Читать книгу Virgin Princess's Marriage Debt - Pippa Roscoe - Страница 12

AS SOFIA STEPPED away from the second of the would-be suitors with a resigned smile, she realised that she was losing hope. Neither he nor the first were right and she couldn’t help but feel that she was expecting the impossible. She was the worst Goldilocks ever. But as much as she didn’t want to rush into another marriage, she didn’t have a choice.

She hung back around the edges of the grand ballroom, thankful that she was hidden amongst the crowds of people watching the figures making their way round the dance floor. She had dismissed her personal assistant in order to speak to the suitors alone, and relished the opportunity for the closest thing to anonymity she’d experienced in almost ten years. The fine golden leaf-like swirls of her mask tickled at the edges of her hair, but she would take that minor discomfort for the concealment it offered. It swept upward, asymmetrically, to one side, and matched the colour of her dress perfectly.

Sofia bit back a laugh as she imagined for a moment that this would be how a wallflower, found between the pages of some historical romance, felt. Both terrified and hopeful of being plucked from obscurity to dance beneath the candlelit chandeliers by the handsome prince. But hers wasn’t that kind of story. No, she was the royal and it seemed that the second sons, or cousins—like the two previous candidates who had seemed so fine on paper—had quite definitive ideas about their place within her royal office.

She had never wanted it. Not in truth. As a child, she had hardly been perfect princess material. Her parents had despaired and sent her to boarding school, tired of having to bribe the Iondorran press to silence yet another social faux pas on their daughter’s behalf. For security reasons they had all agreed to keep her royal status a secret. But for Sofia it hadn’t been about a desire for protection, it had been her last attempt for something normal, to be treated like anyone else. But ultimately that had backfired in the most spectacularly painful way.

She became aware of the feeling of someone watching her. As a princess, she was reluctantly familiar with the sensation, but this was different. This felt different. The hairs on her arms lifted beneath the unseen gaze, and her pulse picked up at her neck almost painfully. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was somehow being sought out…hunted.

She cast a glance around the room to see if she could identify the source. A sea of vivid masks and incredible costumes greeted her, and she caught herself in the unconscious protective movement she hated as her hand went to soothe the phantom sensitivity at her ribs caused by that awful night a year and a half ago.

She was surrounded by people, all engaged in conversations, bodies pressed closer together by the illicit nature given to the mass by the disguise of masks and costumes, but none seemed to be looking her way.

Discarding the feeling as foolish, much like her earlier impression that somehow her life was going to change irrevocably, she searched for Angelique, who had gone to locate her final suitor, but saw no sign of either of them. As the orchestra picked up the threads of a familiar waltz a feeling of nostalgia swept over her.

She could only hold out hope for this final suitor, because without him her country would be left vulnerable and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow that to happen.

It was not her father’s fault that he’d been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. But she couldn’t help but feel responsible that she hadn’t been ready to assume royal duties earlier to prevent the extreme financial loss her country had experienced under his unstable reign. Feel embarrassed that she had been so carefree and reckless as to need two years of strong, mindful guardianship to ensure that she wouldn’t bring further damage to Iondorra as every wilful, mindless frippery was ironed out of her character. Feel that sense of guilt that the necessary secrecy of her father’s ill health had continued for so long…the silence almost as painful as the disease itself. For surely if she had been a better princess, a better ruler, they wouldn’t have had to indulge in this secrecy?

She thought of her mother, tucked away in the privacy of the smaller holdings of the royal family in Iondorra, imprisoned with her husband and a handful of staff and medical professionals ready to manage and care for whatever latest outpouring of anger, frustration or confusion her father experienced almost daily now.

She knew she needed to accept the grief at the loss of a man who had once been a loving father and a fantastic ruler, but she just couldn’t. She had grown to almost resent the days of coherence as much as the ones where all semblance of his sanity was lost. They were the ones that she hated most. When she saw her father once again as the man who had loved her, laughed with her, despite the strict requirements he needed her to adhere to. Of course, that was before the diagnosis and her sudden and shocking departure from the international boarding school. Ever since then her life had become one solely of duty.

