LITMIR.BIZ

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time to see the light since then. She mattered too much to him. He couldn’t bear to lose her. If he took her to bed, there would be bad feelings when it was time to move on. Someone would be bound to get hurt. Someone always did.

      Therefore, he’d circled back around to his original plan. He would show her a memorable weekend, minus the part where they ended up in bed together. She understood that their making love wasn’t a given. She’d said it herself: they would see how it went. He planned to see to it that it went nowhere.

      “Dami.” She tugged on his arm. “What are you thinking about?”

      He studied her fabulous elfin face. “That you remind me of a princess from a Montedoran fairy tale.”

      She colored prettily. “Thank you.” And then she commanded, “Take me to your apartment.”

      He opened his mouth to remind her that it had been a long day, but somehow what came out was, “Yes, Your Highness. This way....”

      In his rooms, they went straight to the kitchen. She asked for hot chocolate. He made it the way they did in Paris, chopping bars of fine-quality bittersweet chocolate and whisking the bits into the heated milk, stirring in brown sugar and a few grains of sea salt.

      She admired the Limoges demitasse and sipped slowly. “Dami. Your hot chocolate is even better than your coffee.”

      He poured himself a cup and sat down opposite her.

      And she said, “I probably shouldn’t admit this. It will only prove all over again how gauche and immature I am....”

      He set down his cup. “You’re not. Admit what?”

      She sucked her upper lip between her neat white teeth, then caught herself doing it and let it go. “When you went to pose for those pictures with Vesuvia?”

      “Yes?”

      “I actually got jealous.”

      As a rule, when any woman mentioned jealousy, he tended to get nervous, to feel hemmed in, under pressure. But with Lucy he only felt flattered at her frankness. And a little bit guilty for deserting her. “I shouldn’t have left you....”

      “Oh, don’t you dare apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong— Well, except when you kissed me on the forehead. That made me feel about five.”

      “It was a kiss of affection.”

      “I know. Still. Five.”

      “Fair enough, then. No more kisses on the forehead.”

      “Cheek, temples, ears, lips... Well, just about anywhere is great. But not smack-dab in the middle of my forehead.”

      Kissing her just about anywhere sounded way too appealing, and he probably shouldn’t be thinking about that. “All right. Not on the forehead.” He found he needed to be sure she had it clear about V. “And about V?”

      She was midsip. She swallowed fast and set down the cup, big eyes getting bigger. “Yeah?”

      “Nothing to be jealous of. I meant it when I told you that Vesuvia and I are over.”

      She turned the painted gold-rimmed cup on the delicate saucer. And then she sipped again. “You were, um, exclusive with her for quite a while.”

      “Yes.”

      “But you have such a rep as a player, as someone who never makes it exclusive with any woman....”

      “I was exclusive with V.”

      “Why?”

      He looked into his cup of chocolate and then back up at her. “You are very nosy.”

      She nodded, a sweet bobbing motion of her pretty head. “Yes. I am. I know. But only because I’m your friend and I want to understand you better.”

      He believed her. And so he explained, “When I met V, I was looking for the right wife. I wanted someone suited to me. At first V behaved reasonably for the most part. She’s bright and beautiful. I thought we could make it work together. I was attracted to her.”

      “You loved her.”

      “Love wasn’t really the issue.”

      “But when you get married, love is always the issue.”

      He gave her his most patient look. “No, Luce. Not always.”

      “So then why did you choose her?”

      “I found her attractive and intelligent. I thought we had a lot in common. She’s descended from a very old Italian family. We know many of the same people. I never proposed marriage to her, but V understood that I needed to marry and she told me more than once that she wanted to be my wife, to be a princess of Montedoro.”

      “You needed to marry? Why?”

      He’d assumed she knew. Apparently not. “You haven’t heard of the Prince’s Marriage Law?” She shook her head, so he explained, “The Prince’s Marriage Law decrees that all princes of Montedoro are required to marry by the age of thirty-three or be stripped of all titles and relieved of the large fortune they each inherit by virtue of their birth.”

      She made a low sound in her throat. “Well, that’s just wrong.”

      “It’s a controversial law and has been abolished in the past. But then the Calabretti line almost died out. My grandfather had it reinstated.”

      “You’ll be thirty-two in January....”

      He put his hand to his heart and teased, “You remembered.”

      “Of course I remember. Aren’t you worried you won’t find the right woman?”

      “But don’t you see? I did worry. And I was practical. At the age of twenty-nine, with plenty of time to spare, I went looking for a bride. And you can see how well that went.”

      “Not well at all.”

      “So I’m becoming more philosophical about it. What will happen will happen.”

      “Dami,” she scolded, “it’s your inheritance....”

      Now he looked at her sternly. “I’m fully aware of that. You are not to worry about it. It’s not your concern.”

      She was quiet. But only for a moment. “So, then, you’re telling me that Vesuvia didn’t love you, either. She just wanted to be a princess.”

      “And that was all right with me. I needed a suitable bride. She liked the idea of marrying a prince.”

      “Oh, Dami. You sound so cynical.”

      “Because I am cynical.”

      “No, you’re not. Not in your heart.”

      He chuckled. “Go ahead. Believe wonderful things about me if you must.”

      “Thank you. I will.” She leaned toward him, all eyes. “What changed your mind about proposing to her?”

      “At first, as I said, she behaved reasonably. But she didn’t stay reasonable, because at heart she’s not reasonable. In the end, it’s always a big drama with V. She can’t just...sit at a table and talk, over cocoa.” He watched her smile, only a hint of one, a slight lifting at the corner of her tender mouth. “With V there must be grand gestures, and often. She craves expensive gifts and constant attention. She loves to stage a big dramatic scene. I can’t count the number of times she walked out on me in restaurants after telling me off in very colorful Italian.”

      “Whew. Yeah. I can see how that would get pretty old after a while.”

      “It’s been over for months now, really. At least, as far as I’m concerned.”

      “Not for her, though?”

      “Let me put it this way. I’m through. I’ve told her I’m through. She says she understands

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