“What does it look like I’m doing?” She reaches for her waistband.
“Stop that!” I don’t mind her getting naked—hell, I’m more than happy to watch any striptease Lola wants to put on. But not in full view of my security detail, or anyone else who might happen to be walking by.
I don’t think anyone followed us from the restaurant—since the kidnapping, citizens and reporters alike have been pretty respectful of my non-public time. Especially since Bastian and Samuel are really good at intimidating anyone who chooses not to be as respectful. But that doesn’t mean some guy isn’t out walking his dog or stumbling home from a local bar. The last thing I want is for Lola’s beautiful, naked body to be plastered all over every social media platform in the world.
She obviously doesn’t have the same concerns, though. “Stop what?” she teases as she unbuttons and unzips her pants, then starts to tug them down. “Is getting naked in a public park also against city ordinance?”
“Apart from topless and nude beaches, public nudity is frowned on pretty universally, I think.” I watch as she slips her pants down her curvy legs and prepares to step out of them. “Okay, fine. Here, hold this.”
I thrust the pastry box over the fence at her, followed by our coffees. Then I grab hold of the top of the fence and push off, vaulting over it in one clean sweep that has me landing next to her on the other side.
It’s dark, but I can see her face well enough to know that this time she’s the one who is all agog, eyes and mouth wide open as she stares at me. Looks like those seven months of painstaking physical therapy were worth every drop of sweat.
“Now, will you please put your shirt back on?” I ask, dusting my hands together before taking the food containers back from her.
The shock doesn’t last long. “Technically, you didn’t climb the fence,” she says, but still, she hands me back the food and picks up her blouse.
“Don’t be bitter.” I reach out with my free hand and grab one of her glorious curls, rubbing it between my fingers as I try not to notice the black currant and honeysuckle smell of it. Of her. I haven’t wanted anyone—or anything—this badly since my rescue came through. Or, more precisely, I haven’t let myself want anyone or anything this badly since I was freed—except the throne.
The thought is as unsettling as it is captivating—kind of like Lola herself, and I can’t help wondering what would have happened if I’d met her before the abduction. Would her free-wheeling, take-no-shit attitude have attracted me as much then as it does now? Or would I have been too busy being The Crown Prince to even bother with her?
“Don’t be sanctimonious.” Still, she grins at me as she pulls her blouse back over her head. While I’m mostly relieved that she’s covered again, there’s a part of me that wishes she weren’t. That wishes I didn’t have to worry about a simple game becoming fodder for worldwide gossip headlines.
“So,” I say once she’s finished getting dressed, “now that we’ve broken at least three laws getting into this park, why are we here exactly?”
Lola tosses a mischievous look over her shoulder as she starts down the nearest path. “You’ll see.”
“Of course I will.” For a guy who’s used to leading, I’m spending an awful lot of my time following this woman. Not that I mind. Her take-charge attitude is sexy as hell.
As I trail her through the park, I hear the unmistakable sounds of my security detail scaling the fence behind me. Now that I’m responsible for three more people breaking the law, I really, really hope we don’t get outed on any of the gossip channels.
We follow the path for about five minutes before Lola turns to the right. Seconds later, a giant fountain comes into view. “Seriously?” I demand. “We did all this for a fountain?”
“Not just any fountain! This is la Fontaine des Muses!”
“I can see that.” I gesture toward the women carved into the base of the fountain, illuminated even now that the park is closed.
“Wow, don’t sound so enthusiastic.” She plops down on the wide rim of the fountain that’s obviously meant to double as a bench. “Do you not like the muses or something?”
“I like the muses just fine,” I answer, even though I’ve never thought about them one way or the other before. “I’m just trying to figure out why this fountain is any better than the one across from the patisserie. You know, the one that isn’t behind a locked gate?”
“Are you telling me that I finally know something about this country that the great Prince Garrett, His Royal Hotness himself, doesn’t know? Have I finally hit on something that your encyclopedic knowledge of Wildemar hasn’t covered?”
“I’m going to go with yes. Short of the fountain on the palace grounds, I’m going to say my education is sorely lacking when it comes to fountain lore here in Wildemar.”
“Fountain lore!” She laughs a little, clapping her hands. “I love it!”
I settle myself next to Lola on the bench, figuring I might as well join her since this night has definitely proven that I’ve got no chance in hell of beating her. “So tell me, oh wise one. Why exactly is this fountain so special?”
“Because the locals have a tradition.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two coins, handing one to me.
“Throwing a coin in the fountain? That’s the big tradition?”
“It’s not just throwing a coin in the fountain! You have to kiss the coin three times and then throw it over your right shoulder. If it lands in the uppermost tier, then your fondest desire will return to you.”
“Return to you? What if you never had it to begin with?”
“Then it probably isn’t your fondest desire. You can only really want something or someone that badly if it’s already been yours—at least in some capacity.”
I think about the crown, about all the work I’ve done to be worthy of it, and wonder if Lola is right. I want it so badly because my whole life I’ve always assumed it would be mine. I shove the thought away. Lola was supposed to be a fun and interesting distraction, not a reminder of everything I’ve already lost.
