Page 18 of Twins For His Majesty (Royally Tempted #1)

Her hands gripped the railing, tightening around it.

‘Where in New Zealand are you from?’

‘Not far from Raglan. It’s on the North Island.’

He nodded. ‘Is that where you were planning to return to?’

She shook her head a little. ‘After my mum died, I moved to Auckland. That’s where I live now.

Where I lived.’ She frowned, remembering her old life with a shock.

It almost felt like something that had happened to someone else.

She thought of Christopher, recalled his text message, felt a hint of guilt for not returning it, but then anger that he’d thought he had any right to contact her.

‘Where you met your ex-fiancé?’

Had he been reading her mind?

‘Yes.’

‘How did you meet him?’

She bit into her lip. ‘I was a receptionist at a school, and he was a contractor brought in to run some professional development training for teaching staff. We got talking in the break room one day and…the rest is history.’

‘Love at first sight?’ he asked, and try as she might, she couldn’t detect even a hint of mockery in his question.

She shook her head. ‘I thought he was handsome, but I still wasn’t over losing my mum. It had been a couple of years by then, but I took it hard. I was struggling. I wasn’t ready to be involved with anyone.’

‘So how did you get together?’

‘He took it slow. He told me he understood. Bit by bit, he got me to open up. To trust him.’ Her voice shook with anger. ‘And then, to love him. Or to believe I loved him. Looking back, I don’t know if it’s possible to love someone who’s using you like that.’

His finger brushed her shoulder lightly. She turned to face him, and something shifted deep in her soul. Christopher seemed like a thousand lifetimes ago.

‘He hurt you.’

‘He changed me,’ she admitted, tilting her chin a little. ‘At the time it hurt, but I’m stronger because of what I went through. I would never trust so easily again. Maybe I’ll never trust anyone again,’ she amended. ‘But if I do, it would take a lot.’

‘Not everyone is capable of that kind of deceit. In fact, most people aren’t.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said with a lift of one shoulder.

‘I don’t know if it’s worth taking the risk.

There were no markers with him. Everything seemed so normal.

I had no reason to believe he was already married.

What kind of psychopath proposes to another woman when he’s married and expecting a baby, and then another, with his wife? ’

‘A psychopath, like you said,’ Octavio agreed. ‘You’re better off without him.’

‘I know that.’ She nodded. ‘I’m just glad I found out before we went through with some kind of sham marriage ceremony or something. I have no idea how far it would have gone if I hadn’t learned the truth.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘I was out at lunch. Christopher just happened to be at the same restaurant, with his wife, their children and his parents. It was mortifying.’

‘You hadn’t met his parents?’

‘No. He told me they were dead.’ Her voice trembled a little.

‘I literally ran right into him when I was paying the bill. His wife was beside him, holding their children’s hands.

Our eyes met and I just knew by the look of mortification in his face, the look of worry and fear that I might out him, that I’d been the Other Woman.

He couldn’t act like he didn’t know me—I’d said his name by then and asked what he was doing there.

I hadn’t realised until it was too late what was going on, so he had to come up with an elaborate lie about how we knew one another, and the penny finally dropped. ’

‘When was this?’

‘About two months before I flew to Castilona.’

‘That’s not long ago.’

She shook her head. ‘I came as quickly as I could pack up my life and get a passport sorted.’

‘He’s a bastard.’

‘Yes.’

His hand moved to her chin, touching it lightly. He looked as though he was concentrating hard. ‘You’re—’ His eyes dropped to her lips, lingered there, and though it was only a glance, it might as well have been a heady, intimate touch, for the way warmth spread through her.

‘I’m…?’ she prompted, but breathlessly, as though her lungs could hardly fill with air.

He closed his eyes then, the lashes forming thick, dark half moons against his tanned skin.

‘Forget it.’ His hand dropped away, and when he opened his eyes, determination was visible in their depths. ‘I didn’t bring you here to seduce you. You have boundaries and I intend to respect them. Let’s go get something to eat.’

