Page 15 of Princessa
The flowery, vanilla scent of her perfume filled the gap between us, initiating a Defcon One battle between my brain and Spike.
Fo. Cus.
“You’re avoiding me.”
“Am not,” she scoffed, toying with the pearl necklace wrapped around her beautiful neck. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Too busy to join me for a simple cup of coffee, another stroll along the beach, a quick lap around the pool?”
Those heart-stirring eyes of hers snapped to the high-beam ceiling, avoiding my penetrating glare, evidently too much for the fashion and beauty maven to handle. “Look, it’s not you, it’s me.”
Ouch. That actually stung a little.
Five steps was all it took for me to squash the distance between us. “Never thought I’d ever get sucker-punched with the world’s most overly clichéd letdown.” Her breathing became ragged and uneven at our gaze-meets-gaze proximity. I moved even closer, palms planted on the desk, sandwiching her between me and the mahogany workspace. “Tell. Me. What. Happened?”
“Doubts, okay?” she fired back, fingers gripping the edge of the desk.
“Doubts about what?”
“Well, for one, doubts that you—a freaking prince of all people—could ever get serious about a woman like me.”
The admission came as a shocker. Most women didn’t give a rats tail who they were in comparison to me, caught up in the novelty of dating a prince. But there she was—this utterly beautiful, successful heiress and influencer of the decade—feeling as though she wasn’t good enough for me.
“A woman like you, huh?” The rasp in my voice was deliberate, my attention trickling down to the full set of lips now stealing the show.Alluring. Pouty. Delicious. “You mean the beautiful and brilliant go-getter whose sexy ass makes my heart pitter-patter every single time she’s near?” On a nonchalant mission, my fingers roamed the length of her arm, past her shoulder until my hand nestled against the nape of her neck. “Oh no, sweet Arabella,” I murmured, our lips only a hair’s breadth apart. “I can totally see myself getting serious about a woman like you.”
