Chapter Eleven #2
He stiffened momentarily, then continued gliding her across the floor, his eyes fixed on her face, gauging her every emotion. ‘I don’t recall taking a photo with you. So I fail to see how this is problematic,’ he drawled in the end, effortlessly unbothered.
It struck her then that she was perhaps reading too much into it. That as virile, rampantly male as Valenti was, he would see nothing wrong with looking at a woman the way he did in that picture. That with his vast worldly experience, he would shrug it off. Because she meant nothing to him.
Her stomach dipped in dismay. Her smile felt brittle as spun glass. ‘Fine.’
She fixed her gaze over his shoulder, willing the song to end, willing whatever machinations gleamed in his eyes as he continued staring fiercely at her not to manifest.
‘But clearly you’re fretting about it, so perhaps I should see this picture,’ he stated unexpectedly, just as the last strains of the music echoed in the grand ballroom. ‘Come.’ He held out his hand again.
‘Don’t you have to dance with other women?’
His gaze remained on her, that drilling intensity building. ‘No, I saved the last dance for you.’
Lotte told herself she really hated him for the ease with which he controlled the rollercoaster of her emotions. It didn’t stop her from taking his hand again, walking him back to the terrace where she’d left her clutch.
Hands shaking, she fished out her phone. Displayed the picture.
Watched his nostrils flare and his jaw ripple. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the millions of views.
Thin-lipped, he raised his head and held out the phone. ‘Is there a reason you’ve waited this long to show it to me? Or why you didn’t delete it in the first place?’ he enquired, his voice silk wrapped in a scimitar.
‘I didn’t see it myself until a short while ago.’ She pulled a shrug out of her dwindling composure bag. ‘Deleting it now will only fan the flames.’
‘There are no flames to fan,’ he said in an octave so low and deep, she stepped closer to hear him.
Her heart dropped, but she refused to be cowed. ‘Are you sure?’
Livid eyes lit on her face. ‘Be very careful what you say next, Lotte.’
Her heart dipped lower. ‘Why? You’ve built a monument of self-pity to yourself and fortified it with a self-righteous fortress.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m thinking I’m wasting my time attempting to get through to you.’
‘Melodramatics aren’t quite necessary, Lotte.’
‘Oh, screw you, Valenti,’ she hissed. ‘I will have my say. You won’t get to throw me out this time before I have.’
His head jerked back, a haughty motion primed to remind her of his status and power.
‘I’m your guardian. I know what’s best for you.
Don’t blow what we did out of proportion.
’ His eyes flicked to the phone, disdain flickering over his breathtaking features.
‘It’s borderline infatuation based on heightened emotion and enforced proximity and I daresay a level of childish defiance on your part.
I’m saving you embarrassment and undue distress in the long run. ’
‘God, what is it about this place that makes you repeatedly reject me?’ she muttered, despair clawing her soul.
He frowned. ‘What?’
She shook her head. ‘You should finish the job you started last time I was here, step over here and pat me on the head, maybe ruffle my hair while you’re at it.
Because I’m a simple child who needs placating, aren’t I?
Who played at being grown up but isn’t quite up to your standard of sophistication?
Or is it something else? You’re too busy being a martyr? Is that what I’m dealing with here?’
Silver eyes narrowed. ‘Watch it, litla.’
Misery and fury mixed into a lethal cocktail. ‘You’ve lost the right to call me that. And why should I watch it? Aren’t we speaking plainly?’
‘Plain speaking, sure. But impertinence will get you—’
‘What? Another spanking?’
Electrified silence thrummed between them after that terribly unwise question. She wouldn’t have believed he could get any more rigid, but it happened right before her eyes.
Had she not known better, she would’ve toyed with the idea that Valenti didn’t want to move for fear of what would happen.
Hell, she didn’t want to move. Because the way her heart was hammering, the reminder of everything that had happened after he spanked her, blazed like the showiest Times Square billboard through her mind.
After an eternity, he finally moved, stalking closer.
She tilted her head to meet his gaze and almost wished she hadn’t. His eyes were mercury lakes, intent on swallowing her whole.
‘You’re drawing ever closer to one of those fires I warned you about.’
‘Am I? Then I think I’ll go for broke, shall I? Since you’ve been painstakingly avoiding me, you won’t know that I’ve been busy this past week. Amongst other things, I had my lawyer look at the terms of the guardianship.’
