His Princess in the Making

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Her head on his shoulder, she smiled. “That’s my Toby, with all your nonsense compliments to make me laugh.”

He stilled. “But you are beautiful, my Giulia.”

“Don’t,” she whispered. “You can’t fix this by saying nice things to me. I need you to be serious.” She looked up at him, seeing his perplexed frown. “I can’t talk to Charlie about this—he’s under enough pressure about his own future. Theo Angelis is too sick to handle any dissention. He can’t be the King any longer. His heart’s failing and he wants everything tied up neatly before he dies. Theo Angelis needs me to do my duty. He believes even marrying Orakis is an honour if it brings peace to Hellenia. And Max…”

“Yes?” he asked quietly, when she didn’t go on. “And Max?”

Her thoughts jumbled again, filled with sorrow, anger, regret and useless, hopeless wishing. “And he’s like you.”

Toby started and stared at her. “What?”

“He’s like you.” Sudden restlessness filled her. She jumped to her feet, pacing up and down the aisle. “He sees…”

“What does he see? Why is he me?”

She’d been silent or wise for the sake of others, hiding her true feelings for weeks. Now, with Toby here, she couldn’t control the words bubbling from her mouth. “He doesn’t see me. He sees the anorexic, and wants to help me—just like you.” She gulped and breathed, trying to regain control. “If I ever get married I want my man to adore me, to want me so much he can’t wait to touch me. Is it so much to ask, to have one man see me as a woman he can want and love?”

“Of course it’s not, beloved,” he said quietly. “You deserve all that and more.”

She sighed and looked away from his intense, beautiful face, but said it bluntly. “I’ve always been a romantic—you know that—but now it’s turned against me. I’m a twenty-six-year-old virgin. I can’t stand the thought of my first time being with Orakis for political purposes, or a man who pities me.” She felt a rush of hot bile rising in her throat. Control,Lia. You will not revert to anorexic behaviour!You’re stronger than that now.

As she leaned against the bookshelf, warm, strong arms came round her, turning her to him, holding him against his body, so big and dependable and perfect. “I adore you, Giulia,” he whispered. “I love touching you.”

“I know you love me, but it’s not the kind of love I want,” she cried, struggling against him, beautiful temptation and dearest friend. “I’m not a child any more, Toby, I’m a woman! I’m sorry, but I’d almost rather face Orakis in the bedroom than a man who doesn’t truly want me, who doesn’t even think I’m pretty!”

He stilled. Completely. The moon, slanting in through a window, showed the stunned look on his face. “You think I don’t find you pretty?”

She stared up at him. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s been right in front of me for years.” Her hands pushed against him until he let go. “I know what I am, Toby.” Suddenly she wanted to say it, even though she knew she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye tomorrow. “I’m the woman men see as their sister, the future aunt to their kids, everyone’s dear friend who never gets married, never has a lover.”

With the lightning-fast reflexes that made him such a magnificent firefighter, he had her back in his arms, plastered against him so fast she lost her breath. “How can you believe I’d cross the world for you, or tell you I want to marry you, from pity or fear? How could you not know how beautiful you are to me?”

Even with her body thudding and throbbing with desire from being near him, she laughed in disbelief. “How could I think it? How could I not think it? I’m nothing like the girls you’ve dated. I’m not blonde with a bubbly personality. I’m a tall, dark, quiet homebody. I do the bushwalking-and-kitchen scene, not the nightclub circuit. We’ve been friends fifteen years, and you’ve never once seen me, or showed a single sign of interest in me, until today.”

His eyes burned into hers, pure blue fire. “I see you. I’ve always seen you.”

“Yes,” she said, filled with sadness. “I know you see me—but I also know how you see me. It took my becoming a princess to have you stop wrapping me in cotton wool. For ten years you’ve been wearing kid gloves with me. But I’m not your anorexic little sister—I’m a woman, Toby. I’m awoman! I can’t marry you because you think you need to save me again. It would destroy both of us in the end.”

When he didn’t move or speak, she pulled away and walked back to the reading table. She picked up her book, and tried to speak as if nothing had happened. “I have another full day tomorrow. I need to sleep.”

“This isn’t over, Giulia.” His voice was as dark as the shadows surrounding him.

“It never started to be over, Toby. I love you, but I won’t marry you.” She looked at him, her sorrow too great to hold in. “I know you want to keep me safe and happy. A few months ago I might have said yes—it might have been enough. But I can’t go back. I have a life and responsibilities apart from one small ballet school and my brothers.”

“I’m not your brother.”

She shivered at the dark, lush tone, so inherently sexual, a tone she’d never heard from him until today. “Close enough.” She sighed. “Toby, can we not do this? I have enough to cope with without more stress, more people wanting a piece of me. I’ve been trying so hard to keep the royal family together the past month, the one who stayed calm in the storm.” A hiccup of distress broke from her. “But now it’s official I—I need my best and dearest friend.”

