His Forbidden Pregnant Princess

CHAPTER FOUR

HE HAD ACTED a fool the day that Sophia had received her makeover. He had... He had allowed his facade to crack. He had allowed her to reach beneath that rock wall that he had erected between himself and anyone who might get too close.

He never acted a fool. And he resented the fact that Sophia possessed the power to make him do so.

His entire life was about the crown. The country.

His mother had driven the importance of those things home before she died. In an exacting and painful manner. One that had made it clear it was not Luca who mattered, but San Gennaro. The royal name over the royal himself.

He had shaped himself around that concept.

But Sophia had looked...

Thankfully, it was time. The guests had all arrived for the ball, with Sophia scheduled to arrive fashionably late so as to draw as much attention as possible.

His attention had been fixed on her far too much in the past few days. Sadly, everything his body had suspected about her beauty had been confirmed with this recent makeover. This stylist had managed to uncover and harness the feminine power that had always been there. And she had put it on brilliant display. Those curves, not covered anymore, but flaunted, served up as if they were a rare delicacy that he wanted very much to consume.

And of course, other men were going to look at her this way. Other men were going to dance with her.

Another man was going to marry her. Take her to his bed.

It was the plan. It was his salvation. Resenting it now... Well, he was worse than a dog in the manger, so to speak. Much worse.

He made a fox and a hen house look tame. Of course, if he were the fox he would devour her. He would have no one and nothing to answer to.

He was not a fox. He was a king.

And he could not touch her. He would not. He would honor that final request his father had made. To keep her safe. To see her married to a suitable man.

He was not that man, and he never could be.

Even if their relationship wasn’t as it was, he would not be for her. He might have been, once. But that possibility had been destroyed along with so many other things. He had very nearly been destroyed, too. But as he had set about to rebuild himself, he had made choices. Choices that would redeem the sins in the past. Not his sins to redeem. But that mattered little.

He was the one who had to live with the consequences. He was the one who had to rule a country with strength and unfailing wisdom.

And so, he had purposed he would.

But that did not make him the man for her.

Thank God the ball was happening now. Thank God this interminable nightmare was almost over.

She would choose one of the men in attendance tonight. He would be certain of that.

He stood at the back of the room, surveying the crowd of people. All of the women dressed in glorious ball gowns, none of whom would be able to hold a candle to Sophia, he knew. None of whom would be able to provide him with the distraction that he needed.

“This is quite lovely.” He turned to see his stepmother standing beside him. She had been traveling abroad with friends for months, clearly needing time away to process the loss of her husband. Though she was back now, living in a small house on palace grounds.

It suited her, she said, to live close, but no longer in the palace.

She had lost a significant amount of weight since the death of his father, and she had not had much to lose on that petite frame of hers to begin with. She was elegant as ever, but there was a sadness about her.

She had truly loved his father. It was something that Luca had never doubted. Never had he imagined she was a commoner simply looking to better her station by marrying royalty. No, there had been real, sincere love in their marriage.

Something that Luca himself would never be able to obtain.

“Thank you,” he said.

“And all of this is for Sophia?”

“Yes,” he said. “It is as my father wished. He wanted to see her in a good marriage. And I have arranged to see that it is so.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding slowly. “But what does Sophia think?”

“She has agreed. In that, she has agreed to try to find someone tonight. And if she does not, she has six months following to choose the man that she wishes. But I have confidence that one of the men tonight will attract her.”

“I see,” she said.

“You do not approve?”

“I married your father because I loved him. And one of the wonderful things that came with that marriage was money. With money came the kind of freedom that I never could have hoped Sophia to have if we had remained impoverished. I hate to see it curtailed.”

“This is not curtailing her freedom. It is simply keeping with what is expected of those in our station. I have explained this to Sophia already.”

“Yes, Luca. I have no doubt you have. You are very like your father in that you are confident that your way is always correct.”

“My way is the best for a woman in her position. You must trust that I am the authority on this.”

“You forget,” his stepmother said, “I have been queen for a sizable amount of time. I did not just leave the village. So to speak.”

