heart? Had she accepted the royal engagement after knowing the guy a few weeks, when he’d waited for her for ten long, agonising years?
A red haze clouded his vision. All the reasons for his silence vanished from his jet-lagged brain. For the first time in ten years he lost control, acting on impulse, obsession, years of love. “Wait.”
Jazmine and Max turned back.
“Are the rumours true about the royal marriages for you—all four of you?” He stared hard at Max.
Taken aback by the directness of the attack, Max nodded. “It’s the way things are done here. Though he’s giving us all time, the King can enforce it by law if he feels it’s in the best interests of the country.”
“Then you need to know the true reason I’m here, besides advising my friends on what is best—not just for Hellenia, but for them.”
And with that he snatched Giulia into his arms, bent her over his arm and kissed her…kissed her as he’d ached to do, body and soul, for a third of his life.
For the rest of his days he’d recall the feel of Giulia’s lovely, supple dancer’s body as he pulled her against him; the soft, full lips beneath his as he kissed her. Thank God—thank God—her hand fluttered up into his hair, she moulded herself against him and kissed him back for a brief, beautiful moment.
The gasps of everyone in the room awoke him to what he’d done.
Idiot! After ten years of patient waiting, he’d lost it in a moment. He’d kissed his intensely private Giulia in front of an audience.
But she’d kissed him back. She’d kissed him.
So he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. He met the Grand Duke’s eyes without flinching or fear. “Whatever Charlie decides, I’ll be doing my dead-level best to make Giulia choose to come home—with me. To become an ordinary firefighter’s wife instead of making an arranged alliance with you for the sake of power and wealth.” He stared at each of them in turn, keeping Giulia in the curve of his arm, loving the feel of her there, where she belonged. “Nobody knows how to care for her and cherish her as I do. She’s mine.”
Then, without a breath, he turned to her. It was Giulia’s cue.
And the shock in her lovely eyes matched the stunned betrayal in her husky voice as she cried, “Toby, how could you?”
She tore herself from his arms and bolted from the room before he could react.
“Do you want company, Lia?”
From her favoured hidey-hole in the library—snuggling in corners with books had been her escape for years when the world felt out of control—Lia looked up with a smile at the woman who’d become a friend, a sister, within hours of meeting. “If it’s you, Jazz.” She patted the big, fat, curl-up-in-me leather reading-chair beside hers.
Jazmine kicked off her shoes and curled up with a sigh. “I love this room. I always have. What’s that you’re reading?”
Because Jazmine didn’t pry, Lia wanted to tell her. “What’s wrong with me? Why does everyone treat me like a child in need of protection?”
Jazmine’s brows lifted, and Lia laughed, feeling weirdly relieved that her friend chose to laugh at her rather than cover for her. “Okay, everyone but you.”
Jazmine shrugged. “I think it’s a man thing. Men like to believe they’re in control, and they hate change.”
“Oh, right,” Lia mocked, the fury back. “That explains what he did? He might have been in control, but it was a change from his normal behaviour all right.”
Jazmine grinned. “You seemed to like it, from what I could see.”
“All right, so I liked it,” she snapped, surprising even herself with the need to blurt it all out. “I’m almost twenty-seven years old and today was the first time a man kissed me! I wanted to be a woman for once. What’s so wrong with that?”
Jazmine gaped—literally. “You’ve never been kissed before today?”
Her blush grew deeper. “Do you mind? It was humiliating enough to say once.”
“Of course it was. I’m sorry, Lia.” Jazmine leaned over and hugged her. “But you’re so beautiful. Men should be lining up to kiss you.”
The words resonated in her soul. Beautiful… Someone outside the direct family had actually said it to her: You’re so beautiful.
For years she’d felt abnormal. She’d never even been asked on a date in her life. Sometimes she thought a man seemed interested—one or two had asked for her number—but when nothing had come of it she’d felt confused and ashamed, wondering what was wrong with her.
Even now, with a title and fifty-million euros, Theo Angelis had to arrange her marriage because she couldn’t find a man of her own. Though he’d arranged Charlie and Jazmine’s marriage, it was obvious by the way they could barely keep their eyes and hands off each other that their marriage would be…normal. But while she’d been willing to think about marrying Max at first, she’d soon realised that he was like every other man she knew: he saw her as a friend, a sister, someone to be kind to, to protect.
“Well, they’re not,” she answered Jazmine, curt and cold, but she couldn’t help it. “I’m twenty-six years old, and no man has ever touched me.”
“Until today,” Jazmine replied softly, with meaning.
Without warning, Lia felt choking tears rush to her eyes. She’d acted like the sixteen-year-old with a hopeless crush on her best friend she’d once been, instead of the princess she must be. She’d had her dream for a moment, and she’d paid for it. With his next words, the dream had quietly fallen in splintered fragments at her feet.
No one knows how to care for her and cherish her as I do.
It was all about the past. Her best friend wanted to look after her.
“Yes,” she agreed, with a bitterness she couldn’t hide. “Until today.”
Jazmine stared at her, and seemed about to say something. Then the door opened, and Lady Eleni came in, looking unusually harried. “Princess Jazmine! Princess Giulia!”
They jumped out of their chairs and strode round the bookshelf that hid them from view. “Yes, Eleni, what is it?” Jazmine asked, cool and in control.
Lia wished she had the knack of that.
“You’re wanted in the press room, Your Highnesses,” Lady Eleni said in a rush. “Lord Orakis is causing more trouble while the King is ill. The King wishes you both to handle this before the news reaches Prince Kyriacos.”
“Of course, we’ll come now.” Jazmine took Lia’s hand and they headed down together—but they both knew the time had come. They knew what Orakis wanted: power. And with his growing base of support he knew he could gain it legitimately through marriage to a princess.
And with Charlie here to marry Jazmine, there was only one single princess left.
That night
Lia headed down the wide hall to the library, desperately needing some time out.
She rubbed her forehead as she opened the door to the library, finally allowing the stress headache to take control. First Toby’s bombshell kiss, then the press conference from hell, and then she’d sat through a dinner so awkward it had seemed none of them could stomach their food. Could this day become any worse?
“Giulia.”
Toby’s voice came from her favourite chair. She sighed, but kept walking. This had to come; it might as well complete the crazy day this had been. “You found my cubby hole.” She came round the bookshelf to him.
Toby smiled at her, but