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Santina's Scandalous Princess(25)

By:Kate Hewitt


‘Brilliant,' she said, and cleared her throat, the sound loud and  awkward in the confined space of the cockpit. Ben turned to look at her,  and Natalia's breath froze in her chest.

‘About that kiss … ' he began.

Here it comes, she thought. The apologies or accusations, it didn't  matter which. It was a mistake. Let's forget it ever happened. Maybe  that would be for the best. Safer. She lifted her chin a notch. ‘What  about it?'

Ben stared at her for a long, endless moment. It was too dark for  Natalia to make out his expression. ‘I can't stop thinking about it,' he  finally confessed in a ragged whisper, and then he was pulling her  towards him, and she was on his lap and his mouth was on hers and that  was all they needed to say about that kiss.

This one was even better.

Ben's hands slid along her body, his thumbs grazing the sides of her  breasts before coming to rest on her hips, guiding her even closer so  her legs splayed on either side of him, her body pressed intimately to  his. It felt so good, Natalia thought hazily, but not good enough. She  wanted more. She needed more. She shifted, pressing against him, her  fingers fisted in his hair, raked his back in an agony of sensation,  anything to get closer.

His hands were hard on her hips as he pressed back, and desperately  Natalia thought how they were wearing too many clothes. Too much between  them. Ben must have thought so too for impatiently his hands pulled at  her dress, her underwear, his fingers finding her, and Natalia lost all  train of thought, the sensation was too great, too much.

Until the cockpit was suddenly awash with light and someone tapped on  the hatch of the plane. Ben jerked his mouth from hers and in one quick  movement pushed her from his lap so she was sprawled most inelegantly,  her dress up around her waist, half on her seat, half on the floor.

Natalia blinked, too shocked to even push her dress back down. One of  the airport's security guards was shining a torch into the plane, but  he'd immediately grasped what was going on for he backed quickly away.

‘Scusi … scusi … '

Reality returned in a sickening rush. Humiliation too. Carefully Natalia pulled her dress back down.

‘Sorry,' Ben muttered, and reached for her hand. Natalia ignored it. It  wasn't easy to act sophisticated when she'd just been dumped on the  floor, but she tried.

‘That's not quite how I envisioned this ending,' she murmured, giving  him a tart look even though inside she felt sick with humiliation and  hurt.

‘I thought it was the press.'

Ah. Well, that explained it. The last thing Ben wanted was to be caught  in flagrante with Princess Natalia. ‘The press, camping out at the  airport after midnight?' she remarked drily. ‘I know you don't like the  paparazzi, Ben, but I think that's verging on paranoid.'

‘Sorry,' he said again. He didn't look at her as he said it. Natalia felt her heart start to splinter.

‘Sorry you thought it was the press, or sorry for dumping me on the  floor like so much rubbish? Or,' Natalia continued, making sure to keep  her voice dry, as if this were all so amusing, ‘sorry for kissing me in  the first place?'

Ben didn't answer. His expression had become so irritatingly unreadable.  ‘Perhaps you're sorry for all three?' she suggested. ‘That would be a  nice hat trick.' Ben remained silent and she finished adjusting her  dress, her chin held high, her hands trembling.

‘I'll drive you home,' he said after another interminable moment, and  Natalia didn't bother to reply. She didn't think she could.

* * *

Nothing had gone the way he'd expected. Fury and regret pulsed through  him as Ben drove Natalia home. She sat next to him, her posture ramrod  straight, her chin tilted at an impossibly proud angle. Had he hurt her?                      
      
          



      

Of course you did, you bastard.

He'd dumped her on the floor. He'd pushed her away from him as if she  disgusted him. It had been an instinctive response, one borne of  self-protection and even fear. He'd had his moments of weakness  exploited all too often. A tear-streaked face at four years old. Sullen  and alone at twelve. The agony of his knee injury at sixteen. The  paparazzi had captured every moment of emotional vulnerability and  anguish he'd ever experienced and plastered them across their papers so  the whole world had seen. So his mother had seen, and been heartbroken.  Oldest Jackson misses his Daddy. Another Jackson Disappoints. Ben  Jackson's Dreams Shattered.

