filled her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m so sleepy.”
“Probably jet lag. It’ll just take a few days for your system to adjust. Why don’t you go to bed and get a good night’s sleep, then start fresh in the morning.”
As eager as she was to get back down to the lab, he was probably right. Besides, she really needed samples and her assistant wouldn’t be here until the next morning. Maybe she could take some time to catch up on a bit of reading.
“I think maybe I will,” she told him.
He took her cue and hung it, and his own, on a wall rack. “Maybe we can try this again, tomorrow night.”
“Maybe,” she said, and the weird thing was that she really wanted to. She was having fun. Maybe too much fun. She had a job to do here. That disease wasn’t going to cure itself. It had been hours since she’d even thought about her research, and that wasn’t at all like her.
“I’ll walk you to your room,” Aaron said.
“I think I can find my way.” They were somewhere on the third floor, and if she took the nearest steps down one floor she was pretty sure she would be near the hallway her room was on.
“A gentleman always walks his date to the door,” he said with a grin. “And if nothing else, I am always a gentleman.”
Date? Surely he was using that word in the loosest of terms, because she and Aaron were definitely not dating. Not in the literal sense. He meant it casually, like when people said they had a lunch date with a friend. Or a dinner date with a work associate.
She picked up her backpack from where she’d left it by the door, slung it over her shoulder and followed him out into the hall and down the stairs. She wanted to remember how to get there, should she ever decide to come back and practice alone every now and then.
“By the way, do you play poker?” he asked as they walked side by side down the hall toward her room.
“Not in a long time.”
“My brother, sister and I play every Friday night. You should join us.”
“I don’t know…”
“Come on, it’ll be fun. I promise, it’s much easier than billiards.”
She wondered if that would be considered proper. The hired help playing cards with the family. Of course, since she’d arrived, he’d treated her more like a guest than an employee.
“If you claim you have to work,” he said sternly, “I’ll change the door code and lock you out of the lab.”
She couldn’t tell if he was just teasing her, or if he would really do it. And who knows, it might be fun. “They won’t mind?”
“My brother and sister? Of course not. We always invite palace guests to join in.”
“But I’m not technically a guest,” she said as they stopped in front of her door. “I work for you.”
He was silent for a moment as he seemed to digest her words, looking puzzled. Finally he said, “You don’t have the slightest clue how valuable you are, do you?”
His words stunned her. Her? Valuable?
“What you’ve been through. What you’ve overcome…” He shook his head. “It makes me feel very insignificant.”
“I make you feel that way?” she asked, flattening a hand to her chest. “Me?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“You’re royalty. Compared to you, I’m nobody.”
“Why would you think you’re nobody?”
“Because…I am. What have I ever done?”
“You’ve done a hell of a lot more than I ever have. And think of all that you still have the chance to do.”
She could hardly believe that Aaron, a prince, could possibly hold someone like her in such high esteem. What was he seeing that no one else did?
“I’m sure you’ve done things, too,” she said.
He shook his head. “All of my life I’ve had things handed to me. I’ve never had to work for anything. And look at the adversity you’ve overcome to get where you are.”
She shrugged. “I just did what I had to do.”
“And that’s my point exactly. Most people would have given up. Your determination, your ambition, is astounding. And the thing I like most is that you don’t put on airs. You don’t try to be something that you’re not.” He took a step closer and his expression was so earnest, so honest, her breath caught. “I’ve never met a woman so confident. So comfortable in her own skin.”
Confident? Was he serious? She was constantly second-guessing herself, questioning her own significance. Her worth.
“You’re intelligent and interesting and kind,” he said. “And fun. And I’m betting that you don’t have a clue how beautiful you are.”
Did the guy need glasses? She was so…plain. So unremarkable. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“I don’t think you are. I know you are. And you wouldn’t believe how much I’ve wanted to…” He sighed and shook his head. “Never mind.”
She was dying to know what he was thinking, and at the same time scared to death of what it might be. But her insatiable curiosity got the best of her.
Before she could stop herself she asked, “You wanted to do what?”
For a long, excruciating moment he just looked at her and her heart hammered relentlessly in anticipation. Finally he grinned that sexy simmering smile and told her, “I wanted do this.” Then he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her.
This was not the wishy-washy version of a kiss that Liv had gotten from William the day she left. Not even close. This kiss had heart. And soul. It had soft lips and caressing hands and breathless whimpers—mostly from her.
It was the kind of kiss that a girl remembered her entire life, the one she looked back on as her first real kiss. And she was kissing him back just as enthusiastically. Her arms went around Aaron’s neck, fingers tunneled through his hair. She was practically attacking him, but he didn’t seem to mind. She felt as though she needed this, needed to feed off his energy, like a plant absorbing the sunlight.
She kept waiting for him to break the kiss, to laugh at her and say, Just kidding or I can’t believe you fell for that! As if it was some sort of joke. What other reason would he have for kissing someone like her? But he didn’t pull away. He pulled her closer. Her breasts crushed against the solid wall of his chest, tingling almost painfully, and just like that, she was hotter and more turned on than she’d ever been in her life.
But what about William?
