HIS BROTHER STILL hadn’t returned.
Javier was tired of being tested. He had been avoiding Violet since they had come back from the city the other day. The temptation that she had presented to him was unacceptable.
That he had the capacity to be tempted was not something that he had first seen. But Violet King had tested him at every turn, and the true issue was that he feared he might fail a test if she continued.
He curled his fingers into fists. No. He was not a weak man.
Even before he had turned on his father, he had not had an easy life. He had faithfully served in his father’s army. And that had required work guarding the borders in the forests, camping out for long periods of time. His father’s paranoia meant that he was certain that enemies were lurking behind every tree.
And Javier had found that to be so. His father had had many enemies. And Javier had done his job in arresting them.
He wasn’t sure what he wished to avoid thinking about more. That period of time in his life, or his current attraction to Violet.
“Of course, the architecture is nothing compared to the natural beauty. You got a little peek outside the window, but more to come later on this beautiful vacation spot.”
He heard Violet’s voice drifting down the corridor, coming from the expansive dining room where his brother often held dinner parties.
It was a massive room with a view that stretched on for miles, a large balcony connecting it and the ballroom and making the most of those views.
Violet was standing right next to the window, her cell phone in her hand. She waved—not at him, but at her screen—then put the phone down at her side. “I was filming a live video. Doing more to tease my location.”
“Of course you were,” he said.
She gave him a bland look. “Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not valid.”
“Oh, I would never think that.”
“Liar. If you don’t understand it, you think it’s beneath you.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t understand it.”
“But you do think it’s beneath you.”
“That was implied in my statement, I think.”
“You’re impossible.”
She walked nearer to him, and he tried to keep his focus on the view outside. But he found himself looking at her. She had most definitely regained her precious makeup. She looked much as she did that first day he had seen her, which he assumed was a signature look for her.
“So you must go to all this trouble,” he said, indicating her makeup, “to talk to people who aren’t even in the room with you.”
She winked. “That’s how you know I like you. If I talk to you in the same room, and I don’t bother to put my eyelashes on.”
“Your eyelashes are fake?”
“A lot of people have fake eyelashes,” she said sagely. “I used to have them individually glued on every week or so, but I prefer the flexibility of the strips so I can just take them off myself at the end of the day.”
“I have to say I vastly don’t care about your eyelashes.”
He looked down at her, at the dramatic sweep of those coal black lashes they were discussing. And he found that he did care, more than he would like. Not about the application, but that he wished he could see them naturally as they had been the other morning. Dark close to her eyes, lighter at the tips. He appreciated now the intimacy of that sight.
And he should not want more.
“You know what I do care about?” she asked. “Outside. I would like to go outside.”
“Well, the garden is fenced in, feel free to wander around. Just don’t dig underneath it.”
“Very cute. Another joke. We could write that in your baby book. However, I would like a tour.”
“A tour of the grounds?”
“Yes.”
“Of the garden, or of the entire grounds? Because I warn you, they are quite wild.”
“I find I’m in the mood for wild.”
She smiled slightly and enigmatically. He could not tell whether she intended for the statement to be a double entendre.
But the moment passed, and he found himself agreeing to take her out of the palace.
One path led to the carefully manicured gardens that had been tamed and kept for generations. A testament to the might of the royal family, he had always thought. And as a result, he had never liked them.
“This way,” he said. “This is where Matteo and I used to play when we were boys.”
The rocky path led down to a grove of trees. Heavily shaded, and next to a deep, fathomless swimming hole.
A waterfall poured down black, craggy rocks into the depths.
The water was a crystalline blue, utterly and completely clear. The bottom of the river was visible, making it seem like it might not be as deep as it was. But he knew that you could sink and sink and not find the end of it.
He and Matteo had always loved it here. It had seemed like another world. Somewhere separate from the strictures of the palace. Though, at that point he had not yet come to hate it.
Still. He had appreciated the time spent outdoors with his brother. His brother had been most serious at that age.
