Her Best Kept Royal Secret by Lynne Graham

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHATDOYOUwant to talk about?’ Gaby asked very drily and sipped at her wine.

‘Tell me what it is like being a nanny,’ Angel invited, folding down into an armchair in a graceful sprawl that signified a level of relaxation that could only make her envious.

Gaby sighed and attempted to mirror his laid-back vibe. ‘My first couple of placements were great and I got to travel and use my linguistic abilities. That’s what gets me the best jobs—keen parents who want bilingual children or tutoring.’

Angel angled his darkly handsome head to one side. ‘Yet I hear a jaded note in your voice.’

Gaby grimaced. ‘Because my last two jobs were too challenging. First, I landed an employer who wanted to turn me into a maid of all work round the clock to justify my excellent salary.’

‘Were you living in the household?’ Angel queried.

‘I usually do.’

‘That makes you an easy target.’

Gaby winced and gazed down into her wine glass. ‘My duties are listed on my employment contract, but I had to resign to enforce them and, as always, I hated leaving the kids because I had become attached to them. It was the job I took after that one, though, that was the real problem...’

The silence hummed. Angel studied her, admiring the copper shine of her hair in the lamplight, the pale perfection of her dainty profile, the long feathery lashes momentarily veiling the dark blue depths of her eyes.

‘And the problem was...?’ Angel prompted, watching as she glanced up through her lashes and bit at her full pink lower lip, sending a roar of arousal coursing through him that tightened every defensive muscle in his lean, hard body.

Gaby tensed. ‘The husband. The wife and the children were lovely but he...he was scary.’

Angel stiffened and sat forward, brilliant dark golden eyes now intent. ‘How...scary?’

‘He was a banker. He asked me to join him for a drink once when his wife was abroad and I said no and he didn’t make anything of it, but he began to hang around when I was looking after his kids...and of course I couldn’t object to that,’ she pointed out ruefully. ‘I was careful to act very much like an employee to keep the boundaries up. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop him. There were little admiring remarks, little touches, never anything I could make a fuss about though, and he would stand too close, getting right into my space. It was intimidating. He was a big guy.’

Becoming increasingly restless as he listened, Angel sprang upright, his anger stirred by the thought of her being frightened by another man. ‘And then?’

‘My room was in the basement and he began to come down there at night and walk up and down the corridor. I went out once and he said he was reorganising the wine cellar, and maybe he was, but it went on for weeks. It got to the stage that every time I looked up, he was close by, watching me. I got nervous and tried to avoid him, but it was hopeless. I felt like I was being stalked. I was scared of him, scared of what he might try to do if he got the opportunity,’ she admitted, her eyes stinging with guilty tears.

‘Of course you were scared.’ Angel sank down on the sofa beside her, startling her, and she lifted her head to look at him. ‘Any woman would have felt threatened by that kind of behaviour...and presumably there were times when you were alone in the house with him?’

‘Yes,’ Gaby conceded, relieved by his understanding and grateful for it as well because it was not a story she had shared with anyone else, fearful that they might suspect she had been flirtatious and had somehow invited the man’s unwelcome interest. ‘And I hated those times when his wife was away. I went out those evenings if I could...but then he would be hanging around when I came back, acting creepily friendly.’

Angel appraised her pale, anxious face and the teardrop inching its way down over a delicate cheekbone and something cracked inside him, unleashing a tangled flood of emotions that powered right through and straight past his innate reserve and distrust of women. It was a gut response to curve a supportive arm around her taut, trembling spine. ‘Why on earth are you crying and sounding so apologetic about what must have been a ghastly experience?’

Setting her glass down, Gaby sucked in a shuddering breath and coiled helplessly into the comforting heat of him. ‘The whole thing made me feel so weak and I didn’t feel safe, yet all the time I was worrying that maybe I was being silly, too imaginative and making a fuss about nothing...or that at some stage, without even realising it, I might have done or said something that encouraged him.’

Angel frowned, his censorious golden eyes in a direct collision with her strained gaze. ‘No, you didn’t. I know you. You’re blameless in this. It was your job to keep yourself safe and he was a threat. He was probably getting off on your fear. It was a power trip for him and sooner or later I believe he would have assaulted you,’ he forecast.

