The Prince and The Marriage Pact. Valerie Parv

was due to the stars, the meal or his efforts to help her relax, Maxim was gratified to see some color return to her cheeks. “Feeling better now?”

      “Much, thank you.” There was no reason to assume his nearness was the cause. She had eaten very little at the wedding, so her blood sugar had probably been in her boots. The soufflé had melted in her mouth. “It’s kind of you to be so concerned.”

      He lifted his wineglass. “Kindness has nothing to do with it.”

      “Then what?”

      “Perhaps a wish to show you a more flattering side of royalty you can share with your television viewers in the future.”

      “Why?”

      He’d been asking himself the same thing. He settled for honesty. “I may be a prince, but I’m also a man. I find you very attractive, Annegret.”

      This time he had no doubt that her heightened color was his doing. She was speechless, he saw, and suspected it wasn’t a condition she experienced often.

      She recovered quickly. “You must know the feeling is mutual.”

      Warmth surged through him. Was it to be so simple, then? The Champagne Pact might bind him to marry a woman of royal blood, but it didn’t stop him from enjoying the company of a commoner. That he might be playing with fire, he also recognized. Annegret struck him as an all-or-nothing sort of woman.

      He replenished their glasses, deciding to test his theory. “Then all that remains is to decide what we’re going to do about it.”