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It did now, though not in that way that sent a rush of dizzying pleasure through her when they were alone. This time it felt like a stab through the chest.
He wore formal evening clothes, all in black, even his shirt, and with his massive height and warrior’s build, his innate authority, he was the most intensely charismatic man in the entire place.
Except she knew things about him that other people didn’t. Such as what he looked like when midnight struck and he was relaxed and nursing a tumbler of Scotch. When he was leaning back in his chair, no jacket or tie, the top buttons of his shirt undone and his sleeves rolled up. When their conversation was idle, on subjects that weren’t of any importance, such as the thriller he was reading. Or the latest scientific advance he’d heard about, since he liked science, particularly technology, and liked to keep abreast of what was happening.
When she made some silly joke and he smiled.
No one knew him when he was like that. No one knew him when he smiled.
No one but her.
She tried to tell herself that she had something of him the woman he was talking to didn’t, hoping it would make her feel better. That she wasn’t feeling jealous, not at all. She shouldn’t be jealous anyway, because there was nothing to be jealous about. She was going to marry Matias and the Regent wasn’t for her. He was older than she was, more experienced, more powerful, more...everything.
It didn’t matter that the blonde was flirting with him.
He wasn’t Lia’s and he never would be.
She was just about to turn around and find her way back to Matias, when unexpectedly Rafael glanced at her over the woman’s shoulder.
And his silver eyes met hers. And held.
And she knew that she’d let slip something she shouldn’t and he’d seen what must have been in her gaze. Her whole soul.
He didn’t look away, just stared at her.
Lia had no experience with men, none at all except for her interactions with Matias, which were friendly, but nothing more. She knew what sexual hunger and passion were, of course, but only intellectually.
Now though, she could feel both welling up inside her, a hot tide that felt as though it was choking her, a mirror of the same thing glowing in his eyes.
He felt it, too.
For a second they stared at each other, though it felt like hours, days. Eons. Then, without any hurry, he turned his gaze back to the woman in front of him and carried on talking to her as if nothing had happened.
Lia’s face felt hot and tears pricked her eyes. Her chest was tight and painful and she didn’t even know why.
It wasn’t as though he could suddenly stop talking to that woman and come over to talk to her, not when everyone was watching him. Not when she was a woman he was barely supposed to even know, let alone speak to.
Their friendship—what else could she call it?—was secret and had to remain so.
Left with nothing else to do, Lia swallowed the ache inside her, buried it deep and turned and went back to Matias.
But she didn’t have to swallow that ache and she didn’t have to turn away. Matias wasn’t here and there was nothing between Rafael and her any longer.
So, she stood in front of him and looked into his burning gaze. ‘Show me, then,’ she said.
She was so close, looking at him the way she used to on those nights where they would argue about some philosophical topic or politics. Direct, fearless, challenging. They weren’t talking about politics or philosophy, not now, yet the glow in her eyes was the same, a deep, aching blue with heat glowing at the centre, like fire in the dark heart of a sapphire.
But he was angry, he could feel it eating away at him, eating away at his control.
Angry at her for wanting him, for telling him that night had meant something to her when it would be so much easier for them both if it hadn’t.
Angry at the questions she kept throwing at him, picking away at him, trying to get under his skin.
‘But those are all just parts of you. I don’t know the whole...’
She couldn’t know the whole, that was the problem. Parts of him were all he had to give. The parts he had control over, not the ones he didn’t.
The violent, hot, primitive parts of himself that no one needed to even know about, let alone see.
