Virgin Princess's Marriage Debt

While everything in her wanted to scrabble into the clothes and rush to find him, demand that he take her back to Iondorra, she forced herself to stop. To slow the speeding of her thoughts.

Take me away, Theo. Please.

She had asked him for this. She blinked back the tears that pressed against the backs of her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t break. But she needed this. She needed him. Perhaps, instead of rushing back to be the princess everyone wanted, she could steal this time away, just for herself. Before duty fell like a tolling bell against her, before there was no turning back.

* * *

Dressed in a soft white linen shirt and blue capri trousers, Sofia left the bedroom and followed the small galley to the stairs in front of her. The sun beckoned from where it slanted through the shadows and Sofia realised she had no idea what time it was.

Bare feet took the metal steps up to the deck of the boat, and when she emerged into the light she looked up at the stunning sloping arc of a brilliant white sail against a cloudless azure sky. The yacht was small—as in not one of the monstrosities that many rich Europeans preferred—but long and incredibly beautiful.

She would have stopped at the sight of the sea, stretching out on all sides as far as the eye could see, the magnificence of the aquamarine water melding with the sky at an invisible horizon. She would have stopped to relish the heat of the sun as it drenched her in a comforting warmth, finding even the darkest places of her heart and healing it beneath the touch of the rays. But nothing, nothing compared to the sight of Theo at the helm of the boat tall and proud as he directed the wheel with just the palms of his hands, his fingers outstretched, his movements smooth and his gaze on the horizon...until he turned that powerful gaze on her.

The sight of him took her breath away. His dark hair was wind-tousled, and a pair of sunglasses may have masked his eyes, but they did nothing to conceal the proud cheekbones and jut of his strong jaw, a jaw covered in a dark brush of stubble that just cried out to be touched. His white shirt, buttoned low, exposed a chest of defined muscle, dustings of dark swirls hidden then revealed as the linen was shaken by the wind. Dark navy linen trousers hung low on his lean hips, and Sofia bit back a curse or a plea to the gods, she honestly couldn’t tell any more. This was not the man-child she had fallen for in her youth, this was something altogether different. Her eyes ate up the changes in his body, the muscles corded in his forearms, the glimpses of the trail of hair leading below the beltline of his trousers, the wide

stance of his bare feet planting him securely on the wooden deck, looking for all the world as if he were its ruler.

All these things she had not taken in when they had come together...she had been blinded by passion then, and now? Now he simply stood there bearing the weight of her scrutiny, allowing her to take her fill. It was too much, and she used the excuse of the bright sun to shield her eyes, breaking the connection that had bound them together for a moment.

‘There are sunglasses over there. As well as some deck shoes, and in the cooler bag some breakfast.’

He gestured to the bench just across the deck and she found everything he had described.

‘You need to use the sunscreen too,’ he said as he secured the wheel, and disappeared below deck. She sprayed herself liberally with the lotion and donned the pair of beautiful sunglasses. She was just reaching into the cooler bag for a pastry when the scent of fresh coffee mixed with the sea-salt air. She nearly groaned out loud.

‘Still drink coffee like a lifeline?’

‘Yes,’ she smiled, the feeling on her lips foreign and strange after the last few weeks. ‘Can’t live without it,’ she said, gratefully accepting the mug he offered her. She watched as the sea wind whipped away the steam before it could swirl and dance above the dark liquid. Waiting for it to cool before taking a sip, she turned back to the horizon. ‘Where are we?’

‘The Ionian Sea.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

He nodded. And for a moment she was glad that they shared this silence. That he allowed her to listen to the sounds of the waves crashing against the hull of the yacht as it glided through the water, the whip and crack of the sail as it strained against the wind. She knew he had questions, she could feel them emanating from him, but that he had not yet voiced them was a pleasant relief.

‘You got your boat,’ she said with a sad smile, remembering their youthful plans of some impossible future, the ones made at the Swiss boarding school.

‘Eventually,’ he said, the word marshalled as if he’d wanted to say more.

Theo resumed his position behind the wheel and she folded her feet beneath her on the bench and sipped at her coffee, savouring the strong hit of caffeine and the smooth, sweet taste of the honey he had added. He remembered. She feared that he remembered everything.

It had been so easy to embrace her anger for him when he was being demanding, blackmailing and ruthless. Even when he had played her body’s desires against her, plucking strings between them she had long thought severed. But now? Now she could see glimpses of the youth she had fallen for. His kindness, his acceptance of her, unlike anything she had ever known before then, and not since. Not even with Antoine.

If he had forced her to explain, shouted and demanded, she would have retreated. But in this space he gave her she found herself unfurling, expanding within it in a way that was all about her. Not about duty, or trade negotiations, not about a ring she would wear, or a role she would play for her country, for her family.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had found time for silence, for herself and her thoughts. Even as she considered it, she felt the rising panic, the fear that something might be happening and she wouldn’t know about it. As much as she hated it, she started to look for her phone.

‘Your people have instructions to call me if they need you. They have the number of the yacht’s satellite phone. Your mobile wouldn’t have signal out here anyway.’

‘But the meeting with the Hungarian ambassador—’

‘Has been rescheduled.’

‘And the interview with the New York Times?’

‘And with Paris Match, the Iondorran prime minister, and the Swiss consulate. Your assistant is nothing if not efficient.’

‘Yes,’ she said, smiling at the thought of the apparently ruthlessly organised Theo dealing with her imperious assistant.