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“Don’t,” he said again, his voice harsher.
And this time when he pulled her to him, he turned her so she came up hard against his chest, and then he held her face in his hands and kissed her. Ravenous and raw. Uncontrolled.
Dangerous.
And Adriana couldn’t help herself. She kissed him back.
He slanted his head and she met him, kissing him with all the passion he’d showed her, all the love she hadn’t wanted to admit she felt for him. The pain, the misery. Her foolish hopes. She held back nothing. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him bend her backward, as if this was the happy ending to some kind of fairy tale instead of a sad goodbye at the close of a story even Adriana had known would end like this. Exactly like this, in dismissal and disgrace.
Pato kissed her again and again, as if he was as desperate, as torn, as she was. As if he felt what she did when she knew very well he didn’t. He couldn’t. He kissed her so thoroughly that she knew she would pretend he did, that it would be the fire she warmed herself near in all the lonely days to follow, and she kissed him back with the same ferocity so she could remember that, too.
But too soon he pulled away, still holding her face in his hands. He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes gleaming that darker gold that made her shiver deep inside, and then he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, as if memorizing her.
Adriana didn’t say a word. She couldn’t. But she knew it was time to go, before she found she couldn’t.
She pulled in a shuddering breath, and when she stepped back, Pato’s gaze went stormy and his jaw flexed—but he dropped his hands and let her.
It was the hardest thing Adriana had ever had to do. It made her bones ache as if she was breaking them, but she did it. She wrenched herself away from him and turned toward the door.
And then stopped dead.
Because Lenz stood there, staring at them both in appalled disbelief.
* * *
Adriana made a small sound of distress, almost too low to hear, and Pato wanted nothing more than to put himself bodily between her and whatever attacked her—even if it was his brother. Even worse, if it was him.
But he couldn’t. He certainly hadn’t today. He didn’t now, and he thought he loathed himself.
For a moment, they all stood there, frozen in place.
“Excuse me, Your Royal—” Adriana began, but Lenz interrupted her.
“I didn’t give her to you so you could make her one of your bedmates, Pato.” He threw the accusation into the room, his face a work of thunder. But Pato watched Adriana and the way she simply stood there, her spine achingly straight and her hands in fists at her sides. “What the hell are you thinking?”
Pato said nothing. He saw Adriana tremble slightly, and had to fight the need to pull her back against him, to protect her from this. He hated that she thought he was like those jackals who had hounded her all these years. He hated that she believed he thought so little of what had happened between them. He hated all of this.
And yet he had no choice, he reminded himself bitterly. It didn’t matter that he had the taste of her in his mouth, that he would have held her there forever if she hadn’t pulled away. He had to let her go.
“Enough,” he snapped when Lenz opened his mouth again. Pato met his brother’s eyes. Hard and unyielding. “This is not a conversation Adriana needs to take part in. Why don’t you step aside and let her go?”
It appeared to dawn on Lenz that this was not a request. His eyes narrowed, but he walked stiffly into the room, leaving the exit clear.
Pato willed Adriana to look at him one last time—to let him study that beautiful face of hers once more—but he wasn’t surprised that she didn’t. The moment Lenz stopped moving, she left. She walked out of Pato’s bedroom the way she’d walked into it, her head high and her back straight, and she didn’t look back or break her stride.
And Pato stood there, listening to the sound of her heels against the polished floors until even that disappeared. And that was it. She was gone. He’d done his goddamned duty.
“You didn’t have to sleep with her!” Lenz declared, sounding fierce and protective, which made Pato feel that much more hollow. “She deserves better than that!”
“By all means, brother, let’s talk about what Adriana deserves,” Pato murmured dangerously. “The crown prince installs her in the position usually allocated to his mistresses, and keeps her there for years. And then his dirty playboy brother takes his sordid turn. And we planned it that way, because we knew exactly what would happen if we brought the last Righetti girl into this game. Does she deserve any of that?”
