by Douglas, Michelle; Gordon, Lucy; Pembroke, Sophie; Hardy, Kate
She frowned. ‘Doesn’t that make you feel trapped?’
‘It’s my duty and I’m not going to let anyone down.’
She noticed that he hadn’t actually answered the question. Which told her far more than if he’d tried to bluff his way out of it. She knew she’d feel trapped, in his shoes. Stuck in a formal, rigid culture where you were expected to know every single rule off by heart and abide by them all. Stifling. She’d hate it even more than she’d hated the rigidity of boarding school.
‘If you could do whatever you wanted, what would you do?’ she asked softly.
‘Anything I wanted?’ His eyes were very, very dark.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Right here and right now?’
She nodded.
‘I’d do this.’ He got up from the piano stool, walked over to her, drew her to her feet, wrapped her in his arms and kissed her.
Just like last night. Except it was more intense because, this time, she knew how perfectly his mouth fitted against hers. How his touch made her pulse beat faster. How right it felt.
Oh, help.
She really didn’t want Lorenzo to know how much he affected her. After the way Nigel had betrayed her trust and abandoned her, she didn’t want to be that vulnerable ever again. Hopefully being a little sarcastic with him would defuse the situation and make her feel more in control again.
She fanned herself with one hand. ‘You’re not too shabby at this, Your Royal Highness,’ she drawled. ‘Did they teach you this at prince school, too?’
He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Indigo, will you please shut up about prince school?’
But her idea of a defence mechanism turned out to be a total failure, because then he kissed her again, tiny nibbling kisses that inflamed her senses and left her breathless. And she ended up kissing him right back.
This had to stop. Now. ‘Had a lot of practice, have we?’
It didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. ‘That’d be telling, and a prince should never kiss and tell,’ he shot back. ‘You talk way too much, Indigo Moran.’ He caught her lower lip between his, sending her pulse skyrocketing again. ‘But, since you clearly want to talk—let’s talk about last night,’ he said. ‘At dinner. That dress.’
She frowned. ‘What was wrong with my dress?’
‘Nothing.’ He sighed. ‘Apart from the fact that it made me want to pick you up, haul you over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and carry you to my bed.’
Which put another set of pictures in her head.
If he carried on like this, she was going to do something seriously stupid.
‘Droit de seigneur?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He kissed her again. ‘For the record, I don’t believe in forcing anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. Being a troglodyte and carrying you off to my bed is—’ he licked his lower lip ‘—well, a fantasy. Which I would only do if you liked the idea, too.’
Now he’d said it like that, she could really picture it. And what would come after, too...
She shivered.
‘What’s the matter, Indigo?’ he asked softly.
‘You’ve just made it hard for me to breathe,’ she admitted.
‘Good. Now you know how that dress made me feel last night. And your shoes. I noticed just how long your legs are. And if you’d had any idea how much I wanted to touch you...’ He traced the outline of her mouth with the tip of his forefinger. It made her tingle all over and she couldn’t help parting her lips in response.
And then he actually grinned.
Oh, really? she thought. He honestly believed he had more self-control than she did? Well, two could play at that. She held his gaze, then sucked the tip of his finger into her mouth.
Instantly his pupils dilated and there was a slash of colour in his cheeks.
‘Touché,’ he whispered. ‘Indigo, we need to stop this. Now.’ He dragged in a breath. ‘It wouldn’t be fair or honourable of me to lead you on. I’m going back to Melvante soon. My life’s going to change out of all recognition.’
Of course it was.
He looked tortured. ‘I can’t offer you a future.’
‘I know. And even if you could, I’d be the worst person you could ask,’ she said. What with the scandal surrounding her birth, and the fact that she’d been naive enough to trust Nigel and not work out for herself that he was already married, she was totally unsuitable even to be a king’s mistress. ‘I take it you need to find yourself a princess.’ Which would put her totally out of the running. Not that she wanted the formal, rigid life of a royal family.
He rolled his eyes. ‘I probably do have to choose a bride within the next six months, yes. And she probably has to be from a noble family. Though, just for the record, I don’t care if your parents aren’t aristocrats. It’s how you treat other people that matters to me, not how many coronets are in your family tree.’
‘Actually, my father’s an earl.’ He looked surprised, and honesty made Indigo add, ‘The problem is, though, he was still married to his countess when he had a fling with my mother and she fell pregnant with me.’
‘So that’s why you ended up at the same school as Lottie?’ he asked.
‘It was my father’s idea of providing for me,’ she said dryly.
‘Money instead of attention?’
He’d hit the nail right on the head. ‘My father and I are never quite sure if we ought to acknowledge each other or not,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to hurt his family by claiming him as kin—I mean, I’m the child of an affair, and it’d be horrible to rub their noses in that. It wasn’t their fault that he behaved badly. So it’s easier...’ She sighed. ‘Well, for me not to acknowledge him and for him to pretend that I don’t really exist.’
‘But that hurts you.’
Did it still show? Or was Lorenzo just particularly perceptive? She shrugged. ‘I’m lucky: my grandparents loved me. I was never deprived of love, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘But your grandparents let you go to boarding school at such a young age?’
