Invitation to the Prince's Palace / The Prince's Second Chance: Invitation to the Prince's Palace / The Prince's Second Chance

‘I don’t want to harm you through this agreement, Melanie.’ That, too, had to be said. ‘I have asked for your help, but if it is not something you can do, you do not have to give it.’

‘But you want to help your people.’ Her gaze turned to meet his, and held. ‘You chose Nicolette because you weren’t … romantically attached to her or anything like that, didn’t you?’

‘I did. That allowed the situation to remain as uncomplicated as possible.’

‘It would be easy to end the marriage and get on with what you really wanted to do with your life afterwards.’

He dipped his head. ‘Yes.’

‘I’m not ready to consider marriage yet. The real thing, I mean.’ Even as Melanie spoke the words, a part deep inside her whispered a question. Did she believe she would ever be ready? Did she even feel she had the right—?

What did she mean by that? Of course she had the right, and she would still have the right if she married Rikardo and they then divorced. Melanie pushed the strange question aside.

And she thought about all those people subject to circumstances beyond their control, just trying to get on with their daily lives. People in a lot of ways who would be just like her. Not royal people, but everyday people who simply needed a bit of a hand up.

Mel could do this. She could be of help. She could make it so Rikardo didn’t have to lock himself into a long-term marriage he didn’t want. Maybe later he would find someone and be able to be happy. The little prick she felt in her chest must have been hope that he would indeed find that happiness.

‘I’ll do it.’ Melanie spoke the words softly, and said them again more forcefully. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll marry you so you can make your plan work. I want to help you.’

‘You’re quite certain?’ Rik leaned towards her as he spoke.

‘I am. I’m totally sure.’ And in that moment, Mel was. She could help him. She could do this to make up for him not being able to marry her cousin.

‘Thank you, Melanie.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Her face softened and the beginnings of a smile came to her lips. Her gaze moved to his lips and suddenly she had to swallow because something told her he was going to kiss her as part of that thank you.

She thought it, and her breath caught, and then he did.

Rik’s lips brushed hers in a soft press. His hand cupped her shoulder, and even through layers of cloth Mel felt that. Registered that as she received a kiss from a prince.

That was why it felt so remarkable. It had to be the reason—a kiss from a prince to thank her for agreeing to help him out of a tight corner.

Yet Melanie didn’t feel as though a prince was kissing her. She was being kissed … by a man, and it felt wonderful in a way no kiss had before.

In that moment her response was completely beyond her control. Her mouth softened against his, gave itself to his ministrations before her thoughts could catch up or stop her. If those thoughts had surfaced, would the kiss have ended there, with a simple brushing of lips against lips? A simple “thank you” expressed in those terms? Because that was indeed what Rik had set out to do.

It had to have been and yet somehow, for Mel at least, it had become something very different.

Mel closed her eyes. For a moment she forgot she was on a mountainside in Europe with a royal prince, seated at a table with a picnic breakfast spread before them and the most amazing scenic vistas on all sides.

She forgot that it was chilly here but that the sun shone and they were sheltered from the wind. A man was simply kissing her and she was kissing him back and that man had a pet truffle hog he’d named and whom he doted on, even though he tried very hard to hide the fact. He cared for his brothers and for the people who lived in his country, and she’d liked him from the moment she’d thought he was a gorgeous cab driver come to take her away to the airport so she could make her way to Sydney.

‘Rik.’ She’d slept on his shoulder and blabbed at him when she wasn’t quite sensible, and, despite all the smart things she should be thinking right now, the kiss felt right.

‘Hmm?’ He whispered the half-question against her lips.

Mel didn’t know whether she said it, or thought it. She simply knew the words.

Kiss me again.

CHAPTER FIVE

I would kiss you for ever and it would not be enough.

Rik thought the words inside his mind, thought them in his native language. Thought them even though they could not possibly be true and he must simply be swept up in gratitude and relief.

Yet deep within himself he knew that now, in this moment, Melanie would welcome the prolonging of this kiss. His instincts told him this. The way she yielded petal-soft lips to him told him this.

It was that thought of her willingness that finally prompted him to stop something that he should not have started in the first place, and that he hadn’t expected would make his heart pound. He, who rarely lost his cool over anything, had been taken by surprise by kissing a slip of a girl up high on a mountainside.

‘Thank you …‘ Rik released Melanie and drew back, and for a moment couldn’t think what he was thanking her for.

For rescuing him. The prince was being rescued by the same generosity that he’d felt in Melanie’s soft lips.

You are on dangerous ground with this thinking,Rikardo. If she is kind, then she is kind and that is something indeed to be appreciated. But the awareness of each other—that cannot be, and it cannot go on.

He shouldn’t have touched her. Arrogantly, he hadn’t known that doing so would be such a stunning thing.

The kiss had been startling in its loveliness. It wasn’t a manly description. But with Melanie it felt exactly right to describe it in this way.

Melanie was startling in her loveliness, and that came from the generous way she gave of herself.

He’d meant only to touch her lips with his, should perhaps not have considered even that much. Rik would like to say that he’d expected not to feel any attraction to Melanie, that he had expected to feel as indifferent towards her as he had felt towards Nicolette, but he’d known it would be different.

Yet he had kissed her, and had ended up shocked and a little taken aback by just how much he had enjoyed that kiss. Her response to him had felt unrehearsed and open. That, too, had added to her appeal.

Maybe she had simply wanted to kiss a prince.

In many other circumstances, Rik would have accepted the thought and yet Melanie had agreed to help him for no reason other than out of generosity to try to help others. She hadn’t asked him what she would get out of the arrangement. She’d wanted to hear the problems and then she’d made a decision based on what she felt she could do to help.

‘I guess we just sealed the bargain.’ Her words held a tremor. She turned to the picnic basket and started to carefully repack it. ‘We should probably get back. Now that we’ve made this decision, your father will want that official meeting. That’s assuming he can fit me into his schedule. I imagine royal families are very busy and I certainly wouldn’t presume—’

‘It will be all right, Melanie.’ She was fully back into ‘dealing with a prince and a promise and a royal family’ mode and in feeling out of her depth, though she had valiantly jumped into this for his sake.

And for the sake of the people of Braston.

Did that mean she hadn’t thought of Rik in that light as they kissed? That he had simply been a man kissing a woman, and she a woman kissing a man? Had his impact on her come completely from Rikardo the man, not from him being the third prince in line to the throne of Braston?

It wasn’t a question that should even have mattered. Rik had accepted that women were attracted to his title first, sometimes to the man within, second, but always that first was there.

Perhaps some of his questioning came from the relief of knowing he hadn’t blown his chance of avoiding being locked into a miserable marriage as part of his bargain with his father.

Melanie’s gaze meshed with his. ‘Are you quite sure you want to do this? I want to help you and help the people of Braston, but in the end what you do has to be really what you want.’

‘I’m sure.’ He got to his feet and lifted the picnic basket. ‘We may not get much done today other than the meeting with my father if he is available, but Dominico will want to get the ball rolling on a few things.’

Melanie agreed. Now that she had committed to marrying Rikardo, she wanted to get things moving.