The Prince's Love-Child (The Royal House of Cacciatore 2)

‘I know you have,’ he mocked.

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

He shrugged, flopping down onto the sand beside her. ‘If you find the sight of my body so irresistible that you can’t bear to tear your eyes away, Lucy—then stare away! Who am I to stop you?’

‘I was not staring!’

‘Oh, yes, you were,’ he contradicted softly. ‘You can’t stop looking at me…just as I can’t stop looking at you.’

He let his eyes drift over her, in a pale-green swimsuit which so flattered her colouring. Shaded by a hat and an umbrella—that fair English skin of hers would burn very easily—she was sitting rather primly on the soft, fine sand, occasionally swigging from a large bottle of cool water. The thin, stretchy material was moulded to her like a second skin, emphasising the increased swelling of her breasts and the hint of rounded belly which would grow bigger by the day.

At least she seemed less on edge today—some of the tight tension which had come so close to snapping on their wedding day seemed to have dissolved. He had seen the sadness as she bade farewell to her parents—the slight crumpling of her face which she had been so desperately trying to hide.

In that moment he had wanted to reach out and comfort her, but then he had reminded himself that he would not be able to follow through. The stone around his heart was too deeply ingrained to ever be shattered. It was better to start as he meant to go on, and he knew he could never give her real love. And maybe in that sense at least Lucy was the perfect bride for him. Wasn’t that one of the things which had always fascinated him about her—the fact that she wasn’t emotionally needy?

After her parents had left for England she had busied herself with changing—obviously she hadn’t wanted him to see her moment of wistfulness—and when she had emerged again it had been with a pale and set face.

They had travelled to their honeymoon destination—the Cacciatore mountain lodge—and that night she had resolutely dressed in cotton pyjamas and climbed into the low divan, turning her back on him in a silent gesture which spoke volumes.

His mouth had hardened as he had gazed upwards at the moonshadows which danced on the ceiling.

Did she imagine that he was going to beg her to make love? Or that he would wait for ever for her to change her mind?

Like hell he would!

Today he had driven her to the sea, in an attempt to fill up the day with something other than the unspoken frustrations and resentments between them.

But everything seemed to be having the wrong effect. She was wearing very little, and so was he. And the trouble was that the way he felt was becoming very difficult to disguise….

Nervously, she glanced at him, seeing for herself just how aroused he was, and feeling that wretched hot, moist ache once more, tempting her to give in. She wanted him. She had never really stopped wanting him. But what good was sex going to do them now? Wouldn’t it only complicate a complicated situation still further? ‘Don’t look at me that way,’ she begged.

‘What way is that? You mean, the way that any new husband would look at his wife?’

‘Oh, please, Guido!’ she retorted. ‘We’re not like a new husband and wife at all!’

‘In some ways we are,’ he argued softly. ‘Or rather, we could be.’

She shook her head. Not the way that counted, they couldn’t. ‘No.’

‘Then that is your decision, cara, not mine,’ he bit out. ‘And you must live with the consequences.’

She stared at him. She could see the hot light of desire which lit his dark eyes. Once that alone would have filled her with a heady kind of pride at having him within her power. But now she could see that for what it really was—a shallow and insignificant pride. Just because a man desired you physically it didn’t mean anything. He could desire all kinds of people—it just depended on who happened to be there at the time. He had already proved that to her.

‘You think that us having sex is going to make everything better?’ she said slowly.

‘In a word, yes. It would certainly make things a little more…comfortable.’ He shifted slightly, and he saw her look of horrified fascination as it was drawn once more towards his shorts.

‘Sex as a physical exercise, you mean? A bodily function that needs to be fulfilled—like scratching an itch?’

‘Don’t knock it, Lucy,’ he said softly. ‘You certainly never used to knock it before.’

She bit her lip and picked up the bottle to drink thirstily from it, but it did little to relieve the dryness in her mouth and she put it back down, her eyes serious. ‘Aren’t there other things we should be discussing, Guido? More important things?’

‘Oh?’ He raised his dark brows.

‘Well, for a start—we haven’t even decided where we’re going to be living.’

He sucked in a hot, dry breath. This was part of their deal. ‘You get to choose, remember?’