Page 36 of Her Red Hot Secret Royal Fling

His lips compressed a little, and she was reminded of the way it had been in the beginning, when they’d resisted sharing anything personal. That had changed between them, but old habits died hard, she supposed.

“No,” he said, finally. “There’s never been the need.”

“What about before Louisa?”

“I’ve dated,” he said with a shrug. “It was always accepted that I would see women, and there was respect for my privacy within the palace.”

“It must have been hard for you as a teenager, though. To find your feet, turning into a young man, in the midst of all this.”

“It was neither hard nor easy; it was all I knew.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“Why is the privacy of this so important to you?” he asked, turning it back on her. “Why do you care who knows what you’re doing?”

She made a contemplative noise. “For one thing, we’re hoping to win your business. This is unprofessional and I’m not that.”

“No, you’re not,” he agreed.

“For another, you’re good friends with the Santoros, who basically raised me. Their knowing about this would be very, very bad for me.”

“Bad, how?”

“Bad as in, they’d start speculating and hoping you might be a boyfriend contender when obviously that’s not what this is.”

His light stroking of her arm stilled, pausing near her elbow before he resumed. “Are they eager for you to have a boyfriend, Sofia?”

Looking back, she realized she had basically said as much. And what was wrong with that? Hadn’t she just been reflecting on how far they’d come, in terms of what they were willing to share about themselves? “Yes. Maria would love me to meet someone ‘special’. She’s forever lamenting my single status.”

“But you’ve dated.”

“I’ve slept with men,” she corrected carefully. “I’ve had short-term flings. Like this.” But not like this. Nothing hadeverbeen like this, nor had it prepared her for it. “But I’ve never been seriously involved with anyone, and I’ve definitely never met anyone I wanted to take back to Italy for them to meet.”

His brows drew together, curiosity obvious, but at that moment, her stomach rumbled, and she laughed, glad for the reprieve from this conversation. “Do you think your stable manager has any food in her fridge?”

“No, but I brought muffins. Stay here.” He kissed the tip of her nose but rather than pulling away, lingered there a moment, so she felt his warm breath brush over her and she shivered. This memory, this moment, had a gravity all of its own. Or maybe that was Ares? He was a sinkhole, pulling at her, so she wanted to fall into this and stay here. With him.

She fought that with every single part of her.

He knewshe was making an excellent point, and that he should have been focusing on her words, but as Sofia went through the Santoro company’s hiring processes, explaining why they’d always put an emphasis on paying above required rates, and how they took care of their employees and contractors, he found his mind kept wandering back to that morning. And last night. To the way she’d felt: to touch, to kiss, to finally lose himself in. To how she’d smiled, laughed, challenged him to take her harder, how she’d been such a perfect complement to him in every way.

And though she wore a sensible pale-yellow pantsuit, all he could think about was stripping it off her that night, leaving only the baroque pearl necklace in place. He loved to imagine how it would look, the lustre of those pearls falling on her flawless caramel skin, running over her breasts.

Annnnnd…great. Without realizing it, he was hard, and in a particularly inconvenient forum, giving he was sitting opposite Salvatore Santoro.

“Your Highness?” Sofia arched a brow, staring at him, so it was apparent she’d asked him a question.

He cursed inwardly. “Yes?”

Her lips twitched with the hint of a smile. Damn it, she knew what she was doing to him, and she was enjoying it.

“Do you need me to repeat the question?”

Salvatore glanced back at Sofia, but Ares barely noticed the look his friend shot her.

“Thank you.”

“If you’re too tired to continue, we could meet again later.”

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