Modern Romance Collection July 2024 Books 1-4

CHAPTER TWO

THISHADNOT been a part of the plan. Not exactly. He’d known he would need to distract her, as the boat left the marina, and he hadn’t worked out how. Their clear mutual attraction had caught him off guard. Capitalising on it was an easy solution, but it was more than that. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted all of her, and he was totally blindsided by that.

Hell, this was his best friend’s younger sister. A woman he despised, a spoilt, selfish brat he’d been begged to bring home with her tail between her legs. At no point had he considered seducing her, or being seduced by her, so what the hell was happening?

Just because something shouldn’t happen it doesn’t mean you don’t want it to.

Damn straight.

But Benedetto was no inexperienced teenager. He was a man well into his thirties, who’d lived a full life in all aspects, and had plenty of relationships to have learned from. He didn’t need to slake his libido with Princess Amelia. There were dozens of women he could call on for that, if and when he decided he was in the mood. So what the hell was he doing? There were other ways to distract her; he didn’t need to do this—and yet he couldn’t stop.

She moaned again, this time louder, and rolled her hips, her body imploring him to do something more than just taste her, and before he realised what he was doing, his hands moved roughly, impatient now for what he’d wanted the moment she’d strolled onto the boat, a picture of casual summer beauty. He’d seen enough photographs of Amelia, and it had never occurred to him to be attracted to her. She was in every way off limits to him.

But he’d never actually met her.

And despite the experience that should have inured him to this kind of attraction, it had also taught him to respect the laws of chemistry. Sometimes, you just couldn’t fight it.

Besides, the Crown Prince had told Benedetto to bring Amelia home, whatever it took. Okay, Anton wouldn’t have had this in mind, but Benedetto wasn’t going to fail his friend.

Acknowledging, in the back of his mind, that he was simply making excuses to justify his weakness, he nonetheless allowed himself to succumb to temptation, figuring he’d sort out the consequences later. After.

‘Are you sure we don’t know each other?’ she asked, huskily, momentarily piercing his fog of desire.

‘We’ve never met,’ he responded, though it didn’t quite answer her question. She’d clearly recognised his name—undoubtedly her brother had mentioned him at some point over the years. But theirs was not a personal connection. Or at least, it hadn’t been.

‘Okay.’ She tilted her head back, giving him better access to her throat, and he took it without hesitation. Now it was Benedetto’s turn to groan as he brushed his stubble over her skin, so soft it was like velvet, feeling her purr.

Her dress was simple—elasticised across the torso in a style a woman would probably know the name of—with no straps, so it was the easiest thing in the world for him to tug at the side and lower it. She gasped as he revealed one of her perfect, neat breasts, the darkened areola taut and firm, so he was drawn like a moth to a flame to pull the nipple into his mouth and suck on it, harder perhaps than he’d intended, so she bucked against his leg in surprise, her whole body jerking with the strength of her physical response.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked, dark anger in his voice—an anger that was directed at himself, for having insufficient willpower.

She shook her head quickly, but her eyes were huge, a look of awakening in them that had him briefly questioning her experience with men. ‘You’re not a virgin, are you?’ After all, he had to draw the line somewhere, and he had no interest in being Anton’s sister’s first sexual experience.

She shook her head again and relief surged through him.

‘But I’m—I haven’t—’ She grimaced. ‘Never mind.’

He did as she requested, thrusting aside whatever she’d been about to say and instead giving himself full access to her body, pulling the dress down on the other side so he could lose himself in her breasts, her nipples, exploring them hungrily with his mouth and then his hands, enjoying the way her pupils dilated when he squeezed her nipples as he rolled them, the way she bit down on her lip as he palmed her breasts, her hands desperately running over her body when he pulled away, as though she were on fire and needed extinguishing.

It was all getting away from him.

He should stop this. The boat had to be out of the marina by now. She was his ward for the next week, the time it would take to sail to Catarno. He had to take control of the situation. Didn’t he?

‘Please,’ she whimpered, the fire raging out of control. He understood; he felt it too.

‘Please what?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What do you want from me, Amelia?’ he demanded, eyes latched to hers, so he saw something shift in them, a frown tugging on her lips.

‘I want—what did you call me?’

His heart thumped against his chest as he belatedly realised his mistake. He’d used her christened name, rather than what she went by now.

Pride stopped him from lying. His arousal was straining hard against his trousers, his whole body was taut with need, and yet he stood straight, dropped his hands to his sides and regarded her as though nothing had happened between them whatsoever. Even when desire was threatening to turn him to mush, making him want to forget everyone and everything but her, he held onto sanity just long enough to know he couldn’t lie to her. Not when asked a direct question.

‘It is your name, sì?’

She flinched, confusion and betrayal writ large across her face. ‘We have met,’ she said, lifting her fingers to her lips. ‘You know who I am.’

