‘I suppose you think you’re clever for producing it in the middle of the desert?’
‘Not clever, no. Fortunate. And not the wardrobe part, that was easy, but the fact that you are here to wear it.’ He’d never been so unsure of a relationship. Never so unsure of a woman. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d stay.’
‘The Crown Prince of Zubran not sure of someone or something? This must be a whole new experience.’ Her eyes teased him and he had to force himself to stay in his seat and not rush this. Timing was everything. And his timing had been wrong before.
‘It is a fairly new experience. And not one I’m enjoying.’
‘You know your problem?’ Glass in hand, she leaned forward, the movement accentuating the tempting dip between her breasts. ‘Life has been too easy for you. Your playboy past has spoiled you. You’ve had it easy.’
‘My father and my late uncle would agree with you, but you’d all be wrong.’
She put her glass down and rested her chin on her palm, studying him across the table. ‘When has a woman ever said no to you?’
‘You did.’
The humour in her eyes faded. The caution that was never far from the surface reappeared, and she sat up and dropped her hands into her lap. ‘You don’t like to be crossed. You like to get your own way. That’s probably what this is all about.’
‘That is not what is going on here and you know it.’
‘Have you ever had to work at a relationship with a woman?’
‘Is that a serious question?’ He heard the irony in his tone. ‘Because if it is, I think you already know the answer to that.’
Her fingers slid slowly round the base of her glass. ‘You’re a complicated man, Mal.’
‘This from a woman renowned for keeping her relationships superficial.’
‘A sensible strategy. For some reason I didn’t apply it with you and look how that turned out.’
‘All relationships have rocky moments.’
‘Well, forgive me if I chose not to become another ship wrecked on your shores, Your Highness.’ Her tone was flippant but there was a bleakness in her eyes that tore at him and suddenly he knew he had to risk more if he was expecting that of her.
‘I’m sorry I hurt you. That was never my intention.’
‘I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.’
‘Better. I was so in love with you.’ Admitting it was hard, particularly as he’d been raised not to share his thoughts and feelings outside the family circle. But he wanted her to be his family and he knew if there was to be any hope of that, he had to give. ‘I’d never felt that way about a woman before. I’d never been in love. It scared me as much as it scared you because it changed everything. I wasn’t prepared for it.’
Neither of them took any notice of the meal. The food remained untouched and forgotten on the table between them.
‘I know—’ her mouth flickered ‘—you needed a virgin princess.’
‘It was you I needed.’ His tone was raw. ‘You. From the first day I met you, in charge of that enormous event and yet so cool that I could have put ice on you and it wouldn’t have melted. I’d been careful, so careful, about choosing the women I spent time with.’
‘Your reputation suggests otherwise.’
‘My reputation only tells one part of the story.’
She toyed with the stem of her glass. ‘Let’s face it, Mal, you wanted me because I wasn’t impressed by your rank or the size of your wallet. I was turned off by it because in the past I’ve found that men like you generally think they have a free pass when it comes to women. I said no. And you were arrogant enough to see me as a challenge.’
‘Arrogant? You saw that as arrogance? Yes, there were women—’ and he couldn’t even remember them now because next to her there was no one ‘—but there will always be women who are attracted by wealth and the opportunity to mingle with the famous and the influential, but that’s one single part of the life I lead. Then there is the other part—’ he paused because this degree of honesty was so alien to him ‘—the part that means your choices are rarely your own and the part that requires you to serve others while forfeiting your own wishes and invariably your privacy too. You want to trust people, so you do and then you make a mistake and you learn that trust is a luxury afforded to other people. It’s a hard lesson, but you learn to trust no one except your immediate family.’
She was still now, the humour gone from her eyes as she listened. ‘Mal—’
‘You learn how it feels to go through life alone and because you are alone you are forced to develop confidence in your own decisions. And that isn’t easy. In the beginning you’re afraid that all those decisions are wrong.’ Remembering, he gave a humourless laugh. ‘You wait for the world to fall apart and for everyone to discover that just because you are a Prince doesn’t mean you know what you’re talking about. You want to ask advice, but you don’t dare because to display such a lack of confidence would be a political error. It’s back to trust again, and you remember that you can’t afford to do that. So you make the decisions alone and you make them with confidence and you learn not to question or hesitate because when you do, people lose faith in you. Is that arrogance?’ He lifted his head and looked her in the eyes, wondering if anything he’d said made any sense to her. ‘I see it more as a product of a lifetime of making decisions alone.’
She was silent for a moment. Then the corners of her mouth flickered. ‘Well, that’s put me in my place.’ Her tone was light but her expression was serious. ‘You never told me this.’