“You could say that.”
Her eyes flash. “How magnanimous!”
“It’s just who I am.” I keep my tone even. “So, now you know why I’m here.”
“You’re here,” she retorts crisply, “because claiming the duchy on paper wasn’t enough. You wanted to plant your flag in the courtyard, too.”
That stings, even though I expected it.
“I offered to let you and Millie stay,” I remind her.
“Such generosity!” She lifts her wineglass, still not drinking. “Don’t pretend this wasn’t meant to unsettle me.”
“I don’t play mind games, Eva.”
“The hell you don’t,” she hisses, losing some of her cool.
“Maman!” Millie shifts her reproachful gaze from Eva to me. “Uncle Alex! Can we not?”
I glance at Eva. She’s looking at her plate.
I try civility again. “Millie, how are your studies going?”
“Actually, I aced my math test,” she declares. “The one on sequences.”
I raise my brows. “Impressive.”
She beams, showing her braces. “Arithmeticandgeometric.”
“Then you’re already ahead of half the financial advisors I’ve met,” I say.
Eva’s chair scrapes against the floor. “If you’ll excuse me.”
She disappears through the archway before I can say anything, leaving her intoxicating scent as a placeholder. The parallel to the morning after we made love at the Royal Pombrio is too strong to resist.
My brain flashes back to her hotel room.
Sunlight streams through the gap in the curtains, tickling my skin and prying me awake. The first thing that registers is that incomparable fragrance of hers. Only then do I realize I’m stark naked in a bed that isn’t mine. In my mind’s eye, Eva is asleep beside me, warm and naked, tangled in white sheets. I smile and reach for her, but my hand closes on empty space.
I open my eyes. I’m alone in bed.
I hear the shower. I wait.
The sound stops. She steps out fully dressed and eyes guarded.
“Last night didn’t happen,” she says.
I blink. “That’s blunt.”
She shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong. It was fun, but it changes nothing. And there will be no second time.”
“If you say so.”
Her expression doesn’t shift. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
And with that, she grabs her bag and leaves. Like she meant it. Like she hadn’t clung to me, gasping my name as she came. Like I didn’t kiss and lick every inch of her body. Like she didn’t give herself to me with an abandon a man remembers forever…
But hey, if Her Grace says it changes nothing, then it changes nothing.