As if she senses that she suddenly made everything way too heavy, Lola pushes up until she’s standing on the bench, her back to the fountain. “Are you ready to do this?” she demands.
“I think I’m going to sit this one out.” I hold the coin out to her. “You make two wishes.”
“Nope.” She actually puts her hands behind her back. “No one can have two fondest desires. You’ve got to choose and I’ve already chosen, so…”
She kisses her coin three times and then tosses it over her shoulder with the same careless joie de vivre she has when she does everything else. It goes soaring past the center tier and all the way over the fountain to land somewhere in the grass.
“Oops.” She grins at me.
“Here, take mine. Try again.”
“Nope, fair’s fair. It’s your turn.”
I don’t want to do this. It’s stupid. Ridiculous, even, how much I don’t want to do this. Not because I don’t have a fondest desire, but because the one I do have is so huge, so overwhelming, that losing it has devastated me—even more so than being abducted and tortured did. I’m terrified that wishing it back might kill whatever small part of my soul I still have left.
But I’m not about to wuss out, not when Lola is watching me, all bright eyes and I-dare-you-to-do-it. With a grimace, I do as she instructed and kiss the coin three times, then turn my back to the fountain.
“Let it rip!” Lola crows and I do, tossing the stupid coin over my shoulder like this whole thing doesn’t matter at all. Which it doesn’t, I remind myself as the coin makes a small splashing noise.
“Can we have dessert now?” I ask, trying not to sound as testy as I feel. It’s absurd for me to feel this annoyed about participating in some local tradition, but I do. I am.
“Don’t you want to know where it landed?” she asks, eyes roaming over my face in the dim light.
“Not even a little bit.”
She thinks about that for a second, even opens her mouth like she’s going to argue with me. But in the end, she just shrugs and lifts the lid on the pastry box. “Lemon tart?”
It’s just one more reason I like this girl so much more than I should.
Chapter 10
Lola
He walks me home.
The park isn’t far from the house I’m renting (which is how I found it), so when Garrett starts making noises about heading back to the SUVs, I show him the path to the other side of the park. The path that lets out four doors down from my little cottage.
I’m not sure how I feel about tonight, not sure how I feel about Garrett at all. Oh, he’s super charming and super kind and super gorgeous—kind of goes hand-in-hand with the whole Prince Charming thing he’s got going on—but is that enough for me to ask him in? Enough for me to throw caution out the window and climb into bed with one of the world’s most eligible bachelors?
There’s a part of me that wants to say not just yes, but hell yes! I mean, I’m obviously attracted to the guy, and he’s obviously attracted to me. And yet…there’s a little voice in the back of my head warning me not to do this. Not to go down this path, no matter how tempting it is. I tend not to listen to that voice on a regular basis, but tonight…tonight it seems to be making a whole lot of sense.
I think about all the attention we got in that restaurant earlier, think about how fascinated the people of this country—and the world—are with every little thing he and his brother Kian do. Then I think about the look on his face when he threw that stupid coin. Heartbroken. Desperate. Torn to pieces. And I know that no matter how much I’d like to sleep with Garrett, I’m not going to.
He’s damaged goods.
Not that I’m judging him for that. Kidnapped, months of torture followed by months of recovery? I don’t blame him at all for the damage he carries just under the surface, the damage he tries so hard to hide. But I recognize that damage because I’m damaged too, and if this life has taught me anything, it’s that two people as messed up as we are really have no business being together.
Even if it’s just a one-night hookup.
Even if it doesn’t mean anything.
No matter how tempting it is—and it is tempting. So, so tempting. But one night of red-hot sex is not as tempting as the life I’ve worked so hard to build for myself. Not as tempting as my hard-won sanity.
No matter how good in bed I think he’s going to be.
So after we hop another fence, make our way out of a small forest of trees and start the long walk up the driveway to my cottage, I gently tug my hand away from his. Slowly put a little more distance between us.
Garrett doesn’t say anything, but I know he notices. It’s in the way his body tenses up, in the way his eyes grow just a little bit more watchful. By the time we get to the door, it feels like there’s a whole lake between us. One that even Garrett, with his former Olympic swimming dreams, can’t swim across.
When we finally reach the front porch, I take a deep breath, then start, “I have a really long—”
But Garrett beats me to it, his smile a little rueful. “You don’t need to make excuses. I’m not the kind of guy who needs a reason for a woman to say no.”
Shit. “It’s not you—”
“It’s okay if it is. I get that the prince thing is a lot.” He jerks his head toward the bodyguards, who are standing several feet behind us, doing their best to blend into the trees, which somehow only makes them more noticeable.
“Honestly, I’m not sure how you do it.”
“It’s not so bad once you get used to it.” The pensive look is back in his eyes, and I really don’t like it.
“I really did have a good time tonight,” I say as I reach for his free hand.
“No, you didn’t.” But he’s grinning as he hands me the pastry box. “I’m sorry about the restaurant. Thanks for dessert, though. And for making me hop that fence. It’s been a long time since I broke the rules.”
