As we make our way through the restaurant to the best table in the house, I pause every few steps to nod in greeting to one citizen or another. As we move through the tables, I notice there’s a wavelike hitch in the conversation. The citizens of Saintland want to remain casual in my presence, but they’re a little starstruck, too—likely by Jessica and not me.
The waiters begin their dance, bringing sparkling glasses of wine and plate after plate of delicacies, and Jessica delights in it all. It doesn’t take long for us to run out of small talk, but there’s something I’m dying to know before this budding relationship goes any further.
“Jessica,” I say, and she finishes a bite of scallop and looks up at me, her eyes glittering with happiness in the candlelight.
“Yes, Prince Alexander?” She giggles a little after she says it, and I can’t blame her. It must seem so strange to an American to have fucked a member of royalty.
“What made you reconsider?”
“Reconsider what?”
“Your no-strings and one date policy.”
She puts down her fork, her face turning serious, and then she glances around to make sure no one is within earshot. After taking a deep breath, she speaks. “That…that’s a rule I set for myself after a bad experience I had with a guy.”
I notice the worried reaction in her eyes, and I reach for her hand, covering it with mine. “You don’t have to—.”
“No. No, we’ve come all this way—.” She looks to the side and bites at the inside of her cheek. After a moment she looks me straight in the eye. “I was in a relationship for two years with a man named Michael. He was…he wasn’t a good man, and he had a lot of anger issues. He was volatile and vindictive and awful, and I stayed with him because I was afraid of starting over. I don’t know why. Shit, I—” She censors herself, glancing around at the dining room. ”I’ve always made a point of being independent. The moment I feel something’s wrong in my life, I make a plan to change it. But with him…” Her voice trails off, and she looks down at her plate again. I notice she is trying not to let me see her tremble. “He terrified me, but he also made it seem like leaving him would be a fatal mistake.”
I remain silent, but it’s hard to keep my lips pressed together, to keep the words in my mouth. My chest is filled with rage, thinking of this man, thinking of what he must have done to frighten a tigress like Jessica.
She blows a breath out through her perfect lips and her eyes are sad. “After I finally got up the courage to leave, I swore to myself that I’d never go on a second date with a man who didn’t seem a hundred percent worthy of my time. Since then, nobody has cleared the bar. Until you.”
I can’t help smiling when I hear that.
“I don’t know how—how to say this more plainly, Alec,” she says, her voice soft, her eyes locked on mine. “I’m going out on a limb with this situation. I’m taking a big risk by being here with you. But I feel, deep down, like there’s something between us that’s going to make the gamble worth it.”
The conversation has turned heavy, turned deep, yet it doesn’t make me want to turn and run in the other direction. It makes me want to hold Jessica tightly in my arms and kiss her so hard and passionately that every terrible memory is wiped away.
Instead, I keep it simple. “I feel that, too.”
Her face breaks into a wide, dazzling smile, and she squeezes my hand. “Well, thank God,” she says with a laugh. “That would have been so unbelievably awkward if all you wanted were a few all-night sex-fests.”
It’s so incongruous—the opulent setting, her perfectly coifed hair, her flawless makeup, her sexy gown, her stunning smile—that I burst into laughter, causing heads to turn to look at us.
That’s the moment when I know: this is the start of something very, very real, pure and true.
All I have to do now is keep my father from destroying it.
Chapter 17
Jessica
After dinner, Nate drives us back to the Northern Crown, and Alec takes me up to my room while the Phantom idles outside.
The moment the elevator doors close behind us, he’s on me, his fingers tracing my jawline, our lips fused, his tongue dancing with mine in my mouth, tasting me deeply.
He tears himself away without a word when the doors open onto my floor, and practically drags me by the hand all the way to my door. His impatience is mirrored in the frenetic beating of my heart, and I feel breathless with desire.
Inside my suite, he kicks the door shut behind us and lifts me up in his strong arms, making a beeline for the bedroom.
He throws me down onto the bed and, though I want to laugh, I moan instead as he tears—literally tears—my dress off my body, ripping the red material in two.
“I need you right now,” he growls, and it hits me then that teasing him in the car on the way to the restaurant must have made lingering over our meal nothing short of torture. Now it makes sense why he seemed distracted on the ride back, and his usual collected cockiness nonexistent.