A waiter paused by her side, offering her a glass of prosecco. She knew that she needed to keep a clear head for this evening, but she couldn’t help but clasp the fine glass stem, relishing the cool liquid as it fizzed and bubbled on her tongue.

She was just about to leave the confines of the crowd around her when the hairs on her neck lifted once again and she felt enveloped by the warmth from a body close behind her. Shocked at the proximity of the unseen figure, she breathed in, ready to turn, when the musky, earthy scent of cologne hit her and held her still. It was unfamiliar amongst the sickly sweet, almost chemical fragrance of many of the men here. He waited, as if allowing her to become familiar with his presence, before sweeping around to stand in front of her and bowing long and low. As he straightened and held a hand out to her, she took in the way the white mask disguised his face and almost smiled as his head cocked to one side towards the dance area. The gesture seeming both inquisitive and vaguely arrogant at the same time. A challenge almost, as if daring her to refuse his request.

A feeling familiar, yet so distant as to almost be heartbreaking, rose in her chest. Defiance, recklessness and something more…something almost tantalising made her reach out, made her place her hand in his, even though no word had been spoken, even though the mask he wore concealed his identity. As his fingers closed over hers and he led her towards the dance area she felt a strange sense of vertigo, reminding her of the precipice she had imagined herself upon earlier that evening.

Her thoughts were sent scattering and fleeing as the figure released her to bring her whirling around in such a way that she had to press her hand to the man’s chest in order to prevent herself from crashing into him and losing her balance and breath in one move.

The warmth that greeted the palm of her hand through the thin shirt burned her, sending tingles and fire bursts across her skin and neck, raising a blush of sudden and shocking heat to her cheeks. But, as she went to pull back, his hand came down against hers, anchoring it in place. She stared at his fingers, unaccountably reluctant to see the face of her captor. The deep tan spoke of sunshine and heat, and her eyes snagged on the roughly calloused skin covering the powerful hand.

As the music began he pulled her hand away from his chest into the traditional hold for the waltz as warmth and something else, something almost dizzying, spun out from his hold at her back. The positioning was wrong—his hand too close to the base of her spine to be appropriate for strangers, almost possessive in a way that fired her blood and sent a thrill through her that settled horrifyingly low within her. But that was madness. Surely she couldn’t be feeling the stirrings of desire for a complete stranger?

His hold was firm, commanding, and, God help her, she relished it, welcomed it, the need to give herself over to this one stolen moment, for someone else to take the weight of responsibility and duty that almost crippled her. Hidden by the disguise of her mask, she was convinced that this man had no idea who she was. He couldn’t, because surely he wouldn’t behave so daringly with a princess? And the freedom that thought offered sang in her veins. That just for this moment she could be something other than the Widow Princess. Simply Sofia—herself, a woman with nothing more on her mind than dancing with a handsome man. For despite the mask he wore, she could tell he was handsome. The breadth of him, the smoothness of his skin, the inherent confidence more appealing than any physique she could determine. Her heart kicked within her chest as the stranger guided her into the first steps of the waltz, and she raised her gaze, expecting to find him looking down at her intently.

But he wasn’t.

She traced the angle of his neck with her eyes, the fine, straight cord powerful and determined, to a jaw that was stubbled in a way that almost wilfully challenged propriety. Treated only to his profile, she consumed every inch of what she could see, and her body reacted as if it had been starved of the sight of it. Which made no sense.

The turn of his head hid the bare section of the mask she recognised from a well-known musical, concealing much of what she could see. His eyes were focused on some distant point on the other side of the room and the heady scent of him filled her lungs as she breathed through the steps of the dance.

