AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Love guided her fingers to loosen the knot on her wrap and let it slip from one shoulder. Cool air hit her sensitised skin. Her nipples peaked.
From the corridor came a long, harsh indrawn breath.
Emboldened, she let the wrap slide again, baring both shoulders.
There was a thud as something landed against the door. A set of fingers appeared, curled around its edge, as if a big body was braced against it.
She heard the faintest low groan. Then all was still.
Had he ever seen anything more lovely? Anything he’d wanted more?
How easy to cross the space between them, gather her up and just this once forget all the things he couldn’t have, and didn’t deserve, and lose himself in her sweetness?
But they would meet tomorrow publicly at the party, amidst George and his spies. For her safety, he needed her to behave as though she detested him.
He emerged from the shadows. Her expression drew him forward, step after helpless step, until he stood before her.
The light and welcome in her eyes was nearly his undoing. She lifted her hand, placed her palm against his cheek. On tiptoe, she stretched up to kiss his lips. ‘Welcome home,’ she said.
He fought the driving need to pull her against him and take them both down onto the sofa. Instead he grasped her wrist and pulled her hand from his face.
‘It is not your place to welcome me back. This is not your home. I only came to tell you I shall be making arrangements for you to leave straight after my father’s party. Four weeks you’ve been here. You’re on the verge of overstaying your welcome, don’t you think?’
He didn’t wait for her response. He knew the hurt in her big eyes would destroy him. And how could he explain why he’d rejected her without revealing what she was?
So he turned and walked away, raging with longing and regret, and melted into the darkness, wishing he’d never been there at all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LILYPACEDTHEveranda outside her rooms, attempting to steady her nerves.
Her evening gown—a chartreuse silk-satin number, and the single most beautiful thing she’d ever worn—whispered across her toes as she walked. Her newly buffed and freshly painted toes.
That afternoon a cadre of hairdressers and beauticians had set up camp in her suite. From the top of her glossy chignon to the soles of her baby-soft feet she’d been primped and preened till she barely recognised the elegant creature they’d created. Even the seamstress had been on hand, to ensure her gown fitted to perfection—the gown Eleanor had insisted she buy the day Khaled had footed the bill.
She should tear it from her body. Go out there clothed in nothing but a bed sheet rather than parade herself wearing anything his money had bought.
But, oh,this dress...
From the swirling hem it rose upwards, its heavy silk lovingly skimming her figure and ending just above the swell of her breasts. A drape of fabric slanted from one shoulder to slide provocatively from the other, revealing impossibly tiny shoestring straps. Then came the truly daring part of the design. The dress plunged at the back, to bare her skin almost to the base of her spine.
She made a turn, shivering in excitement as the sultry evening air drifted across her exposed back. She’d never felt so alluring, so utterly feminine.
Well, good.
Tonight she wanted to be a temptress, a goddess, a veritable man-slayer.
Tonight she wanted to be so desirable that a certain crown prince would be clawing the walls with frustration when he discovered she would never, ever allow him to touch her again. Not if he fell to his knees and begged.
Rejection twice over was enough for a girl to get the message. She wouldn’t be risking it a third time.
She sashayed through another turn, shakier this time as she remembered just how it felt to be touched by him...as if a melancholy angel had come down and swept her to heaven.
How pitiful—remembering those moments amongst all the other ones, far less pleasant, when he’d been autocratic, a bully.
Oh, she hated him!
For believing Nate could be a thief.
