The Virgin's Proposition

She tried to pull away. He let go, but his gaze still held her. “I…never should have said it.” She wanted to say she didn’t mean it, but that wasn’t true, so she didn’t say that.

“You’re getting married,” he said quietly.

She swallowed, then nodded once, a jerky nod. “Yes.”

“And you’d have meaningless sex with me before you do?”

That stung, but she shook her head. “It wouldn’t be meaningless. Not to me.”

“Why? Because you had my poster on your wall? Because I’m some damned movie star and you think I’d be a nice notch on your bedpost?” He really was furious.

“No! It—it isn’t about you,” she said, trying to find the words to express the feeling that had been growing inside her all evening long. “Not really.”

“No?” He looked sceptical, then challenged her. “Okay. So tell me then, what is it about?”

She took a breath. “It’s what you made me remember.”

His jaw set. “What’s that?” He leaned back against the wall, apparently prepared to hear her out right there.

She sighed. “It’s…complicated. And I—I can’t stand here in the hallway and explain. My neighbors don’t expect to be disturbed at this time of night.”

“Then invite me in.”

Which, she realized, was pretty much what she’d already done. She shrugged, then turned and led the way back down the hall and into Tante Isabelle’s apartment. She nodded toward the overstuffed sofa and waved a hand toward it. “Sit down. Can I get you some coffee?”

“I don’t think either of us wants coffee, Anny,” he said gruffly.

“No.” That was certainly true. She wanted him. Even now. Even more. Watching him prowling around Tante Isabelle’s flat like some sort of panther didn’t turn off her desire. In fact it only seemed to make him more appealing. She had plenty of experience dealing with heads of state, but none dealing with panthers or men who resembled them. It was a relief when he finally crossed the room and sat on the sofa.

She didn’t dare take a seat on the sofa near him. Instead she went to the leather armchair nearest to the balcony, sat down and bent her head for just a moment. She wasn’t sure she was praying for divine guidance, but some certainly wouldn’t go amiss right now. When she lifted her gaze and met his again, she knew that the only defense she had was the truth.

“I am not marrying for love,” she said baldly.

If she’d expected him to be shocked or to protest, she got her own shock at his reply.

He shrugged. “Love is highly overrated.” His tone was harsh, almost bitter.

Now it was her turn to stare. This from the man whose wedding had been touted as the love match of the year? “But you—”

He cut her off abruptly. “This is not about me, remember?”

“No. You’re right. I’m the one who—who suggested…asked,” she corrected herself, needing to face her foolishness as squarely as she could. “I was just…remembering the girl I used to be.” She studied her hands, then looked up again. “I was thinking about when I was in college and I had hopes and dreams and wonderful idealistic notions.” She paused and leaned forward, needing him at least to understand that much. “Today when I saw you, I remembered that girl. And tonight, well, it was as if she was here again. As if I were her. You brought it all back to me!”

She felt like an idiot saying it, and frankly she expected him to laugh in her face. But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all for a long moment. His expression was completely inscrutable. And then he said slowly, almost carefully, “You were trying to find your idealistic youth?”

He didn’t sound as if he thought she was foolish. He actually seemed intrigued.

Hesitantly, Anny nodded. “Yes. And then, when you said you’d do anything…” Her voice trailed off. It sounded unutterably foolish now, what she’d wanted. “I thought of those dreams and how they were gone. And I just…wanted to touch them one more time. Before—before…” She stopped, shrugging. “It sounds stupid now. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. But it was like some fairy tale—this night—and…” She felt her face warm again “I just wished—” She spread her hands helplessly.

He was the one who leaned forward now, resting his elbows just above his knees, his fingers loosely laced as he looked at her. “So why are you marrying him?”

“There are…reasons.” She could explain them, but that would mean explaining who she was, and she’d ruined enough of her fairy-tale evening without destroying it completely. She didn’t want Demetrios thinking of her as some spoiled princess who couldn’t have her own way. For just one night she wanted to be a woman in her own right. Not her father’s daughter. Not a princess. Just Anny.

Even if she looked like an idiot, she’d be herself.

“Good reasons?”

She nodded slowly.

“But not love?” His tone twisted the word so that it still didn’t sound as if he believed in it.

But Anny did.

“Maybe it will come,” she said hopefully. “Maybe I haven’t given him enough of a chance. He’s quite a bit older than I am. A widower. His first wife died. He—he loved her.”

“Better and better,” Demetrios said grimly.

“That’s another of the reasons I asked,” she admitted. “I just thought that if I had this one night…with you…then if he never did love me, if it was always just a ‘business arrangement’ at least I’d…have had this. It’s just one night. No strings. No obligations. I wasn’t expecting anything else,” she added, desperate to reassure him.

He was silent and again she had no idea what he was thinking. And he didn’t tell her. There was nothing but silence between them.

Seconds. Minutes. Probably not aeons, but it felt that way. Millions of years of mortification. What had been a magical night had become, through her own fault, the worst night of her life.

Outside she heard the muffled sound of a car passing in the street below and, nearby, the ticking of Tante Isabelle’s ornate French Empire brass-and-ebony mantel clock. Finally she heard him draw in a slow careful breath.

“All right, Anny Chamion,” he said, getting to his feet and crossing the room to hold out his hand to her. “Let’s do it.”

She stared.

At his outstretched hand. Then her gaze slid up his arm to his broad chest, to his whisker-shadowed jaw, to that gorgeous mouth, to the memorable groove in his cheek, to those amazing green eyes, dark and slumberous now, and more compelling than ever. She swallowed.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind,” he said when she didn’t speak or even more. He looked at her, waiting patiently, and she knew he expected that she would have changed it.

But she couldn’t.

Faced with a lifetime of duty, of responsibility, of a likely loveless marriage, she desperately needed something more. Something that would sustain her, make her remember the passion, the intensity, the joy she’d believed in as a girl.

She needed something to hang on to, her own secret.

And his.

She reached up and took Demetrios’s hand. Then she stood and walked straight into his arms. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

When she slid into his embrace, Demetrios felt a shock run through him.

It was like the sudden bliss of diving into the water after a burning hot day.

It was pure and right and beautiful.