There was something almost cold about the way his head was turned away from her…as if, despite the intimacy of the hold, he was forcing himself to touch her. And suddenly she felt nauseous. As if her body had somehow tricked her, fooled her into thinking that…what? That her Prince Charming had finally come for her? As if sensing her sudden resistance, her attempt to flee before it had even registered in her mind, he tightened his embrace, all the while remaining turned away from her.

Realising the futility of escape, she used the time to observe the stranger. He was tall, at least six feet, if not more. His shoulders, though pressed back in a perfect frame for the waltz, somehow managed to crowd her in a way that made her, made them, feel isolated from the other couples on the dance floor. He led her almost expertly through the movements of the dance and her body’s muscle memory bowed to his command. While her mind raced with outrage and confusion that she would be so ignored, so manhandled, her body soared at the unspoken dominance.

The stranger had yet to say a word to her and somehow that made this moment all the more surreal, as if they had mutually agreed that speaking would break this strange spell that he was weaving around her. She knew she should break it though, she knew she should be outraged, terrified even, but there was something…the breadth of him, the feel of his hand within hers…both strange and familiar.

She felt known by him, even if she did not know him. She began to count down the steps to the end of the dance, recognising the cadence and swell of the music as her pulse beat within her chest in time with the waltz, in time with him.

She didn’t know what to expect when the dance came to an end. Would he finally speak? Would he look at her, or would he disappear as easily as he had swept her towards the dance floor? She both longed for and resisted the end to this moment and as he brought their steps to a close, bowed, deep and low, her curtsey only half what it should be, because she had yet to be able to take her gaze from finally seeing who this stranger was.

Only when their eyes met, a sob escaped her mouth as she caught the devastating brown orbs, dark against the pure white of the mask, and she was filled with a fury and anger that stole her breath. She actually felt the single lost heartbeat caused by the jolt of recognition.

Theo Tersi.

Theo had feared that he might not recognise her here amongst the disguises and outrageous costumes of such rich company. He had lost Sebastian to his own personal pursuits some half an hour before, and had been beginning to lose patience. It had to be tonight. It had to be now. Everything in him had been building to this moment for years. He would not let this chance pass.

In truth, it was his body that had recognised her first. The way his pulse unaccountably hitched in his chest, the way awareness had pulled from him an almost electric current that snapped and hissed across his skin. And when he finally did see her, clinging to the edges of the ballroom, he knew that he shouldn’t have doubted himself. Even had he not gone to sleep each night for ten years with her face the last thing he saw, the lies and abused promises on her lips the last thing he heard, he would have known her in the dark surrounded by a thousand people. Because she shone like a beacon of pure golden light and he bitterly noted that it had nothing to do with her costume. She had looked like the stepdaughter in the Mother Holle story told to him by his mother in childhood—the one who passed beneath a waterfall of gold. Yet he knew better. She was the other sister—the one who should have been covered in tar.

He hadn’t intended to lead her into the waltz, but the moment the idea struck, it wouldn’t loosen its grip on his mind. He knew that she wouldn’t recognise him, certainly not if he kept his head turned away from her. She probably hadn’t given him a second thought since setting him up to take the fall for her pranks. Or maybe she had, laughing to herself long and hard at how she’d manipulated him, how she’d got him to do her bidding.

Holding her and not looking at her had been a sweet torture. He’d wanted to bare his gaze to her, bore into her the feelings of anger, pain and betrayal… But when he had finally met her eyes, holding them captive with his own, he’d nearly cursed. Because it was he who consumed every emotion that flickered and sparked in her sapphire-blue eyes.

After all these years he’d thought himself immune to her. He’d thought the consequences of her actions would have made him impenetrable to the insatiable desire for her…but the way her body had melted into his, the flickering of her pulse beneath his hand, mocked him as his body had claimed her in the most primal of ways. Because no matter what had passed between them, his body still wanted her, still craved her touch.

Until the jolt of recognition from Sofia that he felt against his skin, the irrefutable horror that filled her gaze.

Now she knew him.

