Christmas with the Prince

Her eyes widened and she vigorously shook her head. “No! Of course not! I didn’t mean to imply…” She frowned and bit her lip.

He could see that she was this close to giving in, so he made the decision for her. “It’s settled, then. You’ll spend the evening with me.”

She looked hesitant, but seemed to realize that she had little choice in the matter. “I guess one night off wouldn’t kill me.”

“Excellent. What do you do for fun?”

She stared blankly.

“You do have fun occasionally, right?”

“When I’m not working I read a lot to catch up on the latest scientific discoveries and theories.”

He shot her a skeptical look.

“That’s fun.”

“I’m talking social interaction. Being with other human beings.”

He got a blank look from Liv.

“What about sports?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I’m not exactly athletic.”

A person would never know it by her figure. She looked very fit. He knew women who spent hours in the gym to look like Liv, and would kill to have a figure like that naturally.

“Do you go to movies?” he asked. “Watch television?”

“I don’t get to the movies very often, and I don’t own a television.”

This time his eyes widened. “How can you not own a television?”

“What’s the point? I’m never home to watch it.”

“Music? Theater?”

She shook her head.

“There must be something you like to do besides work and read about work.”

She thought about it for a moment, chewing her lip in concentration, then she finally said, “There is one thing I’ve always wanted to try.”

“What’s that?”

“Billiards.”

Her answer surprised him. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “It’s actually very scientific.”

He grinned. “Well, then, you’re in luck. We have a billiards table in the game room, and I happen to be an excellent teacher.”

Ten minutes into her first billiards lesson, Liv began to suspect that choosing this particular game had been a bad idea. Right about the time that Aaron handed her a cue and then proceeded to stand behind her, leaning her over the edge of the table, his body pressed to hers, and demonstrating the appropriate way to hold it.

Hard as she tried to concentrate on his instructions, as he took her through several practice shots, she kept getting distracted by the feel of his wide, muscular chest against her back. His big, bulky arms guiding her. His body heat penetrating her clothes and warming her skin. And oh, did he smell good. Whatever aftershave or cologne he’d used that morning had long since faded and his natural, unique scent enveloped her.

It’s just chemical, she reminded herself. And wholly one-sided. He wasn’t holding her like this for pleasure, or as some sort of come-on. He was giving her a billiards lesson. Granted, she’d never had one before, but it stood to reason this was the way one would do it. Although the feel of him guiding the cue, sliding it back and forth between her thumb and forefinger, was ridiculously erotic.

If he did have some other sort of lesson on his mind, one that had nothing to do with billiards, she was so far out of her league that she couldn’t even see her own league from here. Although, she had to admit, the view here was awfully nice.

“Have you got that?” Aaron asked.

She realized all this time he’d been explaining the game to her and she had completely zoned out. Which was absolutely unlike her. She turned her head toward him and he was so close her cheek collided with his chin. She could feel his breath shifting the wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail.

She jerked her head back to look at the table, swallowing back a nervous giggle. Then she did something that she hardly ever did, at least, not since she was a rebellious teen. She lied and said, “I think I’ve got it.”

He stepped back, racked up the balls, then said, “Okay, give it a try.”

She lined the cue up to the white ball, just the way he’d shown her, but she was so nervous that when she took the shot she hit the green instead, leaving a chalky line on the surface. She cringed and said, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he assuredher. “Try it again, but this time get a little closer to the ball. Like this.” He demonstrated the motion with his own cue, then backed away.

She leaned back over, following his actions, and this time she managed to hit the ball, but the force only moved it about six inches to the left, completely missing the other balls, before it rolled to a stop. “Ugh.”

“No, that was good,” he assured her. “You just need to work on your aim and put a little weight behind it. Don’t be afraid to give it a good whack.”

“I’ll try.”

He set the cue ball back in place and she leaned over, lining it up, and this time she really whacked it. A little too hard, because the ball went airborne, banking to the left, right off the table. She cringed as it landed with a sharp crack on the tile floor. “Sorry!”

“It’s okay,” he said with a good-natured chuckle, rounding the table to fetch the ball. “Maybe not quite so hard next time.”

She frowned. “I’m terrible at this.”

“You just started. It takes practice.”

That was part of the problem. She didn’t have time to practice. Which was exactly why she was hesitant to try new things. Her motto had always been, If you can’t be the best at something, why bother?

“Watch me,” he said.

She stepped aside to give him room. He bent over and lined up the shot, but instead of keeping her eyes on his cue, where they were supposed to be, she found herself drawn to the perfect curve of his backside. His slacks hugged him just right.

She heard a loud crack, and lifted her gaze to see the balls scattering all over the table.

“Just like that,” he said, and she nodded, despite the fact that, like before, she hadn’t been paying attention. He backed up and gestured to the table. “Why don’t you knock a few around. Work on your aim.”

