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Dear God, she thought hazily. If he could do this with just a kiss, what could he do with—with…?
Thoughts dissolved as he increased the tempo, his hand sliding from hip to waist and then to her breast, cupping one mound and toying with her nipple. The cry smashed between their lips made him groan. Made him mutter thick words before he delved back for a longer taste.
‘You see what you do to me?’ he rasped against her mouth after they came up for breath.
The sound she emitted was nowhere near coherent. She was about to seize his nape, beg for another taste, when a firm rap on the door knocked some sense into her.
Her hand dropped to her side, just as his dropped from her breast. But he didn’t move, leaving her flushing anew at the thick evidence of his need pressed against her stomach.
‘It’s just…ch-chemistry,’ she stuttered forcefully.
He didn’t even raise that imperious brow to mock her. They both knew otherwise. The potency of their attraction to one another defied reason and he wasn’t going to waste his time debating the issue.
Instead he peered deep into her eyes, and that not-so-quiet storm wrapped around her, lashing her with urgent electricity. ‘The wedding will proceed as planned. You will marry me and let me place a crown upon your head. Yes?’
Eden frowned. Wondered why he kept pushing rewards and crowns at her as if it was the culmination of a goal for him. But his proximity was addling her brain. And, really, her fundamental reason for doing this hadn’t changed. Max. Wouldn’t it be better to get it over and done with so she could spend precious time with her son?
‘Yes. Okay.’
Again, she only saw it because she was staring as intensely at him as he was at her. The flash of relief before he stepped back, issued a command for the visitor to enter.
She wasn’t even upset by Gaspar’s interruption with more reams of protocol that needed to be studied and mastered before the big day.
She threw herself into it, because otherwise she would have spent far too much time dissecting that look. Stressing over just how much of herself she’d given to Azar Domene once upon a time in Arizona.
* * *
They didn’t speak about feelings again—his or hers. She’d walked that tightrope and avoided plunging into an emotional landmine. And in the weeks that followed she was thankful for that distance, she told herself.
Even thankful for her decision when she saw how Max thrived beneath the attention of his father, his grandfather and the endless relatives who arrived in a steady torrent to satisfy their various curiosities about the future King and his newly discovered heir.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE BIG DAYgalloped towards her with as much drama and dread as an invading army.
Coronation and wedding rehearsals took place at the stunning San Mirabet basilica attached to the royal palace with such relentless frequency and attention to detail that Eden suspected she could recite the process in her sleep.
She knew she was reaching breaking point when her engagement made headline news around the world, with renowned journalists jostling for the right to conduct her first ever public interview, and the palace insisted she needed to comply.
‘I’m not ready to sit down with anyone who wants to pry into a past I don’t remember. It’s not fair on me, or you and your family,’ she stated firmly at dinner one night, after yet another full day of firm pushing from well-meaning palace staff. The very idea of it churned her stomach, despite one of the journalists being a woman Eden greatly admired for her integrity and plain speaking.
‘Then don’t do it,’ said Azar.
She blinked in wary surprise. He’d been doing this a lot lately.Accommodatingher.Disarmingher. Any second now, the other shoe would drop. It always did. Didn’t it?
‘Just like that? But I thought I had toconform?’
Her wry stress on the word earned her a sardonic smile, then Azar shrugged.
‘You’ll soon learn that dealing with the palace council is a constant tug of war. It might feel like the odds are against you, but remember you hold the ultimate power. Sometimes that involves making one big sacrifice, or a series of smaller ones they don’t see coming until you’ve won.’
She pondered that for several minutes. Then, plucking her phone from her pocket, she dialled her private secretary’s number.
‘Tell the council I won’t be giving public interviews until after the wedding. And then it’ll be an exclusive to Rachel Mallory. Yes, it’s her or no one else. Thank you.’
She hung up to find Azar watching her with a fierce gleam in his eyes. ‘What?’
‘Taking control suits you.Brava, cara.’