He was about to open his mouth, when her sudden, shocking departure slammed it shut. She had picked up her skirts and was racing away from the ballroom floor, disappearing into the crowd of people. But she would not get away that easily. He saw her at the wide French doors, open to the beckoning darkness of the gardens, and a smile curved the edges of his lips.

Theo Tersi drew out his mobile phone, and as he followed her out into the night he fired off a text to the man he had waiting on standby. If she failed to offer him the apology he so very much deserved, Sofia de Loria would regret the day she had ever thought to play him.

Plunged into the darkness of the Parisian night, he stalked amongst the manicured gardens, expecting to have to hunt much more than he did, and nearly crashed into her.

‘What are you doing here?’ Sofia demanded, apparently satisfied that there were no longer people to overhear them as her raised voice was carried away on the night air. Her outrage struck him low in the chest.

‘Why? Not used to discovering an ill-bred bastard amongst your high-society companions?’

‘What?’ He noticed her brow pucker in momentary confusion. ‘That has nothing to do with anything.’

‘No? I’d have thought your security teams would have vetted every single person here, check their DNA for their blue-blood credentials.’

‘Don’t be such a snob.’

Now he was outraged. ‘How dare you accuse me of being a snob?’

‘Just because it’s reverse snobbery, it doesn’t make it any less prejudicial.’

‘You’re speaking nonsense.’

‘Because I disagree with you? You never did—’

‘Don’t. Do not talk to me of what I did or did not do in the past,’ he spat as he lifted his mask away from his face and cast it aside onto the thick emerald grass of the gardens.

He watched her almost physically bite her tongue and he used the moment to take her in. The Sofia he knew had been breathtaking, but Sofia de Loria the Princess was obscenely beautiful. Her cheeks had lost some of the softness, striking cheekbones sculpting her face to perfection. The thick plaits of golden hair wrapped around her head glowed silver in the starlight of the night sky. A high brow made even more superior with the arch of a perfect, rich, honeyed eyebrow peeking out from the top of the mask, brilliant golden furls glinting in the moonlight.

And, as always, crystal-blue eyes crackled and sparked as she tried to repress the anger she clearly felt. An anger he matched, if not exceeded. Oh, he’d had his share of beautiful women in the last two years, once he’d given himself permission to relish and enjoy the success that all his hard work had reaped. Once he’d lifted his self-imposed embargo on sensual pursuits. But no matter how many times he’d cursed her to hell and back, he’d never been able to deny Sofia’s beauty.

But even in that he knew he lied to himself. It wasn’t just a simple fact of her beauty. It was as if a chemical reaction had ignited within him, fizzing in his veins, urging him to reach out and touch her. Draw her to him and seek her mouth, her kiss…to feed the burning arousal he had really only ever felt with this woman. He wanted her, needed her, with every ounce of his being. But he fought it. He would not give in to the temptation she unconsciously offered.

Sofia felt her chest heave against the confines of the tight corset as her body struggled for an outlet for the anger and pure shock at Theo’s appearance. Masked, he was impressive. Unmasked he was undeniable. Age had only honed what were already incredible features. Even in his youth he had stood heads above even the older students, and now she had to crane her neck to look up at his scowling gaze, his deep brown irises swirling like the richest espresso. His clenched jaw was dusted with a fine dark stubble as if, even in that, Theo rejected the same propriety that saw every other man there either clean-shaven or fully bearded. His straight nose created a sense of balance between the downward slashes of his cheekbones, and the night cast his proud jaw in deep shadows.

In obvious frustration he ran his hand through his thick hair and on any other man the result would have looked chaotic, but on Theo? It just made Sofia want to reach out and do the same. He was magnificent and for a second she imagined that she could reach for him, that she could draw him to her. Desire, thick and fast, rose up within her chest, even as she knew that she could not act upon it, should not feel it.

She tried not to flinch at the sound of apparent disgust as he finally turned that lethal focus of his to her, casting the entire length of her body in a glance that was anything but lazy, or accidental. No. There was purpose to this…to make her uncomfortable, and she hated that it was working.

