Falling For His Convenient Queen. Therese Beharrie

that Zacchaeus wouldn’t notice it. He banished that hope by moving his mouth to her ear and whispering, ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      ‘You’re lying.’

      ‘I’m not,’ she said, her voice sharper than she intended.

      ‘Nalini.’

      The tone of his voice had her looking up again.

      And the moment she did she realised she’d made a mistake.

      She hadn’t noticed before that his eyes held specks of light around the irises. It made his face less intimidating, she thought, and wanted to reach up to smooth the creases between his eyebrows to make it even less so.

      ‘That’s perfect!’ Stefan shouted, shocking her hands into immobility. ‘Now kiss!’

      Her entire body froze as Zacchaeus’s eyes instantly changed from amused to something darker. To something more intense. Electricity crackled from them, hitting her with a voltage that woke all her nerves. It startled her, the intense response of her body to his.

      And suddenly she became aware of how taut his muscles had become, how hers had responded. If she kissed him, if she just touched her lips to his, maybe that tension would ease...

      Before Nalini fully knew what had happened, pain stunned the breath from her as she found herself on her butt. The bottom half of her body was completely wet from the water of the stream she now sat in. It took a moment for her brain to realise what had happened, but she didn’t fully have the time to contemplate it before she heard a splash of water.

      ‘Nalini, are you okay?’ Zacchaeus asked, crouching beside her.

      ‘I’m fine.’ She was pretty sure that she was, at least. ‘You shouldn’t be in here though. You’ll spoil your uniform.’

      ‘It’ll survive,’ he said wryly and offered her a hand. ‘Will you accept my help or are you going to ignore it to avoid touching me?’

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ she answered, though she hesitated before she took his hand. When she was standing, she looked down at her dress, no longer falling in an A-line around her hips but flattened to her sides. ‘I’ve spoilt this dress.’ She looked up at him. ‘You shouldn’t have come in and spoilt your uniform too.’

      ‘The uniform doesn’t matter, Nalini. Neither does your dress. But you do.’ His eyes searched her face. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

      ‘Of course I am,’ she replied, straightening her spine. Trying to maintain what little dignity she had left. ‘Besides my pride, I’m perfectly fine.’

      ‘I have to agree on that one.’

      ‘You do? Why?’

      ‘My pride’s tingling a bit too. After all, you did just fall into a stream to get away from me.’

      ‘That’s not what happened,’ she retorted, and then frowned. Was that really the reason she’d fallen into the stream? To get away from Zacchaeus? Now that the fogginess of the stun had cleared, she could remember taking a step back, away from him—no, she corrected. Away from kissing him. She hadn’t meant to make it obvious. She’d just wanted space to think, and to get away from the way her body felt when she touched him.

      To get away from how her body had reacted to the prospect of kissing him.

      Of course her attempt at subtlety had landed her on her butt in a stream.

      At that moment her eyes took in their spectators, clamouring against the fence surrounding the garden, their faces a mixture of surprise and concern. The faces of those she could see, that was, considering the number of phones she saw capturing everything that was happening.

      Stefan had a horrified expression on his face, although she had noted while Zacchaeus had been helping her that he’d still been taking photos. And then there was Zacchaeus’s face, wrought with concern and annoyance.

      All of it should have embarrassed Nalini. And, she supposed, she would feel that way later, when she’d had time to process it all. But right then the only logical response she could manage started low in her belly, bubbling up her throat until she couldn’t control the giggles any more.

      ‘How are you laughing at this?’ Zacchaeus asked, his eyes wide.

      ‘Because...’ She told herself to stop laughing, to answer him, but the more she tried, the more she kept laughing. ‘It’s just...so...ridiculous!’ she managed between fits of laughter. ‘I’m sorry, Zacchaeus,’ she said, wiping a tear from her eyes. ‘I know this must seem like a terribly inappropriate response, but I landed on my butt trying to get away—’

      She broke off at the deep sound that came from the man in front of her. He was laughing. Time ticked by, and still he laughed. The shock of seeing Zacchaeus laugh lasted only a few more seconds before she found herself joining him. She wasn’t sure how long they laughed together—she didn’t even care that there were witnesses to their momentary insanity. And when the laughter faded there was a sparkle in his eyes that had never been there before.

      It made those light flecks in his eyes that she’d only just noticed even more visible. Again, she wondered how she’d missed it, and felt unsettled, like a speck of dust that had been blown away.

      ‘It’s no wonder you don’t laugh very often,’ she murmured softly. ‘You’d have the entire female population falling at your feet.’