by Heidi Rice
Remaining aware of his emotional detachment—to his subjects as well as her—had been the best way to keep that reality front and centre. Until he’d torpedoed it approximately five minutes ago. First by finally agreeing to meet one of his subjects, then stopping dead in the barrage of camera flashes, and giving her a glimpse of a man she hadn’t known existed.
He’d recovered quickly, so quickly she was fairly sure no one else had noticed. But she had... In that split second, he hadn’t been Leonardo DeLessi Severo, the smart, erudite, intimidatingly cool and collected King of Severene. Or Leo the scarily gorgeous man who could turn her inside out with lust. He wasn’t even Leo, the arrogant charmer who wore his confidence and his cynicism like a badge of honour...
No, for that moment suspended in time, Leo had been lost and alone and in pain.
And Juno had realised for the first time the man she thought he was wasn’t the whole Leo. That was only one side of Leo. And the other side was someone who could be vulnerable too, just like her.
Her heart rammed her chest wall as the sympathy and compassion and affection for Leo she’d tried so hard not to feel overwhelmed her.
‘It wasn’t that cold, Leo,’ she replied. ‘Something upset you. Was it...? Was it something I did?’ she asked, feeling guilty for the way she’d badgered him to go say hello to the little girl.
His head swung round. His lips quirked.
‘Actually, yes, it was,’ he said, but the devastating charm she had become so used to was gone. In its place was something studied and deliberate, almost as if he were trying to deflect the conversation. ‘I’m becoming rather tired of going through the motions of this visit, without ever talking about the particulars. And I’m even more bored of sharing you with all these people.’
His gaze dipped to her mouth.
Her heart bobbled in her throat. And the hot spot between her thighs pulsed, as it always did when he looked at her mouth like that... As if he wanted to devour it in a few quick bites.
She stared right back at him. ‘What happened back there? You looked...’ she swallowed, the compassion making her throat hurt ‘...so sad.’
He blinked and then frowned. But she knew she’d hit the mark when he turned back to the view of the streets as the limousine headed back towards the palace grounds.
‘Just an inconvenient moment of déjà vu,’ he said, his voice rough, as if he’d had to wrench the words from his throat.
The deep frown as he continued to stare out of the car window made it obvious he wasn’t seeing the huddle of traditional shops—their mullioned windows alight with Christmas lights—he was back in that moment of déjà vu.
She reached across the car and placed her hand over the fingers he had fisted on the seat between them.
He jerked round—the contact like a lightning bolt.
‘If you want to talk about it, I can listen,’ she said.
The furrow on his brow deepened, and for a moment she was sure she’d overstepped. But as she lifted her hand, he released the fist and captured her fingers.
‘Don’t...’ he murmured.
His thumb stroked her knuckles, absently, as he contemplated their joined hands.
‘What was it about? The moment of déjà vu?’ she coaxed gently.
‘Stupid really, it was so long ago. And I barely remember her.’
She squeezed his fingers, desperate to reassure, because she could hear the pain he was trying so hard to hide in the flat conversational tone of voice.
‘Who?’ she asked.
His gaze lifted to hers. The puzzled frown like a bear coming out of hibernation, unsure of where he was. Whatever dark place he had gone to during their walkabout, he had been back for a return trip.
‘Who do you barely remember?’ she asked again.
He sighed, then looked away, but he didn’t let go of her hand.
‘My mother,’ he said on a huff of breath, so soft, she could hardly hear him.
His mother?
Juno racked her brains, trying to remember what she knew about Leo’s mother. She’d met his father, as a very young child, during a state visit, and remembered she hadn’t liked him. Where her father had been detached, Leo’s father had been downright scary. A tall, muscular, darkly handsome man who wore his superiority like a shield and had been dismissive of her and her sister because they were girls.
But she had never met Leo’s mother, because she was pretty sure the Severene Queen had died before she and her sister had even been born—which would have made Leo a very young child when his mother passed.
‘She died, when you were little, didn’t she?’ she asked.
‘Yes, a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Her funeral procession was held in the old town a few days after Christmas.’ The frown on his forehead softened. ‘Perhaps that’s why today’s event reminded me of it?’
‘How old were you?’ she asked softly, not wanting to interrupt too much. The way he was talking, she wasn’t even sure he was aware of her presence.
He shrugged. ‘Five, I think. The stupid thing is... I didn’t know at the time, as we walked behind the casket, with the press taking photos, and the crowds staring at me, and weeping, that she was dead.’
‘They made you walk behind her casket?’ she said, shocked.
What kind of monster would make a child of five walk behind his own mother’s coffin? No wonder Leo had an issue with connecting with his own subjects. No wonder he treated the walkabouts and other chances to meet the crowds as a chore. No wonder he had no desire to let down the mask.
‘I asked my father where she was, and when he told me I started to cry. He was furious,’ he said, his voice so controlled, Juno felt her heart implode.
‘Why was he furious?’
He turned, his distant expression becoming quizzical. ‘Hmmm?’
