the same.
He wondered if she was aware of just how irresistible he still found her. Perhaps she thought there might be more episodes like this in the future. Maybe she was labouring under the illusion that he would start making regular trips to see her, which would all end up with this seemingly inevitable conclusion. And didn’t part of him long for such a delicious scenario?
Yet his sexual hunger was tempered by a deep sense of guilt at what had just happened, because hadn’t he just betrayed the woman who had been waiting so patiently for him on the island of Isolaverde? Hadn’t he broken his self-imposed celibacy—big time—and with the very last woman he should have chosen?
‘I’m afraid it is a big deal,’ he said slowly.
She looked at him and grew completely still, as if sensing from the sudden harshening of his voice that she was about to hear something she would prefer not to.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘There’s someone else.’
The words hung in the air between them and for a moment they were met with nothing other than a disbelieving silence before her shoulders stiffened in shock.
‘Someone else?’ she repeated blankly.
‘Yes.’
‘You mean...?’ she managed at last, her green-gold eyes icing over. ‘You mean you’re sleeping with two women at the same time? Or is that a little conservative of me? Maybe there are more than two—are you operating some sort of outdated harem?’
‘Of course I’m not!’ he gritted back. ‘And it isn’t that simple. Or that easy.’
‘Oh, Luc. Your tortured face is a picture. You poor thing! My heart bleeds for you.’
‘I have been betrothed to a princess since she was a child,’ he said heavily.
‘Betrothed?’ Lisa gave a brittle little laugh, as if sarcasm could protect her from the pain which was lancing through her heart. As if it would blind her to the fact that she had misjudged him. Worse, she had trusted him. She hadn’t asked him for the stars but she had expected him to behave with some sort of integrity towards her. But why should she expect integrity when she knew how ruthless men could be? ‘This is the twenty-first century, Luc. We don’t use words like betrothed any more.’
‘Where I come from, we do. It’s the way things work in my country.’ He picked up one of his gold cufflinks which were lying next to the vase of purple flowers. ‘The way they’ve always worked, ever since—’
‘Please! I don’t want a damned lesson in Mardovian history!’ she hissed. ‘I want you to tell me how you’ve just had sex with me if there’s...someone else.’
He clipped first one cufflink and then the other, before lifting his eyes to hers. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You bastard.’
‘I made it very clear from the beginning that there could never be any future between us. I always knew that my destiny was to marry Sophie.’
Sophie. Somehow knowing her name made it even worse and Lisa started to tremble.
‘But you didn’t think to tell me that at the time.’
‘At the time there was no reason to tell you, for she and I had an agreement that we should both lead independent lives until the time of the wedding approached.’
‘And now it has.’
‘Now it has,’ he agreed, and his voice was almost gentle. Like a doctor trying to find the kindliest way of delivering a deadly diagnosis. ‘This was my last foreign trip before setting the matrimonial plans in motion.’
‘And you thought you’d have one final fling—with the woman who would probably ask the least questions?’
‘It wasn’t like that!’ he said hotly.
‘No? What, you just happened to come into my shop last week?’
‘I wanted to tie off some of the loose ends in my life.’
There was a pause. Lisa had never imagined herself being described as a loose end and something told herself to kick him out. To get his cheating face out of her line of vision and then start trying to forget him. But she didn’t. Some masochistic instinct made her go right ahead and ask the question. ‘What’s she like? Sophie.’
He winced, as if she had committed some sort of crime by saying the Princess’s name out loud while she sat amid sheets still redolent with the scent of sex.
‘You don’t want to know,’ he said roughly.
‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Luc. I do. Indulge me that, at least. I’m curious.’
There was a brief pause before he answered. ‘She is young,’ he said. ‘Younger even than you. And she is a princess.’
Lisa closed her eyes as suddenly she wished this night had never happened. Because if he hadn’t come back she would never have known about Sophie. Luc would have existed in her imagination as the perfect lover she’d had the strength to walk away from and not as the duplicitous cheat he really was. ‘And how does she feel, knowing just what her precious fiancé is up to the moment her back is turned?’ she questioned in a shaking voice. ‘Or doesn’t she mind sharing you with another woman?’
‘I have never been intimate with Sophie!’ he bit out. ‘Since tradition dictates she will come to me as a virgin on our wedding night.’ He paused as he surveyed her from between his lashes, his expression suddenly sombre. ‘Because that is my destiny and the duty which has been laid down for me since the moment of my birth. And a prince must always put duty, Lisa, above all else. That has always been my guiding principle.’
She shook her head, terrified she was going to do something stupid, like picking up the vase of purple flowers and hurling it at him. Or bursting into useless tears. ‘You wouldn’t know the meaning of the word principle if it was staring out of a dictionary at you!’
His voice tensed, but he forged on—sounding as if someone had written him a script and he was reading from it. ‘And once my ring is on her finger, I will stray no more.’
Lisa closed her eyes. So that was all she was to him. Someone to ‘stray’ with. Like a stray cat—lost and hungry and taken in by the first person to offer it a decent meal. What a stupid mistake she’d made. She’d let herself down. She’d tarnished the past and muddied the present. And all because of one little kiss. Because she’d reached up and brushed her lips over his and the whole damned thing had got out of hand.
So show some dignity. Don’t scream and rage. Don’t let his last memory of you be of some woman on the rampage because he’s passing you over for someone else. Because she had never given him access to her emotions and she wasn’t about to start now. Bitterness and vitriol were luxuries she couldn’t afford, because she might not have much—but she still had her pride. She opened her eyes and met the sapphire glint of his, only now she barely noticed their soft blaze—just as she no longer saw the beauty in his olive-skinned features. All she saw was duplicity and deceit.
‘Just
