Page 17 of Twelve Nights In The Prince's Bed

Or perhaps it wasn’t so bizarre, he thought, leaning back in his broad leather chair and rubbing his palm over the back of his neck.

After all, the experience of making love to Poppy was still fresh in his mind, and though he’d done an admirable job of acting in control earlier that day, when she’d come to his home, Adrastos had kept a grip of his own desire with a maximum of effort.

When that tear had rolled down her cheek, he’d felt the same instincts that had overcome him as a teenager, when she’d arrived heartbroken and grief-stricken. He’d wanted to fix everything for her because he’d hated to see her in pain. He’d told himself it was because he knew loss and wished someone had been able to make it better for him, but now, he wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was just... Poppy? Maybe there was something about her that inspired that protective streak?

He expelled a frustrated sigh, because it went way beyond wanting to protect her.

Last night had been about pure need, plain and simple.

But Poppy?

Sure, he’d wanted her. That was impossible to deny. But he could have had just about any singlewoman at that party—that wasn’t arrogance speaking, so much as experience. And any woman would have been less complicated than this. Instead, her breathless little entreaty for him to kiss her and not stop had weaved through him, rebuilt him as a new man, a man who wanted, more than anything, to be with Poppy. He’d known she was forbidden. Hell, he’d had three years to regret that one damned kiss, to be thankful as anything he hadn’t allowed it to go further. That should have been the salient lesson, the reminder that stopped him from acting on his desire.

Instead, he’d let one part of his anatomy do the talking.

Since Nicholas’s death, Adrastos had had to walk in his brother’s shadow—even when the papers feted and adored Adrastos and made comparisons praising him without, perhaps, realising that there was implied insult to Nicholas in those lines of adulation. Adrastos hated it. He had been happy enough to compete with Nicholas in life, but now, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

And yet he’d stepped up, taken on Nicholas’s role, borne the survivor guilt that plagued him constantly, become what was expected of him, except in this one small regard: he was not going to be the dutiful heir and marry some available princess hand-selected for him by a royal courtier. He was not going to roll over completely and fall into line with what everyone wanted.

At first, sleeping with women, flirting with them, seducing them, had been a way to forget about Nick. To forget about love and loss and the powerlessness of an individual when faced with terminal illness. After Nicholas died, Adrastos had felt bad, all the time, except when he had sex. It was, therefore, an easy equation.

But then, he began to crave the criticism and disapproval, even when it was only something he glimpsed in his parents’ faces, even when they tried so damned hard not to say what they were thinking.

He relished failing them, because he knew Nick never would have.

Nick would have married years ago. Someone appropriate and suitable. It was a small, stupid way to honour his brother’s memory, to allow his brother to ‘win’ in their unspoken competition, but it was nonetheless important to Adrastos.

And now he’d unwittingly found himself in a relationship, albeit a pretend one, with the kind of woman his parents would be desperate for him to marry. He groaned audibly. Their break-up would be the ultimate disappointment, which should have satisfied him on some level. But he didn’t feel satisfied. He didn’t feel anything except numb.

He was regretting his acquiescence; he was regretting everything, but Adrastos was a man of his word, and he’d given that word to Poppy.

He’d made his bed, and now he had to lie in it. He wouldn’t be alone though. Poppy had made sure of that. No wonder he couldn’t focus on the report in front of him.

‘I just can’t believe this. How did it happen?’

Poppy grimaced. Lying to her best friend was the absolute worst, but it was a necessary evil. She’d looked at this from a thousand different angles before calling Eleanor, trying to see if there was any other way, if she could back out of the fib she’d unthinkingly told the Queen, but there was no solution at hand. If Eleanor, of all people, knew the truth, she’d be livid—at both of them. Poppy couldn’t bear to let Ellie down.

‘We just got talking one afternoon...’

‘But you know what he’s like, Pops.’ Ellie groaned. ‘Youknow.’

‘People change,’ she said, but she was cold to the centre of her being.

‘You’re really dating him?’

‘We’re getting to know each other. It’s not serious—’

‘But you’re spending Christmas together.’

‘Well...’ Poppy bit into her lip until it hurt. ‘I always spend Christmas with you.’

‘And so does Adrastos, but this is different.’

Poppy felt lower than low. Yet, how could she tell Ellie the truth? Who knew how the Princess would react to the news that, instead of being in a relationship with Adrastos, Poppy had actually just lost her virginity to him in a super-sexy one-night stand? Hardly the kind of news a best friend would want to hear.

‘Do you mind?’

The silence that followed Poppy’s question was the longest of her life.

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