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“Lucas, darling,” Delia had shrieked.
“Delia,” he’d said, disentangling himself and drawing Alyssa forward. “I’d like you to meet my fiancée.”
Delia had turned white. Alyssa had simply smiled and held out her hand.
“I think we met once before,” she’d said sweetly. “In Texas, perhaps?”
“Meow meow,” he’d whispered when they were out of earshot.
“Why, Lucas,” his novia had purred, “whatever do you mean?”
He’d pulled her close and kissed her, and the laughter in her eyes had turned to desire.
“Amada,” he’d said in a husky whisper, and he’d drawn her out into the garden of his friend’s home and made passionate love to her in the gazebo, the skirt of her silk gown bunched at her waist, his mouth drinking from hers, her soft cries sighing into the warmth of the night.
At the end, when she’d trembled in his arms, he’d thought something must be happening to him, that he’d never felt this way before, so happy, so complete, that having Alyssa in his life was wonderful, wonderful—
“Lucas.”
Alyssa’s voice brought him back to the present as she slipped her arm through his and smiled up at him.
“I’ve asked Dolores to wait a little before serving dessert. I thought she might object because she’s timed everything so perfectly but she said it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Of course it wouldn’t. His staff would do anything for his Lyssa. He’d fooled no one by pretending she was his novia when they’d first come to Spain so he’d gathered them together three weeks ago and made the formal announcement to polite applause, which he’d expected, and then cheers, which he had not. Dolores had even kissed him, something that had never, ever happened before.
“Lucas?”
“What is it, amada?”
“It’s a wonderful engagement party. Thank you.”
He smiled. “I’m g
lad you’re enjoying it.”
“A minute ago, you looked as if you were a million miles away.”
“I’m right here,” he said, embracing her. “Where else would I be, if not where you are?”
Alyssa laced her hands at his nape and leaned back in his arms.
“I want you to know,” she said softly, “that I am very, very happy.”
“As am I.”
Had he actually said that? So stuffy. So formal, when what he wanted to say, wanted to tell her, was—was—
“There. It’s happening again. That distant look in your eyes. What are you thinking, Your Highness?”
He smiled at her teasing. “I’m thinking about next week, mi princesa, when we are married,” he said huskily, “and you are truly mine.”
Alyssa sighed and lay her head against his chest. “It still seems so impossible. That we should have met. That we should have—that we should have come to care for each other despite the way Felix and Aloysius trapped us.”
Trapped us.
The words hurt his heart as well as his conscience. More and more, it troubled him that he had not told her the truth.
Felix had voided the contract. She was free to leave him.
