Page 44 of Revelations of A Secret Princess

Caro didn’t want to think about what had happened that night by the spa, much less try to explain her actions. Not to this grim-faced stranger who bore only a superficial resemblance to the Jake Maynard she’d come to know.

That man was gone, if he’d ever existed outside her imagination.

Yet to Caro’s dismay even his piercing disapproval didn’t eradicate her profound response to him. Furious as she was, her body still registered the excitingly hard outline of his solid chest, the breadth of his shoulders that made her feel appallingly aware of her own feminine desires. A crazy part of her actually revelled in this flashpoint of physical intimacy though they were on opposing sides.

‘Don’t be insulting. I’d never do that.’

‘No? Because you’re a virtuous, responsible royal princess who never put a foot wrong?’ Jake shook his head, his eyes not leaving hers, his tone censorious.

‘Because you’d never make the headlines for drug use and drunkenness, would you? Or have an illegitimate child and abandon it and the father without a second glance?’ Impossibly his expression hardened even more. ‘Did youoncethink about where your child might end up? Leaving a vulnerable baby to the mercy of total strangers because you couldn’t bother facing your responsibilities?’

Caro would have staggered back in horror except Jake wrapped a powerful arm around her waist, holding her against him.

‘You don’t deserve to be a mother.’ His voice hit a low note that resonated through her bones. It reminded her of the terrible, insidious voice of despair that had hounded her darkest days after the loss of her baby. ‘You might have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth but you’re nothing but a selfish sl—’

The slap cut his words off, rocking his head to one side.

Pain burst across her palm and up her arm. Belatedly he captured her hand, pressing it against his shoulder. She saw his jaw work and the bloom of dull red across his cheek.

‘You don’t shut me up so easily,Princess. I’m not one of your lackeys, afraid to offend royalty. I tell it as I see it and as I see it you—’

Caro couldn’t listen. Nerves stretched to breaking point, body shaking from the desperate surge of adrenaline filling her blood, she did the only thing she could think of to stem the flow of vitriol.

Rising on her toes, she smashed her mouth against his.

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