“You’re so beautiful it hurts me to look at you.” His words sent delicious chills running down my body.
“So why did you leave me tonight?” I gasped, trying to control my body’s reaction.
He pressed his hips into me more firmly, causing a new wave of delicious arousal to course through my body.
“Because I’m afraid of the way you make me feel.” And with that, he caught my lips in the softest kiss. Tentative at first, he tasted me with the tip of his tongue before I succumbed. Open to him, I let his tongue delve past my lips, shivering as I relished the taste of Keir for the first time. I groaned into his mouth, my hands moving to his hair, nipples puckering tightly as he ran the pads of his thumbs under the flesh of my breasts through my dress.
Surges of need washed over me.
Desire choked me.
Fear slayed me.
He tasted too good. He felt too right. “Keir—stop. I-I’m just here for a job.”
I tugged my arms from his grasp. His gaze shot up to meet mine, a look of hurt flashing across his beautiful, green eyes. I stared at him for a few breathless moments. Guilt pressed upon me for all the mixed signals I was sending him. I had the urge to apologize, explain how twisted and jumbled my mind was when it came to him.
Instead I turned, shame bowing my head, and walked off the dance floor and down the muddy lane, leaving Keir in my wake.
My head swam with my mixed feelings.
My beautiful, broken prince.
FIVE
Keir
“She’s broken, Keir. She’s too damaged, it’s not a good fit for the family. Have you seen the papers this morning? Someone took a video of that little display on the dance floor last night and sold it to the highest bidder. The royal family is trending on social media, again. We’ve already suffered so much.” The Queen’s tone was laced with disappointment. “They know she’s the daughter of your father’s accomplice. I mean, it just couldn’t be worse.”
“She’s not broken. Anyway, I need someone that understands suffering. I’ve seen more than my share of suffering in a war zone, I need someone that’s on the same page about how horrible people can be in the world.” My words sent my mom into silence. “She’ll never understand me otherwise.”
I was so sick of her intervening in my life, like she knew better than me, when she’s the one that sent me off to war to get part of my thigh blown to pieces. I managed well now, after years of therapy, and I still had a slight limp and a gnarly scar. It wasn’t her fault really, I knew that. I’d signed my name to the paperwork, but only when I was at a low time in my life.
She’d understood that, and she’d taken advantage.
Just like she was trying to do now.
“Look mom, you hired the caretaker, not me. You want me to tell her she’s fired?”
The phone remained silent before she breathed. “I just can’t stand to have another son taken from me.”
I knew she was referring to my older brother, Larz. He’d been more privy to some of my father’s business affairs and out of fear that he too might be implicated and sent to prison, mom had begged him to go into hiding at one of the royal cottages in the farthest northern reaches of Denmark. I hadn’t seen him since he’d left that day, though he called often. Usually to try to pull me into this or that business deal. I didn’t mind that Larz liked to operate outside of the law like my father, the life we lived could be cutthroat politically, but that didn’t mean I wanted tangled up in it.
“Great talking to you, mom, really.” I cut the line, hanging up on the Queen not for the first time in my life. Or this month. She may have been a good monarch to our country, but she nagged the hell out of her children.
I shoved the phone in my pocket, turning back to the clubhouse Saturday morning. Most of the hoopla from last night had reverted back to normal. The tents were already dismantled, the dance floor I’d nearly come in my pants on while I danced with Cricket last night was gone. But thankfully, Cricket had decided to accompany me to this morning’s cricket game.
I wasn't playing, I rarely did these days, but that didn’t stop me from riding and practicing often. It was the culture I was here for.
Cricket smiled softly, a warm look on her face as she carried two drinks to me. “Virgin Bloody Mary’s, Sir.”
“That’s Duke to you.” I took one of the drinks, then watched as she twisted her straw between her lips as she drank hers. She was so sexy without even realizing. “I’m loving Sandie for dropping off all of these dresses for you.”