Out of nowhere a new road had been carved through the once impenetrable barriers of her mind, allowing her access to places within herself she didn’t really want to go. It was easier to focus on other things—such as the fact that Max had obviously been busy whilst she had slept, as evidenced by the lit fire and the small banquet she could now see laid out on low tables within reach of the sitting room’s luxuriously comfortable and deeply upholstered sofas. She could see fruit from the royal succession houses—peach, fig, nectarines—and almond sweets dusted with sugar—an Island speciality like the delicately flavoured local goats cheese, roasted and mixed with salad, served with seeded flat unleavened local bread and island-grown olives. There was even a bottle of the island’s wine, although it was a glass of champagne that Max now poured for her.
Her sister’s favourite drink. Her hand trembled, her heart chilling.
Max watched Ionanthe, trying to hold on to his resolution. He had chosen their food deliberately, focusing on what the island produced in an attempt to remind himself of his duty instead of giving way to his personal need.
Only now, in the aftermath of their shared passion, was the true legacy of what he had done hitting him. He had allowed his pride and his anger to push him into ignoring the warnings he had already registered, which he should have listened to. Warnings such as the unexpectedly powerful effect Ionanthe had had on his senses at their first meeting. Warnings regarding his increasing awareness of his desire for her. Warnings which had urged him to recognise that it would be fatally easy to step off the path he had chosen for himself. Because—most dangerous of all—it wasn’t merely physically that she affected him.
Was she aware that the small banquet in front of her comprised food and drink that came from the island but which was available only to the very wealthy? This kind of food and drink could and should provide not only a better diet for the people of the island but could also be exported, to provide them with a better income and bring in money which could be invested to the benefit of everyone—helping to pay for an improved infrastructure, for schools and hospitals and ultimately, through them, bringing better jobs for people and brighter futures. Or was she oblivious to all of that? Unknowing and uncaring?
Even worse, was she, as her sister had been, not just oblivious to but actively against the plans he had to persuade those who held most of the island’s fertile land by virtue of nothing more than inherited titles to allow it to be let out at a peppercorn rent for the benefit of the people? He planned to do so with much of the land he himself as Prince now owned. But her grandfather, after all, had been the most antagonistic of all his courtiers, and Max had swiftly come to recognise that the Baron’s plan to marry his granddaughter to him had not just been to secure for her the highest status in the island but, more ambitiously, because he had hoped to influence and if possible rule the island from behind the throne.
Max could still remember the quarrel between them after he had told Eloise that he would not take her to South of France to attend a celebrity party because he had set up a meeting with some Spanish growers whose advice he wanted to seek. She had announced with semi-drunken spite that he was a fool, and that her grandfather would never allow him to put his plans into practice.
He had known then that their marriage was dead. The revulsion with which Eloise had filled him had ensured that.
And Ionanthe was her sister. Brought up by the same man and in the same manner. He must not forget that.
He waited for her to take the glass of champagne he had poured for her, but Ionanthe shook her head.
‘Some, wine, then?’ he offered. ‘Although I should warn you that it is strong and…’
‘You should warn me?’ Ionanthe stopped him. ‘You seem to be forgetting that I grew up here—that I am perfectly well aware of the strength of our home-grown wine.’ As she spoke Ionanthe reached for the bottle and poured herself a glass. She would rather have drunk poison, she told herself bitterly, than to drink her sister’s beloved bubbly.
The truth was that she rarely drank alcohol at all, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. Lifting her glass to her lips, she took a deep swallow. The firelight on the glass warmed the potent darkness of its contents, just as the wine itself was now warming her, spreading a heat that relaxed the angry tension that had been clutching tight fingers round her heart.
She drank some more, grateful for the wine’s immediate and empowering effect on her senses. And then she made the mistake of looking directly at Max, and immediately that empowerment transformed itself into a dizzying and weakening surge of female awareness of his maleness, heightened by her body’s memory of the pleasure he had already shown it.
Could two gulps of wine be enough to make her feel like this? Far more likely her blood sugar level had plunged and she needed something to eat, Ionanthe reassured herself, turning abruptly towards the table. Embarrassingly, she almost stumbled, so that Max had to step forward and take hold of her.
Wide-eyed, she looked up at him. Why was it that the expensive fabric of her peignoir suddenly felt oppressive? Its touch was making her nipples feel so acutely sensitive that she wanted to pull it off. Why was it, too, that her heart was thudding so heavily and so unsteadily?
Steadying her with one hand, Max removed the wine glass from her hold with the other, putting it down and then telling her, ‘I think you should sit down, don’t you?’ He guided her towards the sofa.
No, Ionanthe thought rebelliously as he calmly but firmly urged her onto the sofa. What I should do is go back to bed, so that you can do everything you did before all over again.
Shock spiralled through her. Was she really having such alien thoughts? Where had they come from?
Max watched her with a small frown. She’d hardly touched the wine and yet her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brilliant, her lips swollen with promise.
His groin began to ache. His frown deepened. More sex wasn’t what he had had in mind when he had ordered this intimate supper and instructed the staff to leave them alone. What he had wanted to do was find out what basis they might have for beginning a relationship that might work.
He reached for the plate of figs that was close to his hand, intending only to ensure that Ionanthe had something to eat. But when he offered the plate to her she used her free hand to hold his wrist as she took one, so that he could not put the plate down or step back from her without pushing her away.
Her gaze on his, she bit into the fruit, causing its dusting of powdered sugar to cling to her lips and fall to her body, speckling the flesh exposed by the opening of her robe.
The fig was sweet and sticky. When she had finished eating it Ionanthe looked round for a napkin, and then put one of her fingers in her mouth and licked it.
Max felt reaction implode inside him, wiring his whole body to immediate fierce desire. He put down the plate and reached for Ionanthe’s arm, taking the sticky fingers one by one into his own mouth and sucking slowly on them.
Ionanthe drew in her breath and then exhaled it on a small sob of physical delight, silenced when Max released her hand to kiss the sweetness from her mouth. When she wanted to demand something more intimate he used his tongue to lick the sugar from her skin at the V her robe exposed—the tantalisingly small area of flesh where her breasts started to rise from the valley between them. Her nipples pressed eagerly against her peignoir, the agitation of her breathing increasing the silk’s movement against them so that the delicate friction became a torment of aroused sensitivity. Wild thoughts flashed though her head, filling her with reckless excitement.
She pushed Max away, giving him a small secret smile when he obeyed, but looked as though he had done so with reluctance. She reached for the plate Max had put down and then, balancing it on her lap, unfastened her wrap and shrugged her arms free of