Indian Prince's Hidden Son

‘I’m cold,’ Willow admitted, snaking back from him to tug the edge of the duvet up and scramble under it with a convulsive shiver.

Jai peeled off his trousers, shaken that in his haste to possess her he had not even fully undressed. Nothing cool or sophisticated about that approach, he told himself ruefully, wondering what it was about her that had made him so downright desperate to have her. For the first time with a woman sexual hunger had overwhelmed him and crowded every other consideration out. It was something more than looks, maybe that unspoiled natural quality of hers, not to mention her disconcerting honesty in assuring him that he was just a one-night stand and that she had no desire to attach strings to him. Jai didn’t think he had ever been with a woman who didn’t want those strings, no matter how coolly she was trying to play the game. He was too rich and too powerful not to inspire women with ambitious hopes and plans.

‘Let me warm you,’ Jai urged, hauling her into contact with his hot, muscular length, driving out the shivers that had been assailing her.

And it all began again and this time she was wholly free of tension and insecurity and the excitement rose even faster for her. The pleasure stole her mind from her body and left her exhausted. She dropped into sleep, still melded to Jai and still amazed by what had happened between them. At some stage of the night he kissed her awake and made love to her again, slow and sure this time, and achingly sexy. It occurred to her that Jai had made her initiation into sex wondrously sensual but, even then, she knew she ached in bone and muscle and would be wrecked the next morning.

In the dull light of dawn, she was surprised when Jai shook her awake. Dressed in his dark suit and unshaven, he stood over her, studying her with wolf pale blue eyes that burned. He yanked back the duvet, rudely exposing her, and said roughly, ‘There’s blood all over the sheet! Did I hurt you?’

Willow wanted to die of humiliation where she sat and she snatched at the duvet in desperation and covered up the offending stain, her face burning as hot as a furnace. ‘Of course, you didn’t. I didn’t realise I would bleed the first time,’ she whispered shakily. ‘I know some women do but somehow I assumed I wouldn’t…’

Slow, painful comprehension gripped Jai and rocked him to the depths of his being. He stared down at her in dawning disbelief. ‘Are you saying that you were a virgin?’

‘Well, it’s not something I can lie about now, is it?’ Willow muttered in embarrassment, her chin coming up at a defiant tilt. ‘But I don’t know why you would think that you have a right to make a production out of something that is my business and nothing to do with you.’

‘I would not have chosen to sleep with you had I known I would be your first,’ Jai framed fiercely.

‘Well, if that was a personal concern of yours, you should’ve asked in advance,’ Willow countered mutinously. ‘It’s not as if I dragged you into bed!’

‘How the hell could I have guessed that you were still a virgin at your age?’ Jai demanded.

‘I’m only twenty-one. Twenty-two in a few months,’ she added stiffly. ‘I’m sure I’m not that unusual.’

Jai was not appeased. She was years younger than the women he usually took as lovers, but he hadn’t registered that fact the night before, had been too turned on and in too much of a hurry to register anything important, he conceded, angry at his own recklessness.

‘Perhaps not, but I assumed you were experienced,’ he admitted flatly.

‘Well, now you know different. Can we drop this discussion? I want to get washed and dressed,’ Willow told him without any expression at all, her small, slight body rigid with wounded pride and resentment in the bed as she continued to hug the duvet to her. ‘You know last night was lovely…but now you’ve ruined it.’

‘I’ll see you downstairs,’ Jai countered grimly.

Willow scrambled out of bed as soon as the door closed behind him and then winced, her body letting her know that such sudden energetic movements would be punished. Just at that moment she did not want that reminder of the intimacy they had shared when Jai, so obviously, regretted it. She pulled out fresh clothing and trekked across to the small shower room. A damp towel lay on the floor and she bent to scoop it up and lift it to her nose. It smelled ever so faintly of Jai while her body smelled even more strongly of him. Shame engulfed her in a drowning flood of regret. Evidently in sleeping with him she had made the wrong decision, but surely it had been her decision to make?

Of course, there had been men who’d shown an interest in her in recent years, but none had attracted her enough for her to take matters any further. She had never been much of a fan of crowded clubs or parties and her father’s demand that she come home at a reasonable hour had proved to be a restriction that had turned her into a deadbeat companion for a night out. She had taken the easy way out when faced with her father’s domineering personality and she had spent her free evenings at home watching television and catching up with Shelley, none of which had given her any experience of how to handle Jai in a temper. But never again would she lie down to be walked over by an angry male, she told herself urgently. From now on she would stand her ground and hold her head high, even if she did have misgivings about her own behaviour.

Jai paced the small living room, feeling the claustrophobic proportions of its confines in growing frustration. Willow was twenty-one years old. Far too young for an experienced man of twenty-nine. Why hadn’t he remembered how young she was? What had he been thinking of? The answer was that he hadn’t been thinking, hadn’t stopped to think once. Everything that had happened with Willow had happened so fast and had seemed so deceptively natural that he had questioned nothing and now it was too late to change anything.

‘Last night was lovely…but now you’ve ruined it.’

That complaint, towering in its naivety, echoed in his ears and made him flinch. As a rule, he avoided starry-eyed girls and she was one he should definitely have avoided getting more deeply involved with. A woman who’d had a massive crush on him as a teenager? How much had that influenced her willingness to give him her body? He emitted a harsh groan of guilt and self-loathing.

