But when she’d lain before him, warm and exposed, she’d not been at all practised or polished. She’d been unrehearsed and real and what had happened had taken her by surprise as much as it had him. And the raw emotion in her eyes when he’d pulled away from her?
He’d hurt her. He regretted that. He regretted touching her.
Yet all he wanted was to do it again.
He tossed the tablet back onto the desk. Reduced to watching her like this, like some unbalanced stalker, was no way to find relief.
Why couldn’t he end this aching awareness of her? The slow burn threatened to send him insane. He’d resisted already, hadn’t he? He’d stopped before taking the pleasure he’d wanted so badly. He’d proven himself.
But he was tired of having to prove himself, tired of devoting every minute of his life to his crown. Maybe resisting had been the wrong action.
Why shouldn’t he have something for himself for once? He’d been restrained for so long. Every other damn prince took lovers. His younger brother had been a total playboy. In other countries princes, politicians, people with power and wealth indulged their desires. Ordinary people did too. It was normal.
But not for Antonio.
Not when he knew the heartache the inevitable intense media coverage would cause. Nausea churned in his gut from guilt as he remembered. He was sure Alessia’s parents knew the truth of what he’d done to their daughter. They never discussed it, but they knew. So the least he could do was protect and honour both them and the memory of her. It was his duty. Having a public affair with a woman like Bella Sanchez would destroy everything he’d worked so hard to maintain. And an affair would become public.
Slaking this haunting lust was impossible.
But still his blood burned.
At the theatre he saw her immediately. She’d made that unavoidable. A scarlet petal in a sea of black suits, she wore the colour of seduction and vampishness, unapologetically sensual and attention stealing and a bold choice given the red highlights in her hair. Held up by thin straps, her dress was cut low over her generous breasts, their size and shape accentuated by her slender waist. Her strappy sandals made her almost tall enough to look him in the eye. Except tonight she refused to look at him at all.
Her shoulders were very square, her spine ramrod straight, her chin lifted. She knew every single man in the audience was salivating over her. That was the point, was it not?
She was here to be noticed, coveted, prized, but not claimed. This was a costume. Which was the real Bella Sanchez—the cotton-pyjama-clad woman stretching before six in the morning, or this carefully made-up temptress?
His heart drummed a fast, heavy beat. He kept his hands at his sides and didn’t even try to smile. Unfortunately she was seated in the box to the left of the stage. Of course she was—it meant everyone in the audience could see her. As the royal box was in the centre of the dress circle, he could still see her even as he stared hard at the stage.
A violinist performed a haunting adagio, a choir sang, a soprano dazzled. But it was when a couple performed a pas de deux in the first half that he caught the first reaction in Bella. He studied her closer and saw the heartache in her expression as she watched them dance—was that the sheen of tears glistening in those blue-green eyes?
The downturn of her mouth arrested his heart. He gripped the armrests of his seat. He would not stand and go to her. He would not press his lips to hers. He couldn’t let lust ignite again. But his imagination danced on, teasing him with the fantasy of her beneath him, smiling now as she looked up at him. How hot she’d feel, how she’d drink him in—
He gritted his teeth and glared back at the stage.
By the time the house lights came on for the interval she’d composed herself and was smiling again as she engaged with the city councillors she was seated with. The look she’d just sent one of them was straight from the stage. Antonio had seen it on that video clip only a couple of hours ago. It made sense. She’d spent most of her life studying how to entrance and entice and tell stories and emotions with her body. Her appearance tonight in the audience was just as much of a performance as any she’d done on stage. Just as he was performing as ‘Prince Antonio’ and masking the unruly battle swirling within.