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He reared up and stared down at her. ‘Dios. How did you get out of that?’
‘I let myself be arrested again. I reckoned the police station was a safer place than the street. It was where I met Stephen. He was an MP then, touring the police station and I...’ She stopped and grimaced.
‘You what?’
A dull flush crept up her cheeks. ‘I may have tripped him up when he walked past me.’
He couldn’t help his smile. She answered with one of her own. Unable to resist, Reyes kissed her. When he lifted his head, she was breathless and her delicious mouth was swollen. ‘I presume that got his attention?’
She nodded. ‘He could’ve filed charges against me for assault. Instead bailed me out and he took me out for a coffee. We talked for hours. He delivered me home and met my mother. Then he started visiting us every week. A few months later I started taking on the gangs myself. But instead of knives and guns, I used words. I managed to mediate a truce between them and even extracted a promise from the leaders not to recruit children to run drugs for them.’
‘That’s where you got your passion for mediation from?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I returned to school, made good grades and got my first job at twenty-one. Stephen married my mother, and I guess the rest is history.’ Her eyes met his and shifted away. ‘Until Rio, that is. I’m so sorry about that, Reyes.’
Catching her chin with his finger, he tilted her face. ‘I know you are. I forgive you. I judged you harshly before I knew the truth behind your actions. You tried to protect your family the only way you knew how.’
‘But I ended up making things worse for you and your people.’
‘You’re here now, helping to fix it. That matters to me. With a new council in place, Mendez will no longer be able to play his games. The route may have been unfortunate, but perhaps it achieved something positive in the end. So from now on, we’ll consider Rio another lesson we’ll both learn from. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ she replied tremulously.
He brushed away the tears forming in her eyes. His head swimming with sensations he could barely grapple with, Reyes slanted his mouth over hers. When he was kissing her like this, he didn’t have to think. Didn’t have to wonder why he craved her even more with each kiss, each heartbeat.
He didn’t have to wonder why he wished they were already married and this were their honeymoon.
A stomach growled. He raised his head. ‘I believe that was you.’
She grimaced. ‘Jet lag kept me asleep through lunch, and I think we missed dinner.’
Reyes reached for his discarded trousers and took out his phone. He sent his chef the appropriate instructions and hung up.
‘Dinner is coming to us?’ A smile that seemed to grow more breathtaking each time curved her lips.
‘Sí. The perks of being a prince. You will command equal power once you’re my princess.’
A shadow passed over her face. He wanted to demand to know the reason behind it. Something stopped him.
Her fingers drifted over his brow and down to his cheek. ‘What will we do after we eat?’
‘I will bathe you and you will let me explore the rest of your scars.’
* * *
Jasmine woke in the middle of night. Although the bedroom in the wedding-cake house where they’d relocated to boasted a fire, Reyes hadn’t lit it when he’d carried her in. They’d had more urgent things in mind.
Now the room had cooled and she shivered. Glancing down, she realised why. The covers had slipped to the floor and the only things keeping her warm were Reyes’s muscular thigh and arm. Which left the rest of her body chilled.
Carefully sliding away, she picked up the nearest sheet and walked into the bathroom.
After using it, she came back to the bed.
Reyes was snoring softly, his face even more relaxed in sleep than it’d been this evening. A lock of hair had fallen over his brow and she itched to smooth it away but stopped herself.
Over and over tonight, her heart had filled to bursting when he’d made love to her. Somewhere around midnight, she’d finally admitted that she’d fallen in love with the Crown Prince of Santo Sierra.
She loved a man who had had his heart broken, not just by one woman, but by two. And while Anaïs’s betrayal had been short-term, his mother’s had gone on for years.
Her heart stuttered and tears prickled her eyes. He stirred in his sleep.
She turned away and walked quickly out of the bedroom before he woke. She couldn’t risk him seeing her expression. He’d been too adept at reading her moods lately. She couldn’t afford to let him see that, while she was certain he’d love their baby, she could foresee herself yearning for a love he could never give her.
