What broke her out of her shock was the fact that Alix had stopped talking. Feeling sick, Leila walked to the door, silent on the carpet. He was still standing at the window with his hands in his pockets. Master of all he surveyed—including, as he obviously believed, his innocent, gullible lover. A ruthless man who saw her only as a vehicle to help him regain his throne.
Leila felt the slow burn of an anger so intense it made her tremble. She only wanted one thing: to walk away from Alix and forget that she’d ever met him, forget that she’d repeated the sin of her mother: falling for the first man to seduce her.
* * *
Alix’s brain was still whirring after the phone call. Had he really told Andres that he was prepared to make Leila his wife? His Queen?
Yes. He waited for a sense of regret, panic or claustrophobia. But even now it felt right. He’d never met anyone like her. She was sweet, innocent...and yet not so innocent any more. His body tightened as he recalled how quickly she’d learned, her shyly erotic, bold moves in bed, how she’d taken him in her mouth and tasted him a few short hours ago.
His body went still. A familiar figure walking quickly across the square came into his line of vision and his breath caught.
It was Leila, and she was carrying her holiday bag—the only woman he’d ever known not to travel with twelve pieces of luggage. Where was she going? His skin prickled uncomfortably when he recalled the phone conversation—was there a chance she’d overheard him?
But if she had why was she walking away? What woman would walk away from the prospect of a man like him making their union permanent?
A small voice whispered: A woman like Leila.
Alix was about to follow her when his phone rang again. He picked it up and said curtly, ‘Yes?’ He could see her now, disappearing into her shop, and he didn’t like the flare of panic in his gut. The feeling that if he didn’t follow her he’d never see her again.
‘Your Majesty, are you there? We need to discuss plans for when the result of the referendum is announced tomorrow.’
Tomorrow. Tomorrow was when his life would change for ever. That reminder was a jolt to Alix. A jolt that told him he was in danger of losing focus when he needed it most. Over a woman. Even if she was the woman he’d chosen to be his Queen, she was still just a lover, a woman, peripheral to his life.
Alix pushed the insidious feeling of something slipping out of his grasp out of his head and concentrated on the call. For half an hour. When it was finally over he went to look out of the window again, and when he took in the view, every muscle in his body locked tight.
Leila was across the square, closing the door to her shop. The blinds were down and she was dressed in jeans, sneakers and a jacket. With a wheelie travel bag.
And as he watched she hitched up the handle on her bag and started to walk swiftly away from the shop, the bag trailing behind her.
* * *
Leila was almost at the corner of the street when Alix caught up with her, catching her arm. She didn’t turn around and he felt the tension in her body.
‘How much did you hear?’ He directed the question to the back of her head.
She turned around then, and Alix steeled himself for some emotion, but Leila’s face was expressionless in a way he’d never seen before. It sent something cold through him—along with a very uncomfortable sense of exposure.
‘Enough. I heard enough, Alix.’ She pulled her arm free and said, ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch.’
Alix frowned. Just a couple of hours ago he’d left her sated and flushed from their lovemaking in his bed. He’d whispered words to her—words he’d never thought he’d hear himself say to any woman. That sense of exposure amplified.
‘Where are you going?’
Leila looked surprised. ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’ve got to go to Grasse to discuss sharing new factory space with an old mentor of my mother’s.’
Alix felt panic and he didn’t like it. ‘No, you didn’t tell me.’
Leila looked at her watch. ‘Well, I must have forgotten to mention it—’
She went to walk around him but he stopped her with a hand on her arm again. It felt slender under his hand.
Leila looked expressively at his hand. ‘Let me go, please.’
‘You had no plans to go anywhere until you overheard that conversation.’
Her eyes blazed into his. ‘Don’t you mean your royal decree?’
Alix was aware that they were drawing interest from passers-by and he saw the glint of something in the distance that looked suspiciously like the lens of a paparazzi camera.
He gritted his jaw. ‘We need to talk—and not in the street.’
Leila must have seen something on his face, because she looked mutinous for a second and then pulled her arm free again and started back towards her shop.
Alix took her case from her hand, although she held on to it until she obviously realised it would end up in a tug of war. She let him take it and the incongruity of the fact that he, Alix Saint Croix, was tussling over a case in the street with a woman was not lost on him.
When she’d opened the door to her shop they stepped inside and she shut it again. Alix fixed his gaze on her pale face. ‘Why were you leaving?’ And without saying goodbye... He bit back those words. Women didn’t say goodbye to him—he said goodbye to them.
She folded her arms across her chest. She was mad at him—that much was patently obvious. ‘I was leaving because I need to sort my business out. And also because your arrogance is truly astounding.’ She unlocked her arms enough to point a finger at herself. ‘How dare you assume that I’m falling in love with you? We’ve only known each other for two weeks. Or did you think that because I was a virgin I had less brain cells than the average woman and would fall for the first man I slept with?’
Alix felt something violent move through him at the implication that there would be more men and that he’d just been the first.
Now she looked even angrier. ‘You told someone called Andres I was a virgin. How dare you discuss my private details with anyone else?’
Alix gritted his jaw harder. ‘Unfortunately the life of a royal tends to be public property. But it wasn’t my right to divulge that information.’
Leila huffed a harsh-sounding laugh. ‘Well, that’s a life I have no intention of ever knowing anything about, so from now on I’d appreciate it if you kept details of our affair to yourself. You can rest assured, Your Majesty, I’m not falling in love with you.’
Alix told himself she wouldn’t have run like that if something about overhearing that phone call hadn’t affected her emotionally.
His eyes narrowed on her. ‘So you say.’
‘So I mean,’ Leila shot back, terrified that he’d seen something else on her face. ‘I’ve saved you the bother of having to pretend that you feel something for me, so I’ll save you more time with the undoubtedly fake romantic proposal you had in mind...the answer is no.’
Alix lifted a brow. ‘You’d say no to becoming a queen? And a life of unlimited wealth and luxury?’
Leila’s stomach roiled. ‘I’d say no to a marriage devoid of any real human emotion living in a gilded cage. How can you, of all people, honestly think I’d want to bring a child into the world to live with two parents who are acting out roles?’
Alix’s eyes were steely. ‘You weren’t