Phoebe’s heart dropped to her toes even as it exploded in her chest.

‘You have boundaries and I intend to respect them.’

Then kiss me! she wanted to shout. Kiss me until my knees are weak and I forget I’ve ever, ever been hurt! Kiss me because when you kiss me everything makes a terrifying kind of sense, on a fundamental level. Kiss me now; kiss me and keep kissing me.

But she said none of those things, and Octavio stepped backwards and then walked in off the deck, leaving Phoebe alone with the fragrant sea-breeze.

‘There will be photographers,’ he warned, as they approached a sleek black sports car parked out front of the beachy holiday cottage. ‘Not specifically for us, yet, but because this town is the kind of place celebrities come. Don’t be surprised if there’s a lens pointed at you.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Great. Sounds like fun.’

‘You get used to it.’

‘Really? Aren’t we just going to get breakfast? That’s not particularly newsworthy.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

She sat in the front passenger seat and before she could do it herself, Octavio was reaching across Phoebe for the seat belt and sliding it into position.

His hands brushed her belly and Phoebe’s breath hissed between her teeth.

She jerked her gaze to his, wondering if he’d felt it.

The electric shock. The current of awareness.

‘Do you mind if I…’ He held one hand towards her stomach.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t mind. They’re your babies, too.’

‘But it’s still your stomach.’

‘Just a home right now,’ she said with a shrug.

He pressed his palm to her side and one of the babies kicked immediately. Phoebe laughed, her eyes meeting Octavio’s, who looked utterly shocked. ‘Was that—a baby?’

‘Yes.’

He swore under his breath. Another kick.

‘That baby is active. I think they like your touch.’

She had meant it as a simple observation, but she heard the words and wondered how they’d sounded to Octavio. Like an invitation? Did they prove that she was every bit as needy as she actually was?

‘Then I might have to touch more.’

‘It could be your voice, too,’ she murmured.

‘Talk, touch. We are here for two more nights—let’s experiment.’

Her heart raced. Two nights? It seemed like an eternity and nowhere near enough.

They had to drive through a heavily fortified security gate that was lined on either side by a fence at least four metres high, concealed by overgrown trees but nonetheless menacing and effective.

Once through it, on the short road to town, Octavio spoke about the surroundings, the village, making conversation almost as if they were friends.

It was so unexpected that when he pulled the car to a stop in the main street of a charming, ancient fishing port, she turned to him and blurted, ‘Why are you being so nice to me?’

He frowned a little. ‘I don’t actually know.

I keep reminding myself how mad I am with you, but then, when I’m with you, I find it hard to remember that.

I suppose I find myself thinking about the future, and the fact we’re having babies and wondering if we shouldn’t try to let bygones be bygones, to some extent.

If I think about you leaving the country, pregnant with my children, and never telling me the truth, I am furious.

And yet, that didn’t happen. Maybe it never would have happened; who knows?

You’re here, we’re married, our babies will grow up as my children, my heirs.

I have no interest in hating you for the sake of it. ’

She let out a long, slow breath.

If only it were that easy.

Maybe it could be?

But when she looked at Octavio, it was impossible not to feel wary.

Wary of how he’d hurt her, when he’d asked her to be his mistress.

Making her feel as though that was all she’d ever be good for.

Reminding her so clearly of how Christopher had made her feel.

Breaking her all over again. Not her heart but something more than that—her belief in herself; her essence.

She didn’t want to hate him either, but she was afraid to like him too much as well.

But so long as she remembered—remembered everything— like how easily Christopher had deceived her, how trusting she’d been.

Like how Octavio hadn’t been interested in her as a person—not in terms of wanting anything from her beyond sex—before he’d learned about the pregnancy.

This was and always would be about the twins; so long as she didn’t forget that, she’d be fine.

Maybe she could even take a page out of his book and let bygones be bygones…