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“Because it is not necessary to insult me to get my attention, princess,” Rodolfo continued in the same intense way. “You have it. And you need not question my fidelity. I will touch no other but you, if that is what you require. Does this satisfy you? Can we step away from the bloodlust, do you think?”
What that almost offhanded promise did was make Natalie feel as if she was nothing but a puppet and he was pulling all her strings, all without laying a single finger upon her. And what sent an arrow of shame and delight spiraling through her was that she couldn’t tell if she was properly horrified by that notion, or...not.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” was the best she could manage.
“You only confirm my suspicions,” he told her then, and she knew she wasn’t imagining the satisfaction that laced his dark tone. “It is not who I might or might not have dated over the past few months that so disturbs you. I do not doubt that is a factor, but it is not the whole picture. Will you tell me what is? Or will I be forced to guess?”
And she knew, somehow, that his guesses would involve his hands on her once more and God help her, she didn’t know what might happen if he touched her again. She didn’t know what she might do. Or not do.
Who she might betray, or how badly.
She stood then, moving to put the chair between them, aware of the way her magnificent gown swayed and danced as if it had a mind of its own. And of the way Rodolfo watched her do it, that hard-lit amusement in his dark eyes, as if she were acting precisely as he’d expected she would.
As if he was a rather oversize cat toying with his next meal and was in absolutely no doubt as to how this would all end.
Though she didn’t really care to imagine him treating her like his dinner. Or, more precisely, she refused to allow herself to imagine it, no matter how her pulse rocketed through her veins.
“My life is about order,” she said, and she realized as she spoke that she wasn’t playing her prescribed role. That the words were pouring out of a part of her she hadn’t even known was there inside of her. “I have duties, responsibilities, and I handle them all. Iliketo handle them. I like knowing that I’m equal to any task that’s put in front of me, and then proving it. Especially when no one thinks I can.”
“And you are duly celebrated for your sense of duty throughout the great houses of Europe.” Rodolfo inclined his head. “I salute you.”
“I can’t tell if you’re mocking me or not, but I don’t require celebration,” she threw back at him. “It’s not about that. It’s about the accomplishment. It’s about putting an order to things no matter how messy they get.”
“Valentina...”
Natalie was glad he said that name. It reminded her who she was—and who she wasn’t. It allowed her to focus through all the clamor and spin inside of her.
“But your life is chaos,” she said, low and fierce. “As far as I can tell, it always has been. I think you must like it that way, as you have been careening from one death wish to another since your brother—”
“Careful.”
He looked different then, furious and something like thrown, but she only lifted her chin and told herself to ignore it. Because the pain of an international playboy had nothing to do with her. Prince Charming was the villain in all the stories her mother had told her, never the hero. And the brother he’d lost when he was fifteen was a means to psychoanalyze this man, not humanize him. She told herself that again and again. And then she forged on.
“He died, Rodolfo. You lived.” He hissed in a breath as if she’d struck him, but Natalie didn’t stop. “And yet your entire adult life appears to be a calculated attempt to change that. You and I have absolutely nothing in common.”
Rodolfo stood. The glittering emotion she’d seen grip him a moment ago was in his dark gaze, ferocious and focused, but he was otherwise wiped clean. She would have been impressed if she’d been able to breathe.
“My brother’s death was an unfortunate tragedy.” But he sounded something like hollow. As if he was reciting a speech he’d learned by rote a long time ago. His gaze remained irate and focused on her. “I never intended to fill his shoes and, in fact, make no attempt to do so. I like extreme sports, that is all. It isn’t a death wish. I am neither suicidal nor reckless.”
He might as well have been issuing his own press release.
“If you die while leaping out of helicopters to get to the freshest ski slope in the world, the way you famously do week after week in winter, you will not only break your neck and likely die, you will leave your country in chaos,” Natalie said quietly. His gaze intensified, but she didn’t look away. “It all comes back to chaos, Your Highness. And that’s not me.”
She expected him to rage at her. To argue. She expected that dark thing in him to take him over, and she braced herself for it. If she was honest, she was waiting for him to reach out and his put his hands on her again the way he had the last time. She was waiting for his kiss as surely as if he’d cast a spell and that was her only hope of breaking it—
It was astonishing, really, how much of a fool she was when it counted.
But Rodolfo’s hard, beguiling mouth only curved as if there wasn’t a world of seething darkness in his eyes, and somehow that sent heat spiraling all the way through her.
“Maybe it should be, princess,” he said softly, so softly, as if he was seducing her where he stood. As if he was the spell and there was no breaking it, not when he was looking at her like that, as if no one else existed in all the world. “Maybe a little chaos is exactly what you need.”
