The Mills & Boon Ultimate Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

she looked stunning in a shoulderless figure-hugging long black satin dress with matching elbow-length gloves. Her raven hair had been curled and pulled into a chignon, long ringlets loosened to frame her porcelain face.

      ‘It was thinking with the anatomy below my waist and not my head that’s got us into this trouble. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?’

      A range of emotions flickered over her sweet, heart-shaped face but she held his gaze.

      He truly would have to be dead from the waist down not to desire her. There had hardly been a moment since he’d left her room in the Agon palace when he hadn’t thought of her.

      When they’d made love that night, she’d been a virgin. He’d taken things slowly, gently coaxing her eager responses. As a married couple, even with the imposed time limit, they would have all the time in the world to explore each other’s desires. To imagine peeling that dress off and discovering all her secret, hedonistic fantasies...

      He couldn’t act on it.

      Catalina was a princess, and that shone through her every word and deed. He should never have seduced her in the first place.

      He’d impregnated her and caused a potentially terminal rift in her family. Further proof, as if it were needed, that he was rotten to his core. He would not allow himself to cause any more damage.

      ‘I suggested we meet here because I needed to be sure that we can speak freely,’ she said.

      ‘You don’t think that’s possible in the palace?’

      ‘I know it isn’t. There’s not a telephone conversation within the palace walls that isn’t recorded. My father and Dominic have spies everywhere.’

      ‘What are you worried about them hearing?’

      Before she could answer, the theatre lights dimmed and the orchestra, set low in the pit before the stage, struck up. Then the curtains were drawn back and the production began.

      Catalina waited until it had started in earnest before answering. Nathaniel was forced to lean in close to hear her above the noise, inhaling that irresistible scent in the process.

      It was her scent that had captured his attention to begin with.

      When he’d first met Catalina at a society party in France a number of years ago, her choice of perfume when he’d leaned in for the polite kisses on the cheek had intrigued him. She was the quintessential Princess, always dressed impeccably, graceful and elegant in both speech and manner. He would have expected a light floral perfume, something girlish and rather innocent. Yet she wore a sultry scent that evoked thoughts of long hot nights and dusky mornings.

      He’d made love to her knowing she was a virgin. Again, she had confounded his expectations. He’d assumed she would be shy. She had been the opposite.

      The demure woman sitting so elegantly beside him had a fire in her soul that had set him ablaze. Unless he was willing to risk them both being burnt, he would never touch her again.

      ‘I wanted to speak freely because I am concerned for your safety.’

      ‘What are you talking about?’

      ‘My brother has a pathological loathing of you.’

      ‘I am aware of that. He’s never liked me. Trust me, the feeling is mutual but I would never wish to harm him.’ Nathaniel grimaced. ‘Sorry, that was a lie. I admit, there have been numerous occasions when I would have liked to give him a good hiding.’

      Her lips twitched. She put a hand to her mouth and cleared her throat. ‘Forgive me for asking, but what happened between you at school? Dominic never went into detail but I remember him coming home for the Christmas holidays when I was a child crowing that you’d been expelled.’

      His mouth pursed and he shook his head. ‘We fell out over a girl.’

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘He caught me in bed with his girlfriend at our school Christmas party.’

      She gave a surprised bark of laughter. ‘You slept with his girlfriend?’

      ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to call it sleeping but we were in a state of undress, yes.’

      ‘Did you know she was his girlfriend?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Did you target her deliberately?’

      ‘No. We were both drunk and she came on to me.’

      He didn’t look at her, not wanting to see the disgust and disapproval bound to be on her face.

      ‘Dominic said you only slept with me to get one up on him. Is that true?’

      ‘No.’ He shook his head emphatically. ‘I admit, you being his sister gave it an extra frisson but I wanted you regardless.’

      She contemplated him in silence for a while, her porcelain mask still in place.

      ‘Your brother has hated me since we were eight,’ he said. ‘I have no idea what triggered it but trust me when I say the loathing was—is—mutual. We had more than our share of fights during our school years but, whatever you might think of me, I would never have seduced you to hurt him. I slept with you because the opportunity was there and I’d wanted you for years.’

      Her head rocked forward. ‘Thank you for being honest with me, brutal though the truth is.’

      ‘I was honest with you from the start.’

      Her gaze didn’t falter but her face screwed up a little with concentration, as if she were deciding whether to share what she was thinking. Eventually she gave a sharp nod and said, ‘My father sent Dominic to the same boarding school as the Kalliakis Princes specifically to cultivate a friendship with them and strengthen the ties between our two nations.’

      ‘Your brother knew this was why he was sent there?’

      ‘Of course.’ She gave a surprising low laugh. ‘I think that’s why he disliked you so much. They accepted you, a commoner, as their friend—as one of them. Dominic was born of royal blood and he found himself being treated exactly the same as you, which he detested. You were supposed to know your place, not be more popular than him. If you stole his girlfriend I don’t imagine that endeared you to him. And now that he knows you’ve...’ She cleared her throat and looked away. ‘That you and I...’

      ‘Were together?’ he supplied, his body tightening as he recalled the exact feeling of being inside her.

      She nodded sharply. ‘Dominic and I have never had the closest of sibling relationships. Couple that with his loathing of you... He would have been more accepting if Satan himself had impregnated me. If Dominic held the throne he would have thrown me out on the spot.’

      Nathaniel rubbed his temples, letting her words soak into his brain. He would never tell her that her suspicions were correct, but it was much worse than she thought; that if he’d refused to marry her, she would have been thrown out, and the order would have come right from the top, from her father.

      ‘I concede that Dominic has hated me for years but I don’t get why you think I might be in danger from him. I’ve agreed to the marriage. Our child will be legitimate. And then I will walk away and leave you free to marry someone of equal nobility. He will have everything as he wants it.’

      ‘I know he’s something of a joke to you but I worry you underestimate how dangerous he can be. He is more than capable of hurting someone.’

      There was something in her tone that made him look at her carefully. He’d heard rumours over the years about Dominic’s free and easy hands with some of his girlfriends. Was there truth in those rumours? He recalled Catalina’s reaction when her brother had come back into the room at the palace, the subtle withdrawal. ‘Has he ever hurt you?’

      ‘What a question to ask,’ she said, her voice light.

      ‘And