Leopold: Part One: Royal Heartbreakers

by Ember Casey

  I’m only vaguely aware of some area in my brain screaming for this to stop—telling me this is wrong on so many levels and how I’m going to regret every moment of it. But I’m able to ignore that voice somehow, and it grows more distant by the second.

  My fingers press against his chest, tracing the outline of the muscles beneath his skin. His hand slides up my back, resting at the base of my neck before his fingers tangle again in my hair. I gasp against his lips, and he pulls away for a moment before he brings his other hand to my face, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw.

  He dips his head into my hair, whispering in my ear. “This. This is much better.”

  I try to twist away from him, unable to pull out of his grasp completely as my legs are pinned against the gurney behind me. If I arch back, I’ll tumble onto the bed. If that happens, I have no doubt he’ll be on top of me a second later, and I’ll be unable to stop things from progressing from there.

  My voice is breathless, probably because it’s so damn hot and, well, so hard to breathe with him this close to me. “Stop. We have to stop.”

  He lets go of my hair, letting his fingers fall to the back of my neck. But his other hand stays on my face. He traces the length of my jaw again, his finger trailing down to my neck, following the path of the opening of my blouse.

  I reach up and grab his wrist when he touches the edge of my breast. “Please.”

  He lets out a short breath and takes his hand away from my chest, pulling his hand back to lace his fingers through mine.

  My other hand is still pressed against his chest. Part of me wants to tear it away as quickly as possible, but I don’t. For some reason I don’t understand, I let my hand caress down his chest, down to what even in the pitch darkness I can feel are his well-defined abs. He almost growls, but it’s so quiet I can tell he doesn’t want me to hear.

  My fingers only rest there a moment before I feel something wet.

  I blink a few times, waking myself from the daze I’ve been in for the past few minutes.

  My fingers aren’t just wet—they’re sticky. And even though it’s taken me a few seconds to regain the ability to use my brain, I know what I’m feeling.

  “You’re bleeding.” I pull my hands away from him.

  His voice is low, still silky with desire. “I assure you, Elle—”

  “No, your chest. Your wound…” I let out an agitated breath. “I told you not to get up.”

  He releases me from his grip and I hear him take a seat on the nearby gurney. “You could join me.”

  “I...can’t.” My voice hitches in my chest—I owe him more of an explanation than that, but something stops me. “I can’t. Not tonight. Not...ever.” The words fall from my mouth faster than I can think. “You and me...not happening.”

  I hear him let out a long breath. “Then what do you propose, Doctor?”

  “I propose that you need some stitches.” I feel my way around the gurney and flail my arms around in the dark, trying to find the counter on the other side of the room.

  “And you expect me to submit to suturing in the dark?” His voice is unamused. He’s silent for a moment before continuing. “How long can a wound such as mine be left unattended before it becomes too late for this procedure?”

  I stop in my tracks. Of course, he’s right—there’s no need to do this in the dark. I turn to face him, though I can’t see much of anything. “Twenty-four hours. Though I’d prefer it be less than twelve. It minimizes the risk of infection…” My voice trails off and I realize I’m being stupid. Sure, he needs a stitch or two—I thought that before the entourage left earlier. But there’s no reason to do it now. I could simply redress the wound and we could get back to doing other things.

  And that is exactly what I’m afraid of. I’m sure I subconsciously ripped open his wound myself, I’m so scared to be with anyone. But especially him. And I could kick myself for even thinking about going back to doing anything with him. It’s like I told him—it isn’t going to happen. Not now and not ever and not with anyone. It doesn’t matter that he’s a prince. His status as royalty is beside the point. He’s…well, he’s a guy. And guys are all dicks, even my brother. I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I’ll be alone for the rest of my life.

  And what did he say a few minutes ago? Why do you shy away from the things you want because you’re afraid they’re going to end? I shake my head to myself. That is a long story. Okay, maybe it isn’t that long, but that particular tale is why I had to end the kiss we shared before anything else might have happened. And I’m still not sure how I let any of this happen at all.

  He interrupts my momentary pity party. “Then, Doctor, I would suggest we not do this procedure by candlelight. It will be light outside in fewer than twelve hours and I’d feel more comfortable having it done in the morning.” He pauses. “As long as you’re confident my life is not in danger because of it.”

  “I’m confident,” I say, though my voice sounds anything but. I turn around and feel my way over to the counter, locating the box I pulled out earlier that I keep for this situation. I pull out the flashlight and turn it on, finding the supplies I’ve stowed in the box.

  I strike a match and light a candle, then another. I turn off the flashlight and bring the candles back over to the treatment area, where I see Leo sitting on the side of the bed. His gaze has turned to the floor and he doesn’t look up when I approach.

  I frown and pause there for a moment, but I don’t know what to say to him. Clearly, I’ve bruised his ego, and I’m terrible in situations like these. My occasional brashness, though usually unintended, has a tendency to throw off members of the opposite sex, as I’m all too aware.

  I hurry back over to the cupboard and grab some gauze and bandages before walking back over to Leo. I set the supplies down on the end of the bed. “I should at least redress your wound.”

