Their Royal Wedding Bargain

And it was something she needed to work on. Because even knowing that he was the most unsuitable man on the planet, and that there was no chance she would ever imagine herself in love with him, she couldn’t deny that just looking at him made her body crave something she had no experience to deal with.

At least not objectively. And she could not afford to fall into her old ways and get emotional over him. Because he certainly wouldn’t get emotional over her. No one ever had and it hurt, knowing that men found it so easy to walk away from her.

And Prince Rafaele would definitely walk away from her; it was what he did with all women. It was why she had married him in the first place. She wanted him to walk away from her in the end.

Restless, she moved to stand in front of the tall windows, trying to figure out why she felt so unsettled.

Was it just the pomp and ceremony of the day? Was it exhaustion from lack of sleep? Or was it that tonight was her wedding night and she was spending it alone? Alone, overlooking a picturesque night sky in a beautiful room with a bed the size of a swimming pool, and an ache deep inside her that longed to be satisfied. An ache to have Rafe touch her again, kiss her again...

‘Your Highness?’

A voice outside her door broke into thoughts that were rapidly spiralling out of control. Ushering the chauffeur into her room, she thanked him for delivering her luggage and immediately set out to find her nightwear. All she needed was a good night’s sleep. She only hoped it didn’t elude her yet again...

* * *

Fortunately it didn’t and she woke feeling more refreshed than she had anticipated. After a quick shower she donned her yoga gear, stretched on her yoga mat until she felt all the kinks leave her body, then went in search of coffee.

Following one hallway to the next, she eventually found the kitchen, a beautiful room of shiny stainless steel and polished wood. The state-of-the-art coffee machine took almost as long to locate. It was set into the wall above the oven, and the various buttons and dials looked like they belonged on a flight panel rather than on a coffee machine. Having only ever fixed herself a coffee from a small machine in her private suite, Alexa had no idea how it worked.

Still, how difficult could it be to operate? She opened a few cupboards until she located a mug and set it under the central cylinder that looked like it dispensed coffee.

Gnawing on the inside of her lip, she hoped that if she started pressing buttons she wouldn’t blow the thing up.

Before she could decide which one to push, however, she felt Rafe’s presence behind her.

‘What are you doing?’

Alexa glanced over her shoulder to see her husband standing in the doorway. He was dressed for business in a pale blue fitted shirt buttoned all the way to the wide column of his tanned throat, and a royal blue silk tie that turned his eyes the same shade.

Beautiful. He was utterly beautiful and Alexa did her best to calm the spike in her heart rate.

‘I’m studying your coffee machine and trying to figure out how not to break it,’ she said, giving a tentative smile.

Probably the best thing going forward would be for them to become friends. Anything would be better than the sense of awkwardness she currently felt. ‘You don’t have an instruction manual, do you?’

His eyes narrowed even more as his gaze swept over her with cool indifference. ‘What type of coffee do you want?’

‘A soy latte. If it does that.’

‘This thing could probably reboot NASA,’ he growled, coming up behind her and reaching over her shoulder, stabbing his finger at the buttons. ‘Let me show you how it works.’

He started going through the various options and Alexa tried to c

oncentrate but his heat and clean woodsy scent were doing crazy things to her brain. The urge to turn her face into the crook of his neck and sniff it was incredibly powerful and it took every lesson she’d ever learned in how to be objective to prevent herself from actually doing so.

By the time she’d mastered the urge the lesson was over.

‘Then you hit Start.’

Great, she hadn’t learned a thing.

Moments later the machine hissed and gurgled and Rafe handed her a perfectly made coffee.

Breathing the aroma deep into her lungs, Alexa groaned gratefully, her sexual awareness of the man in front of her immediately superseded by the need for caffeine. Which lasted right up until she opened her eyes and saw his dark gaze fixed on her mouth. Heat and desire swept through her at a blinding rush but, as if he hadn’t felt a thing in return, he stepped back from her and fetched an espresso cup from an overhead cupboard.

Seriously disturbed by how easily he made her want him, Alexa racked her brain for something to say that would ease the tension between them.

‘So you’re off to work then,’ she said, silently cringing at the obvious statement.