“Rina? Rina! Wake up. It’s morning.” Alex’s little body was rolling across hers as he sought to stand up on the bed in the midst of what was the beginning of the plane’s descent.
Sabrina sat up, groggily checked the small bedside clock, and settled Alex beside her, relieved to realize she had silky pjs on. So much of the previous evening was a blur. It came back now in quick snatches of memory. The ceremony. The unbearable headache, the actual, physical pain caused by the fear that Vlad was Alex’s father. The ugly encounter with Pieter in which he admitted he was in fact Alex’s dad. His threats. The stress of the new fear that she now had to keep her mouth shut about Alex’s parentage or risk losing both of them—Vlad and Alex, the two most important people in the world to her.
Her wedding gown hung from the rod in the small closet of the cabin; she glanced down at the rings on her right hand.
In spite of it all, she felt strangely at peace. Could almost believe that she would be able to deceive Vlad because to do otherwise meant risking it all. And she could not do that. She could barely contemplate that possibility. She loved Alex too much. She loved Vlad. No, that wasn’t it, was it? But she cared for Vlad—too
much to risk losing him. They were married and damn him, Vlad had signed, sealed, and delivered her acquiescence with his ridiculous contract—the contract, which right now she was so very pleased to have signed.
“My wife is exhausted,” Vlad stated sometime in the wee hours this morning, and the flight attendant had shown her into the cabin and helped her to undress.
The reception was still going strong when Vlad had ushered the three of them out of the Pierre and into the waiting car just before midnight. They’d headed to the airport where his jet was waiting. Alex had already been asleep, comfortable in his pajamas, courtesy of Mrs. Egan before she saw them off at the hotel. Peggy Egan had pursed her lips when told of the honeymoon arrangements, but both Sabrina and Vlad had been in agreement that Alex would join them.
“Not a proper honeymoon with a toddler along, Mr. Grigory, if you don’t mind my saying so. I would be happy to—”
“I don’t think I’d ever be able to stop you saying what’s on your mind,” Vlad smiled at the caregiver, his mouth quirking up at the corner in the way that always made Sabrina melt, “but we’ll be fine.”
Sabrina remembered being grateful for that decision even though he hadn’t asked her. So preoccupied by her own overwhelming thoughts, it hadn’t occurred to her to discuss such basic plans with him. She hadn’t even been sure they were going to go on a honeymoon, much less a trip to the Amalfi Coast with Alex in tow.
Sabrina washed and dressed them both quickly, and they entered the main cabin in time to smell coffee and the variety of breakfast choices that had been set out, from fruit to oatmeal to fresh-squeezed juice and cappuccino.
Vlad, in dark jeans and a linen shirt, looked well rested and fresh. Sabrina knew he didn’t usually need more than five hours a night. She’d slept so poorly of late, but perhaps because of the emotional overload it had caught up with her and she’d managed to fall into a dreamless slumber.
He set aside his tablet when Alex expressed interest in eating while sitting in the seat next to him. Alex ordered everything that Vlad did from orange juice to cantaloupe and Sabrina felt a rush of emotion as she saw the hero worship in her little brother’s eyes. Alex was lucky to have Vlad in his life no matter how long their relationship might last.
She sat opposite them in a gauzy white top and khaki shorts. Swinging her bare leg back and forth while she skimmed the newspaper and nibbled on a croissant, she flushed when she felt Vlad’s gaze return more than once to her legs.
Shortly, the jet started its deep descent for the landing in Naples, and Alex decided he wanted to sit next to Sabrina.
“Don’t worry, we can hold hands,” Alex told her so seriously that Sabrina nodded solemnly at her suddenly grown up little brother. They both sat, fingers intertwined, gazing out the window at the rapidly rising strip of land shimmering in the cerulean sea.
Vlad had arranged for a car to take them from the airport to his yacht anchored off the coast of Capri.
Vlad had even organized her clothing. An enormous suitcase of resort wear lay open on the rack near the bed.
Alex kept pointing out boats in the far distance and asking which was theirs. Sabrina flushed at the possessive pride in his voice but Vlad seemed unfazed telling Alex he would be sure to point it out to him when they could see it.
“Yikes, good thing this is a Navigator, I can’t imagine going along these roads in something smaller,” Sabrina said as they sped along the narrow coastal road that lead down to the sea. The view dizzied her, but Alex unaffected by the sheer drop hundreds of feet to the water, was beside himself at the concept of staying twenty-four/seven on a boat as opposed to a bricks and mortar building. In the short time he had been exposed to the new experiences entailed in living in Vlad’s world, his vocabulary had grown and his toddler fears had in large part been banished.
“You’ve made his day,” Sabrina commented, “his year, really.”
“How about you, Sabrina?”
Vlad’s gaze arrowed in on her own with sudden intensity.