Gaby shivered. ‘I thought that too. I hated myself for giving way, but I was so scared of him I handed in my notice and warned the agency about him. Unfortunately it’s put me off taking another live-in position.’

‘Of course it has. Is that why you’re here in Alharia in a temporary job that you are vastly overqualified for?’

‘Yes...and I needed a breathing space before I decided what to do next.’

‘You have to be the least weak woman I have ever met,’ Angel intoned in a fierce undertone.

And her tummy flipped an entire somersault in receipt of the glow of appreciation in his stunning gaze. She felt warm, reassured, championed for the first time in her adult life. She had never had anyone behind her before. When she had been bullied at boarding school, her aunt had told her that it was her own fault for winning prizes every year and that being less of a ‘brainbox’ would make her more friends.

‘I never thought that you would admire strength in a woman,’ Gaby confided, looking up at him without bothering to hide her surprise.

‘I’m no saint...and I didn’t admire it when you were using that strength of will against me,’ Angel told her bluntly.

A helpless gurgle of laughter was wrenched from Gaby at that admission. Sometimes Angel was so honest that he made her toes curl. Embarrassed by an amusement that struck her as less than generous, she buried her hot face in his jacket. If she was as honest with herself, that strength of hers five years ago had only been staged for his benefit and her pride. Never had she wanted so badly to have an excuse to give in and settle for a casual fling with a man who only wanted her body and nothing else from her. But Angel hadn’t given her that excuse because he didn’t lie, and he didn’t pretend. He had been quite upfront about his desire only for sex. The recollection still pained her and in response she pushed her troubled face harder into his lean, muscular shoulder.

The warm, achingly familiar scent of him engulfed her in an intoxicating wave. He smelt good enough to eat. There was a hint of his usual cologne with an undertone of clean, spicy masculinity that made her nipples tighten and her thighs press together. That fast, that naturally, her body reacted to Angel with the off-the-charts sizzling chemistry that had almost destroyed her the last time they were together. That craving had almost torn her apart. Shaken by the surge of reaction gripping her, Gaby lifted her head and tried to will herself into backing away.

‘You’re a snuggler,’ Angel condemned, his extraordinary dark golden eyes locked to her flushed face.

‘Guilty as charged,’ Gaby conceded.

His dark head angled down, and she literally stopped breathing. He looked as though he were on the brink of kissing her and she wanted him to kiss her so badly but, if it hadn’t happened five years ago, what were the chances of it happening now? Back then Angel had thought far in advance of his every move, foreseeing every possible betrayal and complication in his relationships. He had wanted the reassurance of a signed non-disclosure agreement before he became intimate with a woman. And Gaby had refused to sign and that had been that, the end of the road before she even got walking down it, because Angel would not take the risk of trusting her to that extent.

‘You smell of...roses, is it?’ Angel murmured, staring down at her, dark eyes glowing, gleaming gold, exotically fringed by a luxuriant ring of dense black curling lashes. His tawny eyes were so gorgeous it was hard to look away from him.

‘Yes...er...fancy skincare creams in my en suite,’ Gaby mumbled, and it was as if time was slowing down for her as the tension between them thrummed like a warning drumbeat. ‘We shouldn’t be this close.’

‘If you were a fire, no matter how many warnings I was given I would still get burned. It was always like that,’ Angel told her sibilantly, his breath ghosting across her cheek as he brought his lips down to the level of hers and kissed her.

His acknowledgement that he still wanted her as much as he had years earlier lifted Gaby’s self-esteem to giddy heights and made her feel more secure. What she was feeling was not one-sided; it was mutual. His mouth on hers wasn’t just a kiss, though, or indeed anything like any kiss she had had before. Her hands travelled up slowly over his broad chest to his strong shoulders and into his hair, because a kiss from Angel shot her onto another plane entirely.

Her fingertips toyed with the thick black silky hair at his nape, shaping the base of his skull. His tongue traced the seam of her lips and then delved between, ignited a lightning storm inside her that sent sensual sensation arrowing along every nerve ending she possessed. A violent shiver rattled through her, a piercing sweetness rising as his tongue duelled with her own. It was electrifying as her nipples swelled and pinched taut and she pressed instinctively closer to him, squirming as a pool of liquid heat gathered in her pelvis.

