Damaso Claims His Heir

For the first time she was alone, not laughing with her coterie of men. He was surprised to see her crouched, photographing flowers on the rainforest floor. She was so engrossed, she didn’t notice him.

That was new for Damaso. He’d grown used to being watched and avidly sought after.

It pricked him that she was oblivious to him while he was hyper-aware of her. It infuriated him that his eyes strayed to her time and again, yet she had done no more than gift him with the dazzling smile she awarded so indiscriminately.

Damaso moved closer, intrigued. Was she really unaware or was she trying to pique his curiosity? Did she know he preferred to be the hunter, not the prey?

Beautiful blondes were commonplace in his world. Yet from the first day, watching her radiant face as she’d emerged drenched but undaunted from white-water rafting, Damaso had felt something new. A spark of connection.

Was it her unbounded energy? The devilment in her eyes as she risked her pretty neck again and again? Or that sexy gurgle of laughter that clutched at his vitals? Perhaps it was the sheer courage of a woman that didn’t baulk at any challenge on a trek designed to spark the jaded interest of the world’s ultra-wealthy.

‘Marisa. There you are. I looked for you everywhere.’ Young Saltram blundered out of the undergrowth to stop beside her. A computer geek who looked about eighteen, yet was worth upwards of seven figures annually, he was like an over-grown puppy salivating over a bone.

Damaso’s jaw tightened as Saltram ate her up with his eyes—his gaze lingering on the delectable peach ripeness of her backside as she squatted with her camera.

Damaso stirred, but stopped as she turned her head. From this angle he saw what Saltram couldn’t: her deep breath, as if she’d mustered her patience before turning.

‘Bradley! I haven’t seen you for hours.’ She gave the newcomer a blinding smile that seemed to stun him.

That didn’t stop him reaching out to help her rise, though it was clear she didn’t need assistance. Damaso had never seen a woman so agile or graceful.

Saltram closed his hand around her elbow and she smiled coquettishly up at the youth.

Amazingly, Damaso felt something stark scour his belly. His fingers twitched as he resisted the urge to march across and yank the boy away.

She was laughing, flirting now, not at all perturbed that Saltram was breathing down her cleavage.

She wore shorts and hiking boots and her toned legs drew Damaso’s gaze like a banquet set before a beggar. He swallowed, tasting his own hunger and the sharp, pungent tang of green apples.

Scowling, he recognised it was her scent filling his nostrils. How could that be? Standing in the shadows, he was too far away to inhale her perfume.

She turned and let Saltram guide her down the track, her long ponytail swaying across her narrow back. For a week Damaso had wanted to stroke that shining fall of gold and discover if it was as soft as it looked.

Yet he’d kept his distance, tired of dealing with fractious women who wanted more than he was prepared to give.

But she wouldn’t make demands, the voice of temptation whispered. Except in bed.

For Princess Marisa of Bengaria had a reputation with a capital R. Pampered from birth, living carelessly off inherited riches, she was a party girl extraordinaire. The tabloids branded her wilful, reckless and as far from a demure, virginal princess as it was possible to get.

Damaso had told himself he was sick of high-maintenance women. Yet a week in her vicinity had given him a new perspective. She might be feckless but she wasn’t needy.

She’d flirted with every man on the trek. Except him. Heat drilled through his belly as the significance of that hit.

She was exactly what he needed. He had no interest in virgins. A little wildness would add spice to a short vacation liaison.

Damaso smiled as he sauntered down the track after her.

* * *

Marisa turned her face to the waterfall’s spray, grateful for its cooling, damp mist in this sultry heat. Her blood pumped fast and her limbs felt stretched and shaky from fatigue and adrenalin as she clung to the cliff face.

Yes! This was what she wanted. To lose herself in the challenge of the moment. To put aside all the—

‘Marisa! Over here!’

She turned her head. Bradley Saltram watched her from a perch well away from the waterfall. His grin was triumphant.

‘Hey, you did it! Great going.’ Bradley had confided his fear of heights. Even his relatively straightforward climb was a momentous achievement. No wonder he wore full safety harness and had Juan, their guide, in close attendance. ‘I knew you could do it.’

But it was hard meeting his bright eyes, almost febrile with excitement and pleasure.

A hammer blow struck her square in the chest and she clutched at her precarious handhold. When he smiled that way, with such triumph, she remembered another smile. So radiant it had been like watching the sun’s reflection. Eyes so clear and brilliant they’d been like the summer sky. Happiness so infectious it had warmed her to the core.

Stefan had always been able to make her forget her misery with a smile and a joke and a plunge into adventure, making a nonsense of the joyless, disapproving world that trapped them.

Marisa blinked, turning away from the bright-eyed American who had no idea of the pain he’d evoked.

A lump the size of Bengaria’s cold, grey royal palace settled in her chest, crushing the air from her lungs and choking her throat. Her breath was a desperate whistle of snatched air.

No! Not now. Not here.

She turned back to Bradley, pinning a smile on her features. ‘I’ll see you at the bottom. I just want to check out the falls.’

Bradley said something but she didn’t hear it over the drumming pulse in her ears. Already she was moving, swinging easily up, shifting her weight as she found new foot-and hand-holds on the slick rock-face.

That was what she needed, to concentrate on the challenge and the demands of the moment. Push away everything but the numbness only physical exertion brought.

She was high now, higher than she’d intended. But the rhythm of the climb was addictive, blotting out even Juan’s shouted warning.

The spray was stronger here, the rock not merely damp but running with water.

Marisa tuned in to the roar of the falls, revelling in the pounding rush of sound, as if it could cleanse her of emotion.

A little to the left and she’d be at the spot where legend had it one brave boy had made the impossible dive into the churning pool of water below.

She paused, temptation welling. Not to make a name for herself by a daredevil act, but to risk herself in the jaws of possible oblivion.

It wasn’t that she wanted to die. But dicing with danger was as close as she’d come lately to living, to believing there might possibly be joy in her life again.

The world was terminally grey, except in those moments when the agony of grief and loneliness grew piercingly vivid. Those moments when Marisa faced the enormity of her loss.

People said the pain eased with time but Marisa didn’t believe it. Half of her had been ripped away, leaving a yawning void that nothing could fill.

The pounding of the falls, like the pulse of a giant animal, melded with the rapid tattoo of her heartbeat. It beckoned her, the way Stefan had time and again. When she closed her eyes she could almost hear the teasing lilt in his voice. Come on, Rissa. Don’t tell me you’re scared.

No, she wasn’t scared of anything, except the vast aloneness that engulfed her now Stefan was gone.

Without thought she began climbing towards the tiny ledge beside the fall, taking her time on the treacherously wet rock.