The Prince Who Charmed Her

She shrugged, trying hard to disguise the fact she was getting more spooked by the minute. ‘Novel idea, I know.’

He came to stand in front of her chair. ‘I could not forget you.’

‘Spare me.’ Please don’t say that, she pleaded mentally. ‘It took you nine months to figure that out?’ She winced. Unobtrusively she eased back in the seat to create a little more space. Now she could inhale his aftershave, just a wisp, and it was true: the sense of smell was the one true memory.

He looked down. Apparently sincere. ‘I did search for you.’

‘Then you’re not very good at it, are you?’ She’d still been in the same flat for the next five months. Waiting. Hoping he’d at least call back. Until she’d woke up to reality. ‘Tell me. When did this fictitious search occur?’

Thankfully he stepped across to the window that looked out from the stern of the ship and she could breathe again.

The glorious picture window framed the blue of the ocean, the trail of the wash from their ship, and the haze of land off to the east. And the outline of Stefano’s magnificent frame.

‘It was many months before I could begin. Only now, through chance,’ he added more thoughtfully, ‘or fate, have I found your whereabouts …’

He’d waited months! Not in a hurry to find her, then. Four weeks after he’d left she’d discovered she was pregnant. Another fourteen weeks and she’d been desperate for him to call so she could share her confusion, share her joy at the promise of finally feeling as if she belonged to someone, share her fears and hopes with the father of her child. Instead she had been completely alone.

But not as alone as she’d been when her baby had slipped away one silent night. The doctor had said her baby had a cardiac malfunction, a missing part so the growth could not progress, and she had accepted that—with grief, like the lacking in the relationship it had come from. The grief had been worse because in the beginning she had been ambivalent about its coming. Had thought more of the complications than of her own child until it had been too late for fierce regrets.

And the due date was next week.

The ever-present ache squeezed in her heart. It was time to go before her control let her down. ‘Great. Thanks for that.’ She stood, glanced at him up and down. ‘You look well. Don’t seem to be pining. I think you’ll survive.’

He stepped back into her comfort zone. ‘Is Hobson your lover?’

They were standing chest to chest, a pulsing fission of air between then, and she almost missed the question.

What? Where did this guy get off? But stoking up her anger was a good idea. Much better than sadness. Anger made her feel less trapped. Less baited by his need for control at this moment. Less weak.

Flippantly, with an airy wave of her hand, she said, ‘He’s one of them.’

The flare in his eyes stunned her.

‘Then his position has become vacant.’

She blinked. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She sat down again in shock. Any other man and she’d think he was joking. ‘You can’t do that.’ Wrong thing to say. She knew it as soon as it was out of her mouth.

He didn’t even have to say it out loud. Of course he could do it. The power of the Mykonides in the Mediterranean had never been in doubt.

Her turn to back-pedal. She’d suspected he had this side, had just never been shown it before. ‘Of course Will’s not my lover.’

Stefano cursed his temper, something he usually had an iron control over, and wheeled away to look over the sea again. The sea was unpredictable today, like his feelings for Kiki, and just as dangerous. More bad behaviour on his part. But despite that he felt his shoulders relax a little. He had not believed Hobson was her lover, but the concept had been gnawing at him since his visit to the ship’s hospital this morning.

So what else had she said that was not true. ‘Is there a man in your life at the moment?’ He could feel the beast within him stir at the thought, and it didn’t escape his notice that he had no right to ask such a thing.

She opened her eyes wide. ‘Is there a man in yours?’

Little witch. ‘Why are you baiting me?’

She glared back at him. ‘Because apologies and good wishes haven’t appeared on the menu and that was what I was promised.’

She had a point. And again he was behaving badly. Why did this happen with the woman he wanted to liaise honourably with?

He paced and came to stop in front of her. ‘I sincerely apologise for leaving without explaining my reasons.’

She nodded. ‘And the phone calls you didn’t return?’

Those he could not remember? ‘I did not get them.’

‘Perhaps not.’ Her tone said she didn’t care any more and she put her glass down. ‘I accept your apology. Thank you for my drink.’ It was untouched.

So that was that. The degree of disappointment seemed out of proportion to what he’d expected. The wall between them was too great for them to part amicably but his expectations had been optimistic. At least he knew where he stood. It was time to move on. To duty.

She stood again. ‘Goodbye, Stefano.’

But as she passed him his hand reached out of its own volition and captured her wrist. Her skin was soft and supple and so fragile. She froze and lifted her eyes to him. Limpid pools. He’d forgotten how her emotions changed their colour from brilliant blue to dark violet when she was aroused. Or angry. Which was it?

His thumb stroked the pulse on the underside of her wrist. ‘Dine with me. Tonight.’

‘No.’ She tugged in slow motion, as if already unsure if she wanted release or not.

‘Tomorrow?’ He stared into deepening violet and between them the fire flickered and stirred and the wraith encircled them both.

‘I’m working.’ Almost a whisper.

He stroked her wrist again. ‘Then it must be tonight.’

Huskily, With another brush of her tongue over her lips, she said ‘What part of no don’t you understand?’

But for Kiki it was too late. Too, too late. He’d touched her.

His hand held her wrist, his skin was on hers, and the two receptors were communicating, entwining in their own matrix of reality. The warmth crept up her body, wrapped around her in tendrils of mist, and in slow motion he drew her forward. Subconsciously she swayed like a reed towards him.

His other hand came up and tenderly brushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘You have grown even more beautiful.’

With worship his fingers slid across her cheek and along her jaw as his mouth came down, and she could do nothing but turn her face into his palm and then upwards. To wait.

As he had with their first kiss he took her breath, inhaled her soul as she did his, and the sometimes comical, sometimes cruel world disappeared.

Her hands crept up around his neck and his hands slid down, until he cupped her buttocks and pulled her in hard against him. With the taste of his lips on hers, she could feel all of him, rock-solid against her, familiar, and then his mouth recaptured hers in the way only Stefano’s could.

She moaned against his lips, her mind blank in the thick sensuality only he could create. She forgot all her intentions, all her reservations, and when he lifted her shirt, swept it over her head, sighed at her lace-covered breasts, she gazed up in a sensual mist of buried memories at the man she’d dreamt about last night.

He carried her across the room and she hooked her legs around his hips. Her mouth was on his, starving for the fuel of life she’d missed, as they went up the stairs to the loft bedroom in a haze of heat and hunger and primitive surrender.

The fog parted briefly as he lay her down, stripped off his own shirt. She could see the muscled perfection of his chest, the fine sprinkling of dark hairs and the nipples erect with his desire. Quickly he protected them both. And before her brain could function sensibly he was beside her, stroking, murmuring his delight, kissing her mouth as if he would never stop, and she was lost again despite the insistent whisper that warned she would taste remorse later.

She felt a long ridge of unfamiliar scarring on his thigh, a myriad of smaller ones, and her hand stilled. But he swept her up again before she could investigate further and the moment was lost in the maelstrom.