“Wh-what?”
“Francesca’s having trouble setting the wedding date. So I thought—why bother with a wedding at all? Why not just elope? That’s where you come in.” He gave her a bright smile. “Christmas Eve I want to elope. Scotland. Honeymoon in Barbados. I need you to make the arrangements.”
Alan didn’t realize what he was asking of her. How could he? To him, Halloween night had been just a kiss. To her, it had been the culmination of two years of fantasies. Which was probably why the kiss hadn’t felt nearly as intense as she’d imagined it would. Not even as intense as the way Prince Maksim’s lips had felt against her palm an hour before.
Trying to push the memory of the dark Russian prince from her mind, she took a deep breath. “Are you sure eloping is a good idea? The bride might prefer to choose when—”
“It’s perfect,” he said, frowning.
“All right,” she sighed. She suddenly realized she was still clutching the Leighton bag in her hands. “Here’s your gift.”
“Thanks.” Taking his coat from the hall closet, he slung the bag over his shoulder. He stopped at the door with a wink. “I’ll need this tonight to close the deal. I’ll be getting her something better for Christmas. In the meantime, start working on the elopement plans, will you?”
After Grace locked the door behind him, she turned back with a lump in her throat.
She’d thought buying gifts for his fiancée was bad. Planning their quickie wedding would be a thousand times worse.
It hurt more than she’d expected.
Because she’d spent the afternoon with Prince Maksim, she realized. Because for the first time in years she’d felt the full attention of a man’s eyes on her, the consideration of his touch and regard, and it had brought something to life inside her. Something that wanted to be seen. Something that wanted to be touched. It had felt so good. She’d felt…
Alive.
Now she just felt numb.
Grace went downstairs to her basement apartment. Closing the door quietly behind her, she changed out of her damp clothes. She put on an old sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants. She heated some leftover takeaway Thai food in her microwave. She sat down heavily on the couch. She turned on the old television. She placed a fork, the food and a diet soda on the coffee table. She got out her laptop to start making elopement arrangements for Christmas Eve, just two weeks away.
But instead of opening her laptop or watching TV, she wrapped herself in the quilt her mother had made her as a child. She sat on the couch and stared blankly at the wall.
He was really going to marry Lady Francesca Danvers. The vicious, skinny, gorgeous heiress who always got away with her bad behavior because she was so beautiful that men put up with it. Men would put up with anything to be with a girl like that.
While Grace was such a pushover she couldn’t even make Alan listen to her beg him for an advance. Not even though her family’s security depended on it.
Tears fell softly onto the frayed fabric of the quilt. Why hadn’t she found out until that morning that her father’s life insurance money was gone? Why hadn’t she known her mother had been keeping their financial difficulties secret? And why couldn’t she stop loving a man who so plainly saw her as nothing but a secretary?
She jumped when she heard a loud knock at her front door.
Fiercely wiping her eyes, she wrapped her mother’s quilt over her shoulders and rose from the couch. Alan had likely forgotten his key again and wanted to go up through her apartment. Her nervous heart beat faster. This time she would make him listen. I need an advance, she practiced in her mind. Please, Alan, I need $10,000 right away or my family will lose their home.
She opened the door into the dark, snowy night. “Alan, I need—”
Her words ended in a gasp.
The tall, dark-haired man who looked down at her with a gleam in his eye was definitely not her boss.
Prince Maksim leaned against the edge of the door, looking dangerous and oh, so seductive in a tuxedo beneath a black coat. Her heart pounded in a whole new way.
“What are you doing here?” she breathed.
“I forgot something,” he said, looking down at her tear-stained face.
“What?”
She caught a sudden brief blur of icy moonlight above as she felt his hands, his warmth, wrapping around her. Saw the colors of her quilt blur around her as he cupped her face.
“This,” he said simply.
And he kissed her.
The touch of Maksim’s mouth on hers was gentle at first. He pulled her close. She felt his hands brush through her hair before they moved slowly down her back. Her breasts pressed against his hard chest. He held her more tightly, deepening the embrace. His lips caressed hers, leading her, teaching her, making her sizzle all the way to her toes. He forced her lips wide, penetrating her mouth, teasing and licking her with the tip of his tongue. Her whole body became tight with longing, and her core poured with heat.
