turned away, her pale cheeks the color of roses in the moonlight.
“Did you learn to flirt like that in Russia?” she whispered. She gave a sharp, awkward laugh and started walking again. “You have some skills.”
So his beauty wished to wait? He would be patient. “I grew up here.”
Her eyes went wide. “London?”
“And other places.” He shrugged. “We moved around. My father couldn’t keep a job. We were poor. Then he died.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “My father died five years ago, too. Cancer.” She swallowed, looked away. “My mother has yet to recover. She almost never leaves the house. That’s why…” She looked away.
“Why what?”
She turned back, blinking hard.
“I’m sorry I misjudged you,” she said. “Thinking you’d never known what it was like to struggle or suffer just because you’re a prince.”
“Yes, a prince,” he said acidly. “Distantly in line to a throne that, if you haven’t noticed, stopped ruling Russia nearly a hundred years ago.”
“But still…”
“Prince of nothing and nowhere,” he said harshly. “Money is all that matters. Only money.”
“Oh, Maksim.” Tears filled her eyes as Grace shook her head. “Money isn’t the only thing that matters. It’s the way you love people. The way you take care of them.”
“And you take care of them with money.”
“No. Like your sister said, she didn’t need more expensive things, she wanted you. Your time and—”
“A lovely sentiment,” he said sardonically. “But my sister is too young to remember how we nearly starved and froze to death the winter we lived in Philadelphia. After that, I made sure I could support us. I made sure no one and nothing could ever threaten my mother and sister again.”
“You protected your family.” Her eyes suddenly glittered, and her hands clenched into fists before she stuck them in the pockets of her designer coat. “I should have stayed in California,” she said softly. “I never should have left my mother alone.”
A hard lump rose in Maksim’s throat. “Being with the people you love doesn’t always save them. I made my first million when I was twenty, but it couldn’t save my mother from dying.”
“Oh, no,” she said softly. “What happened?”
“Brain aneurysm. She died without warning. I…I couldn’t save her.”
He stopped, choking on the words. He had never spoken about his mother’s death to anyone—not even Dariya, who’d been barely nine when it had happened.
Maksim waited for Grace to expose the weakness in his argument. To point out that, by his own admission, money was indeed not everything in life.
Instead she reached up to stroke his cheek. The first time she’d deliberately touched him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly. “You took care of your family. You protected them. You tried to save your mother. You did everything you could.”
A tremble went through him, and he involuntarily turned his face into her caress. He closed his eyes briefly, taking a deep breath.
“You’re a special woman, Grace Cannon,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve never met your equal.”
She gave a short laugh and looked away. The street-lights shone a plaintive blurry light on the dark, swift river beneath the bare trees of the embankment. “I’m not special. I’m completely ordinary.”
“You’re special.”
“It’s the clothes.”
“It’s the woman inside them.” He looked down at her. “Grace. You are just like your name. Grace.” His eyes narrowed. “And did you say your middle name is Diana?”
“Don’t laugh.”
“Your mother believed in fairy tales.”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “But her two favorite princesses didn’t live happily ever after, did they?”
“What about you, solnishka mayo?” he whispered. His eyes drifted to her lips. “Do you believe in fairy tales?”
She briefly closed her eyes. “I used to believe in them. I used to believe with all my heart.”
“And now?”
Their gazes locked, held in the moonlight. Her pupils dilated as she looked down at his lips, then licked her own.
An invitation no man could resist.
Taking her in his arms, he lowered his mouth to hers. Kissing her was heaven. He was intoxicated by the taste of her. The feel of her. His whole body tightened and he drew back to stroke her face, looking down into her eyes. “Tonight,” he said hoarsely. “Tonight you must be mine.”
He saw her dreamy expression suddenly change to shock. She shook her head hard, as if clearing the cobwebs from her mind.
She hesitated, licking her lips. Then she pulled away from him. “Please. Don’t.”
He reached for her. “Grace—”
“I can’t,” she whispered, backing away from his reach. “Please don’t.”
As she blindly stepped back, he saw her ankle twist, saw one of her shoes slide on the black ice beneath the snow. He heard the snap of one high heel. Saw her stumble back—
He caught her before she could fall. He cradled her against his chest. She looked up at him with an intake of breath. He could feel the rapid beat of her heart. She was so light she seemed to weigh nothing at all. That damned diamond tiara probably weighed more than she did, he thought. And as he looked down into her eyes, he felt dizzy for a reason he couldn’t explain. As if he were the one in danger of falling.
A flash of fire burned through him as he felt her tremble in his arms. And he knew that nothing on earth would prevent him from possessing her tonight.
Grace would be his.
Without a word he carried her toward his hotel. As they were about to turn near Savoy Hill, he paused in a nearby alley to lean her against the rough wall and kiss her, hot and demanding. She was all woman, he thought, warm and pliant and willing…but with an elegant hesitation and restraint that heated his blood. He wanted nothing more than to take her against this wall, to fill her up, to slide inside her and thrust deeply until she screamed his name.
“Don’t deny me, Grace,” he whispered against her skin after he’d kissed her. “Don’t deny us what we both want.”
The dreamy look had returned to her eyes. “You’re right,” she said so softly he almost