‘They didn’t exactly have a lot of choice. My grandmother wasn’t very well at the time—they had enough on their plates without having to look after a small child.’
He frowned. ‘What about your mother? Why didn’t she look after you?’
She blew out a breath. ‘You might as well know the worst. When it was obvious that the earl wasn’t going to leave his wife for my mother, she left me with her parents and bolted.’ She looked away. ‘With someone else’s husband.’
* * *
Lorenzo knew first-hand what kind of damage affairs could cause. Collateral damage, too. His own mother’s affair had blown his whole world apart. If she’d been able to cope with life in the royal family, then she wouldn’t have had the affair—and his father wouldn’t have reacted by driving their car into a wall. And just maybe he would’ve grown up with both his parents, in a happy family, and it would’ve been another thirty years before he’d had to think about becoming king.
Or maybe it would’ve been a different kind of unhappy childhood, with his parents always arguing in private and pretending everything was just fine and dandy where the public was concerned.
Not that he was going to tell Indigo about that. He didn’t talk about the scars on his heart to anyone. Ever. ‘That’s tough on you.’
She shrugged. ‘As I said, my grandparents loved me.’
The implication was clear: her mother hadn’t. ‘Do you see your mother now?’
Indigo shook her head. ‘She ended up in a yachting accident with Married Man Number Four. She drowned. All I have of my mother are photographs and some very fleeting memories.’
It was the same for Lorenzo. Photographs and fleeting memories. Except nobody knew the true circumstances
of his parents’ accident. Nobody except his grandfather and their legal adviser. They wouldn’t have told him the truth, except some papers had been misfiled and he’d come across them when he was eighteen and discovered the truth for himself. He’d gone off the rails for a week, shocked to the core that his father could’ve done something so terrible. The paparazzi had taken a picture of him looking haggard and with the worst hangover in the history of the universe; and then his grandfather had hauled him back to the palace, had a very honest and frank discussion with him, and Lorenzo had reassumed his stiff upper lip.
‘That’s tough on you,’ he said again.
‘It was tougher,’ she said, ‘proving to everyone that I wasn’t like my mother.’
Yeah. He knew all about that, too—having to convince his grandfather that he wasn’t like his father.
‘Especially when I wanted to leave boarding school. But I hated the rigidity of the place, and the sense of entitlement that so many of the girls had.’
‘What did you do?’ he asked.
‘Gave my father a business plan,’ she said. ‘If I went to a normal state school at the age of fourteen, he’d save four years of fees—which would be enough to buy my grandparents’ cottage. If he let them live there rent-free for the rest of their lives, then he’d get his investment back when he sold the cottage. Win-win. He got money, and I got freedom.’
Lorenzo’s heart bled for her. How could her father have been so cold-blooded that she had to offer him a business plan as a way out of a school that she hated? ‘And he agreed to it?’
‘Yes.’
For a second, he saw pain in her eyes.
And then she grinned. ‘I told him the alternative was that I’d behave so badly, I’d get thrown out of every boarding school in England. But he knew I was right. And I proved to my grandparents that I wasn’t like my mother. I wasn’t running away, I was making the right choice. I got a weekend job in the local supermarket as soon as I was old enough, and a bar job to keep me going through art college until I graduated.’
‘And you got a First?’ he asked.
She inclined her head. ‘I made my grandparents proud of me before they died.’
Though her father had obviously not acknowledged her achievements. ‘Indi. I’m not pitying you, but right now I want to hug you,’ he said.
‘It’s OK. I’m a big girl. I learned to deal with it years ago.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s the earl’s loss, not mine.’
And what an idiot the man was, not realising what a treasure he had in Indigo.
Lorenzo stole another kiss. ‘Indigo. Will you please tell me to stop this?’
She kissed him back. ‘Colour me bad, Your Royal Highness, but what’s the alternative to stopping?’
His breath hitched. ‘I think you’ve just spiked my blood pressure. Are you suggesting...?’
‘We both know where we stand. You’re about to take over from your grandfather and become king. You don’t have time for a relationship. I have an empire to build with my business—I don’t have time for a relationship, either.’ She paused. This was crazy. But, at the same time, it was safe, because what she was proposing involved a time limit. Which meant she wouldn’t get involved with him. ‘I’m here until the end of the month. You said you don’t have to go back to Melvante for a little while. Are you staying here until you go back?’
‘Yes.’
‘So we’re in a private house. Among friends who would never rat us out to the press. Lottie’s my oldest friend, and I’m guessing that Gus is one of your oldest friends, too.’
‘He is. And I trust him totally.’ He lifted her hand to his face and pressed his lips against her wrist, feeling the way her pulse beat hard against his mouth. Indigo Moran was everything he couldn’t have. A breath of fresh air. Vibrant and lively. Totally unsuitable. And he knew without having to ask that she’d hate his world just as much as his mother had. This was never going to work.
Yet, at the same time, neither of them could deny the attraction between them.
‘So you’re suggesting we have a fling,’ he said slowly.