I’m pretty sure he’s never broken the rules, which may be why—when he leans down to kiss my cheek—I turn my head at the last second. He makes a surprised sound, but he recovers quickly. Then he’s pulling me into his body, his mouth soft and warm against mine.
He feels good, tastes good, and before I make a conscious decision to do it, I’m dropping the pastry box and pushing onto my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck.
He groans a little, his arms wrapping around me as well.
His hands slide down to rest against my lower back and it’s my turn to moan, my turn to press myself against him. As his hard chest pushes against my breasts, as his big, warm hands rub lightly at my back, I forget the million and one reasons I shouldn’t sleep with him.
I forget the clothes piled up in my living room and the photo shoot I have for my website in the morning.
I even forget the bodyguards just a few yards down the driveway.
I forget everything and anything that isn’t Garrett and the hot, slick heat of his mouth against mine.
He slides his tongue along my bottom lip, once, twice, before licking slowly, inexorably, inside my mouth. I part my lips on a gasp, let him inside. Then have to grab onto the front of his shirt as my knees tremble at the warmth of him. At the power I can feel burning inside of him.
My knees are still shaking, my fingers still twisting in the silk of his dress shirt, when he finally pulls away several seconds—minutes?—later.
“Thank you,” he says again, rubbing his thumb over my mouth in one of the most sensual caresses I’ve ever experienced.
Suddenly, I want to invite him in, want to climb him like a tree and wrap myself around him. Wrap myself up in him. It’s a weird feeling—an uncomfortable feeling—and it has me jerking back when I want nothing more than to press forward.
“I should…I should go in.” My voice is several octaves lower—and hoarser—than it usually is, but at least it’s not shaking the way my knees are. It’s a small victory, but at this point I’ll take it. Especially when every instinct I have is screaming for me to say to hell with work, to hell with all my well-thought-out reasons as to why we can’t be together, and just invite him in so I can ride him all night.
But Garrett obviously takes a girl at her word—and obviously has a hell of a lot more self-control than I do—because he backs away, slowly, slowly, slowly. He even goes so far as to bend down and pick up the battered, but still closed, pastry box and hand it to me with a rueful grin.
“Pretty sure the éclairs survived the fall,” he says. “But I’m not so sure about the napoleons.”
It doesn’t matter. Nothing does but the feel of his mouth moving over mine. The feel of his body pressed against mine.
Because the thought scares me as much as it arouses me, I take a step back. Smile at him. Even let him put the pastry box in my hands.
I can’t want this man. Can’t want this tortured prince who is torn between who he once was and who he is now.
But I do want him—in my body and in my arms. And while I’m more than okay with having a one-night stand with Garrett to work him out of my system, something tells me that fucking him will have the opposite effect. And I am totally, completely, 120 percent not okay with that.
Which is why I stumble back a few more steps and reach for my keys. It’s why I fumble them into the lock and why I push the door open and nearly fall inside without so much as glancing Garrett’s way.
And it’s why I murmur a strangled, “I hope everything works out for you,” even as I push the door closed, all but slamming it in his face.
Right before the door closes I see a look of utter astonishment on Garrett’s face. It’s enough to snap me
out of the sexual trance he put me into with just one kiss, enough to have me grinning at the fact that Garrett isn’t a guy who has very many doors slammed in his face.
For a second, just a second, I think about opening the door back up and saying good night like a sane person. But in the end, I can’t bring myself to do it. I might not be in a sexual trance anymore, but my knees are still shaking and my heart is still beating way too fast.
Garrett brings out the wild in me that’s never very far from the surface, and while that might be a good thing in bed, I’m smart enough to know that right now it’s the last thing either one of us needs. No matter how amazing it feels.
Which is why I keep the door firmly closed, my hand and forehead pressed up against it, as I wait for the telltale sounds of Garrett walking away.
It takes longer than it should.
Chapter 11
Garrett
“Well, someone’s been busy.”
Instinct—and years of ingrained training—had me answering the phone before I was even awake, but now that my brother’s amused voice is in my ear, I think seriously of hanging it back up.
It’s—I glance blearily at the alarm clock on the hotel’s nightstand—only seven A.M., and it took four very large whiskeys before I could fall asleep last night. Or, more accurately, this morning, as it was close to four A.M. before I drifted off. And even after I fell asleep, I was still dreaming about that strange, disturbing, and hot-as-fuck kiss I shared with Lola last night on her porch. Right before she shut the door in my face.
Fuck.
Again, I think about hanging up on Kian, but I just don’t have it in me. Not when he could be calling about sanctions or our father or one of the million other issues that are important to Wildemar’s well-being. But just because I won’t hang up on him doesn’t mean I have to be gracious about talking to him. God knows, he never was when he was the spare and I had the nerve to wake him up before three o’clock in the afternoon.
“What do you want?” I demand, rolling over and burying my head—phone and all—under the nearest pillow. It drowns out the light but not the headache, and for a moment I want to beg for mercy. But I don’t beg, not even when being tortured, and I’ll be damned if a simple hangover brings me to my knees today. No matter how much it hurts.