A quiet as deep as the night fell over them. When he spoke, he was gentle once again. “I made a vow ten years ago to be everything you need—and you need me now more than ever. I’m here, Giulia, for whatever you want of me.”

How could she feel so relieved and so absurdly empty and annoyed all at once? I don’t need you torescue me! “Thank you.” She turned to the door.

“I should have said almost whatever you want of me,” he added, his voice soft but not gentle, and filled with a meaning that sent piercing desire shivering through her. “I am your friend, and I will be anything else you want.” The slightest stress on the word want made her shiver again, right down to fingertips. “With one exception.”

Oh, why had the stupid longings come back at a time when they’d never been more useless? She had a choice, neither of which involved what she wanted—unless she turned her back on a heritage that filled her with purpose and strength as much as it terrified her. She couldn’t turn her back on a country and people that needed her.

But she couldn’t stop herself from asking huskily, “What’s that?”

His eyes held hers in a way she’d never seen before today. It was as if he’d taken the skin off his soul, showing her what lay inside. “I’m not your brother, Giulia. I won’t be your brother.”

“Why?” The word burst from her. “You’ve been—been almost…”

“Exactly—almost.” His hand curved over her cheek, touching her as he’d always done, except that his eyes were no longer light or friendly, and a tiny moan escaped her. Her head fell back, drinking in the touch; she swayed into him. “We’ve never been brother and sister, even when we wanted to be. We’ve been best friends, we’ve lived together as family, but when we touch like this…” he trailed a finger down her throat, one unbearably perfect touch, and her body glowed and shimmered with the radiance of the desire she couldn’t control “…we both know the truth.”

“Toby,” she whispered, aching, hurting, right down to her fingertips with the yearning for him, for everything.

“Say it, Giulia,” he whispered back. “Say ‘I want you, Toby,’ and I’ll be your friend and lover, tonight and every night.”

His chest brushed oh so lightly against her breasts, and they swelled at the touch, blissful pain. She gasped.

“You don’t know what you’re asking of me.” She ripped herself from his arms and bolted.

Toby froze in the warm, late-summer darkness, feeling it envelop him now she was gone. She’d taken the light and sweetness of hope with her, leaving him bruised, his body battered and in physical pain.

She didn’t know.

Her blindness shocked him, her utter stone-blindness to his love. After ten years of showing her in every possible way how much he loved and wanted her, she didn’t even think he found her pretty or interesting.

The doctor’s words of years ago came back to haunt him.

No matter what you say or do, even you, herclosest support person, may never know the depthof damage to her self-esteem or how she seesherself.

He leaned against the bookshelf where she’d been, inhaling the last vestiges of her scent. How had he saved her life, been her best friend so many years, and known her so little? How had she listened to every word he’d said to her for so long, yet never truly grasped their meaning? She’d called his endearments “nonsense.”

At this point, only one thing was clear: he’d shocked her to her core by kissing her today. She honestly hadn’t seen it. She didn’t even see how much he needed her.

If he wanted to win her, he couldn’t take a single thing for granted. He had to start over from scratch, to show her he didn’t just love her, he found her beautiful and desirable—the only woman he wanted.

I’m not a child any more, Toby; I’m a woman!

Ten years dreaming her dreams for her, making her every wish come true, and she’d grown and changed; she’d become a woman before his blinkered eyes. And now she’d gone so far ahead of him he couldn’t see her. Worse, he hadn’t even noticed when she’d left.

The title and tiara were the least of his problems. She loved him, wanted him, but she didn’t love him, and didn’t want him. After half a lifetime of being everything to her, she’d trusted him with the truth only now, when she believed it was too late.

How long had she been hiding this resentment from him? How long had she wanted a woman’s life, and he hadn’t noticed?

I’m a woman! The passionate lilt in her voice as she’d said it had both made him harder than he’d ever been, awakened him from ten years of aching love lost inside a mental fog of fear, and made him smile at last. So Max didn’t see her as a woman? She wanted a man to see her, to want her as a woman?

As ever, half an hour with her inspired him. With two sentences, she’d shown him the way to opening her guarded and locked heart. She’d even shown him how he could stay in Hellenia, at least for now, how to circumvent the King’s suspicions.

If Hellenia needed healing, he had some plans that just might impress the crusty old king.

And if Giulia wanted a man to show her just how much he wanted her, she was about to get it.

CHAPTER THREE

Two weeks later

“IT’S a truly beautiful country. It’s a shame so much of it has been torn to pieces by the warring factions,” Toby said, sounding deeply thoughtful.

From beside him in the bullet-proof town car, Lia nodded. Every time she visited a new town or village shattered by the Orakis family’s attempts to regain control, she wanted to cry. She felt so helpless, so inadequate to do all that was needed to help this beautiful, medieval country heal its scars.

