Society Secrets

Don’t react to his insults, she told herself fiercely. Because that’s what he wants you to do. You need to hang onto every shred of self-control you possess. Because this had now transcended everything other than her fight for her little boy and she was like an angry tigress protecting her cub. Let him say what he liked about her—but she would hold firm in her conviction. Tilting her chin in defiance, she felt the drying strands of her thick hair falling down her back as she met his arrogant stare—no longer cowed by the distaste that she met in the amber eyes.

‘But other than my obvious social unsuitability to cavort with a monarch—there are no other reasons?’ she questioned coolly.

‘Oh, there are plenty,’ he demurred silkily. ‘I like my women blonde. And curvy. You’re neither. In addition, I expect them to dress exquisitely. In fact, the kind of woman with whom I’m intimate puts only the finest silk-satin and lace lingerie next to her body.’ His lips curved in derision as they flicked over her T-shirt. ‘Not something which might be worn by someone living by the roadside.’

Still she didn’t react, even though she felt as if he were aiming darts at her heart. Destroying all the feelings she’d once had for him—feelings she’d allowed to grow as Ben had grown. She’d remembered his kindness to her. His tenderness when he’d held her in his arms. In her head, she had built on those memories, brick by brick. She had nurtured a fantasy man in her imagination, she realised—because the real man was nothing but an arrogant and hurtful bastard.

‘So my hair’s the wrong colour, my body’s the wrong shape and I dress like a tramp.’ Melissa paused and then looked at him boldly. ‘Anything else you’ve missed?’

Casimiro frowned, because her persistence was surprising. By now she should have caved in. Started blubbing and giving him some hard-luck story about how she really needed money. She wanted financial aid for an ailing donkey sanctuary. She was battling to preserve a rare butterfly threatened by the proposed new road which would raze through its natural habitat. She was sorry to have invented such a far-fetched story but she was desperate…

‘Actually, yes.’ His voice was stealthy now. ‘I always use protection when I make love to a woman.’ He saw her cheeks grow pink. Would this graphic truth be enough to get her to back down? he wondered. ‘There’s a general consensus, you see—which deems that my seed is precious stuff. More precious than most.’ His mouth twisted into a knowingly sarcastic smile. ‘It’s a King thing.’

She paused for a moment to let this outrageous comment die away. ‘So why are you here?’ she questioned quietly.

Again, her general unflappability when faced with his unmistakable anger slightly wrong-footed him. Why was he here? If he had really believed that she was some cheap con-artist then she wouldn’t have got within a million miles of him. So why? Why was it that when he looked at her, he felt the faint tug of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on? Something which felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

Since his accident—when his life had hung in the balance for days—so many of his usual pastimes had been curtailed that it felt an age since he had tasted danger. But he could taste it now. It seemed to linger in the air about him—tantalising him—just as the highest jump on one of his beloved horses had always tantalised him.

He hadn’t ridden since the accident—but now came enticement in a different and unexpected form. Not blonde. Not petite, nor curvy—but bold and brunette with long, long legs and eyes which were the greenest he had ever seen. Almost emerald…Once again he felt the distant tug of something nebulous—some tantalising memory which hovered just out of reach.

He touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip, slid it slowly over the surface. ‘Maybe I came looking for something to nudge my memory,’ he said softly.

She hadn’t realised what he was about to do—because in Melissa’s book, you didn’t come onto a woman if you had just spent the last ten minutes insulting her and looking at her as if she’d crawled out from underneath a stone.

But to her shock he was pulling her into his arms with a proprietary and arrogant air. Pulling her really close—so that all that lay between her and his hard, lean torso were just two thin layers of their respective T-shirts. Suddenly, she could feel the sheer pleasure of being touched by him again and—despite the circumstances—it felt just as amazing as it had ever done. Her skin began to sing and her heart to pound, but this wasn’t right. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t right…

‘What…what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she breathed.

