The Prince Who Charmed Her

Stefano felt the swell in his chest, the furnace of desire for this slip of a woman who, until he touched her, could hold her own. Then she was his. He sensed it. Tasted the victory he hadn’t known he burned for until it was upon him.

Clothes had fallen away, skin melted into skin, and heat seared between them as they reacquainted, shifted, joined. Together they cried out, until the sound died in the little death and she lay beneath him, limp and spent in his arms.

Then he moved again, slowly, savouring every tiny moment, every gentle trail across pearl-coloured skin, every cupping of mounds and exploration of hollows. And always he returned to her mouth, her honeyed mouth that he could never have enough of, until the beat grew faster, the hunger more desperate, the climax more shattering, and again they collapsed.

Replete for now, in awe, still confused by the speed and urgency that had carried them both, he lay back with his arm under her, hugged her close, smiling and sated.

For the moment.

Until the drop of a tear landed on his bicep.

‘You are crying?’ Stefano felt the dagger of shame and turned to see her face. Kiss her hand. ‘I have hurt you. God, no. I am a beast.’

Kiki was in shock. She’d done it again. One touch and she’d lost all will. How could that be? She was no young and foolish teenager, swept off her feet by a handsome man. She knew what he could do. Had wept buckets at his hands before. If she didn’t get out now she would lose what shreds of self-respect she could gather from the clothes strewn around the floor.

‘I have lint in my eye. It’s okay.’ She eased out from under his hand and inched to the edge of the bed.

He sat up, the sheet falling from his chest, his hand out. ‘Let me help you.’

‘No.’ It was sharp and panicked, and she tried again in a calmer voice. ‘No. Thank you. One moment.’

A plan. She had no plan except to escape. Not to let him touch her again. Her feet touched the floor and she scooped up her underwear on her way down to the bathroom, padding down the stairs in bare feet to where her shirt lay at the bottom of the steps like an abandoned child. She scooped it up. Hopped on one leg as she slipped on her panties.

God. What had she done? How had it happened? At least he had used protection—but then they had done that last time. She would get a morning-after pill. Make sure.

All stupid thoughts when really she should be worried about escape and remaining undetected by a ship full of people who knew her. She opened and closed the bathroom door noisily, yet didn’t go in. Instead she hurriedly pulled on her bra and her shirt and slipped out through the door as soon as she was dressed.

Outside she pulled on her sandals and smoothed her clothes. To top everything off if somebody saw her leave the suite of a passenger her job would go. And she was due at work in an hour.

On the crew level she passed Miko, her friend from her first early days on the ship, when she’d been more than a little lost. He was another of her brother’s confidants, and the restaurant manager on the Sea Goddess.

She ran her fingers through her hair. Nooooo, she must look a sight. Miko raised his eyebrows, smiled sardonically, and walked on without saying a word. Did she look like a woman who had just left a man’s bed? Kiki hurried to her cabin in the crew’s quarters and as she went she groaned.

Stefano groaned too.

She’d gone. He knew it. And now, instead of finding resolution, they were in deeper trouble than before. What the hell had happened? He pushed the heel of his hand back into his forehead. Idiot!

It had been like this the first time he saw her. She’d arrived breathless, like a beautiful, vibrantly exotic bird, grabbing his attention so that he’d barely been able to concentrate on surgical technique. Her fierce intelligence had shone joyfully out of the most beautiful eyes in the operating theatre, like the Mediterranean Sea at sunrise, and he’d been lost.

His time with Kiki in Australia had blurred into a golden haze of laughter and loving and lust, and even his responsibility to Aspelicus had faded for a brief while.

When duty had called he’d fully intended going back to reassess it all properly—discover where it led. He had thought it would be a matter of days before his return, but first there had been the accident, then the months of rehabilitation, when the chance of losing the use of his leg had hung in the balance. It had all kept him away. As if the gods had intended they should both suffer for too perfect a match.

By then she’d disappeared. And more crises had arrived. Slowly his mind had been torn from her as well—except for that tiny halo in his heart.

But it was bad that he had hurt her. Profoundly. He could see that now, and deeply he regretted it. The trouble was that it seemed if he had an opportunity to hold her again he had no choice but to take it. Hold her. Lose himself. This had to stop. This was not healthy. Not wholesome. Because the way he felt at this moment he would destroy them both before he could stop the way he wanted her.

The next morning, as the ship moored at Civitavecchia for Rome, the clinic was quiet.

‘You okay?’ Will looked at Kiki with concern.

She forced a smile. ‘I must have eaten something that disagreed with me.’

Like a morning-after pill that sat on her stomach like a rock. She couldn’t rid her mind of the distant warning that this had been the only chance she’d had to carry Stefano’s child again. She hated that thought.