The Royal House of Niroli: Billion Dollar Bargains. Carol Marinelli

to relax.’

      ‘I don’t suppose you get much chance,’ Meg offered. ‘What with work and …’ She gave a tiny frown, peeped her eyes open to look at him. ‘Do you have to do all the ceremonial, well … stuff?’ She gave a helpless shrug but thankfully Luca understood.

      ‘Always there are commitments. Take this weekend—there will be many events I have to attend as a royal prince.’

      ‘You don’t sound as if you want to?’

      ‘It is not about want, it is about duty,’ Luca explained. ‘It is what is expected of me—and lately.’ He didn’t finish, just shook his head, but Meg’s curiosity was piqued now.

      ‘Lately?’ she pushed.

      ‘You ask too many questions. It is not correct.’

      ‘Excuse me?’ Meg’s eyes were wide open now as Luca attempted to put her in her place.

      ‘You should not pry so much. I will tell you what you need to know.’

      ‘I don’t need to know anything.’ Meg gave a shocked laugh. ‘I was asking because I wanted to know. And don’t pull rank on me when it suits!’

      ‘It is not about pulling rank—when you are out with royalty—’

      ‘But I’m not,’ Meg broke in, disarming his rather terse response with a smile. ‘I’m out with Luca—remember? That was the reason you left Luigi behind, that was the whole point of today—to get to know each other a bit better away from it all.’

      ‘Are you always this argumentative?’

      ‘Always.’ Meg smiled as Luca’s face blackened. ‘Now, if there’s something you’d prefer not to discuss, then you just have to say so, but, please, don’t hide behind your title!’

      Closing her eyes, she lay her head back down and even though her heart was hammering in her chest at the small confrontation, she certainly wasn’t about to let him know that. If Luca thought he could talk to her like that, then he’d better do a quick rethink! And, Meg decided, if he didn’t break the angry silence, then she certainly wouldn’t—she’d start snoring if she had to!

      ‘When I was younger I.’ as Luca conceded, as he struggled to find the right word, Meg felt her heart soar as she opened her eyes and looked over to him ‘.was a little wild.’

      ‘A little?’ Meg checked.

      ‘A lot,’ Luca admitted. ‘Always I was in trouble. Now I stay out of trouble, but the king has a long memory and so do the people of Niroli. He spoke to me recently—told me I have to.’ He gave a frustrated shrug. ‘Now, I prefer not to discuss family business.’

      ‘Fine.’ Meg smiled. ‘That’s all you had to say.’

      ‘So, now it is my turn—why did you come?’

      ‘Because you asked me to.’

      ‘Not here.’ Luca shook his head. ‘Why did you choose to travel? You said you were here to sort things out. Can I ask what?’

      And maybe this was one first date where she could reveal, because, in that second, it didn’t feel as if they’d only just met. Her eyes were looking straight into his, the sun blocked out by his presence, it didn’t feel as if there were a million barriers between them—it felt as if they were one, as if she were looking at a man she’d always known, just hadn’t really met yet.

      ‘What?’ Luca pushed, just a touch too soon, the brave leap she was about to take thwarted by impatience, and Meg recoiled back into herself, shaking her head as if to clear it, stunned at how close she had come to letting him in—letting anyone in.

      ‘I’d prefer not to say.’

      ‘You confuse me, Meg. One minute you are so strong, so sure, yet the next …’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘You are very complicated, yes?’

      ‘Yes.’

      It wasn’t the answer he was expecting, perhaps a small admission, a revelation, but when there was none forthcoming Luca, surprisingly, graciously conceded. ‘Perhaps we need to get to know each other even better,’ Luca suggested. ‘Maybe one day isn’t enough for us?’

      ‘Maybe,’ Meg gulped.

      ‘So …’ his voice was slow and measured, cautious this time as he approached ‘… will you stay a little longer? More than just this day?’ His face was moving in closer as she toyed with her answer, but he didn’t wait to hear it. ‘Maybe this will help you decide.’

      She’d been so sure he was about to kiss her, so absolutely sure, it was all she could think about, so when his hand lightly dusted her stomach, when his warm fingers brushed the gap between her shorts and top, her body tightened in delicious confusion. Meg could almost hear the reverse sirens sounding in her brain as it instructed her neural pathways to move their guard, that she was being attacked from a different angle, but even as her stomach tightened in reflex Luca changed tack, his mouth moving in, and Meg closed her eyes as his hand snaked around the back of her head. He moved a fraction closer, his breath warm on her cheekbone, making her wait, her lips twitching in nervous expectation, anticipating the feel of his mouth on hers, her breath held in her lungs as so slowly he moved in, but nothing in her imagination could ever rival the true feel of him, the heat of his mouth when it met hers. Like a reflex action her lips parted, his kiss as direct as his approach to her had been, his tongue sliding in offering a simultaneous taste of champagne and power.

      Such power, his kiss utterly potent, making mockery of any past efforts, turning the few men she had dated into mere boys as his skilled mouth searched hers and his arms wrapped fiercely around her body. For ever he kissed her, drenching her with his passion, banishing reticence, pressing himself so hard against her it was as if they were one person, his lips first paying her mouth the most thorough of attention, then blazing a trail down her neck, kissing her exposed shoulder deeply, his tongue moving up to the base of her neck and then back again. It was to die for, so erotic, so, so shatteringly sexy Meg had to remind herself to breathe.

      As Luca’s hand cupped her bottom he pressed her heated groin into him, his erection wedged against her. It was Meg kissing him now, hungry lips meeting his scented neck, tasting Luca’s warm flesh as her fingers knotted in his hair—the salt of his skin on her tongue, his cologne filling her nostrils as his other hand moved to the front, the pad of his thumb plying her swollen nipple through her top. With each measured move he spun her ever faster, whirring her mind, her body, into one giddy blur—his hands touching her where her body needed it, before Meg even knew it herself. How easy it would be to just let go, to give in and follow to where he was taking her, to let this vortex consume her, but so ingrained was her control, so fearful was she of losing it, that with supreme effort Meg pulled back, the ground coming up to meet her as she jumped off at the last moment, staring at him with stunned, fearful eyes as the world carried on spinning.

      ‘We can’t!’ The words she gasped out were more directed at herself than Luca; she was stunned at what had just taken place, at her body’s perilous response to him, but Luca’s reply just confused her further.

      ‘We won’t,’ he murmured, moving in, kissing her again, only more tenderly now. ‘We wouldn’t,’ he said between breathless mouthfuls. ‘Not here … not somewhere so public. Now, we just kiss.’

      Just kiss!

      His comfort offered no solace. If, for Luca, that was just a kiss, then what would it be like to be made love to by him, if that was what he could do to her with his mouth …? Meg’s mind begged quiet, needed him to stop, her ingrained restraint so violently compromised it actually scared her.

      ‘Please, Luca …’

      Something in her voice reached him, his mouth stilling, those black eyes surprisingly tender as he stared down at her. ‘I have upset you?’

      ‘No …’ She was biting down