Passion and the Prince

‘Is it just because I was involved in the modelling world that you don’t trust me? Or is it because of her … your… . your girl as well?’ Why was she persisting in adding more pain to the pain she was already enduring? What difference would it make?

None at all. And yet she found herself exhaling unsteadily when Marco agreed brusquely, ‘Yes.’

Lily nodded her head, and was about to turn away when Marco added with even more brusque reluctance, ‘And it’s didn’t—not don’t. I didn’t trust you—not I don’t,’ he elucidated, crossing the floor and opening the door, before she could say anything, leaving her to stare after him.

Did he mean that he trusted her now? And if he did. Stop it, Lily warned herself. Stop building impossible hopes out of nothing, because it’ll only backfire on you.

CHAPTER TEN

IT WAS over an hour since Marco had left her alone in their suite. An hour in which she had gone over and over their conversation. What had possessed her to say that about there not being anyone since that boy? What had she hoped for?

Did she really need to ask herself that question? She had wanted him to take her back in his arms. She had wanted him to take her to bed and show her—give her, share with her—all the sensual pleasures she knew she would find there with him. She had wanted to give him her love—even if he had no love to give her because he loved someone else.

He loved someone else, but she knew instinctively that, being the man he was—the kind, caring man he sought to hide beneath an outward mask of disdain and arrogance, the man who had rescued her from Anton—were she to ask him, plead with him, beg him to give her what she had never had, his compassion—the compassion she had now discovered the he possessed—would lead to him giving in and giving her what she wanted.

She would do that? She would humiliate herself like that when she knew he loved someone else?

But didn’t she have the right to know him as her lover? Didn’t she have the right to create memories with him and of him that she could hold long, long after she could no longer hold him? She was on the pill—prescribed by her doctor because of problems she’d been having with her periods—so there was no question of an accidental pregnancy, and something told her that a man like Marco would always place sexual health high on the list of things that were important to him.

She had always sworn not to get sexually involved, in case it led to her falling in love and suffering the pain she had seen her mother go through.

She was already in love with him, though, so that argument no longer held good. She was going to suffer the pain of not being loved by him whether or not they were lovers.

Lovers. Her and Marco. Wasn’t that really what she had wanted right from the start?

It was too late now. He had gone. But he would come back, Lily reminded herself, and when he did.

When he did she must think about her pride and do nothing, she warned herself.

Marco hesitated outside the suite door. It was over two hours since he had left Lily to rest, and he wanted to warn her that the Duchess had asked if they would mind dining alone this evening, without her, as she had an engagement she’d overlooked. If Lily preferred she could eat alone in the suite. She was bound to have a reaction to what she’d gone through in telling him about her past, and she might prefer to be alone.

With his admission to Lily that he trusted her the last of his barriers against her had been swept away—kicked away by himself, he acknowledged, because he no longer wanted or needed them. What he needed and wanted was Lily’s love, Lily’s presence in his life. He had been so wrong about her. Could he bring himself to tell her that? Could he bring himself to let her see his vulnerability and his need? Could he really believe the inner voice that told him he could place his trust in her?

Lily watched as the handle to the suite door turned, her heart lifting and then plummeting downwards in a high dive, the sensation inside her chest echoing the tension of the high-risk strategy she intended to adopt. After all, what had she got to lose?

Her heart? She’d already lost that. Her pride? She didn’t care about it. Right now all she cared about was creating enough memories to sustain her through the rest of her life from the handful of hours that were all she would have of Marco. She’d made her plans. If he agreed then later, afterwards—tomorrow morning, in fact—she intended to leave the villa for the airport and England without completing their tour. That way Marco would be spared the embarrassment and awkwardness of her continued company, and she would be spared having to face the reality of his lack of love for her. Her last memories of him would be those of lying in his arms as his lover.