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She did everything she always did, wrapping her legs around his back, feeling the swing of her skirt against her naked thighs and burying her face in his neck as he thrust deep inside her. But today she couldn’t free herself of a slight sense of guilt. She’d always seen herself as others saw her, because that was the way she’d been brought up.
Always be aware that someone could be watching you, Sophie, her mother used to say primly. Because someone usually is.
So that now, part of her was observing a princess pressed up against the wall with her panties down by her ankles, as Rafe thrust in and out of her.
She felt him begin to shudder and she whispered soft and muffled words in Greek to him. Words of excitement and encouragement and she kissed his lips hard and passionately when he came, hoping that would disguise her own lack of orgasm.
Neither of them spoke for a moment and when the last of his spasms had died away, she pulled out of his embrace. Awkwardly, she stooped to pick up her panties, her hair falling over her flushed face as she stepped into them again. ‘I’d... I’d better go,’ she said. ‘And...settle in.’
‘Sure.’
His face was curiously guarded as she put her bra and shirt back on and tidied up her hair, but he said nothing more as she left for her own section of the palace. And even the sight of her familiar rooms did little to soothe feelings which were ruffled by more than her scary lack of reaction to Rafe’s lovemaking. Was her prolonged taste of freedom responsible for the sense of alienation she now felt in the environment she’d grown up in?
She looked at the canopied white bed, positioned beneath a soaring golden ceiling which had seemed so impossibly high when she was a little girl. She picked up a photo of her parents at a ball they’d attended before she was even born, her mother wearing the dazzling ruby and diamond necklace which Sophie had been destined to wear when she married Prince Luc. A necklace which now belonged to another woman...
Putting the photo back down, she showered Rafe’s scent from her skin and then walked over to the wardrobe. The lavish clothes she found inside were worlds away from the cheap shorts and T-shirts she’d worn at Poonbarra, where she’d blended in and felt like everyone else. Running her fingertips over the soft fabrics, she put on a floaty dress of a blue so pale it was almost white, and went down to dinner.
The meal was held in the State banqueting room—a setting designed to show the palace at its most splendid. Old gold and cream roses were massed into glittering crystal vases and tall gold candles flickered all the way along the centre of the table. It felt like a jolt to be back amid all this lavish and very obvious luxury again and Sophie tried to shake off the feeling of being on show. She was next to Myron, who she could tell was making a big effort to be nice to her. She kept expecting him to berate her for her impetuosity in running away, but instead he asked her about life at Poonbarra—and it was all she could do to keep the wistfulness from her voice. And she detected an undeniable sense of relief in his attitude towards her. Was the King glad that his troublesome little sister was soon to be off his hands at last—passed from the care of one powerful man to another?
Rafe was seated next to Mary-Belle—with the Isolaverdian Prime Minister on the other side. Sophie watched as he charmed both her little sister and the high-ranking politician who had recently approved an extension to the country’s world-famous oceanographic museum. Who knew Rafe was such an expert on marine science, or that he’d once scuba-dived in the Galapagos? She sat and listened as he made her sister giggle. Over the top of her golden goblet she saw him smile at something the premier had said and Sophie’s heart began to pound beneath the delicate material of her silk-satin dress. He looked so gorgeous sitting there, but she thought he also seemed...distant. There were no meaningful looks slanted at her from across the wide expanse of the table. No suggestive smile. And whose fault was that? Had he noticed her lack of response earlier, or had he been so caught up in his own passion that he hadn’t noticed? She wondered if she should have faked an orgasm, yet something deep inside her baulked at the thought of doing that—because wasn’t this relationship of theirs supposed to be based on honesty?
Except it didn’t feel so honest right then. It felt as if she was hiding stuff away from him. As if she knew it would appal him to realise the direction of some of her thoughts.
It was no better when the evening broke up and they were each assigned a servant to take them to their separate suites. Rafe gave her only the briefest of kisses before they parted—but what else could he do in front of all those silent, watching faces?
She slid between the cool sheets, wondering if he would steal through the vast palace to find her, so that they could try to make right that awkward one-sided coupling of earlier. She stared up at the ceiling, realising that this was the first night they’d spent apart since that moonlit seduction in the swimming pool. Were these cold and gilded walls responsible for deadening her physical response to her lover, or was it that a lifetime of conditioning was hard to throw off overnight?
Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep, thinking about the sparkling engagement ring which Rafe would slide on her finger on the first day of the new year.
And she couldn’t shake off the thought that it seemed all wrong.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
UNDER THE CURVING arches of a galleried ballroom an orchestra played and Rafe looked around him. Beneath the low murmur of voices, he could hear the occasional aristocratic laugh and bell-like sound of champagne glasses being chinked. Even for a man who had attended more than his fair share of dazzling occasions, the Isolaverdian New Year’s ball was quite something.
He could sense people’s eyes on him—at least, everyone’s except Sophie’s. She seemed to be avoiding his gaze as much as possible. He wondered if she was remembering that unsatisfactory episode of lovemaking yesterday, when she’d been about as responsive as a block of ice in his arms. His mouth flattened because that had never happened to him before—a woman staying ice-cool even while he was deep inside her body. And Sophie wasn’t some random lover he could just forget about, or decide that maybe they weren’t so compatible after all. He shook his head as someone offered him a glass of champagne. She was the woman he had vowed to make his wife and he knew it was a lifelong commitment.
A middle-aged blonde—a fortune in emeralds dazzling around her neck—was making no attempt to hide her interest and even though he was used to being stared at, it had never felt like this before. He was aware that his every movement was being observed, his every comment noted and analysed. Was this what being royal was all about—along with all the damned rules and endless protocol which seemed to make this palace seem like a giant institution? Was that the reason Sophie had been so uptight the moment she’d stepped back on familiar territory? Why she was scarcely recognisable as the warm woman he’d grown to know?
He glanced across the ballroom as she strayed into his line of vision. She was easily the most beautiful woman in the room, her dark hair studded with sapphires and a matching midnight-blue gown hugging her slim figure. But she looked cool and aloof as she greeted the high-born guests and once again that feeling of unease settled over him.
He had asked her to be his bride b
ut he couldn’t deny that doubts had started to creep into his mind since they’d arrived here in Isolaverde. Back in New York, it had all seemed ridiculously simple. He’d been on a high—amazed to find a woman whose company didn’t irritate him and dazed from the non-stop and amazing sex. They’d each dragged out their demons and shone daylight on them and confronting them had seemed to diminish them. She’d told him she wanted a family and marriage; well, so did he. And the cherry on the cake as far as he was concerned was that neither of them was chasing after that disappointing fairy tale known as love.
But in the high-octane buzz of the city it had been easy to forget that Sophie was a royal, while here it had been in his face from the moment they’d touched down. And nothing was ever going to change that. He wanted children of his own—but hadn’t he overlooked the fact that any child he sired with Sophie would be royal by birth? As soon as they were born, wouldn’t expectation be heaped all over their innocent heads? Could he willingly subject any child of his to a life beneath the glare of the spotlight?
Sophie was walking towards him and he could see people bobbing into curtseys as she moved past. ‘So. There you are,’ she said.
‘Here I am,’ he agreed, his eyes capturing hers. ‘And I’m all yours. Dance with me?’
She nodded, a small smile tugging at her lips as he took her into his arms and the orchestra swelled into a slow and sensuous waltz. He could smell a different scent on her skin, something warm and spicy, and he felt the punch of his heart as he drew her close.
‘Having fun?’ he questioned.
‘Of course!’ Her voice sounded bright. ‘How about you?’
‘This is certainly a very elaborate production,’ he said dryly.
