A guilty heat stole along her cheeks. ‘You were busy,’ she explained, fidgeting her hands in front of her.
‘Yes. Harry is a partner in a project—’
‘In Argentina, I gathered.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Who’s this?’
Bea turned to the little girl. ‘Emily, this is a friend of mine. Ares Lykaios, this is Her Royal Highness Princess Emily of Connecticut.’
‘Hello, Your Highness,’ he volleyed back without missing a beat. ‘I’m pleased to meet you. Thank you for keeping Bea entertained while I was talking to someone else.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Emily grinned. She pointed to his shoes. ‘Thirty-nine!’
Bea nodded. ‘You’re right! Well done.’
‘Are you enjoying yourself?’ Ares asked.
Bea smiled at Emily. ‘We’re having a good time, aren’t we?’
Emily nodded. ‘Much better.’
Ares compressed his lips. Children made him uneasy; they always had done. Bea, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease with this little person. ‘We can leave any time. If you’re ready?’
Bea’s eyes lit up. ‘Really? You don’t have to stay?’
‘No. I’ve made an appearance; that’s all that was expected of me.’
She looked down at Emily apologetically.
‘It’s okay.’ The little girl pressed her hand to Bea’s. ‘I’ll be fine. I’m looking for wigs next.’ Emily wiggled her pale eyebrows so Bea laughed softly.
‘That’s a delicate one. Make sure you don’t point or count too loudly.’
Emily tapped the side of her nose. ‘Promise.’
Ares’s hand was firmly insistent as he guided Bea away from Emily. ‘A friend of yours?’
‘A new friend.’ Bea sighed. ‘A lovely little girl rather too young to be dragged to events like this.’
‘It’s not exactly a child-focused evening.’
‘She reminds me of how much I used to hate this kind of thing,’ Bea said with a shiver.
‘Used to?’ he prompted, and again she was struck by how insightful he was.
‘You caught me. I still do, generally speaking. In fact, you’d normally have to drag me kicking and screaming to something like this, so you should take it as an indication of how important your business is to the London Connection that I’m here with you tonight.’
She wondered why the words felt slightly disingenuous. As if to prove that he knew she was lying, he lifted a hand, catching a thick wave of brown hair and tucking it behind her ear. A frisson of awareness shimmied down her spine.
She gulped, trying to remember what she was saying, desperately hoping her voice emerged with a semblance of control.
‘As a child, I was made to attend so many functions with my parents. Parties like this, with fancy clothes and beautiful music, and I came to hate them. Everything about them. The food, the forced laughter, the social interactions.’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘Give me a good book and a quiet living room and I’m all set.’
‘And do you wish you were in your living room now, instead of here?’
The challenge lay between them. She feared they both knew the answer to that...
‘I...am having a better time than I anticipated,’ she said unevenly.
It was like stepping off the edge of a cliff and into an abyss. She was in freefall, losing herself in the depths of his silver-grey eyes, with nothing to hold onto. He stared at her long and hard and turned away from her, but not before he uttered under his breath, ‘As am I.’