She didn’t answer with words. Instead it was Antonietta’s skin that spoke, as a blush spread across her chest and cheeks.
‘Quite sure,’ Rafe said.
‘They weren’t to know,’ she responded, in hot defence of her parents, but Rafe remained unmoved.
‘I have known you for only a few days,’ he said. ‘And I know that you had your reasons. I don’t know what they were, but I am certain they exist.’
Antonietta swallowed and then reached for her wine, took a gulp and swallowed again.
‘You can tell me,’ he offered.
‘Why would I?’ Antonietta retorted. ‘You leave tomorrow.’
‘That makes me the perfect sounding board,’ said Rafe, refusing to match her sudden anger. ‘You never have to see me again.’
It was, she silently conceded, oddly appealing.
‘However, if you don’t want to speak about yourself any more you can ask about me,’ he invited. ‘Or perhaps you already know?’
‘I don’t know anything about you,’ Antonietta admitted. ‘Some of the staff have tried to tell me, but I close my ears to gossip and I never pry.’
‘Pry away,’ Rafe said, for although he had done his best to maintain their privacy, there was a chance she would wake up to the tabloids telling her she had dined with a playboy prince.
‘You’ll answer anything?’ Antonietta checked.
‘Not necessarily.’ He would tell her his title, Rafe had decided. Generally, that more than sufficed.
Yet the question she had for Rafe was not about that. ‘Where did you get those bruises?’
His eyebrows rose in surprise at her question. ‘Skiing,’ he said.
‘An accident?’
‘Not really. It was more recklessness on my part.’
‘Oh. So you’re here in Silibri to recover?’
‘I’m here to lie low for a while,’ Rafe said.
‘And you’re not married?’
‘I’ve already told you, no.’
‘Or involved with anyone?’
Rafe’s jaw gritted a fraction. Couldn’t she just ask the simple question and be done? Once she knew he was the Crown Prince of Tulano this attempt at a get-to-know-you would end.
For no one really knew the Crown Prince.
‘I’m not serious about anyone.’
‘Have you ever been?’
‘Why all these questions?’
‘You told me I was free to pry!’
So he had. ‘No,’ Rafe said. ‘I have never been serious about anyone.’ He thought back. ‘I tried to be once,’ he said. He glanced up and saw that she sat still and silent. Patiently waiting. ‘Or rather, I tried to make things work. But I was barely in my twenties.’ He looked into her sad treacle-black eyes and appreciated her lack of comment. ‘I disappointed a lot of people when we broke up. Though I guess you would know all about that?’
‘Were you engaged?’
‘God, no!’ Rafe said. ‘If that had been the case there would have been no going back.’
The way he said it made her shiver. That dark note to his tone struck a warning that she had no idea of the power she was dealing with.
As delectable as her pasta was, Antonietta put her silverware down, and as the waiter removed her plate she braced herself to ask the final question.
But when push came to shove she found that she dared not. ‘Rafe, on a couple of occasions I have tried to find out who you are. But the truth is I am a little nervous to know.’
‘Why?’
‘Because...’ She flailed around for an explanation. ‘Because I don’t want to feel any more daunted than I already do.’
‘You feel daunted?’
‘A bit,’ she admitted. ‘A lot.’
‘I don’t want you to feel daunted,’ Rafe said, and again he took her hand.
‘Which is why I don’t want to find out that you’re a film star, or a world champion skier...’
She floundered in her poor attempts to label him, for she was certain he was rather more than that. She knew it from the way he held himself, and the silent command of his presence. She knew that heads had turned as they entered the restaurant, and they had not, despite his kind words, turned for her.
She looked down at their entwined fingers. Oh, it was not just his hands that gave him away, but they had hinted at the truth from the start. Yes, there really were only two reasons that men had manicures: they chose to or they were born to.
She did not want to know.
‘So you think I could be a film star or a world champion skier?’ Rafe teased. ‘Absolutely not, to the former, and I wish, to the latter.’
And then it was Rafe who had a question, and he both frowned and smiled when he asked it.
‘Why wouldn’t you want me to be a champion skier?’
She blushed instead of answering.
‘Why?’ Rafe asked again.
‘I would like to see the dessert menu,’ Antonietta said, and sidestepped the question.
Rafe left it.
For now.
‘I can’t decide!’ Antonietta groaned as she read through the menu, because everything sounded sublime.
‘When there is Modica chocolate mousse on the menu,’ Rafe said, with barely a glance at the other offerings, ‘the choice is already made.’
He gave her a quizzical look as she started.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Antonietta said, thinking of the purchase she had made that morning with Rafe in mind. It would be foolish to tell him, surely? But then she looked into the eyes of the man who had been so very kind to her today and it made it a little easier to reveal. ‘I bought some for you.’
‘For me?’
Antonietta nodded. ‘For Christmas. Well, that was when I thought you were staying until Christmas Eve.’
In Silibri, gifts were often exchanged then. Though it wasn’t often that a chambermaid bought a gift for a guest, and they both knew it.
