Page 31 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

My heart tightened. All the anger I’d felt towards him earlier seemed to have vanished, lost in the passion that had consumed us on the beach. Now what I felt was a hard tug of sympathy, and a growing curiosity about the life he’d led after he’d ‘died’.

It hadn’t been an easy one, that seemed obvious, and it had pretty much crushed the boy he’d once been. The kind, loving boy who’d once been so good to me.

Yet, had that boy been entirely stripped away? Certainly, I could see traces of him in the food he’d had made for me and the French champagne in the ice-bucket. In the way he’d gently washed me in the bath, and in the way he was holding me now.

Protectiveness had always been in his nature.

It made it difficult to tell whether all of that—the dinner, the drinks, the talk of the past—had been manipulation or whether it had been him genuinely being kind.

I didn’t know. Perhaps I needed to stop thinking about that boy and start concentrating on the man.

A ruthless, charming man. Manipulative, yes, yet also driven; I could see that. However, while he seemed quite happy to talk about our past, his was a different story.

And you don’t want to push him on it.

No, I didn’t, not now.

We had something of a détente and, while I hadn’t meant to lie here comfortably in his arms, naked but for a silky tunic, I was strangely okay with it.

I hadn’t wanted to initially, finding the thought of sitting in his lap a little too much like being his plaything for comfort. But he hadn’t insisted, and somehow I’d found myself changing my mind. It seemed silly not to be physically close to him after what had happened on the beach, and if I wanted it, then why not?

It was my choice and that didn’t make me a doormat. Besides, as I’d told myself as he’d picked me up out of the sea and washed me carefully in the bath, what was between us was merely physical. Just pleasure, nothing more.

It didn’t mean anything was going to change.

I was still engaged to Constantine, and I still fully intended to find my way back to him. Val was wrong about him, I was certain, and those debts needed paying.

I also still wanted an heir, and it was clear what Val’s thoughts were on the subject. His response to the lack of a condom had been unequivocal. He did not want children.

But he’d given me the most unbelievable pleasure, and, as I knew a marriage to Constantine wouldn’t give me that, why shouldn’t I take this while I could?

I’d worked hard for my father for years, so why shouldn’t I have something for myself for a change? Constantine might take issue with it, but if he did it wouldn’t be because he wanted me in particular. I wasn’t special to him. I was just a vessel. He hadn’t even told the press that I’d been kidnapped, after all.

But I wasn’t just a vessel to Val. And he wantedme, so why resist?

A night, I told myself. I’d let myself have a night where I was his and he was mine and we could have the passion we’d never had as children. Where kisses could become more and our games wouldn’t be about pushing each other into the sea, but touching each other in bed.

I was allowed this. I was finally allowed to be with the boy I’d once loved and then lost.

‘What happened to you after you left the beach?’ I kept my voice very casual. It had been so many years ago that that particular pain had long since scabbed over. ‘I found out you and Constantine had gone back to Madrid and I thought you’d contact me. But you didn’t. I didn’t hear anything.’

Valentin’s eyes glittered strangely in the light and I saw something dark cross his face. I could also feel his body tense beneath me. This wasn’t something he wanted to talk about, was it?

‘Well,’ he said softly. ‘That’s quite the story. Are you sure you want to hear it?’

A chill whispered over my skin. It was going to be something awful, wasn’t it? Something to do with his father, Domingo, the psychopath.

I stared into Valentin’s eyes, the chill settling deeper into my soul. I hadn’t fully taken on board what he’d said about his father before, but that soft note in his voice and that glitter in his eyes...

What had his childhoodreallybeen like?

I’d never thought about it as a kid, not in any depth. We’d complained to each other about our parents, of course, but that was what kids did. All parents were mean and unfair. But Domingo...

‘Tell me,’ I said, staring into those mesmerising eyes. ‘I want to know.’

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ Valentin didn’t let my hair go, rubbing a lock of it between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Domingo didn’t want me seeing you, as you already know. But naturally I ignored him, because I always ignored him. He wouldn’t have found out that I was still meeting with you if Constantine hadn’t told him.’

A shock went through me. ‘Constantine told him?’

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