she’d had a chance to brush her wayward curls or slick a little lipstick over lips which suddenly felt like parchment.
‘Luc,’ she said, and the name sounded so right—even though it was two years since she’d spoken it. Two long years since she’d gasped it out in delight as he’d filled her and her body had splintered into yet another helpless orgasm around his powerful thrust. ‘You’re...’ She swallowed. ‘You’re the last person I expected to see.’
He closed the shop door behind him and Lisa glanced over his shoulder, wondering where his bodyguards were. Lurking out of sight, probably. Trying to blend in to the upmarket location by peering into windows, or melting into the dark shadows of a shop doorway as they controlled access to their royal boss. And then she saw two low black cars with tinted windows parked further down the road and she was reminded of all the protocol which surrounded this charismatic man.
‘Am I?’ he questioned softly.
His voice was velvet and steel and Lisa felt a rush of desire which made her feel momentarily breathless. Against her lace brassiere her nipples hardened and her skin grew tight. She could feel the instant rush of heat to her sex. And it wasn’t fair. How did he manage to provoke that kind of reaction with just one look?
So stay calm. Act like he’s a customer. Maybe he was a customer—eager to commission one of her trademark silk dresses for one of his countless girlfriends. After all, wasn’t that how she’d met him, when he’d walked into her workroom near Borough Market and she hadn’t had a clue who he was? Her designs had just been taking off—mainly through word of mouth and thanks to a model who had worn one of her dresses to a film premiere. All sorts of people had started coming to see her, so it hadn’t been that surprising to see the imposing, raven-haired man with a beautiful blonde model on his arm.
She remembered the blonde trying to draw his attention to one of the embroidered cream gowns Lisa had been making at the time and which women sometimes wore as wedding dresses. And Lisa remembered looking up and witnessing the faint grimace on Luc’s face. Somehow she had understood that he was no stranger to the matrimonial intentions of women, and their eyes had met in a shared moment of unwilling complicity until she had looked away, feeling awkward and slightly flustered.
But something had happened in that split second of silent communication. Something she could never entirely understand. He had dumped the blonde soon afterwards and laid siege to Lisa—in a whirlwind of extravagant gestures and sheer determination to get her into his bed. He had turned all that blazing power on her and at first she’d thought she had been dreaming—especially when she’d discovered that he was a prince. But she hadn’t been dreaming. The amazing flowers which had started arriving daily at her workshop had borne testament to his wealth and his intentions. Lisa had tried to resist him—knowing she had no place at the side of someone like him. But it had turned out he hadn’t really wanted her by his side—he’d just wanted her writhing underneath him, or on top of him, or pushed up against a wall by him, and in the end she’d given in. Of course she had. She would have defied any woman to have held out against the potent attraction of the Mediterranean Prince.
They had dated—if you could call it that—for six weeks. Weeks which had whizzed by in a blur of sensuality. He’d never taken her to any of the glitzy functions featured on the stiff cards which had been stacked on the marble fireplace of his fancy house, which she had visited only once, under the cloak of darkness. He had been reluctant to be anywhere which didn’t have a nearby bed, but Lisa hadn’t cared. Because during those weeks he had taught her everything he knew about sex, which was considerable. She had never experienced anything like it—not before, and certainly not since.
The memory cleared as she realised that he was standing in her shop, still exuding that beguiling masculinity which made her want to go right over there and kiss him. And she couldn’t afford to think that way.
‘So you were just passing?’ she questioned politely as she bent and picked up her fallen needle.
‘Well, not exactly,’ he said. ‘I heard in a roundabout way that you’d moved premises and was interested to see how far up in the world you’ve come. And it seems like you’ve come a long way.’ His eyes glittered as he looked around. ‘This is quite some change of circumstance, Lisa.’
She smiled. ‘I know.’
‘So what prompted the transformation from edgy designer to becoming part of the establishment?’
Lisa kept her expression neutral as she met his curious gaze and even though she owed him no explanation, she found herself giving him one anyway. He probably wouldn’t leave until she told him and she wanted him to leave, because he was making her feel uncomfortable standing there, dominating her little shop. ‘I was selling stuff online and from my workshop—but it was too far out of the city centre to appeal to the kind of women who were buying my clothes.’
‘And?’
She shrugged. ‘And then when the opportunity came up to lease a shop in this area, I leapt at the chance.’ It had been a bad decision of course, although it had taken her a while to see that. She hadn’t realised that you should never take out an expensive lease unless you were confident you could meet the charges, and she’d chosen a backer who didn’t know a lot about the fashion industry. But she had been buoyed up and swept away on a wave of acclaim for her dresses—and had needed a new project to fill the void left in her heart after Luc had gone. And then when her sister had announced she was going to have a baby, Lisa’s desire to increase her income had become less of an ego-boosting career move and more of a necessity...
He was looking around the shop. ‘You’ve done well,’ he observed.
‘Yes. Very well.’ The lie slipped with practised ease from her tongue, but she justified it by telling herself that all she was doing was protecting herself, though she wasn’t quite sure from what. And everyone knew that if you talked yourself up, then people might start to believe in you. ‘So what can I do for you?’ She fixed him with her most dazzling smile. ‘You want to buy a dress?’
‘No, I don’t want to buy a dress.’
‘Oh?’ She felt the unsteady beat of her heart. ‘So?’
He glittered her a smile. ‘Why am I here?’
‘Well, yes.’
Why indeed? Luc studied her. To prove she meant nothing? That she was just some tousle-haired temptress who had made him unbelievably hot and horny—before she’d shown him the door.
But wasn’t that what rankled, even now? That she had walked away without a second glance—despite his expectation that she’d come crawling back to tell him she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. His pride had been wounded in a way it had never been wounded before, because no woman had ever rejected him—and his disbelief had quickly given way to frustration. With Lisa, he felt like a man who’d had his ice cream taken away from him with still half the cone left to lick.
As his gaze roved over her, the sheer individuality of her appearance hit him on a purely visceral level. He had dated some of the world’s most desirable women—beautiful women whose endlessly long legs gave him the height he preferred in his sexual partners. But Lisa was not tall. She was small, with deliciously full breasts which drew a man’s eyes to them no matter what she was wearing, or however much she tried to disguise them. She was none of the things he usually liked and yet there was something about her which he’d found irresistible, and he still couldn’t work out what that something was.
Today she was wearing a simple silk dress of
