LITMIR.BIZ

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too, because if they had, she might have broken down and wept.

      Tears filled her eyes and dripped onto the wax she was working.

      “Maria?”

      “Yes,” she said briskly, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes and flashing a smile, “I’m fine. I just—I think I got a bit of wax in my eye.”

      “Want me to do that mold?”

      “No. No, thanks. I’m almost finished. You know, it’s getting late. Why don’t we call it a day, hmm?”

      “Well, if that’s okay… I promised Sela I’d pick up some stuff from the Chinese market on the way home.”

      “Better get going, then, before the market closes.”

      Joaquin nodded, cleaned up his end of the workbench, then put on his coat. He kissed her cheek and she managed to keep the tears from building again until the door closed behind him.

      Why was she weeping? She’d wanted to end things cleanly. To keep Alex from contacting her. And she’d succeeded.

      She just had to stop crying every five minutes. Sela said it was her hormones. It wasn’t. It was her inability to accept that she would never lie in her lover’s arms again, but she’d sooner have died than admit that to Sela or even to herself because it wasn’t true, it wasn’t true, she had a wonderful, fulfilling life now and—

      Someone knocked at the loft door.

      Maria grabbed the edge of her work-apron and wiped her eyes. Had Joaquin forgotten something? Why didn’t he use his key? Unless it was a reporter. They were still driving her crazy, hoping for an interview about life on Aristo and the death of its king.

      The knock came again. She sighed, smoothed down her apron, fixed a polite smile to her lips and marched to the door.

      “Yes?” No answer. Maria rolled her eyes. “Look, I’ve said I won’t do interviews so whoever you are—”

      “Open the door, Maria.”

      Her heart leaped. No. It couldn’t be.

      “Maria. Did you hear me? Open this door.”

      She shook her head, as if Alex could see her. “Go away,” she said in a shaky voice.

      “I’m not going anywhere. Either you open this door or I’ll break it down.”

      He would, too. He was angry—she could hear it in his voice, and she remembered what his anger had been like that night he’d first come here.

      Bam! The door, heavy as a chunk of steel, shuddered under the blow.

      “I don’t want to see you.” Maria licked her lips. “Joaquin is here. He says—”

      “He says I’ve been a fool. And he’s right.”

      Maria stared at the door. “You talked to Joaquin?”

      “Just now. On the stairs.” Alex’s voice softened; she had to put her ear to the door to hear him. “He’s been a good friend to you. You’re lucky to have him to turn to. Maria, glyka mou, let me in.”

      She swallowed hard. Then she undid the bolt and opened the door.

      “I don’t want to talk to you,” she started to say, but the sight of her Alexandros, so tall, so powerful, so much the lover she remembered, stole the words away. To her horror, her eyes flooded with the tears she’d fought only minutes before. She couldn’t let him see her cry, she couldn’t, she told herself, and she slapped her hands against the door and started to push it closed.

      Alex was too quick. He jammed his shoulder between the door and its frame and pushed. Maria staggered back, the door swung open and he stepped into the loft.

      He’d had plenty of time to consider how he would handle this meeting. The flight from Aristo had taken longer than usual. Bad weather had meant putting down at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for a few hours. Just as well, he’d thought. The delay had given him extra time to decide what to say.

      He’d come up with a list of questions. A little speech, though he tried not to call it that, in which he’d let Maria know that a woman did not simply walk out on him without explanation.

      He would be cautious in expressing his feelings, never mind his mother’s insistence that Maria and he were in love. The sad truth, as Tia had admitted, was that his mother didn’t know a damned thing about love. If Maria loved him, why had she left him?

      A woman who loved a man didn’t walk out on him without so much as a handshake.

      He wasn’t so sure about loving her, either. Why would a man love a woman who’d abandoned him? Who was so independent? Why would he want her back in his life?

      Logical, all of it. The trouble was, the closer he’d come to her street, the harder his heart had beaten. All his hours of planning and doubt had dissolved like cotton candy in the rain. And when he’d bumped into a man on the stairs, he’d known instinctively it was Joaquin—and known, just as instinctively, that the guy knew who he was, too, and wanted nothing more than to flatten him.

      He could hardly blame him.

      Hell, it was what he’d have done if the situation were reversed.

      The men had taken a long look at each other.

      “Are you the prince?” Joaquin had finally growled. At Alex’s nod, the other man’s mouth had thinned. “She loves you, you jerk. And you don’t deserve her.”

      Alex had grinned. Then he’d put his hand out.

      “You’re right,” he’d said, and after a few seconds Joaquin had smiled. They’d shaken hands. Then Joaquin had stepped aside and Alex had continued up the stairs to Maria’s door when terror had stopped him cold. Certain of everything, sure of nothing, he had resorted to anger…

      And then he’d come to his senses.

      He would do whatever it took to win his Maria’s heart… and, looking into her eyes, he knew, with a rush of fierce joy, that her heart had always been his for the taking.

      Maria loved him. He loved her. And he’d be damned if he’d lose her again.

      So, in the end, there were no questions, no speeches, no doubts. There was only a man, baring his soul by stepping forward and opening his arms to a woman. And—thank you, God—there was the woman, his Maria, giving a little cry and throwing herself into his embrace.

      He kissed her. Kissed her for a very long time. Her mouth. Her eyes. Her hair.

      “Why did you leave me?” he said.

      “Because I have no place in your life,” she said, returning each kiss, each caress, each sigh.

      “I love you. You are my life.”

      Her heart soared, but she shook her head. “I can’t be.”

      “Do you love me?”

      How could she lie to him? How could she deny what burned in her heart?

      “Yes,” she said softly, “I love you. I adore you, Alexandros. But I can’t be part of your life. I—I’m not cut out to be a mistress.”

      “Of course you aren’t,” Alex said, in that imperious way that she’d learned to love. “You’re going to marry me and be my wife.”

      His words were more precious than any of the diamonds in the Aristan crown. She knew she would cherish them forever, even if what he’d just told her could never happen.

      “I can’t marry you,” she whispered.

      “Because?”

      “Because you’re a prince. You have obligations. Duties.”

      “I have nothing, unless I have you, glyka mou. You are my

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