Page 54 of Royal Legacy


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He wasn’t wearing the same tee he’d left the house in.

Holy Virgin. I was not prepared for the sight of him. My insides tightened. That midnight hair fell in a curtain to his shoulders, perfectly combed. Soft black pants hugged his powerful thighs. A dark shirt buttoned over his torso, but the material left little room for the imagination.

He was savagely handsome.

And the sight did things to me.

Things I didn’t want to admit but couldn’t fight.

“I was coming to the door,” he objected quietly.

In his hand was a large, expensive bouquet of flowers.

“Oh, well, um, I can go back,” I protested lamely.

Ivan leaned over the center console. It was suddenly hard to breathe in here. His scent, spicy with a burst of cool mint, wrapped around me. But it wasn’t just the smell of his cologne. His very presence seemed to swallow what little oxygen blew through the air vents.

“Is that how you see yourself, Poppy?” He gently laid the flowers on my lap.

I blinked in confusion.Crap.What were we talking about?

As if he could read my mind, he rephrased his question. “Do you really feel like my prisoner?”

“Yes.” The answer came quickly.

It felt…wrong.

But it was the truth.

My heart hammered.Double crap.Now I was all confused.

There was just too much of him. I felt like I was being swallowed whole. But I couldn’t bring myself to open the door and escape his clutches.

“You’re already mine,” he breathed. “There’s no need to make your stay unpleasant.”

If he was hurt by my observation, it was hard to say.

I should be angry. He’d forced my hand at every turn. Instead, a trickle of hurt slid over my heart. This was the man who believed romance was nonsense. A fairytale. He was sweet, bringing me flowers, but there had to be an ulterior motive. And I needed my brain to focus on that, instead of being swept away by the gesture, the look in his dark eyes, and the possessive note in his voice when he claimed I was already his.

Instead, I lifted the flowers to my nose. “They’re beautiful.”

Although the headlights mixed with the floodlight on the garage, the harsh glare left us steeped in shadows inside the car.Still, I was fairly certain there were more of those yellow flowers interspersed in the mix of greens and other vibrant blooms.

“May I?” He lifted his fingers. One of those chunky, gold rings winked in the light.

I forgot how to breathe. My chin dipped ever so slightly.

He took the small nod as permission. But instead of kissing me, he merely pushed a lock of hair behind my ear.

“You’re free to leave, you know,” he whispered.

I was. Me. Singular.

“You know that I can’t,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone.

He nodded. “Let’s go to dinner.”

Leaning back in his seat, he put the car in reverse. It was easier to breathe, but just barely.