Kathleen Creighton - Romancing The Crown - Leila and Gage - Virgin Seduction / Royal Spy

“Oh yes,” she murmured, “I understand.”

For some reason her acquiescence annoyed him, made him feel fraudulent and unworthy. He cleared his throat and ventured a look at her, squinting as if she were a light too bright for his eyes. He continued almost defiantly, “In fact, there’s something—this weekend I have a thing I’m supposed to do—I promised a client I’d take him hunting out at the ranch.”

A frown appeared between her eyebrows. “The…ranch?”

“Yeah—I told you about it—west Texas?”

“Oh—yes, yes—I remember.” She sounded eager, now. “And you will fly there in your airplane?”

His insides writhed with guilt. Furious with himself for it, furious with her for making him feel it, he fought the urge to fidget and cleared his throat instead. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow, actually. Straight from work. So I won’t be—”

“Tomorrow?” He could hear a different breathiness in her voice now…unmistakable touches of panic.

“Look—I’m sorry. It’s been scheduled for a while. It’s a client—I couldn’t very well cancel at the last minute.” Cade chose that moment to escape into his bathroom, too cowardly to risk another look at her. He didn’t need to see the shock, dismay and disappointment he knew would be written all over her face…that incredibly expressive face that sometimes seemed to him like watching a video tape on fast forward.

Just inside the bathroom doorway, again he stopped dead.

In only a matter of hours his bathroom had become an alien place. A lush and steamy greenhouse garden, redolent of all sorts of flowery, exotic scents, where jewel-toned bottles sprouted like mushrooms from the marble countertops and a rainbow of fabrics intertwined with the more subtle hues of damp towels bloomed in tropical profusion over every available surface.

Closing his mind to both the chaos and the disturbingly evocative smells, Cade set about gathering up the toiletries Betsy had unpacked for him, putting them back in their travel case. And while he was doing that he went on glibly talking, telling Leila in a logical, reasonable way how he thought she should spend the time while he was gone, catching up on her rest, settling in, getting to know the place…

But not too well , he reminded himself. No sense in her getting too settled in and comfortable here. This “marriage” was only going to be temporary, after all.

Listening to himself talk like that, without Leila’s disturbing presence to distract him and just the sound of his own voice and his reassuringly normal reflection glaring back at him from the mirrors, he could feel his self-assurance coming back. Everything he said sounded reasonable and sane—even logical and wise. And why shouldn’t it? He was Cade Gallagher, successful Texas businessman, a self-made man who’d had his first few million under his belt before his thirty-fifth birthday. A man with a far-ranging and well-earned reputation as a deal-maker, a man who knew how to play the game—and win.

Play the game…and win .

It came to him then, a flash of self-awareness like a spotlight trained on a dark corner of his soul, just what had happened to him back there in Tamir. In the first place, he’d gone to Elena’s wedding with a business deal in mind. Once there, he’d gotten so caught up in the game and so blinded by the idea of winning, he’d lost his perspective. In order to win the game he’d let himself be coerced into marrying a woman he didn’t love, with whom he had nothing whatsoever in common.

But the truth was, he didn’t need this “win.” He didn’t need the old sheik’s oil deal. He’d made his millions right here in Texas, and there was plenty more where that came from.

He’d been an ambitious fool and had paid the price, but all was not lost. He could still get out of this. He could still get his life back.

Just as long as he did not consummate this marriage.

That was it—the key to his deliverance. Because, from what he’d learned of Leila’s culture so far, it seemed to him that when it came to marriage, it was all about the consummation . Even the Walima , the marriage feast, was to celebrate, not the wedding, but the consummation. The way Cade saw it, so long as he didn’t make love to his wife, he wasn’t even really married.

No problem. So what if she was one of the most beautiful and seductive women he’d ever seen in his life? He was thirty-six years old—a grown man, not a randy teenager. The image that looked back at him in the mirror was confident and mature…eyes world-weary, smile wry, eyebrows set at a sardonic tilt. Yes, he told himself, he had more than enough willpower, he ought to be able to resist one little black-eyed virgin princess.

He picked up his toiletry kit and turned around. And there she was, the virgin princess herself, standing in the bathroom doorway, filling it up so his only escape was going to have to be either through her or over her. Unless she moved out of his way, which she was showing no inclination to do.

As a test of that theory, he took a step toward her. Sure enough, she didn’t budge an inch. Instead she watched him with great luminous eyes, and he saw her lips slowly part.

Apprehension shivered through his insides. He took another step…and another. Only a foot or so separated them now. And then she did move, but not away from him. Instead, she lifted one soft, scented hand and laid it alongside his jaw, a touch as cool and light as a flower. His heart began to pound.

“Leila—” With no spit at all in his mouth, it was all the sound he could manage.

She didn’t say a word, just touched one petal-like finger to his lips and shook her head. For a long and terrifying moment she looked deeply into his eyes, and he no longer felt the least bit logical or wise. Then she stretched way up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

His heart and stomach performed impossible acrobatic maneuvers and shimmers of panic danced behind his closed eyelids. His confidence had already evaporated. He snatched at a breath that seared the inside of his chest while every impulse and desire in him pleaded with him to give in…to kiss her back and then some. To carry her to his bed and make love to her for what was left of tonight and let tomorrow and the rest of his future—and hers—take care of themselves.

He might have done it. He wasn’t sure what would have happened, in fact, if he’d had both hands free. As it was, while one hand, already tingling with anticipation of the feel of her, hovered indecisively inches from her shoulder, his other hand, filled with the small leather case that held his toiletries, made a lump, a slight but significant barrier between his chest and hers. One she couldn’t ignore.

She drew back, one of her hands still resting on his shoulder, and looked down at it. After a long moment, her eyes came back to his. “I do not understand,” she said in a husky voice. “These are your personal things. Why do you need them? Where are you taking them? Now…tonight?”

The air seemed to back up in Cade’s chest. His tongue felt thick as he tried to explain. “I…uh, I thought I’d, you know, sleep in the guestroom—it’s just across the hall…” Why did he feel like an inept thief trying to explain the goodies in his sack, an unprepared schoolboy without his homework?

“But, this is your bedcham— bedroom .” She wasn’t touching him at all, now, but somehow he knew she was trembling. “Betsy told me. If you do not wish me—” She broke off suddenly, as if she’d been choked, and swallowed hard several times. Then he saw her body stiffen and her chin lift, and his own heart sank. With her face now pale and frozen as a statue, she said in a proud and quiet voice he’d never heard before, “If you do not wish me to sleep here with you in your bedroom, then you must tell me. It is I who should move to the guestroom, not you.”