She bit the corner of her mouth and dropped her gaze. “There are things in my past I only share on a need-to-know basis. Right now, you don’t need to know.”
She set aside the tray and flung back the blankets. She wore a silk nightgown that rode up her bare legs as she slid her feet to the floor.
“Don’t you have a throne to abdicate?” she asked.
He swallowed and forced his gaze upward to the suppressed turmoil in hers.
She was trying to throw him off with a glimpse of her legs and her air of nonchalance.
He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t falling for the diversion. Sexual awareness instantly throbbed like a drumbeat between them. His feet ambled him closer before he remembered he was trying to give her space.
“I do have a title to renounce,” he confirmed, gaze drawn to the way oyster-colored lace coyly pretended to hide her cleavage. It took everything in him to only caress her pale skin with his eyes. “Then I have a gala to attend. We do.”
“I’m not convinced our continuing to see one another is the best way forward.” Her head shake was more of an all-over tremble.
He closed his fists so he wouldn’t reach for her. “If you go scurrying home in disgrace, you really will be painted as the scarlet woman who toppled a kingdom. If you stick around and attend the gala where the new queen will speak to you, the whole thing will be reduced to a family squabble between my sister and I. You made arrangements to be here for two weeks, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“You don’t have to decide this instant. Let me finish my business, then we’ll talk more. Away from the palace,” he said. “We’ll shop for a gown for the gala. Do you prefer Paris or Milan for evening wear?”
“The Glam Shed,” she said haughtily, giving her hair a flick. “I quid pro quo promotion campaigns for red carpet rentals.”
“I’ll pretend that was a joke and make arrangements for Milan. It’s closer than Paris and I have a cottage in Northern Italy. We can talk there about how we’ll portray our relationship.” For the first time in a very long time, he could be with a woman openly with few distractions. He wanted to take her there right now.
Perhaps she read that urgency in him. She flashed him a nervous look, but there was no fright in the depths of her pretty green eyes. Only a vacillating nibble of her lip and another, slower study of his chest and upper arms.
She was going to be the death of him, teasing him so unconsciously and effortlessly.
“Cottage?” she asked skeptically.
He tilted his head. It was an understatement. “A castle on a private island in one of the more remote lakes. The key word is ‘private.’ We can let this furor die down before our attendance at the gala stirs it up again.”
“Are you sure you want to continue associating with me?” she asked anxiously.
She couldn’t be that obtuse.
“I want to do a damned sight more than ‘associate.’” He snagged her hand with his own and brought her fingertips to his mouth, dying to taste her from brows to ankles, but he had places to be. And he was trying not to take when she was vacillating and vulnerable.
She caught her breath and looked at him with such defenseless yearning, he gave in and swooped his free hand behind her waist to draw her close.
She suddenly balked with a press of her palm to his chest. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”
“Then I’ll kiss you here.” He set his open mouth against her throat, enjoying the gasp she released and the all-over shiver that chased down her body. By the time he’d found the hollow beneath her ear, she was melting into him with another soft cry.
The slippery silk she wore was warm with the heat of her body as he slid his hands to her lower back and drew her closer, inhaling the scent of vanilla and almonds from her hair.
“Luca.” She nuzzled his ear and nipped at his earlobe.
His scalp tightened and a sharp pull in his groin threatened to empty his head of everything except the rumpled bed behind this wickedly tempting woman. One quick tumble to hold him. That’s all he wanted.
“Give me a few hours,” he groaned, lifting his head, but running his touch to her delectable bottom, tracing the curve and crease through the silk as he drew her into the stiffness her response had provoked. “We’ll pick this up later.”
She searched his gaze, still conflicted.
He kissed her, quickly and thoroughly, tasting coffee as he grazed her tongue with his.
“Eat something,” he ordered, then released her and adjusted himself before he left to end his brief reign.
Amy ate. Then she took her time with a long bath and a quiet hour of self-care where she painted her toenails and plucked her brows and moisturized every inch of her skin. She ignored her phone and let the sickening feeling of having her privacy invaded recede while she considered what to tell her best friends.
She was always honest with Bea and Clare, but aside from emailing a promise to call as soon as she could, Amy hadn’t found the right way to explain what had happened between her and Luca.
They would know they were being put off, but Amy would touch base with them as soon as she decided whether she would agree to Luca’s suggestion.
He had a point that appearing to continue their affair would soften the photo from being a lurid glimpse at a king’s downfall to a private moment between a loving couple, but they weren’t a loving couple. They were barely a romantic couple, having met only two days ago.
It shocked her to realize that. They’d shared some very personal details with one another. She’d never talked about her expulsion