Her stumbled little protest both angered and inflamed him, so that another hot urgent jerk of desire pressed hard against the denim of his jeans. Pushing a strand of dark hair away from her pale face, he stared down into the pure green colour of her darkening eyes.

‘Make your mind up, cara mia,’ he bit out throatily. ‘You say that I’ve been your lover—’

‘I say it because it’s true!’

‘Then maybe the taste of your lips and the feel of your body will jog my memory. Capisca?’

He lowered his mouth onto hers, capturing her lips in a kiss so hard that it made her shudder for all kinds of reasons. She shuddered because, as a kiss, it felt almost contemptuous and a million miles away from any real tenderness or regard. And she shuddered because he kissed with a masterly skill which took her breath away. And, of course, because it had been so long. Much, much too long.

‘Casimiro,’ she breathed—the word itself a luxury, because surely you were permitted to call a king by name when he was kissing you?

‘Dio—’ He felt her lips open beneath his—and her instantaneous response cut through his defences—as if he had been unprepared for such immediate passion. Had he expected more of a fight? Even wanted more of a fight—so that he would have had to kiss her into some sort of submission and force her to retract her ridiculous claim?

But there was no fight as her rangy body melted against his—the small but perfect breasts flowering into life, her sighing delight made irresistible by the accompanying soft swivel of her hips. Casimiro felt his jutting erection positioned in perfect alignment to her and he uttered a small curse beneath his breath.

He had meant to give her a swift demonstration of his sexual power. To have her weak and wanting him—her body soft with yearning—and in this he had succeeded. But by now he should have terminated the kiss. To have thrust her away with a contemptuous remark about how any man could surely be the father of her child if she was so free and easy with her favours.

So why were his lips plundering hers with a hunger which had never felt so keen? And why were his fingers clasping one of her breasts—feeling the iron-hard little peak puckering through her T-shirt?

‘Oh!’ she gasped, knowing that she should stop him—but how the hell could her love-starved body stop him from doing something which was so incredible? Running her fingers distractedly through the thick tumble of his ebony hair, she felt a faint little raised line which zigzagged from behind his ear to just beside his temple, and for a brief second she frowned. But only for a second—because the way he was touching her drove all sane thoughts from her mind. ‘Casimiro,’ she breathed again, the word sounding like a prayer and an incitement.

Her easy acquiescence both thrilled and angered him—her breathless little moans spurring him until he was rucking up the baggy T-shirt like a schoolboy eager for his first intimate touch of a woman. And she was letting him.

He gave a groan of delight as his hand skated up and over her inner thighs and for one tantalising moment he paused, heard her hold her breath.

‘You are good,’ he ground out, tearing his lips away from hers in an attempt to suck in a ragged supply of oxygen to his lungs. Too good, he thought—as the desire to unzip himself and impale her heated his blood with a terrible kind of primitive yearning.

‘So are you,’ she whispered, wanting him to kiss her again. And more. Much more. Was he remembering the feel of her body and the fact that they were so good together—as she was? Would it be such a terrible thing to carry on with what they’d been doing—to show Casimiro that their son had been given life as a result of an act as amazing as this?

‘I want you,’ he ground out.

‘And I want…I want you,’ came her shuddered response.

Yet even as he felt the restlessness in her body which matched his own, Casimiro knew that this was crazy. Still his hand lingered on the cool thigh and the temptation to trail it towards its sweet destination almost overwhelmed him. He could have her in an instant. Here. Now. On the floor. In her bed—and then what?

‘No. This is not going to happen.’ Abruptly, he let his hand fall and stepped away from her—observing the disbelief and disappointment which had darkened her green eyes, the rapid rising and falling of her perfect little breasts as her fingers flew to her lips. And Casimiro could do nothing to stop the tide of relief which flooded over him—eclipsing even the aching frustration in his aroused body. For he had demonstrated to them both the power of his steely will! Of his iron-hard resolve. Let her know the kind of person she was dealing with—and then let her go on her way!

