Page 3 of Crowned For The King's Secret

‘Why?’

He enjoyed this, the banter. The chance that at any moment he could fail horribly tightening his gut and ratcheting the anticipation.

She waved her hand up and down in his general direction. The move seemed as regal as her royal name. ‘Looking like you do.’

‘And how do I look?’

‘Now you’re fishing for compliments.’

Their knees brushed again, the hint of that feeling an electric shock right through him. ‘You still haven’t answered.’

‘You look...’ She huffed out a breath, which fluttered her soft fringe. Revealing her gaze as she eyed him up and down, long and slow. He felt every second of that gaze on him like a touch ‘...like you’re not real. Almost too good to be true. And in my experience, someone like that often is.’

An intensely satisfying thing, his pride, uncurled and stretched like a tiger in the sun, basking in her comment.

‘I could say the same,’ he said, allowing himself a slow perusal of her, taking in things he hadn’t noticed before. The hint of freckles across her nose, the perfect shell of her unpierced ear. She toyed with the buttons of her blouse again, drawing his attention to the shadow of her small, perfect cleavage. Even in the soft light the blush of pink bled up her slender neck and coloured her cheeks, almost as if his appraisal was unfamiliar.

Who wouldn’t constantly tell this woman she was beautiful?

‘I’m no fake.’ He wanted to take her hand, place it on his chest, assure her he was all flesh and blood. He didn’t.

‘Aren’t we all fakes, in our own way?’

Not tonight. He hoped tonight that he could be more real, truer to himself than he had been since childhood. He wantedonlythe truth. A man, a woman. Two bodies sharing pleasure together.

‘You could touch me, to prove to yourself I’m real. I won’t bite.’

She cocked her head, almost as if surprised. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

‘I think you’d like it too,’ he said.

‘I think I might.’

The sounds of the room faded away. It was just soft lighting and the possibility of something magic shimmering in the air. Alessandro took the chance.

‘Come to my room.’

Victoria picked up the toothpick from her martini glass with its speared olive and pulled the olive from the pick delicately with her teeth. Chewing with deliberation before swallowing. So much went on behind those cool eyes of hers, as if the secrets of the universe were held there. His heart sped up in anticipation as she grabbed her clutch bag from the bar. Yes. No. He wasn’t sure. A thread of uncertainty wound through him.

He’d wanted many things in his life. In this moment, he’d never wanted anything more than Victoria Astill.

‘All right.’

Two simple words and anticipation flooded through him, hot like a slug of spirits. He stood, told the bartender to put the drinks on his account. His bodyguards watched with caution as he and Victoria walked out of the bar to a bank of private lifts leading only to the Royal Suite. Their instructions were clear. There’d be no interference, although by now his people had probably vetted her. Whilst privacy was everything in this club, she’d still had to place her name at the door and his security were always zealous with his safety. He was his country’s future, after all. The weight of that expectation and responsibility hung heavy on him.

The gleaming, golden lift rushed them to the suite. In a few moments he’d be unlocking a door to the room and hopefully to the rest of tonight. Because tonight he could be a man.

Tomorrow, he’d revert to being King.

Victoria took a steadying breath as the lift slowed to a whispered stop and the doors opened. It didn’t really help the flurry of butterflies in her belly or the thready beat of her heart which she told herself was anticipation. The man next to her stood to the side, let her pass. She caught a hint of the scent of him. Spicy, warm, like mulled wine on a winter’s evening. And like mulled wine, she was sure too much of him would scramble her senses.

But wasn’t that what she wanted? To lose herself and yet find herself all at the same time? Now she wasn’t so sure. She’d felt so sophisticated downstairs, yet she was a woman schooled in pretending. The reality of what she’d agreed to crashed into her with each click of her perilous heels on the cream-coloured marble of the suite’s entrance foyer. Her husband had never liked heels because they made her taller than him...

Enough.That man had ruled her life for five long and painful years since the marriage brokered by her parents had begun with naïve innocence on her part. She’d hoped it would bring happiness. Children. But she’d quickly realised that her wants and needs didn’t matter. Her marriage hadn’t been a partnership, but a dictatorship. When she’d begun asking for more, the vicious put-downs made her stop asking for anything. Then her accident, and heaven help her when she couldn’t give her husband what he’d wanted on demand.

If he hadn’t died in a fall from his horse, she didn’t know where she’d be now.

A shiver ran through her. This evening wasn’t for dwelling on her past. It was for starting her future, which she’d decided to grasp with greedy hands when she’d received the letter from the proprietors of this place on fine, embossed paper, saying she’d inherited her husband’s membership should she wish to take it, with the club’s compliments and condolences.

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