Page 108 of Royal Affair
"When what goes down?" She stepped closer, dark eyes blazing, and I had to fight the urge to reach for her. "What else aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing that concerns you anymore." The lie burned my throat. Everything concerned her. She was all that mattered.
The words hit their mark. I saw her flinch, saw hurt flash across her features before anger replaced it, and I hated myself for putting that pain there.
"If there is a threat to my mother you are absolutely wrong! It fucking does involve me!"
"Ahh but it appears the security extraordinaire Mr. James Banks is still under the belief that I'm just the helpless princess who needs protecting."
"You said it." Another lie. She was the strongest person I knew, and I was the coward who couldn't face losing her.
"Bastard." The word came out low, vicious. "You haven't changed at all. Still making decisions for everyone else."
"I know." My voice cracked slightly despite my efforts to keep it steady. "I know I fucked this up. I know I hurt you. But after tonight, it's over. I'll disappear. Permanently. Just like you wanted."
"Just like I wanted?" Something dangerous flickered in her eyes. "You think that's what I want?"
Christ, she was beautiful when she was furious. Beautiful and untouchable and everything I'd lost through my own stupidity.
Something cracked in her composure. "James—I can't keep living for the damage to happen."
I moved without thinking, backing her against the wall, my hands braced on either side of her head. She was so close I could smell her perfume, see the pulse hammering in her throat.
"This is what you want, isn't it?" My voice was rough. "For me to be the villain?"
"Stop—"
"Because that's easier than admitting you still feel this."
I kissed her like a drowning man grasping for air, like she was salvation and damnation wrapped in midnight silk. My hand tangled in her hair, destroying the elegant updo, silk strands sliding between my fingers the way they had in Sicily when she'd whispered my name against my throat.
She tasted like champagne and heartbreak and everything I'd been trying to forget. Her plump, soft lips opened under mine with a soft gasp that shot straight through me, and for one perfect, devastating moment she was kissing me back withthe same desperate hunger that had been eating me alive for six months.
Her hands fisted in my jacket, pulling me closer. When she should have been pushing me away, and Christ, the feel of her body against mine after so long—the feel of her thigh brushing against my leg that I had pinned between hers. Even when we touched through the fabric of her dress and my suit. I could feel the contours of soft muscle graze against me. The feeling took my breath away, I so desperately wanted to wrap those soft, warm and incredibly fucking sexy legs around me in exactly all the ways that Evangeline had ruined me for anyone else.
This was why I'd run. This fire between us that consumed everything else, that made me forget duty and consequences and every rational thought except the need to lose myself in her completely.
Then reality crashed back and she was pushing against my chest, breaking away from me, both of us breathing hard in the sudden space between us.
"No," she whispered, her lips swollen from my kiss, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. "No, we can't—this was a mistake."
I stepped closer, unable to stop myself. "Evangeline?—"
Her palm cracked across my cheek with enough force to snap my head to the side.
"You are racking those up. This was a mistake!" she repeated, her voice stronger now, final.
I touched my stinging cheek, the sound of the slap echoing in the empty corridor. "It was goodbye. And I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" Her dark eyes searched mine, desperate for something I couldn't give her.
I looked at her one last time—hair wild from my hands, lips still red from our kiss, tears threatening to spill over—and memorized every detail. Because after tonight, this moment would be all I had left.
Then I turned and walked away without answering, leaving her alone in the corridor with the weight of everything I couldn't say.
Back in the ballroom, the auction was concluding. I made my way toward the stage area, checking positions one final time. Marcel caught my eye from his post near the royal table and nodded once—all clear.
Everything was in place.