‘Your father, what was he angry about?’
‘Public displays of emotion were not permitted behaviour for a prince,’ he said, his voice so distant, so controlled and unemotional, her heart broke. ‘When we returned to the palace, he punished me accordingly.’
‘He punished you?’ The horror turned her question into a hoarse whisper. ‘How?’
She’d thought he was cynical, pragmatic, even a bit of a snob, a man completely unable to connect with ordinary people, when in reality it was so much more complicated than that. Leo didn’t have a superiority complex, he was wary of public displays of emotion. And now she knew why.
‘By taking a riding crop to my backside.’
‘He hit you? On the day of your mother’s funeral?’
Leo’s face heated at the shocked sympathy shadowing Jade’s eyes. He’d said too much. Far too much. He’d never admitted his father’s dedication to corporal punishment to anyone. Because it would dishonour the monarchy and embarrass him. And it was ancient history now. But it had been so hard to resist her coaxing, and the squeeze of her fingers on his.
‘My father was a hard taskmaster,’ he murmured. ‘I think he believed it was for the best, that I needed to learn early the importance of dignity at all times.’
‘But you were a five-year-old child. Who had just lost his mother, Leo. That’s absolutely hideous—how could he punish you for grieving?’
He shrugged, but the movement felt stiff. Why should her compassion for that unhappy boy mean something now?
‘No one ever accused him of being a kind man, or a loving father,’ he said, the rawness in his throat spreading up his neck. ‘But he was a well-respected king.’
As the words left his lips, they sounded hollow and inadequate.
One thing Jade had shown him in the last few days, as he’d watched her engage with the crowds, treating them as equals instead of inferiors, smiling and laughing and connecting with his subjects in a way he never had, was that his father might have been well respected, but h
e had never been loved. And somehow he had taken that mantel on too, not by accident, but by design. In defending himself, defending that traumatised child, he had closed himself off from all but the most tenuous contact with anyone outside his inner circle.
‘Who cares if he was well respected?’ she said, the certainty in her voice making his ribs ache. Her trembling fingers squeezed his hand, and his heartbeat accelerated. ‘He was still a monster.’
The fierce statement had a lump forming in his throat.
A lump of raw emotion...
He swallowed heavily, trying to force it down.
Don’t let her see you bleed.
He’d become infatuated with the Queen of Monrova in the last week. Not just by her body and her scent and the way she responded to him so instinctively without even realising it. But also by her spirit, her intelligence, her smart mouth, her decidedly wicked sense of humour—and the unconventional way she seemed capable of sharing so much of herself with everyone she met.
But as she stared at him, with that fierce compassion in her eyes, and her fingers gripped his, the lump continued to grow.
‘You deserved so much better,’ she added. ‘You were his son first and foremost, not a prince.’
He let go of her hand, and thrust his fingers through his hair, the tight feeling in his chest becoming unbearable as the car entered the palace courtyard.
‘There’s no need to feel pity for that boy,’ he said, struggling to talk now around the ever-expanding lump. ‘He died a long time ago.’
‘But, Leo, what he did is still sickening and you’re still suffering because...’
‘Stop...’ He pressed a finger to her lips.
Her instinctive shudder of response ignited his senses in ways he understood.
‘I don’t wish to talk about it any more.’ He couldn’t talk about it. Couldn’t think about that lost child. Couldn’t let her see how much her defence of that child meant to him, or she would have even more power over him—and she had enough already. ‘I want you, and you want me,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it is time to stop talking altogether?’
He clasped her face and tugged her towards him. Her hands covered his, but she didn’t resist. Instead she softened against him.
He slanted his lips across hers.
This was what he needed from her, not pity or compassion, only this. And he’d waited far too long to take it.
His tongue delved deep, to capture her sob of need. The pent-up hunger of the last four days released in a rush as he gorged himself on her soft moan, her sweet mouth.
He angled her head to take the kiss deeper, to demand more. She clung to him, her fingers fisting in the cotton of his shirt, her tongue meeting his in a dance of temptation and desire.
The loud tap on the window had her jerking against his hold.
‘Your Majesty, we have arrived at the palace,’ the driver said through the tinted window.
‘Leave the door closed,’ he shouted, but he was forced to let her go.
Her hair fell around her face in disarray, her lips reddened by his kiss, her breathing as rapid as his.
‘Let’s stop overcomplicating this,’ he said. ‘I’m not a child anymore and neither are you. There’s no earthly reason why we shouldn’t make the most of the chemistry between us...’
Panic clouded her gaze. ‘But I can’t... I can’t marry you, Leo, that hasn’t changed.’
‘To hell with the marriage,’ he said.
Right now all he cared about was getting her into his bed. And stopping this need getting out of control. He’d revealed things about his past, his father, that made him feel more exposed than he had as a child, walking behind his mother’s casket and feeling so alone in a crowd of strangers. That had to stop, but the only way to do that was to put this thing on a level he could control.
