A Christmas Vow of Seduction(21)
Perhaps just because she was excited. She was out to dinner with Andres. It was, for all intents and purposes, her first date.
She could scarcely think back to the woman she had been yesterday. The one who had tried to sabotage their arrangement by making a spectacle during the luncheon. She felt different now. Being with him had changed something. It had changed her.
She lifted the glass of wine to her lips, trying to orient herself to what was happening. To the fact that she was here. Sitting across from the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life, sipping on the most marvelous drink she’d ever had. She was warm. She was wearing beautiful clothes. There was a teacher who wanted to use her skills.
She was part of the royal family.
“You don’t have to volunteer for the schools if you don’t want to,” Andres said, taking a sip of his own wine.
“But I want to,” she said. “I told you, I want to find out what I’m good at. What I want to do. I was a younger daughter and I imagine that even if I had stayed in Tirimia, this is the sort of thing I would have done. And maybe I can figure out some of the specific needs of the people here if I’m working with them on such a close level. There might be some other things I could arrange. Charities.” She smiled. “I enjoyed the kids back in the encampment I lived in. They didn’t put so much distance between themselves and me. I really do love children.”
“That’s good.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Why is that good?”
“Because we will have children. We may yet have one on the way already, as careless as we’ve been.”
Her heart stalled, then slammed into her chest. “Oh.” Of course. They had taken no precautions against pregnancy. She had not thought of that until now. She waited to feel angry. To feel sad. She didn’t. The thought of a baby—Andres’s baby—only filled her with more of that same warmth from earlier.
They really would be a family. She had been alone for so long, and now she felt she was spoiled with company. A man who would be her husband, who would share her bed. A child. Just for a moment she allowed herself to be nothing more than completely happy. Filled with joy, filled with anticipation.
“I hope you aren’t upset,” he said, breaking her out of her reverie.
“Upset? Why would I be upset? I’m...happy.”
Andres looked completely shocked by that statement, but there was no way he could have been more surprised than Zara herself. But, surprising as it was, it was true. Today, he had shown her something other than the palace. Today, he had shown her what she could mean, not just to her country, not just to him, but to others. And what others could mean to her. She was beginning to feel that she was part of something. A part of the people here in this country, of the royal family.
“Forgive me for feeling surprised by that, Princess. But just yesterday you tried to get yourself thrown out.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Things change.”
A shadow fell over his expression, and he took another sip of wine. “I suppose sometimes things do change. But people rarely do.”
“Why does that sound ominous?”
“It shouldn’t. Just realistic. I want you to understand that just because what you want has changed, it doesn’t mean that I will.”
“Because you’re so very terrible?” She had yet to see evidence of this legendary playboy and lapsed prince. Andres wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t entirely certain she could characterize him as nice. But she liked him. He was full of passion, fire and intensity. And, though he would deny it, conviction.
Deeper than the conviction was the pain. Pain that she had heard in the cracks of the story he’d told about his mother. In his explanation for why he had slept with his brother’s fiancée. How deeply must a man hate himself to try and make everyone else hate him too? Beneath his words now, she sensed it. That same intent.
“There are quite a few people on this earth who would tell you that I am.”
“Happily for you, I am not one of them. Which is really quite convenient when you think about it. I doubt you want a wife who hates you.”
He laughed, the sound like the edge of a rusty knife’s blade. “It may be inevitable. I’m not entirely certain as I’ve never had a wife before.”
“It’s only inevitable if you make it so. It’s your decision.”
“And yours, I think, Princess,” he said, a strange kind of insincerity coating his words.
“Then I purpose to like you. For a very long time.” She was quite satisfied with the declaration.
“Very kind of you.”
A moment later the waitstaff appeared, putting plates down in front of them. It was chicken, which made her smile because he’d remembered that he owed her chicken. “I like you even more now.”
“You are very cheaply bought.”
“If you recall, I was a gift.” She sliced a small piece off her chicken and took a bite. She chewed thoughtfully, then smiled. “I was quite cheap for you. Free even.”
“Yes. My little fruit basket.”
“On a fruit-basket scale I’m quite large. Impressive.”
“Yes, but on the scale of small, feral women, you are tiny.”
“I have no frame of reference for playboy princes and how large or small they might be. Though I would consider you large.” She felt her face get hot and she took another bite of food.
“Are you trying to engage me in a bit of dirty talk?” His eyes glittered with amusement and she decided that keeping that look on his face would become a goal of hers.
Help children with reading, find useful ways to spend her time, make Andres’s eyes glitter.
She added to her list.
“Perhaps. But I have no experience with that.”
“Tell me.” He shifted in his chair. “What do you have experience with?”
“Well, as you know, I have a great amount of experience wandering the woods alone. As you’ve seen today, I have some experience with children. I have some experience with grief. And now I have a bit of experience with sex.”
The glitter in his eyes turned molten. “Not nearly enough as far as I’m concerned. I will have to expand your education.”
“I feel agreeable to that.”
“Well, I do live for your agreement.”
“In this case, I imagine you might.”
A smile curved the corner of his mouth upward. “Do you think?”
“You have quite a bit of power, Andres, and certainly you have some over me. But I don’t think I’m wrong in imagining that I might have some over you too.”
“Do you not like dessert, Zara?”
“I am fond of cake. Why?”
“You seem intent on ensuring that you never get to have it.”
“I do?”
Just then the waiter came back by and Andres stood. “Send my bill to the palace. And we will take a cake.”
“Are we leaving?”
“We are. And quickly.”
He wrapped his hand around her arm and pulled her up to her feet.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Because,” he said, leaning in, “you have tempted me. And now I must have you.”
A shiver went down Zara’s spine. “You must have me?”
“I need you.”
How long had it been since anyone needed her? Had anyone ever needed her? She wasn’t certain that they had. It felt... It felt good. The ache inside her was changing, shifting. It wasn’t a yawning howl of isolation, not that brittle emptiness. This was something else. It was warm, and it burned like fire, creating a desperate feeling at her center that she couldn’t quite understand. Desperate to do something. To touch him. To be close to him, skin to skin so that there was no distance between them. To make sure he felt the same thing she did.
He said that he needed her. And she desperately needed that to be true.
Desperately needed to feel connected.
Such a strange thing that, on the heels of feeling that she was in the place she belonged, she realized how much more there was. How much more she wanted.
To not just fit in with this place, but with this man.
The waiter appeared a moment later with a large bag, containing a white pastry box. Andres accepted it and whispered to her, “This is, I think, having your cake and eating it too.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“You’re about to.”
CHAPTER NINE
ONCE THEY WERE in the limo, they did not head back toward the palace. Rather, they headed deep into the city center. “Where are we going?” Zara asked.
“I have a penthouse near here.”
“You left that off your list of residences when we talked about it earlier.”
“I like to keep a little mystery.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. In fact, there is very little mystery to me. If you take the time to look me up online, you can find out anything you’d ever want to know.”
She decided then and there that she didn’t need to look him up on the computer. She didn’t have any experience using computers anyway, so it wasn’t as though she was going to tackle the task in her spare time. But she didn’t especially want the outside world’s opinion on Andres. She didn’t need it. She had her own opinion.
They wove through the evening traffic, down to the city center. The limo driver pulled to the edge of the curb and Andres got out, rounding the back of the car to her side. He opened the door for her and she slid out, accepting his hand as he helped her stand from the vehicle.