choice for walking, but she’d packed some black ballet flats in her bag for emergencies. And anyway, they were amazing shoes and worth a little discomfort.
His eyes swept her up and down, a lift in his brow.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“What?” she repeated.
He turned and started walking down the hall and she clacked after him. “Why did you look at me like that?” she asked.
“Do you always dress like this?”
She looked down at her dress. White with black polka dots, a red, patent leather belt at the waist. It was one of her favorites, especially with the shoes and her bright red bag. “Like what?”
“Like you just stepped off the set of a black-and-white film.”
“Oh. Yes. I like vintage. It’s a hobby of mine.” One her new financial injection allowed her to indulge in in a very serious way. Her bed might be empty, but her closet was full.
“How do clothes become a … hobby?”
“Because you can’t just buy clothes like this. Well, you can, but they’re reproductions. Which is fine, and I have my share, but to actually get a hold of real vintage stuff is like a game sometimes. I haunt online auctions, charity shops, yard sales. Then there’s having them altered.”
“Sounds like a lot of trouble for secondhand clothes.”
“Possibly fourth-or fifthhand clothes,” she said cheerfully. “But I love the history of it. Plus, they just don’t make dresses like this anymore.”
“No, indeed they don’t.”
She gritted her teeth. “I don’t care if you don’t like them. I do.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t.”
“Oh, the implication was all there.”
He paused, then looked hard at her, his expression scrutinizing. “You know I’m royalty, yes?”
She nodded once. “Yes.”
“And yet you still speak to me like this?”
She frowned, a slow trickle of horror filtering through her stomach. She wasn’t backing down now, though—pride prevented it. “Sorry, my mouth gets away from me. Sometimes I need someone to restrain me.”
He chuckled. “Ms. Carter, you have no idea how interesting that sounds.”
Oh, but she did. Especially with the wicked grin crossing his lips. And it had been a very, very long time since she’d been with a man.
Longer since she’d missed it. Longer still since she’d enjoyed it.
“Jessica,” she said, her dry throat keeping her from speaking in a voice that transcended a croak. “Just call me Jessica.” Because for some reason when he called her Ms. Carter in that sexy, sinful voice of his, that Greek accent adding an irresistible flavor, she pictured him calling her that in bed. And that was just naughty. Naughty and completely out of the blue.
She wasn’t interested in sex. Not the responsibility of it, not the repercussions of it. And not the pain that resulted from it.
“Jessica,” he said, slowly, like he was tasting it.
Well, that didn’t help, either.
“Prince Stavros?”
“Stavros. Please.”
Her heart pattered, a sort of irregular beat, like it had tripped. “I don’t assume you’re in the habit of asking commoners to call you by your first name?”
He shrugged. “Titles are fine. In many regards, they are necessary as they establish one’s place in society. I like them for negotiation, for the media. I don’t really like them in conversation.”
“All right then,” she said, “Stavros.” She put a lot of effort into the name, taking her time to savor the syllables, as he’d done to hers. She saw a flicker of heat in his dark eyes and fought to ignore an answering flame that ignited in her stomach.
“We’ll start here,” he said, indicating the halls of the hotel as he began to walk ahead. “This hotel, and many others like it, have been essential to my country. After the death of my mother, my father started neglecting the tourism industry. He neglected a great many things. I was fourteen at the time. My brother, the heir to the throne, was sixteen. He left a few years after that. It became clear that Xander was gone, and that we could not count on him to see to his duties.” Stavros didn’t bother to hide the hint of bitterness in his voice. “That started rumors of civil unrest. And of course tourists don’t want to be somewhere that could possibly be dangerous. As soon as I was able I did what I could to start a revival of the tourism industry. I went abroad for college, established contacts. I studied business, hospitality, economics. Whatever I thought might be helpful in getting my country back to where it needed to be.”
“You turned Kyonos into a business.”
“Essentially. But not for my own gain. For the gain of my people.”
“True,” she said, “but by all accounts you have gained quite a bit.”
“I have. I won’t lie. My own bank account is healthy, in part due to the fact that, at this point, the interest it’s collecting on a yearly basis is more than most people will see in a lifetime.” He turned to look at her. “Do you need my estimated net worth for your records so you can pass it on to the women you’re considering for me?”
“What? Oh, no. I think they’ll feel secure enough in your … assets. I doubt they’ll need anything so crass as actual net worth. A ballpark figure will do.”
“You’re very honest.”
“Yes, well.” She took in a deep breath and tried to ignore the tightening in her stomach. “Hiding from reality doesn’t fix anything.”
“No. It doesn’t,” he said.
She could tell, from the icy tone in his voice, the depth to each word, that he was speaking from experience. Just like her.
Interesting that she could fly halfway across the world and meet a prince who seemed to have more common ground with her than anyone in her real life did.
She had friends, at least, the ones Gil hadn’t gotten custody of after the divorce. But they were still married. They had children.
A hollow ache filled the empty space where her womb had been. The same one that had plagued her so many times before. When she saw babies. Small children on swings.
Women wiping chocolate stains off of their blouses. And sometimes, it happened for no reason at all. Like now.
“No, reality’s one bitch that’s pretty hard to ignore,” she said.
He chuckled, dark and without humor. “A
