‘What else was I supposed to do—leave you to shout the house down?’
‘And if I had been less ethical and found you in my bed and taken advantage of you, how would you be feeling now?’
She blinked, her lips curling into a wicked smile. ‘Satisfied, I hope.’
‘Vlammeni!’ he said, hitting the heel of one hand against his brow. If the dossier he’d been provided was accurate, the Princess had fled the castle an innocent. He didn’t need to know why or how—he didn’t much care—all he cared about was bringing her home in the same state. ‘You know nothing about what happens between a man and a woman. Your actions were reckless. I expected more of you, Princess.’
She flung back her head, setting the ends of her hair in motion. Platinum-blonde hair now that she’d washed the colour from it. For once it wasn’t tied back in a ponytail, allowing the waves to dance around her face, the curled tendrils, still damp, brushing over her chest, over the full breasts that swelled and swayed under her camisole. He swallowed. He really hadn’t needed to notice that. He averted his eyes.
‘Oh, I know more than you think I do.’
‘The hell you do!’ He was angry with her. But he was angrier with himself for noticing her hair. Her breasts. And he was angry that she no longer looked like a recalcitrant teenager now that she’d washed the veritable rainbow from her hair, because now she looked like a woman.
All woman.
‘What do you think I’ve been doing these last few weeks? There have been plenty of men willing to educate me. There was this cool surfer guy called Luke from Bondi, who had sun-bleached hair and big blue eyes, and his abs—OMG his abs! You should have seen them. And then there was the Spanish barista, Mateo, from the coffee bar around the corner from Erin’s apartment. He was seriously hot. Oh, but then—’
He held out one hand to stop her. So much for getting her home unharmed and unscathed. But if the Princess had made the most of her freedom and was no longer the innocent she’d been painted, he didn’t need to know. He didn’t want to know. ‘But then nothing! I don’t want to hear this.’
‘I’m just saying I know more—’
It was his turn to cut her off. ‘And I said I don’t want to hear it. Save it for your girlfriends back home.’
Her chin jutted up and out. ‘And just when am I going to have a chance to talk to these so-called friends of mine? Rafael will lock me up like a prisoner the moment you deliver me back into his clutches. Right up until the time he trusses me up like a turkey and sends me off to marry his crony.’
‘You’re being melodramatic again, Princess.’
‘I’m being honest! This will happen! Do you know how hard it was for me to escape the palace? I might as well have been under house arrest. It was a miracle I managed to get away.’
‘How did you get away?’
She shrugged. ‘I pretended to be one of the cleaners, heading home to the village at the end of the day. All the women were wearing shawls. Nobody at the gate bothers to look at ID on the way out.’
Theo nodded. So security at the palace had been lax. So different from the story that he’d been told of her being spirited out the palace by a gang of enablers. He imagined that someone would have paid for that lapse and that things would be very different now.
‘He’ll make it impossible for me to so much as breathe once you take me home. Is that what you want for me? To be made a prisoner in my own country before he marries me off to his creepy friend. At least here, I’m free to make my own choices and my own friends.’ She shrugged. ‘And at least I had the chance to meet a few decent men while I was in Australia.’
He shook his head. He’d heard enough. He had a job to do, and he intended to do it. ‘Get back to your room. Get some sleep.’ One of them might as well sleep tonight, and he knew damned well it wasn’t going to be him.
She tilted her head to one side, her expression turning coquettish as she ran her teeth over her bottom lip. Her full, pink, bottom lip. ‘Are you really sure you want me to go?’
‘Get out!’
She straightened her shoulders and flicked back her hair and damn if the action didn’t make her breasts sway again. ‘Then I’ll go. But I’ll keep an ear out in case you need me again.’
He growled. ‘Go!’ Wishing she would.
He watched her leave. God, he could have had her and ruined his business in the process. But still he was unable to tear his eyes from the low-slung shorty pyjamas swaying with her hips. She was trying to be provocative; he knew that. She was trying to get under his skin. He pulled on a pair of boxer shorts—he wasn’t getting surprised again—lay down and punched his pillow.
The trouble was, she was succeeding.
But tomorrow.
Tomorrow he would be done with her and tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.
So that had been a revelation. Izzy padded slowly up the stairs to her room, her senses still buzzing at what had transpired. She’d been lying in bed for what seemed like hours, trying to build up the courage to sneak down into Theo’s room and see if he might welcome her company. But what had seemed a good plan in theory, was proving harder to carry out in real life.
She’d been kidding herself dreaming up her crazy plan. What did she really know about seducing men?