She was so shocked she didn’t even think to draw her dress back up, so Benedetto had the vantage point of her feminine form, mottled pink by his stubble and the desperate need of his touch.

‘No,’ he said, crossing his arms over his chest simply to stop himself from reaching for her. She looked so hurt, so crestfallen, it was impossible not to feel sorry for her.

Benedetto had to remind himself of everything he knew about Amelia: her spoiled, overindulged ways, the only daughter of parents who doted on her, the fact she’d cast her family aside and disappeared into the ether, hurtfully ignoring almost all their attempts at contact. He hated women like her, who had no loyalty nor respect for other people. ‘And yes,’ he finished, interested in her reaction.

Her eyes swept shut, her lips parted, and her features were so defeated, her expression so haunted, it was impossible not to experience an overarching sense of compunction for his place in all of it.

‘Why? How did you find me?’

‘You are not so well hidden away, Princess,’ he responded.

He’d never been into role play but apparently when it was a real-life princess that was a different matter. Out of nowhere, he had an image of her in a palace, and he her concubine, existing purely to service her needs, and felt a thrill of something that surprised him. Benedetto had never needed a woman for longer than it suited him. He’d never really been wired to seek relationships, but after those awful days of grief and loss, he’d known he wouldn’t again risk that kind of pain—nor emotional connection. He didn’t deserve it.

‘So what was all this?’ She gestured to the boat and then, belatedly realising she was half naked, she pulled up her dress, shielding herself from his view so he wanted to cry out in objection, to reach forward and remove the dress altogether. ‘Why am I here?’ she demanded, and then her eyes widened as she looked around, lifted a hand to her lips. ‘Oh, my God. The boat’s moving, isn’t it? Why is the boat moving?’

‘Because we’re leaving port,’ he responded simply. He was angry with her for what she’d put her family through, so he’d thought he’d enjoy this moment, but the truth was Benedetto felt as though he was speaking words that were at odds with how he should be acting. He’d committed to this path though; he had to follow through. Besides, he’d run the plan briefly via Anton, who’d said only that she had to be brought home.

‘We can deal with her anger when she’s back in Catarno.’

And so here Benedetto was, a tool of the palace. This wasn’t his fight, and it wasn’t his business. He was simply doing as he’d been asked by the one person he could never say no to.

‘You’re kidnapping me,’ she said quietly, shaking like a leaf. ‘Oh, my God.’

‘No.’

But it was obvious she didn’t believe him. ‘You’re kidnapping me,’ she said again. ‘At least have the decency to be honest about it.’ She was clearly terrified and yet she still had such strength and dignity.

‘I am not kidnapping you,’ he said, then frowned. Because wasn’t that exactly what he was doing? ‘At least, not for any nefarious reason. You can relax, Princess.’

‘Oh, gee, can I?’

‘All I am doing is taking you home.’

It was as if he’d said he planned to kill her. She paled before his eyes, her skin losing any hint of a tan, even her lips draining of colour, so he reached forward on instinct alone, because it was clear what was about to happen. Sure enough, she collapsed the second his arms connected with her body, her frame going limp, and a thousand memories jolted through him.

Memories of Sasha slammed into him hard, so his own skin paled, his heart raced, his palms felt sweaty as remembered trauma flooded his body. And yet, just as he had then, he pushed past those feelings to act as was necessary, scooping Amelia up against his chest and carrying her, watching her face—but this wasn’t a seizure, not as Sash used to experience. This was different. Amelia had fainted from shock. He didn’t need to worry that she was going to swallow her tongue, that she was going to die because he wasn’t paying attention.

Nonetheless, the memories of his daughter in that last year were an indelible part of his being, haunting him mercilessly. He laid Amelia down on the cream sofa, staring at her with an overwhelming sense of regret, guilt, anger and frustration, pressing a hand against her forehead, then moving it to her arm. So warm, so vital.

She wasn’t dying.

He slowed his breathing, focused on the moment, on becoming himself again, on getting rid of the anxiety that was plaguing him, so that when Amelia blinked her eyes open, she’d see no vestige of emotional ache on his features—it was a pain he never intended to show anyone but Anton, who’d been there through the worst of it with him.

Amelia felt as though she were coming to the surface of the water from a long, long way down, the depth of the ocean almost overwhelming, so she struggled to breathe, to think, to see. Her eyes opened and everything swirled in front of her, nothing making sense. Where was she? And who was that?

She scrambled to a seated position, then wished she hadn’t when her head began to spin again.

Benedetto stood watchful but unmoving, arms crossed, eyes on her as if held by some invisible force.

‘I’m not going home,’ she said quickly, the last few moments clarifying in her mind, his words reverberating inside her brain. ‘And you cannot make me.’

His lips curled derisively. ‘Want to bet?’

‘You can’t be serious?’