‘If you’ve had your fill and there’s nothing else?’ She refused to stand there before his assessment and be found wanting. She just couldn’t. Not tonight. She still had to meet with Joachim, the third possible suitor, her last hope. She could not stand here caught between the past and her future—it was threatening to tear her apart.

Sofia turned to leave, but his hand snuck out and caught her at her wrist. His hold deceptively gentle. The delicate ring his fingers created around her skin thrummed with repressed tension. He tugged, and she almost fell against his chest and this time she just managed to stop her hand from leaning on his chest for…balance, she told herself. Balance.

With her hand still hovering mid-air between them, she risked a glance at his face. It was so close, angled down at her, lips that once she would have delighted in now cruelly sensual and taunting her with a knowing smile. But the anger in his eyes was easier to read than her own reaction, and she welcomed it, embraced it, used it to fuel her now.

‘I’m here for an apology.’

‘An apology?’ Sofia didn’t know how he’d caused her to revert to the stammering seventeen-year-old she’d once been. More than a decade of training, diplomacy, education and learning trade negotiations and she seemed only capable of two words around this man.

She knew she owed Theo an apology…more than that. An explanation at the very least, but before she could summon the words to her lips, he pressed on.

‘You doubt it?’

‘No, not at all, I—’

‘Do you know what I regret most? That even as I waited the first hour for you, the second, hidden amongst that ridiculous shrubbery, I didn’t even doubt you. It didn’t even cross my mind that you wouldn’t show. I waited, like a moon-eyed calf, half drunk on love for you. Even afterwards, when the headmaster came to find me, told me of the trick you pulled on his car, my first concern was for you, not for myself. My fear was that something had happened to you.’

She felt shame slash across her cheeks in a dark crimson blush, painful and stinging, as if he had slapped her with his hands rather than his words. And all the wishes, wonderings and dreams of what happened to him that night were painted in stark reality by his words.

‘It didn’t take me long to realise, though. Realise what you had done that night and in the weeks, months leading up to it. To realise that everything you had told me was lies, Your Highness.’

Secrets and lies had come back to haunt her and Sofia turned her head away, but his fingers, once again seemingly gentle, but determined, found her chin, and brought her back round to face him, to see the truth written in his eyes.

‘Can you imagine what it was like to realise that I had fallen in love with a fabrication? That everything I’d felt was simply the by-product of the ruse of a bored, pampered princess with nothing more to do with her time than to move people around a chessboard of her own imagination? That I was expelled because of your actions?’

Shock reared through her, and she stepped back as if she could distance herself from what he was saying.

‘I didn’t—’

‘You didn’t know?’ he demanded harshly, his fury palpable, shaking the very air between them. ‘You didn’t even know?’ He cursed harshly. ‘You all but ensured it when you left my scarf, my scarf, beneath the car. Tell me, did you even think of me when you ran back to your country playing the part of the perfect princess as I was kicked out of school? When I lost the scholarships to every single university I had gained entry to? When my mother was fired and we were forced to return to her family with little more than what we could carry? I thought of you, all the while knowing that everything we had lost, every struggle we experienced, was because of your lies!’

Sofia was struck dumb by the pain his words evoked, and the truth that lay within them. She hadn’t known that he had been expelled, she hadn’t even remembered that she’d been wearing his scarf when she pulled the prank with the car. Because that night, in between her plan to get revenge against the headmaster and meeting Theo, her parents had come to the school and revealed that her father had been diagnosed with early onset dementia. And in that moment, the bottom had fallen out of her world.

Every thought, hope and dream she’d ever held in her heart since falling in love with Theo had flashed through her mind, while she should have been focusing on the physical and mental sentence that had been handed to her father. That the entire time her parents had patiently tried to explain what that meant, what would happen, how she would have to ascend to the throne much sooner than anyone had ever planned for, all she had thought of was him. Theo. Standing there, waiting for her to come.

