But he did accept that he would have to get used to a degree of press intrusion, at least for a short period. As Alessia had rightly pointed out, the moment their marriage was made public, the circus would begin. That didn’t mean he had to feed the vultures. A refusal to engage with them or give them anything remotely newsworthy would make the press quickly bore of him.
He doubted the press would ever bore with Alessia. On top of being breathtakingly beautiful and photogenic, she was a style icon to millions. She sold magazines and generated social media clicks by doing nothing but be herself, and, he had to admit, raised great awareness for the charities she patronised as a result.
Staring at her now, he could see from the rigid way she held herself, her clenched jaw and the whites of her knuckles where she held her book, that her anger still lingered. And there was something else in her body language too, there in the tiny tremors of her body... Alessia was as aware of him as he was of her.
Having had enough of the game of silence, Gabriel plucked the book from her hand, then leaned over her to place it on her antique bedside table. He caught the intake of her breath at the same moment the soft fruity scent of Alessia hit his senses.
Had any woman ever smelt so good? Not in his lifetime.
With his back propped against the velvet headboard, he kept his gaze on her until she finally turned her face and those amazing dark velvet eyes locked onto him.
‘Let me put your mind at ease,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a lover stashed in Madrid or anywhere. My last relationship ended months ago. I’m strictly monogamous.’
He was rewarded with continued silence.
‘And you?’ he prompted when she did nothing but gaze into his eyes as if searching for something. ‘Are you monogamous too?’
Her teeth grazed her bottom lip. ‘I suppose.’
Surprised at her equivocation, he raised a brow. ‘Suppose? Surely it’s a question that requires only a yes or no answer.’
‘Then... Yes.’
Something dark coiled inside him, as unexpected as it was disarming, but he controlled it. ‘You don’t look certain.’
‘I am.’
He stared hard into her brown eyes. His expertise at reading people meant Gabriel knew when someone was lying to him. Alessa was not being truthful. He was certain of it. Which begged the question of why she was lying. As far as he was aware, she’d never been linked to a man so she was discreet in her affairs, probably conducting them all within the castle or in the homes of trusted friends. When it came to cheating, though, he imagined things would get trickier. There were tabloids he knew who would pay a small fortune for a story of Princess Alessia being a love cheat.
If she wasn’t a love cheat then why the hesitation about being monogamous? Whatever the answer, the darkness thickened and coiled tighter, and tightened his vocal chords too, and it was a real struggle to keep his voice moderate. ‘I don’t care what you got up to in your past but I will not accept you taking lovers.’ He bore his gaze into hers so there could be no misunderstanding. ‘You don’t wish to be humiliated by me travelling without you, and I will not suffer the humiliation of being cuckolded. We’re married now which means it’s you and me, and only you and me. Is that clear?’
Alessia fought the very real urge to laugh. She was quite sure it would come out sounding hysterical.
What would he say if she told him the truth, that he’d been her first? Which incidentally meant he would also be her last.
But how could she tell him that now when she should have told him weeks ago, before things had gone too far between them? How could he forgive her for it? If she hadn’t been so inexperienced she would have realised he hadn’t put a condom on, but as it was, she’d made the fatal assumption that he’d taken care of things while she’d been in a blissful bubble of sensual feeling. If she’d told him she was a virgin then the subject of contraception would definitely have come up—one thing she knew about her new husband was that he did not leave anything to chance.
If she’d told him she was a virgin he would never have made love to her...
‘Are you not going to say anything?’ he asked curtly.
Pushing the bedsheets off her lap, she crossed her legs as she twisted to face him. The Ice Man stared back at her, his handsome face expressionless, large hands folded loosely against his taut abdomen. For the beat of a moment the temptation to drag her fingers through the dark hair covering his muscular chest and press down where his heart beat made her skin tingle.
‘What do you want me to say?’ she asked.
His eyes flashed, but other than that, his expression remained unreadable. ‘Whatever’s going on in your pretty head would be a start.’
She felt a flare of pleasure at the compliment.
‘Trust me, you don’t want to know what’s in my head.’ She linked her fingers together to stop herself, again, from dragging them over his supremely masculine chest. ‘But let me putyourmind at ease—I didn’t take my vows lightly. I knew that making them meant I was committing myself to you for the rest of my life, andonlyyou.’
His nostrils flared. ‘Good.’
‘But so we are clear, I am now your wife but that doesn’t make me your possession.’
His wife...
‘I never said you were.’