How ridiculous was it that, by an accident of birth, the only choice Hellenia had for her next leader was a hereditary lord with the destructive tantrums of a two-year-old throwing his blocks, and two Australians who knew no more about ruling a nation than that spoiled baby? If it wasn’t for Jazmine…

“Charlie’s ideas are working very well—the village training system and paying for apprenticeships—and your charities and law repeals for widows, divorced women and orphans are making you a heroine in the nation.”

Lia flushed. “I’m just doing what has to be done. Anyone would have done it.”

“What, giving away a third of your fortune thus far to found refuges for women whose male family members are exploiting them? Using your second ancestral home in Malascos as an orphanage? I doubt five percent of the population would have done that.” He added softly, “Papou and Yiayia would be proud of you.”

Moved by the simple tribute, she smiled, glowing with the praise. She hadn’t felt alone since he’d come here. She had her friend back… but not a brother.

She flushed and looked away at the thought. No, not even almost a brother.

“I see why you and Charlie feel needed here.”

Attention arrested, she swung back to face him. He’d been silent on every other trip, unless she’d wanted to talk. He’d returned to being her best and supportive, wonderful friend…almost. And it was the “almost” that made her feel on edge. “Do you?”

As if he understood the turmoil creating storms inside her, he smiled. “Did you think I wouldn’t? I’ve lived with you fourteen years, Giulia. I know your sense of duty, your need to help others if you can. I saw it long before you began volunteer work in the eating-disorder clinic.”

She relaxed. Thank goodness, there were no undercurrents in that comment. But she found herself wondering why there weren’t. “Yes, that’s it. I feel like I’m finally where I’m meant to be.”

“I can see that,” he said softly. “Just because I want you in my arms, in my bed, doesn’t mean I’m not still your best friend, and I’m not blind.”

She stopped the gasp before it emerged, but his voice, the very air around them was filled with a dangerous, warm undertow that terrified her because it made her want so much. Want him.

He moved a finger, just one finger, just one millimetre, a tiny caress on the sensitive skin beneath her jaw—and she was lost to everything but the thick, heated pounding of her blood, the want. Her head fell back, only a tiny movement, but she knew and he knew. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t ask him to—couldn’t tear her gaze from his, deep, shadowed face in the gathering dusk surrounding the car. The word was screaming in her mind but her mouth wouldn’t work. Why?

As if he knew—of course he did—he answered, still filled with the rich, rumpled sensuality his gravelled voice could do so well. “You said you didn’t believe my words, Giulia. So now I’m showing you what I want.”

His finger moved again, trailing down the tender part of her throat. “Golden silk,” he murmured, his gaze following his finger, and she shivered. “I’ve always wanted to touch it.”

And she’d always wanted him to. She wanted that, and so much more. She wanted to curve her hand around his neck and into his dark-and-golden hair. She’d longed to run her fingers through the thick half curls for years, to see the desire in his summer-sky eyes as she touched him. She wanted to pull him down to her, to fall back on the butter-soft leather seating as they kissed. She wanted to feel him on her, feel him hard where she’d always wanted him to be for her…

It was so embarrassing, so humiliating that he could make her like this, lost inside her desires with a single touch, with no power to say a word, let alone “stop.” Even worse that he knew it, had to know it.

“We’re almost back at the palace.” It was all he said, yet the quiver ran down her spine and into her toes, her core. He made it sound as if they stood at the door of a sumptuous hotel, or her bedroom.

When he lifted his hand from her skin, she wanted to cry out in protest.

“Can you speak to the King for me when we return? I think it’s time for a family conclave on what’s best for Hellenia. It’s time to go forward.”

Yanked from her sensuous daydream, she lifted her brows. Theo Angelis had been icily civil to Toby since that first ten minutes after they’d met, making it clear that what Toby thought and felt about Hellenia was irrelevant.

This should prove to be interesting, to say the least.

“Toby wants to call a family conference?” Theo Angelis exploded. “By God, who does he think he is? The boy’s gone too far this time!”

“An informal one, Theo Angelis, in the tea room. After dinner, if it suits you.” Lia’s lips twitched before returning to her customary gentleness with the King. She knew him well by now, he was so much like Papou, and Charlie for that matter. He needed the illusion of control to feel safe. It was a rare source of fun watching him trying to lock horns with Toby, who needed no such illusion, had no ego: he just saw what needed to be done and did it with a minimum of fuss.

“You might find what he has to say is interesting, Theo Angelis. He’s been touring the cities and villages the past week with Charlie and Jazmine and I.”

“You’ve been alone with him?” Theo Angelis growled.

It was a strain, but she smiled as she assured him, “I’ve been alone with him for years, and it’s never been a problem.”