It was the kiss she’d always dreamed of. The whole world seemed to whirl and shudder around her like a tornado as she was swept up in his fierce embrace.
Was she dreaming? She had to be dreaming!
Feeling Maksim’s strong arms around her, his lips taking his pleasure and demanding she take her own, was like nothing she’d ever felt before. Nothing like Alan’s sloppy, drunken kiss six weeks earlier.
Alan!
She was kissing Alan’s enemy in his own house!
“Stop,” she whimpered against his lips, shuddering as she pulled away. “Please stop.”
He pushed blond tendrils from her face. “Because you’re in love with Barrington?”
“No…yes.” She shook her head with a tearful laugh. “You just have to go!”
“You just have to come with me.”
He wanted her to go out with him? “I don’t need your pity—”
“Pity?” His eyes darkened until they were almost black in the snowy, cloud-ribboned moonlit night. “I have been accused of having no heart. I am telling you the truth, Grace. Take this as a warning.”
And he kissed her again.
This time he was not gentle. It was a hard plundering of her mouth that bruised her lips and left her dizzy, aching with pleasure.
“Come out with me tonight,” he whispered against her cheek. “You cannot refuse me.”
Though she’d been standing for five minutes in the below-street-level entrance of her basement flat, she was barely aware of the cold.
But how could she be tempted? She loved Alan!
Didn’t she?
“I won’t turn on him,” she gasped, still trembling with the shock of desire. “Not for any price. You won’t kiss a betrayal out of me.”
“You think that’s the only reason I would kiss you?” The rich moonlight moved against scattered dark clouds above them, wistful and haunted, tracing his razor-sharp cheekbones and chiseled jaw. “You are a desirable woman, solnishka mayo.”
“Solnishka mayo?” she repeated.
“Sunlight,” he whispered.
She choked out a laugh, glancing down at her flannel pajama pants, her ratty sweatshirt. She pulled her mother’s quilt a little tighter over her shoulders. “You’re blind.”
“You don’t know your own beauty.” He stroked her shoulder, running his hand down the quilt as he looked down into her eyes, towering over her. “Let me show you the truth.”
“But I can’t trust you,” she whispered. Prince Maksim was dangerous and ruthless. Though knowing he was forbidden to her just made her want him more….
He leaned down to kiss one cheek softly, then the other, as he spoke against her skin. “I’m not leaving without you.”
The touch of his lips against her cheek sent aching tension to her breasts and down deep in her belly. She longed for him to kiss her again. In his arms she couldn’t think, she couldn’t do anything but feel. She closed her eyes as she felt his hot breath against the tender flesh of her ear. “I…I can’t.”
“You can and you will,” he said. “Let me show you how pleasurable life can be.”
With those words he pulled away from her. She nearly protested aloud and her eyelids reluctantly fluttered open. He was at least six inches taller than her, making her feel delicate. “No.”
“Stubborn and foolish,” he repeated softly, rubbing his thumb lightly against her swollen lower lip. “Why do you resist me?”
“Because…because…” She couldn’t think straight with him stroking her lip like that. Grace’s whole body ached. “I…don’t have anything to wear.”
With a sudden grin, he snapped his fingers. A bodyguard—a dark, hulking man who had to weigh three hundred pounds—ambled down the steps to her basement door with two primrose boxes in his arms. He set them near the doorway, then disappeared back up to the street.
An exclamation of shock escaped Grace as she stared at the two recognizably colored boxes embossed with the Leighton coat of arms.
“What have you done?”
“The coat,” he said. “The dress.”
She licked her lips. “Not the ones from Leighton.”
“I knew you wanted them, though you denied it.”
Remembering how she’d yearned for the black coat and the teal silk cocktail gown, a shiver swept through her body. She’d been afraid to even touch them in the store. At the thought of wearing them against her skin, her heart pounded.