“You found readers?”
“Yes. I’m sure some of them were people who read my blog, but I was able to use my magazine connections to get publicity and it ended up hitting a best seller list for several weeks.”
“What was your book about?”
“I called it Living Your Best Life. It’s a bunch of articles based on experiences I had as I looked for a job, rented my first apartment, figured out how to deal with a demanding boss—just living as a single girl in the city.”
“Did you talk about dating?”
The ocean lapped in and touched her toes. “Ouch! That’s colder than I expected.” The water was a dark gray-blue. She didn’t want to talk about dating. “Sometimes.”
“You must have men flocking around you wherever you go.” His eyes rested on her a little too long as he said it.
“Hardly.” She tried to sound breezy. “Not any I was interested in, anyway. I ended up having so many articles about my dating misadventures that I compiled them into another book called Waiting for Mr. Right. A publisher gave me a big advance for that one. It comes out next month.”
“Waiting for Mr. Right. Did you find him?”
She reached up to tug at her sweater, and for a second she could swear she felt his eyes on her ringless ring finger. The book wasn’t even out yet, and already Mr. Right had cut and run.
“I thought I had. We dated for two years. We were engaged, even.” She shuddered. Suddenly the weather seemed less tropical. “It’s cold. Do we really want to do this?”
“We’ll warm up if we keep walking.” He switched places with her so that he was on the ocean side, water lapping around his ankles and wetting the rolled bottom of his jeans. “What happened?”
Shame gripped her—for the umpteenth time. How did you explain it? She didn’t even know how to explain it to herself. The whole thing hadn’t sunk in yet. “He decided to go…in a different direction.”
“He turned out to be gay?” He looked curious.
She laughed in spite of herself. “No. He just said he didn’t want to get married. He’s still single as far as I know.”
“How odd.” Sandro frowned. “He probably is gay and hasn’t admitted it to himself yet.”
“I think I was too demanding.” She sighed. “Howard said it wasn’t easy living in a blog post. Too much pressure to do everything by the book.” She laughed again. “It is ridiculous, isn’t it? Even as we set out on this walk I wondered if it would become a post.”
One side of Sandro’s broad mouth hitched in a smile. “I’d love to be one of your posts.”
She blew out. “You wouldn’t really. He said it was like swimming around in a fish bowl.”
“Sounds a bit like being royal.” He grinned.
A smile snuck across her mouth. “I suppose it does. People watching everything you do, expecting it to be fabulous.”
“So I do my best to make sure it is.”
“Fabulous?”
“Of course.”
His dark eyes drifted lower, and she felt the heat of his gaze roam over her breasts, her belly, her khaki-clad thighs. She had not packed for elegance on this trip, and right now she wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or pleased by his bold appraisal.
She decided to turn the tables on him. “Maybe you could give me some tips on living a fabulous life. I could share them with my readers.”
“You are always writing a blog post, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “Occupational hazard.”
“I only have one tip—surround yourself with good people.”
“I guess I broke that rule by coming here alone.”
“Luckily I turned up.” He smiled. “And I’m so glad you were here. I’d have spent my holidays in an airport, trying to fly back to some friends somewhere.”
“You don’t like to be alone?”
“Not all that much. I’m from a big family. I have nine brothers and sisters.”
“Wow! That’s unusual these days.”
“My mom loves children. She’s waiting with bated breath for one of us to give her a grandchild.”
“Luckily, my siblings have jumped in early to save me from that pressure. It’s bad enough with them wanting me to get married.”
“Did they like your ex?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure they did.”
“Were they glad when you broke up with him?”
“I haven’t told them yet.”
CHAPTER SIX
Sandro stared. “That’s why you couldn’t go home for Christmas.”
She nodded, recrimination clawing at her heart. “Breaking up with your fiancé is bad enough, but when you’re always telling people how to live their life, including how to handle relationships, it’s hard to admit you failed.”
“Who says you failed? If it didn’t work out, he was wrong for you.”
She swallowed. “I’ve tried to convince myself of that, but it’s not working too well. According to all my social media, he was perfect and we were supposed to live happily ever after.”
Sandro had the gall to laugh. “I guess you’ll have to post some updates. Did you love him?”
“Of course! Do you think I’d marry someone I didn’t love?”
“Perhaps, if your reputation depended on it.” He spoke slowly, studying her face.
Her skin heated under his curious gaze. “I’m not that shallow.” She stared out at the ocean. “I admit that it took me a while to fall in love with him, but I could see that he was a good match and over time I grew to really dote on him.”
Sandro lifted a brow. “I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work.”
“Says who? People these days rush into relationships with the wrong person. Everything’s about sex. They don’t even take the time to figure out if they’re compatible before they start living together.”
“And you recommend a more clinical approach.”
“Absolutely.” Was he poking fun at her? She couldn’t tell. “You should look at a relationship like buying a new car. Does it have the features I want? Is it going to hold up under the conditions I’ll be driving it in? Will it hold its value? Will it protect me in case of disaster?”
