The Rebel King

focus. She didn't look at him as she went straight to the backpack she'd left lying on the floor near the foot of the bed.

'I probably owe Corbett Lazlo my life,' she said in a matter-of-fact tone as she hefted the backpack onto the bed and unzipped it. 'I definitely owe him for the fact that I'm not in jail right now.' And she lifted both hands and clasped them together above her head in a long sinuous stretch that bared a good bit of her lean and supple torso and momentarily robbed Nikolas of his breath.

When he had it back again, he said drily, 'Nice try, luv, but you're not going to distract me that way. You can't suppose I'd let that remark go without explanation.'

She threw him a look over her shoulder, a look of vague innocence he didn't buy for a minute. 'There's not that much to explain, really.' She gave him a sleepy-eyed smile, and he remembered the way she'd evaded the question about her association with the Lazlo Group when he'd asked it in Phillipe's kitchen a few days ago in Paris, evaded it with a smile, then, too, and the same subtle little seductions.

He said nothing…watched her take a rolled-up T-shirt and jeans out of her backpack and put them on over the wisps of underwear she'd slept in. Her movements were brisk and efficient, slightly jerky, without any hint of awareness or seduction, now. Socks and a yellow bandana handkerchief came from the depths of the backpack next. She tied the kerchief around her hair the way she'd worn it the day before, then zipped up the backpack, picked up the socks and turned to look for her shoes. He snaked out a hand and caught her wrist.

She went utterly still. Her eyes met his and seemed to shimmer in the lamplight, the way the sea does when the sun strikes it through a hole in the clouds. He felt her wiry strength, and the pulse tap-tapping against his grip, and they both knew very well she could have broken free at any time and done him considerable damage in the process. Instead, for reasons he couldn't imagine, she stood quietly, her hand relaxed in his grasp, and waited.

'It's quite unfair, you know. You know so much about me,' he said softly. 'And I know so little about you.'

He thought he saw something flicker behind her eyes, and for a moment her mouth…her face seemed to blur… become younger. Become vulnerable. Her lips parted, and he held his breath. But instead of words, he heard the reedy beep of a tractor's horn.

'They're here,' she said breathlessly. Reaching for the coffee he'd brought her, she gulped down half of it. then bent down and scooped up her shoes from the floor beside the bed. 'You'd better have something for me to eat out there somewhere,' she threw darkly over her shoulder as she marched barefooted out of the room. 'I don't pick grapes on an empty stomach-not even for a prince.'

It felt good to have the last word, but it was a hollow victory. As she sang out good-mornings to the work crew and allowed reaching hands to pull her onto the wagon, Rhia's stomach was still jittering with the aftereffects of too much marc, and the awareness of how close she'd come to opening up to Nikolas Donovan-emotionally and sexually. My God, Rhee, what were you thinking?

The picture that flashed instantly into her mind was graphic and unequivocal: Herself…Nik…gloriously entwined. Heartbeats bumping against each other in sultry, syncopated rhythms…sweat-slick bodies gliding together… melding in sweet and perfect harmony… Rhee, oh, Rhee- you're not seriously thinking of going to bed with him, are you?

Someone handed her a fresh sweet roll and she bit into it without tasting it, unable to swallow, unable to think or respond to the friendly babble of voices around her. Unable to hear anything at all but the chorus of happy voices inside her head crying. Yes! Oh, please, yes!

The morning went by faster than Rhia had imagined it would. And Nikolas was right-it wasn't so bad once she was out in the fresh cool darkness of the early morning. Floodlights set up at intervals along the road cast long mysterious shadows as the pickers fanned out through the rows of grapevines, men. women and teenagers, all joking and jostling and calling challenges to one another. Competition was fierce among them to see who could fill a bucket the fastest. Fierce, but good-natured.

Rhia was given a bucket and a pair of clippers-secateurs-and shown how to snip each bunch of grapes from the vine and drop it into her bucket. After that she was on her own. She quickly lost track of Nikolas, which was probably a good thing, as she found herself becoming caught up in the friendly competition, too, not wanting to be the last one to fill her bucket. She worked as quickly as everyone else did, squatting down to reach the lower vines, snip-snip-snipping until all the bunches had been picked, then rising and moving on to the next vine. In spite of the coolness of the morning air. she was soon sweating, and glad of the bandana she wore which helped keep not only the dust and leaves out of her hair, but the sweat out of her eyes.

