“Is it too warm?” The concern in his voice made her want to scowl. “We can get out.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine.”
“Cate, I have to tell you...”
The sudden depth of his voice caused her to look at him. He was watching her intently, his eyes clouded with emotion. She felt suddenly naked under his gaze.
“Yes?” Her chest rose in a sharp intake of breath.
“I...” He bit his lower lip and wrinkled his brow. “Yesterday was...”
She waited for him to get his thoughts together.
He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.
It seemed that he was going to make a confession. She could feel it. But that moment had fled, along with her senses. She pressed her hand to her chest, willing her skipping heart to cut it out. She didn’t need it to misbehave.
He watched her put her hand on her chest and frowned. “You’ll want to take that off.”
She grimaced and looked down at her bra. No way was she taking it off. He was crazy.
“You don’t want to get it oily.” He reached out and grabbed her hand. Before she could stop him, he slipped her magical ring off her finger and dropped it into an empty dish next to the tub. “There, safe and sound.”
Cate couldn’t breathe. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her chest as their gaze locked. Prince Viktor’s liquid amber eyes grew wide. His jaw dropped and he released her hand as if it had burned him.
He knew.
Chapter Fourteen
VIKTOR SPRANG FROM the bath. The essential oils had coated his skin in a slick layer of grease, so as soon as he stepped foot on the tile floor, his legs went out from underneath him. He landed with a thump on his rear, cursing loudly. Scrambling back up, he slid across the room and yanked his robe over his shoulders.
Why did he always end up losing his poise around that...that human?
The word felt dirty in his head. He glared at Cate as she sat stock still in the bath, her eyes the size of dinner plates. As soon as the ring had left her hand, he’d smelled it. Fresh blood, coursing through her veins. And then there was the sound. The drumming of a live heart, quickening under his direct stare.
“You’re not a vampire,” he spat. So much for his grandmother’s carefully vetted selection process.
“No.” Her face was white and red splotches dotted her chest. “I’m not.”
He raked his hands through his hair, his mouth distorted in a panicked grimace. Just seconds ago, he had been this close to confessing his feelings for her. He’d wanted to kiss those pink lips again, feel her smooth skin under his fingertips. But now, all he could do was stare at the pulsing of the vein in her neck.
“Why?” he demanded. It was an open-ended question, one that left room for many others. But more than anything, he wanted to know why she was there, messing with his feelings. Stomping on his heart. She was so obviously a liar.
She gave him a wry frown and sank lower into the water until it reached her chin. “Not all of us can be ancient vampire royalty.”
So that was it. She wanted immortality and riches. He’d dated plenty of vampires over the years and he’d come to expect the greedy, selfish nature that seemed inherent in most of his kind. Face it enough, and it became predictable. But in a human, it was deplorable.
He wanted to throw the decorative jar of sea shells sitting on a shelf at the wall, but he kept his fist in tight to his side. Pacing back and forth, he simmered with rage. He wasn’t the only one who would be hurt by this betrayal. His grandmother had been counting on him find
ing a match. Stasia’s show would be turned upside down. And there was the entire country to think about. She’d lied to them all.
“It was all a mistake,” Cate said, interrupting his fuming. Her heartbeat had slowed back to a normal rate and the blood had returned to her pink cheeks. “Things got out of hand. I never meant to hurt anybody.”
“We’re too deep into this for you to brush this off as a mistake.” He growled and tore open the door to his locker room. He couldn’t face her any longer. “You willingly deceived me. No one deceives a prince of Monstrana.”
Escaping through the door, he raged in the locker room, clenching his fists so tight his fingernails cut into the palms of his hands. Red clouded his vision as emotions took over. There was no turning back. He’d been duped by yet another woman in his life. She wasn’t even real.
All those hours spent gazing up at the dark ceiling of his bedroom, wondering about the life she’d lived and how he fit into it, wasted. And those sob stories she’d fed him. Her parents were probably still alive, retired in some community in Arizona. He’d bet anything she was an actress who read one too many stories about sparkling vampires. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard of a vamp-chaser, a mortal in love with the idea of immortality and eternal youth. He’d fallen for her charm and wit, hook, line, and sinker. He was a sucker of the ultimate variety — and not the vampire kind.