Despite her awkwardness, somehow Aaron always managed to make her feel less…inept. And after some practice and a couple of false starts, she was actually getting the hang of it. She even managed to keep all the balls on the table where they belonged and sink a few in the pockets. When they played a few actual games, she didn’t do too badly, although she had the sneaking suspicion he was deliberately going easy on her.

After a while, despite having slept most of the day, she started yawning.

“Maybe we should call it a night,” he said.

“What time is it?”

“Half past twelve.”

“Already!” She had no idea they’d been playing that long.

“Past your bedtime?” he teased.

“Hardly.” As if on cue, she yawned again, so deeply moisture filled her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m so sleepy.”

“Probably jet lag. It’ll just take a few days for your system to adjust. Why don’t you go to bed and get a good night’s sleep, then start fresh in the morning.”

As eager as she was to get back down to the lab, he was probably right. Besides, she really needed samples and her assistant wouldn’t be here until the next morning. Maybe she could take some time to catch up on a bit of reading.

“I think maybe I will,” she told him.

He took her cue and hung it, and his own, on a wall rack. “Maybe we can try this again, tomorrow night.”

“Maybe,” she said, and the weird thing was that she really wanted to. She was having fun. Maybe too much fun. She had a job to do here. That disease wasn’t going to cure itself. It had been hours since she’d even thought about her research, and that wasn’t at all like her.

“I’ll walk you to your room,” Aaron said.

“I think I can find my way.” They were somewhere on the third floor, and if she took the nearest steps down one floor she was pretty sure she would be near the hallway her room was on.

“A gentleman always walks his date to the door,” he said with a grin. “And if nothing else, I am always a gentleman.”

Date? Surely he was using that word in the loosest of terms, because she and Aaron were definitely not dating. Not in the literal sense. He meant it casually, like when people said they had a lunch date with a friend. Or a dinner date with a work associate.

She picked up her backpack from where she’d left it by the door, slung it over her shoulder and followed him out into the hall and down the stairs. She wanted to remember how to get there, should she ever decide to come back and practice alone every now and then.

“By the way, do you play poker?” he asked as they walked side by side down the hall toward her room.

“Not in a long time.”

“My brother, sister and I play every Friday night. You should join us.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, it’ll be fun. I promise, it’s much easier than billiards.”

She wondered if that would be considered proper. The hired help playing cards with the family. Of course, since she’d arrived, he’d treated her more like a guest than an employee.

“If you claim you have to work,” he said sternly, “I’ll change the door code and lock you out of the lab.”

She couldn’t tell if he was just teasing her, or if he would really do it. And who knows, it might be fun. “They won’t mind?”

“My brother and sister? Of course not. We always invite palace guests to join in.”

“But I’m not technically a guest,” she said as they stopped in front of her door. “I work for you.”

He was silent for a moment as he seemed to digest her words, looking puzzled. Finally he said, “You don’t have the slightest clue how valuable you are, do you?”

His words stunned her. Her? Valuable?

“What you’ve been through. What you’ve overcome…” He shook his head. “It makes me feel very insignificant.”

“I make you feel that way?” she asked, flattening a hand to her chest. “Me?”

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“You’re royalty. Compared to you, I’m nobody.”

“Why would you think you’re nobody?”

“Because…I am. What have I ever done?”

“You’ve done a hell of a lot more than I ever have. And think of all that you still have the chance to do.”

She could hardly believe that Aaron, a prince, could possibly hold someone like her in such high esteem. What was he seeing that no one else did?

“I’m sure you’ve done things, too,” she said.

He shook his head. “All of my life I’ve had things handed to me. I’ve never had to work for anything. And look at the adversity you’ve overcome to get where you are.”

She shrugged. “I just did what I had to do.”

“And that’s my point exactly. Most people would have given up. Your determination, your ambition, is astounding. And the thing I like most is that you don’t put on airs. You don’t try to be something that you’re not.” He took a step closer and his expression was so earnest, so honest, her breath caught. “I’ve never met a woman so confident. So comfortable in her own skin.”

Confident? Was he serious? She was constantly second-guessing herself, questioning her own significance. Her worth.

“You’re intelligent and interesting and kind,” he said. “And fun. And I’m betting that you don’t have a clue how beautiful you are.”

Did the guy need glasses? She was so…plain. So unremarkable. “You think I’m beautiful?”

“I don’t think you are. I know you are. And you wouldn’t believe how much I’ve wanted to…” He sighed and shook his head. “Never mind.”

She was dying to know what he was thinking, and at the same time scared to death of what it might be. But her insatiable curiosity got the best of her.

Before she could stop herself she asked, “You wanted to do what?”

