Page 24 of Crowning His Innocent Assistant

CHAPTER SIX

LIVIADIDN’TPARTICULARLYwant to dance. Because she didn’t want to be quite so under his spell. From the moment he had put her in the sports car, and they’d gone whizzing out of the city, whipping around the tight turns on the road that led up to the château, she had been... She was feeling weak.

That was the problem. Because he was right; she did love the speed, and it was something she had never experienced. Because he did show her things that she had never even thought she would like, and he made them into something that felt essential. The problem was, Matteo had been engaged in a slow seduction of her senses for the past nine years, whether he knew it or not.

She had practice shielding her feelings, but it became complicated when all these other things were woven in. The food had been beyond anything, and she ate well. The food at the palace in Monte Blanco was fantastic, as was the food served at all the events that they frequented. But she had never sat down at a gorgeous restaurant and been served in this way. There had always been a division, and here she was being treated as an equal. Being treated as if she was one of those fancy, beautiful women that had always been in his sphere.

Not with that slight difference in their station that had always been there. More than slight. The fact that she had been given weight to her opinions was a testament to her job, not to anything else.

She was a girl from the streets, and before that from the woods. And she had finally told him.

And now he was asking her to dance.

She should say no. She should. But she had not danced with Matteo since...

“It is likely that you will need to learn to dance.”

“Why?”

“Because we are beginning to do more and more events. Because the nation is beginning to blossom. And as you do attend all these events with me...”

“As staff,” she said.

“Yes, but I think it would be beneficial for you to have the skill. Part of being cultured, and all that.”

Livia cocked her head. “Your father prioritized you knowing how to dance?”

“It was considered a skill of enrichment that all royals should have. Part of what our au pair instilled in us. Things my father issued edicts about.” He let out a bitter laugh, and it made Livia shiver. “You know, between bouts of torture.”

“I wish he were not dead,” she said. “For I would dearly like to kill him.”

He laughed again, this time with a bit more mirth. “I do not doubt you would, Mouse. For you are ferocious if nothing else.”

“I do not like injustice. I’ve experienced too much of it in my life.”

“Sadly, injustice is all too common in the world, is it not?”

“Yes. Very sadly.”

“Come,” he said.

He extended his hand, and she looked around the office. “What?”

“Dance.”

“There is no music.”

“You do not need music. For it is all run on a very specific rhythm, these traditional dances. You can feel it. You can count it by your feet.”

“That is not very... I mean, that’s definitely not how I think of dancing.”

“Because you don’t do it. You do not know of which you speak.”

His hand was still extended, and she looked at it quite like it was a snake that might attack her at any moment. But she was skeptical and suspicious of all of this. And mostly afraid of what might happen to her if he actually touched her.

“Livia,” he said, and it was her name that enticed her to move.

Damn the man.

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