five-foot-ten. Her skin was paler than he liked, and her eyes didn’t have the fresh sparkle she always had when she’d been out in the sun, communing with nature—another of her stress releases, along with cooking and reading.
He’d have to get her out there again. That was, if he could get rid of all the black-suited minders, cameras and royal watchers. If he could allay the old man’s suspicions and gain his trust.
It wasn’t going to happen. Sick and fighting for the good of his people, the King had seen straight through all Toby’s defences that had been in place for a decade. The King knew how he felt about Giulia. The only person who knew his secret was the only enemy he’d ever made in his life, and the most powerful man in the country.
So he might as well be honest. Any chance to get her alone, and let her tell him what was going on with her.
“Giulia, my beloved, to put it without any overkill, even jet food sucks. I’ve missed both you and your cooking like hell the past weeks. Therefore, I opine, it’s way past the time when we disappear to discover the royal kitchens and make some of your unbelievably delicious moussaka, and those decadent mud muffins the way only you can make them…and we can talk.”
Why did she take so long to look up? But when she did he lost his breath. For a moment, a bare second, as she lifted her gaze to his the look he’d hungered to see for a decade was there. The chocolate-dark, slumberous eyes held desire.
Then it vanished as if it had never been, leaving him wondering if it was jet lag, their long separation or the same useless wishing he’d known for so long.
But if he’d imagined it, so had Charlie and the King. Charlie’s eyes were glazed with shock—and the look the old man gave Toby was even harder, more calculating. “I think it’s time we allowed these three to catch up.” The unspoken words hovered between king and commoner: the sooner you help them decide, the sooner you go.
As if in harmony with the King’s silent declaration of war, Jazmine and Max both nodded. “We’ll leave you,” Max said, with a smile aimed at Giulia alone.
“No, we’ll go to my room.” Giulia sounded off-kilter. “No cameras.”
“That wouldn’t be appropriate for a princess, my dear,” the King said, gently but with finality. “Even such an old friend as Toby cannot enter your room.”
Watching closely, Toby saw her nostrils flare a little, her lush mouth tighten, but she nodded, a short, jerking movement of her head.
“I’ll make sure the cameras are turned off in the tea room, and nobody will be at the balconies,” Jazmine said quietly. “They can wait at the base of the stairs.”
The King nodded, looking exhausted. “Well thought of, my dear.” He waved them all out.
A minute later they’d entered some kind of sumptuous, gold-painted tea room, with antique furniture, and mirrors and paintings on the walls. It was beautiful but, to his mind, overdone. It screamed its importance unnecessarily. Whoever had commissioned this place had had a real ego problem.
After they’d made certain the cameras were turned off and the security detail was away from the outside doors, the Grand Duke—“call me Max”—said to Princess Jazmine, “I think it’s time we leave them alone to talk.” These Mediterranean women really had the most beautiful names.
Though it had been the right thing to say, the way he smiled at Giulia set Toby’s teeth on edge. He spoke as if he knew Giulia, knew what she’d want and that he could give it to her. He smiled at her as if they were close.
What made it worse was the way Giulia smiled back.
Was it a friendly smile, or did it hold more? After a month, she’d given this man her trust, her friendship, and—no, no—her heart? Had she accepted the royal engagement after knowing the guy a few weeks, when he’d waited for her for ten long, agonising years?
A red haze clouded his vision. All the reasons for his silence vanished from his jet-lagged brain. For the first time in ten years he lost control, acting on impulse, obsession, years of love. “Wait.”
Jazmine and Max turned back.
“Are the rumours true about the royal marriages for you—all four of you?” He stared hard at Max.
Taken aback by the directness of the attack, Max nodded. “It’s the way things are done here. Though he’s giving us all time, the King can enforce it by law if he feels it’s in the best interests of the country.”
“Then you need to know the true reason I’m here, besides advising my friends on what is best—not just for Hellenia, but for them.”
And with that he snatched Giulia into his arms, bent her over his arm and kissed her…kissed her as he’d ached to do, body and soul, for a third of his life.
For the rest of his days he’d recall the feel of Giulia’s lovely, supple dancer’s body as he pulled her against him; the soft, full lips beneath his as he kissed her. Thank God—thank God—her hand fluttered up into his hair, she moulded herself against him and kissed him back for a brief, beautiful moment.
The gasps of everyone in the room awoke him to what he’d done.
Idiot! After ten years of patient waiting, he’d lost it in a moment. He’d kissed his intensely private Giulia in front of an audience.
But she’d kissed him back. She’d kissed him.
So he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. He met the Grand Duke’s eyes without flinching or fear. “Whatever Charlie decides, I’ll be doing my dead-level best to make Giulia choose to come home—with me. To become an ordinary firefighter’s wife instead of making an arranged alliance with you for the sake of power and wealth.” He stared at each of them in turn, keeping Giulia in the curve of his arm, loving the feel of her there, where she belonged. “Nobody knows how to care for her and cherish her as I do. She’s mine.”
Then, without a breath, he turned to her. It was Giulia’s cue.
And the shock in her lovely eyes matched the stunned betrayal in her husky voice as she cried, “Toby, how could you?”
She tore herself from his arms and bolted from the room before he could react.
“Do you want company, Lia?”
From her favoured hidey-hole in the library—snuggling in corners with books had been her escape for years when the world felt out of control—Lia looked up with a smile at the woman who’d become a friend, a sister, within hours of meeting. “If it’s you, Jazz.” She patted the big, fat, curl-up-in-me leather reading-chair beside hers.
Jazmine kicked off her shoes and curled up with a sigh. “I love this room. I always have. What’s that you’re reading?”
Because Jazmine didn’t pry, Lia wanted to tell her. “What’s wrong with me? Why does everyone treat me like a child in need of protection?”
Jazmine’s brows lifted, and Lia laughed, feeling weirdly relieved that her friend chose to laugh at her rather than cover for her. “Okay, everyone but you.”
Jazmine
