She dodged his eyes and pulled the sheet all the way up to her chin. Was this what being in love felt like? Nerve endings raw and exposed? The stomach churning? The need to cry until your eyes were red and puffy?
If so she was amazed it was so popular, that people actively looked for it. She’d had flu that felt better than being in love.
‘Fine.’
Sabrina was a very bad liar, but, rather than challenge the very obvious untruth, Sebastian accepted the statement at face value with a shrug of his muscled shoulders because—Because it’s easier and you’re a coward, Seb.
‘I’m not really human until I’ve had my first coffee.’
The brightness in her voice sent a knife surge of guilt through him as he lowered his lean frame onto the edge of the bed. ‘I know.’
Eyes dark, wide and wary lifted very slowly to his face as she began to shake her head. ‘No, it isn’t...’
‘You’re dreading moving into your golden cage... I do understand.’
Her dark lashes came down in a fluttering curtain across her eyes; she gave something that sounded like a laugh before raising them again.
‘Palace life is restricting, but...’ He took a deep breath. It didn’t matter how many times he told himself she knew what she was letting herself in for, that they were both victims of this situation, he still felt guilty as hell. ‘Our apartments will be separate from my father and you...we...must...’
‘Make the best of a bad job. Keep busy,’ she quipped with a brittle smile as he danced around the message he was delivering: that their lives might collide and sometimes in the bedroom, but essentially they were to live their own lives. It was nothing more than she had ever expected from marriage, but that had been before she had been stupid enough to fall in love with her husband.
That changed everything!
‘That wasn’t what I was going to say. The next twelve months...the workload will be... I won’t be there to—’
She lifted her chin, her pride coming to her rescue. ‘I am not a child, Sebastian, so relax. I do not need entertaining.’
I just need loving!
‘I do not need my hand held,’ she continued, ignoring the ache in her chest. ‘And I am not going to be a needy wife,’ she promised, managing to inject a note of amusement into her voice. ‘I’m not going to ask you for anything.’
She finished saying what he wanted to hear, getting a hard look for her efforts.
Sebastian knew he should be feeling relief; instead he felt an odd sense of dissatisfaction as he listened to her list the things she would not be asking of him. He knew that anger was an irrational response but struggled to put his finger on the exact cause.
‘What if I need my hand holding?’ From her expression the unplanned question appeared to surprise her almost as much as it had him. ‘Not literally, just a figure of speech,’ he said, responding to a need to clarify his comment. After all, he had never actually needed someone...anyone.
The addition made her wonder if she had imagined the hard-sounding question. Her eyes flickered from the brown hand he had moved across the counterpane until his splayed fingertips were a whisper away from her own, before shifting back to his face. A wave of sheer longing and lust pierced her like a knife blade, causing her chest to lift as she caught her breath.
‘Oh, for one moment there I thought the story that you don’t actually need more than one hour’s sleep a night was more than an urban myth.’
He responded with a half-smile to her comeback, not seeming to notice her heightened colour. ‘I have watched your parents. They work as a team.’
She nodded agreement. ‘Yes, but that’s different. They—’
‘Love one another.’
It wasn’t his assertion that sparked her angry response but the patronising little half-smile that accompanied it, though that faded as he continued. ‘But leaving the emotional stuff to one side...’
Suddenly the anger blocked out everything. It was simply too extreme for her to navigate around. ‘As far as I’m concerned marriage...a real marriage...is all about the emotional stuff! There,’ she charged, discovering that it was possible to love someone and want to throw something at them at one and the same time. ‘Is that emotional enough for you? Sorry if I lack your control!’
The mattress shifted, making her slide sideways as he got to his feet and turned, spreading his hands in a pacifying gesture as he looked down at her. ‘I’m sorry if I’m throwing the cold water of realism on your dreams, but we have to be realistic. Palace life...marriage, if I can say the word without you throwing something at me? It will take some adjusting to but things might work better if we don’t immediately form two opposing camps, if we are one...team.’
His logic was impeccable and deeply depressing, and the only thing, she reminded herself, on offer.
She lifted her brows before directing her retort at her pearly polished toenails. ‘Who knows? Your robot logic might cancel out my silly, girly emotionalism.’ As the last quivering resentful words left her lips her head lifted, but there was no answering anger in Sebastian’s face as their eyes clashed. He looked...hell, he looked incredibly sexy and exhausted. Her anger was lost in a wave of protective empathy.
‘For God’s sake, Sabrina, I want you in my bed, not in my head!’ he blasted, then saw her expression and stopped, a curse of frustration escaping his clenched teeth. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘Yes, you did.’ She sat there looking frozen, offended and so incredibly sexy with her honey tumbled hair and pink mouth still partly swollen from their kisses from the previous night that he experienced the tsunami of all hormone surges. It struck with no warning and the results on his brain function was devastating—a white-hot, brain-melting blast.
Endurance was the only response. Waiting for it to pass, Sebastian closed his eyes, the muscles of his throat working as he fought for control—this should not be happening. Sex should have smoothed the path; the absence of love should have meant this was easier, not more complicated...yet another occasion when theory fell well short of reality!
He took a deep breath and tried again to breach the chasm he could feel forming between them. ‘Look...’ Their eyes connected and the silence stretched, only interrupted by the discordant sounds of their individual jagged breathing.
‘Marriage does not have to conform to any set pattern. We need to set out our own rules, not conform...and we must be flexible.’ She had been beautifully flexible last night.
‘What are you saying?’ she whispered, unable to tear her eyes away from his hot, scorching stare. Her insides were melting.
Good question, he thought. ‘I really don’t know...’ he said, because this was very much outside his experience. ‘I can’t promise anything, Sabrina. I know you have dreams and...’ He gave a short laugh, hating himself and the system for all that she had been robbed of. ‘Maybe you never had any, but anyway I’m sorry that this is your life, the politics, the scheming. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want us to be warring factions,