Displeasure marched like angry little soldiers across his face. ‘You have a lawyer?’ he said icily.
‘Oh yes, I’ve learned to take many pages from your book, approach things clinically.
As you probably know, and it came as a pleasant surprise to me, it states on page eleven of the guardianship contract that I have options.
I guess, I should thank you for not making the whole thing entirely draconian and in your favour.
’ She pinned on a bright smile, one that didn’t sway him a bit if the darkening of his features was a clue.
‘Options?’ he bit out.
‘Hmm. Specifically, one way to free myself of this whole guardian-ward melodrama is if I simply…get married.’
She looked back into the grand ballroom, not bothering to keep the wistful expression off her face. She wanted him to see it, to know deep in his soul how his rejection hurt. ‘Good old-fashioned marriage,’ she mused with a fake smile. ‘Once again to the rescue.’
He exhaled harshly, came within a whisker of losing control. But being the great Prince Valenti Domene, he recalibrated with infuriating ease, his face smoothing out as if the infinitesimal faltering hadn’t happened.
But the bleak fury on his face, and the hand snapping out to grip her hip told a different story.
‘If this is a joke it isn’t funny at all—’
‘Who says it’s a joke? Do you know how many marriage proposals I receive on a daily basis? Especially since I went super viral?’
His Adam’s apple moved, his expression tight with dire warning. ‘It also says you need my approval for any such marriage to take place.’
‘Approval yes, but it doesn’t say it has to be written.’ She shrugged. ‘So really, who’s to say I don’t have my dear old guardian’s wholehearted blessing when I hop on a plane to Vegas and find an Elvis impersonator to do the deed, then present you with a fait accompli?’
‘I’d advise you not to waste your time trying. You won’t get anywhere near a wedding chapel. Not while I still draw breath.’
‘Be careful about daring me, Valenti. I might just cut off my nose to spite your rejection.’
‘Lotte—’
She pushed away from him, not bothered by who saw them.
People could draw whatever conclusions they wanted. Besides, weren’t weddings the very place for a little melodrama? ‘I’m done dancing around you. There’s a platter of shrimp calling my name. Or is it the vintage champagne? Either one is preferable to staying here with you.’
She turned and strutted back into the ballroom, past the dance floor, putting a little extra sway into her hips because, God, he infuriated her and saddened her and treated her heart like it was a disposable toy, and she was damned if she would continue to hope that something… anything broke through to him.
It never would, she realised.
She was too late. While he’d been locked in duty and purpose and mourning his one failure and shattered dreams, Valenti Domene’s heart had calcified into stone. Nothing and no one would get through. Not with empathy. Or laughter.
Or…love.
The no-holds-barred undying kind she’d bent over to relabel as anything else. Crush. Frustration. Defiance. Good, old-fashioned sublime sex. It had all eventually led to one truth. She loved her guardian more than life itself.
While he felt…nothing.
So she would rather go live a half life somewhere else than break herself on the jagged cliffs of his rejection.
The old King was sitting at a table close by, and Lotte wasn’t entirely sure what made her look over at him. But when she met the silver eyes he’d passed to his sons, and caught a gleam of approval in his gaze, she nearly sobbed.
She bobbed an abbreviated curtsy—she still didn’t know how to execute a perfect one—then immediately changed course, striking for the imposing doors that led to an alcove.
The thought of food made her stomach heave, especially that shrimp she’d loftily mentioned. But the bottle of vintage Krug nestling in a nearby silver ice bucket virtually screamed her name.
She snatched it on her way out the door, taking a huge gulp straight from the bottle the moment she stepped onto another terrace with wide stone steps winding down opposite sides onto the landscaped grass. She took the left set, rushed to the bottom then immediately spat out the champagne.
Her period was still two weeks past a no-show. At first she’d thought it was the stress of everything she’d lived through the past two months. But in the last week, she’d started to wonder. To hope.
If she was carrying Valenti’s child…
The sob finally tore free as she discarded the bottle on the last step.
Kicking her heels away, she stepped onto the lush grass and sucked in a deep breath that didn’t quite hit the bottom, leaving her still breathless.
Breathless with heartache. Breathless with misery.
She wanted to scream at fate for the relentless barrage of desolation, but it stuck in her lungs. Because if she was being truthful with herself, she regretted very little of what had happened between her and Valenti.