  He nods and kicks his feet up onto the bed without a word. He lies down and stares up at the ceiling.

  I put on my gloves and get to work, pulling off the soaked bandages. It’s difficult to assess anything in the flickering candlelight, but he is bleeding again. I apply a stronger dressing, packing the wound tightly before taping it closed. I toss the used bandages along with my gloves into the wastebasket and walk back over to the sink to wash my hands.

  Leo says nothing, which seems uncharacteristic of him. Though as he’s pointed out, I don’t know him. But I can’t help but feel as though I’ve hurt his feelings, and that is honestly the last thing I wanted to do.

  I return to the gurney and sit on the edge of the bed opposite his. He doesn’t even turn to me—he stares up at the ceiling. There is a sharp pang in my chest, remembering how he’s had a significant head injury, and he might be showing signs of it getting worse.

  “Leo…” My voice trails off—I’m not sure what to say to him. I’m pretty much only trying to see if he’s still awake.

  He turns to me, rolling onto his side as he splints his wound. I think he’s in a lot more pain than he’s letting on, though I’m not sure how much of it is physical. His face—what I can see of it in the dim lighting—is expressionless. “Doctor.”

  I force a smile. “Oh, good, I wanted to make sure you were still conscious—”

  “Tell me, Doctor, who did this to you?” he interrupts.

  My brow furrows. “Who did what?”

  He rolls onto his back and resumes his staring at the ceiling. “I hypothesize there may have been a man in your past who has destroyed your ability to feel.”

  I’m silent but my cheeks begin to burn again. It’s good he’s not looking at me, and I’m almost glad that even if he were, he probably wouldn’t be able to see the embarrassment I’m feeling.

  I decide to change the subject. “Your clinic provided us with battery powered lights—like that flashlight.” I point to the flashlight sitting on the counter. “But batteries here are ridiculously expensive. I can buy a year’s supply of candles for what it
costs for a single battery…”

  He shakes his head.

  “And normally you wouldn’t want an open flame in a clinic or hospital. But since we don’t have any oxygen here—”

  “Doctor, please,” he interrupts me again. “If you would prefer we didn’t speak of your past, you can just say so. There’s no need to ramble on about such minutia.”

  I snap my mouth closed and fold my arms over my chest. “Your Highness, as I believe we’ve established earlier, my love life is not your concern.”

  I hear him let out a sigh sounding an awful lot like exasperation. “I had hoped we were over the Your Highness situation.”

  “Well, you’ve gone back to calling me Doctor—”

  His head snaps to face me and I can see his eyes have narrowed. “You are a doctor, are you not?”

  “I am. And you are royalty, are you not?”

  Something clouds his face and if the lighting weren’t so bad, I would swear it was a sneer. He turns his head back to look at the ceiling again, drawing in a long breath and releasing it slowly. He’s silent for a moment before he speaks. “Two days can be a very satisfying length of time for an affair. Some of my most memorable encounters haven’t lasted two hours.”

  “Wow. Great information for me to hear, Your Highness. Kind of an overshare if your plan is seduction, though.”

  I would swear his face turns a few shades of red, but the dim, flickering light makes it hard to be sure. “I was merely pointing out, Doctor—Elle—that considering the chemistry there seems to be between us, the duration of our affair should not be of great concern.”

  “Oh.” I purse my lips and nod. “I’m glad it’s not for you. No, really. It’s great that you’re so emotionally mature. I guess that makes one of us.”

  His jaw clenches a few times before he speaks again. His words are measured as though he’s holding back a torrent of anger, though I’m not sure what he has to be upset with me about. “This has nothing to do with my maturity.” The word is dripping with something—it sounds like rage, but that makes no sense. I haven’t done anything other than stop our kiss—our very inappropriate kiss. And if he’s going to get all pissy about that, well, he can hang it.

  “I didn’t say that it did.” I pause for a moment. “Leo.” I’m almost desperate for things to go back to the way they were—though I’m definitely afraid of doing anything beyond kissing him. And hell, I’m pretty sure that will never happen again. But the flirting thing—it was fun. Even I can admit that.

  He turns back to face me again. “Tell me about him. We have all night. Is it not a doctor’s job to keep her patient entertained?”

  I lift a brow. “Not in that way.” I realize he might mean something else as soon as I say it. “And not in that way, either.”

  He chuckles and returns his gaze to the ceiling.

  We’re both silent for too long. I fold my hands on my lap and begin to fidget. There’s not much I can do with the power out—when I’m alone, I usually read medical journals or trashy tabloids depending on my mood. But I don’t want to do either of those things now. Part of me wants to go back to kissing him, but the part of me that has been thinking about how wrong this is begins winning out. Because I can’t go there—and not because he’s technically my boss, though that would be as good a reason as any. And it’s not because he’s technically my patient, either, though I’m sure I have plenty of colleagues who would be clucking their tongues at me about that, too.

  I decide I have to speak. I’ll ramble, but the silence is too loud. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings or something.”

  He doesn’t turn to face me this time. “You’ve decided I have no emotions, isn’t that correct, Doctor? How is it possible for you to have injured something of mine that doesn’t exist?”

