American in half a dress didn’t appeal to Will Rowling. What did—dark-haired housekeepers?
Great, she thought sourly. Bella had come to the party with the genuine intent of seeing where things might go with Will, because she said she would. Because she’d bought into the hoopla of being a princess, which came with responsibilities she’d never asked for nor wanted any part of.
But she’d done it, only to be hit over the head with the brutal truth yet again. The man her father wanted her to marry had less than zero interest in her as a person. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn Will was perfectly okay with a hard-core marriage of convenience, complete with separate bedrooms and a paramour on the side.
Sounded an awful lot like her parents’ marriage, and that she wanted no part of.
She shuddered, despondent all at once. Was it asking too much for someone to care what she would actually have to sacrifice with this mess her father had created?
The night was breathtaking, studded with stars and a crescent moon. Still, half the stone terrace lay in shadow, which went perfectly with her mood. Leaning on the railing, she glanced down into the crash of ocean against the cliff below.
“Thinking of jumping?”
The male voice emanating from behind her skittered down her spine, washing her in a myriad of emotions as her heart rolled and her pulse quickened. But she didn’t turn to face him because she was afraid if she actually glimpsed James for even a fraction of a second, all of her steely resolve to work things out with his brother would melt like gelato in the sun. And the leftover hot sticky mess would be difficult to clean up indeed.
“Would you stop me?” she murmured.
“No. I’d hold your hand all the way down, though.”
Her eyelids fluttered closed. How had he managed to make that sound so daringly romantic?
The atmosphere shifted as he moved closer. She could feel him behind her, hear the intake of his breath. A sense of anticipation grew in the silence, peppering her skin with goose pimples and awareness.
Before it grew too intense, she blurted out, “I called Will.”
James wasn’t for her. She needed to keep reminding herself that.
“I gathered that.” He sounded amused and reckless simultaneously. “I plan to personally drive him to the eye doctor tomorrow.”
“Oh? Is he having problems with his eyes?”
“Obviously. Only a blind man would let you out of his sight, especially if he knew you planned to be alone on a moonlit terrace. Any plonker could be out here, waiting to ravish you.”
She’d been so wrong. Other than a similar accent, James’s voice was nothing like Will’s. Will had yet to lose the ice while James breathed pure fire when he spoke.
“Good thing his moral, upstanding brother is the only one out here. He wouldn’t dare lay a finger on me.”
Maybe James needed a reminder that Bella and Will were supposed to get married, too. After all James had been the one to cool things off between the two of them, which had absolutely been the right thing to do.
“Yeah? While Will’s having his eyes examined, maybe I’ll get my IQ checked, then,” James said silkily.
“Feeling a little brainless this evening?”
“I definitely feel like my brain has turned to mush. I think it’s that dress. Your bare back framed by that little bit of fabric...it makes me imagine all sorts of things that probably aren’t very smart.” The frank appreciation in his voice floated through the still night, wrapping around her deliciously. “Let me see the front.”
“No.” Feeling exposed all at once, she crossed her arms. “I didn’t wear this dress for you.”
“Shame. I’m the only one here who fully appreciates what’s underneath it.”
In a flash, her core heated with the memory of being in James’s arms on the beach, his hard body flush with hers.
“You shouldn’t speak to me like that,” she said primly, and nearly gasped as he drew achingly close to her back. She could sense his heat and it called to her.
“Because you don’t like it?” he murmured, his mouth not two inches from her ear in a deliberate tease that shot sensation down the back of her throat.
Her breath caught and she gripped the railing lest her weak knees give out. “Because I do.”
He laughed and it spiked through her with fingers of warmth.
“That’s right,” he said smoothly, as if recalling something critically important. “You’re weak and liable to give in to temptation. Everything I’ve always wanted in a woman.”
“That’s so funny. I’d swear you brushed me off at our last meeting,” she couldn’t help but reply. It still stung, despite all the reasons why she suspected he’d done so.
“I did,” he admitted in an unprecedented moment of honesty. Most men she’d ever met would have tried to pass it off, as if she’d been mistaken. “You know why.”
“Because you’re not interested.”
The colorful curse he muttered made her smile for some reason. “You need your IQ checked if you believe that.”
“Because my father scared you off?”
“Not even close.”
“Because I’m supposed to be with Will,” she said definitively and wished it hadn’t come out sounding so bitter.
“Yes.” James paused as if to let that sink in. “Trust me. It was not easy. But he’s my brother.”
“So you’re okay with it if I marry Will?”
She imagined Christmas. That would be fun, to sit next to her boring husband who was screwing another woman on the side while the man she’d been dreaming about sat across the room. As Mr. Rowling carved the turkey, she could bask in the warm knowledge that she’d furthered a bunch of male ambition with her sacrifice to the royal cause.
“Is that what you want?” he asked quietly, his voice floating out on the still night air.
The question startled her. She had a choice. Of course she did. And now she needed to make it, once and for all.
The night seemed to hold its breath as it waited for her to speak. This was it, the moment of truth. She could end this dangerous attraction to the wrong brother forever by simply saying yes. James would walk away.
Something shifted inside, warring with all the sermons on responsibility and family obligations. And she couldn’t stand it any longer.
She didn’t want Will.
Whirling, she faced James, greedily drinking him, cataloguing the subtle differences in his features. He and Will weren’t identical, not to her. The variances were in the way James looked at her, the