For a long, excruciating moment he just looked at her and her heart hammered relentlessly in anticipation. Finally he grinned that sexy simmering smile and told her, “I wanted do this.” Then he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her.

This was not the wishy-washy version of a kiss that Liv had gotten from William the day she left. Not even close. This kiss had heart. And soul. It had soft lips and caressing hands and breathless whimpers—mostly from her.

It was the kind of kiss that a girl remembered her entire life, the one she looked back on as her first real kiss. And she was kissing him back just as enthusiastically. Her arms went around Aaron’s neck, fingers tunneled through his hair. She was practically attacking him, but he didn’t seem to mind. She felt as though she needed this, needed to feed off his energy, like a plant absorbing the sunlight.

She kept waiting for him to break the kiss, to laugh at her and say, Just kidding or I can’t believe you fell for that! As if it was some sort of joke. What other reason would he have for kissing someone like her? But he didn’t pull away. He pulled her closer. Her breasts crushed against the solid wall of his chest, tingling almost painfully, and just like that, she was hotter and more turned on than she’d ever been in her life.

But what about William?

William who ?

Aaron’s hands were caressing her face, tangling through her hair, pulling the band free so it spilled out around her shoulders. He pulled her closer and she nearly gasped when she felt the length of his erection, long and stiff against her belly. Suddenly the reality of what she was doing, where this was leading and the eventual conclusion, penetrated the lusty haze that was clouding her otherwise-rational brain. In the back of her mind a guilty little voice asked, Is this how you treat the man who asked you to marry him?

She didn’t want to think about that. She wanted to shut him out of her mind, pretend William didn’t exist. But he did exist, and he was back in the States patiently awaiting an answer from her. Trusting that she was giving his proposal serious thought.

She broke the kiss and burrowed her head against Aaron’s shoulder, feeling the deep rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the rapid beat of his heart. Her own breath was coming in shallow bursts and her heart rate had climbed to what must have been a dangerously high level. Had anyone under the age of seventy ever actually died of heart failure brought on by extreme sexual arousal?

“What’s wrong?” he asked, genuine concern in his voice.

She struggled to catch her breath, to slow her pounding heart. “We’re moving too fast.”

He chuckled. “Um, technically, we haven’t actually done anything yet.”

“And we shouldn’t. We can’t.”

He was quiet for several seconds, then he asked, “Are you saying you don’t want to? Because, love, that kiss was hot as hell.”

He called her love. No one had ever used a term of endearment like that with her. Certainly not her foster parents. Not even William. It made her feel special. Which made what she had to do next that much harder.

“I want to,” she said. “A lot.”

He rubbed his hands softly up and down her back. “Are you…afraid?”

She shook her head against his shoulder. She was anything but frightened, although maybe she should have been, because nothing about this made any sense. It wasn’t logical, and her entire life revolved around logic and science.

Maybe that was what made it so appealing.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” she said.

“What is it?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up at him. “I’m kind of…engaged.”

Chapter Seven

“You’re engaged?” Aaron backed away from Liv, wondering why this was the first time he’d heard this. Especially when he considered all of the blatant flirting that had been going both ways between them the past couple of days. Well, some of it went both ways, but in all fairness he was always the one to initiate it.

“Um…sort of,” she said, looking uneasy.

Sort of? “Wait, how can a person be sort of engaged? And if you are engaged, why aren’t you wearing a ring?”

“We kinda didn’t get to that part yet.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “What part did you get to exactly?”

“He asked me, and I told him I would think about it.”

There was this feeling, low in his gut. A surge of sensation that he didn’t recognize. The he realized he was jealous. He envied a complete stranger. “Who is he?”

“His name is William. We work together.”

“Another scientist?”

She nodded. “He’s my mentor.”

“Are you in love with him?” he asked.

She hesitated a moment, then said, “He’s a good friend. I have an immense amount of respect for him.”

Was that relief he’d just felt? “That isn’t what I asked you.”

She chewed her lip, as though she was giving it deep consideration, then she said, “Love is highly overrated.”

Normally he would have agreed, but this was different. She was different. He couldn’t imagine Liv being happy with a man she only respected. She deserved better. She’d fought all of her life to get exactly what she wanted. Why quit now?

And how did he know what she wanted when he barely knew her?

Somehow, he just did. And she was special. He couldn’t even vocalize exactly why. It was just something he knew deep down.

“He must be a damned good shag, then,” Aaron said, aware of how peevish he sounded.

He expected a snappy response, a firm, Butt out, buster, or Mind your own business. Instead Liv bit her lip and lowered her eyes. It didn’t take him long to figure out what that meant.

He folded his arms across his chest and said, “You haven’t slept with him, have you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

But she didn’t deny it, either. “Out of curiosity, how long have you been dating this William fellow?”

