Page 30 of Impossible Heir for the King

‘I might be arrogant, Maia. But I also know when a woman is interested in being with me.’

Her pulse skittered and she stiffened her decidedly shaky legs.

‘She might look at me a little too long. Especially when she thinks I’m not watching her. But I am. Because I’m acutely aware of her too. And I’m attuned to her responses.’ He levered out of the pool and walked towards her. ‘I watch her breathing. Her blush. The beat of her heart. The look in her eyes. So many snippets reveal secrets.’

Maia couldn’t move. She also couldn’t stop trembling. ‘Maybe she’s got a fever.’

‘Oh, she surely does. The same one as me. Lust is a fever that steals other appetites and becomes the sole focus until it is all you can think about, all of the time.’

‘Must make life quite challenging.’

‘Unchecked, it absolutely can. It can make concentrating on other things difficult. Which is why it’s good to indulge it before it balloons that far out of control.’

‘Is that what happens?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never not indulged it. Whereas you never have. So you tell me.’

She felt an odd dizziness sweep over her and a forlorn wish burst from her. ‘Don’t laugh at me.’

‘I’m not.’ He looked into her eyes with a frown. ‘I would never laughatyou, Maia.’

She wanted to believe that about him. But she wasn’t sure. She’d heard the laughter of men from overhead so many times. She’d heard the crew joke about no one wanting her. About how easy it would be to seduce her because she was so starved of attention. She’d heard that exact plan from one younger group of guests. So she’d known to resist the fool who’d come downstairs to deliberately flatter her. The assumption she’d be easy pickings.

‘Well, don’t flatter me to try to get me into bed,’ she added distantly. ‘I know guys do that.’

He leaned closer. ‘They do?’

She nodded angrily. She’d hid her hair beneath a scarf not only to keep it from getting in her face when in the galley. She’d kept her head down and her body shrouded in a large apron even in the heat to hide. Self-preservation. Avoidance. Even when the cute young guys came on board because they sometimes turned out to be less cute and more pushy.

‘I’m not experienced. I’m lonely. I’m unattractive. Because I’m always working hard with no one paying nice attention to me. Meeting almost no one. So hit me with a few generic compliments and I’ll be an easy lay, right? It won’t take anything much to make someone like me feel special.’

He’d frozen. ‘Someone said that?’

‘Iheardthem making the plan. They didn’t know I could hear everything when I was cleaning their stupid cabins.’ She scoffed at herself softly. ‘And the tragic thing was I’d thought he was actually quite cute.’

‘Maia—’

‘So I’m not going anywhere because I’m quite sure you can control yourself,’ she snapped at his sympathy. ‘But if you can’t,youcan leave.’

He stared at her. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

CHAPTER NINE

THEAWFUL,awful thing was she was shaking and he wasn’t even touching her. She quickly turned her back on the pool. The view beyond was incredible but she barely saw it because a wall of heat rose within her and it was unstoppable.

‘Maia?’

She heard a muttered oath and his hand felt light on her face. ‘You’re too hot,’ he growled. ‘You overdid it.’

He pushed her, leading her to the shallow steps of the pool that were currently in the shade. He made her sit so now the water lapped over her feet.

He moved out of her sightline for a moment. Next minute he pressed a cold glass into her hand. ‘I knew you shouldn’t have spent hours in a hot kitchen.’

She sipped the juice, savouring the sweet yet acid bite of the pineapple. ‘It’s not that.’

‘No?’ He took the drink and drained the remainder before setting the glass on the marble tile beside them. ‘Then what?’

She shivered and he sat one step up behind her, drawing her back against his chest. ‘Lean on me for a minute.’

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