‘A mad fling,’ she corrected. ‘Because we both know that, although we’re attracted to each other, in the real world we’re not remotely suitable for each other. So we go into this with our eyes open. And we both walk away at the end of it. Intact.’
Which told him someone had walked away from her before, and left her very far from intact. ‘It feels a bit—well, dishonourable. To offer you just a fling.’ Especially now he knew about her background. She was the child of a fling, and she’d paid the price by losing a whole generation of her family.
‘Lorenzo, I’m not suitable marriage material for you, so you’re not in a position to offer me anything else,’ she pointed out. ‘Which means either we have to spend the next couple of weeks having a lot of cold showers and trying to avoid each other, or...’ Her breath caught. ‘Just for the record, I don’t normally proposition men.’
He stole another kiss. ‘I already know that. Despite that dress you were wearing last night, you’re not the type. And I’m very flattered that you should proposition me.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘But you’re going to say no.’
‘My head’s telling me that this is a bad idea,’ he said. ‘But...’ He blew out a breath. ‘I don’t do this sort of thing, either. I’m just a boring businessman.’
‘You’re a king in waiting,’ she corrected.
‘Same difference. Running a country’s the same as running a business. It’s just a slightly different scale.’ He shrugged. ‘Indigo, I always act with my head. I think things through and I look at all the options. I never do anything on impulse.’ Not since that week of getting seriously drunk—and he hadn’t touched brandy ever again after that. ‘Yet I can’t stop thinking about you. And kissing you just now was more impulsive than I’ve been in years.’ He leaned his forehead against hers. ‘Have you ever wanted something so much, you feel as if you’re going to implode?’
She didn’t answer; and he was pretty sure it had something to do with the man who’d walked away from her.
Which was precisely what he was going to have to do.
And he didn’t want to hurt her. Though he had a feeling that it might already be too late for that. She’d been rejected by her father, dumped at boarding school, and left in pieces when someone she loved had walked away from her. The fact that she’d been brave enough to suggest a fling also meant she’d made herself vulnerable.
He pulled back just enough to drop a kiss on her forehead. ‘Cold showers and avoidance it is.’
‘I’m not so sure that’s going to work. I have pictures in my head. And I think you do, too.’ She moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue, and he was near to hyperventilating. He really wanted to kiss her again.
‘Indigo, I’m trying really hard to maintain control, here.’
‘What if you didn’t have to?’ She stroked his face, and he turned his head to press a kiss into her palm. ‘What if you could be whoever you wanted to be, just for, say, one night?’
‘What scares me,’ he admitted, ‘is that I don’t think one night with you would be enough.’
‘A week, then. A fortnight. Maybe until you go back to Melvante. Look, you can still do whatever it is you planned to do here—spending time with Gus, thinking things through, sorting out kingly strategies. And I have work to do on the window. I’m not going to back out of my business commitments.’ She paused. ‘But, in between the business stuff, there are spaces.’
He could see what she meant. ‘Spaces where we can just be.’
‘Together,’ she confirmed softly.
He sat down on the chesterfield and pulled her onto his lap. ‘Your arguments are very persuasive, Ms Moran.’
She inclined her head. ‘Why, thank you, Your Roya
l Highness.’
‘Though I still feel dishonourable, offering you nothing but a fling.’
‘They’re the only kind of terms that either of us is in a position to offer,’ she pointed out. ‘So it’s your choice, Lorenzo. Cold showers—or this.’ She cupped his face in her hands and skimmed her mouth against his.
His lips tingled where her skin touched his, and he couldn’t help tightening his arms round her and responding to her kiss in kind.
‘This,’ he said when he could finally drag his mouth away from hers. ‘This.’
CHAPTER FOUR
ALTHOUGH INDIGO WENT back to her work when she left the library, she found herself stopping often to think about Lorenzo. She still couldn’t quite believe what they’d agreed to. Since when did she do anything crazy like this? After Nigel’s betrayal and the way her life had collapsed, two years ago, she’d kept all her relationships strictly platonic.
And now she was about to have a mad fling with a man who was about to become king.
Mad being the operative word, she thought wryly.
It took her ages to choose what to wear for dinner. At home, Indigo didn’t bother changing for dinner—there wasn’t much point when her meal was a hastily grabbed snack and she was going straight back to work for the rest of the evening. But she knew that Lottie’s family always dressed for dinner, and when she stayed at Edensfield she always tried to fit in, so as not to embarrass her friend.
Last night’s dress had made Lorenzo want to be a troglodyte and carry her off to his room.
Tonight, then, she’d wear something more demure. Something that would give him the chance to change his mind, maybe. Because she was pretty sure that one of them needed a dose of common sense, and right at that moment she didn’t think she was the one who’d get it. So she picked a dress that one of her friends from art college had made as a prototype Edwardian costume and then presented to her because it practically had her name written over it: a midnight-blue velvet creation with a high scooped neck and cap sleeves, which came down to her ankles and was teamed with a silk sash in the same colour, a chunky faux-pearl necklace and a matching bracelet.