“Will it give me a jolt of adrenaline when I take it on the autobahn?”
She laughed. “That one wasn’t on my list. But of course your partner should excite you.”
“Did Howard rev your engine?”
“Absolutely. He was very handsome.” Damn him. “I got him working out four times a week and drinking a raw-juice smoothie every day. He looked like an Olympic athlete.”
Sandro laughed again. “Maybe he didn’t want to look like an athlete. Maybe he wanted to have a beer belly.”
She blew out. “For all I know you could be right. Not my problem anymore.” She looked at him walking beside her, the wind whipping his clothes against his hard body. “Besides, I can tell you work out. Keeping fit is important.”
“I’m a crazy adrenaline junkie. I can’t sit still. The muscles are simply a side effect.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Only when you’re doing it wrong.” His dark eyes glittered. Or was it simply the ocean reflecting in their depths? “Do you ever do anything reckless?”
“Not really. Unless you count attempting to have a relationship with another human being,” she said ruefully.
“I guess you won’t be making that mistake again.” Mischief played around his mouth.
She stared at him for a moment. “Maybe I won’t.”
“You could get a cat instead.”
“Then I’d have cat hair on my clothes.”
“True.” He seemed to be fighting the urge to laugh. “Maybe you could get a stuffed cat.”
“It’s not funny!” Emotion welled in her chest. “Maybe I am impossible. Maybe I’m incapable of having a relationship with anyone.” Tears blurred her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He had the decency to sound remorseful
. “Let’s sit for a minute. There’s a sheltered spot here in the dunes.”
He slid his arm in hers and led her up the beach, which was lucky, as the combination of tears and salty beach air had half-blinded her. She let his strong presence guide her until they were sitting next to each other on the cool sand.
She swiped at her tears. “I did try hard to make him happy.”
“He was a lucky man.”
“Don’t patronize me!” She hated the whiny sound of her voice. “I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman, and I need to face up to my mistakes.”
“We all make mistakes,” he said again in that infuriatingly therapeutic tone.
“Do we? I bet you don’t ever make mistakes.” She couldn’t get herself to sound calm. Emotion that had built up in her in the last few weeks, heck, maybe the last year—or maybe her whole life—exploded to the surface. “Why would you? You’re the handsome prince—the knight in shining armor—who any girl would welcome into her life. I bet you’ve never experienced a single moment of rejection.”
He watched her, bemused, and she fought a powerful urge to slap him hard across his handsome, arrogant face. “Have you?”
Her answer came in the form of a hard, hot kiss.
Sandro’s lips crushed over hers, and her protest evaporated instantly in the fire of his kiss. Her limbs grew weak as his big, strong arms wrapped around her. The warmth of his body enveloped her, and his musky, masculine scent overwhelmed her senses.
For a crazy instant she was able to just let go—of all the pain, the embarrassment, the disappointment, the secrecy, the uncertainty about herself and her future—and lose herself in the fierce intensity of his kiss.
A sudden gust of wind threw sand against them and stung her cheek hard enough for her to pull back. She stared at him, blinking, for a moment. Then her heart sank and shame flooded through her. “I guess you just proved my point.”
“There was a point?” A smile tugged at his wet lips.
“That you’ve never experienced rejection. I’m guessing you assumed I’d reject you and that you could say that, yes, you had been rejected and that we all…that you…that I…” The rush of tears overwhelmed her again.
How could she have been such an idiot? Of course he didn’t actually want to kiss her. No man wanted another’s unwanted castoff. He wanted to give her a chance to reject him so that she could feel.… Who knows what he wanted her to feel.
And now she’d just shown him what a total fool she was.
“My kisses don’t usually have this effect on women.”
“Really?” she spluttered through her tears. “What kind of effect do they have? I’m sure you’ve had opportunity for extensive scientific study.” His lips touched her forehead, and she fought a powerful urge to sink into his strength. “Stop toying with me.”
“I’m not toying with you.” He took hold of her chin in his finger and thumb. “I’m very, very, very attracted to you, and on top of that I find you fascinating.”
He spoke so seriously she was almost tempted to believe him.
“You try so hard to do everything right, to be strong, and you can’t stand for a second that anyone would think that you’re not perfect. Even your own family.”
“I suspect that makes me crazy, not fascinating.” Her voice shook a little.
“I find it absolutely irresistible.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Another gust of wind picked up sand and flung it at them. Sandro noticed dark clouds gathering inland, behind the dunes. He wanted to kiss her again, but common sense prevailed. “I think we should head back.”
“Of course.” Serena leaped to her feet and brushed sand off her gorgeous behind. Clipped and brusque in her movements, she probably took his suggestion as a rejection.
Once they got back to the house, he intended to let her know it was anything but.
“Is that a dog?” She turned to face the dunes, where the gusts now flattened the gray-green dune grass.
“I think it’s the wind.”
“I thought I heard barking.” She started to walk back.
“Maybe you’re right.” He lingered behind, unable to resist a glimpse of the view. “And I think you’re onto something,” he said, resisting the urge to brush a last sprinkle of sand from her pants.
