She lifted her head, and he felt her looking at him. Her dark eyes were still covered by her sunglasses, but he could imagine them, glittering, fringed by thick black lashes, filled with emotion. Yes, she was beautiful.
“You feel things too much, Eva. Take too much personally.”
“Now you’re giving advice?” she asked, her lips tightening.
“You wanted to talk. I’ll talk. Emotion changes constantly. All you really have in life, the only constants, are honor and commitment to upholding that honor. You make choices to do certain things, and you do them. And you can find satisfaction there.”
“Sounds noble,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee.
“I’ve never considered myself noble,” he said. “But it’s how I live.”
His eyes were always on the goal. If he said something would be done, he saw it was done. It was why he’d consented to dealing with Eva for the next six months. Completing the task, and doing it exactly as promised, was more important than being comfortable, or happy.
“Are you happy?” she asked.
He clenched his teeth together. “Happiness, in my mind, is one of life’s biggest lies. People break so many things in the pursuit of happiness. Contracts, marriages, they destroy other people’s lives to find a taste of it, and, yet, it never lasts. There has to be something more enduring that you live for.”
She frowned, a slight crease forming between her perfectly shaped brows. “So you think it’s more important to consider the greater good than your own feelings?”
“I don’t trust feelings. They lead to a great many stupid actions. People would be better off if they used their heads and not their hearts.”
“You are a barrel of monkeys, aren’t you?” she asked.
A reluctant laugh escaped his lips. “This means I’m … fun?”
“Yeah, but with sarcasm. Meaning you aren’t.”
“Then why didn’t you let me sit across the room from you?” he asked.
“Because this is more interesting. I don’t know if it’s fun, but it’s more interesting.”
“And the casino? That’s fun?”
She shrugged. “It’s different. Carefree.”
“And the men?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t even remember their names.”
His stomach tightened, but not with desire this time. “You find that sort of thing fun then?” Jealousy, hot, unreasonable, unfamiliar, surged in his veins. His muscles tightened, every male instinct telling him to act, to follow the emotion, to ignore the cerebral. To make her his. Only his.
He gritted his teeth, searching for his control. Counting on that dead rock in his chest that had encased his heart years ago to come to his rescue.
“What do you assume I did with them? I was in the high-roller room the whole time. They kissed my dice, but nothing else. Anyway, what I do in my private life is my own business.” She laughed, the sound strained. “Sorry, that was a bad joke. We both know I have no private life.”
A sense of relief flooded him, and he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t pretend he felt nothing over her admission. “It’s the cost of being royal.”
“Right. So tell me, what’s in my file, Mak?”
A lot of things. Her attempted escapes, the fact that she was very likely to be matched with Prince Bastian Van Saant. That her grades in math were terrible and her writing and composition were above average. He had a list of things he knew about her, and he’d been content to imagine it meant that he had her pinned down. That he would be prepared to anticipate his charge’s every move.
He was starting to wonder if she was right. If he didn’t know her at all. She had a way of surprising him as no one else ever did.
“You have no major infractions listed in your file,” he said.
“Ah. No major infractions. I would think that encompasses threesomes with random strangers in full view of the public?”
“Yes. I imagine that would bear mentioning.”
She raised her cup and offered a sassy half smile. “I would take note of it.”
“As would a great many people.” His heart pounded harder. He had no interest in sharing her, so the specific topic was of no interest to him. But he had interest in her. And his thoughts had turned down streets they should not have.