She melted into him. What had provoked him to ask permission to kiss her? He didn’t know. All he knew was that the desire had become overwhelming. And when his mouth met hers…
He’d kissed women in his time. None like this.
She was warm and tender, close to tears and close to laughter, exhausted by jet lag and by fear of losing Zoe, intimidated beyond belief by her surroundings…and yet she was courageous beyond belief and she was melting into his arms as if she belonged here. She was kissing as well as being kissed. Her lips were demanding, opening, aching for him, and taking him as well as giving herself.
She felt right.
She felt like…home. Home and heart.
There was a ridiculous thought. And, as the acknowledgement of how crazy it was hit home, other realities slammed in.
He did not need to be attracted to this woman. This woman meant family.
He did not do family.
All this flooded through his consciousness like a shock wave, breaking the passion of the kiss, causing his arms to stiffen a little, causing him to break away…
Or maybe it was Elsa who broke away. He hardly knew. All that was certain was that she was still in his arms but the kiss had ended and he felt a flood of regret so deep it threatened to overwhelm him.
And Elsa’s eyes were clouding as well, distancing herself from him, her arms untwining themselves from around his neck and pushing against his chest. Pushing him away.
‘What…what do you think you’re doing?’ she whispered and he knew her confusion was at least as great as his.
‘What do we both think we’re doing?’ he said ruefully and looked down into her face and saw fear.
Fear? Where had that come from? Surely she couldn’t be afraid of him.
He was a prince in a royal palace and she was…a royal nanny.
He stood up as if she burned, taking a swift step back from the bed. If she could think that…
But…‘You needn’t worry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not thinking you’re about to rape and pillage. I have a scream that can be heard into the middle of next week.’
‘Good for you,’ he said unsteadily.
‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘I never would.’
She closed her eyes. It was a defence, he knew, but he never doubted for a moment that she’d sleep.
He stood looking down at her for a long moment, trying to think of what to say. Trying to think of how he could take this from here.
‘Go away,’ she muttered again.
Go away? It was the only sensible thing to do.
Of course it was the sensible thing to do.
Go away, he repeated to himself and it was a direct order, but only he knew how much effort it cost him to turn on his heel and walk out of the door.
If Zoe hadn’t been asleep in the next bed…
Maybe it was just as well she was.
CHAPTER NINE
ELSA woke and sunlight was streaming in though the massive French windows of their bedroom. The crystals from the chandelier above her head were sending glittering sparkles across the room.
Zoe was sitting on the end of her bed, fully dressed in another of the lovely outfits Stefanos had bought for her.
She was cuddling a kitten. A small grey kitten with a white nose, white paws and a tiny tip of white on the end of his tail.
‘Go say hello to Elsa,’ Zoe said, and put the kitten down and watched in satisfaction as the small creature walked along the coverlet, crouched down and put a paw out to tentatively touch Elsa’s chin.
‘What…where did he come from?’ Elsa managed, doing a speedy visual check of the room in case Stefanos was lurking behind the curtains. Not that she was afraid of Stefanos. Not exactly.
But she wouldn’t put it past the man to lurk.
‘Stefanos gave him to me,’ Zoe said with deep satisfaction. ‘He said I must be missing my cats at home and he’s mine to keep. His name is Buster.’
‘Yours to keep…’ Elsa said cautiously. This needed thinking about.
There were things like quarantine laws. It was easy enough, she knew, to get animals from Australia to Europe, but taking them the other way…
She’d just woken up and here was another instance of Stefanos’s arrogance. He’d have planned this before last night, she thought. Before she’d known he was leaving. He’d assumed he could talk her round.
He had talked her round.
But something wasn’t making sense. Zoe was up and dressed. She’d gone to sleep-what-at five or six p.m.?
She checked her wristwatch.
Eleven.
She sat bolt upright and yelped. Buster bolted for the far end of the bed, where his new mistress scooped him up and held him close.
‘You’re scaring him,’ she said, reproachful.
‘I’m scaring myself. How can it be morning already?’
‘It’s been morning for ages,’ Zoe said. ‘I woke up and waited and waited but you kept sleeping. And then I opened the door and there was a really nice lady sitting in the corridor and she said her name was Christina and she’d been waiting for me to wake up. She helped me have a bath-it’s a really big bath, Elsa, you should see it-and she helped me with my clothes and then she took me down for breakfast and Stefanos was there. So we had a really yummy breakfast-strawberries, Elsa-and then Stefanos took me to the stables and gave me Buster. And I brought him up to show you but you were
This was just about the longest speech Zoe had ever made. She sat back on the bed and cuddled Buster the kitten, and Elsa smiled at her in pleasure and wonder. The as-yet-not-met Christina must be good to have Zoe smiling after a bath. To be remembering it with pleasure.
But there was another part of her that was saying uh-oh.
Stefanos was truly seducing them, she thought, watching Zoe’s face flush with excitement. He’d already seduced her little charge. Zoe might be hugging her kitten but every time she said Stefanos’s name her voice took on the hush of hero worship.
He’d given her strawberries for breakfast. He’d given her a kitten.
Bribery, she thought.
And what was he trying on her?
Seduction of another kind.
But…she kind of liked it.
Matty, Matty, Matty, she thought fiercely but it didn’t work. Wherever Matty was, however much she’d loved him, he was no longer protection against Stefanos.
‘Do you want to get up now?’ Zoe said. ‘Stefanos wants to take you out to lunch. He said you both need to talk privately about boring stuff, so he asked if I’d mind staying here with Christina and Buster. And Christina thought she might show me the beach. If that’s okay with you,’ she added, but her tone said Elsa’s agreement was never in doubt.
It couldn’t be in doubt. Elsa inspected the request from all angles. There was a lot to consider.