He allowed himself a brief moment of satisfaction—for he could not imagine any other man who would have turned down such a delicious, sensual feast, so willingly offered up. Seeing her begin to tug down the rumpled T-shirt over her slim thighs, he turned his back to allow her a moment to regain her composure. And he his.

When he turned back, she had raked her hands back through her mussed hair—its silken strands still drying in disarray over her narrowed shoulders. Her cheeks were very pink and she was staring at him with an expression which was a mixture of embarrassment and defiance.

‘You are very free with your favours,’ he observed slowly.

‘As are you with yours!’ she returned. ‘Tell me, is that why you can’t remember me—because you’ve had so many women that they all blur into one?’

There was a deliberate pause as his eyes raked over her, anger spitting amber fire from his eyes. ‘You dare to speak to me in such an insolent way?’

‘Maybe I’m just copying you!’ The words bubbled out indignantly. ‘Or do you think it’s a one-way street when it comes to insults? That I’m going to let you say what you like about me just because you happen to be a king and I’m just a lowly commoner? Especially when we both know what you’re really doing is shying away from your responsibilities.’

‘Shying away from my responsibilities?’ he echoed incredulously.

‘Well, aren’t you? All I’m asking is that you see Ben. Just once. Just see him and realise that he’s yours. What have you got to lose?’

Casimiro stared at her and gave a grim kind of smile. More than she would ever know. Much, much more. If he had an heir, then everything would change. His life and his future would alter in the most dramatic fashion.

But as he stared at her he knew that she wasn’t going to go away easily—and that if he let her it would leave a million questions unanswered. Questions which might come back to haunt him and would leave him unable to make his abdication with an easy heart.

‘And what if I do see him,’ he questioned slowly, ‘and still do not believe that he is mine—then will you agree to give up this cause of yours? Give up and go away—leave me alone for ever?’

This stark demand pained her far more than it should have done because it was an indication of just how much he wanted her gone from his life. But of course he did—he’d never wanted her in any way but as a quick fling, had he? If it had been just about her then she would have walked away right then, with her head held high—but it wasn’t just about her. And what choice did she have? Melissa knew that she was going to have to agree to his hurtful clause if ever she was going to have some sense of closure. It was a gamble, yes—but a gamble she had to take. For Ben’s sake.

Staring into the hard, golden gleam of his amber eyes, she opened her mouth to agree to his terms when something began to trouble her. Something which didn’t make sense.

Why was he agreeing to see Ben if he was so certain that the child couldn’t be his? And why couldn’t he remember her? Melissa knew that she wasn’t the kind of woman who turned heads, but this hadn’t been some forgettable one-night stand they’d shared. It had been the best part of five days and she had been a virgin. And deep down she didn’t really believe that he’d had so many partners that he couldn’t distinguish one from the other.

His face was shadowed and sombre. She looked at his thick dark hair—all ruffled where she’d been frantically running her fingers through it. At the faint scar at his temple which now lay revealed. The slightly raised little zigzagging line she had discovered when he’d been kissing her. She knew every inch of the man by heart—for hadn’t she touched him lovingly and eagerly as often as she could when they’d been lovers? And one thing was for sure—he’d never had that jagged little scar on his head back then. Which meant that it must have been a legacy from his fall.

Suddenly it all made sense. Complete and believable sense. It was so simple that she couldn’t believe why she hadn’t thought about it before.

‘That’s why you don’t remember me,’ she said suddenly.

Casimiro stilled. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘When you had your accident,’ she said slowly. ‘The one that nearly killed you. The one which meant your brother had to act as Prince Regent while you lay stricken.’

‘That’s history,’ he snapped—because the dawning look of comprehension on her face was making him uneasy. ‘Which I don’t particularly want to rake up.’

‘Maybe it is—but the past always impacts on the present, doesn’t it? You don’t remember me because you can’t. The knock on your head must have wiped the memory clean away.’ She drew a deep breath and looked at him with eyes which were suddenly soft with understanding. ‘You’re suffering from amnesia and that’s why I mean nothing to you, isn’t it, Casimiro?’

