LITMIR.BIZ

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was losing the last of his family, the one person since the death of his parents who had been there for him?

      He didn’t see women as possessions as the King and Dominic did. He liked their company, and not only in a sexual context, but until he’d been forced into this situation with Catalina he’d always known when it was time to move on. He didn’t need or want anyone. He was better off on his own. You couldn’t hurt anyone when there was only you. And you couldn’t be hurt either.

      ‘How did your mother handle the affairs?’ he asked, thinking of his uncle’s devastation.

      She shrugged and picked up her fork again. ‘I don’t know if his affairs bothered her much. Not on an emotional level. She wasn’t in love with him. Theirs was a marriage much as I was supposed to have.’

      ‘A marriage of duty,’ Nathaniel supplied, a strange tightness spreading through him as he spoke the words. He satisfied himself that the actions he and Catalina would be taking would free her from the life she’d had mapped out for her.

      ‘Yes.’ She focused her attention back on the plate of food before her and speared a tomato.

      ‘Did your mother have affairs too?’

      There was the slightest twitch under her eye. ‘A woman in my mother’s position would never have had an affair. She had too much to lose.’

      His eyes asked his next question for him.

      ‘My father has all the power, you must see that. Dominic is second to him. My mother was barely any higher on the scale of influence than I am: nowhere. If she’d been caught having an affair my father could have banished her from the country. He could have cut her off from her children. He could have taken away everything she had—do you really think she would have risked all that for a tawdry, seedy affair?’

      He shook his head, instinctively knowing there was more to this than she was letting on.

      She put her knife and fork together and pushed her plate to one side.

      ‘My mother didn’t have an affair. She fell in love.’ She met his eyes. ‘It was my mother I caught making love in the palace herb garden all those years ago. It was with the head gardener. I can only assume their mutual love of gardening drew them together. What I do know for certain is that it was no tawdry affair—she would never have risked it if it didn’t mean something. They must have loved each other deeply. When she was too ill to leave her rooms any more and see him, I’m sure it contributed to her deterioration. He was so near to her but so far out of her reach. It broke her heart and her death broke his.’ Her voice broke. ‘He gassed himself two months after she died.’

      ‘Did anyone else know?’ he asked, shocked to his core. ‘Your father?’

      ‘No one.’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘Only me. If my father had found out he would have killed them both.’ Her eyes filled with a sudden well of tears and her chin wobbled. She took a few deep breaths before looking back at him. ‘You can never tell anyone that. No one can know. I will not have her reputation dragged through the mud.’

      No one can know. The same words she’d whispered when she’d admitted him into her room all those weeks ago.

      ‘I will tell no one.’

      She dabbed her eyes with a napkin and visibly gathered herself before saying, ‘So now we know each other’s darkest secrets, we both have a weapon to make sure we each keep our ends of our arrangement.’

      ‘And keep our mouths shut,’ he finished for her with an understanding nod.

      Except the look that passed between them was more than just that of untrusting co-conspirators.

      He didn’t know what it was or what it meant, but his heart throbbed at it.

      * * *

      ‘Would you like to use the bathroom first?’ Nathaniel asked once they were back in their room.

      They’d kept the rest of their conversation at the dinner table light but there had been nothing light about the chemistry seeping its way between them.

      He could feel it. He could taste it. And Catalina could too.

      She nodded, pulling a washbag and a towel from her case. ‘I won’t be long.’

      ‘Take as long as you need.’

      ‘I’ll leave my things in there for you seeing as you haven’t got any of your own.’ She met his eye and a light colour crept over her cheekbones, but she didn’t drop her gaze.

      ‘The hotel provides toiletries. They’re by the shower.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘All hotels do.’

      ‘Am I supposed to use them?’

      Her naivety hit him like a punch in the gut. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘It’s not compulsory. You can use your own toiletries.’

      When he heard the lock of the bathroom door, he sank onto the bed and put his head in his hands.

      Just when he managed to forget the Princess she really was, she said something that brought it all back home to him.

      He could hear the shower running.

      She would be standing under it, naked...

      He smothered a groan and turned onto his back, his arms arched above his head.

      Anticipation filled his thoughts, his body...his veins...everywhere.

      * * *

      Catalina lay on her back beneath the heavy sheets with a hammering heart and a dry mouth, trying not to turn her head to watch the ticking clock beside her bed.

      She looked.

      Nine minutes and thirty-three seconds. The length of time Nathaniel had been in the bathroom.

      She’d left it with nothing but her towel wrapped around herself. He’d been lying on his back. He’d sat up and pierced her with a stare that had turned her brain into mush before strolling past her and into the bathroom.

      Ten minutes and fourteen seconds.

      The door opened.

      If her heart had been hammering before, it thrashed against her ribs now.

      His eyes found her.

      Only a small low-slung towel covered him, the hard, muscular chest she remembered so clearly revealed to her. The dark hairs scattered in a fine swirl across it glistening under the gleam of the bathroom light.

      Not taking his gaze from her, he extended an arm into the bathroom and switched off the light.

      Now the only light came from the reflection of the snow still falling outside. The clouds had cleared and the moon was full and bright, seeping through the centre of the heavy curtains.

      She didn’t need light to see him clearly. He had etched himself onto her retinas over two months ago.

      The night she had opened her door for him, she had been naked beneath her robe. Tonight she didn’t even have the robe as a barrier.

      She sat up slowly, letting the bedsheets drop down to her waist.

      His throat moved.

      And then he moved.

      Like a panther, he strode to the bed and, so quickly she couldn’t remember how he had got there, she was pinned beneath him and his hands held hers firmly either side of her head.

      He stared down at her with eyes that glittered, his breaths ragged and whispering against her lips. His mouth was so close she could tilt her chin and capture his lips with her own.

      She wanted him so much there were times she struggled to catch her breath from the ache of it all.

      ‘Kiss me,’ she whispered when she could bear the anticipation no more. ‘Please. Kiss me.’

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