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She tried to cast that fanciful nonsense out of her head, but it was impossible. Especially when he was making no particular effort to hide the hungry look in his dark gaze as he trained it on her. She could feel it shiver through her, lighting her on fire. Making it as hard to sit still as it was to breathe.
“I don’t think anyone is going to believe that we were swept away by passion,” she managed to say. She folded her hands in her lap the way she’d seen Valentina do in the videos she’d watched of the princess these past few nights, so worried was she that someone would be able to see right through her because she forgot to do some or other princessy thing. Though she thought she gripped her own fingers a bit more tightly than the princess had. “Seeing as how our engagement has been markedly free of any hint of it until now.”
“But that’s the beauty of it.” Rodolfo shrugged. “The story could be that we were promised to each other and were prepared to do our duty, only to trip over the fact we were made for each other all along. Or it could be that it was never arranged at all and that we met, kept everything secret, and are now close enough to our wedding that we can let the world see what our hearts have always known.”
“You sound like a tabloid.”
“Thank you.”
Natalie glared at him. “There is no possible way that could be construed as a compliment.”
“I’ve starred in so many tabloid scandals I could write the headlines myself. And that is what we will do, starting tonight. We will rewrite whatever story is out there and make it into a grand romance. The Playboy Prince and His Perfect Princess, etcetera.” That half smile of his deepened. “You get the idea, I’m sure.”
“Why would we want to do something so silly? You are going to be a king, not a Hollywood star. Surely a restrained, distant competence is more the package you should be presenting to the world.” Natalie aimed her coolest smile at him. “Though I grant you, that might well be another difficult reach.”
The sun finally dripped below the city as she spoke, leaving strands of soft pink and deep gold in its wake. But it also made it a lot easier to see Prince Rodolfo’s dark, measuring expression. And much too easy to feel the way it clattered through her, making her feel...jittery.
It occurred to her that the way he lounged there, so carelessly, was an optical illusion. Because there wasn’t a single thing about him that wasn’t hard and taut, as if he not only kept all his brooding power on a tight leash—but could explode into action at any moment. That notion was not exactly soothing.
Neither was his smile. “We will spend the rest of the night in public, princess. Fawned over by the masses. So perhaps you will do me the favor of telling me here, in private, exactly what it is that has made you imagine I deserve a steady stream of insult. One after the next, without end, since I last saw you.”
Natalie felt chastened by that, and hated herself for it in the next instant. Because her own feelings didn’t matter here. She shouldn’t even have feelings where this man was concerned. Valentina might have given her blessing to whatever happened between her betrothed and Natalie, but that was neither here nor there. Natalie knew better than to let a man like this beguile her. She’d been taught to see through this sort of thing at her mother’s knee. It appalled her that his brand of patented princely charm was actuallyworking.
“Are you not deserving?” she asked quietly. She made herself meet his dark gaze, though something inside her quailed at it. And possibly died a little bit, too. But she didn’t look away. “Are you sure?”
“Am I a vicious man?” Rodolfo’s voice was no louder than hers, but there was an intensity to it that made that lick of shame inside of her shimmer, then expand. It made the air in the room seem thin. It made Natalie’s heart hit at her ribs, hard enough to bruise. “A brute? A monster in some fashion?”
“Only you can answer that question, I think.”
“I am unaware of any instance in which I have deliberately hurt another person, but perhaps you, princess, know something I do not about my own life.”
It turned out the Prince was as effective with a slap down as her boss. Natalie sat a bit straighter, but she didn’t back down. “Everyone knows a little too much about your life, Your Highness. Entirely too much, one might argue.”
“Tabloid fantasies are not life. They are a game. You should know that better than anyone, as we sit here discussing a new story we plan to sell ourselves.”
“How would I know this, exactly?” She felt her head tilt to one side in a manner she thought was more her than Valentina. She corrected it. “I do not appear in the tabloids. Not with any frequency, and only on the society pages. Never the front-page stories.” Natalie knew. She’d checked.
“You are a paragon, indeed.” Rodolfo’s voice was low and dark and not remotely complimentary. “But a rather judgmental one, I fear.”
Natalie clasped her hands tighter together. “That word has always bothered me. There is nothing wrong with rendering judgment. It’s even lauded in some circles. How didjudgmentalbecome an insult?”
“When rendering judgment became a blood sport,” Rodolfo replied, with a soft menace that drew blood on its own.
But Natalie couldn’t stop to catalog the wounds it left behind, all over her body, or she was afraid she’d simply...collapse.
“It is neither bloody nor sporting to commit yourself to a woman in the eyes of the world and then continue to date others, Your Highness,” she said crisply. “It is simply unsavory. Perhaps childish. And certainly dishonorable. I think you’ll find that there are very few women on the planet who will judge that behavior favorably.”
Rodolfo inclined his head, though she had the sense his jaw was tighter than it had been. “Fair enough. I will say in my defense that you never seemed to care one way or the other what I did, much less with whom, before last week. We talked about it at length and you said nothing. Not one word.”
Valentina had said he talked at her, defending himself—hadn’t she? Natalie couldn’t remember. But she also wasn’t here to poke holes in Valentina’s story. It didn’t matter if it was true. It mattered that she’d felt it, and Natalie could do something to help fix it. Or try, anyway.
“You’re right, of course,” she said softly, keeping her gaze trained to his. “It’s my fault for not foreseeing that your word was not your bond and your vows were meaningless. My deepest apologies. I’ll be certain to keep all of that in mind on our wedding day.”
He didn’t appear to move, and yet suddenly Natalie couldn’t, as surely as if he’d reached out and wrapped her in his tight grip. His dark gaze seemed to pin her to her chair, intent and hard.
“I’ve tasted you,” he reminded her, as if she could forget that for an instant. As if she hadn’t dreamed about exactly that, night after night, waking up with his taste on her tongue and a deep, restless ache between her legs. “I know you want me, yet you fight me. Is it necessary to you that I become the villain? Does that make it easier?”
Natalie couldn’t breathe. Her heart felt as if it might rip its way out of her chest all on its own, and she still couldn’t tear her gaze away from his. There was that hunger, yes, but also a kind ofcertaintythat made her feel...liquid.