Perhaps because he had always known that the burden of the crown would be his.
“This is beautiful,” she said. He expected her to reach for her phone immediately, but she didn’t. Instead, she simply turned in a circle, looking at the unspoiled splendor around them.
“Yes. You know something? I know that my father never set foot down here.” He stared at the pool. “And now he’s dead.”
“That’s a tragedy,” Violet said. “To live right next to something so beautiful and to never see it.”
“There were a great many things my father didn’t see. Or care about. He cared about his own power. He cared about his own comfort. This is just one of the many things he never truly looked at. Including the pain that he caused his own people.”
“But you did. You do,” she said.
“For better or worse.”
“You used to swim down here?”
“Yes.”
“Did you laugh and have fun?”
“Of course I did.”
“I can’t imagine you having fun.”
“I can assure you I did.”
“It’s safe?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She took her phone out of her pocket and set it on the shore. Then she looked back at him and kicked her shoes off, putting her toe in the water. “It’s freezing,” she said.
“I said it was safe. I didn’t say it wasn’t frigid water coming down from an ice melt.”
She stared at him, a strange sort of challenge lighting her eyes.
“What?”
“Let’s swim.”
“No,” he said.
He realized right then that the outright denial was a mistake. Because her chin tilted upward in total, stubborn defiance. And the next thing he knew she had gone and done it. Gone in, clothes and all, her dark head disappearing beneath the clear surface. And she swam.
Her hair streaming around her like silken ribbon, her limbs elegant, her dress billowing around her. And he was sure that he could see white cotton panties there beneath the surface. He felt punched in the gut by that. Hard.
“Swim with me,” she said.
“No.”
She swam up to the edge, giving him an impish grin. “Please.”
He remembered her words from the other day. Don’t you do anything for yourself?
He didn’t. He didn’t, because there was no point.
But swimming wasn’t a betrayal.
He could feel his body’s response to that in his teeth. A twist in his gut. Because he knew what he was doing. Knew that he was pushing at that which was acceptable.
But the water would be cold.
And he would not touch her. Tension rolled from his shoulders, and he unbuttoned his shirt, leaving it on the banks of the river. His shoes, his pants. And leaving himself in only the dark shorts that he wore beneath his clothes.
Then he dived, clearing her completely, sliding beneath the surface of the water at the center of the pool, letting the icy water numb his skin like pinpricks over the surface of it. Maybe it would knock the desire that he felt for her out of his body.
Maybe.
He swam toward her, and he saw something flash in the depths of her eyes. Surprise. Maybe even fear.
He stopped just short of her.
“Is this what you had in mind?”
“I didn’t expect the strip show.”
The characterization of what had occurred made his stomach tighten. Or the cold water had no effect on his desire.
He couldn’t understand why. Why this woman, at this moment, tested him so.
Any retort she might have made, any continuation of the conversation seemed to die on her lips.
And he knew. He knew that he had just gone straight into temptation. Had literally dived right in. Whatever he had told himself in that moment on the shore was a lie. All he had wanted to do was to be closer to her.
He had never experienced anything like this. Had never experienced this kind of draw to a woman before. To anyone.
She had nothing in common with him. A spoiled, sheltered girl from the United States. But when she looked at him, he felt something. And he had not felt anything for a long time.
She began to draw closer to him.
“Don’t,” he said.
“I just...” A droplet of water slid down her face, and her tongue darted out. She licked it off. She reached out and dragged her thumb over the scar on his cheek. “How did you get this?”
Her touch sent a lightning bolt of desire straight down to his groin. “It’s not a good story.”
“I don’t care.”
“You think you don’t care, but you haven’t heard it.”
Her hand was still on him.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
“You know you should be afraid of me,” he said. “And here you are, pushing me.”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“And I wouldn’t. Intentionally. But you are here touching me as if I cannot be tempted into anything that we would both regret.”
“Who says I would regret it?”
He gritted his teeth. “You would.”
“Javier...”
