Page 46 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

He winked. ‘Whenever I’m invited.’

Though she wasn’t entirely sure he was being serious, from the pictures taken by the dreaded paparazzi she could well believe it. Not that she had often taken to the Internet to look at him—not at all. Yet his existence seemed intoxicating, like the champagne for which his family was renowned, full of sparkle and...life.

‘You clearly move in different circles to me.’

‘I believe the goddess of spring and fertility and the god of wine and ecstasy would move together extremely well if they found themselves in the same circle.’

He leaned into her again. She leaned into him. It was as if theyneededto be close to one another. She couldn’t help it, absorbing the warmth which seemed to radiate from him, catching his scent—green and fresh, with a bite. ‘Think of the things we might do.’

The things she imagined... She’d watched one video of him free-climbing, the way he’d tackled the rock face, the sheer power of him lifting himself. His strength astonished her, the focus... She’d spent days wondering what all of that power and focus would be like when fixed on her. Yet, no matter how she might have dreamed, here they were.

‘Sadly, we’re mere mortals, not gods.’

‘You’d make a man feel like one.’

His voice was like a murmur, as if he were imparting some deep secret. Her breath caught. Everything seemed to still. She could take compliments, but Aston Lane scrambled her brain, and all sensible thought fled. For a moment, sheyearned. Instead, Ana took a gulp of the chilled bubbles as the warmth of a blush rose to her cheeks again. Everything about this, them here together in this magical forest, seemed to speak of possibilities.

‘And I hear congratulations might be in order, if you believe what you read.’

Reality came back in a rush. It was like being doused in a bucket of iced water.

‘What have you been reading?’

‘You and Prince Caspar. A joining of the houses of Montroy and Santori.Marriage.’

He said the last word as if it was something poisonous. It was a salutary reminder of who they both were, of what her parents would and wouldn’t allow for Halrovia’s perfect princess. She took a slow breath, not wanting the moment to end. What did it matter if she clutched onto the fantasy for a little while longer? Reality could wait, although it was time for a little truth. She took another sip of the perfect champagne to fortify herself.

‘Are you a betting man, Mr Lane?’

Whilst many people might believe he had no limits, there were things Aston did not do. He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t toy with women’s hearts and he most certainly did not corrupt virgins. Not that there were any in the circles in which he mixed. Yet here he was, in a secluded corner of a ballroom wishing for a blistering moment that he didn’t have his principles.

Tonight, Princess Anastacia was a goddess embodied in human form. Regularly feted as the most beautiful woman in Europe, her style was coveted and copied by women around the world. It was no surprise. He’d first met her on a trade mission, poised and every bit the ‘perfect princess’ the press had dubbed her. As cool as the snow-capped peaks for which Halrovia was renowned. The ‘Ice Princess’, as some of the less kind commentators called her.

There was nothing icy about her tonight. She looked like the most exquisite hothouse bloom. Almost...fecund, with her slender waist and the gentle flare of her hips, her breasts swelling above a neckline that scooped low. Her blonde hair wasn’t in a tight chignon, as was her usual style, but spilling over her shoulders in gleaming waves. She wore a dress that, when he’d first seen it, had made his breath stutter, because from a distance his fertile imagination had almost convinced him she was naked underneath, covered only by twisting vines and flowers.

Are you a betting man, Mr Lane?

Those luscious lips of hers were parted, as if in anticipation. He could read the signs from her throaty voice, the way her pupils darkened behind her mask. He knew them well. In other circumstances, he’d bet he could have her in his bed within an hour. What an enticing thought, albeit an impossible one inanycircumstances.

‘I’ve been known to take a risk or two.’

More than one or two. His parents constantly tried to get him to settle down, especially now he’d announced his next conquest: a plan to climb Everest. His father’s ice-axe was in his office, ready to join him as he summited. That news had not gone down well over a dinner of cassoulet at the family’s château. He’d two years of gruelling training ahead of him, something that his mother and father could never understand.

Live for me.

They were last words his brother Michel had spoken to him, said years ago when his brother’s time had run out. The pain might now cut more like a blunt blade than a sharpened one, but it was ever-present. Still, from that day, Aston had vowed to live life enough for both of them.

But tonight wasn’t about loss. It was about living, the promises he’d made: a soft launch of Girard Champagne’s Grand Cru, Soleil. Aston was all about the champagne which had made his family famous. What was the saying?Wine, women and song...Give him wine and women any day. His family’s incomparable champagne and the magnificent woman before him with her eyes sparkling the pale blue of aquamarines and her plump lips a soft and pouty rose. Except, she was the marrying kind. The kind he would never touch. The kind that might cause him to lose focus...

He knew well what a loss of focus could do to a man, the fatal consequences. Michel had paid that awful price. Anyhow, why settle down when life was a feast to be gorged upon and not a Spartan meal for two? Though he wondered whether Anastacia Montroy wasn’t the type of woman he’d always hunger for, one for whom his appetite would never be sated...

The princess’s lips curled into an enigmatic smile. ‘Then tonight you should lay all your money down on my never being engaged to Prince Caspar.’

Excellent.

Though why that word should hook his imagination like a fish on the end of a line he couldn’t say. Her observation was only interesting because, politically, she and Santori would make the perfect couple, even though that thought made his fists involuntarily clench. At least she didn’t seem aggrieved. However, his observation didn’t change the reality—she was off-limits to anything other than some flirting, with the desire to make her flawless golden skin flush once more, never anything further andneveranything over which her family would call for pistols at dawn.

Princess Anastacia raised her glass and drained it; no elegant sips for her any more. She looked as if she wanted to celebrate, not seek commiseration.

---