Page 21 of Claimed By the Crown Prince

Obviously she wouldn’t have interested him because she’d still been a teenager.

‘It was eight years ago,’ Laia said, too quickly. She cursed herself. ‘I was sixteen. It’s no wonder you don’t remember.’

Dax grimaced slightly. ‘My early twenties weren’t my finest moments...a lot of that time is blurry. I recall meeting your father briefly...’ He looked at her and his eyes narrowed on her. ‘And, yes, a young girl who looked very shy and—’

‘That’s okay. You don’t have to say any more. That was me.’ Even now Laia could remember the feeling of burning self-consciousness. The huge impact he’d had on her. That he still had on her. Mortifying. Why had she brought this up?

She wanted to drown in her drink and took a big gulp.

‘You were much younger than everyone there. Then I realised who you were—Ari’s fiancée.’

Laia glared at him. ‘I was sixteen. I was no one’sfiancée.’

He had the grace to wince. ‘That does sound a little...weird. I used to tease Ari about being promised in marriage to a complete stranger.’

Dax was taking plates from a shelf and dishing up the stew, which smelled delicious. He was serving it with crusty bread.

He said, ‘I’ve laid the table outside.’

Laia hadn’t even noticed. She brought over the bread and Dax placed down the plates. He picked up a bottle of red wine and two glasses. There was a candle burning.

He sat down and Laia realised she was feeling a nice sensation of being cushioned against everything. Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter that much that he only vaguely remembered her as an awkward teenager from that polo match in Paris.

He poured her some wine. She took a sip and asked, ‘Why are you being so...calm about this? So...amenable?’

He sat down. ‘Do you want to know the truth?’

She nodded and leant forward.

He leant forward too, and whispered. ‘I haven’t had a holiday in years.’

Laia sat back. She would have assumed he was on a permanent holiday—but then she thought of the conversation with his assistant. Montero Holdings. ‘You see this as a holiday?’

‘Why not? It’s a tropical paradise. I have no devices to distract me. No idea what’s going on in the outside world. I don’t know when I’ll have this chance again. I might as well make the most of it.’

Laia speared a morsel of succulent meat. ‘You’re making fun of me.’

‘I swear to you I’m not. I’ve never been so cut off from everything and it’s not that bad.’

Laia tasted the meat and almost closed her eyes. It was tender and tasty, with just the right amount of spiciness.

She put down her fork. ‘Okay, how on earth did you learn to cook like that?’

‘Aren’t you being a little sexist? Where didyoulearn to cook? Neither of us grew up with expectations on us to cook or be domestic in any way.’

Laia put another forkful of food in her mouth to avoid answering.

When the silence grew taut between them Dax rolled his eyes and said, ‘Okay, I’ll go first. I went to a mixed sex boarding school in Switzerland for the last couple of years of high school. None of the boys took the cooking class because it was full of girls, but once I realised that I knew it was the class I wanted to be in. The guys laughed at me—but they weren’t laughing when they realised I was the one with a girlfriend. And as it happens,’ he went on, ‘I turned out to have something of an affinity for cooking and baking.’

Laia put her fork down. She arched a brow. ‘You bake too?’

‘I make the most decadent chocolate cake.’

Laia couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing—although she could well believe in Dax joining a class full of girls just to seduce them. That made sense.

She took another sip of wine, enjoying the velvety smoothness.

He gestured to her. ‘What’s your excuse?’

---