“I was helping a man escape from prison. Wrongfully arrested by my father. One of his guards attempted to put a stop to it. It was war, Violet, and I did what had to be done.”
She said nothing. She only looked at him, her eyes wide.
“Yes. It is what you think.”
“You did what you had to,” she said softly.
“But that’s what I am. A man who does what he has to. A man who is barely a man anymore.”
She slid her thumb across his skin, and he shuddered beneath her touch. “You feel like a man to me,” she whispered.
“You are not for me.”
He pushed away from her and swam back to the shore. She watched him dress, the attention that she paid him disconcerting. Then she got out of the water, the thin fabric of her dress molded to her curves. He could see her nipples, clearly visible, and his arousal roared.
“You are not for me.”
Then he turned, leaving her there. She would find her way back. Follow the path.
But he had to do them both a favor and remove himself from her. Because if he did not, he would do something that they would both come to bitterly regret.
He was familiar with the sting of failure. The process of deprogramming himself from his father’s rule had been a difficult one when he had been sixteen years old and he had wanted to believe with intensity that his father was a benevolent ruler. And he had seen otherwise. The way that it had hurt his soul, torn him in two, to begin to look differently at the world, at his life and at himself, had been the last time he had truly felt pain. Because after that it was over. After that, the numbness had sunk in, had pervaded all that he was.
It was Matteo who had seen him through it. Matteo, who had been struggling with the exact same thing, who made Javier feel like he wasn’t losing his mind.
His brother had been his anchor in the most difficult moment of his life.
And now there was another wrenching happening in his soul. It was all because of the luminous, dark eyes of Violet King.
In that alleyway, when she had put her hand over his, when she had tempted him with a bite of ice cream like she was Eve in the garden offering him an apple, he had not been able to think of anything but casting the frozen treat aside and claiming her mouth with his own.
In the water he had longed to drag her to the shore, cover her body with his own. Claim her.
And that was a violation of all that he had become.
He was a man of honor because he had chosen it.
None of it was bred into him. None of it was part of his blood.
He and Matteo knew that, so they were always on guard.
And this woman... This woman enticed him to betray that.
To betray his brother.
The one man to whom he owed his absolute loyalty.
The man he had promised to destroy should that man ever abuse his power. Such was their bond.
Such was his dedication.
But now... Lusting after his brother’s fiancée made him compromised.
It compromised that promise. Compromised what he was. What he claimed to be.
His phone rang.
It was Matteo. As if his brother could feel his betrayal from across the continent.
“Yes?”
“We have been successful,” Matteo said. “Monte Blanco will now be included in the United Council. My mouse has proven herself indispensable yet again.”
“Is she in the room with you?”
“Of course she is.”
Javier didn’t even have the right to scold his brother for that. Not at this point. He had lost his right to a moral high ground of any kind.
“When do you return?” he said, his voice heavy.
“Two days. We have to make a stop in Paris for a diplomatic meeting.”
“I suppose, then, that it is good you spent all those years studying business.”
“Yes. Not the way our father did it, but there are similarities to diplomacy in business and when it comes to running a country. Of course, the bottom line is not filling your own pockets in the situation.”
“No indeed.”
The bottom line was not about satisfying themselves at all.
It stung particularly now. As he thought of Violet. As he thought of the deep, gut-wrenching longing to touch her.
And the anger that crept in beneath his skin. Anger that was not at himself, though it should have been. Anger at the cruelty of fate. That he should want this woman above all others when she was perhaps the only woman in the world who was truly off-limits to him.
He was a prince. He could snap his fingers and demand that which he wished.
Except her.
The insidious doubt inside of him asked the question. Was that why he wanted her? Was that why she presented a particular appeal? Because she was forbidden.
Because she was forbidden to him and no matter how hard he tried to pretend otherwise, he was born a man with a massive ego who didn’t feel that a single thing on the earth should be barred from him should he take to it.
No. He would not allow it.
He would not allow that to be true.
“I look forward to your return.”
“How is my fiancée?”
