Tempted By The Royal. Michelle Celmer
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“Not really. I snacked on some cheese balls and potato skins in the kitchen, but I was suddenly craving popcorn.” She frowned at that.
“Vegetables are one of the food groups, too,” he pointed out.
The popcorn had mostly stopped popping, and she smiled as she opened the door of the microwave and pulled the bag out. “And corn is a vegetable.”
She tore open the top of the bag and a puff of steam and rich, buttery scent escaped. “Why did you want to see me?”
“You mean, other than the fact that I really like looking at you?” he couldn’t help but tease, and had the pleasure of watching her cheeks flush.
“Other than that,” she agreed dryly.
“I wanted to let you know that I finalized the travel arrangements. Scott and Fiona are coming with me tomorrow, but you can fly in with Scott’s parents next Wednesday, if that works better for you.”
“My grandparents aren’t coming at all?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Fiona didn’t seem surprised.”
“I’m not really, either,” she admitted. “I was just hoping…Neither of us have our parents anymore. My mom walked out, my dad died, and Fiona’s mom and dad were both killed in a car accident a few years back, so aside from each other and Abbey, our grandparents are the only real family we have.”
“Do you want me to talk to them, see if I could change their minds?”
She smiled. “Thanks, but no one changes my grandmother’s mind about anything once she’s made it up and she refuses to go anywhere near an airplane.”
“So do you want to come tomorrow or next week?” Eric asked her.
She hesitated, then said, “I think tomorrow could work.”
He was both pleased and surprised by her response. “I thought you didn’t want to be away from the restaurant for too long.”
“I didn’t,” she admitted. “But I had an interesting conversation with someone before you showed up and I’m starting to think that this is something I have to do.”
“An interesting conversation with the guy at the bar?” He shouldn’t have asked—he knew it was none of his business. But the question had been eating away at him since he’d seen them together, noted the obvious familiarity in their interactions with one another.
“Jason,” she said, and nodded.
“And who is Jason?”
“My ex-fiancé.”
He scowled. “You were engaged to that guy?”
“A long time ago,” she said.
Which made him feel marginally better until he remembered that the guy had been holding her hand not such a long time ago.
“What time tomorrow?” she asked, in what seemed to him an obvious attempt to change the topic but might simply have been a desire to know the specifics of their travel plans.
“Six-thirty,” he told her.
“A.M.?”
“Yeah.”
Molly crumpled up the now empty popcorn bag and tossed it into the garbage. “Then I’m going to kick you out now so I can pack because I have to be back downstairs in an hour.”
As usual, Molly worked until closing that night. Jason came in at ten and stayed behind the bar with his sister-in-law, shadowing her every movement. Usually Molly could close everything up and be cashed out within half an hour of locking the door behind the last customer, but having to explain every step to Jason meant the routine took more than twice as long.
Still, she was awake and ready when the knock came at the door at precisely 6:30 a.m. the next morning—if not exactly alert.
She was surprised that Eric had come up instead of sending his driver, and more than a little disconcerted when he swore softly in Spanish and reached out to her.
“Mi Dios.” He brushed a thumb gently beneath her eye, tracing the purple shadows she hadn’t even tried to cover with makeup. “You don’t look as if you’ve slept.”
“I got a few hours,” she said, shifting away, as much from the casual intimacy of the gesture as the surge of warmth evoked by his tender touch, to reach for her suitcase.
He immediately pried the handle from her fingers. “I’ve got it.”
She lifted a brow. “You take control quite easily for a man who’s probably had servants picking up after him his whole life.”
“No one waits on anyone else in the navy, regardless of title or rank,” he told her.
The statement reminded her not just that he’d served his country but of the scars on his body that had been earned in that service. But instead of thinking of the injury that had ended his career, she found herself thinking of his taut, hard muscles and warm, smooth skin and the heat of his body moving against hers. Just the memories were enough to make her body tingle all over, stirring up yearnings that had been long dormant until the first night he’d walked into the bar.
Over the past several weeks, she’d managed—with effort—to keep those memories at bay. Mostly, anyway. But her tired brain was no match for the rising heat in her blood evoked by his nearness. She’d read about the enhanced sensual awareness that many women experienced during pregnancy and knew that she was one of them.
“Damn hormones,” she muttered under her breath.
He turned. “Did you say something?”
She just shook her head and followed him down the stairs.
While Scott and Fiona were cuddled close together, talking about the wedding or the future or whatever else soon-to-be-marrieds talked about, Eric watched Molly sleep.
He’d watched her sleep the night they’d spent together in her bed, when exhaustion had finally overwhelmed the passion that brought them together. He wanted her now as much as he’d wanted her then. The only thing that had prevented him from waking her and slipping into the wet heat of her sexy little body was the realization that they’d depleted the store of condoms he’d bought from the vending machine in the men’s room.
As he watched her now, he wondered what it was about this one woman that had taken hold of him. And he was baffled that the woman who had once been so warm and willing in his arms was so determined to keep him at arm’s length now.
He knew his reappearance in her life had thrown her for a loop, but he suspected that there was more going on than that. It was as if, in the few weeks that he’d been gone, her entire life had been turned upside down. He wasn’t egotistical enough to believe that he was responsible for that. As spectacular as their night together had been, neither of them had expected it would be any more than that.
But he got the impression there was something going on in her life that weighed on her mind, that was responsible for the shadows beneath her eyes and the wariness in her gaze. Or maybe he was making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe her exhaustion was simply the result of having been up too late last night and needing to be up again early this morning. Knowing the hours that she worked, he was glad she’d managed to shut down and rest for a few hours during their journey.
He was also glad she’d agreed to come to Tesoro del Mar in advance of the wedding. Not that there was a lot of planning to do—the palace staff would take care of most of the details without blinking an eye, as they’d done for the prince regent’s wedding six years earlier and the celebration of Marcus’s nuptials