She opened her mouth to say that she had bought it because he had been kind when she cried. But of course that would be a lie, for she had bought it before that had happened.
‘It’s just a small thing,’ she settled for instead. ‘A tiny little thing.’
Yet it touched Rafe.
‘Coffee-flavoured,’ Antonietta said.
‘With a breakfast banquet at the side?’ he checked, taking them both back to the morning they had met.
‘No!’ Antonietta smiled.
‘You were the only good thing that happened that day.’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ she pointed out.
‘Antonietta, I find your silence golden.’
Their desserts arrived, and with them a silver platter which, the waiter told them, held real snow from the Nebrodi range. Nestled in it were two tiny glasses of icy Limoncello.
‘Is this really snow?’ Antonietta asked, pressing into it with her fingers.
‘Apparently so,’ Rafe said, pushing his own fingers in and finding hers. ‘Not what I need after a skiing accident. It’s lucky it’s not triggering a flashback.’
He made her laugh.
And to see her laugh felt like a reward.
The mousse was perfect and the Limoncello, though icy, was warming and a delectable end to their meal. Though the night did not have to end, suggested Rafe. Because they could dance.
‘I told you, I don’t dance,’ she attempted to say. But when he ignored her and stood up, held out his hand, she decided that Aurora was right and this dress did deserve at least one dance.
Or two. For how could he be so tall and so broad and yet so graceful? Antonietta wondered as she melted in his arms.
He carried her through it—not physically, but through her missteps and clumsy efforts. And he only winced once.
‘Did I
step on your feet?’ She gave a worried frown.
‘No,’ Rafe told her, and he said no more—just held her until she knew how to dance...but only with him.
He felt the tension slide out of her during the second dance, and he knew certain triumph as she relaxed in his arms. Somehow he knew this was rare for her. And he could not remember enjoying a night so much.
A night that could be considered tame by his usual standards, but by royal standards was both reckless and wild. Because she hadn’t been palace-approved, as a true date would be, and neither had she signed disclaimers, as his usual companions would.
It was uncharted waters for both of them.
The music slowed further, as if the band had heard his silent request, and now he moved her closer.
Antonietta made no protest, for she wanted more contact and she liked the shield of his arms. The heat from his palm was in the middle of her back and his other hand was on her bare arm. He did not put a finger wrong.
Not one.
Yet her bare arm wished that he would.
She could feel the slight pressure of his fingers and she ached to know their caress. She wished the hand on her back would go lower, so much so that she suddenly found she was holding her breath.
‘Antonietta?’
His head had lowered and his mouth was near her ear. His voice, so close, made her shiver.
‘Yes?’ she said, though she did not lift her face to him. Instead she opened her eyes to the fabric of his suit.
‘Why don’t you want me to be a world champion skier?’
She didn’t answer straight away, and instead swayed to the beat as every exposed piece of flesh—and those hidden away beneath the red silk—burned in his arms.
‘Because...’ she started.
‘I can’t hear you.’
Now she lifted her head, and she had to stretch her neck so that her red-painted lips were close to his ear.
‘Aren’t sportsmen supposed to be insatiable?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rafe said. ‘I have never been with one.’
She laughed, but then she was serious. ‘I won’t sleep with you,’ she said again.
It was stated as fact, yet she knew it was a lie, because she was on fire in his arms and she was weak with want.
‘Can I ask why?’ Rafe said, for he could feel her desire.
She could have told him that she was scared to, or that she did not know how, and both of those answers would have been true, but there was another reason that was holding her back, and Antonietta voiced it now.
‘Because I have a feeling that you would pay me.’
‘I would pay for your discretion,’ Rafe responded calmly. ‘Not for the act.’
She pulled back and looked up into his eyes. ‘I don’t understand...’
‘You would have to sign an NDA.’ He registered her frown. ‘A non-disclosure agreement.’
‘That’s the most unromantic thing I have ever heard.’ She actually laughed.
‘Tell me about it,’ Rafe said. ‘It is very inconvenient at times.’
How was she laughing at such a subject?
Why was she imagining them tumbling into bed and Rafe whipping out a contract for her to sign?
‘It is just as well,’ Rafe continued, ‘that I am the least romantic man.’
Except he didn’t seem unromantic to her. She had never felt more looked after, or been held with such care and skill, and she had never looked so deeply into a man’s eyes while sharing a smile.
‘But you can carry on dancing with me,’ Rafe said, ‘without signing a thing.’
He pulled her in so close that she could feel all she would be missing pressing into the softness of her stomach. His other hand was on her shoulder, toying with the spaghetti strap of her dress and making her breasts ache and crave for the same attention.
‘Can you kiss me?’ Antonietta asked, and her voice was husky and unfamiliar. ‘Without me having to sign a thing?’
‘Of course,’ he said, in a voice that was completely steady. ‘But later.’
Kiss me now, she wanted to plead as his hand moved down to the small of her back and pressed her in a little more.