She had begged and pleaded with her parents to allow her to speak to Theo. To find him where he waited for her. To tell him what was happening. But her father had been uncompromising—no one could know of his diagnosis. No one. And then they had bundled her into a car, and then a private jet, and the whole time she had felt as if she had left her heart behind.

So, no. She hadn’t thought of what had happened to him after that night, because she couldn’t. She just couldn’t allow herself to go there. Because every time she did, what little remained of her heart fractured and shattered just a little bit more.

But she couldn’t explain that to Theo. Not now. Because her father’s diagnosis still had the power to rock the already shaky foundations of her precious country. Because this? This moment between them wasn’t about her or what she could say to justify what had happened that night. This was about him, and God help her, but she deserved every single word, every single feeling he expressed. She needed to honour that, because it was the only thing she would ever be able to give him.

‘Tell me, Sofia, did you mean any of it? The pleas you made, the plans…the future you fabricated, all the while knowing it was impossible? Punctuating lies with kisses? Untruths with touches and caresses? When did you know that you would ruin me, Sofia? Before you first spoke to me, or when you realised how easily manipulated I would be?’

‘That is enough,’ Sofia commanded, digging through the hurt to find some kind of strength to ward off the harshness of his words.

‘Enough? I’ve barely even begun. “Please take me away, Theo, I cannot return to Iondorra, Theo. Help me. Theo.”’ The cruel mockery his voice made of her childhood words stung as much as the memory of her desperation to escape the confines of a royal life she had been forced to accept.

Theo knew that he had gone too far. He had said too much. Revealed too much of his own pain and heartbreak. And he hated himself for that. He saw the moment that his words hit home, the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes more bright than any star that night. He cursed, the breeze carrying it away from them. He steeled himself against the innate sympathy welling within him, knowing better this time than to fall for her games.

‘Christós, I didn’t know you at all, did I?’

Suddenly the cord that had bound them in the past snapped, pinging away under the pressure of a decade of hurt and distance between them. And he watched, half fascinated as that royal mantle settled once more around her shoulders, leaving no trace of the young girl he had once loved. Instead, a fury stood before him, iron will steeling her spine and her body as if no soft movement had ever settled beneath her skin.

‘You are right. You did not know me. You knew a child. A girl who was reckless, pulled pranks and gave no heed to the people or things about her. A pampered young woman, who knew nothing of real life, or consequences. I am sorry if that girl hurt you, caused you pain. Truly. But she is gone, living only in your memories and imagination.’

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough, her half apology. Pain reared its ugly head. Not for the loss of her, he assured himself, but the years he endured after her. The years his mother endured. They did not live solely in his imagination. They were etched across his heart and hands as he had clawed his way to where he stood today.

‘Now, if you don’t mind—’

‘Off to find your next husband?’

She stilled her entire body. It was unusual for her, because everything about her contained a restless energy, its sudden and shocking absence such a stark contrast, and for a moment he could have been forgiven for thinking she’d turned to stone.

‘How do you…?’

He huffed out a cynical laugh. ‘Still keeping your secrets and lies close to your chest? Well, this time I’ve made sure that I will not fall for either. Unlike whatever poor bastard you’ve chosen for your next target.’

‘Target?’ she sighed, a scoffing sound that grated on his ears. It was too similar to the dismissive gestures of people who had thought themselves better than him. ‘You know nothing, Theo. Nothing of duty, of sacrifice. Nothing of what needs to be done as a royal.’

‘You think your concerns above those of mine?’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘Yes, I do. I have to.’

‘You once begged to wear my ring,’ he said, cursing the moment of weakness that allowed his inner thought to escape his lips. ‘And instead you married that insipid—’

‘Do not speak of him like that,’ she commanded.

