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Well, because he must have kissed a thousand women to the half a dozen men she had kissed, most of which had occurred in high school before her parents had died. She’d never been great with boys and as she’d matured she hadn’t been great with men either. The ones who liked her she had zero interest in, and the ones she thought had potential were not interested in a woman raising a teenage boy. Even if that boy was her brother. No way had anyone ever kissed her with the sensual expertise she’d just experienced with King Jaeger. But maybe kings were good at everything. Jag certainly claimed to know everything.
She shook her head, pride fortifying her spine. If he could walk away from that kiss without a backward glance then so could she.
Unconsciously her fingers went to her mouth and stroked down the side of her neck along the same path his lips had taken. When she realised what she was doing she dropped her hand and picked up her camera.
Reliving whatever it was that had just happened between them was not conducive to forgetting it. And forgetting it was exactly what she needed to do. She wasn’t here for him. She was here for Chad. And now a deal she’d made on the fly.
A deal with the devil.
A deal she knew she could never go through with.
CHAPTER SIX
JAG KNEW AS soon as he spotted her in the small anteroom beside the grand ballroom that she was going to renege on their deal. And really he should let her. He didn’t really give a damn about having a plus-one for the weekend. He’d done hundreds of these events before on his own. What would one more matter? And as to her unexplained presence
in the palace...that was tougher to handle, but not impossible.
He paused for a moment, just watching her. She was pacing back and forth, her teeth delicately worrying her lower lip. A lower lip he had taken gently between his teeth not twenty-four hours earlier.
She looked astonishingly beautiful dressed in a slender column of burnished copper silk overlaid with a sheer organza bodice that accentuated the long line of her neck and hinted at the delicate swell of her breasts. The colour perfectly matched her hair, as he’d known it would, and turned her skin to polished ivory. Skin that was as soft as it looked.
Regan paused in front of the ornate mirror above the fireplace, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear. Their gazes met in the mirror, her wide cinnamon eyes bright and lovely, her luscious lips painted a subtle pink. With her hair piled on top of her head in an elaborate style, she looked like an ethereal queen from a bygone era, and in that moment he knew he couldn’t release her from their deal. Not yet.
Unwilling to analyse his motivations for that decision too closely, he leaned against the doorjamb. ‘It’s too late to change your mind, jamila,’ he said gruffly.
She turned towards him with a suddenness that made the skirt of her gown swirl around her body, outlining her long legs before resettling. ‘How do you know I want to change my mind?’ she asked, her eyes gliding down over his body as if she couldn’t help herself. He knew the feeling.
‘Body language.’
He only hoped she wasn’t as good at reading it as he was. If she was she’d know his was shouting, I want you. Now.
Uneasy at the depth of his primal response to her, he reminded himself that he’d already had this discussion with himself in the shower and it wasn’t going to happen. He was not going to touch her again, or kiss her, and if that was all he could think about, well, that was just too bad. He wouldn’t allow himself to complicate an already complicated situation. It wasn’t logical. Just as kissing her hadn’t been. One minute he’d been staring into her beautiful, expressive eyes and the next his hands were in her hair and his lips were soldered to hers.
She was like a magnet, and in that moment he’d had all the willpower of a metal shaving. It wasn’t something he liked to acknowledge, even to himself.
Pushing away from the door, he strolled into the room. ‘We have a few housekeeping issues to sort out before we—’
‘Your Majesty, wait. Please.’ She drifted closer and his nostrils flared as he picked up her delicate jasmine scent. He’d made sure that she’d been kept busy all day with spa treatments and massages, and just the thought of how supple her scented body would be was a sweet torture he could well do without.
‘It’s Jaeger,’ he reminded her. ‘Or Jag. Remember?’
She blushed a becoming shade of pink and pursed her lips. ‘I’m trying not to.’
‘Look, if this is about that kiss yesterday—’
‘It’s not about the kiss,’ she cut him off quickly. ‘I know what that was. You’ve already said. You wanted to know what it would be like to kiss me, you found out, and now you don’t want to repeat the experience. We can move on from that.’
Move on? He wasn’t sure that he could.
‘The fact is, there’s no way I can pose as your fiancée. I’m not royal, or a supermodel. I’m an ordinary schoolteacher. Everyone will know instantly that I’m a fraud.’
‘You’re not ordinary and I don’t want you to pretend to be anyone but yourself. As a teacher you must be used to standing in front of large groups of people. I’m sure this won’t be any different.’
He paced away from her, his mind still spinning at what she’d just said to him. Should he correct her misconception that he didn’t want to repeat their kiss, or would it be easier to let it stand?
Unable to form a decision about that on the spot, he shelved it for later.
‘I’m used to standing up in front of primary-school children,’ she explained, ‘which is not the same as what will be expected of me this weekend. And honestly, I’m a better behind-the-scenes person. I don’t do well when the focus is directly on me. I get nervous.’
