His Princess in the Making (12 page)

Rob smiled back, and she knew it was because she’d called him by his name.

“Can you stand at the door and make certain no one comes in? All those people around open wounds is a recipe for infection. Mr Winder’s allergic to penicillin.”

“Certainly, Your Highness.” Rob left the room, closing the door behind him.

Lia opened all the things she’d need, and then washed her hands again. Then she returned to Toby. Seeing his dirty, grimed face, inhaling the pungent smell of smoke, knowing what he’d endured for her sake, she ached and burned with the need to speak, to thank him, to tell him…

What? If she told him how she felt, he’d never leave and a war could start; he could die.

She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, then nodded in silent resolution. After all he’d done for her for so many years right up until today, she owed him so much. She’d give him the words he’d asked for, if nothing else.

I am the most beautiful…

But she choked on them, even in her mind. She’d spent eleven years thinking the worst of her dark looks, her quiet, home-loving personality. But though her long-held habit of silence had been breaking ever since Toby had first kissed her, this was the biggest of them all. Believing in herself after all these years…She realised she’d rather tell him she was hope
lessly besotted with her best friend than say words she couldn’t make herself believe.

“How long have you been planning to bring Orakis down?” she asked as she cleaned the burns around the splinters.

“Since you told me you might have to marry him.” He sounded surprised she’d have to ask. “His moves were obvious to a trained fireman, and nobody else seemed to want to take him on. Though Max surprised me,” he added with a grin. “He’s not the pampered nancy boy I thought he was. He can combat-swim, fly a plane and track through a forest without leaving a trace of his presence.”

“I’m sure he can.” All those skills were on her future agenda as well. Lia laughed at his irreverent terminology for the Grand Duke with a closed mouth, to protect his open wounds, and got back to the subject. “You’re crazy, taking on Orakis like that. Does nothing frighten you, Winder?”

She felt his intense blue gaze on her. “The thought of living my life without you terrifies me.”

Her lungs seized up—her heart pounded hard and fast as it always did when he said things like that, making it nearly impossible to speak—but she forced words out. “Me too. I can’t stand to
think—
” She shook her head. “Now look at me, I’m shaking. I can’t get your splinters out if I’m emotional. So behave.”

“For now,” he said, with quiet intent. “When you’re done, beloved, you
are
going to finish that sentence.”

She almost dropped the sterile tweezers.

His eyes met hers, dark, serious. “We’re out of time, Giulia.”

Moved to her soul, she managed to smile at him. “Yes,” she agreed, her voice off-kilter again, so filled with longing he had to know, had to see it.

It took almost an hour to bathe Toby’s hands and remove the splinters from the burned flesh, dress all his wounds and make him comfortable. While she worked, he told her he’d
been sure Orakis would overreach himself before long. By making plans that allowed two unimportant minions to die in the fire, by sending in dummies who’d tried to kill the Grand Duke, Orakis had unravelled his own power—or Toby had done so, by the simple act of saving all three men’s lives. Grovellingly grateful to the man who’d saved them, wanting vengeance on Orakis, his minions had agreed to make full confessions in exchange for reduced sentences.

“Even if Orakis gets off, I gave a statement to the press,” he finished, sounding incredibly tired. “Not only has he lost any chance with you, he’s going to lose the King’s silence and the goodwill of the people by torching two refuge centres set up by their beloved princess. Max also made a statement.”

“Orakis ordered the fires, knowing his own people would die.” Lia shuddered in horror as she finished binding his shoulder. She pulled on a clean pair of sterile gloves to rub a mixture of lanolin and aloe into the minor burns. “How could he do that?”

“How anyone else does in the world,” he murmured, breathing deeply, relaxing with the gentle touch of her palms on his skin. “It’s called collateral damage. Sacrifices are required for what they believe is the best thing for the country. They usually don’t require the sacrifice of those who’ll benefit most, though.”

She felt something inside her turn very still and tense. It was as if her whole body was listening to the words Toby hadn’t aimed at her.

