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Louis and I dined at a lovely French restaurant, where I struggled not to fall asleep while he rambled on about his summers in St. Tropez. Rhys sat at the next table with a glower so dark the diners on his other side requested to move tables.
By the time dinner ended, Louis was so flustered by the menacing presence less than three feet away he knocked over his wineglass and nearly caused a server to drop his tray of food.
“It’s all right,” I said, helping a mortified Louis clean up the mess while the server fussed over the stained linen tablecloth. “It was an accident.”
I glared at Rhys, who stared back at me without a hint of remorse.
“Of course.” Louis smiled, but the mortification in his eyes remained.
When we finished cleaning up, he left a generous tip for the server and bid me a polite good night. He didn’t ask me on a second date.
I wasn’t sad about it. I was, however, pissed at a certain gray-eyed pain in my butt.
“You scared Louis half to death,” I said when Rhys and I returned home. I couldn’t control the anger from seeping into my voice. “Next time, try not to unnerve my date so much he spills his drink all over himself.”
“If he scares that easily, he’s not worthy of being your date.” Rhys had dressed up to adhere to the restaurant’s dress code, but the tie and dinner jacket couldn’t mask the raw, untamed masculinity rolling off him in potent waves.
“You were armed and glaring at him like he killed your dog. It’s hard not to be nervous under those conditions.” I tossed my keys on the side table and slipped off my heels.
“I don’t have a dog.”
“It was a metaphor.” I unpinned my hair and ran my hand through the waves. “Keep it up and I’ll end up like one of those spinsters from historical romance novels. You’ve scared off every date I’ve had in the past year.”
One thing that hadn’t changed after all this time? My refusal to call him anything except Mr. Larsen, and his refusal to call me anything except princess.
Rhys’s scowl deepened. “I’ll stop scaring them off once you get better taste in men. No wonder your love life is in the dumps. Look at the twerps you insist on going out with.”
I bristled. My love life was not in the dumps. It was close, but it wasn’t there yet. “You’re one to talk.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I haven’t seen you date anyone since you started working for me.” I shrugged off my jacket, and his gaze slid to my bared shoulders for a fraction of a second before returning to my face. “You’re hardly qualified to give me dating advice.”
“I don’t date. Doesn’t mean I can’t spot worthless idiots when I see ‘em.”
I paused, startled by his admission. While Rhys was always by my side during the day, he was off duty after I turned in for the night. Sometimes he stayed in, sometimes he didn’t. I’d always assumed he was…busy on the nights he didn’t.
A strange mixture of relief and disbelief coursed through me. Disbelief, because while Rhys wasn’t the most charming guy on the planet, he was gorgeous enough for most women to overlook his surly attitude. Relief, because…well, I’d rather not examine that reason too closely.
“You’ve been celibate for two years?” The question slipped out before I could think it through, and I regretted it instantly.
Rhys arched an eyebrow, his scowl morphing into a smirk. “You asking about my sex life, princess?”
Embarrassment scorched my cheeks, both at my inappropriate question and at hearing the word “sex” leave his mouth. “I did no such thing.”
“I may not have attended a fancy college like you, but I can read subtext.” Amusement flashed in those gunmetal eyes. “For the record, dating and sex aren’t the same thing.”
Right. Of course.
Something unpleasant replaced my earlier relief. The idea of him “not dating” someone irked me more than it should’ve.
“I know that,” I said. “I don’t date everyone I have sex with, either.”
What am I saying?I hadn’t had sex in so long I was surprised my vagina hadn’t sued me for neglect, but I wanted to…what, prove Rhys wasn’t the only one who could have casual sex? Get a rise out of him?
If so, it worked, because his smirk disappeared and his drawl hardened. “And when was the last time you had non-dating sex?”
I lifted my chin, refusing to back down beneath the weight of his steely stare. “That is a highly inappropriate question.”
“You asked first,” he ground out. “Answer the question, princess.”
Breathe. I heard the palace communications secretary Elin’s voice in my head, coaching me on how to handle the press. You can’t control what they say, but you cancontrol what yousay. Don’t let them see you sweat. Deflect if necessary, take back the power, and guide the conversation where you want it to go. You are the princess. You do not cower in front of anyone. Elin was scary, but she was good, and I took her advice to heart as I struggled not to rise to Rhys’s bait.
One…two…three…
I exhaled and squared my shoulders, looking down my nose at him even though he towered over me by a good seven inches.
“I will not. This is where we end the conversation,” I said, my voice cold. Before it goes any more off the rails. “Good night, Mr. Larsen.”
His eyes called me a coward. Mine told him to mind his business.
The air pulsed with heavy silence during our staredown. It was late, and I was tired, but I’d be damned if I backed down first.
Judging by Rhys’s bullish stance, he had the same thought.
We might’ve stood there forever, glaring at each other, had it not been for the sharp trill of an incoming call. Even then, I waited for my phone to ring three times before I tore my eyes away from Rhys and checked the caller ID.
My annoyance quickly gave way to confusion, then worry, when I saw who was calling. Nikolai. My brother and I rarely spoke on the phone, and it was five a.m. in Eldorra. He was a morning person, but he wasn’t that much of a morning person.
I picked up, aware of Rhys’s gaze burning into me.