Pride After Her Fall

‘No.’ She didn’t laugh at this suggestion, she hardly dared move, because she could feel his leg and wanted it to stay there, wanted to lean across the table and meet his mouth, but she snapped herself out of it, pulled back in her seat and ended whatever strange place he had just beckoned her to. ‘I work in publishing—I’m a copy editor. Was,’ she added. She wanted to signal the waitress, wanted a glass of water, hell, she’d take the jug and pour it over herself this second.

‘I’m sure I could find you something....’

That really would be out of the frying pan and into the fire, Allegra thought, offering him back his card with a shake of her head. But her hand trembled slightly as it did so, because what a lovely fire it would be to burn in.

‘I’ll find something.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ Alex said. ‘Keep it. You might change your mind.’

‘Do you normally go around hiring your staff in bars?’

‘I leave the hiring to others. If you ring that number you would only get as far as my assistant, Belinda. I can tell her to expect—’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Allegra interrupted. ‘I’m just talking, not asking for a solution.’

‘It is how my brain works,’ Alex admitted. ‘Problem—solve it.’

‘When sometimes all you have to do is listen.’

She watched as he visibly wrestled with such a suggestion, guessed that this man was not used to sitting idly by in any situation, that he was more than used to coming up with a rapid solution. But as he took another drink and stared out to the bar where he had stood with his colleague last week, perhaps it dawned on him then that not everything came with a solution, and he gave a small nod. ‘Charles had many plans for his retirement—he was talking about them last week. I guess it got me thinking.’

Allegra nodded.

‘All the things you want to do,’ he continued, ‘intend to do...cannot do.’

‘Cannot?’ Allegra asked, because surely a man like Alex could do anything he wanted. He had looks that opened doors, and from his name, from the cut of his hair to the beautifully shod feet, she knew it wasn’t his finances that would stop him.

‘This time next year...’ He was unusually pensive, not that she could know, but now, this afternoon, he felt as if time were running out. ‘I’ll be married.’

Allegra gave him a very wide-eyed look. ‘If you’re engaged then you should not be joining women in a bar and sharing a bottle of champagne with them. Shouldn’t be...’ She halted, not wanting to voice the word, because for a little while there they’d been flirting—not even flirting, far more than that. It had felt as if they had been kissing. She really was going now anyway; he’d nearly finished the bottle. And maybe it was an overreaction to leave so hastily, but there was something about him that screamed warning. Not that he was inappropriate, more the wander of her own thoughts, because his mere finger on a glass had had her mind wandering. Something about him told her he’d make it terribly, terribly easy to break very firm rules.

‘Don’t leave...’ As she put down the note his fingers pressed over hers, wrapped them around the bill and held them a fraction. It was first contact and it was blistering; she could feel the heat from his fingers warm not just her own but race, too, to her face. ‘I’m not in love...I’m betrothed.’

‘There’s a difference?’ She smarted, though she was curious as to his unusual choice of word. She’d never heard a man, never heard anyone, describe themselves as betrothed. What was the difference?

‘God, yes.’

Go, her mind told her, just turn around and go! Except his hand was still curled around her fingers and there was sudden torture in the dark eyes that held hers.

‘I am Crown Prince Alessandro Santina.’ He was too weary to dodge the facts and so rarely wanting of conversation, strangely willing to reveal his truth. ‘I have been told I am to return and fulfill my duties.’

She could not have known just how many times she would replay that moment—could never have guessed how often she would look back to the very last time that she could simply have walked away.