‘That was worth waiting for,’ she gasped inanely as he released her lips to drag in a shuddering breath.

Laughter rippled through Angel as he stared down into her flushed face, revelling in the blueness of her eyes. ‘I don’t want to stop...’ he confessed in a driven undertone.

‘I’m not signing anything!’ Gaby exclaimed as though he had flipped a switch on her, and as more colour flooded her anxious face at that embarrassing exclamation she reached up a hand and gently framed a high sculpted cheekbone. ‘Can’t you trust me that far?’

‘I don’t carry round non-disclosure agreements in my back pocket,’ Angel countered with sardonic bite. ‘And there’s no personal insult in the provisions I take to protect myself. I have never fully trusted any woman.’

‘I think that’s sad,’ Gaby told him truthfully while at the same time a tiny bit of panic was gripping her, because she had just given him the green light to go ahead without even properly thinking about what she was doing.

Yet choosing to be with Angel felt seductively like following a natural instinct and surrendering to the inevitable. Fighting the desire to be with him five years earlier had been a serious challenge. Back then she had still suffered from the illusion that Mr Perfect was probably waiting to meet her round the next corner in her life and she had been content to have faith and wait, had naively assumed that some day soon another man would make her feel exactly what Angel made her feel.

Only it hadn’t happened, and, goodness knew, she had tried hard to recapture that sizzling connection with someone else. In Angel’s wake, however, real life had proved a downer. She had met men who groped, men who demanded, even men who made passes at her friends. Indeed, she had met every combination of bad in the male sex and several men who were perfectly decent and acceptable but not one of whom had inspired the insane craving that Angel could incite with one wickedly sensual smile. It had taught her a lesson. It had taught her to look back with regret at the experience she had missed out on, although she had never regretted refusing to sign that non-disclosure agreement. That had been a line she refused to cross even for his benefit.

‘Maybe it is sad but that’s how it is for me,’ Angel parried without apology, swooping down to capture her mouth again. ‘Am I moving too fast for you? I plead guilty... I am insanely impatient, and the first time there’ll probably be more speed and passion than finesse, but I promise to make it up to you the next time...’

He was so outspoken that Gaby didn’t know where to look. She had never been open about sex. She had had to fake knowledge she didn’t have to fit in when she was younger but as she’d matured she had simply sought friends who slept around less and didn’t judge her for her more old-fashioned outlook.

Gaby trembled as his lips caressed hers, every sense on a high of exhilaration at the taste and the scent and the feel of him against her. The strap of her dress loosened and slid off her shoulder and she tensed, gasping into his mouth as he unbuttoned its twin.

‘Time we moved this to a more private place,’ Angel told her, springing upright and bending down to lift her clean off the sofa before she had even guessed what he was planning to do.

He carried her into the bedroom next door and settled her down on a huge ornately carved wooden bed in a far grander room than the one she had been allotted. It reminded her of the differences between them, the fact that she was staff and that he was usually the boss in every scenario. Only not her boss, she reminded herself as she lay back, striving to seem calm, only she wasn’t calm with her brain running riot. She didn’t want him to know that he would be her first lover. Angel would see significance in that and possibly even think she was a little bit weird for still being so inexperienced at her age. No way was she willing to give him that satisfaction!

Angel shed his jacket, his tie and kicked off his shoes with a haste that was unlike him. He stared at the woman on the bed, the embodiment and fulfilment of a dream and a long-held fantasy, he conceded abstractedly. Possibly there was some excuse for that uncool haste of his. She looked amazing, her hair tumbling across the pillow in a silken cloud of colourful waves, blue eyes with the depth of gemstones luminous against her porcelain skin.

He unbuttoned his shirt, unzipped his trousers, the eager throb at his groin growing in intensity as she watched him.

