Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets. Yvonne Lindsay

He hadn’t remained celibate purely for the hell of it. Sometimes it had been sheer torment refusing to acknowledge the demands of his flesh. But he’d promised himself from a very young age that he would not be that person. He would not allow physical need to cloud all else. Over the centuries his family had almost lost everything several times over because of a lack of physical control.

      He’d always believed his forebears’ susceptibility to fleshly pursuits to be a mark of weakness, and nothing had happened in his thirty-one years to change his mind. Except perhaps the young woman dancing with him right now. Even so, he denied himself any more than the sensation of her in his arms—the brush of her breasts against his chest as he held her close, the skim of her warm breath on his throat—they were torments and teases he could overcome. When he boarded the plane a few short hours from now, to return to Sylvain, he would do so with the full knowledge that he had honored his vow to both himself and to the woman he was to marry.

      But until then, he’d enjoy this stolen night as much as his duty and honor would allow.

      * * *

      The night had been magical—something even her wildest imagination could never have dreamed up. In fact, Mila doubted even Sally, with all her romantic ideas, could have come up with something like the night she’d just had. She felt like Cinderella, except in her fairy tale the prince was seeing her home and it was well past midnight. As the limousine, which had been waiting outside the club when they’d left it, pulled up outside her hotel she turned in her seat to face the prince. Tonight, she’d seen a side of him she’d never anticipated—and she was utterly captivated by him.

      Maybe it was the champagne they’d drunk at the club, or maybe it was simply the knowledge that at month’s end she’d be standing next to him beneath the ancient vaulted ceilings of the Sylvano palace cathedral and pledging her life to him, but right now she felt as if she was floating on air.

      At least now she knew what Thierry was like away from the pomp and ceremony that was attached to his position in the world. Once they were married and had the chance to spend time together alone, without all the trappings and formality of their official lives, she believed that they could become important to one another beyond what their marriage would gain for their respective nations. Tonight she’d had a chance to get to know the man beneath the crown. The man who would be her husband—who would share her days and her nights. And, given the fierce attraction between them, she looked forward to getting to know him even better. In every way.

      He’d been the consummate gentleman tonight and, for the first time in her life, she’d felt like a desirable woman—one who could be confident that she would be able to make him happy in their marriage, too.

      She turned to face him in the seat of the limo. “Thank you, Hawk. Tonight was incredible. I will never forget it.”

      He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, brushing them across her knuckles in a caress that sent a bolt of longing straight to her center.

      “Nor I.”

      Thierry leaned forward, his intention to kiss her cheek obvious, but at the last minute Mila turned her head, allowing their lips to brush one another. It was the merest touch, sweet and innocent, and yet in that moment she felt something expand in her chest and threaten to consume her. It shook Mila to her core.

      Words failed her and she pulled away, blindly reaching for the door handle and stumbling slightly as she left the private cavern of the vehicle. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. If she did she might ask for more and it wasn’t the time or the place to do that.

      She moved swiftly through the hotel lobby and to the elevator and swiped her key card to head for the penthouse. In the elevator car she reached up and tugged the blond wig loose and locked her gaze with her reflection in the mirrored walls. She’d been a stranger to Thierry tonight and he’d enjoyed her company. But would he enjoy it quite so much when he met the real Angel, or would he remember the gauche and chubby girl for whom he’d shown a moment of disdain? Only time would tell.