Crowned for the Prince's Heir

He turned around then, very slowly, and she was shocked by the ravaged expression on his face—at the deep sense of sorrow which seemed to envelop him, like a dark cloud. His sapphire eyes were icy-cold and she’d never seen someone look quite so unwelcoming.

‘Where’s Rose?’ he demanded.

‘Almeera’s just bringing her in. I needed...’ she swallowed ‘...to speak to you.’

‘Haven’t we said everything which needs to be said, Lisa? Haven’t we completely exhausted the subject?’

‘No,’ she said, knowing that she needed the courage to reach into her frightened heart, despite the forbidding look on his face. ‘We haven’t.’

But clearly he wasn’t about to help her. ‘What do you want?’ he questioned impatiently, as if she were a servant who had neglected to remove one of the plates.

‘I want to tell you,’ she whispered, before drawing in a deep breath, ‘how very stupid I’ve been. And to try to tell you why.’

‘I’m not interested in your explanations,’ he snapped.

‘I want to explain,’ she continued, with a sudden feeling of calm and certainty, which she sensed was her only lifeline, ‘that I was scared when you told me you loved me. Scared you didn’t mean it. Scared I’d get hurt—’

‘And you’ve spent your whole life avoiding getting hurt, haven’t you, Lisa?’ he finished slowly, as if he had just worked it out for himself. ‘You learnt a bitter lesson at your mother’s knee that love could destroy you.’

‘Yes. Yes! Those feelings aren’t always logical, but that doesn’t make them any less valid. That’s why I finished with you the first time.’ She stared down at her shiny gold wedding band, before lifting her gaze to his. ‘Oh, I knew there was no future in it—you told me that right from the start—but that wasn’t why. Because who wouldn’t have wanted to prolong every wonderful second of what we had? It was because I had started to fall in love with you and I knew that was a mistake. You didn’t want love. Not from me. You told me you didn’t want anything from me. I tried to forget you—I tried so very hard—and then when you walked into the shop that day, I realised nothing had changed.’ She shrugged. ‘Not a single thing. I still wanted you.’

‘And I still wanted you,’ he said. ‘Even though everything about it was wrong and even though I tried to resist you, in the end I couldn’t.’

‘Maybe you just can’t resist sex when it’s offered to you on a plate.’

‘Oh, but I can,’ he assured her softly. ‘I hadn’t—haven’t—had sex with anyone else since my relationship with you first ended.’

She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Nobody?’

‘Nobody.’

‘But why? I mean, why not? There must have been plenty of opportunities to bed all kinds of women.’

Luc rubbed his thumb over his lips, realising that you could say words of love and mean them, but that was only the beginning. Because you needed to go deeper than that. To be prepared to show another person every part of you—to draw aside the curtain of mystique and admit that inside even he could be vulnerable.

‘Initially I convinced myself that I needed a time of celibacy before settling down with Sophie, but that wasn’t the real reason.’ He shook his head and shrugged. ‘Because the truth was that I just didn’t want anyone else but you, Lisa. I don’t know how and I don’t know why—but you’re the woman who has made me feel stuff I didn’t even realise existed. The only one. And I want—’

‘No,’ she rushed in, as if eager to show him her own vulnerability. ‘Let me tell you what I want, Luc. I want to be a real wife to you, in every sense of the word. I want to live here or anywhere, just so long as it’s with you and Rose. I’d like to have more children, if you would. And I’d like to be the best princess I can possibly be. I want time to love you and to show you all the stuff I’ve never dared show you before. So what have you got to say to that, Luciano Gabriel Leonidas? Will you take me on?’

He could feel the powerful beat of his heart as he pulled her into his arms, but for the first time in his adult life he realised that his cheeks were wet with tears. And so were hers. He dried them with his lips and then bent his head so his mouth met hers. ‘I’ll take you on any time you like,’ he said unsteadily, just before he kissed her. ‘Because I love you.’

EPILOGUE

‘IS SHE ASLEEP?’

‘Flat out.’ Lisa walked into their bedroom, pulling the elastic band from her hair and letting her curls tumble free. Luc was lying on top of the bed, reading. His eyes slitted as he watched her and he put the book down and smiled.

Lisa smiled back as her heart gave an unsteady thunder as she looked at her beloved husband. The light from the sunset was bathing everything in rose gold as it flooded in through the open windows—turning his naked body into a gilded statue. He really was magnificent, she thought hungrily, enjoying the way that the glowing light highlighted the hard muscle and silken flesh of his physique. She looked into his eyes, thinking how very quickly time passed and how important it was to treasure every single moment.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that their daughter was already two years old and probably the most sophisticated little jet-setter of all her peers. But everyone said that Princess Rose had the sweetest and sunniest nature in the world and her besotted parents tended to agree with them.

She wiped her still-damp hands down over her dress. ‘Your daughter seems to think that bath time was made for fun,’ she observed, with a smile.

‘Just like her mother.’ Luc’s eyes gleamed. ‘I think you and I might share a shower in a little while, but I have other plans for you first.’

‘Oh? What plans?’

‘Well, you are looking a little overdressed compared to me.’ A lazy gesture of his hand lingered fractio