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‘Backthen?’ he asked. ‘And there I was thinking you have considered me a bastard ever since.’ He let his gaze rake over her, determined to push this conversation onto another topic, one he was much more interested in. ‘You’ve certainly given a very good impression of it… Except for one particular evening when we were too busy tearing each other’s clothes off for you to remember how much you hated me.’
But instead of sparking the usual animosity, her gaze remained direct—and warm with compassion—which only disturbed him more.
* * *
‘Honestly, I don’t think I ever hated you, Rene,’ Mel murmured, astonished not just to realise it was true, but that she’d said it out loud.
After all, she’d spent the whole day in her room, staring at the walls—and the terrible weather outside—simply to avoid having to talk to him about anything, let alone admit something so potentially explosive.
But somehow, she couldn’t make herself regret it when his expression changed from cynical to guarded again.
‘You kept that opinion well-hidden all these years,’ he quipped, but he didn’t sound so self-assured any more, which felt like another important win.
Maybe it was dangerous to want to see behind the wall he had always kept around his emotions. But she had always been curious about Rene, the boy as well as the man. If she hadn’t, he never would have had the power to hurt her as a girl with those carelessly cruel barbs. Nor would she have fallen into bed with him so enthusiastically four years ago, as soon as he had shown an interest.
He’d been her first lover, was still her only lover, but she needed to stop beating herself up about that.
She’d tried to persuade herself for four years that he had never been that compelling, never that captivating and certainly not as complex as she’d wanted to make him. But she knew now that was always a lie she had told herself to stop herself from falling down that rabbit hole again.
Even when they were kids, he had fascinated her. How many afternoons had she spent bitching to Issy or to her mum about how awful he was, what a bully, what a meanie? When on some level she had enjoyed their sparring matches, even then. And had loved nothing more than to talk about him endlessly. Of course, at the time it had been on a kid-to-kid level, and a result of the fact that her father had paid her so little attention she’d had a self-destructive desire to get attention from anyone, however negative. But when she’d been eighteen and she’d spotted him in that nightclub, standing by the bar, and blurted out to her friends that she had grown up with the playboy prince, it really hadn’t taken much persuasion from them for her to approach him and say hi.
Their sparringthatnight had quickly become flirting, and she had basked in the same approval he was showing her now. No wonder she had been intoxicated. Because while she felt a lot older and wiser now, and a lot less reckless, he intoxicated her still.
And then there were all the contradictions, which she saw so clearly now. He’d teased them mercilessly as a teenager, yes, but he’d also been dumbstruck when Isabelle had burst into tears. He’d treated her with care and attention in London too, making her first time memorable, even though he’d been gone the next day. And while he’d been a dictatorial jerk after the New Year’s Eve Ball, he’d also nearly killed himself to get her to safety during the snowstorm. And then shown her heaven again in the early hours of the morning, however ill-advised it had been to succumb to their chemistry.
Her judgements of him and his behaviour towards her had never been objective. Because he excited and captivated her as much as he infuriated her… And he was right. As a boy, despite those hurtful nicknames, he had never treated her as the cook’s daughter—but as a worthy opponent. And ever since, despite the huge difference in their status, she had always been able to be herself with him.
The revelation felt sobering but also strangely liberating.
She’d always considered him the villain and herself a fool for feeling anything for him at all, sure that the way she gravitated towards him had been down to nothing more than animal attraction—and some pathetic, unacknowledged desire to get approval from men. And, like so many women, she had confused sex with intimacy. But it was suddenly so clear there had always been more between them than just chemistry. A sort of prickly affection which saw each other’s faults and enjoyed exploiting them. After all, fighting with him had always been as exhilarating as it was frustrating.
As he stared back at her, the expression on his face so wary, she found herself saying something she realised she wished she’d had the guts to say that night. And every time since when she’d used anger to cover her hurt.
‘I wanted to hate you, Rene, after that night, because you were my first lover and I thought we’d made a connection, and then you ghosted me. And less than a month later you proposed to Isabelle. It hurt, knowing you could discard me so easily, but what hurt more was knowing I’d been stupid enough to invest so much emotionally in something so fleeting.’
His eyebrows launched up his forehead and he straightened. ‘What do you mean, I was your first lover? Are you saying youwerea virgin after all?’ He swore under his breath. The shock on his face felt good—a vindication for that broken-hearted drama queen who had fallen asleep with dreams of spending the rest of her life in Rene’s arms, only to wake up the next day and find the bed cold and empty beside her.
When Isabelle had told her of his proposal a few weeks later, it had devastated her… In her head, of course, she had understood his decision to ask the Queen of Androvia for her hand in marriage had been a political choice not an emotional one, but the hurt had still festered for years afterwards.
‘You told me you’d had a ton of lovers when I asked,’ he said, his expression fierce with outrage and regret. ‘Why the hell did you lie?’
She smiled, she couldn’t help it, his volatile reaction to her virginity not just surprising but oddly flattering. Maybe that night had meant something to him, too.
She shrugged. ‘Honestly, I think I was embarrassed about my inexperience.’ Although if she had known his reaction would be this satisfying, she definitely would not have kept it a secret. ‘And I was scared if you knew I was a virgin you might freak out and stop,’ she added. ‘And I definitely didn’t want you to do that!’
He leapt up from the stool, then paced across the kitchen. He grasped his neck, massaged muscles which looked tight with tension. When he paced back again, his glare was full of accusation and more emotion than he had ever shown her before.
Another hit goes to Mel’s virginity.
‘You should have told me, dammit. I would have been more careful,’ he said.
It was the last thing she had expected him to say, and it was her turn to feel the direct hit. Raw affection swelled against her ribs because he’d been more than careful enough. He’d made her first time spectacular, which she knew from the experiences she’d heard about from other girls at college was not the norm.
‘You wouldn’t have stopped then?’ she asked, not ashamed any more to search for validation. She’d spent the last four years regretting that night bitterly, so it felt stupidly empowering to know he had been as blown away as she had—at least on a physical level.
His gaze jerked to hers. ‘Not unless you had asked me to,’ he said, sounding pained. ‘But even that would have required a titanic effort as I was close to being past the point of no return as soon as I got you naked.’ He slumped back down on the stool, tension bristling across those broad shoulders. That would be the same shoulders she’d clung to two nights ago.
Perhaps now would be a good time to admit what had happened the night of their arrival. Because her knee-jerk decision to lie again when he had asked her a direct question was beginning to look like a throwback to that misguided, insecure girl who had spent so much of her life hiding her needs and desires because she was scared they would never be reciprocated.