Chapter 13
Matteo tasted better than chocolate. Better than dessert. Better than any other man she’d ever kissed.
Pinned against the settee in a room she hadn’t seen before, boneless, and breathless, she couldn’t get enough. As they straightened their rumpled clothes, Matteo leaned forward to kiss her again.
Her lips and body buzzed for more, but something else broke the bubble they were in. Just as his lips were about to meet hers, she opened her eyes and pulled back. “Wait. The music stopped.”
He straightened. This must mean the royal family had decided to leave. They needed to go be the perfect hosts. Her pulse skipped and her fingers shook. How could she have forgotten?
Matteo tugged on his pants over his semi-hardness. He tucked his shirt in. “I’ll go and make sure our guests are properly thanked. Fix your makeup and join me.”
She stood and he helped with the zipper in the back, though he kissed her neck.
The softness left a new tingle, but she snapped out of her reverie when she noticed his gaze on her makeup. “It’s bad?”
He squeezed her hand. “You’re beautiful Sheena, but we’re the hosts—just fix what you can.”
Sheena needed tonight to be perfect, to help her friends sell art, and to start the next chapter for the Golchin title.
Making a splash as a new lady wasn’t supposed to be this confusing. She smiled, but as she saw Matteo leaving, she remembered when Charles had left her room in the hotel that night. He’d said he’d be back, but he’d never returned. The ghost of that man shouldn’t haunt her now that she was married to Matteo. She called out into the hall, “Be right out.”
But he was already halfway back to the party to see off the king and queen.
She maneuvered her way to her private chambers. No one was here, and she took her makeup bag out.
Oh! Matteo hadn’t told her that her blue eyeliner had smeared across her cheek. No wonder he’d suggested she get cleaned up before meeting him downstairs.
She took out a brush and started fixing the mess. She heard a knock at the bedroom door and a moment later Chelsea popped her head in the bathroom as Sheena finished with her face.
Chelsea breathed a sigh of relief. “Sheena, there you are. Why weren’t you downstairs to say goodbye to the king and queen?”
Sheena took the brushes for the makeup and began to paint as the artist she was while she said, “I’m fixing my eyes. I hoped I would be faster, but I can’t let anyone see how bad it was.”
“Matteo’s kisses messed up the art.” Chelsea laughed. Sheena didn’t dare smile right now. She needed this just right. Chelsea asked, “So how is being married to your true love?”
Love? The word beat against her like a battering ram to a castle. Her lips were dry so she dabbed moisturizer on them to keep them moist for her lipstick. “What?”
Chelsea borrowed some of her blush like they were still college roommates and shared everything—she was the closest she had to a sister. “For Alex and me, life is so simple on the vineyard. I think he hates that I drag him to these events sometimes, though he’s made friends with Remy Burke, the Earl of Sky.”
The Earl of Sky had married Chelsea’s actual sister that Chelsea used to always complain about. Family should get along. Sheena’s father was great, though he was always busy with his restaurant that she’d grown up in, learning how to host until he’d sent her to fancy boarding school to be a lady so she wasn’t stuck in the restaurant business. “That’s good.”
Chelsea put the blush back and borrowed the eyeliner just as Sheena’s face was clear of any smudges. Chelsea said, “Or it means my sister can regale my husband with tales of the bratty girl I used to be.”
Sheena’s mind buzzed with the urge to hurry though she waited for Chelsea to finish. “Ouch. You weren’t that bad. We were friends.”
Chelsea returned the liquid eyeliner and tossed the extra brush into the trash she’d used to reapply her own. “You were the only sane person of my teenage years, Sheena.”
Sheena put the kit back in her closet to keep the vanity clean and she remembered how she’d literally walked into Charles at the Paris Art Show last year, the one she’d insisted Chelsea participate in. Her friend had no idea it was that night that changed her life and why now she craved security. She met Chelsea’s blue eyes and said, “Well, I wasn’t always sane.”
Chelsea, arm in arm as they left the bedroom, asked, “You’re talking about Charles now?”
If she hadn’t made the mistake of kissing Charles that night or agreeing to go away with him for a weekend when she knew she shouldn’t, then she might not have jumped at the chance to marry Matteo. The thought left her cold.
Matteo didn’t deserve to be second choice—and he wasn’t.
He couldn’t be. Her face felt hot as she said, “Yeah, I was an absolute fool. I wish I could go back in time and stop myself.”
Chelsea didn’t judge, but instead let out an unladylike snort. “Heck, me too. I threw myself at some of the men at this party all because I thought I had to marry a noble.”
