‘You had no plans to go anywhere until you overheard that conversation.’
Her eyes blazed into his. ‘Don’t you mean your royal decree?’
Alix was aware that they were drawing interest from passers-by and he saw the glint of something in the distance that looked suspiciously like the lens of a paparazzi camera.
He gritted his jaw. ‘We need to talk—and not in the street.’
Leila must have seen something on his face, because she looked mutinous for a second and then pulled her arm free again and started back towards her shop.
Alix took her case from her hand, although she held on to it until she obviously realised it would end up in a tug of war. She let him take it and the incongruity of the fact that he, Alix Saint Croix, was tussling over a case in the street with a woman was not lost on him.
When she’d opened the door to her shop they stepped inside and she shut it again. Alix fixed his gaze on her pale face. ‘Why were you leaving?’ And without saying goodbye... He bit back those words. Women didn’t say goodbye to him—he said goodbye to them.
She folded her arms across her chest. She was mad at him—that much was patently obvious. ‘I was leaving because I need to sort my business out. And also because your arrogance is truly astounding.’ She unlocked her arms enough to point a finger at herself. ‘How dare you assume that I’m falling in love with you? We’ve only known each other for two weeks. Or did you think that because I was a virgin I had less brain cells than the average woman and would fall for the first man I slept with?’
Alix felt something violent move through him at the implication that there would be more men and that he’d just been the first.
Now she looked even angrier. ‘You told someone called Andres I was a virgin. How dare you discuss my private details with anyone else?’
Alix gritted his jaw harder. ‘Unfortunately the life of a royal tends to be public property. But it wasn’t my right to divulge that information.’
Leila huffed a harsh-sounding laugh. ‘Well, that’s a life I have no intention of ever knowing anything about, so from now on I’d appreciate it if you kept details of our affair to yourself. You can rest assured, Your Majesty, I’m not falling in love with you.’
Alix told himself she wouldn’t have run like that if something about overhearing that phone call hadn’t affected her emotionally.
His eyes narrowed on her. ‘So you say.’
‘So I mean,’ Leila shot back, terrified that he’d seen something else on her face. ‘I’ve saved you the bother of having to pretend that you feel something for me, so I’ll save you more time with the undoubtedly fake romantic proposal you had in mind...the answer is no.’
Alix lifted a brow. ‘You’d say no to becoming a queen? And a life of unlimited wealth and luxury?’
Leila’s stomach roiled. ‘I’d say no to a marriage devoid of any real human emotion living in a gilded cage. How can you, of all people, honestly think I’d want to bring a child into the world to live with two parents who are acting out roles?’
Alix’s eyes were steely. ‘You weren’t acting a role this morning.’
Immediately Leila was blasted with memory: her legs wrapped around Alix’s waist, fingers digging into his muscular buttocks. What had she turned into? Someone unrecognisable.
She huffed a small unamused laugh. ‘Surely you don’t mean to confuse lust with love, Alix? I thought you were more sophisticated than that?’
His face flushed at that but it didn’t comfort Leila. She felt nauseous.
‘Look,’ Alix said tersely, ‘I know that you’re probably a little hurt. The fact is that the woman I choose to be my Queen has to fulfil a certain amount of criteria. We respect each other. We like each other. We have insane chemistry. Those are all good foundations for a marriage. Better than something based on fickle emotions or antipathy from the start.’
Something dangerously like empathy pierced Leila when she thought of what he’d told her about his parents’ marriage.
And then she thought of his assessment of her being a little hurt, and the empathy dissolved. The hurt was all-encompassing and totally humiliating. The last thing she wanted was for him to suspect for a second how devastating hearing that conversation had been.
‘You never even told me you were so close to regaining your throne,’ she accused.
Alix’s jaw was hard as granite. ‘I couldn’t. Only my closest aides know of this.’
‘So everything—the whole trip to your island—was all an elaborate attempt to throw your opponents off the scent? And what was I? A decorative piece for your charade? A convenient lover in the place of the last one you dumped so summarily?’ Leila laughed harshly and started to pace. ‘Mon Dieu, but I was a fool, indeed. Two times in a row now.’
Alix sounded harsh. ‘I am not like that man, and you were not a fool.’
Leila’s gaze snapped back to his, but she barely saw him through her anger. ‘Yes, I was. To have believed for a second that a trip like that was spontaneous.’ She recalled something else about the conversation she’d overheard and gasped. ‘You had someone take those pictures of us, didn’t you?’
Alix flushed. He didn’t deny it.
Leila shook her head and backed away from him. The tender shoots of something that she’d been frantically trying to ignore finally withered away. She’d thought they’d been sharing intimate moments alone...he’d led her to believe they were alone on the island. She’d bared her body and soul to this man and he’d exploited that. She had to protect herself now.
She needed to drive him away before he saw how fragile she really was underneath her anger.
She affected nonchalance. ‘To be perfectly honest, Alix, I used you.’
* * *
I used you. Alix reacted instantly, with an inward clenching of his gut. Pain.
An echo of the past whispered at him—another woman. ‘I used you, Alix. I wanted back into Europe and I saw you as a means to get there and restore my reputation.’
He went cold and hard inside. ‘Used me?’
Leila nodded and shrugged lightly. ‘I wanted to lose my virginity but I’d never met anyone with whom it was a palatable prospect...until you walked into the shop.’
Her eyes were like hard emeralds.
‘It was only ever about that for me, Alix. And excitement—I won’t deny that. My mother was over-protective, but now I’m finally free and independent, and I’m not about to shackle myself to some marriage of convenience because you deem me a suitable candidate for being your bride and the mother of your precious royal heirs.’
A mocking expression came over her face.
‘I’m
