Lia had risen to the occasion far better than she’d have believed. Instead of being the one everyone worried about, now she was the one everyone turned to.
“Not all of it has been bad for Charlie, obviously. He and Jazmine seem to have worked things out.”
She turned to look at her brother and laughed. Charlie was kissing Jazmine again. He had a bad habit of kissing her no matter where they were. “Yes, they have.”
“I saw several pictures of him in the papers with Jazmine on the way over here. None of them exactly portrayed a reluctant prince.”
Indulgent, so happy for her brother, she said, “It’s not the position that made this work, it was the woman. I think he’d sacrifice anything for Jazmine.”
“Yes.” Toby’s voice turned softer, but not gentle; it was hotter, lush, like a heavy night. “There are some things worth making sacrifices for. When she touches him and he touches her, when he holds her close and they kiss, it’s beautiful to behold. That kind of love only comes once in a lifetime to each man and woman.”
Lia gulped and tried to breathe, but that thick, deep thudding of her blood took over again. “Yes.”
As other couples drifted onto the dance floor, Toby looked down at her, his rough-handsome, just-craggy face smiling, his head slightly tilted. “Are you feeling well, Giulia, beloved? You sound a bit on the croaky side.”
Beloved.
Hearing it again for the first time in weeks, and the sensual way he said her name—Yoolya—she shivered. He felt it, she knew he did, because he pulled her a little closer. “The night air is a touch chilly for you?”
“I’m fine.” The words were abrupt; she didn’t know what to say to him, or how to say it. She didn’t want him to fuss; not that he sounded concerned, exactly, more like…
“You sound—I hesitate to say it, but—a little angry, all of a sudden,” he murmured close to her ear. The tender growl of his rough voice moved under her skin. “Care to discuss the whys and wherefores?”
He only used polysyllabic words when he felt in control. She wanted to hit him for doing this to her, for making her feel too warm, too close, too confused. Her head was spinning like the movement of the dance. “Stop it, Toby,” she said when he reeled her back in to his body, again an inch too close.
“What would you like me to stop?” he asked, his voice rough, sexual, velvet over gravel, seducing her. “Tell me and it’s done. I’m at your service, Your Highness, as I’ve always been.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, weak and craving. “I have enough people putting me at a distance without you doing it too.”
He grinned down at her, a brow lifted. “Pardon me, Giulia. I thought you wanted to put me at a distance.”
“Yes—no—oh, just stop,” she whispered, anguished. “We’re in public, and there are a hundred eyes on me. I’m too new at this. I have to be seen to be doing everything right. It’s been frightening and lonely and—and, oh, hard enough here. I wanted you here with me, but you’ve changed.” Hot colour flooded her face, and she didn’t know how to go on.
“How have I changed?” he whispered back, his face so close the chocolate, minted breath caressed her skin, her lips.
She closed her eyes, barely noticing her hands had clenched, holding hard to his hand and shoulder. “You’re—you keep acting as if—”
“As if…?” His hand at her back drew her to him, until the current of his warmth filled all the chilled, lonely places of the past few months, of feeling so alone.
“Why are you doing this?” She was weary of trying to work him out. “I don’t understand. You never wanted me. I accepted that. I got over you. We’re—friends.”
“If you’re alluding to that miserable New Year’s Eve almost eleven years ago, I’ve spent more than ten years paying penance for it.” His thumb slipped between their linked hands, caressing her palm, until the thrumming heat in her became pounding desire. “Ten years yearning to turn the clock back and change my response when you kissed me, to unsay what hurt you so badly you couldn’t look me in the face for weeks. Wishing I hadn’t been so damned scared that the only family I had left, the only family I wanted, would kick me out if I touched you. I made you pay the price for my fear.”
Strangely, the first time they discussed the thing that had happened eleven years before—the kiss—didn’t break the mood, but escalated it. She saw the girl she’d been, who’d spent the whole night in a corner gathering up the courage to go to him at midnight and kiss not his cheek but his lips…and when she had, he’d kissed her back for ten beautiful seconds. “But—but you laughed at me, asked me if I was drunk, and then walked off and kissed that girl.”
