Go to sleep, she urged him silently as she listened to the muffled pounding of his heart. Go to sleep and let’s pretend we’re two normal people one last time. I can make you toast and coffee in the morning, and we can sit on stools in my tiny kitchen and forget that you’re a prince and I’m a commoner before you walk out of my life for good.
But he was wide awake. She could tell from the tension in his body and the way he suddenly eased himself out of her body. Without a word, he pushed back the sheet and got out of bed.
‘Luc?’ she questioned, but he had switched on the main light and was walking over to the oval mirror which hung on the wall.
The harsh light emphasised just how cheap the room must look to a man used to palaces—throwing into relief the threadbare rug and the chipped paintwork which she hadn’t yet got around to restoring. Tipping his head back, he narrowed his eyes as he studied the bite on his neck, which was already turning a deep magenta colour.
‘Bathroom?’ he snapped.
‘J-just along the corridor,’ she stumbled.
He was back some minutes later, having obviously splashed his face with water and raked his fingers through his ruffled black hair in an attempt to tame it. And then her heart clenched with disbelief as he bent down to pick up his clothes and began pulling them on. Surely he wasn’t planning on leaving straight away? She’d known it was only ever going to be a one-off but she’d hoped he’d at least sleep with her.
‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.
‘You mean, apart from the fact that you’ve bitten my neck, like some teenage girl on a first date?’ He paused in the act of buttoning up his shirt, his lips tight with anger as he turned to look at her. ‘What was the point of that, Lisa? Did you want to make sure you left a trophy mark behind?’
‘I know. I know. I shouldn’t have done it.’ She gave a helpless shrug. ‘But you were just too delicious to resist.’
But he didn’t smile back. In the glaring light she could see how stony his sapphire eyes looked. He finished dressing and slipped on his shoes. ‘I have to go,’ he said, giving a quick glance at his watch. ‘I shouldn’t even be here.’
‘Oh?’ Her voice was very quiet as she looked at him. ‘Have you suddenly decided that my new downmarket accommodation is a little too basic for His Royal Highness? Can’t wait to get away now you’ve had what you came for?’
‘Please don’t, Lisa,’ he said. ‘Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is. This should never have happened. We both know that.’
She sat up in bed then, her hair falling over her shoulders as she grabbed at the rumpled sheet to cover her breasts, shielding them from the automatic darkening of his eyes as they jiggled free. ‘But you were the one who came into my shop!’ she protested furiously. ‘The one who practically bribed me into going to that wedding party with you—’
‘And you were the one who came onto me on your doorstep when I had already decided to resist you.’
‘I didn’t hear you objecting at the time!’
‘No, you’re right. I didn’t.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Maybe I was just too damned weak.’
‘Okay. So we were both weak. We wanted each other.’ She stared at him. ‘But what’s the big deal? Why start regretting it now? I mean, it’s not as if we’re hurting anyone, is it?’
Luc let out a low hiss of air. He didn’t want to tell her, but maybe telling her was the only option. The only way she might get the message that this really was the last time and it could never happen again. Yet he wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t experienced a sense of regret. His heart clenched in his chest as he looked at her—at the golden-brown curls tumbling down over her milky skin. He stared into the spiky-lashed green-gold of her eyes and felt another unwanted jerk of lust. Another deep desire to go over there and kiss her until there was no breath left in her lungs—until she was parting her thighs and pulling him deep inside her again. And judging from the hunger in her eyes, she was feeling exactly the same.
He wondered if she was aware of just how irresistible he still found her. Perhaps she thought there might be more episodes like this in the future. Maybe she was labouring under the illusion that he would start making regular trips to see her, which would all end up with this seemingly inevitable conclusion. And didn’t part of him long for such a delicious scenario?
Yet his sexual hunger was tempered by a deep sense of guilt at what had just happened, because hadn’t he just betrayed the woman who had been waiting so patiently for him on the island of Isolaverde? Hadn’t he broken his self-imposed celibacy—big time—and with the very last woman he should have chosen?
‘I’m afraid it is a big deal,’ he said slowly.
She looked at him and grew completely still, as if sensing from the sudden harshening of his voice that she was about to hear something she would prefer not to.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘There’s someone else.’
The words hung in the air between them and for a moment they were met with nothing other than a disbelieving silence before her shoulders stiffened in shock.
‘Someone else?’ she repeated blankly.
‘Yes.’
‘You mean...?’ she managed at last, her green-gold eyes icing over. ‘You mean you’re sleeping with two women at the same time? Or is that a little conservative of me? Maybe there are more than two—are you operating some sort of outdated harem?’
‘Of course I’m not!’ he gritted back. ‘And it isn’t that simple. Or that easy.’