As his lean bronzed physique emerged from his discarded clothing, Gaby was mesmerised. He was all hard contours and strength, from the ripple of muscles across his abdomen as he moved to the breadth of his hair-roughened chest. A dark furrow of hair dissected his flat stomach and ran down out of sight into his boxers and there her gaze lingered, warmth blooming in her cheeks because the fine fabric accentuated his jutting arousal.

He dropped down on the bed beside her, lifting her up and reaching for her unstrapped dress to slide it up over her head. As her breasts were bared Angel expelled his breath in a rush. ‘Beautiful,’ he husked, his hands rising to cup the full swells, his thumbs grazing across the swollen nipples, making her shiver because she was incredibly sensitive there. He lowered her down to the pillows again and whisked off her last garment without her even properly being aware of it.

Shifting against her lazily, he angled back his hips to remove the boxers, and for several heart-stopping seconds as he came back to her she felt him rubbing against her lower stomach, and then he rose up on his elbows and crushed her parted lips hungrily beneath his again, rolling her over and stroking her breasts. He trailed his mouth down the slope of her shoulder and caught a straining nipple between his fingers, closing his lips round the swollen tip and tugging on it. A tiny moan escaped her, her hips rising at the ache forming between her legs.

Kneading the soft swells, he utilised the edge of his teeth and flicked his tongue across the rosy buds, creating a chain reaction to the heart of her that made her clench her inner muscles tight. When he directed his attention to her damp core and circled her clitoris, it was too much stimulation for her overexcited body and a climax engulfed her at shattering speed. Her body convulsing, she was insensible to everything for some moments and then she blinked up at him in surprise and faint mortification as though that lack of control had shamed her.

‘I like that you’re as ready for this as I am,’ Angel growled appreciatively, shifting down the bed, long fingers trailing down a still-trembling thigh.

And Gaby closed her eyes tight as he parted her legs because she had always wondered about that practice and she wasn’t going to let shyness and embarrassment come between her and the chance of enjoyment. He ran his tongue over her tender core and, from that first teasing caress, she was electrified, reduced to a quivering bundle of thrumming impatience and anticipation, so intense she could barely dwell on the pleasure because her body was screaming for the finishing line. And when it came in a flood of convulsive blistering pleasure she cried out in wonder because she had never felt anything that powerful before, and in the aftermath she felt boneless.

But Angel didn’t allow her to rest back and relax, he gathered her up again and ravished her swollen mouth with his own, his lean, powerful body hard and hungry against her as they strained together and she felt him glide between her legs, both smooth and something slightly colder and more abrasive brushing against her. Cold? A faint furrow of confusion indented her brow as his movements ensured he partially entered her wet channel and her every sense screamed with anticipation.

‘I should have a condom on,’ Angel breathed, and he abruptly withdrew from her again, pulling back from her to reach for protection.

It was only once he leant back to deftly don a contraceptive that she realised that he was pierced, and before she had even thought about it she was reaching out to brush a fingertip over one of the steel beads that had touched her. ‘I wondered; I didn’t realise—’

‘It’s called a Jacob’s Ladder. I had it done when I was eighteen and aching to be the coolest kid ever. It hurt like hell, and took for ever to heal, but women like it and some believe it adds to their pleasure,’ he imparted with wry amusement.

Gaby reddened, out of her depth and feeling it at that moment. Angel came back to her, dark golden eyes ablaze with hunger. ‘I don’t usually spend the whole night with a woman, but I think I’ll break that rule for you. Prepare to be ravaged within an inch of your life,’ he teased.

‘What will the ravaging consist of?’

‘As much down-and-dirty sex as we have the energy to enjoy,’ Angel asserted with a flashing smile of scorching confidence.

And she envied him. Oh, how she envied him in that instant for his sheer sexual confidence when she was striving to conceal her inexperience. She was terrified of him noticing that she was a virgin, terrified of doing something that gave that embarrassing little secret away. ‘It’s been a while for me,’ she remarked carefully.

‘How long?’

‘Months,’ she told him tightly without meeting his eyes. ‘I’ve had to move around a lot this year.’

Angel bent down to nibble at her full lower lip while he stroked her quivering body, firing up responses that had momentarily gone into abeyance. A spiralling heat warmed her lower body, desire sparking afresh, blurring her insecurities. ‘I imagine you’re very choosy,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I’m lucky to have made the cut.’

