Innocent Surrender: The Virgin's Proposition / The Virgin and His Majesty / Untouched Until Marriage

For better or worse, yes, it had. And what he knew above all was that it had never made her happy. She’d never felt joy like Anny had expressed tonight. She’d never opened her arms and embraced life.

“You’re very pensive,” Anny said to him now.

They were eating dinner on deck. She’d brought their salads, meat and cheese up to the cockpit because, as she’d said, “Why be down below when it’s so glorious up here?”

They’d enjoyed the sunset while they’d eaten, and his mind had drifted back to the miserable nights he’d spent sailing to Cabo with Lissa, and how different it had been from this.

“Is something wrong?” Anny asked him. “They don’t look like good thoughts.”

He flexed his shoulders. “Just thinking how much better this is than the last time I went sailing.”

“I thought you went with your brother and Franck,” she said, frowning.

“I meant the last time I went a few years ago.” But he smiled as he remembered the very last time. “When we went with Franck it was good.”

“He thought so,” she agreed. “I wish he could do more of it. Mostly he won’t leave his room.” She paused thoughtfully. “It’s easier not to, I think.”

“Yes.” It was definitely easier not to risk. Safer, as well not to want what you couldn’t have.

Demetrios drained his beer and stood up. “You cooked. I’ll clean up.”

“You worked hard all day,” Anny said, standing, too. “I’ll help.” And carrying her plate, she followed him down into the galley.

She was no help. Not to his peace of mind, anyway. Oh, she washed plates and put away food. But the galley was small—too small for them not to bump into each other. Too small for him to avoid the whiff of flowery shampoo, the occasional brush of her hair as she dodged past him to get to the refrigerator, and—once—the outright collision that brought his chest and her breasts firmly against each other.

He remembered her softness. Wanted to feel it again.

The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted to spend. And, let’s face it, the closer he wanted to spend it. He wanted to touch her fresh, soft skin. He wanted to thread his fingers through her hair. Wanted to carry her off to his bunk and know her even more thoroughly than he’d known her the one time he’d made love with her.

But it wasn’t going to happen.

She’d said so. Had explained why. He understood. He just wished his hormones did.

He stepped back out of the galley and said abruptly, “Not going to work.”

Anny blinked at him. “What’s not?”

“This.” He jerked his head toward her in the galley. “You can clean up or I will. Not both of us.”

“But—”

If she were Lissa, all this brushing and bumping would have been a deliberate tease. Not with Anny. Now he just looked at her and waited for the penny to drop.

He could tell the moment that it did. Instead of looking at him coquettishly and giving him an impish smile as Lissa would have done, Anny looked mortified.

“You think I—” Her face flamed. She shook her head. “I never—! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—Oh God!”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I can control myself. But I’d rather do the cleaning up myself.”

Her cheeks were still bright red. “Of course,” she mumbled, and she practically bolted up the companionway steps without a backward glance.

Demetrios watched her go. It was a tempting view.

He didn’t need the temptation, God knew, but there were some things a man simply couldn’t resist.

As the days went on it wasn’t only the physical Anny that Demetrios found hard to resist. She was as appealing as ever physically.

But it was something more that attracted him. She was cheerful, bright, thoughtful, fun. And he never knew what she was going to do next.

One afternoon she decided she’d fish for their dinner. He scoffed at the notion. “You fish?”

“What? You think princesses can’t fish?”

“Not in my experience.”

“Known a lot of princesses, have you?”

“One or two,” he told her. That one had been five and the other ninety-five didn’t seem worth mentioning.

“Well, live and learn,” she told him, putting the rod together and settling down on the deck. “We used to go fishing on Lake Isar in Mont Chamion. We had our own little hideaway there, a little rustic cabin my great-grandfather built.”

“No castle?” he teased.

She shook her head, smiling, but her expression softened and she got a faraway look in her eyes. “About as far from a palace as you can get and still have indoor plumbing. Grandfather had that put in,” she told him. “We loved it there—Mama, Papa and I—because we could be ourselves there. Not royal, you know?”

He didn’t, of course. Not about the “royal” bit. But Demetrios nodded anyway because since he’d become famous he’d learned all about the need to get away.

“It was the perfect place,” Anny went on. “Quiet. Solitary. Calm. I felt real there. Myself. My family. No distractions.”

“Except the fish.”

She grinned. “Except the fish.”

“I presume you brought bait for the fish there—which is going to be something of a problem here.” He nodded at the bare hook on the end of her line.

“Sometimes we did,” she agreed. “Sometimes, though,” she added saucily, “we used whatever was handy. Like now.” And she dug into her pocket and pulled out a tin of sardines she’d found below.

Demetrios laughed. “If you catch a fish with that, princess, I’ll cook it.”

She laughed, too. Then she baited her hook and cast the line over the side. It was less than half an hour later that he heard her say, “I got one!”

It was a sea bass, Demetrios told her. Spignola. “Good eating,” he said, taking if off the hook and heading down to the galley.

“I can cook it,” Anny protested.

But he insisted. Once they moored the boat for the evening, she stayed on deck and kept fishing, he baked it with a bit of olive oil, lemon, tomatoes, and basil.

“Nothing fancy. Just something I learned at my mother’s knee,” he said when he brought the plates up on deck. He’d torn up greens for a salad and had two beer bottles tucked under his arm.