He'd lived through it all, and he would not do so again. He'd spent his  life, his whole damn life, trying to live a quiet life, worthy of  respect and out of the glare of the media. Trying to give the Jackson  name the respect it had once earned. He'd thought he could have done it  with football, but when that failed-when he failed-he did it with  business. All along he'd wanted to make a difference, to change the way  people thought about his family, and in one sordid moment he could have  ruined it all. That's what had gone through his head in a  lightning-flash of fear when the cockpit had suddenly blazed with light.  And while his history might have justified the fear, it certainly  didn't excuse the way he'd just treated Natalia.

He'd been foolish, he supposed, to have taken her out at all, and yet  even so he couldn't regret it. He'd wanted to be with her … and he still  did.

Even now he wanted her, and not just physically, although that was  certainly foremost in his mind. He wanted to apologise, explain why he  was so afraid, and not just of the press, Ben realised in a rush of  painful self-recrimination. Maybe that was just an easy excuse. He was  afraid of himself. Afraid of losing control, of letting himself go  because heaven only knew when Natalia was in his arms his whole world  spun on its axis. Natalia had been right; he didn't like feeling weak  and helpless and out of control. He hated it.

You're afraid of being afraid.

He pulled up to the palazzo and put on the emergency brake, turning to  look at Natalia, to say something, but she'd already opened the door,  her face angled away from him. ‘Natalia … '

She turned to him with one of her old mocking smiles, but he could tell  her heart wasn't in it. His wasn't either. ‘Thank you for an evening  that was full of surprises,' she said, and without waiting for a reply,  she waggled her fingers in farewell and then disappeared into the  palazzo.

Ben cursed aloud.

* * *

Thank goodness it was the weekend. She didn't have to see Ben for two  whole days. Maybe, Natalia hoped, knowing it was futile, she'd have put  the whole sorry episode behind her by Monday morning. Maybe she'd have  forgotten it completely, or at least stopped remembering the sweet slide  of his lips against hers every second of the day.

The weekend was endless. She thought about him constantly, wondered what  he was thinking. Feeling. Wearing, even. She felt like a teenager with a  first crush, except she'd never felt like this as a teen. This was  deeper, darker, more dangerous, and yet infinitely sweeter too, and that  made it all the more painful.

She relived the moment he'd pushed her away from him over and over  again. He'd acted out of instinct, which made it worse. He'd been  desperate to distance himself and the thought hurt more than it should.  It shouldn't hurt at all; it had just been a kiss.

A lot more than a kiss, Natalia acknowledged grimly. A lot more than  even just sex. Her heart was involved; she felt it twist and splinter,  jagged shards of disappointment digging into her soul. This was why she  didn't believe in true love. This was why she didn't get involved with  men she could care about. Until Ben.

How had he done it? Why had she let him?

On Saturday evening she'd broken down and rung Carlotta. She needed to  talk to someone, someone who knew her. She felt a prickly, uncomfortable  guilt in ringing her twin; she'd distanced herself from Carlotta since  she'd had her son, Luca, five years ago. It had been an instinctive and  unconscious decision, not that different from Ben pushing her off his  lap, Natalia realised with a jolt. A means of self-protection.  Carlotta's life had changed so dramatically, and hers hadn't. Carlotta  had moved to Italy, had lived a quiet, sober life that Natalia secretly  envied in its independence and freedom even as she witnessed Carlotta's  heartbreak and sorrow.

Carlotta answered on the first ring. ‘Natalia?'

‘Ciao, Lotta.' The nickname from childhood slipped out instinctively.                      
      
          



      

Carlotta must have guessed something from her tone-or the nickname-for she asked quietly, ‘Natalia, what's wrong?'