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stepsister married off, and then she would be safely out of his reach.

      He could have found a woman to slake his lust on, and over the years he had done just that. After all, whatever was broken in him...Sophia should not have to suffer for it.

      But during those time periods he had not been forced to cohabitate with Sophia. Always, when he had spent too much time with her, he had to detox, essentially. Find a slim blonde to remind himself that there were other sorts of women he found hot. Other women he might find desirable.

      And then, when it was really bad, he gave up entirely on playing the opposite game and found himself a curvaceous brunette to pour his fantasies into. The end of that road was a morass of self-loathing and recrimination, but on many levels he was happy to end up there. He was comforted by it.

      But this... Sharing space with her. As he had done since his father had died. No other woman would do. He couldn’t find it in him to feel even a hint of desire for anyone else. And that was unacceptable. As all things to do with Sophia invariably were.

      “You are not going on dinner dates,” Luca said. “You are a princess. You are part of the royal family. And you are not setting up a Tinder profile in order to find yourself a husband.”

      “Why not?” she asked, her tone defiant. “Perhaps I want nothing more than to meet a very exciting IT guy who might swipe me right off my feet.” He said nothing and she continued to stare at him. “Swipe. Swipe right. It’s a dating app thing.”

      “That isn’t funny in the least. As I said, you are part of this family.” Perhaps if he repeated it enough, if he drilled it into both of them that they were family, his body would eventually begin to take it on board. “And as such, your standards of marriage must be the same as mine.”

      “Why aren’t you looking for a wife yourself?” she asked.

      “I will,” Luca said. “In due time. But my father asked that I make your safety, your match, a priority.”

      He would marry, as duty required. But it would not be because of passion. And certainly not because of love. Duty was what drove him. The preservation of reputation, of the crown. If that crumbled, his whole life was nothing.

      He would choose a suitable woman.

      Sophia was far from suitable.

      “What about the production of an heir?” Sophia lifted a brow. “Isn’t that important?”

      “Yes. But I am a man, and as such, I do not have the same issues with a biological clock your gender does.”

      “Right,” she huffed. “Because men can continue to produce children up until the end of their days.”

      “Perhaps not without the aid of a blue pill, but certainly it is possible.”

      For a moment she only blinked up at him, a faint pink tinge coloring her cheeks. Then Sophia’s lip curled. “I find this conversation distasteful.”

      “You brought up the production of heirs, not me.”

      She scowled, clearly having to take his point, and not liking it at all. “Well, let me look through the dossiers, then,” she said, lifting her nose and peering at him down the slender ridge, perfecting that sort of lofty look that was nothing if not a put-on coming from Sophia.

      Though, possibly not when directed at him.

      “Erik Nilsson. Swedish nobility?”

      “Yes,” Luca responded. “He’s very wealthy.”

      “How?”

      “Family money, mostly. Though some of it is in sheep.”

      “His money is in sheep?” Sophia asked, her expression completely bland. “Well, that is interesting. And one would never want for sweaters.”

      “Indeed not,” he said, a vicious turn of jealousy savaging his gut. Which was sadistic at best. To be jealous of a man whose fortune was tied up in sheep and who had the dubious honor of being a minor noble in some small village that wasn’t part of the current century.

      A man he had not expected his stepsister to show the slightest interest in. And yet, here she was.

      “So he will have access to...wool. And such,” Sophia said. “And...he’s quite handsome. If you like tall and blond.”

      “Do you?” he asked.

      “Very much,” she said with a strange injection of conviction. “He’s on the table.” She set the folder aside. “Let us get on with the next candidate, shall we?”

      “Here you are,” he said, lifting up the next folder and holding it out toward her. “Ilya Kuznetsov.”

      She arched a brow. “Russian?”

      He raised one in response. “Very.”

      Sophia wrinkled her nose. “Is his fortune in vodka and caviar?”

      “I hate to disappoint you but it’s in tech. So, quite close to that IT guy you were professing to have a burning desire for.”

      “I didn’t say I had a burning desire for anyone,” she pointed out, her delicate fingers tracing the edge of the file.

      He couldn’t help but imagine those same fingers stroking him.

      If he believed in curses, he would believe he was under one.

      “I don’t know anything about computers,” she continued, setting the folder off to the opposite side of the first one. “I prefer sheep.”

      She was infuriating. And baffling. “Not something you hear every day. Now, to the next one.”

      She set aside the next two. An Italian business mogul and a Greek tycoon. Neither one meeting up to some strange specification that she blathered on about in vague terms. Then she rejected an Argentine polo player, who was also nobility of some kind, on the basis of the fact that a quick Google search revealed him to be an inveterate womanizer.

      “You’re not much better,” she said mournfully, looking up from her phone.

      “Then it is a good thing that I am not in the files for consideration.”

      Something quite like shock flashed through her eyes, and her mouth dropped open. Color flooded her cheeks, irritation, anger.

      “As if that would ever happen. As if I would consider you.” She sniffed very loudly.

      “As my sister, you could not,” he bit out.

      “Stepsister,” she said, looking up at him from beneath her dark lashes.

      His gut twisted, his body hardening for a moment before he gathered his control. The moment seemed to last an eternity. Stolen, removed from time. Nothing but those eyes boring holes through him, as though she could see right into him. As though she could see his every debauched thought.

      Every dark, terrible thing in him.

      But no, there was no way she could.

      Or she would run and hide like a frightened mouse.

      “In terms of legality, in terms of my father’s will, you’re my sister,” he said. “Now, the next one.”

      She went through the folders until she had selected five, though she maintained that the Swedish candidate was top of her list.

      It did not escape his notice that she had selected all men with lighter features. Diametrically opposed to his own rather dark appearance.

      He should rejoice in that.

      He found he did not.

      “Then these are the invitations that will be sent out,” he said. “And I will be reserving dances with each of the gentlemen.”

      “Dances?” She blinked. “Are we in a Regency romance novel? Am I going to have a card

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