His name tumbling from her lips finally broke him. With a roar torn from a soul-deep place he barely recognised, he joined her in the most sublime shattering, letting go and feeling his lack of control soaring wild and free for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.
For mindless minutes, he wasn’t weighed down with guilt. Or duty. Or expectations of toeing the royal line. Staying in the box his father had placed him infor the sake of the family.
He could pretend, in this blinding white space where nothing existed but rapture, that he hadn’t broken several promises and dived headlong into the forbidden territory.
But…even as the tingles drained away, even as her soft gasps continued to echo through his room like the most beautiful strains of his favourite piano concerto, Valenti was being dragged back down to earth and to reality.
To the deeply disquieting thing he’d done.
He’d slept with Helga’s baby sister.
Hisward.
‘As much as it feels great to be in this position, I can feel the weight of your regret pressing down on me. And it’s not a comfortable one, Your Highness.’
A different shock shuttled through him at the soft, solemn words.
She had an ability very few people had—to disarm him with a handful of words. And as he was discovering, most of them were sharpened with truth-poisoned arrows that relentlessly landed with bull’s-eye accuracy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Valentishiftedhisweight onto his elbows and looked down into her deep blue eyes. Sex-drugged, beautiful and turning increasingly wary.
He needed to move, put some much-needed distance between a bad decision destined to worsen if he remained where he was.
Yet, he couldn’t move. Or look away.
So he saw exactly when wariness morphed into hurt. And the chafing he had experienced on the helicopter and so many times since expanded in his chest. He knew it was even more imperative that he rise, leave the bed, draw a definitive line under this catastrophe. But the longer he looked into her eyes, the more impossible that decision grew.
With a growl torn from deep inside him, he rolled sideways, his arms dragging her against his body, almost of their own volition. He was merely caught in the throes, he decided. Hindsight was a bitch with infuriating twenty-twenty vision, yes, but the world hadn’t quite ended. Yet.
Besides, where the hell was he going to go?
Locking himself in his office was as futile as taking a walk outside. He would need to return to her, eventually. Until this nuisance was taken care of, straying far and leaving her vulnerable was unacceptable.
Is that what you’re telling yourself?
He clenched his teeth against the mocking voice as his breath caught when the hand splayed on his chest hesitantly slid up to the side of his neck. Then higher to cup his jaw. He kissed theinside of her wrist before he could stop himself, revelled in her shaky breath.
‘How’s that working out for you?’ At his frown, her mouth curved in a sultry smile, though her eyes remained wary.
‘What?’
‘Shifting the weight sideways?’ she clarified.
Bewildered laughter barked out of him.‘Dios mío, do you ever stop?’
Her smile lost a layer of brilliance. ‘I’d rather see what’s coming than be caught unawares. Tell me you’re not plotting ways to tell me you regret what just happened.’
The statement was softly spoken but still packed a punch of challenge.
A significant part of him was disarmed with admiration for her courage. Very few women in his past liaisons, if any, would be bold enough to risk jeopardising their position this soon after sex. They would be simpering and escalating their seduction techniques to entice him into longevity.
But she was not just anyone.She was his ward. Wasn’t that what made this so catastrophic?
Basta!
He ought to see the bright side of this. She was making it easier for him. She already knew this was a mistake and was pre-empting a way to mitigate the disaster for both of them. Why not meet her halfway, put the barriers back in place? Go back to the way things were a week ago?
