A Royal Without Rules. Caitlin Crews

temper,” Pato murmured, eyeing her with laughter in that golden gaze. “And here I thought you’d be so proud of me.”

      “I doubt you thought anything of the kind.” She’d never wanted to hit another human being so much in all her life. “I doubt you think. And why on earth would I be proud of this embarrassing display?”

      He propped one shoulder against the closed door and waved a languid hand down the length of him, inviting her to take a long look. She declined. Mostly.

      “Am I not clothed?” he asked, taunting her. Again. “‘Keep your clothes on, Your Royal Highness,’ you said in that prissy way of yours in the car on the way over tonight. I am delighted, as ever, to obey.”

      “You wouldn’t know how to obey if it was your job,” she snapped at him. “Not that I imagine you know what one of those is, either.”

      “You make a good point,” he said, and that was when it occurred to Adriana that they hadn’t moved at all—that they were standing entirely too close in that doorway. His face shifted from pretty to predatory, and her head spun. “I’m better at giving the orders, it’s true. Rule number three, Adriana. The faster you obey me, the harder and the longer you’ll come. Consider it my personal guarantee.”

      She couldn’t believe he’d said that. Her entire body seemed to ignite, then liquefy.

      “Enough,” she muttered, but she didn’t fool him with her horrified tone, if that flash of amused satisfaction in his gaze meant anything. Desperation made her lash out. “You shouldn’t share these sad rules of yours, Your Royal Highness. It only makes you that much more pathetic—the dissipated, aging bachelor, growing more pitiable by the moment, on a fast track to complete irrelevance.”

      “Yes,” he agreed. He leaned closer, surrounding her, mesmerizing her. “That’s exactly why you’re breathing so fast, why your cheeks are so flushed. You pity me.”

      Adriana ducked around him and started down the hall, telling herself none of that had happened. None of it. No dancing girl, no strange awareness. No rules that made her belly feel tight and needy. And certainly not the look she’d just seen in his eyes, stamped hard on his face. But her heart clattered in her chest, it was as hard to breathe as he’d suggested, and she knew she was lying.

      Worse, he was right beside her.

      “You’re welcome,” Pato said after a moment, sounding smug and irritatingly male. It made her pulse race, but she refused to look at him. She couldn’t seem to stop herself from imagining what kind of orders he’d give…and she hated herself for wondering.

      “I beg your pardon?” she asked icily, furious with herself.

      “Someone needs to provide fodder for your fantasies, Adriana. I live to serve.”

      She stopped walking, her hand on the door that led out of the residence. When she looked at him, she ignored the impact of that hot golden gaze of his and smiled instead. Poisonously.

      “My fantasies involve killing you,” she told him. “I spend hours imagining burying you in the palace gardens beneath the thorniest rose bushes, so I’d never have to deal with you again.” She paused, then added with exaggerated politeness, “Your Royal Highness.”

      Pato grinned widely, and leaned down close. Too close. Adriana was aware, suddenly and wildly, of all the skin she was showing, all of it right there, within his reach. All that bare flesh, so close to that satyr’s mouth of his. That wicked mouth with a slight smear of crimson on it, a sordid little memento that did nothing to detract from his devastating appeal. Or from her insane response to him.

      “I knew you fantasized about me,” he murmured, his voice insinuating, delicious. Seductive. “I can see it on your face when you think it’s not showing.”

      He ran his fingertip down the sparkling blue strap that rose from the bodice of her gown and fastened at the nape of her neck. That was all. That was enough. He touched nothing but the fabric, up and down and back again, lazy and slow and so very nearly innocuous.

      And Adriana burned. And shivered. And hated herself.

      “Someday,” he whispered, his eyes ablaze, “I’ll tell you what you do in my fantasies. They’re often…complicated.”

      Adriana focused on that smear of lipstick on his perfect lips. She didn’t understand any of this. She should be horrified, disgusted. She should find him categorically repulsive. Why didn’t she? What was wrong with her?

      But she was terrified that she already knew.

      “That’s certainly something to look forward to,” she said, the deliberate insincerity in her voice like a slap, just as she’d intended, but he only grinned again. “In the meantime, you have lipstick all over your mouth.” She kept her expression smooth as she stepped back, away from him. She snapped open her clutch, reached inside with a hand that was not shaking, and produced a tissue. “I know you like to trumpet your conquests to all and sundry but not, I beg you, tonight. Not the ambassador’s daughter.”

      “They wouldn’t think it was the ambassador’s daughter who put her mouth all over me, Adriana.” He held her with that golden stare for another ageless moment, so sure of himself. So sure of her. He took the tissue from her hand then, his fingers brushing over hers—leaving nothing behind but heat and confusion, neither of which she could afford. “Small minds prefer the simplest explanations. They’d assume it was you.”

      “You must have done something,” Adriana’s father said peevishly, and not for the first time. “I told you to ingratiate yourself, to be obliging, didn’t I? I told you to be careful!”

      “You did,” Adriana agreed. She didn’t look over at her mother, who was preparing breakfast at the stove. She didn’t have to look; she could feel her mother’s sympathy like a cool breeze through the room. She tried to rub away the tension in her temples, the churning confusion inside her. “But I didn’t do anything, I promise. Lenz thinks this is a great opportunity for me.”

      There was a tense silence then, and Adriana blinked as she realized her mistake. Her stomach twisted.

      “‘Lenz?’” Her father’s brows clapped together. “You’re quite familiar with the crown prince and future king of Kitzinia, are you not? I don’t need to tell you where that leads, Adriana. I don’t need to remind you whose blood runs through your veins. The shame of it.”

      He didn’t. He really didn’t, as she was the one who lived it in ways he couldn’t imagine, being male. But he always did, anyway. She could see that same old lecture building in him, making his whole body stiffen.

      “Papa,” she said gently, reaching over to cover his hands with hers. “I worked with him for three years. A certain amount of familiarity is to be expected.”

      “And yet he insults you like this, throwing you to his dog of a brother like refuse, straight back into the tabloids.” Her father frowned at her, and a small chill tickled the back of her neck. “Perhaps his expectation was for rather more familiarity than you offered, have you thought of that?”

      It wasn’t the first time her father had managed to articulate her deepest fears. But this time it seemed to sting more. Adriana pulled her hands away.

      “Eat, Emilio,” her mother said then, slipping into her usual seat and raising her brows when Adriana’s father only scowled at the cooked breakfast she set before him. “You hate it when your eggs get cold.”

      “It was never like that,” Adriana said, pushed to defend herself—though she wasn’t sure she was addressing her father as much as herself. “Lenz is a good man.”

      “He is a man,” her father replied shortly, something she didn’t like in his gaze. “A very powerful man. And you are a very beautiful woman with only a terrible history and a disgraced family name to protect you.”

      “Emilio,