He answered in Italian.
‘Non credo—’
She swallowed, her stomach hollowing. What didn’t he believe? That so much time and effort expended on her should be so wasted?
The sickness in her stomach churned hideously.
Ben was still talking, and she tried to listen, but it was impossible. Something about where all his new knights would go—which ones would be inside the castle, and which would be attacking it. His little voice went in and out.
And opposite her, still motionless, Prince Rico of San Lucenzo just looked at her, without a shred of expression on his face.
He was in shock, he realised. Shock so profound that he was still fighting to get his brain around what his eyes were telling him.
It wasn’t possible, what he was seeing. It just wasn’t.
It could not be the same woman. It just couldn’t.
It was impossible. Physically impossible.
She absolutely, totally, completely was not the woman he had last seen.
Dio—where had she come from? That body. That fantastic, gorgeous, lush body. An absolutely perfect bella figura. With a cinched-in waist that curved out to a pair of perfectly rounded hips, and up…he swallowed…up to a pair of breasts so ripe, so luscious, so beautifully moulded by the material swelling over them that he just wanted to…he just wanted to…
He felt his body react. He couldn’t stop it. It was there—urgent, irrepressible, unstoppable. A complete, total insistence on letting him know just exactly what it felt about what his eyes were seeing.
With an effort he did not know he was capable of, he forced his eyes upward. But it did him no good.
The reaction was exactly the same.
The rest of her went with the figure.
It was the hair—what the hell had happened to her hair? The frizz had simply gone. As if it had never existed. In its place, tinted to a rich chestnut, was a
smooth, glossy mane that waved back from her face, pouring down over her shoulders in a luxuriant swathe.
As for her face—
How had he not seen it? Shock punched through him again. Delicately arched eyebrows over endlessly deep, long-lashed, luminous eyes, cheekbones that arced to a perfect nose, that descended to a mouth…
He swallowed silently.
A mouth that was rich, and lush, and…Dio, so inviting…
Someone was talking. Tugging at his arm.
‘Tio Rico. You’re not listening. Is it time for tea now? Mummy’s come out at last and I’m hungry,’ he finished plaintively.
Where he found the strength of mind he didn’t know. But somehow he dragged his eyes to Ben.
‘Yeah—sure, right. You want to eat? OK. That’s fine.’ He said some more in Italian, just as incoherent.
What the hell was going on? Had the universe just stopped and restarted in a different dimension? A dimension where impossible things were totally normal?
She was saying something. Her voice was more high-pitched than usual, and she was trying to sound relaxed and casual, and failing completely.
‘Has Ben been OK today? I’m sorry I…er…I took so long. I…er…’
Her voice trailed off.