She learned to shout 'La hutte!' as the others did, when her bucket was full, then wait for the person with the cone basket strapped to his back to come down the row so she could empty her bucket into the basket. When the basket was full, it would be carried back to the wagons and dumped into a barrel through a large funnel with a hand grinder, which would break up the grapes, partly crushing them.

It was hard work, but it made the time go quickly, and Rhia was surprised when she discovered that the darkness had thinned to pale lavender, and the hum of the generators that had powered the floodlights was replaced by the chatter and warble of birdsong, and the distant crow of a rooster. She paused to watch, entranced, while the sky became rosy pink, then salmon, then scarlet, and the sun lifted a molten eye above the purple hills and turned them a rich golden brown. The sun's touch felt like a warm hand laid lightly on her shoulders.

She saw that Nikolas, two rows over, had also stopped to watch the sunrise. As if he felt the touch of her eyes, he looked at her and smiled, and she felt a swelling inside, and the inexplicable prickle of tears.

But she refused to let herself ponder the meaning of such unfamiliar feelings, and instead brushed away a runnel of sweat with the back of her hand, pushed her hair impatiently over her shoulder and Nikolas Donovan from her mind and went back to snipping bunches of grapes from vines now sparkling with a diamond dusting of morning dew.

By midmorning, though, she was starving, and her headache had returned with a vengeance under the late- summer sun. She could feel it pounding like a hammer and anvil behind her temples as she reached the end of her row and straightened stiffly, rubbing at the small of her back. Her bucket was nearly full-might as well empty it before starting a new row, she thought.

She was looking around for la hutte when she spotted Nikolas over by the wagons, leaning against the tailgate, talking with Phillipe and drinking from a bottle of water. And keeping an eye on her, apparently, because when he saw her looking his way he motioned her over. It was her contrary nature that made her defy the happy little lifting sensation inside her chest and first pause to take off and unhurriedly retie her headscarf…take her own water bottle from her belt and drink…rearrange the grapes in her bucket-completely unnecessarily-before joining him. That made her refuse to look at him, lounging there with unconscious elegance in spite of the sweat that made Rhia feel itchy and dirty but only made his dusky skin gleam like polished wood and his black hair curve in wet spikes over his forehead. Made her refuse to admire the way he managed to look regal in spite of the open-neck shirt and jeans he wore, and the red scarf tied rakishly at his throat like a buccaneer's.

As she approached the two men, she saw Nikolas say something to Phillipe, who clapped him on the shoulder, blew Rhia a kiss, then sauntered off. She hesitated, then walked on, knowing the heat in her face and body wasn't all from the warmth of the sun. She was acutely aware of every inch of her body, the way it moved inside her clothes, the chafe of fabric against her sensitive places, because of the way his eyes watched her…eyes full of knowledge, confidence, and promise. We would be lovers by now…

'Taking a coffee break?' she said caustically, furious with the way her nipples hardened and rubbed against the lace that covered them, the way her pulses throbbed in all the wrong places. The way her chest hummed at just the sight, the nearness of the man.

'Nope-quitting time.' Nikolas took her bucket from her and motioned with his head. 'Job's all done.'

She saw then that the other pickers were drifting in from the vineyard, laughing, chattering, teasing one another as they passed their laden buckets up to someone on the wagons to be dumped into the grinders mounted on barrels. Phillipe was there in the midst of it all, bantering and exchanging back-slaps with the men, kisses with the women, as they removed hats and scarves, wiped necks and brows, lit cigarettes or drank from water bottles.

'So, what now?' Rhia closed one eye. squinted up at the sun and added hopefully. 'Lunch?'

His smile kindled, and she felt herself responding to it even though she very much did not want to. 'If you mean like yesterday's bacchanalia, sorry to disappoint you, luv, but no. No marc for you today,