Valenti told himself he didn’t care. All he had to do was get through today. Then tomorrow. If the progress he sought hadn’t been made by then, someone would need to have serious answers for him.
‘Do you want breakfast before or after your outing?’ he asked briskly.
Her fingers wrapped tight around her mug and her lips pursed before she answered, ‘After, thanks.’
He nodded, turned to fix himself another espresso. At this rate, his blood would turn to pure caffeine before the day was over. But at least he’d have an excuse for his angstiness if his twin persisted in his curiosity.
He grimaced at the pathetic line of his thoughts.
‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, you know? All of this can still be reconsidered.’ She waved her hand between them.
A sharp spark lit his insides. ‘Excuse me?’
‘That sour look on your face just now? I’d much rather not have to deal with another day of it, thanks.’
‘Not every thought in my head is about you,’ he replied, a little more gratingly than he’d intended. Because most of them had been since he’d walked into that nightclub…Dios, was it only a couple of nights ago?
‘Then what are you thinking about?’ she blurted, then blushed to the roots of her hair.
Valenti bit his tongue to keep from commenting on how utterly adorable she looked nonplussed and ruffled. But that would be widening a door he most definitely needed to kick shut.
He tossed his espresso back and set the tiny cup down none too gently. ‘Drink your coffee,litla. We leave in fifteen minutes.’
Lotte was glad she hadn’t chickened out. For a moment while she layered on warm clothes so she wouldn’t freeze on their walk, she’d toyed with calling the whole thing off.
Not least because spending a second night in his bed hadn’t been any easier than the first. And because those torrid dreams had returned, raunchier,needierthan before, making a mockery of the woefully scant sexual experiences she’d indulged in a couple of years back. The kind she’d believed then were the height of all there was to know about sex but now suspected were mere shadows of the real thing. Of what could possibly lie in store for her.
That thought had dug furrows through her until she’d woken up with her every sense heightened. A state that had intensified on seeing him standing there, like a grumpy, sexy god, staring up at her as she’d descended the stairs.
She could honestly say she hadn’t been in her right mind when she’d demanded to know what he was thinking because he’d effectively scrambled most of her brain.
Which probably accounted for the wildly absurd question she’d just asked him.
A full three minutes ago to frigid, gritted-jawed silence.
‘Are you going to answer me?’ she demanded, then cringed when her voice emerged shaky. And dear God, needy.
As needy as the ‘Why did you agree to be my guardian?’ question she’d just spilled.
But she refused to take it back. She wished it was entirely because of the guardian/ward parameters of their relationship. Or even the freedom she craved to take charge of her own destiny. A freedom he’d point-blank refused to hand over on her eighteenth birthday, stating categorically that the twenty-five age limit was his and Helga’s wish. The money she would’ve happily walked away from, but not so much her sister’s wish. But beneath all that, she knew her need to be free stemmedfrom something she wasn’t sure she fully wanted to contemplate. Something like freedom to meet Valenti Domene toe-to-toe. As an equal.
As absurd and laughable as that was because he was miles more sophisticated, aprinceand second in line to the throne, she couldn’t fully dismiss it. Nor did she want to…
So she held her breath while her heart hammered at the marble-like profile she glimpsed from the corner of her eye as they powered up one shallow peak and another. And another. In silence.
Until… ‘Technically I agreed to you asking a question, not that I would answer. And certainly not to answer with an essay instead of a yes or no.’
Hurt and anger spread through her body, lighting a fire that predictably warmed her up. ‘That’s cheating and you know it. More fool me for believing you were honourable.’
He stiffened and a tic throbbed at his temple. And his gaze didn’t once leave the snow-bordered path or the white fir trees surrounding them.
They reached a small clearing before he deigned to slant a sardonic glance at her. And when he answered his voice was calmly level, if derisive. ‘The fault is yours for failing to work out the small print,litla.’
‘That’s bullshit. And don’t call me that.’
He opened his mouth, but she veered away from him, a strange ache in her chest. It struck her hard that she’d hoped this would be the start of her chiselling away his reserve, to finding some sort of connection with him because, contrary to her every stern pep talk, she hadn’t written him off.
She had believed last night that he would be leaving the door open, and she had spent the night admitting to herself that despite all her assertions, she wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the ephemeral feeling of having Valenti Domene as herguardian. Her brother, whilst he loved her in his own abstract way, had little in common with her. Gunnar was nearer in age to Helga and they’d been close, sharing a deep love of medicine. That had left Lotte on the outside long before Helga had died. Then Gunnar was so consumed with his grief and his career as aMédecins Sans Frontièresdoctor that half of the time, he forgot she existed.
