CHAPTER ONE

      ‘YOU WERE RIGHT to end your engagement,’ Nathaniel Giroud murmured, nodding lazily at the dance floor where Prince Helios and his bride were dancing together, clearly enjoying themselves. ‘Helios would have made you unhappy.’

      Princess Catalina Fernandez took a long drink of her champagne. There was the faintest tremor in her hand. ‘How can you be so sure?’

      ‘No chemistry.’ He paused before adding, ‘Not like the chemistry between you and I.’

      Her heart-shaped chin pointed forward and she pushed her chair back from the table they were sitting alone at, the motion sending a small waft of her sultry scent into his path.

      He longed to smell every part of her.

      ‘We cannot have this conversation,’ she said quietly. ‘What you are implying is impossible.’

      He rested a hand on hers before she could get to her feet. ‘Why is it impossible?’

      ‘You know why.’ She slid her hand away and met his gaze. ‘I must save myself for my husband. My purity is my gift for him.’

      ‘A gift?’ The concept was so ludicrous he almost laughed but this was no laughing matter. He thought of Catalina’s brother, heir to the throne of Monte Cleure, sleeping his way around Europe without an ounce of penitence, allowing himself—and being allowed by their father—all the hedonistic delights he would deny his own sister on account of nothing more than the fact she had been born a woman.

      Now she’d been dumped by Helios, whatever the sanitised whitewash of the official press release might have said, the rumours suggested she was promised to an aging Swedish duke. Nathaniel had no qualms about seducing her. Catalina wanted him. He knew it. And she knew it too.

      ‘So you are nothing but a possession?’

      Confusion flittered in her dark eyes.

      ‘Is that what you’re saying?’ he pressed. ‘That you don’t have autonomy over your own body? Are you nothing but a vessel for the next generation?’

      ‘It isn’t like that. I am a princess. This is my life. It’s what I was born to be.’

      ‘You are also a woman.’

      Her delicate throat moved.

      He leaned a little closer, brushing his arm against hers, moving in for the kill.

      Princess Catalina was a breed apart from all women. That she had class and poise went without saying but she was also incredibly beautiful too. And she carried herself with such stillness. Looking at her was like gazing at a portrait come to life. Tall and raven-haired with sultry eyes like melted chocolate, she had skin that seemed never to have sat in the sun, like clear, flawless alabaster. Today she was dressed beautifully in a knee-length peach dress that emphasised her full breasts and tiny waist without showing an inch of unnecessary flesh. Her hair had been piled into a wide, round bun on the top of her head, the effect of it all bringing to mind sixties glamour. It was a look only she could pull off.

      She was a woman without flaws.

      But, of course, every person in the world had flaws, and he itched to discover what hers could be.

      The rumours that her father, the King of Monte Cleure, was planning to snub Helios’s wedding had proven true. With Catalina’s brother now having disappeared with his latest pneumatically enhanced girlfriend, Nathaniel knew this would be his one and only shot with her.

      ‘Your first time should be special. It should be with a man who will worship you and take care of you, not some cold-blooded aristocrat doing his duty.’

      ‘I’m an aristocrat,’ she said, the same quiver he could feel in her delectable body so close to his own echoing in her voice.

      ‘Ah, but you’re different—beneath your icy exterior runs blood of lava.’

      Spotting the Swedish duke making his way to their table, Nathaniel stood up.

      Catalina stared at him, obviously confused by his abruptness.

      ‘Your rumoured fiancé is heading our way. I suspect he’s going to ask you to dance.’

      Her gaze flitted to the aging duke.

      ‘He’s not my fiancé.’ She gave a long exhale. ‘Not yet.’

      ‘Then there is nothing to stop you dancing with me.’ He extended his hand to her, palm up.

      Now her throat moved in an obvious swallow. ‘My brother told me to stay away from you.’

      He’d just bet he had. ‘Do you always do what your brother tells you?’

      ‘Yes.’

      He raised a brow and murmured, ‘And do you always want to do as you’re told?’

      There was the slightest shake of her head.

      The duke was only paces away from their table.

      Suddenly, her hand shot out to take Nathaniel’s and in one graceful movement, she rose to her feet.

      Her eyes darted to the dance floor as if she were searching for someone, before she looked at him and said, ‘One dance.’

      He bowed his head. ‘If you insist.’

      Her lips twitched. ‘It has to be just one dance. I have to think of my reputation. There are spies everywhere.’

      One dance was good enough for him. Not giving her time to change her mind, Nathaniel led her to the dance floor, leaving the duke staring at their retreating backs with a scratch of his balding head.

      When he found a spot for them, he kept her hand entwined in his, pulled her close and snaked his free arm around her waist, resting his hand above