Defying the Prince

‘Why are you sorry? You did the right thing. The sensible thing.’ His voice raw, he sloshed liquid into a glass and drank. ‘I’m not in the habit of indulging in public sex. I assume you’re not either.’

Izzy forced herself to breathe slowly. This was nowhere near as bad as discovering that your fiancé had only proposed to get his picture in all the tabloids, so why did she feel as if someone had removed her insides with a sharp implement? Feeling sick, she watched as he topped up his glass. ‘You’re going to have the mother of all hangovers tomorrow.’

‘That’s my business.’

‘That’s it?’ Her voice rose. ‘That’s all you’re going to say?’

‘There’s nothing more to say. I lost control. That’s it.’

Regret mingled with misery, forming a dark, swirling mass of horrible feelings in her stomach. What had she expected? That he’d sort out the whole protection issue and carry on where they’d left off?

The moment had gone.

They no longer had the seductive darkness of the amphitheatre as an excuse for sexual madness. The lights were on and they were both sober. ‘Right. I’ll just leave you to beat yourself up about losing control then.’

The fact that he didn’t have a single gentle word to soften the hardness hurt her deeply, but still, if he’d made a move towards her she would have willingly gone to him because she was as shaken by the encounter as he was, but he made no move.

Even when she walked towards the door, nothing.

Turning the handle, Izzy paused for a fraction of a second. But still he made no move, so she walked from the room without looking back.

CHAPTER SEVEN

MEN!

There was nothing quite like a man to mess with your head and throw everything off course. Furious with herself, Izzy stuffed her clothes into her suitcase. She was going home. And she was going to create a man-free exclusion zone and focus on her work.

Eyes gritty after yet another sleepless night, she zipped the case and dragged it bumping behind her down the curving, ornate staircase.

It seemed impossible to believe she’d only been at the palazzo for a few days. It felt as if her whole life had changed. And yet how could she possibly stay now? It would just be hideously embarrassing for both of them. Ignoring the heavy ache inside her, she focused on practicalities—booking a flight, getting to the airport, dodging the press. She thought about where she was going to go when she arrived back in England. The only thing she was careful not to think about was what had almost happened the night before.

Maybe one day, when it wasn’t likely to hurt any more, she’d retrieve the thought from her brain, polish it up and enjoy the memory. Right now she didn’t dare look at it.

Abandoning her case in the middle of the floor, she stalked off in search of Matteo.

Serena informed her that he was working out in the gym and that it wasn’t wise to disturb him, but Izzy reasoned that their relationship couldn’t exactly deteriorate any further and there was no way she was running away like a coward without facing him.

Plenty of women would have slunk away but she’d never been one to slink anywhere.

She strode over to the gym complex expecting to find him on a row of treadmills pounding away. Instead she saw a boxing ring and the prince stripped to the waist, muscles pumped up and hard and gleaming with sweat as he fought another man of similar build.

Izzy was so shocked that for a moment she couldn’t move.

Without the concealing properties of precision tailoring, there was no hiding the raw masculinity and primitive sex appeal. Nor was it any longer possible to block out the memories of the night before.

Leaning against the wall for support, she stared as the man she’d thought of as cold and restrained threw hard, lethal punches at his opponent. Even she, ignorant about boxing, could see that the prince was stronger and his skill superior. His torso was hard and muscled, not overbuilt like a bodybuilder, but super-fit and strong as he put himself through a demanding training routine. He was light on his feet and lethally accurate, and there was no missing the explosive power behind each punch he threw.

She’d known he was strong, of course. There were the times he’d scooped her up and carried her, and then there was last night when he’d supported her weight easily when they’d almost made love.

Not ‘made love,’ Izzy corrected herself instantly. They’d almost had sex. She was determined not to spin warm fantasies out of cold reality.

His bronzed shoulders gleamed with the sweat of hard physical exertion and Izzy couldn’t shake the feeling that he was punishing himself rather than h

is opponent. Like a relentless machine, he threw punch after punch. Either he had extraordinary reserves of energy or he hadn’t been lying awake all night as she had.

She had no idea how long she stood there watching but while she did something inside her shifted and reshaped because she realised that there were different sides to this man. She’d caught glimpses of it the night he’d dragged her off the stage and again the night before when he’d flattened her to the cold stone of the ancient pillar.

Superior strength and skill gave him the upper hand and Izzy winced as he knocked the other man to the ground. Or maybe she actually made a sound because he lifted his head, those stormy eyes narrowing as he noticed her for the first time.