“All that that piece of male denial accomplished was to awaken me to the truth,” he muttered roughly. “I closed my eyes and saw your face. I touched her and felt you. When she talked to me I heard you whispering ‘kiss me for New Year’s,’ turning your face as I went to kiss your cheek, and all I wanted was to kiss you again. Then the words I’d said replayed over in my head, and I wished to God I could unsay them. When I came home and you avoided me for days, I knew how much I’d hurt you, and hated myself for it. I was given a trust, to look out for you that night, and I couldn’t break it. But you’ll never know how much I wanted to.”
She shook her head, aching, wishing. “Why are you telling me now? It’s years too late for this conversation. I want my friend back.”
“Is it? Do you?” The words were so soft she barely heard, so close they touched her soul. So like the Toby she’d always had with her; the boy who’d saved her life and the man who’d devoted a decade to their friendship. So like the man who’d lived and danced, cooked and worked beside her for so many years. So like…and so unlike. “Do you want my friendship, Giulia? Only that?”
Confusion; lovely, awful confusion. What did she want? “I…” She couldn’t go on. And she couldn’t help it: despite her elegant hairdo and the tiara, her head fell to his shoulder and snuggled into his neck as she’d always done. Not quite friend, definitely not little sister. It was the closest she’d come in eleven years to saying three words to her best friend.
I want you.
The unspoken resonance quivered into her and shimmered outward, until he heard the silent music inside her. He moved another inch closer, and a half-inch, until the material of her dress moved in soft-satin friction against his shirt. A gossamer cobweb of touch.
She turned her face until her mouth was near his ear, almost afraid to break the enchantment holding them both. But soon, too soon, the music would end and real life would intrude and shatter this lovely, spun-glass bubble. “Who are you?”
He turned his face to hers, as delicate as the movement of the dance. “You know who I am.”
She shook her head, the tiny movement brushing her skin against his, cheek to cheek; a dreamy lassitude stole over her.
“You know me. I’m the man who has done anything, everything, for you. For you alone. Always for you.” Slowly, with a sensuality she’d never known, he dipped her back from the waist, holding her hips against his. “You’re so lovely,” he whispered in her ear. “A silver-and-golden angel, your hair shimmering in the light. The prettiest woman in the room, and I want you so much I’m hurting with it.”
She shivered; her hand, at his shoulder, slid round to his neck. She laid it there, but one finger moved by itself to find his hair in a tiny fingertip caress. “No,” she whispered back, afraid. “You don’t want me.”
“I can’t think about anything but this, but you.” His hand, at her waist, moved: delicate, butterfly touches she felt burn through her dress to her skin. She gasped and swayed against him.
“Giulia.” His voice was rough, commanding, taut. “Look at me.”
Slow and dreamy, she pulled back, still half-afraid, the other half a strange mix of wonder and confidence. She looked up at him and saw the stars behind his face. He’d danced her out onto a balcony, and her starved heart sang, a night-whisper only h
e could hear.
His eyes blazed into her soul. His mouth made her ache.
“Those big, sleepy eyes, so beautiful, are telling me how much you want me. I drown in them every time I see you. Every time you’ve looked at me like this in the past eight weeks, you’ve made me so hard it hurts.”
If he’d treated her like a child for too long, he was making up for it now. The words sent a thrill ripping through her body. And his mouth—oh, his mouth—so close in the autumn darkness…
Where was she? Who was she? This was a new world, where she danced in marble halls and on balconies under the stars, she wore silk and satin and a tiara, and she almost felt pretty enough for him. This night, this moment, duty and bloodlines didn’t matter, only he and she existed…
A new world, where he finally cradled her hip-to-hip like a lover, and every pore and cell of her thrilled to the hardness of him.
