Stop thinking about him and start thinking about how on earth you’re going to get out of this—without everyone finding out that you are not your sister.
‘Your Majesty, we really must get you ready.’ Serena’s beatific smile had faltered as she whipped out her phone. ‘I promised His Majesty faithfully he would not have to wait too much longer to see you. He’s a rather forceful man, is he not?’
Forceful? Yeah, that was one way of putting it.
She pushed the tray to one side. She’d lost her appetite anyway. She really did not want to see Leo again. He was her kryptonite, the unpredictable effect he had on her something she wasn’t sure she had any control over. But from the look on Serena’s face, she knew she didn’t have a choice. How could she get out of this meeting without making Jade’s assistant and everyone else suspicious?
‘Okay, Serena,’ she said. ‘Could you let Leo know I’ll be there as soon as I can, I promise?’
Juno headed for the shower, hoping against hope she could come up with some kind of a plan—to handle her catastrophic fall from grace last night and the rumours about their ‘romance’ but, most importantly of all, Leo’s devastating ability to make her forget everything except the promise of pleasure.
‘Her Majesty, the Queen of Monrova.’
Leo turned from his contemplation of the snowy landscape—a view he had been admiring for over an hour now—to see Queen Jade enter the room with her personal assistant.
Wearing designer jeans and a sweater, her hair tied up in a knot, she should have looked neat and pretty and demure—the same impression she’d made on him during their meeting a month ago. But as she walked towards him, his gaze snagged on the way the skinny jeans and sweater clung to her curves, and his fingers burned to free her hair from the prim topknot. It didn’t suit her now, the way it had before, some tantalising tendrils already escaping from confinement to cling to the line of her neck.
How would she taste if he placed his mouth on the pulse point?
‘King Leonardo, I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting so long,’ she said.
King Leonardo? Not Leo?
He frowned at her strained smile as she held out her fingers in greeting. So she was going to pretend last night had never happened.
He captured her fingers in his, lifted them to his lips and watched the smile falter.
‘You seem to be making a habit of it, Jade,’ he said as he released her.
She brushed the back of her hand against her jeans, probably trying to ease the sensation still lingering on his lips. He smiled, glad to see she was as incapable of controlling that buzz as he was.
‘I’m afraid I overslept, Your Majesty,’ she said, the snap in her voice amusing him.
There she was, the spitfire from last night. Demure be damned. This woman was about as far from demure as it was possible to get. Who would have guessed he would find that so hot?
‘But there was no need to delay your departure,’ she added, the stubborn tilt of her chin telling him to back off. ‘Your Majesty.’
Unfortunately for her, he had the upper hand here and he intended to use it. The media had happily spread the story this morning, insinuating in that adorable way they had that he and Jade had already consummated their marriage plans last night after their joint early departure from the ball. Little did they know how close they had almost come to doing just that.
No way was he backing off now.
While she had been lying in bed—he stifled the image of her lush body, naked, beneath the sheets—he had been busy devising a plan with the obsequious cooperation of Jade’s chief of staff, Major Garland, who it transpired was very keen to facilitate the marriage, because it had been her father’s wishes.
Leo did not like the man. Officious and opinionated and old school and happy to ride roughshod over the Queen’s wishes if he thought it suited her dead father’s agenda, Garland reminded Leo of his own father’s advisors, men he had been quick to fire as soon as he had acceded to the throne.
Humiliation closed his throat, as the phantom pain of his father’s riding crop stung his backside.
Perhaps Garland wasn’t as bad as those bastards, who had turned a blind eye to his father’s excessive attachment to corporal punishment, but the major was in the same mould. Right now, though, Garland’s support was useful.
‘Of course I delayed my departure, Jade,’ he said.
She scowled at the deliberate use of her given name and he had to bite down on his lip to stop a chuckle bursting out.
I swallowed your sobs of pleasure last night, and felt your body soften as mine hardened. Do you really believe we can pretend that never happened?
‘We have much to discuss about our impending nuptials,’ he finished.
Her eyebrows shot up her forehead.