Page 12 of Off-Limits To The Crown Prince

Your Highness. Said with her perfect rounded vowels. A slight huskiness to it. He hesitated, almost as if being asked to remove his jacket were stripping him naked. As she waited for him she tucked an unruly strand of dark hair, that had escaped her efforts to secure it, behind her ear. Alessio peeled the jacket from his body, the air of the room cooling him as he did.

Hannah walked towards him, left hand outstretched. He handed her his jacket. She took it and hung it over the back of a small dining chair, running her hands over the shoulders. A stunning flash of heat tore through him as he imagined those hands stroking over his own shoulders. Something that could never, ever happen. He sat in the armchair again. Settling in to get comfortable when all of him was on edge. Tried tolounge with intent, whatever that meant.

‘You should take off the tie.’ Alessio didn’t think. He moved his hands to the red silk. Loosened it, and only had a fleeting moment where he could finally breathe before his chest tightened again. He held out his hand with the tie and she took it, the minutest brush of her fingertips on his, and the world could have stopped turning, on the precipice of tempting desires he must ignore.

Was she affected too? Her hands caressed the tie, gently smoothing the fabric, wrapping it round her palm to create a perfect spiral and placing it on a side table. Then she faced him. Perhaps the colour was higher on her cheeks? Or perhaps he was projecting his own torrid desires onto her.

It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. When he realised the extent of his father’s profligate behaviour, he’d seen no choice but for his own to be exemplary. All his waking hours had been taken up with trying to draw attention from his father, hiding his ultimate disgrace, rebuilding Lasserno’s reputation. He would not let his people suffer at the hands of his family. These things required him to be better. He shouldn’t crave the softness of a touch. He’d inured himself to such things because of the job he must do. It required toughness, no distractions. He’d risen above it before. He would again.

But how for a few bright, blinding moments did he wish he could fall.

She moved closer again, looking down on him. A strange and discomfiting position to be in. As if for the first time he was at some kind of disadvantage, when his whole life had been full of the advantages of his position. Her eyes were luminous in the late-morning light. A mysterious wash of green and gold, like the ocean close to the shore. Hannah cocked her head. Pointed, waggling her finger at him. He shouldn’t have tolerated that. It was a breach of protocol, but protocol be damned. He didn’t care.

‘The top two buttons as well.’

Dio, in this moment she could have him completely naked if she asked. The thrill of that thought was intoxicating. The whole atmosphere in the room thickened, time slowing to these perfectly innocent words weighted with his illicit imaginings. Alessio didn’t even think. He undid the two buttons on his shirt. More slowly than he ought, since she kept her gaze on every move of his fingers, almost as if hoping he didn’t stop, that he undid all of them.

Or that was what he imagined. In his fantasies he could allow it. Never in reality.

She moved her hand, as if she were reaching out again. Hesitated. Checking herself. Her lips parted. Then she dropped her arm and stepped back. Shook her head.

‘What?’ His voice was rough as it ground out of him. Frustrated at the things he could not have.

Hannah went back to her chair. Grabbed her sketch pad and pencil. ‘I thought you might run your hands through your hair. Make it a little untidy.’

Their gazes clashed and held. He’d look as if he’d rolled out of bed if he did that. Did she want him messy? As though they’d spent a night together? His hands involuntarily gripped the satiny fabric of the chair again, to hold on to something.

‘But then I realise that untidy wouldn’t be you...Your Highness.’

He almost shouted to her that yes, it was. He could be that man. He had been in the past, when life had been freer and he’d thought only of riding for his country, not taking the throne too soon and repairing the disaster wrought by his father. But she’d reminded them both, with his title, that he was born to a job and would not deviate. He clenched his teeth. Swallowed down the bitter taint of disappointment as she began her drawing again, with deft moves of her pencil that felt as if she were inscribing on his skin. He wondered what else she saw of him, with her artist’s eyes.

‘Could you answer a question for me?’ she asked. ‘One question, honestly, with no equivocation?’

Alessio gritted his teeth. He’d kept so much of himself private for so long, particularly after Allegra’s attempts at courting the press, that agreeing to any question he didn’t vet beforehand was unnatural to him. Most respectable journalists in Lasserno knew this and played the game with the rules he’d set. The tabloids made up what they wanted in the absence of a story. He didn’t like this stranger, this young, almost guileless woman, demanding parts of him he rarely granted to anyone.

‘Yes.’ She didn’t look up. Showed no reaction to his agreement at all. But he wasn’t giving away everything without exacting a price. ‘So long as you answer one of mine.’

Her head whipped up from the page. She was paying attention to him now, and something hot and potent thrummed through him. He liked it far too much.

‘That’s not how this works. It’s all about you.’

‘You want to know so much of others yet give none of yourself.’ She nibbled on her bottom lip again, drawing his attention to her distracting mouth. The way her teeth worked on the soft flesh. He craved to soothe away the sting of her teeth, see if her lips were as soft as they looked.

‘It’s my job.’

‘People might accuse you of having something to hide.’

He wasn’t sure she had secrets. She’d been investigated before the commission for his portrait was requested. In his life now, that was a given. But in some perverse way he enjoyed her discomfort, since she was causing him so many inconvenient and uncomfortable thoughts of his own.

‘I don’t have any secrets. I just find people prefer to talk about themselves. I’m not that interesting. But if you answer my question, you can ask one of yours.’

She shrugged, and the soft shirt she wore sagged a little, exposing the hint of a bra strap before she pushed it back onto her shoulder. But he didn’t miss the slice of pale blue, and he firmly shut down imaginings of whether her underwear was lace or something practical. Instead, he checked his watch. Their hour had almost ended, and yet he didn’t want to leave. How long could he wait here, sitting in the chair, before someone would come to find him?

‘Then ask what you wish.’

‘If you want to escape from it all, what do you do?’

He could have laughed, the answer so easy it required no effort at all. ‘I ride my horses.’

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