“Not exactly amenable to the idea of being your fiancée,” he said.
It was the truth. Everything else could be ignored. For now.
“I must say, the connection between myself and her is one of the things that made our meetings the most interesting. She is well liked, world-renowned for her business mind. Such a fantastic asset to me she will be.”
“You don’t know her.”
“And I suppose you do now. I will look forward to hearing how you think I might best manage her.”
His brother hung up then. And left Javier standing there with his hand curled so tightly around the phone he thought he might break. Either his bones or the device, he didn’t know. Neither did he care.
He gritted his teeth and walked out of his office. Something compelled him down to the ballroom where he had the dance lesson with Violet. Where he held her in his arms and first began to question all that he was. It was unconscionable. That this woman he had known for a scant number of days could undo twenty years’ worth of restraint.
And when he flung open the doors to the ballroom... There she was.
Curled up in one of the tufted chairs that sat in the corner of the room, next to the floor-to-ceiling windows, sunlight bathing her beauty in gold.
Her legs were tucked up underneath her, and he could see the edges of her bare toes peeking out from beneath her shapely rear. She was wearing simple, soft-looking clothes, nothing fancy. Neither did she have on any of her makeup. She was reading.
Not on her phone.
And it made him want to dig deeper. To question all that she presented of herself to the world, all that she tried to tell him about who she was and who she actually might be.
She looked up when she heard his footsteps. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to be lurking around the ballroom.”
“I didn’t expect you to be lurking around at all. Much less away from the computer.”
“I found this book in the library,” she said. “And the library’s beautiful, but it doesn’t have the natural lighting of this room.”
“Protecting the books,” he said.
“Makes sense.”
“What is it you’re reading?”
“It’s a book of fairy tales. Monte Blancan fairy tales. It’s very interesting. We all have our versions of these same stories. I guess because they speak to something human inside of us. I think my favorite one that I’ve read so far is about the Princess who was taken captive by a beast.”
“Is that what you think me? A beast?”
She closed the book slowly and set it down on the table beside the chair. “Possibly. Are you under some kind of enchantment?”
“No.”
“That’s something I found interesting in your version of the story. The Prince was not a beast because of his own sins. He was transformed into one as punishment for something his father had done. And then, much like the story I’m familiar with, the woman is taken captive because of the sins of her father. It feels shockingly close to home, doesn’t it?”
“Except I believe in the story my brother would be that enchanted Prince.”
Her gaze was too frank. Too direct. “If you say so.”
“You were shocked by your father’s deal?”
She nodded slowly. “I was. Because I thought that we... I knew he wasn’t perfect. I did. But it’s not like he was a raving villain like your father.”
“You know, I didn’t realize my father was a raving villain until I started to see, really see the things that he had done to our country. And I don’t know that your father is a villain so much as he was made a desperate man in a desperate moment. And my brother took advantage of that. My brother does his best to act with honor. But like me, he is not afraid to be ruthless when he must be. I do not envy the man who had to go up against his will.”
“He should have protected me. He should never have used me as currency. I can’t get over that. I won’t.”
“Is that why you came? To teach him a lesson?”
Her lips twitched. “Maybe. And I won’t lie, I did think that perhaps my notoriety would keep me safe. You know, because people will miss me if I’m not around. But I sort of like not being around. It’s been an interesting vacation.”
“Except you’re going to marry my brother.”
“Yes. I know you think so.”
“You can take it up with him when he returns. He tells me he’ll be back in two days.”
Shock flared in the depths of her eyes. “Two days?”
“Yes. Don’t look so dismayed.”
“I can’t help it. I am dismayed.”
“Why exactly?”
“I just thought there was more time.”
There was something wild in the depths of her eyes then, and he wanted to move closer to it. But he knew that would be a mistake. Still, when she stood, it was to draw closer to him.
