“Is that because of the painting or because you want to do business with him?”
“Everything is about business. I have an opportunity to increase my success while I’m here and I’m definitely going to
take it. I don’t want to do anything to compromise that. I certainly won’t allow you to compromise it.”
“Well, I don’t want to be embarrassed.”
“You didn’t let me finish. The party tonight is a masked ball. That means everyone will be wearing masks.”
“Thank you,” she said, her tone flat. “I actually got that from the title masked ball.”
“Just making sure.”
“Well, there is still a problem with that.”
“What’s that?”
“I left my ball gown and my elegant face mask in my other luggage.”
“I might not be royalty, cara mia, but I am a billionaire. I could acquire white tigers in the space of a couple hours if I wanted to. A gown and a mask will be no trouble at all.”
“What if I would rather have the white tigers?”
“Your room is too small.”
“They can sleep in my bed.”
“I’m not getting you white tigers. It would only spoil you. Plus, then everyone would want one.”
She couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped her lips. She had no idea how he managed all of this. How he managed to make her feel hot, frustrated and amused in the space of only a few seconds. It was some kind of strange witchcraft she had never encountered before.
“Fine.”
“Fine to the gown and the mask?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Would it matter if I said no, Alex?”
Suddenly, his voice seemed to be coming from closer behind her, his low, sensual tones skimming along her skin. “Not especially. If I had to I would go into your room myself and act the part of your valet.”
“You aren’t suggesting you would dress me?”
“I confess I have much more experience undressing women than I have dressing them. But I might be willing to make an exception.”
It was official. She was going to burst into flame.
She had lied when she’d told him she didn’t read romance novels. She did. Secretly. And while she pretended to snicker at them from behind her hand, the truth was she was fascinated. She had always been curious to know if attraction like that existed. If it was possible to look at someone and feel like they were touching you. Like it would be too much if they did. Like you would die if they didn’t.
She knew it did now. And she knew it was the kind of intensity that fiction simply couldn’t prepare you for.
His lips had barely skimmed hers last night and she had felt like the moon and stars had fallen from the sky and scattered around her in the garden, leaving the world upside down, glittering all around her, rather than in the distance.
But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to lose her head over him. That was the last thing she had told her grandmother. That she would not allow him to seduce her.
Her grandmother had warned her away from this kind of thing in vague terms, and when the subject of the painting had come up, just before they’d come to retrieve it, it had become clear to Gabriella why. Her grandmother had been wounded by a man such as this. One who was powerful, handsome.
One she was not meant to be with.
Quite apart from the fact that Gabriella couldn’t imagine a future with a man like this, one who didn’t believe in love, or commitment, she was a princess. And even if she didn’t have a throne she would be required to make a certain kind of marriage.