‘Why not? I saw the pictures. Hell, the world saw the pictures of you together. You might as well have been siblings for all the connection you seemed to share. And after his death? You were the Widow Princess who never cried, for all you may try to profess your love for him.’ If it had not been so dark, Theo might have seen how Sofia paled beneath the moonlight, might have seen how much his barb had hit home. ‘Tell me, Sofia, did he ever make your pulse race, your body throb with desire? Did you ever crave his touch as you professed to crave mine?’

Theo caught the gasp that fell from Sofia’s lips, proving the truth of his words and enflaming the sensual web weaving between them, as if he had conjured the very reaction from her body by his words.

Anger, frustration and desire burned heavily on the air between them, and his eyes caught the rise and fall of her perfect breasts against the curve of the corseted dress she wore. Their argument had drawn them closer together, and he could have sworn he felt the press of her chest against his through the mere inches of air that separated them, thickening his blood and his arousal instantly.

‘Do you remember, Sofia? What is was like between us? Or were you faking everything?’ he demanded. Because somewhere, deep down, he needed to know. He needed to know if it had all been lies. Before him, Sofia swayed, caught within the same tide of desire that he felt pulling at his entire being.

Her lips parted, shining slightly as if recently slicked with her tongue, and he was desperate to taste, to touch, to consume. He needed to know if this time, with all the knowledge he now had, he would be able to taste the lies on her tongue.

His mind roared against it, but his body closed the distance between them, unable to resist the feel of her, the siren’s call she seemed to pull him in with. Surely his memory had exaggerated the way she had made him feel. Surely it could never have been that incredible.

He watched her closely, the way her eyes had widened as he’d moved closer, the way she too struggled with the thick, heavy want wrapping around them both. And he saw the moment she gave in to it. Gave in to the silent demand he hated his body for making.

He gave her the space of one breath, to turn, to flee, to refuse him. He gave himself that time, to turn back, to walk away. But when her pupils widened, that breath she took a sharp inhale, all but begging him to press the advantage, to make good on his unspoken promise, he was lost to the need pulsing in his chest. Lost to the insanity of what had been, what now was, between them.

‘Tell me you don’t want me, don’t want my kiss. Tell me, Sofia, and I’ll walk away. Lie to me again, Sofia,’ he challenged.

‘I can’t,’ she whispered, as if hating herself for the confession.

His arm swept around her small frame, drawing her to him and him into madness as his lips descended on hers with ten years of pent-up frustration, anger and a raging need that even the sweep of her tongue against his could not appease.

Passion and desire crackled in the air as they came together, her touch as bruising as his, the almost painful clash of lips, tongues, the merciful bite of teeth that brought clarity as much as it brought confusion.

He had thought himself lost, but a small part of him whispered instead that he’d been found. Found within her, the scent of her winding around him, pulling him even deeper into the kiss. It was everything he remembered and more. His pulse beat erratically in his ears, as if in warning, but it was drowned out by the gentle, almost pleading moans she made into his mouth. But whether Sofia was begging for more or less, he couldn’t tell. And that was what made him pull away.

He wrenched himself back, shocked by the intensity of what they had shared, Sofia, looking equally stunned, her mouth quickly covered by the back of her wrist, pressing their kiss to her lips or swiping it away, he couldn’t tell. He needed to sever whatever hold this madness had on him and quickly.

‘Now, there’s the Sofia I remember.’

‘You bastard,’ she cried and ran from the gardens towards the safety of the ballroom.

And he knew that, for possibly the first time in any of her exchanges, she had spoken the truth. He was a bastard. Because even as he had lost himself to the kiss, lost himself to the chaotic emotions storming within his chest, his mind was moving at the speed of light.

Because now, it was too late for her. The moment Sofia had issued that half-mustered apology had sealed her fate as surely as the shutter on the camera of the paparazzo Theo had hired to capture the moment of her compromise.

He let loose a bitter laugh. He had hoped that an image of them in a heated argument would do damage enough, but a kiss? So much better for his plan of revenge.

Yes. Sofia de Loria would very much regret the day she had ever thought to play him the fool.