LITMIR.BIZ

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yet to relinquish her company.

      “No, I don’t have to, exactly...” Her voice trailed away and she looked at her watch again before she said more firmly. “No. I don’t have to go.”

      “No boyfriend waiting for you at home?” he probed shamelessly, running his thumb over her bare fingers.

      Angel chuckled and his heart warmed at the sound.

      “No, no boyfriend.”

      “Good. Shall we walk together?” he suggested.

      “I’d like that.”

      She rose with a fluid grace that mesmerized him, and gathered up her coat and bag. He reached for her coat and helped her into it, his fingertips brushing the nape of her neck. He’d felt a shock of awareness when he’d touched her hand, but that was nothing compared to the jolt that struck him now. It was wrong, he knew, to feel such an overpowering attraction to Angel when he was engaged to another woman. Was he no different than his mother, who had been incapable of observing the boundaries of married life?

      Thierry pulled his hands away and, balling them into fists, he shoved them deep into his pockets. A sense of shame filled him. This was madness. In a few weeks’ time he’d be marrying Princess Mila and here he was, in New York, desperate to spend more time with someone whose first name was almost the only thing he knew about her. Well, that and her keen intelligence about topics dear to his heart. Even so, it didn’t justify this behavior, he argued silently.

      And then she turned to look at him and smiled, and he knew that whatever else was to come in his life, he had to grasp hold of this moment, this night, and make the most of the oasis of peace she unwittingly offered him.

      They headed out of the coffee shop and turned toward Seventh Avenue. His security detail melted into the people around them. There, ever vigilant, but not completely visible. The rain had stopped and Thierry began to feel his spirits lift again. This felt so normal, so unscripted. It was a vast departure from his usual daily life.

      “Tell me about yourself,” he prompted his silent companion. “Any family?”

      “I have a brother. He’s in Europe right now,” Angel said lightly, but he saw the way she pressed her delectable full lips together as if she was holding something back. “How about you?” she asked, almost as if her question was an afterthought.

      “An only child.”

      “Was it lonely, growing up?”

      “Sometimes, although I always had plenty of people around me.”

      Angel gestured to the guard in front and the others nearby. “People like them?” she asked.

      “And others,” he admitted.

      They stopped at a set of lights and she lifted her chin and stared straight ahead. “Sometimes you can be at your most lonely when you’re surrounded by people.”

      Her words struck a chord with him. There was something about the way she’d made her statement that made him think she spoke from personal experience. The thought made something tug inside him. He wished he could remove the haunted, empty tone from her voice and fill it with warmth. And what else, a voice inside him asked. He pushed the thought aside. There could be nothing else. Come morning he would be a different man to the rest of the world. A king. This interlude of normality would be nothing but a memory. One, he realized, he would treasure for a long time to come.

      “So what do you do?” Angel asked him after they’d crossed the street.

      “Do?”

      “Yes, for a living. I assume you do work?”

      Yes, he worked, but not in the sense she was probably expecting. “I’m in management,” he said, skirting the truth.

      “That’s a very broad statement,” she teased, looking up at him with a glimmer of mischief in her tawny eyes.

      “I have a very broad range of responsibilities. And you, what do you plan to do once you have completed your studies?”

      Her expression changed in an instant—the humor of before replaced with a look of seriousness. Then she blinked and the solemnity was gone.

      “Oh, this and that,” she said airily.

      “And you accused me of being vague?” he taunted, enjoying their verbal sparring.

      “Well, since you asked—I want to go home and make a difference. I want people to listen to me, to really listen, and to take what I have to say on board—not just dismiss me out of hand because I’m female.”

      He raised his brows. “Does that happen a lot?”

      “You did it to me,” she challenged.

      “Yes, I did, and I apologize again for my prejudice. I hope you get your wish.” He drew to a halt beside a food truck. “Have you eaten this evening?”

      “No, but you don’t have to—”

      “I’m told you haven’t been to New York until you try one of these rib eye sandwiches.”

      She inhaled deeply. “They do smell divine, don’t they?”

      “I’ll take that as a yes.”

      He turned to the head of his security and gave an order in Sylvano. The man grinned in response and lined up at the food-truck window.

      They continued to walk as they ate, laughing in between bites as they struggled to contain their food without spilling it.

      “I should have taken you to a restaurant,” Thierry said as Angel made a noise of disgust at the mess she had left on her hands when they’d finished.

      “Oh, heavens no! Not at all. This is fun...just messy.” She laughed and gingerly extracted a small packet of tissues from her bag so she could wipe her fingers.

      Thierry felt his lips pull into a smile again as they had so many times since he’d met her. What was it about her that felt so right when everything else around him felt so wrong?

      “I can’t get over this city,” Angel exclaimed. “There’s never a quiet moment. It’s exhilarating.”

      “It is,” he agreed and then looked over at her. “Do you dance?”

      “Are you asking me if I’m capable of it, or if I want to?” Angel laughed in response.

      Thierry shrugged. “Both. Either.” He didn’t care. He suddenly had the urge to hold her in his arms and he figured this would be the only way he could decently do so without compromising his own values.

      “I’m not exactly dressed for it,” Angel said doubtfully.

      “You look beautiful. I’ve heard of a quiet place not far from here. It’s not big and brash like a lot of the clubs. More intimate, I suppose, and you can dance or talk or just sit and watch the other patrons if that’s all you want to do.”

      “It sounds perfect.”

      “So, shall we?”

      She grinned back. “Okay, I’d like that.”

      “Good.” He took her hand in his, again struck by the delicacy of her fingers and the fine texture of her skin.

      What would it feel like if she touched him intimately? Would her fingers be firm or soft like a feather? Would she trace the contours of his body with a tantalizing subtlety, or would her touch be more definite, more demanding? He slammed the door on his wayward thoughts. It seemed he had more of his mother in him than he’d suspected. Still, there was nothing wrong with dancing with a woman other than his betrothed, was there? He had to do it at state functions all the time.

      He tugged her in the direction of a club he’d visited on his last trip to New York and sent Armaund ahead to ensure they’d gain entry. The night was still young and he wasn’t ready for it to end yet.

      Drawing

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