Page 132 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

Sebastian’s lips quirked to the side. ‘She never actually came.’

‘But you bought it for her.’

‘From the minute I mentioned the island, and its proximity to Cavalonia, she told me how hard she would find that. To be close enough to see her home, but never travel to it.I’m better here, my love, where I know I am welcome, even though I do not feel that I belong.’

Rosie’s heart twisted. ‘But you were happy in America?’

He eyed Rosie with something like the animosity that had defined almost every single one of their encounters. ‘We made do.’

She furrowed her brow. ‘You had friends, I imagine?’

‘Yes.’

‘You sure as heck made yourself a success.’

‘But I always knew I wasn’t where I should have been. This—’ he gestured to the mainland ‘—is my birthright, and more than that, it is in my soul.’

Rosie blinked away, frowning. When she’d agreed to this marriage, there had been many reasons, but in the back of her mind was the one the king kept hammering her with.He is not suitable. He doesn’t love the country like we do. How can he be trusted?He’d said it again, when discussing the possibility of Rosie’s pregnancy.

But Sebastian spoke like a man who cared very deeply for Cavalonia, who saw it unequivocally as a duty and honour to stand here as crown prince of their country. Or maybe it was pride, she reasoned. Maybe he was just the kind of alpha male who didn’t like having what he saw as ‘his’ taken away from him? Maybe it was to avenge his mother? In any event, he was here, they were married, and it didn’t matter how he felt about the country. Rosie was there to make sure he became the best prince, and one day king, that he possibly could be.

‘Do you also like to swim?’ he asked, turning to face her then, surprising her with the easy, relaxed tone in his voice. As though they hadn’t just been discussing Sebastian having been uprooted from his life as a young boy.

She glanced at the beach and realised, for the first time, how warm the day was. Sweat had begun to trickle between her breasts, but she’d been so focused on her conversation with Sebastian that she hadn’t even noticed. She nodded once. ‘I do laps a few times a week.’

‘Lap swimming is fine, but it is not this.’ He gestured to the ocean. ‘Care for a dip?’

‘A dip?’ she said, laughing a little, at the unexpected question, then sobering, as Sebastian began to lift his shirt off his head, revealing a tanned, chiselled abdomen that made her mouth go instantly dry. ‘I don’t have any bathers,’ she said huskily.

‘Look around you, princess. Who would notice?’

She paled. ‘You mean for me to swim naked?’

He stepped out of his trousers, so he was only in a pair of white boxers that left little to the imagination and did wonders for his tan.

‘I meant for you to keep your underwear on, but it’s your call. Naked is also fine.’

Her mouth opened and closed as she sought for how to respond, but the truth was, she was very hot, and the water looked so inviting. ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ she murmured, with true regret, sounding utterly regal and prim, just as he’d accused her of before this had all begun.

His eyes were laced with sardonic mockery. ‘Suit yourself, wife.’ He didn’t walk away though. Not before he caught her chin with his finger and thumb and tilted her face, his eyes boring into hers. His expression changed, sobered. Gone was any hint of mockery and in its place was something else. Frustration? Impatience? Confusion?

‘I didn’t want to marry you,’ he said after a beat. ‘At the time, I thought there would be nothing good in our marriage—it was just a means to an end.’ His gaze dropped to her lips before piercing her eyes once more. ‘And yet, here we are, and I find I can’t stop wanting to kiss you. I didn’t expect it.’

Her heart dropped to her toes. ‘Me neither,’ she said, but even as the words left her lips, she wondered if that was true. Hadn’t she found him impossibly desirable from their first meeting? She’d hated the way he’d addressed the king, and she’d felt Sebastian’s anger at his situation, and the demands being made by Renee. She’d felt that anger being levelled at her too. But she’d also trembled, in the very core of her being, with awareness of him as a man.

She was not surprised that now, being thrown together like this, sparks were flying. She just knew she had to hold on to some semblance of control. She would not fall in lust—or worse, love—for a man who would never love her back.

‘You can kiss me anytime you want,’ she said with a challenge in her eyes. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that this marriage was a means to an end, for both of us.’

‘Careful, Princess,’ he muttered, moving his mouth closer to hers, so she felt the air hissing from his lips. ‘If you tell me I can kiss you anytime I want, I might not stop.’

She lifted her fingers to his shoulders, warm from the sun. ‘Why do you think I’d want you to stop?’

His laugh was throaty and raw, and it pushed into her mouth when he kissed her, just as he’d said he would.

Her whole body exploded on a wave of need and suddenly, all thoughts of swimming flew from her mind, as did the whole concept of control.

She knew she should be smarter, wiser, should keep hold of some perspective, but the moment their bodies pressed together, his so warm and strong and nearly naked, was the moment she almost forgot to breathe, let alone think.

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