A sacrifice for the country.
In the King’s eyes, in the eyes of the Lords,
she
was that. And while she was honoured to be their princess and do what she could for Hellenia, what she was sacrificing was her future happiness, her heart. She had to give up happiness for the sake of birth and blue blood, a centuries-old tradition invented by those in power, and it hadn’t stopped one minute of war.

But her sacrifice was also for the sake of Toby’s life.

Her hands moved over his skin in the soothing touch she’d given him whenever he’d been burned, accepting the sacrifice she must make.

She went to the door and asked Rob to bring a wash bowl. An eager crowd pressed forward but she closed the door in their faces, locking it until Rob returned.

She filled the bowl with warm, soapy water and a facecloth, picked up a towel and returned to Toby. He was breathing deeply. Careful to avoid his bandages and burns she’d covered with sterile gauze, she washed the smoke grime from his face and body. Her own body thudded with need at the intimacy of the touch, but his need was greater. Her soapy hands moved over his chest, stomach and arms, rinsing him with the wash-cloth and patting him dry with a towel, her mind and heart filled with beautiful, impossible visions, and her body…

He groaned as she cleaned his exposed legs and feet. “Thank you, Giulia.” He sounded hoarse with repressed sensuality.

“Hair next,” she whispered, throat thick. She lowered the gurney, rinsed the bowl and added fresh water. When she returned, he’d moved to the end of the gurney. She made a makeshift table from the trolley and shampooed his hair, trying to be gentle, but she knew her fingers moved with the same pounding pulse of sexuality that controlled her because she was near him. She didn’t dare ask if his groans were of relief at losing the hated smoky smell or because he was as aroused as she.

By the time she’d towelled his hair touch-dry, she didn’t know which of them had undergone the sweetest torture. Unable to stop herself, she bent and kissed his lips, slow and lingering.

He opened his eyes and smiled, his eyes filled with the same anguished desire as hers. “Please tell me that was less of a thank-you for today’s efforts, or even in much-needed for
giveness for all my stupidity and selfishness with you, and more that you’re sexually overwrought by touching my half-naked body.”

She chuckled, bent and kissed him again. “How about all of the above?”

“I’ll take it.” He sat up on the gurney, got to his feet, smiled with that slow-dawning sensuality and made a beckoning motion with his bandaged hand. “Tell me, my Giulia,” he murmured, close, so close. “Say the words.”

“I can’t,” she whispered back, swaying against him. “I know you love me. I know you find me…attractive enough. But the rest…” She shook her head hopelessly, wanting to cry. He’d just risked his life to save her from marrying Orakis. Why couldn’t she
believe?

“Then I’ll wait.” His eyes were like a sunlit morning; his dimples flashed as he smiled at her. “If I have to wait the rest of my life, I’ll prove it to you somehow.

“Now, what were you going to say to me before?” he went on, as if he hadn’t turned her world spinning the other way with those simple words.

Through a throat so filled with a pounding pulse she could barely speak, her voice came, a strangled croak. “I can’t stand the thought of life without you.”

“That’s disappointing, beloved. I knew that already.” With his bandaged hand, he drew hers to his mouth and kissed it. “What you
ought
to have said is something about how much you want me, that all that washing of my naked chest, stomach and back drove you as wild with desire as it did me.”

How could she be shaking with half-crazed want and smothering laughter at the same time? “I do, and it did,” she managed to say.

“Good,” he growled softly, moving his hips against hers with luscious intent, and she moaned. “Now, tell me you want me. I’ve waited years to hear it.” He smiled at her panicked
silence, bent and kissed her throat, slow, hot and lingering. “Then I’ll start. I love being your best friend—but I also want to be your lover, Giulia.” The whisper, soft and husky, seemed to come from the deepening velvet of the dusk falling outside. “For ten years I’ve wanted to kiss your mouth, to touch your body, to undress you and fill my hands and mouth with your beautiful breasts, to move inside you and feel you come apart in my arms.”

She gasped and quivered. Her mind spun with delicious arousal, her breasts ached, and deep inside she was thudding with hot, craving want. The craving for him, him alone, that she hadn’t conquered after all these years.