A decent man didn’t take advantage of a vulnerable woman! And what had he done?

Within hours of her father’s funeral, when she was grieving and distressed, he had pounced like some sort of self-serving seducer. She had deserved more care and consideration than he had given her. Yet he had started out simply trying to offer both care and consideration and could not for the life of him explain how trying to comfort her had ended up with them having sex. She hadn’t flirted with him. She hadn’t encouraged him but she hadn’t said no either. Was that what he was blaming her for? No, he was blaming her for not telling him that she was a virgin, for not giving him that choice…

‘I’ll have to nip out to get something for breakfast,’ Willow told him from the doorway.

Jai swung round, his eyes a pale glittering brilliance in his lean, darkly handsome face. ‘I’ll eat back at the hotel,’ he told her drily. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that I would be the first? I wouldn’t have continued if I’d known. I feel as though I took advantage of your inexperience.’

‘It didn’t occur to me that I should tell you. I wasn’t really thinking. I don’t think either of us were. Everything happened so fast,’ Willow murmured defensively, wishing he would have given her the time to provide breakfast and sort matters out in a more civilised manner. But Jai, she was beginning to recognise, was much more volatile in nature than she had ever appreciated. Without skipping a beat, he had taken the dialogue they had abandoned in the bedroom straight back up again, which suggested that while she’d showered and dressed, he had merely continued to silently brood and seethe.

‘There’s nothing we can do about it now,’ she pointed out thinly.

Jai looked back at her, scanning her small, slight figure in jeans and a top. Even with the shadows etched below her eyes, she was still lovely, eminently touchable, he reflected as he tensed. Daylight and cold reason had not made her any less appealing. ‘No, but it was wrong.’

‘You don’t get the unilateral right to say that to me,’ Willow snapped back at him. ‘It was not wrong for me!’

‘You had a crush on me for years,’ Jai countered levelly. ‘Is that why it wasn’t wrong for you?’

Willow’s soft mouth opened and closed again as she gazed back at him in horror, hot, painful colour slowly washing up her cheeks. ‘I can’t believe you are throwing that in my face.’

‘It’s relevant to this situation,’ Jai breathed sardonically.

‘The only person making a situation out of this is you!’ Willow condemned, fighting her mortification with all her might. ‘Yes, I may have had a crush on you when I was a schoolgirl, but I grew out of that nonsense years ago!’

‘I’m not sure I can believe that some sentimental memory didn’t influence you.’

‘It didn’t. Whether you believe that or not is up to you,’ Willow replied curtly. ‘I’m all grown up now. I don’t have any romantic notions about you…and if I had, you’d have killed them stone dead.’

Her continuing refusal to be influenced by his attitude surprised Jai. He was accustomed to those he dealt with coming round to his view and supporting his opinion, but Willow was stubborn enough and independent enough not to budge an inch. Meanwhile those bright green eyes, reminiscent of fresh ferns in the shade, damned him to hell and back.

‘Then let’s get down to business,’ Jai suggested, disconcerting her when she was bracing herself for another round of the same conversation. ‘I want to buy your father’s books.’

Willow regrouped and contrived to nod. ‘I’m content with that.’

‘Is the dealer you mentioned last night a book dealer?’

‘Nothing so fancy…why?’

‘At least two of the books are quite valuable first editions and you could do better auctioning them,’ Jai warned.

‘I haven’t time for that. I didn’t know any of them would be worth anything,’ she completed stiffly.

‘I will buy them at a fair price but you may wish to take further advice.’

Willow groaned out loud. ‘Oh, Jai… I don’t think you’re likely to cheat me!’

‘Very well. The books will be packed for you and collected later this morning and I will pay you in cash as that may be more convenient for you right now,’ Jai murmured levelly. ‘Will you allow me to pay for you to stay in a hotel until you get on your feet again?’

‘Would you be offering me that option if you hadn’t slept with me last night?’ Willow asked suspiciously.

His eyes clashed with her sceptical appraisal. ‘Yes.’

‘No. Thanks, but no,’ Willow told him without hesitation. ‘I don’t mind staying with Shelley for a while.’

‘Will you accept any further assistance from me?’ Jai enquired.

‘I’d prefer not to,’ Willow responded truthfully.

‘Life isn’t always that straightforward,’ Jai replied wryly as he settled his business card on the table. ‘If at any time you need help, you can depend on me to deliver it, no strings attached. Phone me if you are in need.’

‘And why would you make me an offer like that?’ Willow demanded shortly.

‘I wish you well,’ Jai admitted levelly.

Willow spun around in a rather ungainly circle and went to open the front door. ‘I’ll get by fine without you,’ she told him with a defiantly bright smile. ‘But thanks for caring.’

And on that hollow note, Jai departed. As soon as he was gone, Willow felt empty, exhausted and horribly hurt. She would never see him again except in newspapers or magazines at some glamorous or important event, but that was for the best because Jai had rejected her on every level. He had switched back to treating her like a distant acquaintance, whom he was willing to help in times of trouble, smoothly distancing himself from their brief intimacy.

He not only regretted sleeping with her, but also suspected that she had slept with him because she had once been infatuated with him. He had made mincemeat out of her pride and humiliated her.

Goodbye, Jai, she thought numbly. Goodbye and good riddance!

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