He smoothed the hair from her hot face and then slid his hand under the dark curtain and stroked her neck and the top of her spine. They hadn’t even kissed, yet she was weak and breathless in his arms, and just when she thought she might die from wanting him he released her a touch.
‘Why don’t I take you home?’ Rafe suggested.
He made her wait for her kiss.
Through handshakes with the owner and then out to the delicately lit street.
Now, she kept thinking. Let it be now.
But, no.
He took her hand and held it tightly as they walked to the car.
Now, please now, she thought, with the moon high in the sky as they drove through the hillsides.
But of course it would not be now, for she did not want the audience of his driver for their first kiss, even if there was a partition.
Rafe sensed that. He had done far more than kiss in the back of a luxury car, but he wanted this to be right.
He still held her hand, carefully moving it to his thigh, but that was all. And then he loosened his grip and left it there.
She felt the solid muscle beneath her hand and of course she was too shy to move her hand higher. But there was actually no need, for to rest her hand on his thigh was bliss enough.
And then the girl with the saddest eyes spoke and made her first joke to him. ‘Champion skiers have very powerful thighs.’
He smiled. ‘Perhaps I missed my vocation.’
He made her wait even longer as they arrived at her little stone cottage at the end of a perfect date, and he made one thing very clear.
‘Don’t ask me to come in, for I might find it impossible to leave.’
‘I won’t.’ Antonietta nodded. She would not lower herself to deal with ‘paperwork’, but she did have one request. ‘Can you ask your minders to leave, though?’
She was not just quiet, Rafe realised, she was shy, for the cars were all parked well away. He was about to point that out, and even possibly to add that they could not be less interested in a mere kiss, for they had seen far more. In truth, should he be asked in, they were the men who would speak with her first and get her signature on a page.
Except it was not a mere kiss.
And he would not be asked in.
‘One moment.’
Dismissing Royal Protection Officers was not that easy, for though they were minding him, they answered to the King. And this was irregular indeed.
But in the end Rafe was Crown Prince, and when the Crown Prince told you, in no uncertain terms, to back the hell off because you were dismissed for the night, then—albeit reluctantly—you left.
She heard the crunch of gravel as the cars drove away and watched as Rafe walked back towards her—alone. She was nervous, but no longer daunted. He took her little purse from her hands and he took off her shawl. But it wasn’t the night air that made her shiver as he placed them on the stone wall, it was the thought of the kiss to come.
He looked right at her as his fingers went to the spaghetti strap of her dress. They made a new language, one without words, for as his fingers toyed with the strap his eyes told her that he had wanted to do this on the dance floor. She swallowed as he pulled the strap down her arm, and she was shaking like a trapped bird as he lowered his head and kissed the bare skin.
Oh, his mouth was warm and soft, and then not so soft, more thorough and deep, and her lips parted, and her knees did not know how to keep her standing up.
No matter, for his hand slid around her waist and his mouth worked up her neck and then came to her mouth.
‘All night,’ Rafe said, ‘I have wanted to kiss yo
u.’
Antonietta had dreaded Sylvester’s kiss, let alone the thought of anything more. She had never envisaged that she might ache for a man’s kiss. But now, with her neck damp from his mouth and his hands on her cheeks, she was wound tight with anticipation, and desperate to know the weight of his lips on hers.
It was a soft weight, and at first it satisfied. The graze of his lips had her own mouth pouting to reciprocate and her eyes simultaneously closing. He kissed her slowly until she returned it, and when her lips parted she shivered at her first taste of his tongue.
She had never imagined that a mouth could be so sublime, that his tongue could dance her to pleasure. His hands slipped from her face and moved down her bare arms, and Antonietta remained in his kiss, felt the pleasure building. He kissed her harder, and she felt as if she were nailed to the wooden door by his mouth, by the hands that were on her ribcage and the stroke of his thumb on her breast.
It had her weak and yet faintly desperate. Yes, desperate. For his kiss no longer satisfied. Instead it shot need into her veins. And the way his hand cupped her breast and lightly stroked her felt as if he was stroking her on the inside.
Rafe wanted her.
Badly.
But she had stated her case. So he removed his mouth and looked down at her, flushed and wanting and desirous.
‘Go inside,’ he told her.
Yet she remained.
For it felt as if the sky had parted and she had glimpsed behind it—as if everything she had been told and all that she had assumed was wrong.
Her body worked.
She wanted Rafe’s kisses.
She craved Rafe’s touch.
Sylvester’s taunts had pierced her, embedded themselves so deeply, and yet she felt them lifting now.
Rafe did not daunt her.
If anything, she felt as if he had freed her.
This elusive man, who housed so many secrets, had set her body on fire.
Antonietta glimpsed all that she had avoided and all she had never truly known she was missing.
But would that change if he knew about her lack of experience?
Rafe was used to sophisticated women—something she doubted she could be. Would her innocence douse his desire? For he had made it clear he wanted no strings. And in that moment neither did she.
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