“I know that you feel it,” she said. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? I shouldn’t feel anything for you. But you... I mean, look, I know it’s chemistry, or whatever, I know it’s not feelings. But...” She bit her full lower lip and looked up at him from beneath her lashes, the expression both innocent and coquettish. “Don’t you think that maybe we should have a chance to taste it before I’m sold into marriage?”
“I thought you were intent on resisting that,” he said, his voice rough.
“With everything I have in me.”
“I cannot. I owe my brother my undying loyalty. And I will not compromise that over something as basic as sex. You mistake me, querida, if you think that I can be so easily shaken.”
“I know that you’re a man of honor. A man of loyalty. But I feel no such loyalty to your brother. And it is nothing to me to violate it.”
She planted her hand on his chest. And he knew that she could feel it then. Feel his heart raging against the muscle and blood and bone there. Feel it raging against everything that was good and right and real, that which he had placed his faith in all these years.
She let out a shaking breath, and he could feel the heat of it brush his mouth, so close was she. So close was his destruction.
He was iron. He was rock. He had been forced to become so. A man of no emotion. A man of nothing more than allegiance to an ideal. Knowing with absolute certainty that if he should ever turn away from that, he might become lost. That corruption might take hold of him in the way that it had done his father. Because he considered himself immune to nothing.
And so, he had made himself immune to everything.
Except for this. Except for her.
So small and fragile, delicate.
Powerful.
Not because of her success or her money. But because of the light contained in her beauty. A storm wrapped in soft, exquisite skin that he ached to put his hands on.
And when she stretched up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his, no finesse or skill present in the motion at all, he broke.
He wrapped his arms around her, cupping her head in one of his hands, shifting things, taking control. And he consumed her.
What she had intended to be a tasting, a test, he turned into a feast. If he was going to be destroyed, then he would bring the palace down with him. Then he would crack the very foundations of where they stood. Of all that he had built his life upon. Of all that he was. If he would be a ruined man, then the world would be ruined as a result. As would she.
He nipped her lower lip, slid his tongue against hers, kissed her deep and hard and long until she whimpered with it. Until she had arched against him, going soft and pliant. Until there was no question now who was in charge. Until there was no question now who was driving them to the brink of calamity. It was him.
He had made his choice. He had not fallen into temptation; he had wrapped his arms around it. He had not slid into sin; he had gathered it against his body and made it his air. His oxygen.
And she surrendered to it. Surrendered to him.
The white flag of her desire was present in the way her body molded against his, in the way that she opened for him, the small, sweet sounds of pleasure that she made as he allowed his hands to move, skimming over her curves, then going still, holding her against him so that she could feel the insistence of his desire pressing against her stomach.
He was a man of extremes.
And if she wanted a storm, he would give her a hurricane.
If he could not be a man of honor, then he would be a man of the basest betrayal.
It was the sight of that book sitting on the side table that brought him back to himself. Just a flash of normality. A familiarity. A reminder of who he was supposed to be, that caused him to release his hold on her and set her back on her feet.
She looked dazed. Her lips were swollen. Utterly wrecked.
Just like he was.
“Never,” he said. “It will never happen between us.”
“But... It already did.”
He chuckled, dark and without humor just like the very center of his soul. “If you think that was an example of what could be between us, then you are much more inexperienced than I would have given you credit for.”
“I...”
“The things I could do to you. The things I could do to us both. I could ruin you not just for other men, but for sleep. Wearing clothes. Walking down the street. Everything would remind you of me. The slide of fabric against your skin. The warmth of the sun on your body. All of it would make you think of my hands on you. My mouth. And you would try... You would try to use your own hand to bring yourself the kind of satisfaction that I could show you, but you would fail.”
“And what about your brother? Would he fail?”
“It is why I won’t do it. Because yes. After me. After this... Even he would fail to satisfy you.”
And he turned and walked out of the room, leaving her behind. Leaving his broken honor behind, held in her delicate hands. And he knew it. He only hoped that she did not.
The sooner Matteo returned, the sooner Javier could leave this place. Could leave her. Matteo needed to do what he thought was best for the country.
But Javier would not stand by and see it done.