A diploma...
The wildfire of her eyes met his. ‘Of course not.’
Her denial sent the pent-up rage blooming inside him straight to the surface of his skin. His time in care came back to him. Foster home after foster home...surrounded by family and constantly being an outsider. Unwanted, but enduredfor the cheque at the end of the month.
Until Charlotte.
Until she’d wrapped him up in her lies and promises to do more than endure him, to love him. And in the end she’d rejected him too, because he hadn’t offered her enough.Escape with him hadn’t been enough when he’d been nothing more than an orphan, working his way up on a construction site.
He held his breath. His feeling on discovering he was a prince, needed but not wanted, and definitely not loved, returned with a tug and a twist to his innards.
He’d tested her back then by not telling her his secret, and she’d failed him like all the others. And she’d failed him again now. Because now she wanted what he could offer.
He focused hard on the woman before him. He needed to hear it. Needed her to confess. He moved towards her and she backed up against the wall.
‘If I had told you nine years ago I was a prince,’ he started, and placed his palms on either side of her head as he leant in, ‘would my crown have brought your loyalty? Would you have made a different choice, qalbi?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
The scent of her filled him, goading him to react to the betrayal that lingered in his soul rather than do what he should do and keep his distance from her, control himself. He could still taste the sweetness of her centre in his mouth, feel her orgasm ripping through her as he’d—
Dark brows rose above her narrowed eyes. ‘I waited and you never showed up. That wasn’t a choice.’
His fingers, gentle but firm, gripped her chin. ‘Lies...’
She splayed her hands beneath his. ‘Oh, how hard it must be for you to remember that day you promised to meet my dad now you are the mighty Prince Akeem.’ She shook her head. ‘My dad was actually really great about meeting you. He was really excited. He sent me out to get some nice bits in—’
‘Nice bits?’he squawked, his dark eyes widening.
‘Biscuits, cake...’ She shrugged. ‘I’d brought no one home before. Well, not through the front door.’
Her eyes flashed, and he remembered too. Sneaking in through her bedroom window to hide from the drunken rants downstairs. Holding her until silence filled the darkness. How he’d sworn he would never leave her alone in the dark again.
‘He was never sober enough,’ she added, slicing through his memory. ‘But I had no real friends. Friends who would understand that just because my dad was him, he wasn’t me. It was special, my bringing you to meet him, and he saw that.’ She sighed. ‘When I came back from the shop we waited together, with my suitcase, but you forgot all about me—Crown Prince Akeem.’
‘I have forgotten nothing.’
He released her, because the confident thrust of her chin bit at him. He’d been confident too. Once. He’d walked step by step through the garden gate hanging by one hinge, up the overgrown path to her front door, and he had knocked with the confidence of a man coming to claim his love. To save it. To cherish it. To protect it.
But love hadn’t been there.
Love had not conquered all.
Love was a lie and she was a liar.
‘How convenient that you have forgotten about the text message in your recap of events.’
‘The text message?’ Her eyes widened. ‘What text?’
What text?
His hands fisted at his sides as he fought the urge to touch her and demand the truth. The truth she denied. The truth he’d denied too, until his phone had vibrated in his back pocket and the text message had proved every word her father had said had come from her mouth.
The mouth he had kissed.
The mouth he’d watched speak his name again and again as he’d thrust inside her.
The mouth that had claimed his as he’d driven them both to a shared orgasm. Their first together. As one. They’d been born again, promising one another. To be together. To be married. To be a family.
All lies!
‘The text message,’ he growled, ‘from your phone.’
‘What did it say?’
‘You know what it said—you sent it.’
She looked him dead in the eyes. ‘I never sent you a message.’
Had she forgotten? Had he been so easy to forget? Only to be remembered when he had something to give her?
‘How dare you stand there and lie?’ he hissed between gritted teeth. He’d accused her dad of lying. Called him a drunken fool and told him that his Charlotte would say no such thing.
She was honest.
Kind.
But she’d toyed with him.
She’d made him believe he was wanted.
She’d made him get attached.
She’d made him weak.
The amber specks in her right iris blazed. ‘What did the message say?’
My dad needs me. I’m not coming with you. I never was.
Verbatim, he said those three brief sentences out loud.
What a fool he’d been to believe she wanted him. No one had ever wanted him. Not his father. Not Charlotte. People only wanted what he could offer them. His blood. His time. His sacrifice.
At eighteen years of age he’d promised himself they’d rejected him for the last time. He would make himself better. Stronger. And not only would he be needed, they would want him. Need him.
What boy of eighteen would have taken the other option? Returned to his former life as a no one? A life that didn’t need or want him?
Here, he had power. Here, he had choices. Here, he was the protector of his people. Duty-bound to his country. And now his duty bound him to the past, because he’d been reckless enough to flaunt it in his present.
His mistake had bound him to Charlotte.