“What do you mean?”
“Coming here by yourself. Taking a break from reality.”
“If only I could take a break. My readers expect new content every other day. Something uplifting and entertaining, preferably with an artistically styled yet candid-looking photo.”
He chuckled. She wasn’t laughing. “You put a lot of pressure on yourself.”
She looked right at him. “I invited it willingly. I worked hard to build my audience and encourage their participation. I guess I thought I’d be going from strength to strength, leading and guiding. It never occurred to me that I’d want to go hide under a rock.”
The sadness in her eyes tugged at his heart. They walked along the beach, swift gusts now whipping at their clothes and a sting of cool rain on the back of their necks. “Your pain will give you perspective in time.”
“I suppose so.”
“It’ll make you more compassionate, more understanding when things go wrong for other people.”
She glanced up at him. “Do things ever go wrong for you, or do you just jet around jumping off mountains, wearing a coronet?”
He drew in a breath. “That assumption is my biggest hurdle in life. People assume I live to entertain myself and never experience defeat or disappointment or yearning.”
“Are they right?” She lifted a slim brow.
He squinted against a gust of sand-laden wind. “I’m smart. I work hard. I do my best to think of others and put their needs first. If no one’s interested in listening to my first-world problem, I suck it up and move on.”
“I guess a prince would have only first-world problems.” She laughed, shielding her eyes from the sand. “I suppose mine are, too. I bet you’ve never had a broken heart, though.”
“Don’t be so sure.” The rain picked up, big droplets now hitting them hard. “Let’s run.”
Back at the house, Serena toweled off her face and hair, surprised at how quickly the weather had turned. “I guess this is the edge of the tropical storm. Are we supposed to put storm shutters up or something?”
“I don’t know. Let me call Zadir.” A minute later Sandro frowned and looked up from his phone. “I can’t get a signal.”
“I haven’t been able to get one since I arrived.” She tried again, to no avail. “The coverage is horrible out here and now the Wi-Fi is gone, too. I think the dish isn’t working because of the weather. I’ve been grateful for the solitude so far, but now it’s making me nervous. We’re so close to the beach. Should we be worried about a storm surge? It’s been raining off and on since I got here.”
“Possibly.” Sandro looked grim. “At least this house has upper floors.”
“As long as the whole thing doesn’t get washed away.” Her stomach clenched at the thought. Which at least gave her some distraction from the much more disturbing feelings happening just below it—especially when she had the misfortune to look at Sandro.
How had she let him kiss her? He’d obviously had second thoughts about it pretty fast, getting them up and headed back to the house, but the effect on her had been hot and heavy and intense and almost frightening.
Overwhelming.
No doubt it was all on her side, like her feelings for Howard and her foolish assumption—encouraged by the simple but elegant engagement ring he’d given her—that they’d live happily ever after.
Boy, was she wrong.
Sandro had moved on and was preheating the oven and rubbing the chicken with butter. The wind had picked up and was whistling through the trees outside, while rain pelted against the large windows.
She tried to distract herself with peeling the potatoes, which he intended to toss with herbs and roast. �
��I don’t believe you’ve ever had a broken heart.”
“Maybe not broken.” He looked up, dark eyes warm. “Perhaps just badly bruised. It was a situation where she meant a lot more to me than I did to her.”
“Sounds familiar.” Suddenly she felt a little better. “She was your girlfriend?”
“I thought so. I was young, maybe eighteen, and she was a sophisticated older woman of twenty-five or so.”
“A cougar.” She smiled, cutting the eyes out of a potato. “I can see you falling for a cougar.”
“She taught me a lot.” His slightly lifted brow suggested that much of what she’d taught him happened between the sheets. “Which any eighteen-year-old would be grateful for. But I fell hard. She seemed so wise and interesting. She’d traveled a lot by herself, backpacking around Asia and Africa, meeting all kinds of people, and she had such great stories. I envied her freedom and anonymity. Everywhere I go there are paparazzi waiting to catch me doing something stupid.”
“First-world problems,” she teased.
“Indeed.” A slow smile crossed his broad mouth. “But it became more of a problem when she wouldn’t be seen in public with me. She didn’t want anyone to know about our affair. She was embarrassed to be involved with a royal.”
“That’s different. I’d think you’d have more trouble with people wanting to date you because you are royal.”
“True. She was repulsed by all the wealth and privilege and entitlement. All the stuff that gets other women excited was a turnoff to her.”
“I’ll give her credit for being original.”
“Yup. And it made me adore her more. I wanted to spend my life with this woman, sharing adventures at her side, but she only wanted me under the cover of darkness. Eventually she got annoyed with me pushing for more and called me a spoiled princeling. She left for a trip to the Caucuses region and I never saw her again.”
“She died?”
“No, she married someone else. A much older man, from Georgia.” Noting her amusement, he added. “The Georgia where people speak Russian.”
A Prince for Christmas (Royal House of Leone Book 2) Page 3