what?’ she whispered vaguely, distracted by the play of dark and light in his watchful expression. He was appallingly handsome in that tall, dark, sex-on-a-stick sort of way. The kind of obviously experienced playboy who’d never been allowed near her.
But at the same time there was more than that to him—something that struck a chord within her. A new—seductive—note that wasn’t purely because of the physical magnetism of the man.
He captivated every one of her senses and all her interest. A lick of something new burned—yearning. She wanted him closer. She wanted to reach out and touch him. Her pulse throbbed, beating need about her body—to her dry, sensitive lips, to her tight, full breasts, to other parts too secret to speak of...
His jaw tightened. Eleni blinked at the fierce intensity that flashed in his eyes. Had he read her mind? Did he know just what she wanted to do right now?
‘Join in,’ he answered between gritted teeth.
She swallowed. Now her pulse thundered as she realised how close she’d come to making an almighty fool of herself. ‘I shouldn’t...’
‘Why not?’
So many reasons flooded her head in a cacophony of panic.
Her disguise, her deceit, her duty.
‘Blue?’ he prompted. His smile was gentle enough but the expression in his eyes was too hot.
Men had looked at her with lust before, but those times the lust hadn’t been for her but for her wealth, her title, her virtue. She’d never been on a date. She was totally untouched. And everyone knew. She’d read the crude conjecture and the jokes in the lowest of the online guttersnipes: THE VIRGIN PRINCESS!!!
All caps. Multiple exclamation marks.
That her ‘purity’ was so interesting and so important angered her. It wasn’t as if it had been deliberate. It wasn’t as if she’d saved herself for whichever prince would be chosen for her to marry. She’d simply been so sequestered there’d been zero chance to find even a friend, let alone a boyfriend.
And now it transpired that her Prince was to be Xander of the small European state of Santa Chiara. He certainly hadn’t saved himself for her and she knew his fidelity after their marriage was not to be expected. Discretion was, but not that sort of intimate loyalty. Or love.
‘Do you ever stop asking questions?’ she asked, trying for cool and sophisticated for these last few moments of escape.
Wishing she could be as accepting as so many others who didn’t doubt their arranged marriages. Because this was it. Tomorrow her engagement would be formally announced. A man she’d barely met and most certainly didn’t like would become her fiancé. She felt frigid at the thought. But those archaic royal rules remained unchallenged and offered certainty. The Princess of Palisades could never marry a commoner. This disguise tonight was a lame leap for five minutes of total freedom. The only five minutes she’d have.
‘Not if I’m curious about something.’
‘And you’re curious about—’
‘You. Unbearably. Yes.’
Heat slammed into every cell. She couldn’t hold his gaze but she couldn’t look away either. His eyes were truly blue—not enhanced by contacts the way hers were—and hot. He seemed to see right through her mask, her carefully applied powder, her whole disguise. He saw the need she’d tried to hide from everyone.
She was out of place and yet this was her home—where she’d been born and raised and where her future was destined, dictated by duty.
‘You have the chance to experience this...’ he waved at the ballroom full of beautiful people ‘...yet you’re hanging back in the shadows.’
He voiced her fantasy—reminding her of her stupid, crazy plan. She’d arranged for a large selection of costumes to be delivered to the nurses’ quarters at the hospital for tonight’s masquerade. No one would know that one dress, one wig, and one mask were missing from that order. All done so she, cloistered, protected, precious Princess Eleni, could steal one night as an anonymous girl able to talk to people not as a princess, but as a nobody.
She could be no one.
And yet, when it had come to it, she’d swiftly realised her error. She’d watched those guests arrive. Clustered together, laughing squads of friends—the kind she’d never had. How could she walk into that room and start talking to any of them without her title as her armour? What had she to offer? How could she blend in when she hadn’t any clue what to discuss other than superficial niceties? She’d ached with isolation, inwardly mocking her own self-piteous hurt, as she’d uselessly stared at all those other carefree, relaxed people having fun.
Privileged Princess Eleni had burned with jealousy.
Now she burned with something else, something just as shameful.
‘I’m biding my time,’ she prevaricated with a chuckle, drawing on years of practising polite conversation to cover her shaken, unruly emotions.
‘You’re wasting it.’
His bluntness shocked that smile from her lips. She met his narrowed gaze and knew he saw too much.
‘You want a night out, you need to get out there and start circulating,’ he advised.
Her customary serene demeanour snapped at his tone. ‘Maybe that’s not what I want.’
The atmosphere pulsed between them like an electrical charge faulting.
Heat suffused every inch of her skin. Now she truly was unable to hold his gaze. But as she looked down he reached out. The merest touch of fingers to her chin, nudging so she looked him in the eye again. She fought to quell the uncontrollable shiver that the simple touch generated.
‘No?’ Somehow he was even closer as he quietly pressed her. ‘Then what do you want?’
That she couldn’t answer. Not to herself. Not now. But he could see it anyway.
‘Walk with me through the ballroom,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I dare you.’
His challenge roused a rare surge of rebellion within her. She who always did as she was bid—loyal, dutiful, serene. Princess Eleni never caused trouble. But he stirred trouble. Her spirit lifted; she was determined to show strength before him.
‘I don’t need you to dare me,’ she breathed.
‘Don’t you?’ He called her bluff.
Silent, she registered the gauntlet in his hard gaze. The glow of those blue eyes ignited her to mutinous action. She turned and strode to the edge of the alcove. Nerves thrummed, chilling her. What if she was recognised?
But this man hadn’t recognised her and she knew her brother would be busy in the farthest corner of the room meeting select guests at this early stage in the evening. Everyone was preoccupied with their own friends and acquaintances. She might just get away with this after all.
‘Coming?’ She looked back and asked him, refusing—yet failing—to flush.
He took her hand and placed it in the crook of his elbow, saying nothing, but everything, with a sardonic look. The rock-hard heat of his biceps seeped through the fine material of his tailored suit and her fingers curled around it instinctively. He pressed his arm close to his side, trapping her hand.
He walked slowly, deliberately, the length of the colonnades. To her intense relief, he didn’t stop to speak to anyone, instead he kept his attention on her, his gaze melting that cold block of nervousness lodged in her diaphragm.
It turned out she’d been wrong to worry about recognition. Because while people were looking, it was not at her.
‘All these women are watching you,’ she murmured as they drew near the final column. ‘And they look surprised.’
A