Royal's Untouched Love (9 page)

She had never had this much male attention in her life. In the back of her mind, Heidi knew that she would likely be mortified and even frightened if she stopped. She could never deal with this many people who wanted her attention, who seemed to want things from her she wasn't prepared to give.

However, as long as she kept dancing, as long as she kept moving with the beat, it would all be fine. She kept her eyes on the couple she had come with, and whenever anyone got too close or too grabby, she could always scoot back to them, where Augustine would give them a dark look and send them on their way.

She was having so much fun that she barely thought about Jaque at all.

At least, she didn't think of him until he suddenly appeared beside her and grabbed her by the arm.

*

Jaque wasn't exactly sure what he was doing at the club. It had simply seemed like the thing to do on a Friday evening. Once upon a time, it wasn't something that he would ever have questioned, but now it felt like he was dragging himself there through the mud.

He had spent most of his other weekends at the barge, instead of entertaining at the penthouse or at work at the office. Some of the tabloids his mother had sent him wondered if he was sick, or if he had found a new love.

Not bad
, her message had read,
but I'd like to see it last for more than a few months before I start to rejoice.

It was that letter more than anything else that had gotten him to come out tonight. Jaque was ready to raise some hell, but the moment he showed up, it had all felt boring to him. He had been here before, or he had at least been in many places that looked exactly like this. He had seen these people before, or at least he had seen people who looked exactly like this.

When he had gone up to the second floor to watch the crowd, he had felt weirdly separated from the crowd, as if there was a pane of glass between himself and the rest of them. Even the beautiful blonde girl who had approached him seemed like that.

She was beautiful, with a knowing grin and light blue eyes. Tall and lean, she was definitely of a type he went for, but when he tried to smile at her, there was a flash of green eyes and red hair between them.

He had bid her a good night, and he was ready to leave for the evening when he saw Heidi on the dance floor.

At first, Jaque was bemused to think that he had been thinking about her so much that he had started hallucinating her. Then he had taken a closer look and realized that his Heidi was no hallucination.

For a moment, he had simply stared, wide-eyed at watching the sweet, shy virgin he had made love to weeks ago dancing on the crowded floor like the most accomplished flirt. He saw her taunt and tease the men around her until she grew bored, and then she went back to a tall man with dark hair for protection.

Has she found a new lover already?
Jaque thought dumbly, and then a red tide of rage welled up in him.

He strode through the crowd, sending people scattering out of his way, he cut through the dance floor like a shark, and when he reached Heidi, he was taken aback by how gorgeous she was in bright green, how beautiful her pale legs were in the dimness of the club.

Then he grabbed her arm, swinging her around to face him. "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" he growled.

There was a moment of fear before she recognized him, but then she only looked up at him with narrow eyes. "What in the hell does it look like I'm doing?" she asked. "I'm dancing!"

"Dancing?" Jaque sneered. "Is that what you're going to call it? It seemed to me like you had decided to tease everything with a—"

He didn't get to finish it because Heidi's protector appeared behind her, looming tall and dark.

"I think it's time you let go of … Jaque?"

Jaque was shocked to see Augustine standing behind his errant American. Augustine had only been married a few months. Surely he wasn't already straying? "Augustine? What are you doing here?"

"He was also dancing," Heidi said acidly. Jaque ignored her, not letting go of her arm yet.

"Where in the hell is Anastasia? Does she know you're here with …"

"Anastasia is right here," said the princess, stepping out of the crowd. "And I know that my husband is here with Heidi because we both invited her out for dinner and dancing."

Jaque could feel the world slipping out from underneath him, but he growled at the two other royals.

"What the hell did you think you were doing? Heidi was out …"

"Dancing," said Augustine firmly. "Honestly, Jaque, you know what the men here are like. If a good-looking woman does two steps together, they think it's an invitation to go have some fun in a dark room somewhere."

"That's right," said Anastasia with a glare. "New York is the same way. Don't you dare say that Heidi was doing anything wrong. You certainly don't mind it when the women you are interested in want to dance with you!"

Confronted with two surprisingly protective stares and Heidi's glare, Jaque could feel any certainty he had in the situation diminishing greatly. Suddenly, he realized exactly how he looked. Heidi hadn't been in any danger, nor had she been doing anything wrong. Instead, he had appeared out of nowhere like some kind of Neanderthal, ready to drag her back to his cave.

While that certainly had its appeal, he could see very clearly that his best option right now was a dignified surrender.

"I'm sorry that I interrupted your evening," he said abruptly. "I'll talk to you later."

He turned to go, but to his disbelief, he found Heidi's hand wrapped around his arm.

"Please … I actually wouldn't mind a chance to talk with you."

Jaque looked down at her, startled by the sincerity in her vivid green eyes. "Of course," he said, his voice still curter than it should have been. "Whenever you like."

She looked around, looking almost furtive. "Not here, but maybe at the café around the corner?"

Jaque watched as she made her excuses to Anastasia and Augustine, who came to say good night to him.

"Treat her well," said Anastasia in a voice that left no doubt that she was born to be a princess.

Augustine was a little more understanding. "Rein it in," he said. "There's something going on here that I don't understand, but that's fine. As someone who went through something very similar not all that long ago … rein it in, be patient, and you'll probably find yourself in much better shape than I did."

Cryptic, but Jaque had no time to worry about what his fellow royal was talking about. Instead, all of his attention was focused on Heidi and what she might want.

CHAPTER FIVE

Once they were seated at the dim and rather cozy café, Heidi realized that she didn't know what to say. It was strange. She had had so many conversations with him in her mind over the past few weeks, but now when she sat in front of him, she didn't have any words in her at all.

