Royal Chase

“That’s so sad, Limone. I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

I could feel the tears welling at the back of my eyes at the emotion in his voice. “Speaking of sad, I still remember every single step of my routine even though it’s been almost ten years.”

“Couldn’t you go back? Do ballet for fun?”

“Sometimes you need to know when to let go of impossible dreams and be real about your life.”

He slowly swam closer to me. “So you think you have to settle for less?”

We were no longer talking about ballet, and Sterling needed to be off-limits. “It’s not settling to be with someone who I know won’t cheat on me.”

Even closer. “This isn’t about cheating or getting hurt. It’s about control. You think you can control your life if you choose a certain kind of man. But you can’t control anything. If that’s the one thing in my life I’ve learned, it’s that everything is out of our control.”

From the timbre in his voice, I knew he was talking about his father. The king had become a quadriplegic after a boating accident.

“You should be choosing a man who loves you so much that he could never even conceive of hurting you. A man who would always put you first, above everything else.”

He was close enough to touch me, but he didn’t. I couldn’t drag air into my lungs fast enough as that zing of electricity crackled between us.

Speaking was pretty much out of the question when he looked at me like that.

“Limone, there’s something I need to say to you.”

That loosened my tongue. I couldn’t let him continue. “Stop. Don’t say it. If you do it will ruin everything. I’m engaged.”

“And yet you’re here with me.”

“I’m here because I don’t have a choice,” I snapped.

“You’ve always had a choice,” he said, his silky voice making my stomach flip repeatedly. “And if you were mine, I could never go this long without seeing you. Without touching you. Without kissing you.”

He was going to kiss me. And I just stood there frozen, unable and unwilling to move.

“Is it magic between you two the way it is with us?” His seductive voice was almost more than I could stand.

And even then, I couldn’t lie to him. I needed to, for my own self-preservation. For the preservation of my upcoming wedding. To keep my heart intact.

So I did the only thing I could think of to put some distance between us.

I splashed him.

He wiped the water from his face slowly, with a grin that promised retribution. I should have known he’d take it as a challenge.

Maybe that was why I did it.

“There are rules,” he said. “You can’t simply splash me. Did you not see the sign?”

“Oh, I saw the sign.” I splashed him again.

He turned his head this time, as if he’d been expecting it. “As a member of the household of a reigning monarch, it is my duty to report this. Who do you call for pool violations?”

I splashed him again, and kept splashing him. We were both laughing when he reached through the mountain of water for me, restraining my arms. He held them up in the air, which made the rest of me slam into him.

The laughter died quickly, and he let go of my arms. They fell to my sides, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I could feel his heart rapidly beating against his chest. We were both breathing hard and fast, and it wasn’t from the splashing.

I stared at his mouth, willing him to kiss me. My tingly lips and racing pulse throbbed. But he didn’t move. We stood, pressed together, surrounded by the warmth from the pool and each other. I wanted him to make that first move so that I could blame it on him later. Just one kiss wouldn’t hurt, would it? If it wasn’t my fault? What could I do if he just grabbed me and kissed me? I had to make the show happy, right?

Thinking about the show made me remember the camera, and I turned to see them still filming. This would look so bad. So, so bad.

“Are you sure we can’t . . .” he started to say as I backed up, and I knew then that he wanted it just as badly as I did.

Heart in my throat, suddenly angry at my own behavior and wanting to take it out on him, I said, “In your dreams, Dante.”