‘You want one done?’
‘I’d love to. But not right now. If I have to wait much longer for food I might start eating my own arm.’
‘Then it’s just as well we’re nearly there.’
And just as well she’d refused, Marcelo thought with a stab of inward fury.
It was happening again, that impulse Clara brought out in him to say, ‘To hell with decorum and duty.’
A prince of Ceres stopping at a caricaturist? Eschewing his carefully laid out security detail to walk the city streets? They were hardly things that could be described as thrill-seeking, not in the way that part of him had been sated in his army years, but there was something about Clara that pulled those old, suppressed feelings out and made him yearn to throw caution to the wind and feel alive again. He could lie to himself that Clara’s eyes when she’d asked if they could walk, which had had the same pleading quality Bob’s got when begging for a treat, had been the reason he’d agreed but spending all this time with someone as honest as Clara forced a man to be honest with himself and the truth was he’d wanted to throw the shackles of his position aside too, even if only for a short walk.
The restaurant, a favourite of his family for its discretion and privacy, was busy but, as expected, the owner quickly found a table for them and another close by for his bodyguards, welcoming Marcelo with the subtle fawning he remembered from his visits here before.
‘This is cool,’ Clara enthused once they were seated at a small table for two, wine poured and their order taken.
‘It has excellent food.’
‘You’ve brought lots of women here?’
‘Enough,’ he answered drily. Marcelo was getting used to his fiancée asking the questions most other people were too frightened, wary or inhibited to ask. He liked that she could ask something like that without a hint of jealousy too. He liked that he didn’t have to second-guess her.
‘There’s lots of women looking at you,’ she observed. ‘And I don’t think it’s just because you’re a prince.’
He let his eyes soak up the beauty before him. ‘I imagine there’s a lot of men looking at you too, and I don’t think it’s because you’re about to become a princess.’
She pulled a don’t-care face. ‘All the women kept staring at you at the embassy. I was worried I’d have to hit them with my bag if they started groping you.’
He burst into laughter. ‘That really would be most unbecoming of a princess.’
She grinned. ‘Then it’s just as well I resisted.’
‘Indeed.’
Clara leaned forward. The table was so small that if Marcelo were to lean forward too they could kiss. Lowering her voice, she said, ‘Can I take my shoes off or would that be unbecoming?’
His eyes crinkled with amusement. ‘Go ahead.’
Using her toes to work the heels, she slipped them off and stretched her aching feet. Straight away her toes prodded into male legs.
‘Sorry.’
He smiled slowly. ‘I’m not.’
Another of those dizzying rushes of heat flushed through her and, for a long, long moment, Clara’s brain went entirely blank.
Luckily food arrived. Bread rolls and a plate of olives and cold meats were laid before them. Her stomach growling, Clara dived straight in.
This really was an excellent restaurant, she decided, all moody and dark. In the other corner a female singer was crooning songs as dark and moody as the décor. As it was in Italian, she didn’t have a clue what she was singing about and decided she’d rather not know in case it was something inane. Instead, she jiggled her shoulders to the beat and enjoyed the feel of Marcelo’s legs brushing against hers. There was nothing accidental about it now, and she enjoyed the thick, swirling sensation that coursed through her because of it. She hoped to enjoy more of this sensation later. Hoped a lot. But, of course, that was all dependent on Marcelo.
She had to wait until they’d finished their first course before she could remove the list she’d written earlier from her clutch bag.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘A list of questions for you.’
‘Questions about what?’
‘Sex.’ She waited until he’d finished choking before elaborating. ‘I did like I said I would and had a good think about whether I want us to take things further, and I really, really do, but there are things we need to discuss first, so I wrote it all down so I wouldn’t forget anything.’