LITMIR.BIZ

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question, as if she’d asked something embarrassingly personal. Perhaps she had. Then he shrugged and said, ‘I like to be out there, actually playing. Coaching. It’s fun for me.’

      ‘Now, fun is not a word I’d associate with you.’

      He slid her a sudden, sideways grin that ignited her senses. ‘You don’t know me well enough to say that, Princess.’

      ‘Oh, really?’

      ‘Really. And wait until I get you out onto the pitch. We’re both going to have a lot of fun.’

      She grimaced. ‘That sounds like a threat.’

      ‘Consider it a promise,’ he told her, and she arched her eyebrows.

      Was he flirting? It felt like flirting.

      ‘If we’re going to have so much of your kind of fun on the pitch,’ she said, ‘perhaps we should have my kind of fun before.’ As soon as she spoke the words, she realized how provocative they sounded—almost as if she were propositioning him. Still she smiled in challenge, refused to avert her gaze as Ben stared at her speculatively, one shoulder propped against the doorway of his office.

      ‘That sounds … intriguing.’

      Natalia’s heart rate kicked up a notch. Didn’t it just. ‘How about a deal?’ she suggested. ‘I’ll experience your kind of fun at camp, and you have to experience my kind of fun this weekend. Going out,’ she clarified quickly, and felt herself blush as she considered what he might have thought she meant.

      ‘Out where?’

      ‘I get to pick. It’ll be a surprise.’

      ‘And why should I do this?’ Ben inquired in a silky voice. ‘I don’t need to make a deal, princess. You’re already here because I convinced your father.’

      ‘Do it,’ Natalia told him, ‘because you want to.’ Ben’s gaze blazed into her own and distantly she wondered what on earth she was doing, daring him like this. Wanting him like this. And he knew it. And maybe even wanted her too. It was crazy, scary, and yet she couldn’t keep herself from it, from him, like a child playing with matches. Someone was going to get burned.

      ‘All right,’ Ben said softly. ‘When?’

      ‘Tomorrow.’

      ‘Where?’

      Natalia drew a steadying breath. How had this even happened? How had they got to this place? ‘You can pick me up at the palazzo at noon.’

      Ben was still gazing at her, his expression narrowed and assessing, and Natalia had the strange feeling that he was as surprised as she was that he’d agreed. That they were going out … tomorrow. Finally he nodded, and Natalia managed an insouciant smile despite the thud of her heart and the sickness of her palms. ‘Wear something nice. And don’t expect to be home until late.’

      ‘Sounds like you’ve already got a plan.’

      ‘Maybe.’ She didn’t, not really, not beyond showing Ben what fun could really mean. And it had nothing to do with football pitches. For a second, she dizzily imagined just how much fun the two of them could have. And then swallowed audibly.

      Ben’s gaze still rested on her, considering, heavy, and once more Natalia wondered just what on earth she was doing. Risking. Then, without another word, the tension still tautening the air between them, he turned and went into the office.

      As he closed the door Natalia sagged, saw she’d been clenching the T-shirt she’d been folding so hard there were nail marks in the fabric.

      When Natalia arrived back at the palazzo that evening, her mind still buzzing from her exchange with Ben, her mother called her into her private rooms and Natalia knew from the lavender silk evening gown her mother wore that once again royal duty beckoned.

      ‘Back from your charity work?’ Zoe asked, which Natalia knew was how her mother liked to view her volunteering for Ben Jackson. She nodded, and Zoe turned to a waiting maid. ‘I’ll wear the amethyst parure.’

      ‘Very good, Your Highness.’ The maid went to fetch the magnificent set of diamond and amethyst earrings, necklace, bracelet cuffs and tiara from her mother’s private safe. Zoe turned to Natalia.

      ‘We have several foreign dignitaries coming to dine tonight. You will attend. It is perfectly possible that one may represent your future husband.’

      Natalia felt an icy plunging sensation in her middle. ‘My engagement to Prince Michel only ended a few weeks ago.’

      ‘All the more reason to press on. You are twenty-seven years old, Natalia. High time you were married.’

      ‘It’s the twenty-first century, Mother,’ Natalia protested, even though she’d made this argument before, to little effect. ‘Twenty-seven could be considered young these days.’

      ‘Not for a princess,’ Zoe replied firmly. ‘In any case, we are not ruled by current fashions. Your marriage is an important negotiation that will strengthen our country.’

      ‘Plenty of royals marry whomever they please,’ Natalia pointed out, and Queen Zoe arched her eyebrows.

      ‘You do not, I trust,’ she said, ‘have anyone in mind.’

      Ridiculously and unreasonably, Ben—his quirking smile, his powerful body—flashed through her mind. ‘Of course not.’

      Zoe sighed. ‘I know it is hard for a young woman to face her royal duty. And perhaps your father and I have been too lenient, allowing you the freedom to live life as you saw fit for too long.’ Although her mother spoke delicately, Natalia still heard the judgment, felt it in herself. She hadn’t done much with her life. She knew that. She just didn’t know how to change, or if she even wanted to. What was the point?

      The maid returned with the parure and laid out the pieces on her mother’s vanity. Zoe glanced down at them, her eyes narrowed in assessment. ‘It is time you stepped into the role to which you were born, Natalia. It is time you started acting like a princess.’ The maid lowered the bejewelled tiara onto Zoe’s silver hair. Her mother met Natalia’s gaze in the ornate mirror. Natalia saw compassion there, but also an implacable will she knew she didn’t have the strength or resources to defy. ‘You will start,’ Queen Zoe told her, ‘tonight.’

      An hour later, dressed in a sedate and modest evening gown of ivory silk, Natalia followed her mother into the palazzo’s formal receiving room. She hated these evenings. Hated how she felt like a dressed-up doll, or worse, a slab of meat. Something to be assessed and bargained over, and then picked apart or even devoured.

      The hours dragged on as her parents engaged the dignitaries in social niceties and political innuendoes that Natalia didn’t even bother to listen to. She’d long ago learned not to have an opinion about any of it. As they headed into the dining room, her mother whispered in her ear once more.

      ‘At least smile, Natalia. You’re behaving like a block of wood.’

      ‘I thought that was exactly what you wanted,’ Natalia muttered.

      Her mother silenced her with a quelling look and swept into the dining room. Natalia took her place at the table, her mind wandering as the conversation continued to flow around her. Then she heard her name.

      ‘The Princess Natalia has enjoyed herself, hasn’t she?’ One of the dignitaries—from some Middle Eastern island nation, Natalia thought—glanced at her with a smile, although his words had held a sharp edge.

      ‘All young girls enjoy themselves,’ Zoe answered with a gracious smile. ‘But the princess now needs a strong husband to guide her.’

      Natalia nearly choked on her vichyssoise. She didn’t want a man to guide her. Or even love her. She didn’t want to get married at all. The thought of being auctioned off to some nameless autocratic royal made her insides clench in a spasm of both fear and fury.

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