With thrumming intent, he brought her up and she met him, face to face, mouth to mouth. “You’re the only one who knows me. I’m the man who slept beside you when you needed me, who learned to dance because you wanted it.”
“That’s—that’s what brothers do,” she murmured. Another finger joined the first, tips glorying in the feel of his hair against them, like hot silk.
“Do they? Did Charlie?” he whispered back. His hand moved round to her back and pulled her in closer, a delicious millimetre or two, in a semblance of dancing that brushed his body against hers.
“Oh.” She blinked, tilted her head, and a smile grew and grew. “No.”
“Because he didn’t yearn for the chance to hold you like this for a few hours every week,” he breathed near her mouth, so close. “I did. I still do.”
“Oh.” Unbearable brightness flooded her heart, her awakening body. “You did?” Her thumb found the skin beneath his collar and caressed it, exquisitely intimate.
“I did. I do.” His eyes closed as he dipped her—a prelude, a promise—and brought her back. “Every week I hoped like hell you’d touch me like you just did.”
I wanted to; oh, how I wanted to. But she couldn’t say it, couldn’t show him, even now. To risk everything all over again…
“Touch me again, Giulia.” Rough-edged, hot, his voice shivered into her deepest core. “Touch me, beautiful girl, just touch me.”
The words, more raw and commanding than pleading, sent anguished, painful longing through her, her skin too sensitive to the touch…Her hand wound into his hair, her palm filled with softness, her fingers with his skin. Her eyes closed. Ah…
“This is me,” he murmured into her ear, rough, hard and aching with need. “I’m the man who moved into your house to become a part of your family, but mostly because I couldn’t stay away from you. You fascinate me endlessly with every word and movement. I’ve kissed you ten-thousand times in my dreams and loved you only with words, hoping like hell you’d understand, while I was aching to do this.” He moved his hips against her, and she moaned and gasped, her eyes closing again with intense, aching beauty and excitement. “I’m the man who’s been waiting ten long years for you to move a single inch.”
An inch? Her eyes fluttered open, heavy with agonised passion. She looked at him and saw only his mouth, an inch from hers.
He dipped her again, slowly and sensually, a prelude to the inevitable, the beautiful and wanted. “I’ve always been right here, waiting. Move that inch, Giulia,” he whispered against her lips. “Come to me. Give me you. Just an inch.”
Floating between lovely dream and invisible reality, she released his other hand, slid hers up past his shoulder, over his neck and into his hair, pulled him down with hands trembling with eagerness, and opened her mouth to him.
A kiss is just a kiss. No, no; it was everything…
Soft and clinging, it was everything she’d hoped for through years filled with and yet starved of his touch. Gentle, as unforgettable as the song that had been playing when they’d started dancing. Their bodies were still apart, still dancing a warm current of wanting; delicate caresses of breast to chest almost incidental to the movement of the music, lips slanting in barely-there kisses filled with tenderness. And it was Toby who was kissing her, her dearest, beloved Toby…
“Your Highness, the King wishes to speak to you at your earliest convenience.”
She felt Toby move back, but still dazed, she didn’t realise the words were directed towards her; all she wanted was to keep kissing him, touching him. She pulled him back to her and kissed him again, moaning softly.
“Princess Giulia!”
She blinked, remembering that the title “princess” applied to her. Slowly, she turned to the speaker—Jazmine’s PA, Lady Eleni, stood at the open doorway of the balcony. Lia sighed. “Thank you, Eleni. Please tell him I’ll come soon.” With an irritable motion, she waved her away.
Eleni’s brows lifted, indicating her surprise, but she backed away.
She drew in another breath and looked up at Toby. His mouth was twisted in rueful amusement. She almost got lost again, just looking at him. “As they say in the classics, I think we’ve been busted.”
A laugh burst from her. “Well, forewarned is forearmed.” Her brows lifted in quirky acceptance. “I think I’ll be on the receiving end of Theo Angelis’s displeasure for once.”