Gaby laughed. ‘I can’t take you being humble seriously.’

‘Enjoy it while it lasts, kardoulamou,’ Angel advised, shifting over her, and settling between her thighs before tipping her up and surging forward.

Gaby buried her face in his shoulder, drinking in the evocative scent of his skin, striving not to tense, not to give way to nerves, not to expose herself in any way. He entered her in one deep thrust and pain and pleasure warred together, her heart rate speeding up until it seemed to be thundering inside her chest. She unclenched her teeth, hoping that that single jolt of pain meant that the worst of her initiation was over. She felt stretched, invaded, alarmingly sensitive as he moved and a strong wave of powerful pleasure traversed her lower body, much more satisfying than she had expected. He plunged deeper still, and elation tugged at her, backed by a renewed need that clawed at her with the most wicked impatience.

Feverish excitement claimed her, and she arched up to him, writhing in pleasure as he moved faster and harder, her lips parting on a moan of mingled delight and surprise. Feeling freed from her physical self, she surrendered to the hot drowning pleasure pounding through her. Release came in a great wave of sensation and he loosed an uninhibited shout of satisfaction as he reached the same conclusion.

Gaby blinked back the strangest moisture flooding her eyes. It had been that good that it had knocked her emotionally off balance, she told herself uneasily. Well, hadn’t she chosen well when she decided that she would go ahead and take a chance on him? But enough was enough. If he didn’t usually spend the whole night with a woman, she wasn’t going to be the woman who urged him to break his rules.

‘I should go back to my own room,’ she whispered shakily.

An offer that would usually have relieved Angel only made him tighten his hold on her. ‘I want you to stay. Let’s make the most of being together here.’

And Gaby thought about it and reckoned that it could probably seem a bit nervy on her part to flee the instant the deed had been done. She knew that what he was really saying was that she would never see him again, that their intimacy was a one-off event and not to be repeated. Well, she wasn’t naive enough to have expected any other denouement. From what she knew of his reputation, ‘one and done’, as she had once heard a guy quip, was Angel’s normal modus operandi.

‘Gabriella...’ he pressed in the silence.

‘I’m thinking about it. I think it would be better if I left now.’

‘Only if you take me with you for the rest of the night.’

Gaby laughed at that idea. ‘I only have a single bed and a little slot of a room. It wouldn’t be quite your style.’

‘Let’s stay where we’re comfortable, then...you were spectacular, glykia mou. I can’t let you go yet.’

He hadn’t noticed that he was her first, Gaby savoured, relaxing a little on that thought. Not losing face with Angel was of paramount importance to her. He slid out of bed and strode into the adjoining bathroom. Light framed his tousled black hair and tall powerful back view and not a smidgeon of regret assailed her.

It was perfect, she told herself happily. There were no witnesses, no cameras, nobody at all to remark on their brief intimacy. It was casual and private. By the time morning came, she supposed it would get a little awkward, but her flight was mid-morning.

‘I can’t afford to sleep in,’ she warned him.

‘I won’t let you. I routinely wake up at dawn,’ Angel murmured, sliding into the bed beside her again and pulling her inexorably back to him.

Standing at the foot of the bed in the dawn light filtering through the curtains, Angel viewed the sleeping woman. Copper hair as vibrant as Gabriella was in spirit spilled across the pillow, a delicate flush on her cheeks, a peaceful curve to her intoxicating pink lips. The night had been unforgettable...but now it was over.

Angel didn’t do complicated with women and anything with Gabriella was destined to get messy. Without a signed NDA, he had taken a major risk with her, choosing to trust her this one time. Now he needed to walk away. He had to walk away. Intelligence told him that he had no alternative because he would not have a future with any woman until he took a wife. Gabriella was under his skin but, unlike his weak father, he was not in thrall to Gabriella, and he was strong enough to walk away. He would leave Gabriella a note. His private phone number? He winced and decided that encouraging any kind of ongoing contact with a woman who contravened his rules would be inadvisable. So what if she labelled him a four-letter word of a guy? He would never see her again—never, ever, he swore to himself grimly.