to trust you with anything and everything, you suddenly backed away and told me to come back when I’d grown a chest. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it wasn’t struggling to get my ballgown back on so that a bunch of strangers didn’t see me naked—and you broke the zip, by the way, so I never actually managed to get it back on—the worst was when you walked away from me straight into the arms of a tall, skinny blonde. When you kissed her I thought I was going to die.’ It was good to remind herself what had happened, she thought grimly. Good to remind herself why she wasn’t going to be seduced by the chemistry again.
‘Tasha—’
‘You knew I was watching, didn’t you? At the time I assumed you didn’t know I was still there, but now I see you did it for my benefit. You wanted me to see you kiss her.’
There was a stillness about him. A hardness about his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. ‘I’ve told you—I wanted you to hate me and forget about me. You were a kid.’
‘Did I feel like a kid when you stripped me naked?’
‘What do you think would have happened if I’d taken you that night?’ His tone savage, he took her chin in his fingers and lifted her face to his. ‘Think.’
‘We would have made love,’ she whispered. ‘You would have been the first.’
His fingers tightened on her face. For a moment they stared at each other, sharing the memories through that single look. ‘I would have broken your heart.’
The air dragged through her lungs and each beat of her heart felt painful. ‘You did that anyway. But I should be grateful. Because of you I buried myself in my books. I gave up on men.’
‘That’s not what I heard.’ His eyes were fixed on hers, his breathing heavy. ‘Josh told me you were engaged once—’
Great. More humiliation. ‘That didn’t work out.’ Trying not to think about the fact he’d obviously discussed her with Josh, Tasha pulled away from him. ‘I’m not great with relationships. I’m the first to admit it.’
‘That makes two of us.’
‘You have endless relationships. I read about them all the time in the paper.’
‘Those aren’t relationships.’
‘Right.’
‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I hurt you, Tash. I should have handled it a different way.’ He adjusted his balance. ‘Forgive me?’
‘No! I don’t forgive you.’
He was standing close to her. ’There’s always been something between us and it hasn’t gone away.’
‘I’m older and wiser now.’
‘You’re still the same Tasha,’ he breathed. ‘Feisty, emotional, warm, giving—’
‘Be quiet. I don’t trust you when you’re nice.’
‘I’m always nice, tesoro.’ His soft, velvety voice wrapped itself around her senses and she felt her willpower crumble.
‘I’m still really angry with you,’ she choked. ‘I’m always going to be angry with you.’
‘Even if I say sorry? Mi dispiace.’
She felt the warmth of his hand against her head and the heat of his body close to hers. He was a breath away from kissing her again and her eyes closed.
‘No, Alessandro—please don’t...’ There was a tense silence and all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing. ‘I mean it—I don’t want you to touch me.’
For a moment she thought he was going to ignore her and then she felt his hand drop and he moved away. ‘All right.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘I won’t touch you until you ask me to.’
Disappointment mingled with relief, and the confusion of it infuriated her.
It wasn’t logical to be disappointed when she was the one who’d asked him to move away.
‘That will be never.’ Tasha opened her eyes and looked at him, feeling as though the whole centre of her balance had shifted. ‘I’d better find you another nurse.’
‘Why? Last time I looked my leg was still in a cast and my ribs were still bruised.’
‘I don’t think I can do this,’ she said desperately. ‘I thought it would be easy, but it isn’t. We’re— You’re...’
He was still standing close to her. The warmth of him, the scent of him, wound itself around her insides and sent anticipation skittering through her.
She swayed towards him and then she saw the dangerous burn of heat in his dark eyes and remembered how long it had taken her to recover last time she’d fallen for this man.
She was hopeless at relationships, wasn’t she? She didn’t want one. She had a career she loved. And she had to concentrate on sorting out the mess she’d made of her professional life.
‘You hurt me, Alessandro.’ Tasha forced the words past her lips. ‘I have more self-respect than to let you do it again. I’ll stay and look after you because I gave my word, but it’s not going to be any more than that.’
* * *
‘We thought maybe a carefully placed interview with a celebrity magazine, Your Highness, focusing on your hopes for the future...’
As his advisers droned on, Alessandro stared out of the window towards the waves. It was early morning and there was only one surfer in the waves.
Tasha. She was out there again, enjoying the swell beneath her board and the spray on her face.
Seeking distraction...
It had been three days since their conversation and she’d kept their interaction on a strictly professional level, but that didn’t alter the tension that added an edge to the atmosphere whenever they were in a room together.
‘Your Highness?’
Alessandro dragged his gaze from contemplation of the surfer. ‘Sorry?’
His advisers exchanged glances. ‘We were suggesting ways in which you could potentially raise your profile even though you’re...’ one of them cleared his throat and looked at Alessandro’s leg ‘...incapacitated.’
‘Featuring in a celebrity magazine?’ Alessandro didn’t bother to conceal his contempt for the idea. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘It would be—’
‘Shallow and useless,’ Alessandro snapped. ‘I don’t want to be portrayed as some royal layabout. I run a successful multimillion-dollar business.’ Or he had until his brother’s death. Now a select team ran it in his place and he was only involved in the major decisions.
‘The important thing is that the people want to see you, Your Highness. They want to know their prince.
