course,’ she said. ‘You are by far the most attractive man here.’
She seemed such an accomplished flirt, and yet her blush deepened and her eyelashes fluttered as she voiced the compliment.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
Considering the men of the bridal party were all good-looking billionaires—one a prince—Finn could only be flattered. And gratified that the instant attraction wasn’t only on his side. He wasn’t a fanciful man, but insinuating itself into his mind was a thought, wispy and insubstantial but growing in vigour, that this—she—was somehow meant to be.
‘You know I intend to monopolise you all evening?’
‘Monopolise me all you want,’ she said slowly.
She was looking up at him with what he could only read as invitation, although there was an endearing uncertainty there too.
‘You won’t be able to escape me.’
‘Do you see me running?’ she murmured.
Her gaze met his for a long moment, and he wasn’t sure of the message in those extraordinary blue eyes.
Then she smiled. ‘Talking of escape—thank you for rescuing me from the table of people I don’t know at all but who I suspect are Eliza’s elderly relatives.’
‘Don’t speak too soon. We don’t know who we’ve got sitting at my table.’
‘Yes, we do,’ she said.
He frowned. ‘How did you—?’
She spoke over him. ‘Each other. And that’s all that counts.’
The words hung between them, seemingly escalating their flirtation to a higher and more exciting level of connection. Finn felt a buzz of excitement and anticipation.
‘Quite right. Your first exercise in living dangerously has paid off. I don’t care who else is on the table so long as your place card is still next to mine.’
Attending this wedding solo was more duty than pleasure, fond as he was of Eliza, and keen as he was to keep up his contact with Party Queens. But he wasn’t one for wasting time on social chit-chat with strangers he might never see again.
An evening spent in the enchanting Natalie’s company was a different matter altogether. Enjoying the pleasure of her company was now at the forefront of his mind.
Finn was about to tell her so, but there was a sudden burst of chatter from outside on the veranda. ‘The other guests are starting to arrive. We shouldn’t be seen in here.’
Natalia’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘We’ve got time to get out through that connecting door.’
He reached out his hand and pulled her towards him. ‘Let’s go before they realise we’ve been up to no good. Then we’ll march back in with the other guests and take our places at the table.’
‘Innocent of any crime of swapping seats,’ she said.
Not so innocent were his thoughts of where he hoped the evening might lead.
* * *
Natalie couldn’t have borne it if she had been forced to sit on the other side of the room from Finn. She didn’t want to waste a minute of this wedding away from him.
Tristan had probably had a hand in where she had been placed in the seating arrangements and might not be pleased at the switch. Too bad. Princess Natalia might have to sit dutifully where she was directed—not so just plain Natalie. She was going to grab this chance to be with Finn, no matter if she got dressed down for it later.
Tristan took his role of Crown Prince seriously. That meant protecting her. Since the loss of their brother, she and Tristan had looked out for each other. But sometimes she had to remind him that she didn’t take kindly to being bossed around by her brother.
With Finn holding her hand, she made it safely out of the room without detection. Just the casual touch of his hand clasping hers sent shivers of anticipation through her. Never, ever had she felt this kind of thrill.
She was pleased when he didn’t drop the connection after they’d made it to safety. Then, together, they strolled casually back into the ballroom alongside a group of other guests.
Each time she looked up to catch his eye she had to suppress a laugh, and saw that he did too. She felt like a naughty schoolgirl. Although in the private all-girls school she had attended there hadn’t been anyone as handsome as Finn to get into mischief with.
Their surreptitious work had paid off—the swapped name cards were still in place. Finn was hers for the duration of the celebration. She was scarcely able to believe that this gorgeous man was real and seemed to want to be with her as much as she did with him.
‘We did it,’ he said in a low undertone after they’d taken their seats at the table. ‘I caught Eliza glaring at me, but there’s nothing she can do about where we’re sitting from where she is, way up there on the bridal table.’
‘Clever us,’ Natalia said, holding his gaze and revelling in the warmth of his smile.
So this is what it’s like to be really attracted to a man.
Her thoughts were filled with nothing but him. Insta lust. That was what her English-speaking friends called the sudden overwhelming desire to be close to a man. But it wasn’t just a physical attraction. She liked Finn more than she could have imagined she could like someone in such a short space of time. Yes, she ached to touch him, to feel his smooth olive skin under her fingers, and wondered what it would be like to kiss him. But she also wanted to talk with him, listen to him, laugh with him, find out all she could about him.
She had never felt like this about a man before. Certainly never for any of the six men of noble birth she had rejected as potential husbands. Not even for the boy she’d had a crush on as a teenager in London.
It hadn’t just been her being caught out at a nightclub that had seen her recalled home to Montovia. She’d also been seen kissing Danny—a fellow student definitely not on the palace-approved list. It had hurt when she hadn’t heard from him again, and part of her heart had shut down, never to recover. It hadn’t been until much later that she’d discovered he’d been paid off by the palace to disappear from her life.
Her family’s betrayal had added a whole new level of hurt.
Back then, the law that forbade her and her brothers from marrying someone not of noble birth had still been in place. She’d discovered they’d done the same thing to Tristan—paying off the parents of an English girl he’d loved and moving her to another part of the country. Tristan had been understandably bitter at their interference. Especially considering what a sham their parents’ marriage was—the King still had a long-time mistress.
The history of unhappy, loveless marriages in their family had made both her and Tristan deeply cynical about marriage. Fortunately Tristan had found Gemma. For Natalia there had been no one.
On a trip to Africa the previous year, to visit a girls’ school that her charity had funded, she had travelled with an attractive photographer.
