Charlene Sands - The Montoros Affair - The Princess and the Player / Maid for a Magnate / A Royal Temptation

As they clicked their seatbelts, his phone buzzed and he glanced at it out of habit, already planning to ignore whatever it was. Nothing could be more important than Bella.

Except it was a text message from Will. Who never texted him. Frowning, James tapped the screen of his phone and read the message.

I had nothing to do with this, but thought you should know.

Nothing good was going to come of clicking the link Will had sent, but forewarned was forearmed, so James did it anyway.

Montoro Princess to Wed the Heir to Rowling Energy.

The headline was enough. He didn’t need to read the rest.

With a curse, he tilted his phone toward Bella. “Now taking bets on which of our fathers is behind this.”

She glanced at it and repeated his curse, but substituted the vilest word with a more ladylike version, which put a smile on his face despite the ill-timed, fabricated announcement.

“Mine,” she announced with a snort. “Control and dictate is exactly his style.”

“Sure you’re not describing my father?” James returned. “Because that’s his MO all day long.”

“No, it’s my father. Definitely. But it doesn’t matter.” She grabbed his phone, switched it off and stuffed it in the bag at her feet. “You can’t have that back. No more scandals, interfering fathers and marriage alliances. Just drive.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And now. Before my babysitters figure out I’m not in the house.”

Since that sounded fine to him, he backed out of his beachside parking place and floored the gas pedal, heading west out of Playa Del Onda.

“This is a gorgeous car,” she commented with apparent appreciation as she caressed the dashboard lovingly in a way that immediately made him want her hand in his lap instead of on his car. “I dated a guy in Miami with an Aventador, but it’s so flashy without any real substance. The Gallardo is more refined and I love the color.”

God, she was going to kill him before the day was over. “You know cars? I can’t begin to tell you how hot that is.”

She shrugged with a musical laugh, knocking one of the straps of her dress askew and drawing his attention away from the road. Dangerously.

“It’s hard to live in a place like Miami without gaining at least some passing knowledge. I’ll let you in on a secret, though. We girls always judge a man by his car. Mercedes-Benz? Too serious. Porsche? Works too hard. Corvette? Too worried about his hair.”

James laughed in spite of the discomfort going on down below that likely wouldn’t ease for an eternity. “So my Lamborghini is the only reason you wanted to go out with me?”

“The car test only works if you haven’t met the guy yet. We’re strictly talking about taking someone’s measure in the parking lot.”

He shifted to take a hairpin curve as they wound away from the beach into the more sparsely populated inland roads of Alma. Since he had no idea what they were looking for, he’d drive and let her do the surveying.

“Then I’ll go with my second guess. You wanted to go out with me because I’m a witty conversationalist.” He waggled his brows and shot her a sly smile. “Or door number three—I know a trick or two between the sheets.”

He’d meant to be flirtatious, but now that it was out there, he realized the conversation with Will still bothered him a bit. Bella had said on numerous occasions that marriage wasn’t her thing. Regardless, establishing the ground rules of what they were doing here couldn’t hurt.

“Both.” Blond hair swinging, she leaned on the emergency brake between them, so close he imagined he could hear her heart beating. “We have all night long and I do love a good conversation, especially in the dark. But if you forced me to choose, I’d go with door number three.”

Brilliant. So they were both on the same page. They were hot for each other and wanted to burn it off with a wild night together. “Just so you know, with me, sheets are optional.”

Awareness tightened the atmosphere as she let her gaze travel down his chest and rest on the bulge in his pants. He could hardly keep his attention on the road. Who wanted to watch the scraggly countryside of Alma when a goddess sat in the adjacent seat?

“By the way,” she said. “I think we just passed the road we were supposed to take.”

With a groan, he did a quick U-turn and drove down the street barely noticeable in the overgrowth of trees and groundcover. “I didn’t know we had directions. Maybe you could speak up earlier next time?”

“Sorry, I’m a little distracted. Maybe you could stop being so sexy for a couple of minutes.” Fanning herself as if he’d heated her up, she trailed a finger down his bicep muscle and toyed with the crook of his elbow.

“Me?” he growled. “You’re the one in that knockout dress. All I can hear in my head is your voice on repeat, when you said the next time we were together, you’d be naked.”

“Oh, did I forget to tell you?” She kissed the tip of her finger and pressed it to his lips, but she pulled away too quickly for him to suck the finger into his mouth the way he wanted to. “I’m naked under this dress. Wanna pull over?”

He nearly whimpered. “I cannot possibly explain how much I would like to do exactly that. But we are not getting it on in the car like a couple of horny teenagers. You deserve to be treated right and that includes a bed and me taking my time enjoying you.”

Besides, they might be headed into the heart of rural Alma, but the roads were not deserted. They passed cars constantly. People knew who drove the only green Lamborghini on the island and all it would take was one idiot with a camera phone for another risqué picture of James and Bella together to land in the public eye. It was a dirty shame he hadn’t tinted the windows on his car.

Until they straightened out the marriage announcement, it would create so much less of a jumble if they kept a low profile.

“Then drive faster,” Bella suggested, and her hand wandered over to rest on his inner thigh, where she casually stroked him. Innocently, as if she touched him all the time, except she hadn’t touched him like that before and his vision started to blur with unrequited lust.

He stepped on the gas. Hard.

“Where are we going?” Driving around until they stumbled over a farmhouse that may or may not exist had started to sound like the worst idea he’d ever agreed to.

“This is the main road to Aldeia Dormer, right?” When he nodded, she pointed at the horizon. “The assistant I talked to thought she remembered that the farmhouse was on the outskirts, before you hit the village. If you keep going, we’ll find out.”

“What if I just take you to a hotel and we check in under an assumed name?”

He had plenty of practice with parking in an obscure place and passing out discrete tips to the staff so he and his lady friend could duck through the kitchen entrance. Why hadn’t he insisted on that in the first place? The text from Will had muddled him up, obviously. There was a former castillo-turned-four-star-bed-and-breakfast on the south side of Playa Del Onda that he wouldn’t mind trying.

She shook her head with a sad smile and it was so much the opposite of her normal sunny demeanor, he immediately wanted to say something to lighten the mood. But what had caused such an instant mood shift?

“My aunt asked me to find the farmhouse. It’s important to her and maybe to Gabriel. She said it was part of the Montoro legacy. We’re already so close. I promise, if we don’t find it soon, I’ll reconsider the hotel.”

Her earnestness dug under his skin and there was no way he could refuse. “Sure. We’ll keep going.”

Okay, maybe she was a little different from other women he’d dated. He certainly couldn’t recall catering to one so readily before, but that was probably due to the degree of difficulty he’d experienced in getting this one undressed and under him.