Read Online HOLIDAY ROYALE by Christine Rimmer - Free Book Online

this had to stop. But he kept forgetting what he needed to do because of what he wanted to do—which was to touch her. He ached to get up and sit on the other sofa with her, and the ache made a very distracting prickly feeling beneath his skin. He said flatly, “Your brother only wants you to be happy.”
    “Oh, Dami, come on. What he wants is for me to be safe. And to him that means under his control. If he had it his way, I would be back in California sitting around in my room. He wants me to be where he can check on me at regular intervals just to make certain I don’t need medical attention, stat, even though I’ve been well and strong for two years now. He still has issues because our parents died, because of all the times I almost died. He’s getting better at letting me make my own decisions about things, but he’s not all the way there yet.”
    As always, she was thoroughly out-talking him—which on the one hand, he found frustrating. On the other hand, he only wanted her to go on talking. He only wanted to get up and sit on the other sofa with her and hear her lovely, breathless voice in his ear as he brushed his hand against her cheek and breathed in the scent of her skin and pressed his lips to her hair.
    He stayed where he was and soldiered on. “I’m trying to tell you that Noah’s right to be annoyed with you and to be angry at me.”
    “No. No, he is not right. He’s out of line. Which is why I went to the villa and woke him up and told him so.”
    “Luce, I—”
    She barreled right over him. “And I know that it bothered you, him giving you those angry looks. He’s your friend and he’s been acting like such a jerk to you. That wasn’t right. But it’s okay now. Really. You don’t have to worry about it anymore. It took some doing—and Alice’s help—but I finally got through to Noah.”
    “Tonight? You’re saying you worked it all out with him tonight?” It was the last thing he’d expected.
    She nodded eagerly. “I did, yes. Tonight. He’s promised to stop with the deadly glances. And to totally get off my case. Honestly, he won’t be embarrassing either of us with any big-brother scenes, I can promise you that.”
    Did he believe her? “You’re certain about this?”
    “Yes. Of course I’m certain. We argued. Alice backed me. And at the end, I asked Noah to stay out of it and he promised that he would. Then he hugged me and he let me go. It was another big step for him. Really. Like I said, he’s getting better.” She was waving her arms about as usual, hands swooping and diving like soaring doves. “He’s learning to accept that I’m an adult with my own life, a life that is completely independent from him.”
    Dami realized he did believe her. If there was any doubt that Noah had surrendered this particular field, he would have been able to see it in her adorable open face by now.
    Not that it really mattered whether Noah was leaving it alone or not. Noah had never been the problem, not really. Dami’s plan to show Lucy a beautiful holiday weekend in lieu of seducing her— that was the problem.
    It wasn’t working. It had been a bad plan from its very inception. Less than twenty-four hours ago he’d been so sure he could never find her physically attractive. She’d shot down that certainty in the space of an afternoon.
    After that chaste kiss at the harbor, he’d known he had a problem.
    And how had he dealt with that problem? Why, by kissing her again that night, at which time his body had actively responded to the taste of her mouth and the feel of her pressed against him, filling his arms. He was as bad as old Dietrich VonDelft, sniffing around after an innocent who had a right to learn about love from someone as sweet and untried as she was.
    “Luce,” he began severely, despising the stiff, stuffy sound of his own voice, “I have something I really must say to you.”
    Instantly, her face changed. Her mouth went soft and her brown eyes went stormy.