“I’ll be right beside you.” He took her hands in his. “I wouldn’t leave you to face this alone.”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t appreciate you protecting me. Don’t worry, I can handle it.”
“I started this. It’s my place to be there and receive his anger.” He frowned and searched her face, and a flash of annoyance tore through her. He was looking for signs of weakness—that she needed him.
“I’m fine,” she said as briefly as before, and released his hands. “This has far more levels than the personal.”
“I know that.” He spoke with no impatience, yet she felt it, felt his annoyance—and no wonder. He’d not only taken Charlie’s dream for Hellenia and run with it while Charlie was learning how to be a king; he’d also begun implementing his own plans. In the past eight weeks Toby had recruited retired firefighters from Hellenia and Australia and begun a centralised training school based in the capital, Orakidis City, and in Mirapoulos, the major city in the Malascos region, Papou’s birthplace. He’d fought fires and taught volunteers and families the best way to protect their homes, schools, hospitals and villages from the wildfires that had destroyed a full third of the country last summer—and from the sneak attacks by Orakis’s followers. He was helping to make the country safe. The people cheered him wherever he went.
He spoke before she could think of anything conciliating to say. “Hold onto that regal attitude you unleashed on Lady Eleni when you speak to the King.” He drew a tender line down her cheek with a finger. “You need to stand as his equal, Giulia. He’s abdicating in a couple of months. This is your choice.”
Subduing another unprecedented flash of irritation, she forced a smile. “I know how to deal with Theo Angelis.”
“Of course you do. I’ve seen you wrap the old man around your finger.”
“But this is an enormous thing. No member of the royal family has ever…” Again, she stopped, unsure.
“Married the fourth child of divorced, lower-middle-class parents?” he asked softly, sensually, every other emotion gone but the wanting. “I did propose to you, Giulia, if in a backdoor fashion. I’ll do so in a more romantic style as soon as I can finally have you alone. And I’ll be fervently awaiting your response.”
She frowned. “Why, Toby? Why here, why now? Why did you wait until now, when—?” She stopped, realising how enormous the choice was that loomed before her. How many lives would be affected?
“No, it’s not too late,” he murmured, touching his forehead to hers. “Charlie and Jazmine just changed the law once. It can happen again. And if not—” he shrugged “—we have two houses to choose from in Sydney. You have your school still, the substitute teacher is there un
til you decide to sell. I have my job. We’ll never have the kind of riches you enjoy here, but you’ll never have to go without, that I swear to you. Everything I am, everything I have, belongs to you. It always has and always will.”
Sadness swamped her without warning or reason. Why, when he’d said everything right? He’d been romantic and strong, and he’d kissed her as if he’d meant it. Her first kiss had been everything she’d wanted it to be.
But it was the wrong time, wrong place, far too late. The chasm was there between them now, no matter how they tried to bridge it. And she didn’t believe him.
“I have to go.” She turned quickly, before he could see her emotion.
“Giulia, if you’re worried that he’ll upset you…”
She repressed a sigh. “Thank you.” The needle-fine politeness she’d used on Eleni came out again. “I’m a woman, Toby. I don’t need you to come running to rescue me any more. I haven’t given you the right.”
She opened the hand he’d taken, forcing him to drop it, and she walked over to the King without looking back.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHAT the hell just happened?
From a convenient corner where only the wedding party and royal family could sit, Toby watched Giulia as she spoke to the King.
I can handle him.
She certainly could. Within two minutes, the King’s scowl lightened, not in relief but love. Her hands were in the old man’s; she kissed his cheek with a genuine affection that had shocked Toby the first time he’d seen it. Giulia’s affection was deep, but she’d always kept it for family. She was reserved with strangers; it was her way.
But within weeks of leaving Sydney, she spoke to strangers daily, helping them with their problems in her role as princess. She was the King’s pet, Jazmine’s friend and sister—and as for the handsome young Grand Duke with a castle and two-hundred million euros…
His Princess in the Making Page 6