CHAPTER FOUR

CASIMIRO felt a brutal kind of rage wash over him as he stared at Melissa. At her passion-flushed cheeks and the way her eyes looked almost emerald as she levelled her accusation at him.

You’re suffering from amnesia and that’s why I mean nothing to you.

His hands clenched into fists by the tensed shafts of his thighs as fury fizzed through his veins. Because nobody but her had guessed that a brief segment of time had been shaved from his memory. Nobody. So how could such a woman as this see through to the truth where all others had failed?

‘How the hell do you work that out?’ he demanded icily.

She noticed that he hadn’t denied it. Her eyes drifted to his temple, and despite his harshness towards her, she found herself biting her lip as she imagined him lying there, hurt. ‘When I saw that little…scar.’

Casimiro’s mouth hardened as he heard the emotional break in her voice—wondering if it was spontaneous or contrived. ‘You are cleverer than I imagined,’ he said. And probably just as manipulative, he reminded himself grimly. How delighted she would be to discover that she knew more about him than his courtiers or even his brother! And yet, in some crazy way—wasn’t it something of a relief to be able to share the burden of his amnesia with someone?

‘So you’re not denying that Ben could be your son?’ she questioned hopefully.

Ben. Casimiro frowned. Giving the child a name only added another layer of complexity to the affair.

‘I am conceding that it is a possibility.’

It was better than nothing and Melissa bit her lip, wanting to blurt out her gratitude and yet some instinct stopping her from doing anything more than silently nodding her head.

Casimiro studied her. He had been about to leave—to slam his way out and to make arrangements about a trip to England to see the child at some undetermined point in the future—while still nurturing the hope that she was a complete fantasist. But her perception had changed everything.

He felt a pulse beat at his temple—because what she had learned was dangerous. Would she try to use the knowledge she’d gained to secure a place for herself in his life? he wondered. Knowledge was power—everyone knew that—and maybe it was time for a little redistribution of that power. Why waste his energy on pointless rage, when there was a much more satisfactory outlet which would serve him better…?

Slowly, he let his gaze drift over her. At the fall of dark shiny hair which was now completely dry and shimmering around her narrow shoulders. At the bare legs and the unvarnished toenails. Beneath that hideous garment, she was completely naked; he knew that for himself. And once again—despite his avowal of her unsuitability—he felt the hot, hard shimmering of desire.

‘Come over here,’ he said silkily.

Melissa blinked. She had been expecting anger—especially when she’d seen the shadowed expression on his face. But his face wasn’t looking in the least bit threatening now. On the contrary. She narrowed her eyes, wondering if she was misreading it. Seeing something there that she wanted to see rather than what really was.

But no.

His expression looked…inviting. Vital. The lips had softened—as if they were illustrating just how kissable they really were. And his eyes were dark—really dark—with that opaque kind of blackness which even someone with Melissa’s scant experience knew meant that he wanted her.

‘Why?’ she whispered, her heart beginning to pound.

‘Don’t let’s play games—not now. You know exactly why.’

‘But you just, just—’

‘Pushed you away?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe I’ve realised what a fool I was being. Or maybe I just needed time for my body to make its protest known. And it is—believe me, it is—very loud and very clear.’ Glancing down with a rueful expression, he shrugged. ‘So come over here, Melissa.’

‘No,’ she said, in a small voice.

‘No? You refuse your King?’

‘You are not my King and, yes, I am refusing you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because…’ Because you’ve already made a fool of me. Because you could break my heart into a million pieces. ‘Because I’m here to discuss my son—and it’s not appropriate.’

‘Not appropriate?’ he mocked.

‘N-no.’

‘You think there’s some kind of social guideline for the bizarre situation in which we find ourselves?’ he demanded, but, interestingly, her words only inflamed his growing desire—because refusal was something which Casimiro never encountered. ‘Then it seems that I must come to you, bella mia.’

Her eyes widened in alarm but she could do nothing about the sudden prickle of her senses as he began to walk towards her with the determination and the stealth of a predator which had just spotted a particularly accessible morsel lying waiting for him.

