Page 42 of Her Red Hot Secret Royal Fling

Her heart tripped and stammered.

In the bathroom, she braced her palms on the counter and stared at herself, trying to psych herself back into the right mindset.

None of this mattered. It wasn’t important if she had developed some kind of feelings for Ares, it didn’t change the fact that there was no future here. He was a King, who had to marry and have children, and the idea of both of those things had always been totally off-limits to Sofia. No man had ever made her want to change her mind, and feeling something for Ares, if anything, caused her to want to run a thousand miles from him. Because a normal man wouldn’t have threatened her heart and happiness, but with Ares, if she really gave herself to him, she’d be lost forever, totally at the whim of his love.

Or his lack of it.

She couldn’t even imagine the pain of that—of letting herself feel something for him, believing he might feel the same, and then having him pull that love from her.

When she thought of Ares, she thought of the most honourable, decent man she knew, but at the same time, even her own mother had been unable to keep Sofia in her heart. Her feelings plunged from sadness toward despair.

She had to get a grip.

There was only this night to get through, and then perhaps they’d see each other in some capacity tomorrow. Then, that would be it.

The thought was fortifying and reassuring. Maybe she didn’t have to have a handle on this. Maybe it didn’t matter either way.

Because no matter what, she was getting on the Santoro jet the following night, and from that moment on, she could begin the suddenly Sisyphean task of forgetting Ares.

But she would do it.

Of course, she would.

She was Sofia Marone, and not once had anyone—a man, a woman, a child, or even her own damned mother—managed to break her. There was no way she was about to let it happen now.

Ares had been inexplicably nervous—atotally foreign emotion for him—before bringing Sofia here. Nervousness was a futile emotion, in his experience, particularly with something as inconsequential as a choice of restaurant. But he’d wanted her to love this place because he loved it. Because it was a part of him, a part of his real life—what he considered to be the man behind the crown. Once a year, he came to this part of the country and was able to shake off the shackles of being King, to simply lose himself in living. In laughing, in sitting up late and talking with his sisters and brother, with existing. And when they ate out, it was always here, with a table specially reserved for them, overlooking the ocean.

The locals mostly left them alone. On occasion, a mobile phone photo had made it into the press, but that wasn’t the norm. For the most part, they were given their space, as the people around here understood that this was a bolthole for the royal family and had been for generations. If anything, the locals were proud of that tradition and worked hard to protect it, by respecting their privacy.

But tonight, he hadn’t been prepared to take any risks, hence he’d had Nick ask the owner Dimitri to reserve the whole space for him, and to give his staff the night off—paid for by Ares, of course. Meaning it was just Ares and Sofia, and the owners—Dimitri and Athena—in the restaurant. The traditional music played softly over the speakers. The same song list, he would put all his money on, that had been playing here since he’d been a boy.

He knew all the songs by heart.

He watched as Dimitri poured Sofia a glass of ice-cold champagne, then began to fill Ares’s glass. It was one of the few places in the world that would serve Aresafterhis date. But here, he wasn’t a King anymore. Dimitri and Athena had alwaysunderstood that in this part of the country, Ares needed to be free of that restraint.

“Would you like to see a menu?” Dimitri asked, looking at Ares.

“Would you?” he asked Sofia, in turn.

She lifted her shoulders. “Is this where you tell me you know exactly what I should eat?”

“I usually let Dimitri decide,” Ares said. “He’s never failed me.”

Her smile was full wattage as she turned to the older man and Ares felt like all the air had been punched right out of his lungs. He literally felt winded.

She was so beautiful, and when she smiled like that, it seemed as if no star in heaven could compete with her. Something Dimitri clearly noticed, as his weathered face turned a shade of pink.

“Then I’ll have whatever you suggest,” she offered to Dimitri.

He recovered himself admirably quickly. “Is there anything you cannot eat, madam?”

She shook her head. “I love everything.”

“Good, good,” he patted his stomach approvingly as he walked away. A moment later, the gentle hiss of cooking could be heard, combining with the strains of music, but Ares was focused solely on Sofia.

He reached across the table and linked their fingers together.

This was more than he’d thought he wanted. More than he thought he was ready for, so soon after Louisa, but the mandatory end-date to whatever they were doing had given Ares the freedom to lose himself in this completely. Sofia wasn’t just a distraction, she was more than that, but he was glad this was their last night together because Sofia was no longer easy to box away into a compartment in his mind.

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