It was her, and him, locked in a clinch that looked positively X-rated. Both his hands were under her skirt, pulling it up, baring her legs. Her breasts seemed about to explode from her corset, crushed against his chest. Their mouths were locked together in a passionate kiss, their eyes closed. Lexie’s hands gripped his shirt so tightly that her knuckles were white. And just like that it all came back in a rush: the desperation, the craving, the aching. The need.
Lexie could feel heat from behind her. She swallowed. There could be no mistaking that whatever had happened between them had consumed them both. It was not a comfort.
‘Where is this?’ she asked hoarsely, unable to stop looking away from the image with some kind of sick fascination.
‘It’s on a well-known internet gossip website. It’s only a matter of time before it hits the papers.’
Lexie backed away from the laptop as if it might explode...retreating around the desk, feeling marginally safer once something solid was between them.
Cesar’s eyes were glittering. His disdain was palpable. He might have just apologised, and surprised her by doing so, but there was no mistaking his disapproval of the entire situation.
Stung, Lexie said defensively, ‘There were two of us there.’
He was grim. ‘I’m aware of that, believe me.’
‘So...’ She swallowed painfully, thinking of the inevitable re-igniting of press interest and the weariness and fear of exposure that would provoke. ‘What now?’
Cesar looked at her for a long moment and crossed his arms. ‘We contain it.’
Lexie frowned. ‘What do you mean...contain it?’
‘We don’t give it air to breathe. You’re here in the castillo for the next four weeks. There should be no reason why it won’t die a death if they have nothing to work with.’
Something icy touched Lexie’s spine. ‘What are you talking about exactly?’
A muscle pulsed in Cesar’s jaw. ‘What I’m talking about is that you don’t leave this estate.’
Fire doused the ice. Lexie pointed at herself. ‘I don’t leave the estate? What about you?’
Cesar shrugged minutely, arrogant. ‘Well, of course I will have to leave. I have business to attend to.’
Lexie emitted a laugh that sounded far too close to panic for her liking. ‘After a passionate embrace is plastered all over the world’s press, you appear in public with me nowhere to be seen...do you know how that’ll look?’ She answered herself before he could. ‘It’ll look as if you’re rejecting me and the press will be all over it like a rash.’
Cesar’s jaw pulsed again. Clearly he was not used to having anyone question his motives. ‘You will be protected in here from the press.’
‘Oh, really?’ asked Lexie. ‘That paparazzo managed to get in, and I assume even a reclusive fossil like you has heard of camera phones?’
She was so angry right then at Cesar’s preposterous plan that she barely noticed that he’d moved around the desk, or that his eyes flashed dangerously at her childish insult.
‘What’s to stop some enterprising crew member from snapping pictures of poor jilted Lexie on the set of her new film...?’ Lexie was on a roll now, pacing back and forth. ‘The press will love documenting your exploits while I’m the rejected fool, locked in the castle.’
Lexie stopped and rounded on Cesar, who was at the other side of the desk now and far too close and tall and dark. She took a step back.
She shook her head. ‘No way. I’m not going to be incarcerated in this grim fortress just to make life easier for you. I’d planned to visit Lisbon, Salamanca...Madrid!’ That last came out with more than a little desperation.
Lexie had dark memories of being all but locked up once before, and it wasn’t going to happen again in her lifetime—not even on an estate as palatial as this one.
Cesar looked at Lexie and was momentarily distracted by her sheer vibrancy and beauty. Her cheeks were pink with indignation, her eyes huge and glittering. Her chest was heaving. As she’d paced back and forth energy had crackled around her like electricity.
Her words hit him then: I’m not going to be incarcerated in this grim fortress... He felt like cracking a bleak smile. He knew only too well what that was like. And he could sympathise with her rejection of the idea.
He rested back against his desk and crossed his arms, because right now they itched to reach out and grab her and pull her into him. So close to her like this he could smell her scent, all but feel those provocative curves pressed against him.
His body tightened, blood rushed south. He cursed silently.
‘So...what would be your suggestion, then?’
Lexie blinked. Cesar marvelled that her every thought was mirrored on that expressive face and in those huge eyes. He’d never seen anything like it. He was used to women putting on a front, trying hard to be mysterious.
She bit her lip and that was even worse. He wanted to bite that lip.
She looked at him. ‘We go public.’
Cesar’s eyes snapped up from her mouth to her eyes. His crossed arms dropped. ‘We go what?’
‘We go public,’ she repeated.
‘As in...?’
Her eyes flashed brilliant blue, like fire. ‘As in we are seen together. As in we go out in public. As in we let people think that we are having an affair.’
Cesar tensed for the inevitable rush of rejection at that proposition. He didn’t do high publicity—especially not with women like Lexie, whose second home was among the tabloids. Whose life was laid out in a series of lurid pictures amid salacious headlines.
But it didn’t come. The rejection. What did come was an intense spiking of anticipation in his already hot blood. His brain clicked and whirred at the thought of this audacious plan. The news of his half-brothers would be hitting the newsstands possibly as soon as tomorrow...
‘Well?’
Lexie’s voice cut through the snarl of thoughts in Cesar’s head. Somehow, without analysing it fully right now, he knew that a news story featuring them would inevitably be more colourful and interesting than one about his family connections. That would be diminished in favour of a far more scandalous story: Reclusive billionaire beds