All that feisty sass made him grin as he pulled out a chair and watched her sashay into the padded wicker seat.
‘Thank you.’
Bending at the waist, he pressed his lips to the graceful slope of her bare shoulder and murmured, ‘Welcome…’ relishing both the shimmy that danced down her body and the way he’d already stripped her of that haughty veil.
He sank into the chair adjacent to hers and strove for nonchalance. ‘I take it you spoke to your sister?’ That he was ignorant of the whole conversation sat in his guts like a rock.
The sun bathed her in a warm glow, picking out the honeycomb strands in her hair, and she swept a stray tendril back from her temple in a decidedly nervous gesture. ‘Yes. I told her I was staying with you for a couple of days.’
Thane didn’t bother arguing that point. Yet.
‘So, thank you for…’ She shook her head, sending that wayward lock tumbling back over her face. ‘Why on earth I’m thanking you for returning my own property to me, when it was originally your fault I lost it, is beyond me—but I do appreciate you sending for it.’
‘You are most welcome. See? I am not so bad after all.’
‘Oh, you are very bad, Thane. Of that I am in no doubt.’
A dark laugh erupted from his chest. ‘Fortunately for me you like me that way. It turns you on.’
A blush that spoke more of pique than passion flurried across her cheeks, but her scathing retort perished as his man at the house—Pietro—appeared and laid a mound of homemade madeleines, croissants and cream-filled pastries on the table before her.
That serene breeding of hers came rushing to the fore. ‘Everything smells delicious—thank you so much. Did you make these?’
Pietro fastened his warm hazel gaze on her. ‘My wife, Your Royal Highness. But she will only cook for our Prince.’
Thane’s good mood disintegrated and he clenched his teeth. It didn’t matter how many times he told the man to call him Thane, he still got our Prince. Respectful, yes, but it shafted him with guilt—because despite his title his hands were largely tied, and if he’d played things differently he’d be in the position to do a damn sight more for them.
Luciana arched one brow in his direction. ‘Why only Thane?’
‘Eat, Luciana,’ he ordered, knowing what was coming.
He didn’t want Pietro’s gratitude. It was Thane’s job to procure him a better life. He was the one to blame for the mess they were in. If he’d been stronger, hidden his true ambitions better, his father would have given him the throne upon his death. Instead of passing it over to the power-hungry, greedy lech that was Franco Guerrero.
Naturally Luciana didn’t take a blind bit of notice—Dios, she was an obstinate little thing—and she blinked up at Pietro with those gorgeous brandy eyes no man could possibly resist. Not even happily married Pietro, with his six girls and loose tongue.
‘He gives us a home, our own land. No one but the crown owns land on Galancia, but Thane gives us acres of his vineyards and my family make the best wines on the island. Then he makes sure my girls can travel north, go to school. He fixes everything.’
‘Pietro…don’t. Please.’
Every time he heard those words it just reminded him of the thousands of others he couldn’t help. Though now he had Luciana all that would change, wouldn’t it? Dios, he couldn’t wait. His patience shredded more by the day.
Luciana, whose only focus was Pietro, said, ‘Oh, he does?’
As if some mental explosion had occurred in that ingenious brain of hers, so many emotions flickered across her exquisite face that he was hard-pressed to pick out one.
‘Si,’ Pietro said avidly. ‘The best man to walk the earth. And now you are here, and everything will be—’
Thane glanced up to silence him. He didn’t want these two days to be mired with talk of his throne. But, fisting his hand beneath the table, he warred with an internal battle to be forthright. At least with himself. Truth was, he wanted Luciana to want him. To choose him over Augustus. Not to feel pushed or obligated in any way. And he refused to read too deeply into that.
‘Now I’m here…?’ Luciana prompted.
Pietro grinned. ‘He will be happy at last. All will be well.’
Guilt blanched her flawless skin and she composed a spurious smile that made Thane uneasy. Made him doubly sure he was missing something.