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Elsbeth was helpless to stop her interlocked fingers from squeezing his or from searching the green eyes swirling with an emotion that terrified her, knowing if she stared long enough she could trick herself into believing that he cared. For her. When she knew it was impossible.
He wasn’t heartless, but she already knew that. The truth about her life in the House of Fernandez had disturbed him, she’d seen it in the contortions of his face. His disgust at the situation there would be the same whoever had told it to him.
It came to her that she’d only confided the full truth because she trusted he wouldn’t use it as a weapon to subjugate her, a threat like the bogeyman:If you don’t behave, you’ll be sent back to Monte Cleure.
What she couldn’t do though, was trust her heart to him. Not when his heart was frozen to her.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
He shook his head, leaning in closer and matching the whisper of her voice. ‘You have nothing to thank me for.’
Don’t do this, she silently begged.If you’re going to leave then leave. Don’t drag it out. Don’t make it even harder for me.
But her lips tingled at the whisper of his breath on them. The sigh of her heart had expanded into the hollow gap and, with it, lit the switch inside her so flickers of awareness zipped through cells still luxuriating in the sensations from just a short while ago, and deep inside her pelvis the flame reignited.
Hunger flared in the eyes gazing so intently into hers.
He was going to kiss her again.
Elsbeth swallowed the moisture that had filled her mouth. As badly as she ached to be gathered back into Amadeo’s arms and experience all those glorious sensations again, at that moment her heart was too full and vulnerable to dare risk opening it even more to him. She needed to assert the freedom he’d just spelled out belonged to her and ask him to leave.
But then came the gentle fusion of his lips with hers and any thought of making him leave her bed flew away as she surrendered to the magic of his touch.
CHAPTER TEN
AMADEOWOKEWITHa start.
From the faint light seeping into the room, it was the cusp of morning.
He didn’t remember turning his bedside light out.
Technically, it wasn’t his bedside light. It was Elsbeth’s. Because this was Elsbeth’s bed in Elsbeth’s room in Elsbeth’s quarters. It was her warm body lying so close, her hip his hand was splayed on. Her rhythmic breathing the only sound in his ears.
There was a tightening in his guts as strong as the arousal in his loins. He didn’t know where the tightening came from.
Making love to her a second time...
That hadn’t been in the plan but he’d been caught in the moment.
The tightness eased as rationality returned. The rules set out before they had married and agreed with Elsbeth on their wedding night, had been separate quarters and separate personal lives. The other part of the agreement, spoken of and agreed privately between the two of them, had been to share her bed each Saturday until a child was conceived. Only by his own precedent had this been interpreted as him leaving straight after sex. Until the sun rose, it could still be interpreted as Saturday night rather than Sunday morning. But not for much longer.
It was time to return to his quarters.
Dio, extricating his body from hers felt like the hardest task in the world.
Careful not to wake her, he got out of bed and pulled his trousers on. Gathering the rest of his clothing, he took one last look at her before leaving the room.
Only when she heard the sound of the bedroom door closing did Elsbeth dare open her tear-filled eyes.
Oh, you silly fool.Why didn’t you tell him to leave when you had the chance?
Swallowing back more tears, she reached for Amadeo’s pillow and held it tightly to her chest.
Sébastien was explaining how his racing team had managed to achieve an average pitstop of two seconds. Usually, there was nothing Amadeo loved more than listening to his old school friend wax lyrical about his team’s feats of engineering. As the motor racing calendar was on a two-week break, Sébastien’s team were back in Ceres, testing and working hard to bring about all the incremental advantages that were the difference between first place and second.
Motor racing was a rules-based sport. Teams who flouted those rules could expect sanctions, and rightly so. Rules were the structure within which Amadeo lived his life. Without rules, systems were dismantled and anarchy given space to flourish. He’d obeyed the rule of not endangering his own life when he’d stepped aside all those years ago and let his number two take the wheel of the go-cart he’d taken the lead on engineering. Sébastien had been his number two.
It was possible he would have resented his friend if he’d used that race and the go-cart they’d created as a springboard to becoming a racing driver, but Sébastien was as clear-minded as Amadeo. He didn’t have the talent to make it as a racing driver but he had the drive to create his own team. Amadeo had used some of his personal fortune to back that team and it had given him great satisfaction over the years watching them climb the ladder of success. Through his old friend and the team Sébastien commanded, Amadeo could live vicariously the path he would have taken had he not been born a prince.