For a few minutes, they could busy themselves with ordering hot drinks. When the waitress brought back her hot chocolate and his tea, however, a silence stretched out between them.

Heidi took a deep breath, ready to take the bull by the horns, but Jaque surprised her by speaking up first.

"I want to say that I'm sorry," he said. "Not just for what happened at the club tonight, but for what happened … between us months ago."

She looked up, startled at that. "Please don't take that back."

Jaque looked so shocked at her words that she hurried to explain herself.

"I … I don't regret what we did," she forced herself to say. "At all. It was … well, it was an amazing experience, and one that I am so glad that I got to share with someone who was as careful and kind as you were."

Jaque's smile was ghostly, but charming in a way that tore at her. There was a strange instinct in her to want that smile for herself, and she shook it away because it was sheer madness.

"I hear a but coming on," he murmured, sipping his tea.

"Why did you leave the next morning?" she asked bluntly. "That's what I want to know. Were you afraid that I would make a scene? Were you worried that I would … I don't know, try to blackmail you? You didn't sign your name on that note, and you didn't use mine either …"

Jaque covered his face with one hand for a moment before looking up again to meet her eyes. "I am going to try to be honest with you here, more honest than I was even with myself about that morning," he said.

"The truth is that when I woke up that morning, I was in a situation that I didn't understand at all, one that I had never been in, in my entire life."

At her slightly skeptical look, Jaque laughed ruefully. "Well, given what I learned that night, I am going to assume that your sympathy for 'I've never done it before' is going to be fairly low, and that is fine.

"No, what happened to me was that I was in a place where I had just made love to a beautiful woman, one who had given me more pleasure than I think I had ever had in my life."

"But wouldn't that make you want to stay?" Heidi blurted out. She winced, hearing how young and unworldly she sounded. However, it truly didn't make any sense to her. If two people were together and had a good time, why wouldn't they want that good time to continue?

"I did," he said earnestly, reaching across the table to take her hand. "I desperately wanted to stay, but I was afraid."

"What could you be afraid of?"

"I was afraid that … that at some point, you would look up at me in my bed and see me as I truly am, not the man who made love to you that night. You would be disappointed, even angry. I am much older than you, after all, and I am not always the most sympathetic man in the world. I think, when all is said and done, that I was afraid that you would grow to dislike me, or even hate me."

Heidi stared at him. She had spent the last month, if she were being perfectly honest with herself, wallowing in the fear and pain that she simply wasn't good enough. That for a man as wise and worldly as Jaque, she was simply one more good time, something to enjoy and then leave as gently as possible. It had never in a million years occurred to her that he might be feeling just as nervous or perhaps even as unworthy as she felt.

"I can't promise you anything," she said at last. "I'll be honest, I don't know how things are going to shake out. But I will tell you something that one of my professors told me, and that is that in general, things happen for a reason. We are meant to meet the people we meet when we meet them, and they don't always stay in our lives forever. However, most of the time, they stay long enough to give us something, whether it is joy, pleasure, or a lesson. Regardless of what will happen in the future, I do not think that I am ever going to regret where we have been and what we did together."

Jaque was as still as a statue for a moment. "Your professor sounds very wise," he said. "I cannot tell you what kind of relief it is for me to know that you did not regret what we did together."

"I was saddened when I woke up alone," she said thoughtfully. "That hurt. That led me to think all sorts of things, mostly about myself, that I think this conversation would have avoided."

They were still for a moment, lost in their own thoughts. Outside, a light rain was falling. Heidi had lived in Greece long enough to know that when it was done, for a brief few minutes, everything would be washed and new, lovely despite the grime and wear of the city.

Heidi was, she decided, relieved. Now that this chapter of her time in Greece was over, she could move on. Perhaps she would get to know Marten a little better, or perhaps she would wander the city, getting to know herself a little better.

Of course, Jaque surprised her. "So where do you want to go from here?" he asked.

She blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Precisely that. We are both sorry for what happened that morning. It feels as if we left things undone and unfinished. Do you want to see what happens when we try to finish it?"

Suddenly, Heidi didn't know what to do with her hands or where to look. She thought she had gotten over being embarrassed by him. She thought that she would move forward completely immune to his charms. Now though, when he was looking at her with those lovely blue eyes, when he was leaning in and his hand was laid palm up, almost entreating, she wasn't sure she had gotten over him as neatly as she had thought.

"I'm a little afraid," she said with a self-deprecating laugh. "What are we going to do?"

Jaque's smile was nothing but warmth and sweetness. "We're going to do whatever we want," he said. "I am going to do whatever you allow me to do, and you, I hope, will do precisely as you wish."

The tender intimacy of his words warmed her from the inside out, making it feel as if she had stepped out of a cold rain and into a warm house. In that moment, if he had said that he wanted to return to the barge on the quay and make love for days, she would have agreed in a heartbeat. If he had said he wanted to fly to Paris, she would have agreed.

"All right," she said. "All right."

He smiled at her, and if she thought he was handsome before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. He flagged down the waitress for a refill on his tea and another hot chocolate for her.

"So please," Jaque said with a warmth that filled her with a kind of joy she didn't quite understand. "Tell me all about yourself."

She started in fits and abrupt stops, but she finally did manage to tell him about her life. She told him about her parents, about her time in the foster care system and coming to New York on scholarships. She talked about how no matter how bad things got, it always felt like there was someone who would step in and give her the help that she needed. She talked until her mouth was dry, and still at the end, he looked as fascinated as he had at the beginning.

Jaque in turn told her about growing up Stockholm, and about his scattered memories of his father. He told her more about his mother, a stern woman of impeccable morals and manners. He told her about seeing the Northern Lights play over the White Mountains, and he told her about the warm water of the equator, where he had sailed.