“Perhaps not. But I was born into this. And you must understand that it is difficult to marry so far above your station. That is not an insult. But I know that it took a great deal for yourself and Sophia to adjust to the change. I know that Sophia still finds it difficult. Can you imagine if she married someone for whom this was foreign?”

“You make a very good point.”

“This ball, this marriage, is not for my own amusement.” It was for his salvation. However, he would leave that part unspoken.

Suddenly, the double doors to the ballroom opened, and all eyes turned to the entryway. There she was, a brilliant flash of fuchsia, her dark hair tumbling around her shoulders. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered. Golden curves on brilliant display, her skin gleaming in the light.

“Oh, my,” her mother said.

“She got a new stylist,” he said stiffly.

“Apparently.”

Sophia descended the staircase slowly, and the moment one foot hit the bottom of the stair, her first suitor had already approached her. The Swede.

Sophia would probably be disappointed he didn’t have a sheep on a leash to entertain her. Or a sweater.

“You do not approve of him?” his stepmother asked.

“Of course I approve of him. I approve of every man that I asked to come and be considered as a potential husband for Sophia.”

“Then you might want to look less like you wish to dismember him.”

“I am protective of her,” he said, straightening and curling his hands into fists.

“If you say so.”

He gritted his teeth. He did not like the idea that his stepmother of all people would find him transparent. He prided himself on his control, but Sophia tested it at every turn.

And so he told himself that the feeling roaring through him now was relief when the man took hold of Sophia and swept her around the dance floor.

The other man’s hand rested perilously low on her waist, on the curve of her hip, and if he was to move his hand down and around her back he would be cupping that lovely ass of hers. And that, Luca found unacceptable.

He will not stop there if he marries her. He will touch her everywhere. Taste her everywhere. She will belong to him.

He gritted his teeth. That was the point. The point was that she needed to belong to another man, so that he could no longer harbor any fantasies of her.

As the song ended, another man approached Sophia, and she began to dance with him. Another of her selections.

Luca approached a woman wearing royal blue, and asked her to dance. Kept himself busy, tried to focus on the feel of her soft, feminine curves beneath his hands. Because what did it matter if it was this woman, or another. What did it matter. Sex was sex. A woman’s body was a woman’s body. He should be able to find enjoyment in it. He should not long for the woman in pink across the room. The woman who was tacitly forbidden to him. But he did.

The woman he held in his arms now might well have been a cardboard cutout for all that she affected him.

But still, he continued to dance with her, knowing that he should not. Knowing that dancing with any single woman this long would create gossip. He didn’t even know her name. He wouldn’t ask for it. And tomorrow he would not remember her face until he saw it printed in the paper. She didn’t matter.

Suddenly, Sophia extricated herself from her dance partner’s hold, excusing herself with a broad gesture as she scurried across the ballroom.

“Excuse me,” he said, releasing hold of his dance partner, following after his stepsister.

Sophia wove through the crowd and made her way outside. He followed. But by the time he got out to the balcony, she was gone. He looked over the edge and saw a dark shape moving across the grass below. He could only barely make her out, the glow from the ballroom lights casting just enough gold onto the ground to highlight her moving shape. He swung his leg over the edge of the balcony and lowered himself down to the grass below, following the path that Sophia had no doubt taken.

He said nothing, his movements silent as he went after her. To what end, he didn’t know. But then, he had no idea what she thought she was doing, either. It was foolish for her to leave the ball. And it was foolish for him to go after her. All of this was foolish. Everything with her. Always.

And yet, he couldn’t escape her. That was the essential problem. She was unsuitable because of their connection. She was inescapable because of their connection. And for that reason, he had never been able to master it.

He could not have her; neither could he banish her from his life.

And here he was, chasing after her in a suit.

He was the king of a nation, stumbling in the dark after a woman.

Finally, she stopped, her pale shoulders shaking, highlighted by the light of the moon. He reached out, placing his hand on her bare skin. She jumped, turning to face him, her eyes glistening in the light. “Luca.”

And suddenly, he knew exactly why he had gone after her. He knew exactly what the endgame was. Exactly why he was here.

“Sophia.”

And then he wrapped her in his arms and finally did the one thing he had expressly forbidden himself from doing. He claimed her lips with his own.

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