  My brow furrows. I guess I have hurt his feelings. “I never said that. I only said I don’t do this. I just...can’t.” I’m not going to explain it to him. Ever. All he needs to know—all anyone needs to know—is I’m not that kind of woman. I’m not going to ever let myself be used like that again, and he doesn’t need to know the details of it.

  “You can’t? Or you won’t?” His gaze seems to be fixed on some point on the ceiling. “Because there is a difference, Doctor.”

  “I understand there’s a difference, Leo.” I’m still not sure how we got back to the formalities, but it’s starting to piss me off. “But in this instance, nuance doesn’t matter.”

  “Are you certain of that, Doctor? Because I believe it always matters.”

  Leo

  She’s being willfully vague.

  I don’t know what to do with her, how to make her open up to me. Something—some man, some experience—has made her afraid, and I want to know who or what has made her pull back from the attraction we obviously share.

  This is new for me—wanting to know a woman’s past. Wanting to break down her emotional barriers. Normally I try to keep emotions out of my affairs—it’s easier for both parties involved—but every moment I spend with Elle I find myself wanting more. Wanting to understand what she’s feeling behind those troubled eyes. Wanting to see the person she hides from the world.

  She returned my kiss. Gave herself over, for the briefest of moments, to the passion and energy surging between us. God, I can still taste her. Still smell her. I only had her in my arms for a couple of moments and yet she’s taken over my senses completely. Hot desire still burns through my blood—but I don’t dare touch her now. I continue to stare at the ceiling while I wait for her to respond to me.

  She sighs, and out of the corner of my eye I can see her fidgeting. Her fingers lace and unlace, and finally, she speaks.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so interested in my past,” she says. “Especially when you haven’t told me a single thing about yours.”

  If I were sitting up, I’d shrug. “There’s little to tell.”

  “You’re a prince,” she says. “I don’t buy for a minute that there’s nothing to tell. And I still hardly know anything about you or Montovia.”

  At least she’s talking, which is promising. “You don’t know anything about your employers?”

  “I mean, of course I know stuff. I know the names of everyone in the royal family. I know that Montovia is in central Europe and that the flag is purple and has the royal arms on it. All the information in the packet they gave me when I took this job. But that isn’t what I mean.”

  “Then what do you mean?” I ask her. I risk a glance over at her, but she’s looking down at her hands, apparently thinking.

  And then she looks up, and for a moment when our eyes meet, I feel the shock of connection surge through me, pulsing through my blood. But she looks away again.

  “What made you like this?” she says.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You asked me what in my past ‘destroyed my ability to feel.’ Not that I’m saying anyone or anything did—I’m just saying that it’s only fair I get to ask you what made you the way you are.”

  “And what exactly am I?”

  “You...you’re this,” she says, looking a little flustered as she waves her hand at me. “A womanizer. The kind of guy who tries to get into a woman’s pants an hour after meeting her.”

  “I go after what I want,” I say. “I don’t see what’s so strange about that.”

  “An hour after meeting someone?”

  I chuckle. “Doctor, most men know whether or not they want a woman within ten seconds of meeting her. Any man who tells you otherwise is lying. Am I to be criticized because I’m honest about my intentions?”

  “It’s not that,” she says. “It’s that you can do that over and over again without developing any actual feelings for anyone.”

  “Once again with the assumption that I have no emotions,” I say.

  “I’ve seen no evidence that you do.”

  I can’t read her face, not in the flickering candlelight.

  “I would think,” I say care
fully, “that if you’re so afraid of getting close to someone, an emotionless affair would be ideal.”

  Her eyebrows snap up. “So you admit there’s no emotion involved?”

  “That is not what I said.”

  “Then prove it. Tell me about a time you had feelings for a woman.”

  Is that the only way I can convince her to trust me? It would be a simple thing to invent a story. To craft a fictitious woman, to claim I loved her and she broke my heart. Perhaps then I could get Elle to talk about her past.

  But it would be a lie. The truth is there’s never been a woman who’s inspired any feelings of great importance in me. There’s been lust, certainly. Even a passing affection. But nothing that lingered. Nothing that went beyond the superficial.

  Until now.

  I’m not sure what this is—as she’s fond of reminding me, we’ve only known each other a couple of days. And yet I can tell there’s something different this time. Something that won’t be out of my system come morning.

  But it’s clear enough she won’t believe such a thing. She already thinks the worst of me. And since I can’t answer her question without lying, well…I dare say I can’t blame her for such assumptions.

  I reach up and push the hair back from my eyes. The movement causes a twinge of pain in the gash on my chest, but I manage to keep from wincing.

  And Elle is apparently tired of waiting for my response.

  “All of life is a game to you, isn’t it?” she says. “Just an endless buffet of money and women and fancy things. You never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from or what will happen to you if you get hurt and can’t afford treatment. You’re always provided for. And you never have to worry about forming any real attachment to a woman because there’s always another one to take her place. You don’t ever have to worry about the consequences of any of your actions.”

  “If that were true, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  I say the words without thinking. And they don’t slip by Elle.