He lifted one shoulder, one beautiful, broad, strong shoulder, so Amelia’s mind scattered in a direction she most definitely wouldn’t allow it to go.

‘Anton is getting married. Your presence is required.’

‘I think you mean requested,’ she replied with the appearance of calm, when her insides were jangling all over the place. ‘And I’ve already told my family that I cannot make it.’

‘You misunderstand. Your attendance is not optional.’

She ground her teeth together, wondering why her body was trembling with something other than anger and fear. Why did she find his awful bossiness...sexy? It was more of that horrid caveman behaviour, which Amelia found abhorrent. Didn’t she?

‘I’m sorry, since when did you become the boss of me?’ she responded with saccharine sweetness, moving to stand.

But he was quicker, closing the space between them and pressing a hand to her shoulder. ‘Stay there. I don’t particularly want you to pass out again.’

‘Thanks for the concern,’ she muttered sarcastically. ‘But I’ll be fine.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. Stay where you are.’

It wasn’t just that she was angry, she was spoiling for a fight. He’d stirred up a frenetic energy inside Amelia and all she wanted was to expel it somehow. If that was by fighting with him, then so be it.

So she stood up, and pushed at his chest, a thrill of pleasure running through her at how good it felt to take out her annoyance on the man who’d caused it. ‘Stop telling me what to do.’

‘It’s for your own good.’

‘Oh, yeah, right, and you’re what, a doctor?’ she prompted sceptically. ‘Some kind of fainting expert?’

His lips clenched. ‘Fine, have it your way,’ he said, a strange quality to his voice. ‘But don’t expect me to catch you next time.’

‘I didn’t expect you to catch me this time,’ she responded firmly.

‘That doesn’t sound like “thank you”.’

‘You seriously expect me to thank you? I fainted out of shock, a shock caused by your pronouncement that you’re attempting to kidnap me against my wishes and return me home, also very much against my wishes. Tell me, what exactly should I be grateful to you for?’

‘Kidnapping is, I think, always against a person’s wishes,’ he said, concentrating on the semantics of her accusation, earning an eye roll from Amelia.

‘By all means, correct my sentence structure,’ she snapped. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact you’ve broken about a million laws. You do realise I’m under the protection of the Catarno royal guard?’

‘Are you?’ he replied. ‘Where are they?’

She floundered. Damn it, that was an easy lie to catch her in. ‘I mean, in theory,’ she responded testily. ‘I have no need for them here, but what you’re doing is a serious crime in Catarno. You’d be stupid to take me there and not expect consequences for this.’

‘Fine, I’ll drop you off just outside the waters of your country,’ he said with something like amusement, which only served to strengthen her anger.

‘You will do no such thing.’ She drew herself up to her full height, no idea that she looked like a modern-day Boudicca with her hair wild around her shoulders and a quiet, dignified strength emanating from her.

‘No?’

She shook her head. ‘You will have your crew turn this boat around and put it back into dock. I will leave, and never see you again.’

His laugh was a short, sharp sound, filled with the same anger she’d detected in him at their first meeting. ‘No.’

‘No?’ Her nostrils flared. ‘What do you mean “no”?’

‘Your brother asked me to bring you home, and that’s what I’m doing.’ She blanched once more, and, despite what he’d said minutes ago, he moved swiftly, as if anticipating the worst, but stopped short of touching her.

‘This is absolutely not simple,’ she said, hands on hips, staring across at him. ‘Did it occur to you that I left Catarno for a reason?’

‘I presume you had reasons you thought were valid at the time. Perhaps you didn’t realise how hard it would be on your family. Or perhaps you just didn’t care about them. Maybe you’re only capable of caring about yourself and your own happiness,’ he added, eyes lancing hers with an accusation that made the bottom fall out of her world.

Was that really what he thought of her?

And had he formed that opinion based on what Anton had disclosed? Was that how Anton viewed her? Nausea flooded Amelia’s body, so she spun away to conceal the way her throat moved and her mouth tightened.

‘It’s none of your business,’ she said unevenly, after a long, pained pause. ‘I left. I’m a free person, capable of making my own decisions. None of that is your concern.’

‘No,’ he agreed quickly, so she was gratified. ‘And yet, you’re hurting someone I owe a huge debt of gratitude to, someone who wants—needs—you to return to Catarno, for one week only.’

‘You really think I can go home for a week, attend the wedding, then disappear into my life again? Do you have any idea how impossible that will be? Escaping once was a goddamned miracle, there’s no way I’ll be able to do it again.’

‘Escaping?’ He homed in on her use of the word. ‘What exactly did you need to escape? A life of idle luxury? Of low expectations and a schedule that was one hundred per cent geared to pleasure-seeking?’