Sex was simple, uncomplicated. Emotion not so much. He had become obsessed with her; to break that obsession he needed to feed the hunger, stop trying to deny it.
‘Do you...? Do you mean that?’ she asked. ‘You won’t expect more from me if we...’ he watched her throat contract as she swallowed ‘...if...if we become lovers?’
The wariness in her gaze made him reach out, to cup her jaw, and run his thumb across her lips.
‘If, Jade?’ he said, the surge of possessiveness undeniable when she leaned into the caress instinctively. ‘Don’t you mean, when?’
She pulled away from his touch, but the staggered passion in her gaze was all he needed to know.
She would be his. Before the week was out. But this was a big step for her. He needed to remember that. However instinctive her responses to him, however much she might desire him, she was innocent. He would be her first lover.
The surge of possessiveness—protectiveness even—at the thought shocked him to his core. He had never slept with a virgin before, had never wanted to, and had certainly never prized a woman’s virginity. Why would he? It would be the height of hypocrisy, given that he was not a virgin himself. But somehow he couldn’t deny that with Jade it was different.
He wanted to be the first man to hear her sigh, to hear her moan, to watch her come apart in his arms. But to do that, he needed to calm the hunger inside him.
‘I just don’t want you to think I’ve agreed to marry you by default,’ she said. ‘If we sleep together it doesn’t mean more than that.’
He huffed out a strained laugh. Captivated all over again, despite his best efforts not to be. When were her honesty, her integrity, her directness going to stop surprising him?
‘You have my word,’ he said. ‘When we sleep together,’ he corrected her again, ‘it will be for our private pleasure and nothing else. The marriage is something completely separate.’
The truth was, he still planned to press the case for marriage. And he was more than willing to use their shared passion to his advantage in that regard. But he could do that at a later date. If the only way to get her into his bed now was to agree to her terms, he would do so gladly.
‘Can we keep it private?’ she asked. ‘From the media? The public?’
He smiled, he couldn’t help it. How could she be this naïve? After a year as a queen and even longer as a royal princess? How could she not know it would be all but impossible to keep such a liaison a secret for long? But even so he humoured her. He wasn’t about to lose the chance to satisfy this maddening hunger on a technicality. ‘We can certainly try.’
‘When?’ she asked, her directness surprising him yet again—and sending a new wave of desire south. ‘When do you want to...to do it?’
Now.
He clamped down on the visceral urge to take her in the back seat of the limo.
She was putting him in charge. That she trusted him enough to do that would have to be enough for now.
‘Is that a yes, Jade?’ he asked.
Her cheeks flushed a deep scarlet, but she nodded, her gaze wary but forthright. ‘I... Yes, I want you too.’
He curled his fingers into fists, to stop from grabbing her as the heat pumped into his shaft.
Her forthright attitude to sex was going to kill him.
‘How about after the Christmas Ball, in three days’ time?’ he said, thinking fast, a plan already forming that should satisfy the need for privacy. ‘That’s our last official engagement. It will be easier to keep our liaison private once your state visit is over.’
No one need know that she had not returned to Monrova.
Three more days of having to control his desires and limit himself to PDAs was going to be nothing short of torture—especially now she had agreed to sleep with him. But keeping this next step private was important. Once they had become lovers, he could use their physical intimacy to his advantage in any marriage negotiations, but why expose themselves before it was necessary? Surely, they both deserved a little time to enjoy this
aspect of their relationship first?
‘I’ll make all the necessary arrangements,’ he said. ‘Do you trust me, Jade?’
Guilt flashed in her eyes, surprising him. What could she possibly have to feel guilty about?
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I do.’
He smiled, dismissing the ripple of unease. No doubt the guilt was subconscious, and a result of her father’s Neanderthal attitude to marriage and virginity. After all, Andreas had boasted about his daughter’s untouched state to Leo on several occasions while trying to promote a marriage between their two dynasties over the years. At the time, Leo had thought the whole concept archaic and frankly sexist, proof of a double standard that he had never adhered to.
But the irony wasn’t lost on him now as his libido responded enthusiastically to Jade’s guilty flush.
Not only was he turned on by the thought of being Jade’s first lover, he intended to be her only lover too.
‘Excellent,’ he said, lifting her fingers to his lips, and buzzing a kiss across her knuckles. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Won’t I see you tonight?’ she said, the disappointment in her voice a sop to his ego. ‘For the briefing dinner?’
‘Not tonight.’ He tucked a knuckle under her chin, stroked the pulse point under her jaw. It fluttered deliciously. ‘I think for the next three days it might be wise if we limit our meetings to public engagements. So we’re not tempted to jump each other ahead of schedule.’
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ she said, the freckles on her nose igniting all over again. He could not wait until he got to kiss every one of those freckles. ‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said.
He allowed himself one last quick kiss on the tip of her nose, before turning and opening the limousine door himself.
He didn’t look back as he slammed the door then headed across the courtyard towards the palace.
The next three days were going to be agony, but Jade was a precious gift who was worth the wait to unwrap.
