Fifteen minutes later, they’d located the caretaker, gotten a key, and let themselves into the house. The place was big, but not as sprawling and opulent as one would expect. It was furnished island-style, with low sea-grass couches, bamboo floors, simple woven rugs, and bright tropical prints interspersed with monochromatic tones. Antonella walked through to the huge kitchen at the back of the house and gazed out at the landscape. A wall of French windows overlooked a patio and pool that gave way to a long stretch of manicured lawn. The lawn sloped down to a retaining wall several hundred meters away. Below that was an extensive swath of white beach. The sky was pale with rain, and palm trees lashed over double in the wind. The ocean that had been turquoise and lapis only yesterday was now grey and roiling. White caps foamed across the surface.
She stood very still, watching and listening. Slowly, it occurred to her that the muted roar echoing through the house came from the wind cleaving around the structure. The power of it was staggering, and nothing like she’d ever experienced before.
“I put us in the master bedroom.”
Antonella bit back a scream of surprise and spun to face Cristiano. She hadn’t heard him approach. He looked like a beach bum standing in the shadowy entry to the kitchen. A gorgeous beach bum.
He disconcerted her. Too much.
“Us? Are you hard of hearing? I said last night I’m not sleeping with you.”
He came into the room like a cat—silent, muscles bunching and flowing with oiled grace. She realized he was wet when the meager light hit him. He stripped off the polo shirt in a smooth motion, wiped it across his face, and then dropped it on the marble-topped island that ran the length of the room.
Antonella’s breath caught. She had to force her lungs to work as she blanked her expression. Every inch of him was corded with muscle, as if he were a day laborer instead of a prince. Broad shoulders and defined pecs tapered to a narrow waist and lean hips. His skin was tanned, and yet it grew lighter the lower her eyes went. A dark arrow of hair slipped beneath the loose waistband of his shorts, and she found herself wanting to follow it down, see the rest of him.
Antonella snapped her gaze to his face. He smirked as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.
“You know you want to.”
Antonella blinked. “Want to what?”
The smirk turned into a grin. “Sleep with me. In the master bedroom.”
Oh, dear God—
She shook her head, heat suffusing her face. “No, I don’t and I won’t. I’m taking one of the other bedrooms—there are other bedrooms, yes?”
Cristiano shuffled past her, gazed out the window. She refused to focus on his naked back, the taut muscles of his buttocks beneath the damp material of his shorts—
“There are,” he said, turning to face her again. “But I just checked the generator and the fuel is nearly spent. Someone forgot to fill it, or it’s been drained recently. If we lose power, there’ll be no light.”
“Surely there are candles. Have you looked?”
“Not yet, but yes, there must be. And yet we need to preserve those as well. Not to mention there are trees outside the front of the home. The other bedrooms are up there. If a tree fell onto the house, then what? I prefer not to have to dig you out, assuming you survived.”
Antonella shuddered, but whether it was over the picture of a tree crushing her or being forced to share a room with this man, she didn’t know.
“One of us can stay in the living area. There are couches, the floor—”
“And should we lose power, or should something happen to this house, we would be separated. It is best to stay together, Antonella.”
She folded her arms. “How can you possibly know that? We don’t have hurricanes or cyclones—or whatever you call them—where we come from.”
“Every Monterossan prince since the beginning of time has served in the army, Principessa.” His eyes grew hard, bleak. She swallowed. “I assure you I have endured things you cannot imagine. Trust me when I say I know of what I speak.”
She did believe him, and yet she was still unnerved by the prospect of spending so much time confined with him. “Very convenient, Cristiano. I am forced to share a room with you, it would seem.”
“What is your alternative?”
“I don’t suppose I have one, do I?”
“Not if you care to survive.”
He spoke so casually it chilled her. Antonella went to the window, touched her fingers to the pane of glass as the water chased down it outside. “How much worse will the storm get?”
He came and stood beside her. She glanced up at his profile as he stared out at the churning sea, his expression troubled. Tried resolutely not to look down at all that naked skin.
“I wish I knew. It will worsen as it spins toward land. Possibly a category four when it comes ashore.” His head tilted back as he looked up at the sky. “The wind will reach one hundred and thirty-five knots, perhaps.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He turned to face her. She kept her gaze straight ahead, though she could see him quite well in her peripheral vision. He was too close, too big. His bare skin gleamed in the pale light, and drops of water fell from his head onto his chest, trickled down, down…
“In excess of two hundred kilometers an hour.”
Antonella’s stomach dropped. She turned without thinking, took an instinctive step backward to put distance between them. “W-what could happen to us? Are we safe here?”
He perused her body in a leisurely way before answering, as if he knew she was as disconcerted by his nakedness as she was by the storm. “The trees could be a problem, and we will probably lose power. Beyond that, I do not know.”
“What about the sea?”
“The drop to the ocean is steep, so a storm surge is not likely.”
Antonella hurried to the center island and opened the handbag she’d set there. Her cell phone had no signal. She dropped it into her purse again. “Do you have a signal?”
He sauntered toward her, pulled his phone from his shorts. “No.”
Antonella leaned against the counter for support and closed her eyes. “I should have kept trying to call Dante. He will worry.”
“Perhaps he will simply think you are too occupied with your lover to inform him of your movements.”
She stiffened. “I call my brother every day.”
Why did she feel the need to justify herself?
“Do you? How extraordinary.”
“You don’t speak with your family daily?”
His laugh was unexpected. Disbelieving. “No. I am thirty-one, cara. My father doesn’t expect a regular report.”
“Dante doesn’t expect a report either. But we are close, and much has happened recently—” She broke off, unwilling to continue. No one knew what she and Dante had suffered over the years at the hands of their father.
No one would, because neither of them was talking about it. Perhaps Dante had shared his story with his wife, but Antonella did not know and would not ask.
“It is good you are close,” Cristiano said after a moment. “Very good.”
She wasn’t certain how he meant that, but a shiver crept along her nerve endings. He turned and started rummaging through drawers. The rattle of silverware grated on her after a few moments and she knew she had to do something or go