The Prince's Chambermaid. Sharon Kendrick

is something preventing us? Some commitment you have made to another man perhaps?’ But he spoke with the natural arrogance of someone who knew that there was not another man who could not be cast aside in the light of his own wishes. The Prince’s desire overrode anything. The only thing was that meant he might have to wait…and he did not want to wait—not when his appetite felt so exquisitely and unexpectedly sharpened.

      Cathy shook her head—her pulse racing erratically. How could she think straight when he was looking at her like that? ‘No. There isn’t.’ She bit her lip as she remembered the sense of aloneness and rejection which had flooded through her on receipt of Peter’s letter. ‘There was…there was someone. I was engaged to be married, but…but…’

      ‘But what?’ prompted Xaviero, eager to get this one last obstacle out of the way.

      ‘He…he…well, it’s over.’

      Xaviero allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. A fiancé meant that she was experienced—but that she had been faithful, too. Had the man broken her heart? he wondered idly. And if that were the case—couldn’t he, Xaviero, show her that there was life after the end of a love affair? And that she could enjoy the caresses of another man…

      He traced the outline of her quivering lips almost thoughtfully, recognising that in a way she would be getting the very best and yet the very worst of a postfiancé lover. Because he was undoubtedly the finest lover she would ever know—but she would spend her whole life searching fruitlessly for a man to equal him.

      ‘So let’s make love,’ he said simply.

      ‘Your Highness!’ she breathed, even though she realised that her protest lacked any real conviction. The look of intent which had darkened his golden eyes was just too beguiling—the expectation that he was about to hold her too tantalising to resist. And the sense of burning hunger in her empty heart was like nothing she had ever experienced before. Should she stop him? Shouldn’t she even try?

      She would never know. Because now he was pulling her into his arms with a smile on his lips which made her desperately want to kiss him. To relive the amazing sensations he’d awoken in her the other day. Half-heartedly Cathy twisted in his arms but the movement brought from him a low and mocking laugh and she quickly realised why—as she collided with a rock-hard and very formidable groin. She felt the mad, frantic race of her heart and the intoxicating fizz of her blood—her body blindly reacting to the sweet sensation of his touch.