“
Want
you?” she cried with a wild laugh, unable to stop the dam of repressed longings bursting open. “I hunger for you. I
starve
for you. When you’re near me I ache and crave; my whole body’s alive and hurting to touch you, to make love with you. It’s been a screaming need in my soul since you stripped off your shirt in front of me after you moved into our house, and nothing that’s come between us has changed it. You’re
it,
you’re the one, and it’s killing me inside that these few days are all we can have together!” She turned away as she asked huskily, “Why didn’t you kiss me years ago? Why didn’t you make love to
me
instead of all the girls you say you can’t remember and I can’t forget? Why didn’t you give me the one thing that would have made me feel beautiful and wanted, that would have made me believe—?” A sob escaped her throat.

His arms enveloped her; gentle, bandaged hands pressed, and her head fell to his undamaged shoulder. He didn’t answer the questions they both knew were rhetorical. Her arms wrapped around his waist, drinking in his skin with tiny movements of her palms and fingers. She breathed in the still-just-smoky, hot scent of him, so wonderful to her because it was him.

“I warned you not to make me let it all out,” she whispered after a long time. “I said too much.”

“It was perfect.” He softly kissed her hair. “I’ve waited ten years for you to tell me what you feel for me. You made it worth every moment.”

There was nothing to say in response. “I love you” seemed almost trite after all she’d said. So she turned her face, pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

Then the hunger filled her, and the slow, hot kisses she poured all over his throat, undamaged shoulder and chest only fuelled the need. Aching to her fingertips, her hands roamed his skin; she turned him round and kissed his back, caressing his stomach, so aroused and filled with need for him that nothing else mattered. The craving inside her was pain; she couldn’t stop.

Then she felt the slight tremors running through his tough, strong body—and knew he wasn’t moving or speaking because he was exhausted and in need of pain relief and couldn’t bring himself to tell her. Love filled her and overflowed. Always putting her first…

She led him to the big, carved-oak bed at the end of the room and lifted the covers. “Lie down, Toby. I’ll ask the doctor to come in.”

“No. I don’t want anyone else.” He lay down and held out his arms. “Just you. Even if it’s only for a few minutes before the old guy busts us.”

She smiled at his cheeky terminology for His Majesty, crossed to the left side of the bed, lying down beside him, snuggling into his chest. “I’ll have to go soon anyway,” she said quietly. “I need to go check on Max.”

He stilled. “I see.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling wretched. “But he’s been so good to me. He risked his life today too, and I…”

“I know. It’s not your fault.” The words were weary.

“It’s never going to be the same for us, is it? Our friendship won’t be the same.”

She felt the sigh come from deep inside him. “No.” He tipped her face up to his with a bandaged hand, his jaw taut, showing the physical discomfort it cost him. “Did I put you through this kind of torment when I went on those stupid dates?”

She looked into his eyes, saw the anger and useless regret, the hopeless wanting and all the pain, and choked out the words: “Every time.”

“Bloody idiot,” he muttered. “If I’d told you…”

“If I’d told you,” she sighed. But what-ifs were useless. She’d accepted her duty and privilege; to renounce her position would make an impossible situation for Charlie and Jazmine, and put Toby’s life in danger. That was the reality she had to deal with.

“There has to be a way for us to be together, Giulia. It can’t end like this, after all these years. I can’t stop thinking about it, trying to find a way for us.”

The hard, exhausted growl made her quiver for a moment with hope—then it crashed and burned like the building today. “There is none.”

“Damn it, there has to be. We can’t just give up.”

She looked up at him. “What is there, short of a miracle? Even if I could renounce my position, I can’t live a private life now without the press making our lives a nightmare. I’ll always be the Australian-born sister of Hellenia’s king. You can’t become a prince. The people wouldn’t allow it.”

Toby swore. “All this ridiculous fuss over bloodlines. If we’d married a year ago—or five—we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

She sighed. “I know.”

She felt him withdrawing from her without moving. She understood that; the need to lock away some small part of
herself every time he’d been with someone else had been her lifeline since his first date with Mandy.