Not as much as the hot look in your eyes.
The blush that had been burning in her panties flushed to the roots of her hair, giving her just enough pause not to blurt out the first answer that popped into her head again.
How had they ended up talking about her nipples two minutes after meeting each other? And why did that only increase the adrenaline rush?
‘Okay, I’ll have champagne,’ she said, ignoring his question in an attempt to steer the conversation onto safer ground before she spontaneously combusted.
His smile spread, the rueful expression making it clear he had noticed the avoidance tactic.
‘Give us two glasses of the Dom, Mac,’ he murmured to the barman. But his gaze remained locked on her.
Once the champagne had been poured, he handed her one of the flutes.
She took it in shaky fingers, trying to steady her breathing when he placed a possessive palm on the small of her back. She absorbed the leap of exhilaration as he used the firm pressure to steer her away from the bar and along a path through the trees.
Suddenly they stood alone on a marble terrace that overlooked Port Gabriel’s night-time wharf area. The scatter of lights along the coastline and the superyachts sparkling in the moonlit bay gave the principality a fairy-tale glow that could still take her breath away, even though she knew it was an illusion. Her life here had always been the opposite of a fairy tale, the palace on the hill a prison she was already planning to escape.
But when that proprietorial palm stroked her back before releasing her, the excitement of being here, with him, shimmered in her blood.
Her father had ordered her to seduce Theo Caras tonight. And she needed to convince her father she had done so to give herself enough time to engineer a clean getaway before her father’s Christmas deadline.
But until meeting Caras, it hadn’t occurred to her she might enjoy this evening. The thought of seducing a practised player like him had filled her with performance anxiety.
For those few brief months in Switzerland, she’d discovered flirting could be fun. But she’d never had a chance to practise her moves—such as they were—on a man instead of a boy. And her life had been so stultifying, so dull and boringly safe and appropriate since she’d been flown back to Galicos in a cloud of shame. Ever since that moment of youthful exuberance, her father had been so obsessed with avoiding any hint of scandal, he had shielded her from men like Theo Caras—wild,dangerous, sinfully gorgeous men, who every woman would find attractive. The irony that her father had ordered her to flirt with Caras tonight didn’t escape her either. She had no intention of marrying Caras or anyone else. But why not enjoy the chance to spread her wings tonight? Seize the chance to be a woman instead of a girl? To experience the erotic thrill she’d only ever read about in books? Because this dangerous man’s attention was already turning out to be surprisingly addictive.
The thought was so exhilarating she already felt drunk, and she hadn’t even sipped the champagne.
‘Yamas,’he murmured, his eyes still locked on hers as he toasted her.
‘Yamas,’she repeated, then clinked her glass to his and took a hasty swallow. The dry, elegant flavour burst to life on her tongue. ‘Delicious.’
His eyes sparkled with wry amusement. ‘It better be, at a grand a bottle.’
‘A t-thousand euros a bottle?’ she said, startled.
‘You sound surprised,’ he said, the sparkle shifting from wry to cynical as his gaze coasted over her again, triggering a rush even more delicious than the expensive champagne. ‘Isn’t Dom Perignon the drink of choice for princesses?’
‘Have you met my father?’ she countered, becoming giddy when he let out a wry chuckle.
‘Are you saying Prince Andreas is a tightwad?’
‘Put it this way, my father prefers to be the guest of honour, rather than the host. So he does not have to pay for entertainment.’
‘Who paid for your dress?’ he asked, his cynicism doing nothing to diminish the approval in his tone. ‘Because I’m entertained imagining all the things it’s only just covering.’
The provocative comment had her racing heartbeat plunging to pound between her thighs. Her nipples tightened, the brushof his gaze as tangible as the warm evening breeze on her open cleavage. She took another gulp of the champagne, until her heart had slowed enough to allow her brain to engage. Her father would expect her to be coy now and do his bidding, because Theo Caras seemed more than willing to be seduced. But the rebellious streak she’d been forced to keep under lock and key for so long broke free. If she was going to flirt with this man and explore the sparks shimmering deliciously over her skin every time Caras looked at her with that dark purpose in his gaze, she didn’t want her father’s grubby scheme to tarnish it.
‘This dress is an investment,’ she said, determined to tell him the truth. ‘My father insisted I wear it because he expects me to elicit a proposal from you to replace your brother’s, so the deal can still go ahead to his satisfaction.’
‘Is that right?’ Caras said, apparently not surprised, or even annoyed by her father’s hidden agenda.
His lips took on a sensual tilt. And desire crackled and popped in the charged air.
‘You already knew,’ she murmured.
He laughed, his confidence as attractive as those piercing blue eyes.
‘I know a honey trap when I see one, Your Highness…’ He twirled one of his fingers round an errant tendril the hair stylist had spent an age teasing out of her chignon, then gave it a gentle tug. ‘Even if the honey trap has more breeding and class in a single hair than I do in my whole body.’
