Page 34 of The Duke's Virgin
I hadn’t intentionally soughthim out.
I wasn’t even sure what tosayto him. I knew how toaddresshim, but it seemed very…weird to call a guy I’d slept withYour Highness.
But as I reached for the glass of wine I’d requested, he was just suddenly there. And the uniformed man who’d put the wine in front of me wasn’t.
It was just Luka and me.
Feeling out of place, I looked at him. “Hello.”
He inclined his head.
I hadn’t done the proper greeting, I realized. Oh, well. Blame it on me being a crass American.
“I…ah…you’re the last person I expected to see here. I thought Prince Geraint was the heir to the Grand Duchy. I…ah, well, I saw him briefly at the engagement party. I was there with Aeric. I guess I just assumed…” Feeling stupid, I let the words trail off and shrugged. “Well, I never heard you mentioned when they introduced guests.”
Luka lifted a brow and gave me a look that was all too familiar—cool, condescending—judging.
He’d judged me and found me wanting.
Tightening my hand on the glass of wine, I fought the rush of blood creeping up my neck and decided I was thankful I’d taken the time with my makeup. It would masksomeof my embarrassed flush.
“The engagement party you attended with Prince Aericwasin my brother’s honor,” Luka said, his tone dour. “It would be in bad taste for me to take away from him on a night that was for him and his fiancée. Naturally, I stayed in the background.”
His amber eyes, the color of good whiskey, stared into mine.
It left me feeling naked and more vulnerable than I’d had when he’d covered me, then slowly pushed inside.
“Naturally,” I said. “Excuse me.”
A rush of emotions flooded me as I walked away, the feel of his eyes boring into my back.
Anger, hurt, embarrassment, resignation, they all vied for dominance, and I couldn’t give in to any of them, not here. That knowledge left me with an odd brittle sensation, one I knew too well.
I felt like I might shatter with the wrong look, the wrong word.
And that was something else I couldn’t allow to happen here.
I should have stayed in Monaco. No, I should have just caught an earlier flighthome.
Ten
Luka
The half-smileon her face was the first thing I saw when I stepped out of the castle.
I’d seen her every time I closed my eyes for the past week, and for half a minute, I wondered if I’d hallucinated her right into being. I hadn’t been sleeping all that well, and lack of sleepdidcontribute to hallucinations, didn’t it?
But then she turned her head and looked up at Aeric, and I knew I wasn’t imagining anything.
Stacia was here, with her cousin. She was also with the Prince and Princess of Monaco.
I’d assumed she was adistantcousin, but I could toss that idea out the window because Prince Fortinbras of Monaco was too much a stickler for protocol. I couldn’t see him inviting some distant cousin to dinner, even if the invitationhadbeen extended to the Nicolai family.
Moments later, I was proven right.
Stacia was introduced as Princess Valentina’s niece, visiting from America. My mother, naturally, had to ask, and Stacia, with that sweet smile she’d revealed to me several times throughout the night, explained that her mother was Valentina’s younger sister. Willa had moved to America years earlier, and Stacia had always had a close relationship with her uncle, aunt, and cousins in Monaco.
Fucking perfect.