“Um, me? I really didn’t expect, this is way above and beyond anything you had to do. I mean, there aren’t any cameras here are there? And I’m really so happy Alex is with us.”
She was babbling as she had a tendency to do in Vlad’s presence. She pushed out a laugh. “Far be it from me to complain. I mean, it’s my first trip to Italy, first time on a plane and,” she threw her arms wide, “it must be eighty-five degrees out—I’m thrilled!”
Vlad nodded, a half smile on his rugged face at her response.
The SunKing was more than five hundred feet long and Sabrina counted twenty people standing in a row on the gleaming deck to greet them as they boarded— presumably captain and crew. After introductions, Vlad himself led them to their quarters. They each had a stateroom done up in sumptuously modern décor, and Alex wasted no time asking to change into his swimsuit.
“Well, let’s wait a bit, okay, Alex?” Sabrina stalled. “This is the open sea, so you need to be careful.”
Alex didn’t even know how to dog paddle in a wading pool, and Sabrina’s lack of skill in that area meant she was no help. Swimming lessons were the kind of thing she hadn’t had the funds to provide for him in their old life, nor had she even had the time to enroll them in the Y.
“Stay close to me, young Alex,” Vlad advised with a smile. “I lived on a ship and swam off it from an early age. Besides,” he added, “there’s a pool on board.”
Both Sabrina and Alex had looked over with identical wide eyes as Vlad said those words. This was a Vlad she didn’t know. As soon as he had boarded the yacht, his demeanor had changed. He was still the Type A mogul, no doubt about that, but he seemed to be more relaxed, more at home standing on the deck of the yacht than Sabrina had ever seen him in the corridors of VGI or on the streets of the city, or even at his home in the country.
Once they settled into their staterooms, Vlad took them on a tour of the vessel, showing them every nook and cranny of the enormous craft.
“So, what do you think?” he’d said, pride evident
in his voice.
“Better than home plate tickets to the World Series,” she’d responded.
Sabrina knew she could get lost in the vast space of the vessel with its warren of staterooms, but the beautiful feeling of freedom beckoned and shortly she left Vlad and her brother to go above deck and breathe deep of the fresh Tyrrhenian Sea air.
Following the usual wisdom not to give into jetlag, they ignored the time zone change and set off for a walk on the island of Capri. In dark glasses and sandals, Sabrina enjoyed the feeling of anonymity, after weeks of dodging cameras, as they strolled into and out of ceramic shops, jewelry, and linen stores.
In no time, Alex’s short legs fatigued and Vlad put him on his shoulders as they walked ever higher on the island until they found a likely spot where Alex could enjoy a gelato while Sabrina and Vlad sipped espressos. By the time Vlad’s driver met them at the gelato shop, Alex was sprawled, fast asleep on Sabrina’s lap.
Vlad carried him to the car.
Vlad decided they would stay on board for dinner the first night since jetlag had already caught up to Alex and Sabrina was heavy eyed. Quick showers revived them, but Alex settled into bed with nary a peep.
Sabrina changed into a lemon sundress with a halter-top. With her bare legs in heeled sandals and her hair caught back in a clip, she transitioned into vacation if not honeymoon mode. They sat in an alcove on the deck with a full view of both the twinkling necklace of light that was the Caprese shore, and the inscrutable green depths of the sea.
Sabrina was mesmerized, more with Vlad than the= view. The shadows threw the hard angles of his high cheekbones into relief, giving him sexy and dangerous appeal in the light of the moon, the small hanging lanterns the crew had placed overhead, and the hurricane lamps placed strategically along the deck.
Alone as they were in that sea of flickering light with Vlad looking so impossibly handsome in close- fitting linen slacks and shirt, Sabrina found herself wondering why he would choose to be with an ordinary girl like her. But then reality reasserted itself. He had not really chosen her; they had been thrown together by the circumstances of that ridiculous tabloid photo, and everything had snowballed from there.
She’d been so easy to read, so easy to have. He’d fired her from his company; yet she had willingly put herself in his bed and had reveled in the experience. God help her, she’d better never, ever, forget this was just a PR honeymoon, an alliance purely for the press. No, she told herself, she wouldn’t forget. But she didn’t want to think about it either. And she definitely didn’t want to dwell on Pieter and his threats. Pieter and Vlad and the circumstances that had contrived to put her right here with Vlad made no difference to her right now.
She wanted to be in the moment. Wanted to absorb and enjoy the fact that the crew was courteously invisible, and their entire meal from appetizer to pasta to fish to dessert with iced champagne on the side, was laid out on a table for their enjoyment with no staff or crew popping up to interrupt them. This was, after all, supposed to be a honeymoon.
Sabrina found she wanted badly to give Vlad a glimpse of her true self, to unburden herself, to tell him she was not Alex’s mother, but rather his sister and that she had met his awful brother and—guess what? He was Alex’s father. But how could she do that? How could she risk it all?