And her cool.
The long silence built even more of a barrier between them.
Her nerves stretched as each second ticked on. As he regarded her so steadily with those captivating, all-seeing eyes. As he waited.
‘You can’t just kidnap civilians on a whim.’ She finally spoke, making a stand for independence.
‘You’re not a civilian.’ His voice held condemnation.
He’d been so angry when he’d found out who she was.
‘I am now,’ she countered, every bit as pointedly.
Something shifted in his eyes, but he didn’t answer. Didn’t acknowledge what had been taken from her or that he’d been instrumental in that loss.
She turned and pretended to read the spines of the books on the nearest shelf. Anything to give her eyes a reprieve from looking at him. Her attraction to him was too intense.
Her annoyance grew. ‘Am I a prisoner?’
‘You are here because this is the one place where we can have privacy.’
‘We don’t need privacy,’ she snapped.
She didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Not alone. Certainly not on his princes-only island, where he’d probably brought a million mistresses. And she couldn’t let herself think along those lines—couldn’t think of him as a lover. Not anyone’s. Least of all hers.
She wanted to get away from San Felipe all together and work out what she was going to do with her life.
The silence turned ominous.
She was acutely aware of him. All that was unspoken rose, unbidden. The memories she’d pushed back swirled closer, threatening to swamp her. She turned, tilting her head back to glare across the room at him again—in defiance and defence.
His expression was grimmer still. Stella quelled another shiver. She’d spent years working alongside fearsomely powerful men and she recognised that edge in his eyes. It denoted more than determination. It spelled ruthlessness—said that he had the mental strength to make the harshest, most irrevocable of decisions. This was not the teasing man she’d met that searingly sunny day.
‘You have been dismissed from the army,’ he said abruptly.
‘Yes.’
‘Because you are pregnant.’
His tone jarred, damning her with his certainty. And disapproval. Her throat thickened and clogged so she couldn’t answer. She didn’t know for sure, but in her bones she feared it. She feared his response. His retaliation. Most of all she feared her own future.
She’d been in some seriously dangerous situations in her time, but she’d never felt as afraid as she did right now. Nor had she ever felt so alone. She had no one to help her.
As a result, she was more than disarmed—she was emotionally disabled.
Her heart resumed that too hard, too loud thudding again. She took quickened breaths, trying to control her intense physical reaction to this horror situation. Trying to deny that her extreme internal reaction really was to him.
He lifted himself away from the door and walked towards her with long, easy strides that belied the speed and strength she knew he had. And his expression was too leashed to be anything like reassuring.
This wasn’t the suave, gleaming-eyed Prince Charming whom the public adored. This was a coldly angry stranger, carved from granite. This was a side of him she’d never seen.
Because when she’d left him that afternoon she’d not looked back.
Yet now, despite his iciness, that sensual intensity still emanated from every inch of him. And in seconds she was close to succumbing to it again.
That scared her too.
But she couldn’t peel her gaze off him. Never had she met such a wildly attractive man. Never had she wanted a man in the way she’d wanted him. The memories she’d tried to bury for so long now burst into her shock-weakened mind. For a split-second she saw him as he’d been that afternoon, naked and slick and braced above her, his gaze brilliant and fierce, his body both punishing and protective, while she—
‘Stella.’
Heat surged into her cheeks and she banished the scorching image—mortified that she could lose control so quickly. She lifted her chin, bracing herself—because that was a warning tone if ever she’d heard one.
He walked closer, his gaze never leaving her face, restraint evident in his too-measured movements and the compression of his mouth. But for a second he’d looked furious.
It was only with supreme self-discipline that she suppressed the instinct to step back. Her stupid body turned schizophrenic. Instead of freezing, she was burning. Just beneath her skin her blood simmered, almost humming in delight from his nearness. It was insane, and she hated her foolishness. How could she be so weak when the result of this want had just ruined her world? Yet that wilful, wicked, reckless part of her only wanted him to touch her again. Touch her and make her forget the world, as he’d done so easily once before.
Mercifully, he didn’t. He stopped a single pace away, his muscles taut, his stance wide and predatory—as if he suspected she might try to escape any second.
‘Stella Zambrano,’ he said softly, but through gritted teeth. His intense lapis lazuli eyes sharpened, hardened, chilled. And his words stabbed. ‘Welcome to Secreto Real. We will be married here tomorrow.’
MARRIED? STELLA LAUGHED. As if.
She was a disgraced soldier. He was a partying pirate prince. The idea of him marrying her was preposterous.
‘Did you hear what I said, Stella?’ Shadows darkened his blue eyes. ‘Do you understand?’
Why was he talking to her as if she was a two-year-old?
‘You’re not getting married,’ she said. He was a playboy. And when he finally settled down—at least five years from now—it would be with one of the stunning minor European royals with an aristocratic seal of approval.
‘I am. To you. Tomorrow.’
She shook her head. ‘There’s no need. I’m not pregnant.’
He caught her wrist. ‘Do not lie to me. Ever.’
She flinched, squeezing to stop her cells sizzling at his touch. ‘I’m not.’
She couldn’t be pregnant—surely she’d know if she was? Wouldn’t she have symptoms? She struggled to remember her last cycle, but other memories—whispered mentions of her mother—crowded her mind. Confused her. Scared the hell out of her.
Her skin burned. The edge of her vision wobbled and blurred.
‘You’re
