Why wouldn’t they? He was gorgeous. It had been as flattering as hell to know he wanted to sleep with her because she’d certainly wanted to sleep with him.
And she had.
Most definitely the end of the story…or it should have been.
The trouble was, no matter how many times she told herself that, the real end of the story intruded.
Amanda leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. The scene played in her mind over and over like a videotape caught in a loop.
Nick, hatred blazing in his silver eyes.
Nick, calling her a whore.
Nick, believing that she’d written that article, that she would ever hurt him or betray him. How could he think it? Didn’t he know how much she loved him? That her heart would always long for him, want him, ache for him?
She drew a shaky breath, then slowly let it out.
Okay. So—so maybe she’d loved him just a little. What did it matter? They’d only spent a handful of days together. Surely that didn’t really add up to “love.”
Love didn’t come on with the speed of a hurricane. It didn’t overwhelm you. It grew slowly into something deep and everlasting.
And the foolishness of thinking Nick loved her…Oh, it was laughable! He didn’t. He never had. He’d called her beloved, said he wanted her with him forever, but so what? She wasn’t naive. Men said lots of things they didn’t mean in the throes of passion.
Love—real love—wasn’t only about sex. It was about little things. Things like taking walks in the rain. Like laughing, maybe even crying, over a movie you’ve seen before. It was about trust.
Especially trust.
If Nick had loved her, he’d have taken one look at the Gossip piece and known it was a fake. “It’s a lie,” he’d have said if he loved her. And then he’d have set out to discover who’d actually written those horrible things, who’d lied and used her name to drive them apart.
But he hadn’t done any of that. He’d turned on her in fury, humiliated her, terrified her, believed she’d violated his confidence, talked about the things they’d done together in bed—
“It was a lie,” a husky masculine voice whispered.
Amanda’s heart skittered into her throat.
“I know it now, beloved. I only hope you can forgive me for not knowing it then.”
The world stood still. Please, she thought, oh, please…
She turned slowly, wanting it to be him, afraid it would be him.
Nick stood in the shadows as still as if he’d been carved from stone.
Her knees buckled. He moved quickly and caught her. “Sweetheart. Oh, sweetheart, what have I done to you?”
His face was inches from hers. She longed to touch his stubbled jaw, to trace the outline of his mouth with the tip of her finger, but he had broken her heart once and she wasn’t about to let him do it again.
“Let go of me, Nick.”
He swung her into his arms.
“No,” she said breathlessly. “Put me down.”
“Hey. Hey!”
Nick turned, still holding Amanda. The man with the nice smile and the great face came toward them.
“What’s going on here?”
Nick looked at him. Whatever the man saw in his eyes made him retreat a couple of steps before he spoke up again.
“Say the word, lady, and I’ll send this dude packing.”
“You’ll try,” Nick said softly, “But you won’t succeed.” His arms tightened around Amanda. “This woman belongs to me.”
“I don’t belong to you! I don’t belong to anybody.”
His eyes met hers. “Yes, you do.” He bent his head and kissed her gently. “You’ll always belong to me, and I to you, sweetheart, because we love each other.”
The words he’d spoken stunned her. She wanted to tell him she didn’t love him, she’d never loved him. She wanted to tell him he’d never loved her—but he smiled into her eyes and she saw something in those cool silver depths that stole her breath away.
“Lady?”
Nick lifted his head. He was smiling, the way he’d smiled after they made love the very first time. “The lady is fine,” he said quietly, his eyes never leaving hers.
The man looked from Amanda to Nick and back again. “Yeah,” he said with a little laugh, “yeah, I can see that.”
Nick set off through the terminal, Amanda still in his arms. She saw the startled faces all around them, the wide eyes of the women, the smiles on the lips of the men. Her cheeks flushed crimson and she buried her face in his shoulder. Doors opened and shut; she felt the rush of cool air against her hot face, the silence of enclosed space.
When she lifted her head and looked up again, they were in Nick’s private plane. He let her down slowly. And when her feet touched the floor, her sanity returned.
“What do you think you’re doing, Nick?”
He smiled and linked his hands at the base of her spine. “I love you, Amanda.”
“Love?” She laughed. “You don’t know the meaning of the—”
Nick lifted her face to his and kissed her. She felt her heart turn over, felt the longing to put her arms around him sweep through her blood, but she would not make a fool of herself ever again.
“If you really think you can—you can just pretend what you did never happened…”
Nick put his arm around her, led her into the cockpit.
“What are you doing?”
“Sit down,” he said calmly. “And put on your seat belt.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I will not—”
He sighed, pushed her gently into the co-pilot’s seat and buckled the belt around her.
“Dammit,” she sputtered, “you can get away with kidnapping in Quidar, but this is France. You can’t just—”
Nick silenced her with a kiss. She moaned; she didn’t mean to, but the feel of his mouth on hers, the soft pressure of it, was almost more than she could bear.
“Neither can you,” he said with a little smile. He leaned his forehead against hers. “You can pretend you don’t want me, sweetheart, but your kisses speak the truth.”
“The truth,” she said coolly, “is that I’m as human as the next woman. You’re a charming man, Lord Rashid.”
Nick grinned as he took the pilot’s seat. “A compliment! Who’d have believed it?”
“Charming, and good-looking, but—”
“Very good-looking. That’s what women always tell me.”
“And clever,” Amanda said crisply. “But I’m not going to be taken in again.”
“Do you think I flew all the way to Paris to charm you, sweetheart?”
She looked away from him, folded her arms and stared straight out the windshield. “I don’t know why you came, and I don’t care. I am not going anywhere with you.”
“You do care, and you are going with me.”
“You’re wrong, Lord Rashid.”
“I came because I love you, and you love me. And we’re never going to be separated again.”
“You found me enjoyable.” Her voice wobbled a little and she silently cursed herself for even that tiny show of weakness. “Enjoyable, Your Highness. That was your very own word.”
Nick sighed. “A bad choice, I admit.” He smiled. “True, though. You were wonderful in bed.”
Color scalded her cheeks. “Which is why you regret getting rid of me before finding a replacement.”
“Amanda. I know I hurt you, sweetheart, but if you’d listen—”