Gambling With the Crown (16 page)

But there was no recognition. Nothing.

“Well, Rachel,” he said, that voice a rush of liquid that pooled low in her body, “what is it you noticed about me?”

“That, um...you were hot,” she said. She’d never been so forward with a man in her life. Though, honestly, she wasn’t sure if she was being forward or being an idiot. She was good with people. The consummate hostess. Everyone, even the vicious press, liked her. A reputation that had been carefully cultivated—and fiercely guarded.

But she was a lot more experienced at offering people cold beverages than she was at offering them her body.

He arched one dark brow. “That I was hot?”

“Yeah. Haven’t you ever had a woman come on to you before?” Her face was burning and she couldn’t blame the afternoon sun. She wasn’t supposed to be hitting on him, and yet these were the words leaving her mouth.

Stupid mouth. Almost as stupid as her hormones.

“Yes, but not in quite such a charming way. Did you have an end goal in mind for this?”

“I thought...” Suddenly she did. Suddenly she wanted everything, all at once, with this stranger. Wanted to touch him, kiss him, feel his fingertips forge a trail of fire over her bare skin as he took her to levels of ecstasy she’d never believed were possible for her to want, let alone feel. “I thought we could have a drink.” A drink. A cold beverage. That was back in her comfort zone and maybe a bit smarter. Especially since she didn’t even know his name. “What’s your name?” she asked, because since she was engaging in naked fantasies about the man, it seemed polite to ask.

“Alex,” he said.

“Just Alex?” she asked.

He lifted a shoulder, the muscles in his chest shifting with the motion. “Why not?”

Why not, indeed? It wasn’t as though there was any reason for him to be anything else. Who cared what his last name was? She’d never have occasion to use it. She’d never introduce him at a party, or need to refer to him in conversation. She’d never see him after today.

“Good point. So, a drink? Or...would your boss get mad?”

“My boss?”

“The owner of the yacht.”

He frowned and looked behind him, then back at her. “Oh. No, he’s gone up to Athens for a few days. I’m just supposed to check in on things now and again. No need to stay tied to the dock.”

“I suppose not. You won’t float away.” She laughed, then felt immediately stupid. Like she’d regressed to being an eighteen-year-old girl rather than a twenty-eight-year-old woman. Of course, she hadn’t been giggly or ridiculous over men at eighteen. She’d learned better by then.

Apparently all good sense and life lessons were out the window now.

He wrinkled his nose and squinted against the sun, an oddly boyish gesture. It made her feel even warmer. “I don’t suppose. Though I have in the past.”

“Have you?”

“Sure. That’s how I ended up here. I spend a lot of my life floating.”

She felt the layered meaning in his words. And in a strange way, felt like she’d heard more honest words from this stranger, this man she’d known all of five minutes, than she’d ever heard out of the man she was planning to marry.

“So,” he said, “drink?”

“Of course.”

“Let me just get a shirt.” He tossed her a smile and climbed back up onto the boat. It took all of her willpower not to say “oh, no, please leave your chest bare.” She figured that would be pushing it. Especially since, no matter how much she might want him, she knew she’d never do anything about it.

A drink was all it would ever be.

They’d gone to the bar next and ordered a couple of sodas. She’d texted Alana to let her know everything was fine and that she wasn’t axe-murdered. But she didn’t send a text when she and Alex walked around town for hours, or when they ended up having dinner on the pier, laughing and talking over seafood and pasta. She didn’t text Alana about how he lifted his fork to her lips and let her taste his entrée, about the way their eyes had met in that moment and it had sent a snap of heat through her.

Or when he took her to a club later that night.

She hadn’t been to a club since she’d had to sneak in with a fake ID. Clubs like this were a hotbed of scandal and sex, and all sorts of things her father and Ajax would never have approved of. The sort of place the press would crucify her for going to.

Alcohol, loud thumping music, sticky dance floors filled with bodies. There had been a time when she’d loved it. But not after she’d become aware of what she was inviting. Not since she realized the sort of trouble she could get herself into. Since she realized she’d been walking down a path that only had one ending, and it wasn’t a happy one.

But just for now, she was going to put good behavior on hold. She felt secluded here, insulated by whatever magic spell Alex had cast on her the first moment she’d seen him. No one around was looking at her, expecting her to behave in a certain way. She didn’t think she was in any danger of exposing herself the way she’d done in the past.

Somehow, with Alex, it felt exciting. It felt dangerous—a hit of adrenaline she used to crave. One she’d denied herself for far too long.

It all did. The whole day. It was like being on a vacation from herself, and she loved it. Or maybe it was a vacation
to
herself, but that was a step further into the philosophical than she wanted to get.

“This is so fun!” she shouted, trying to make her voice heard over the thumping bass.

“You are enjoying yourself?” he asked.

“Very.”

He took her left hand and the touch of his skin against hers sent a lightning bolt shooting from her wrist to her core. “I have been meaning to ask about this,” he said, tilting her knuckles so that her engagement ring caught the light.

Looking at it made her stomach crash into her toes. She didn’t want to think about that. About reality. Not at all.

“I’m not married,” she said.

A wicked smile curved his lips, blue eyes glittering in the dim light. “I wouldn’t have cared if you were. I would have maybe just asked how big your husband was. And if he was connected to organized crime in any way.”

The thought of Ajax being connected to anything as sordid or exciting as organized crime was hysterically funny. He was far too staid for anything that outrageous. He was the calming, steadying influence in her life. Or at least that’s how her father saw him. And she couldn’t really imagine him mustering up any rage for Alex being here at the club with her.

Ajax wasn’t really a club kind of guy. If she’d asked him, he would have probably waved his hands and said to have fun while he went back to sorting numbers into columns or whatever it was he did all night in his office that gave him such satisfaction.

“Um...you don’t need to be concerned. Besides, we haven’t done anything we should be ashamed of,” she said. “I haven’t...violated any vows.”

“Yet,” he said, his grin turning wicked. “It’s still early.”

“So it is,” she said, her heart thundering hard.

“Do you want to dance?”

She looked at his outstretched hand and she felt an ache, a need, tighten in her belly. Ajax had never once danced with her. Had never even asked. And until that moment, she hadn’t realized that she’d been missing it.

In that same moment, she realized that this wasn’t just a request for a simple dance.

She knew that this was it. The deciding moment. That if she said yes to this, she wouldn’t say no again for the rest of the night.

But maybe that had been true hours ago. Maybe from the moment she’d locked eyes with him, saying no had been an impossibility.

“Yes,” she said, the word torn from her, scraping her throat raw and leaving in its place a sweet, light relief. She had decided. Tonight she was going to embrace life, whatever that meant. “Yes, Alex, I want to dance.”

Copyright © 2014 by Maisey Yates

ISBN-13: 9781460331330

GAMBLING WITH THE CROWN

Copyright © 2014 by Lynn Raye Harris

All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical,
now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.

www.Harlequin.com