gone. She’d taken the light and sweetness of hope with her, leaving him bruised, his body battered and in physical pain.
She didn’t know.
Her blindness shocked him, her utter stone-blindness to his love. After ten years of showing her in every possible way how much he loved and wanted her, she didn’t even think he found her pretty or interesting.
The doctor’s words of years ago came back to haunt him.
No matter what you say or do, even you, her closest support person, may never know the depth of damage to her self-esteem or how she sees herself.
He leaned against the bookshelf where she’d been, inhaling the last vestiges of her scent. How had he saved her life, been her best friend so many years, and known her so little? How had she listened to every word he’d said to her for so long, yet never truly grasped their meaning? She’d called his endearments “nonsense.”
At this point, only one thing was clear: he’d shocked her to her core by kissing her today. She honestly hadn’t seen it. She didn’t even see how much he needed her.
If he wanted to win her, he couldn’t take a single thing for granted. He had to start over from scratch, to show her he didn’t just love her, he found her beautiful and desirable—the only woman he wanted.
I’m not a child any more, Toby; I’m a woman!
Ten years dreaming her dreams for her, making her every wish come true, and she’d grown and changed; she’d become a woman before his blinkered eyes. And now she’d gone so far ahead of him he couldn’t see her. Worse, he hadn’t even noticed when she’d left.
The title and tiara were the least of his problems. She loved him, wanted him, but she didn’t love him, and didn’t want him. After half a lifetime of being everything to her, she’d trusted him with the truth only now, when she believed it was too late.
How long had she been hiding this resentment from him? How long had she wanted a woman’s life, and he hadn’t noticed?
I’m a woman! The passionate lilt in her voice as she’d said it had both made him harder than he’d ever been, awakened him from ten years of aching love lost inside a mental fog of fear, and made him smile at last. So Max didn’t see her as a woman? She wanted a man to see her, to want her as a woman?
As ever, half an hour with her inspired him. With two sentences, she’d shown him the way to opening her guarded and locked heart. She’d even shown him how he could stay in Hellenia, at least for now, how to circumvent the King’s suspicions.
If Hellenia needed healing, he had some plans that just might impress the crusty old king.
And if Giulia wanted a man to show her just how much he wanted her, she was about to get it.
CHAPTER THREE
Two weeks later
“IT’S a truly beautiful country. It’s a shame so much of it has been torn to pieces by the warring factions,” Toby said, sounding deeply thoughtful.
From beside him in the bullet-proof town car, Lia nodded. Every time she visited a new town or village shattered by the Orakis family’s attempts to regain control, she wanted to cry. She felt so helpless, so inadequate to do all that was needed to help this beautiful, medieval country heal its scars.
How ridiculous was it that, by an accident of birth, the only choice Hellenia had for her next leader was a hereditary lord with the destructive tantrums of a two-year-old throwing his blocks, and two Australians who knew no more about ruling a nation than that spoiled baby? If it wasn’t for Jazmine…
“Charlie’s ideas are working very well—the village training system and paying for apprenticeships—and your charities and law repeals for widows, divorced women and orphans are making you a heroine in the nation.”
Lia flushed. “I’m just doing what has to be done. Anyone would have done it.”
“What, giving away a third of your fortune thus far to found refuges for women whose male family members are exploiting them? Using your second ancestral home in Malascos as an orphanage? I doubt five percent of the population would have done that.” He added softly, “Papou and Yiayia would be proud of you.”
Moved by the simple tribute, she smiled, glowing with the praise. She hadn’t felt alone since he’d come here. She had her friend back… but not a brother.
She flushed and looked away at the thought. No, not even almost a brother.
“I see why you and Charlie feel needed here.”
Attention arrested, she swung back to face him. He’d been silent on every other trip, unless she’d wanted to talk. He’d returned to being her best and supportive, wonderful friend…almost. And it was the “almost” that made her feel on edge. “Do you?”
As if he understood the turmoil creating storms inside her, he smiled. “Did you think I wouldn’t? I’ve lived with you fourteen years, Giulia. I know your sense of duty, your need to help others if you can. I saw it long before you began volunteer work in the eating-disorder clinic.”
She relaxed. Thank goodness, there were no undercurrents in that comment. But she found herself wondering why there weren’t. “Yes, that’s it. I feel like I’m finally where I’m meant to be.”
“I can see that,” he said softly. “Just because I want you in my arms, in my bed, doesn’t mean I’m not still your best friend, and I’m not blind.”
She stopped the gasp before it emerged, but his voice, the very air around them was filled with a dangerous, warm undertow that terrified her because it made her want so much. Want him.
He moved a finger, just one finger, just one millimetre, a tiny caress on the sensitive skin beneath her jaw—and she was lost to everything but the thick, heated pounding of her blood, the want. Her head fell back, only a tiny movement, but she knew and he knew. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t ask him to—couldn’t tear her gaze from his, deep, shadowed face in the gathering dusk surrounding the car. The word was screaming in her mind but her mouth wouldn’t work. Why?
As if he knew—of course he did—he answered, still filled with the rich, rumpled sensuality his gravelled voice could do so well. “You said you didn’t believe my words, Giulia. So now I’m showing you what I want.”
His finger moved again, trailing down the tender part of her throat. “Golden silk,” he murmured, his gaze following his finger, and she shivered. “I’ve always wanted to touch it.”
And she’d always wanted him to. She wanted that, and so much more. She wanted to curve her hand around his neck and into his dark-and-golden hair. She’d longed to run her fingers through the thick half curls for years, to see the desire in his summer-sky eyes as she touched him. She wanted to pull him down to her, to fall back on the butter-soft leather seating as they kissed. She wanted to feel him on her, feel him hard where she’d always wanted him to be for her…
It was so embarrassing, so humiliating that he could make her like this, lost inside her desires with a single touch, with no power to say a word, let alone “stop.” Even worse that he knew