Her gaze dropped to her feet again and in went the lip between her teeth. She didn’t say a word. But her silence said it all.

“Are you telling me that you two have never even dated? Let me guess, you’ve never kissed him, either?”

She leveled her eyes on him. “I have so!”

He took a step toward her. “I’ll bet he doesn’t make you half as hot as I do.”

He could tell by her expression, from the sudden rush of color to her cheeks, that he was right.

“I wasn’t that hot,” she said, but he knew it was a lie.

“You won’t be happy,” he said. “You’re too passionate.”

She looked at him like he was nuts. “I’ve been accused of a lot of things, but being passionate is not one of them.”

He sighed. “There you go, selling yourself short again.”

She shook her head in frustration. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I hardly even know you.”

“I know. And that’s the bizarre part, because for some reason I feel as though I’ve known you forever.” He could see by her expression that she didn’t know how to respond to that, and she wasn’t sure what to make of him. And oddly enough, neither did he. This wasn’t at all like him.

She grabbed the knob and opened her door. “I should get to sleep.”

He nodded. “Promise me you’ll think about what I said.”

“Good night, Aaron.” She slipped inside her room and closed the door behind her.

He turned and walked in the direction of his own room. What he’d told her wasn’t a lie. He’d never met anyone quite like her. She sincerely had no idea how unique, how gifted she was.

At first he’d planned only to seduce Liv and show her a good time while she was here, but something had happened since then. Something he hadn’t expected. He really liked her. And the idea of her marrying this William person—a man she obviously didn’t love—disturbed him far more than it should have.

Liv closed the door and leaned against it, expelling a long, deep breath.

What the heck had just happened out there? What did he want from her? Was he just trying to seduce her? To soften her up with his sweet words? Or did he really mean what he said? Did he really think she was interesting and fun? And beautiful. And if she really was, why had no one told her until now?

Just because no man had said the words, it didn’t mean it wasn’t true. And although she would never admit it to his face, he was right about one thing, no man had ever made her even close to as hot as he just had. With barely more than a kiss. Had it gone any further, she may have become the first scientifically genuine victim of spontaneous human combustion.

And oh how she had wanted it to go further. But to what end? A brief, torrid affair? Yeah, so what if it was? What was so wrong with that? They were consenting adults.

Yeah, but what about William?

So what if William wasn’t an above-average kisser, and who cared that he didn’t get her all hot and bothered the way Aaron did. William was stable and secure, and he respected her, and she was sure that he thought she was beautiful, too. He just wasn’t the type of man to express his feelings. She was sure that once they were married he would open up.

But what if he didn’t? Was that enough for her?

She heard a muffled jingle coming from her backpack and realized her phone was ringing. She pulled it out and saw that it was, speak of the devil, William. She hadn’t spoken to him since she left the States. No doubt he was anxious for an answer.

She let it go to voice mail. She would call him back tomorrow once she’d had a night to think things through. When she’d had time to forget how Aaron’s lips felt against hers, and the taste of his mouth, and what it had been like to have his arms around her, his fingers tangling in her hair.

What if she never forgot? Could she go through life always wondering what if? Would it really be so awful, for once in her life, to do something just because she wanted to. Because it felt good. It wasn’t as if he would want a relationship, and frankly, neither would she. Just one quick roll in the hay. Or maybe two. Then she could go home to William, who would never be the wiser…and live the rest of her life in guilt for betraying him.

Ugh.

But if they weren’t technically engaged yet, could it really be counted as cheating?

As she was changing into her pajamas, her cell phone rang again. It was William. She considered letting it go to voice mail again, then decided she at least owed him a few words.

When she answered, his voice was filled with relief.

“I thought maybe you were avoiding me.” He sounded so apprehensive and vulnerable. So unlike the confident, steadfast man she was used to, and the truth was, hearing him that way was just the slightest bit…off-putting. It knocked the pedestal she’d always kept him up on down a notch or two.

“Of course not,” she said. “I’ve just been very busy.”

“Is this a bad time? I could call back later.”

“No, this is fine. I was just getting ready for bed. How have you been?”

“Swamped.” He gave her a rundown on everything that had been going on in the lab since she left.

When he’d finished his dissertation, she asked him again. “How are you, William?”

“Me?” He sounded confused, probably because they never really talked about their personal lives.

“Yes, you.”

Finally he said, “Good. I’m good.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. Instead he asked, “How are you?”

Exhausted, but excited, and having more fun than I’ve ever had in my life, not to mention nursing a pretty serious crush, and considering an affair with, of all people, a prince.

But she couldn’t tell him that. “I’m…good.”

“The reason for my call,” he said, getting right to the point—because William always had a point. “I was just wondering if you’d given any thought to my proposal.”

He said it so drily, as though he were referring to a work proposal and not a lifetime commitment.