Page 43 of Claiming His Virgin Princess

She looked down at her clasped hands then back to him. ‘Thank you, though, for the offer. And thank you for the wonderful holiday. It’s been fun.’

Ilsa’s voice was firm, almost businesslike in its crispness, and Noah felt his skin tighten. Because of her abrupt change of tone. And because Poppy had said exactly that when she’d dumped him. That it had beenfun, but he wasn’t good enough for her.

Noah tried to shove emotion aside and read Ilsa’s expression. She didn’t look worried or upset. In fact she looked totally composed.

As if leaving him meant nothing to her.

As if what they’d shared, all the things that he’d come to value, meant nothing.

Something plunged hard and fast from his chest to his belly.

He had a horrible creeping feeling of déjà vu but told himself it was impossible. Ilsa wasn’t Poppy.

Yet looking into Ilsa’s eyes was like looking at a stranger. Gone was all that lovely heat, the understanding and mischief, the sensuality and excitement. Instead there was...nothing.

Noah’s brain blanked as he fought to reject what he saw and heard. It wasn’t just her decision to leave but the way she did it, with no warning or explanation.

They’d agreed to a time-limited affair, but he’d swear she was nowhere close to being bored. Just as he wasn’t ready to give her up.

But maybe, despite what he’d observed in the last weeks, he’d misjudged her. Perhaps, after all, she longed for bright lights and A-list parties with aristocratic friends.

A murky thought invaded his brain. Had he been wrong about Ilsa? Had she, like the woman he’d once planned to marry, been turned on by the novelty of a self-made man, and had that novelty worn off?

Had their desperate loving just now been a final titillating adventure before she moved on?

Every instinct rejected the idea. HeknewIlsa. She wasn’t like that. He wassureshe wasn’t.

Yet past hurts crowded in, clouding his emotions and making it hard to think clearly. For the first time in weeks Ilsa was hard to read, as if she’d deliberately locked him out. Noahfelther rejection like a slap.

And hadn’t Poppy fooled him completely? Could it be that his judgement, so competent in business, was fatally flawed when it came to women? That, once more, he’d let his emotions override caution?

‘What aboutus?’

He’d asked Poppy the same thing. The day she’d laughed in his face and sashayed out of his life to take up with someone whose background was suitably gilt-edged. It left Noah wide open, but hehadto know.

Ilsa’s expression closed even further, like a door slamming shut. ‘Thereisno us.’

Like the thrust of honed steel through gathering ice, Noah felt disappointment and hurt meld into a sharp blade, piercing his chest and ripping down through his gut. He didn’t want to believe it but the corrosive words spilled out.

‘Because you’re a blue-blooded princess and I’m a working-class guy? Because of my family background?’

Even as he said it, he wasn’t convinced. Therehadto be some other explanation.

‘It’s not like that,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s time I went back where I belong. My father wants me home now.’

Noah frowned at the mention of her father. Something niggled at the back of his brain.

The business deal her royal father was so keen on. The one she’d raised with him, then reminded him about when he’d been slow to respond. The one he’d promised to look into because he wanted her father to stop pressuring her.

Noah had been as good as his word, following through, investigating the possibilities and finally,just yesterday, after his team had researched it, signing an agreement for a joint project in Altbourg.

His nape prickled and he tasted something rancid on his tongue. It was too much of a coincidence. The morning after they’d got his signature on the agreement, Ilsa decided to leave. Had she been recalled by her father, after a job well done?

‘Or is it time to go because you got what you really wanted, my name on the joint venture with Altbourg?’

Every instinct shouted it couldn’t be true. Surely, confronted with such an accusation, she’d finally tell him the real reason she was leaving.

But all he got was a glacial stare. ‘Youreallybelieve that?’

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