She’s being willfully vague.

I don’t know what to do with her, how to make her open up to me. Something—some man, some experience—has made her afraid, and I want to know who or what has made her pull back from the attraction we obviously share.

This is new for me—wanting to know a woman’s past. Wanting to break down her emotional barriers. Normally I try to keep emotions out of my affairs—it’s easier for both parties involved—but every moment I spend with Elle I find myself wanting more. Wanting to understand what she’s feeling behind those troubled eyes. Wanting to see the person she hides from the world.

She returned my kiss. Gave herself over, for the briefest of moments, to the passion and energy surging between us. God, I can still taste her. Still smell her. I only had her in my arms for a couple of moments and yet she’s taken over my senses completely. Hot desire still burns through my blood—but I don’t dare touch her now. I continue to stare at the ceiling while I wait for her to respond to me.

She sighs, and out of the corner of my eye I can see her fidgeting. Her fingers lace and unlace, and finally, she speaks.

“I don’t understand why you’re so interested in my past,” she says. “Especially when you haven’t told me a single thing about yours.”

If I were sitting up, I’d shrug. “There’s little to tell.”

“You’re a prince,” she says. “I don’t buy for a minute that there’s nothing to tell. And I still hardly know anything about you or Montovia.”

At least she’s talking, which is promising. “You don’t know anything about your employers?”

“I mean, of course I know stuff. I know the names of everyone in the royal family. I know that Montovia is in central Europe and that the flag is purple and has the royal arms on it. All the information in the packet they gave me when I took this job. But that isn’t what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?” I ask her. I risk a glance over at her, but she’s looking down at her hands, apparently thinking.

And then she looks up, and for a moment when our eyes meet, I feel the shock of connection surge through me, pulsing through my blood. But she looks away again.

“What made you like this?” she says.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You asked me what in my past ‘destroyed my ability to feel.’ Not that I’m saying anyone or anything did—I’m just saying that it’s only fair I get to ask you what made you the way you are.”

“And what exactly am I?”

“You...you’re this,” she says, looking a little flustered as she waves her hand at me. “A womanizer. The kind of guy who tries to get into a woman’s pants an hour after meeting her.”

“I go after what I want,” I say. “I don’t see what’s so strange about that.”

“An hour after meeting someone?”

I chuckle. “Doctor, most men know whether or not they want a woman within ten seconds of meeting her. Any man who tells you otherwise is lying. Am I to be criticized because I’m honest about my intentions?”

“It’s not that,” she says. “It’s that you can do that over and over again without developing any actual feelings for anyone.”

“Once again with the assumption that I have no emotions,” I say.

“I’ve seen no evidence that you do.”

I can’t read her face, not in the flickering candlelight.

“I would think,” I say carefully, “that if you’re so afraid of getting close to someone, an emotionless affair would be ideal.”

Her eyebrows snap up. “So you admit there’s no emotion involved?”

“That is not what I said.”

“Then prove it. Tell me about a time you had feelings for a woman.”

Is that the only way I can convince her to trust me? It would be a simple thing to invent a story. To craft a fictitious woman, to claim I loved her and she broke my heart. Perhaps then I could get Elle to talk about her past.

But it would be a lie. The truth is there’s never been a woman who’s inspired any feelings of great importance in me. There’s been lust, certainly. Even a passing affection. But nothing that lingered. Nothing that went beyond the superficial.

Until now.

I’m not sure what this is—as she’s fond of reminding me, we’ve only known each other a couple of days. And yet I can tell there’s something different this time. Something that won’t be out of my system come morning.

But it’s clear enough she won’t believe such a thing. She already thinks the worst of me. And since I can’t answer her question without lying, well…I dare say I can’t blame her for such assumptions.

I reach up and push the hair back from my eyes. The movement causes a twinge of pain in the gash on my chest, but I manage to keep from wincing.

And Elle is apparently tired of waiting for my response.

“All of life is a game to you, isn’t it?” she says. “Just an endless buffet of money and women and fancy things. You never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from or what will happen to you if you get hurt and can’t afford treatment. You’re always provided for. And you never have to worry about forming any real attachment to a woman because there’s always another one to take her place. You don’t ever have to worry about the consequences of any of your actions.”

“If that were true, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

I say the words without thinking. And they don’t slip by Elle.

“What do you mean?” she says.

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “Just that I don’t live free of consequences, despite what you may believe.”

“You said you wouldn’t be here…” She leans toward me. “Do you mean here here? At the clinic?”

I see my opening. “Of course. If I hadn’t tumbled down that ridge, I wouldn’t be on this gurney right now.” I grin for good measure.

But she’s seen through me. She shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “No, you meant here. In Rio de Campo. What does that mean? Why are you here?”

“As you are well aware, I’m here to inspect this place.”

“But why you?” She straightens. “I’ve been wondering this whole time. Why send a prince instead of a member of the Medical Council? Why send a prince when anyone official would do?”

“For the adventure, of course,” I say lightly.

“Stop bullshitting me.” She crosses her arms. “I want the real answer.”

The real answer is complicated. And it involves more than only me—and my brother’s reputation is far more important than my own. Besides, that whole night was my fault. I was the one who came up with the stupid idea in the first place.

I can tell by the way Elle is looking at me that she’s read something on my face.

“What is it?” she says.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was almost concerned.

“It’s nothing,” I tell her, keeping my tone light. “Every prince has to do something responsible sometimes. This is simply my contribution.”

“You chose to come here,” she says. “Instead of your usual ribbon cuttings and ceremonial events? You willingly came to a place with no luxury resort and no air-conditioning out of some sense of duty?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

She’s studying me carefully, and I turn my gaze back up to the ceiling. I don’t care how much she presses me—I have no intention of sharing anything about that night with her.

“You were ordered to come here,” she says after a moment. “Why? Did your family finally have enough of your partying?”

“My hard work as a tabloid star goes completely unappreciated.”

For a moment, I think she’ll drop this unfortunate subject.

“No,” she says. “It’s more than that. I can tell.”

I glance at her again, cocking an eyebrow. “Are you suddenly an expert on me? I’ll admit, I’m flattered by the attention.”

“I can tell when someone is lying to me. And you, Leo, are lying to me.”

Hearing my name on her lips is a special sort of pleasure. But it doesn’t leave me more inclined to share anything with her.

I gingerly prop myself up on my elbows, careful of my wound.

“I haven’t lied to you,” I say. “But why should I share anything about my past when you refuse to share anything about yours? I asked you first, I might remind you.”

A wrinkle forms between her brows. “I’m not telling you anything.”

“Neither am I. Which makes us even.” I try another one of my smiles on her. “Forgive me for saying so, Elle, but if we’ve both agreed we won’t be sharing anything with each other, I don’t see what the problem is. It certainly makes things much simpler when it comes to this relationship.”

She throws up her hands. “We are not having this conversation again. And this is not a relationship. I’m surprised that word is even in your vocabulary.”

“I’m full of surprises, I assure you.” I sit up all the way.

“Lie back down,” she tells me.

“You’re welcome to come make me.”

“And we all know what happened the last time I got near you.”

“Mm, yes.” I close my eyes, and my senses are flooded with her again. With the scent of her hair, the taste of her lips, the feel of her skin beneath my fingers. It was only a moment, and yet the memory of it makes my whole body come alive, makes the need course hard and fast through me.

When I open my eyes again, I find her staring at me intently. I know my hunger is plain on my face. But the hunger is equally as plain on hers.

“I’ll lie down on one condition,” I tell her. “That you lie next to me. We don’t have to do anything else. You have to lie next to me tonight. That is all.”

* * *