Amelia gasped, shocked by the level of her anger, and by the hand that lifted and struck his cheek, by how good it felt to slap him, to release that tension, shocked by the way his flesh changed colour, darkening red in the shape of her palm, and at the way her stomach knotted—and not from tension so much as something infinitely darker and more dangerous. Shocked and delighted at how he gripped her wrist the moment after she’d connected with his skin, the way his fingers curled around her, held her hand in the air, so much stronger than she was, so easily able to command her body with his.

‘Did that feel good?’ he asked, eyes like lasers, cutting through her.

‘Yes.’ She didn’t bother to lie. ‘It felt bloody great, actually,’ she admitted, even when she knew she should feel ashamed. She’d never condoned violence, and it didn’t matter that she was his physical inferior, much slighter and weaker, it was still violence. It was still wrong.

His eyes flared, and heat arced between them, so despite her hatred for him, her fear at the thought of going home, that same heady throb of need was tormenting her, making it almost impossible to remember where she was, with whom, and why she had to fight this.

‘Do you want to hit me again?’ His thumb stroked the flesh of her inner wrist.

She shook her head, confused.

‘Don’t you?’

‘I don’t know what I want.’

His eyes flared at the unintentionally provocative comment. ‘You’re angry with me.’

‘Do you blame me?’

His lip contorted into something like a half-smile, but it was rich with sardonic mockery.

‘What I don’t understand,’ she continued, ‘is why you’re angry with me?’ Her pulse quickened, her body so close to his, the hand on her wrist too benign to explain the impact his proximity was having.

‘What makes you say that I am angry?’

‘I can tell.’

‘Are you a mind-reader?’

‘Don’t do that,’ she murmured.

‘Do what?’

‘Gaslight me. I know what I feel from you, and it’s anger.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted, though she saw surprise in his features, and something like grudging respect. ‘Fine, I am angry with you too.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of what you have put your family through. Because of how careless and selfish you have been.’

There it was again! A twitch in her fingers, an ache to slap him. Instead, she jerked at her hand, attempting to pull it free, but he held on and so her action had the unintended consequence of bringing her whole body forward, ramming it into his.

She closed her eyes on a husky, terrified groan of surrender.

His nostrils flared. ‘They love you, and you have turned your back on them, no matter the consequences.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t I? Unlike you, I have been around to witness the consequences.’

She shook her head, wanting to argue with him, wanting to tell him that they weren’t even her family anyway, that if they knew the truth, they wouldn’t want her...but how could she begin to explain? Besides, it was a secret she could never tell another soul, for her mother and father’s sake. She had to bear this burden herself—she’d learned her lesson after Daniel.

‘You think you know my family, but you don’t know me, and I have no intention of explaining my innermost thoughts to you. You don’t get to know what I’m feeling. That’s for me, and me alone. But I will tell you this: if I go home, it will complicate everything. It will potentially overshadow Anton’s wedding and ruin my parents’ lives. I’m not joking,’ she responded, when his lips curled once more into that hateful, derisive half-smile.

‘Anton has mentioned your flair for drama,’ he said simply, and then she wanted to slap him more than ever. Again she jerked at her wrist, but when he didn’t release it, she lifted her foot instead and stamped down on his, satisfied because he was barefoot and she still wore her sandals. She saw his immediate pain response, a tightening in his face, but otherwise he didn’t react, and shame at her base instinct quickly followed the satisfaction of having landed another strike against him.

‘Screw you,’ she said angrily, her breath coming in ragged spurts now as she glared up at him, something else entirely overtaking her. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and silently she willed him to kiss her.

‘You are going home, Amelia. There is no sense arguing about it now.’

‘You are insufferable!’ she shouted, shocked by her anger, by her lack of decorum, imagining what her tutors would say if they could see her now, wild and overpowered by rage.

‘Be that as it may, you shall have to learn to suffer me, for the next week at least.’

‘I will swim to shore if you do not turn this boat around.’

He laughed. He actually laughed!

Amelia couldn’t take it any more. She lifted her small fists and pummelled his chest, tears of frustration and impotence sparkling on her lashes. ‘I hate you!’ she said. ‘How dare you do this to me? How dare you?’

‘This conversation is futile,’ he said. ‘The next time this boat stops, it will be in a Catarno port. I suggest you take the next week to make your peace with that, and start working out how you can make amends to your long-suffering family.’

Her nostrils flared at his haughty, judgemental tone.

‘In the meantime, your bedroom is through there. As you clearly can’t stand being around me,’ he said, with indolent mockery layered over the words, ‘I suggest you go and make use of it.’

Amelia ground her teeth. He was the most arrogant, infuriating man she’d ever met. ‘This is a mistake.’

He lifted one shoulder, careless now. ‘Dinner is served at eight. Please feel free to join me. If you think you are capable of behaving with a level of basic civility, that is.’

‘You get what you deserve,’ she muttered, spinning on her heel and leaving the room, thinking she’d never been so glad to walk out on someone in her life.