With the strength of Thor, I wrench my gaze away. “I'll come back later when you’re…finished.”
“I’m nearly done,” he calls out, but I’m alreadydashing back down the hallway, my cheeks flaming hot, closing the door behind myself as I reach my room.
I scrunch my eyes shut, humiliated, willing the image of him to disappear from my mind. But there he is, looking all tall and muscular and sexy, his body glistening, his lip curving into a soft, teasing smile.
Now that he showed me what he feels for me last night, resisting him is going to take a will of steel.
I pull on a pair of shorts and T-shirt. I'm not going to risk heading back to the bathroom. Instead, I make my way down to the kitchen where Rocco is cooking breakfast.
“Morning, Rocco,” I say brightly.
He turns to me, and I wonder how much of Max and my interaction around the fire he heard last night. “Hey.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Up at the crack of dawn, thanks to the birds,” he replies as he returns his attention to whisking eggs in a large bowl.
“Can I help?”
Being busy is so much better than thinking right now.
“You can heat up the baked beans.”
“I can do that. Are they in the pantry?”
“There's a few big cans on the table behind you.”
I turn and spot the cans. I rummage through some of the drawers, looking for a can opener, finally locating one. Rocco works in silence as I set about my task, opening the cans and pouring the contents into a big pot. I light an element on the gas hob, collect a wooden spoon, and start stirring.
“I don't understand why anyone wants to eat this,” I say.
“Look, Fabiana,” Rocco says, turning to me. “It must be obvious to you that I don't trust you, but I'm willing to try, for Max's sake.”
“You're a good friend.”
“I don't think it's easy being him.”
I turn the heat down and place the wooden spoon on the counter. “How so?”
“He's grown up in the public eye with people judging him.” He shoots me a pointed look, clear he counts me in the ranks of those people. “At the risk of making him sound like a poor little rich boy, I don't think it was easy for him to be the last-born son, with certain expectations about what he should do with his life.”
“You mean he was never going to inherit the throne.”
“Yeah, but more than that, he didn't get a choice about what he did with his life. He was expected to go into the Royal Air Force, just like his brother did, but he can never have a career like you or I can.”
“He has this program,” I say, looking out the kitchen window at some of the kids slowly emerging from their tents. “Which he’s obviously passionate about.”
“Don't get me wrong, I think the life of Max is probably pretty good on many levels. But he could never be a lawyer or a scientist or all the things you and I could be.”
“Believe me, I could never be a lawyerora scientist,” I reply, hoping to lighten the mood. When he doesn’t smile, I say, “I get what you mean. He didn't have a choice in who he could be.”
“But I do have a choice in what I have for breakfast, and I hate baked beans,” a voice says, and we both turn to see Max standing in the doorway. Even though he’s now fully dressed in a pair of pants and a polo shirt, his hair now dry, the sight of him makes my whole body buzz, and I quickly turn my attention to the pot of beans.
Toffee bounces in beside him, her tail wagging as she sniffs the ground.
“That's something you and Fabiana have in common,” Rocco says. “Isn’t that right?”
I chance looking at Max, and I swear my heart skips a beat. “You don't like baked beans?”
