Four long days. And nights. She’d gotten accustomed to cuddling against his side, her cheek on his bare chest, his heartbeat lulling her to sleep.
She adored his intensity—making love with Gabriel was like being consumed by the sun—but these moments of stillness had their own rewards.
“Just a moment?” She tipped her head to grant him better access to her neck and ran her nails along his nape the way he liked.
“Did I mention I’m leaving very early in the morning?” Tender mockery filled his voice. He nudged his hips into her, letting her feel his erection. She smiled, no less turned on despite wanting to do nothing more than stretch out on her mattress and sleep for twelve hours.
“Of course,” she murmured. “I just thought that perhaps you could give me a few minutes to say goodbye properly.”
“Just a few minutes?”
Olivia’s bones turned to water as he drew his tongue along her lower lip, tasting, but not taking. With his hands warm and strong on her lower back, she leaned into his powerful chest and savored the tantalizing slide of his mouth against hers.
“Take as many as you need.”
She’d grown accustomed to sharing her bed with him and hated the thought of sleeping alone these next four nights. Every morning, after he woke her with kisses and made love to her in the soft light before day, she fell back to sleep wondering if once they were married, once she became pregnant, if he would share her bed every night. She already knew that a suite of rooms was being prepared for them in the family wing. They would each have their own space. Their own beds after the wedding. That wasn’t what she wanted.
Olivia wasn’t surprised when Gabriel swept her off her feet and carried her to the bed. The chemistry between them had skyrocketed in the days since they’d first made love. With their clothes scattered across the mattress, Olivia clutched at Gabriel as he brought her to orgasm twice before sliding into her. Being filled by him was a pleasure all its own and Olivia wrapped her thighs around his hips and held him close while he thrust into her.
He stayed for several hours, his large hands moving with such gentleness up and down her spine. Snuggled against his chest, with their legs intertwined, Olivia let herself drift. When she awoke several hours later, Gabriel was gone and she was already lonely.
Exhausted, but restless, Olivia left the bed and slipped into a robe. Her suite faced the gardens behind the palace so she had no hope of catching a final glimpse of Gabriel, but she opened the French door that led to the terrace and wandered across to the railing. At night the garden was lit up like a magical fairy tale, but dawn was approaching and the garden had gone dark. A cool breeze carried the scent of roses to her. Olivia leaned her arms on the cool stone. Vivid in her thoughts was the night Gabriel had found her out here and demonstrated that resisting him was a pointless exercise.
And now she knew it had been all along. When she’d agreed to marry him, she’d fooled herself into believing that sexual desire and mild affection would make her happy. After several nights in his arms she’d completely fallen under his spell. It was as if all her life she’d been moving toward this man and this moment.
Recognizing that her motivation for marrying Gabriel had changed, she had to ask herself if she was no longer concerned whether one day she’d become a queen...what did she really want?
Love.
The thought made her knees weak. Olivia braced herself against the stone railing. Deflated, she stared at her hands. At the engagement ring sparkling on her finger.
She couldn’t be falling in love with Gabriel. He certainly wasn’t falling in love with her.
This was an arranged marriage. A practical union for the good of his country. A sensible bargain that would lead to stability and children. She hadn’t expected to fall madly in love with her husband or be deliriously happy. She expected to be content. To feel fulfilled as a mother and someday as a queen.
Sexual satisfaction hadn’t entered into her plans—not until Gabriel had kissed her.
Olivia turned away from the softly lit garden and returned to her suite. As she closed and locked the glass door, her gaze fell on her desk and the locked drawer where she’d placed copies of important paperwork, including a file with some of her medical information. Had those scratches always marred the lock’s brass surface? The idea that someone in the palace could have tried to break into her desk was ridiculous. And then she recalled the night the twins arrived. There’d been a maid at her dresser in the middle of the night. When nothing was missing she’d seen no reason to pursue it.
A few hours later, when Libby entered the suite, Olivia was still seated at the desk. She’d opened the locked drawer and hadn’t found anything disturbed, but with the twins’ arrival at the palace having been leaked to the press and the mysterious appearance of Marissa’s bracelet, Olivia had checked each page of her thick file to make sure it was intact.
“Why are you looking through your papers?”
“I might be mistaken, but I thought I spotted fresh scratches on the lock and wanted to make sure my medical file hadn’t been rifled.” Olivia glanced up when Libby didn’t immediately comment. “What’s wrong?”
“Prince Christian is systematically interviewing the staff about the leaks to the press.”
A chill chased across Olivia’s skin. “He thinks someone inside the palace is providing information?” She remembered the photos of Gabriel and Marissa. Those hadn’t been paparazzi shots. They had been taken among friends.
Olivia touched the lock again, wishing she could determine if the scratches were recent. If someone had gotten their hands on her medical records it could have catastrophic results. “Keep me updated on the investigation,” she said, “and see if you can find a more secure place for these.”
* * *
Gabriel was having a hard time keeping his mind on today’s biotech plant tour. For the past several days he’d been touring manufacturing plants in Switzerland and Belgium in search of other businesses that would be interested in moving their operations to Sherdana. He probably should have sent Christian to do this. His brother had made a significant amount of money investing in up-and-coming technology. Christian would have been interested in the product lines and the way the manufacturing facilities were organized. Gabriel was finding it as dry as overdone toast.
That’s probably how both his brothers felt about what went into the running of the country. These days, they had little in common. It often amazed Gabriel that three people could share a womb for nine months, communicate among themselves in their own language until they were teenagers and participate in a thousand childhood adventures together yet be so completely different in their talents and interests as they entered their twenties.
Nevertheless, this trip couldn’t have come at a better time. The past few nights with Olivia had been some of the most passion-filled of his life. She’d slipped effortlessly beneath his defenses with her eager sensuality and curious nature. He’d become obsessed with the soft drag of her lips across his skin and the wicked suggestions she whispered in his ear as he entered her.
His constant craving for her company warned him he was fast losing touch with why he was marrying her. Cool, sophisticated elegance and a warm heart. Not feverish kisses and blazing orgasms.
Gabriel cleared his throat and tugged at his collar as the head of the factory droned on. He definitely needed some space from her. Unfortunately, the distance wasn’t having the effect he’d hoped for. Being apart was supposed to cool him off. That was what he’d anticipated, but that wasn’t the result.
He daydreamed about her at the oddest moments. Him. Daydreaming. Like some infatuated fool. He’d never expected her to preoccupy him in this way. She was supposed to be a sensible mate, an able partner in governing the country, not a hellcat in bed.
Hope.
The tattoo drove him crazy. Its placement. Its message.
It awakened him to possibilities. He wanted to throw sensible out the window and take chances. Because of Olivia he wanted to shake up the established way of doing things. She’d awakened his restless spirit that he’d believed he’d conquered after ending things with Marissa.
Every day he was finding out that Olivia was more than he’d expected.
And he’d be a fool not to worry about the power she now had over him. Yet he was helpless to stop what was developing between them. The best he could hope for was to slow things down until he shaped the relationship into something he was comfortable with.
But was comfortable going to make him happy in the long run? Was he really going to shortchange his future all for the sake of feeling safe and in control?
* * *
A few days after Gabriel left on his trip, Olivia was scheduled to have a private lunch with the queen. Ten minutes before the appointment, she slipped pearl earrings into place and stepped in front of the mirror to assess her appearance. She’d chosen a sleeveless pink dress edged in white with a narrow white belt to highlight her waist, and accessorized with a pair of floral pumps. The feminine ensemble required a soft hairstyle so she’d left her hair down and coaxed out the natural wave with a light blowout.