‘Don’t,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t what? At least try to say it as if you mean it,’ he drawled, his mouth hardening into a smile as he reached for her and pulled her into his arms.

It wasn’t his touch—but the smile which sealed it. This one was hard and somehow grim, but it was a smile all the same and it catapulted her back to bittersweet time when she’d seen a much softer variation. When desire had ruled their lives and there had been no shame in it.

‘But why this…frown?’ Casimiro’s voice had deepened as he smoothed the small crease in her brow, tracing his fingertip down to outline the sudden trembling of her lips.

‘Can’t you guess?’ she whispered.

He read the wariness in her eyes and recognised that she was going to have to be cajoled into submission. That she was cleverer and feistier than he’d given her credit for—and that if he wanted her co-operation, then he was going to have to seduce her. Really seduce her. For there was no surer way of getting a woman to consent to a man’s agenda than by making her a prisoner of her own senses.

Because he needed Melissa Maguire, he realised. Needed her to remind him of the missing fragment of his past and to see what lay in it.

He felt the slow simmer of anticipation as he gazed down at the trembling of her lips.

And she needed him, too. Much, much more.

Again, he traced the outline of her lips with his fingertip, seeing her eyes cloud as she looked up at him. ‘You don’t like me doing this?’ he questioned silkily. ‘And yet minutes ago you were writhing around in my arms—your body silently begging me to take you.’

Melissa swallowed, for the fingertip was now stroking its way along her jaw. It was an almost innocuous touch and yet it had activated an aching kind of hunger which made every nerve ending instantly feel as if it were on fire.

‘I know. But that’s not what we’re here for, Casimiro. We’re supposed to be…to be…’ She wanted to tell him that they needed to talk some more. About Ben. About what was going to happen now. But how could she manage to utter a single word of objection when his lips were now on her neck?

‘Shh.’ He felt her head tip back—like a flower which was too heavy for its stem—giving him access to the smooth expanse of skin.

‘We should…should…’ She wanted to say that they should stop it because that was what she knew she ought to say. Some inner voice of caution telling her that it was a mistake to let him take her as easily as this. But her love-starved body and her idealistic heart had craved this moment too much to be able to resist it and her words drifted away like bubbles as his hand reached down to cup her breast. His thumb began roughly teasing a nipple to acutely sensitive life—and Melissa felt the quick flood of blood to her veins as her body responded to him.

‘Sí, cara—I know we should. And what is more, we’re going to. Right now—just like we both want to.’ The declaration was honeyed, irresistible and undeniable as Casimiro began to ruck up the baggy T-shirt—his hand alighting on the flesh of her inner thigh to where a woman was always soft. But Melissa’s skin was like cool silk, he thought—a tantalising contrast to the molten heat which was beckoning him inexorably upwards.

It had been so long, he realised with a jolt. Like an empty arid waste of time since he had last made love to a woman. His heart had not been in it and neither had his body—but now the hunger and the need had returned like an urgent fire which was consuming him. For one fleeting moment, he questioned his sanity, it having chosen this woman with whom to break his self-imposed curfew. Until he caught the unmistakable scent of her arousal in the air and again felt her restlessness as his fingers trickled enticing little circles over her thigh.

For a moment he tantalised her. Letting his hand linger there—inches away from its sweet destination. Hearing her sharp intake of breath as she waited to see if he would continue. He left it just long enough to make her frantic. To make her flesh crave his touch. And to hear her stumbled little gasp of relief as he plunged his fingers into her molten warmth.

‘Oh!’

‘Oh, but you wanted that, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, yes!’

‘Wanted it badly?’

‘Yes!’

‘How badly?’

She knew what he was doing. Playing power games with her even while his fingers were inflicting such sweet torture. She knew that a stronger woman might have torn herself away. Looked at him with a cold dignity and told him that she would not negotiate anything which revolved around sex.

But Melissa wasn’t feeling strong right then. She felt helpless and torn by conflicting emotions as he lowered his lips to her ear.