Virgin Princess's Marriage Debt

‘It’s not like in the movies, where a simple makeover is enough. My wayward recklessness needed to be ironed out of me at every turn. It took years learning the rules, etiquette, languages, diplomacy needed to ensure the success of the throne. All the while keeping this secret. One that ate away at me each day.

‘Could you imagine what the world’s press would do with a sniff of hereditary early-onset dementia in the Iondorran royal family? They are tough enough on debauchery, let alone something as devastating as a genetic disease.’

‘You have been tested.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘Yes. I don’t have it. The gene. Not that it means I won’t develop the same condition, but the chances are significantly less.’

‘So the injuries you sustained...’

She looked up at him then, her eyes matching the blue depths of the sky, large enough for him to see the sorrow, the pain and the frustration.

‘My father had a bad turn. He...we’d been managing his condition fairly well up until that point. But that night, he was...not the man I knew. He had been restless and demanded to see me. He wanted to know how I was managing a negotiation with the Hungarian consulate, but...that had been months before. The negotiation done and dusted. Only...he didn’t seem to remember that. He became frustrated and angry, furious even. I tried to calm him, but he saw it somehow as an attack, and he...he was just defending himself,’ she tried to explain. ‘The horror in his eyes, the moment he realised what he’d done...the guilt, shame...all of it was—’ she paused as if searching for the right words ‘—so awful.’

Theo tried to shake his thoughts into clarity, as if they were flakes within a snow globe, hoping that they’d settle into some kind of sense. But no matter how they ebbed and flowed, all he could think of was that he believed her. That he could see the pain and hardship she’d been through. But, worse than that, he’d begun to feel as if his anger and hatred towards her for what happened to him and his mother was masking something else. He felt as if he’d been hit by an avalanche of guilt and it was covering everything.

A huge, fat, tear-shaped raindrop thudded on the ground beside his feet. Then another, and another. In just seconds, the heavens had opened as if they were crying for them, for him, for a pain he couldn’t yet express.

Sofia looked up at him, seemingly heedless of the rain pouring down on her, and reached her hand to his hard jaw.

‘I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper amongst the pounding of the rain on the earth beneath them.

And in that instant, he honestly didn’t want to hear anything more. No words, no explanations, no apologies. He reached for her as his lips seized her with the same ferocity as that of the storm, drew her towards him as if she were the breath he needed to exist.

His tongue delved between soft, sweet lips and it wasn’t enough. He wanted it all. Desire drenched him as surely as the rain as he felt her body mould against his own, the firm jut of her breasts against his chest, and he pulled her even closer, his thumb tracing down her slender neck to her ribcage, snagging on her hip and anchoring her to him.

She gave him everything he demanded, gave herself completely over to him, until she began to tremble, and in turn he finally felt the stinging cold of the summer storm. He broke the kiss, glancing towards the main building, which was too far away. He grasped her hand.

‘Come with me,’ he said, asked, possibly even pleaded in that moment, as he took them towards the summer house nestled on the boundary of the vineyard.

CHAPTER NINE

SOFIA COULDN’T STOP SHAKING, even as she took a second step and a third into the small beautiful wooden summer house. She knew it wasn’t just because of the rain. She had never told anyone about her father. No one outside her mother, or her father’s carers. She had put her trust in Theo. And it had been terrifying, but she wouldn’t take it back. Not for a second.

She had seen him war with the truth of her words, with what it had meant for them all those years ago, and possibly even what it meant for them now. But she didn’t want to think about her father, or Iondorra. No. Now she wanted to lose herself, or find herself, she couldn’t say.

She turned to see Theo standing in the glass-fronted doorway, the fierce sky pouring rain down on the vineyard, casting everything else in dull grey, but Theo in full, bright glory. He looked like an avenging angel, dark hair even blacker than the night, his clothes drenched and clinging to the dips and hollows of his body as if he were a thing to be worshipped.

As he stalked towards her she fought the instinct to step back. She wouldn’t hide from this any more, hide from her desire, she was now focused on him completely, the one man, the only man she’d ever wanted. The only man who had seen her for who she truly was, before duty had moulded her into something new. Something other.

They reached for each other at the same time, colliding in need and passion and want. She felt the beat of her heart leap as his lips crashed against hers, as his hands cradled her head, angling her in a position that felt as much like surrender as it did defiance. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, filling her, consuming her, and she needed it. It was too much. She felt like laughing, like crying, as if she simply didn’t know which way was up or down any more, all she knew was him.

Her hands flew to his shoulders, large, solid, bigger than the breadth of her hands. Her nails dug into the thin, wet material covering his body and she wanted to feel skin, needed to. Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt, but the tremors shaking her body made her actions too slow.

He released his hold on her, and she swayed from the loss, the support, the anchor of his body. She watched as he tore apart his shirt, buttons flying and scattering on the wooden floor, marvelling at the smooth planes of his chest, the soft whorls of damp hair clinging to a deeply tanned torso. As he reached for her she gazed, fascinated by the cords of muscles rippling from the movement, and reached out a hand tentatively. She wanted to touch, needed to, but...

He swept up her hand in his and placed it on his chest, on his heart, and looked at her with such intensity she could hardly bear the weight of it. She felt the beat of his heart, powerful, strong and fast, raging in time with her own. His skin was hot beneath her cool palms and she shuddered, wanting to feel that heat wrapped around her, fill her, warm the places of her that had been left cold the moment she left him standing at the boarding school all those years ago.

It was then that she knew what it felt like to be in the eye of the storm—the moment of shocking quiet stillness while chaos raged around them. The moment that life as she knew it would change. She knew that he was giving her this. This moment to walk away. To stop. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t.

She reached for him then, raising to her tiptoes to reach that proud, utterly sensual mouth of his, desperate to feel it against her own. Her hands explored his rain-slicked skin, delighting in the feel of his strength, his power. His hands cupped her backside and he lifted her off her feet, her legs wrapping round his lean waist as if they’d al

ways been meant to be there.

He backed up and sat them down on the large summer lounger, her knees anchoring against his hips, as he pulled at her silk top, freeing it from the waistband of her trousers, pulling it over her head and tossing it aside, snagging on the pins that held her hair in place and pulling it free as her long blonde hair hung down in thick, wet ropes about her shoulders. He stopped then and stared.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, placing open-mouthed kisses along her neck as she shivered under the feel of his tongue on her skin. His hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs brushing her nipples, stiff with pleasure, and Sofia’s head fell back, relishing the feel of him, of what he was doing to her body, as he honoured her with his touch.

She gasped when he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked, teasing her with his tongue, his arm around her waist holding her in place against the onslaught of desire that threatened to overwhelm her.