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And before she could enlighten him, he started to move.
She was stiff in his arms, which he assumed was another form of protest. Rodolfo ignored it, sweeping her around the room and leading her through the steps she appeared to be pretending not to know, just as he’d promised he would.
“You cannot trip me up, princess,” he told her when she relaxed just slightly in his hold and gave herself over to his lead. “I was raised to believe a man can only call himself a man when he knows how to dance well, shoot with unerring accuracy and argue his position without either raising his voice or reducing himself to wild, unjustified attacks on his opponent.”
“Well,” she said, and she sounded breathless, which he felt in every part of his body like an ache, “you obviously took that last part to heart.”
“I am also an excellent shot, thank you for asking.”
“Funny, the tabloids failed to report that. Unless you’re speaking in innuendo? In which case, I must apologize, but I don’t speak twelve-year-old boy.”
He let out a laugh that had the heads nearest them turning, because no one was ever so giddy when on display like this, especially not him. Rodolfo was infamous because he called attention to himself in other ways, but never like this. Never in situations like these, all stuffy protocol and too many spectators. Never with anything that might be confused forjoy.
“You must be feeling better if you’re this snappish, princess.”
“I wasn’t feeling bad. Unless you count the usual dismay anyone might feel at being bullied onto a dance floor in the company of a rather alarming man who dances very much like he flings himself off the sides of mountains.”
“With a fierce and provocative elegance? The envy of all who witness it?”
“With astonishing recklessness and a total lack of regard for anyone around you. Much in the same vein as your entire life, Your Highness, if the reports are true.” She lifted one shoulder, then let it drop in as sophisticated and dismissive a shrug as he’d ever seen. “Or even just a little bit true, for that matter.”
“And if you imagine that was bullying, princess, you have led a very charmed life, indeed. Even for a member of a royal house dating back to, oh, the start of recorded history or thereabouts, surrounded by wealth and ease at every turn.”
“What do you want, Rodolfo?” she asked then, and that near-playful note he was sure he’d heard in her voice was gone. Her expression was grave. As if she was yet another stranger, this one different than before. “I don’t believe that this marriage is anything you would have chosen, if given the opportunity. I can’t imagine why you’re suddenly pretending otherwise and proclaiming your commitment to fidelity in random hotel suites. What I do understand is that we’re both prepared to do our duty and have been from the start. And I support that, but there’s nothing wrong with maintaining a civil, respectful distance while we go about it.”
“I would have agreed with you in every respect,” he said, and he should have been worried about that fervent intensity in his tone. He could feel the flames of it licking through him, changing him, making him something other than the man he’d thought he was all this time. Something that should have set off alarms in every part of him, yet didn’t. “But that was before you walked into your father’s reception rooms and rather than blending into the furniture the way you usually did, opted to attack me instead.”
“Of course.” And Rodolfo had the strangest sensation that she was studying him as if he was a museum exhibit, not her fiancé. Hardly even a man—which should have chastened him. Instead, it made him harder. “I should have realized that to a man like you, with an outsize ego far more vast and unconquerable than any of the mountain peaks you’ve summited in your desperate quest for meaning, any questioning of any kind is perceived as an attack.”
“You are missing the point, I think,” Rodolfo said, making no attempt to hide either the laughter in his voice or the hunger in his gaze, not put off by her character assassinations at all. Quite the opposite. “Attack me all you like. It doesn’t shame me in the least. Surely you must be aware thatshameis not the primary response I have to you, princess. It is not even close.”
She didn’t ask him what he felt instead, but he saw a betraying, bright flush move over her face. And he knew she was perfectly aware of the things that moved in him, sensation and need, hunger and that edgy passion—and more, that she felt it, too.
Perhaps that was why, when they danced past a set of huge, floor-to-ceiling glass doors that led out to a wide terrace for the third time, he led her out into the night instead of deeper into the ballroom.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Rodolfo thought it was meant to be a demand—a rebuke, even—but her cheeks were too red. Her eyes were too bright. And most telling, she made no attempt to tug her hand from his, much less lecture him any further about chaos and order and who was on which side of that divide.
“Nothing could be less chaotic than a walk on a terrace in full view of so many people,” he pointed out, not bothering to look behind him at the party they’d left in full swing. He had no doubt they were all staring after him, the way they always did, and with more intensity than ever because he was with Valentina. “Unless you’d like it to be?”
“Certainly not. Some people admire the mountain from afar, Your Highness. They are perfectly happy doing so, and feel no need whatsoever to throw themselves off it or climb up it or attempt to ski down the back of it.”
“Ah, but some people do not live, princess. They merely exist.”
“Risking death is not living. It’s nihilistic. And in your case, abominably selfish.”
“Perhaps.” He held her hand tighter in his. “But I would not underestimate the power of a little bout of selfishness, if I were you. Indulge yourself, princess. Just for an evening. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I shudder to think,” she retorted, but there was no heat in it.
Rodolfo pretended not to hear the catch in her throat. But he smiled. He liberated two glasses of something exquisite from a passing servant with a tray, he pulled his fascinating princess closer to his side and then he led her deeper into the dark.
