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‘Rafael, will you stop talking and listen to me!’
He turned from the fire suddenly and this time the expression on his face matched the fury in his eyes.
‘I won’t be thought of as a man who engages in casual affairs, sowing his seed far and wide,’ he said harshly. ‘I won’t be a man who can’t control himself. You will marry me and we’ll tell the press some story of how it was some grand passion we both couldn’t deny. That will reduce the scandal surrounding the throne at least and make Matias look less weak. And a marriage will be proof that it wasn’t just a casual affair.’
She swallowed as a small shard of pain caught inside her, surprising her. Did he really think that? Because that night he’d been a force of nature, his unleashed passion sweeping her away. She’d hoped to forget Rafael in Matias’s arms, but the opposite had happened.
She’d forgotten Matias instead and not only him, but her position as princess. She’d forgotten her parents and the weight of all those expectations.
She’d forgotten her country.
She’d forgotten her own name.
That night she’d been just a woman in the arms of a man she wanted and there had been nothing but the excitement of discovery and heat, and the heady blaze of a pleasure burned into her memory for ever.
The last thing it had ever been was casual.
‘Is that how you view it, Rafael?’ she asked, trying not to sound as if it mattered so very much when the opposite was true. ‘Do you think that night we shared was just a casual affair?’
He said nothing, his expression closing down all of a sudden, as if all that fury had been doused.
And the feelings inside her tangled abruptly together in a tight, hard ball. Anger and pain and confusion, and a bright, hot need that surely felt too strong to be a mere teenage crush.
‘It was never casual to me,’ she said starkly, giving him the truth, unable to hold it back.‘Never.’
He was very, very still. Every line of him radiated tension, as if there was something violent inside him struggling to get out and he couldn’t let go of the leash, not for an instant.
‘You want to know what it meant to me? You really want to know?’ Those silver eyes of his blazed. ‘Come here and I’ll show you.’
Lia didn’t hesitate, didn’t second-guess. She’d already decided in the bedroom upstairs what she wanted and so she moved around the coffee table, coming closer. And he didn’t look away, as if he couldn’t take his eyes off her. And she was back again at that ball three months earlier...
The palace gardens had been lit beautifully for the gala, one of Santa Castelia’s most anticipated social events, the last celebration of summer. It was always held outside and the weather had turned out perfectly, the intense heat of the day fading into a lovely soft warmth. Lights were strung in all the trees, more lights were wrapped around shrubs and statues and trellises. Fountains played and music drifted in the air. Palace staff moved among the crowd, carrying trays of drinks and food.
All of Santa Castelia’s aristocracy were there, along with the nation’s rich and famous. There were also more than a few international stars and captains of industry, because the late summer gala had a reputation for being a good party.
Lia stood next to Matias by one of the fountains, half listening to him talk with her father and a few government officials, half watching the crowds swirl around them.
Some of the women wore the most incredibly beautiful gowns, off the shoulder, plunging necklines, or some with a split up the thigh. Some glittered with sequins, while others looked like liquid satin, hugging every curve.
She envied the women who could wear gowns like that. She wasn’t permitted anything that would show too much skin or be risqué, and her mother had advised her not to wear bold colours, that neutrals were more...decorous.
She hadn’t been all that happy with Lia’s choice of colour tonight—a bias-cut gown of deep, violet silk that gave a hint of her curves, but nothing too showy—but she’d let Lia wear it after she’d pleaded.
Just once she’d wanted to wear something that she felt pretty in, that didn’t make her feel as if she was fading into the background, even though that was what was required of her, all the better to show off her future husband.
Matias hadn’t commented on her gown and that was fine, it wasn’t him she was wearing it for.
The crowd swirled and she watched, looking for a familiar, tall, broad figure, desperate to spot him. He hadn’t joined her in her father’s study for an entire week now and she wanted to know why. He hadn’t told her anything. Just one night he hadn’t turned up. She’d told herself it was a one-off, nothing serious, but then he hadn’t come the next night either, or the one after that.
She wasn’t able to talk to him, though she’d tried to surreptitiously ask for an audience since it was next to impossible trying to get time alone with him. Yet all her requests had been refused. She was starting to think that he was avoiding her and she didn’t understand why.
Had she said something he hadn’t liked? Done something, maybe? At their last meeting, their conversation had strayed into the personal a little, but surely that wouldn’t have made him stop coming? Maybe she’d offended him...
Her heartbeat thudded and her palms felt sweaty. She wanted to move, to walk around and see if she could spot him, because standing here suddenly felt impossible.
Murmuring an excuse to Matias, she moved through the crowds, trying to look as though she was going somewhere, when in fact she was searching. Searching for him.
Then just when she thought that maybe he wasn’t here, she caught a glimpse of his tall figure. He was standing in one of the arbours, surrounded by people, since he inevitably was always surrounded by people. A woman was talking to him, a beautiful blonde in a red gown with a plunging neckline and he was looking at her with that silver-eyed intensity that always made Lia’s breath catch.
