Page 22 of Her Red Hot Secret Royal Fling

“Something.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s a dad joke, Your Highness.”

“God, you’re right. It’s something my father used to say, all the time. I never even realised.”

“It’s funny how that happens.”

“What do you want to know?”

“How hard and fast is the three-day hike rule?”

“It’s how long it takes,” he said. “There’s no rule.”

“And I guess, being King, you make the rules anyway.”

He laughed. “Not exactly how a constitutional monarchy works, but I get your meaning.”

“So, we could stay out here longer. Like, for example, stay right here for the afternoon?”

He pushed up to look down at her. “And how would we fill the time?” he asked, but with a slow, sexy grin that made her insides twist.

“Well, we could analyse the literary merits of War and Peace,” she suggested.

“Ah,” he nodded sagely. “One of my favourite subjects.”

She pushed at his chest, playfully. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. Tolstoy is—,” she kissed him, forestalling whatever else he’d been about to say. “Not really on my mind, right now,” he added when they came up for air.

“I’m very glad to hear that. So?”

He pushed up on his elbows so he could see her properly. “Isn’t there a part of you that wants to get back to the palace?”

She thought about that. At the palace, there was the promise of sleeping together, but there was also the looming spectre of things becoming more ‘real’. Out here, they were just two people with incredible chemistry. There, he was the King, she was working on a tender that he could grant, there were servants, a Santoro; all they were missing was a partridge in a pear tree.

“I’m looking forward to that,” she said, but with a hint of ambivalence. “But I’m enjoying this too.”

“A glutton for punishment?”

“If this is punishment, sign me up for a lifetime of it,” she muttered and then clasped a hand to her mouth. “That’s an expression. I didn’t mean…you know, this thing,” she gestured from his chest to hers. “A lifetime isn’t what either of us wants.”

He pulled a face, pretending to be wounded. “Are you going to be the second woman to reject me in as many months?” He said, and she sobered because something about the comment rubbed her the wrong way. Not his words, but the way he said it, like it was a big joke, when she could tell it wasn’t. And she didn’t want to push him on that, because she’d sworn they wouldn’t do the personal information swap, but at the same time, she wanted to saysomethingto acknowledge what he’d been through.

She lifted a hand to his face, cupping his cheek. “Do you want to talk about it?”

His laugh was a harsh rejection of that. “Definitely not.”

“Do you think youneedto talk about it?” she differentiated.

He lifted one beautiful, strong shoulder. “What would be the point? Nothing that you or I say here changes what happened between Louisa and me back there.”

Her insides twisted sharply. She hated hearing the other woman’s name from his lips. She especially hated it when he was on top of her, and she was naked. But she wouldn’t reveal that, because it was a response that seemed to indicate an emotional reliance she definitely didn’t feel.

“Do you want to change what happened back there?” she asked, her voice carefully flattened of care, one way or another.

“It’s not possible.”

“But if it were?—,”

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