The Prince's Fake Fiancée Read online

  In the car on the way home she’d asked him about Lukas, but Marko had been pretty matter-of-fact: he was doing as well as could be expected. Prognosis was still good.

  After that it had just been silence.

  Silence until now, as they stood, alone, together, in the hallway outside both of their rooms.

  It was late afternoon.

  Marko had vaguely considered going for a run. Or going down to the gym in the palace basement.

  He didn’t know what Jas planned to do with the rest of her day. Work, probably.

  ‘Jas—’ Marko said, and then stopped.

  He’d meant to say he’d see her that evening for dinner, but found he couldn’t.

  ‘Jas,’ he started, again. She just stood there, looking at him, her hands loosely knotted in front of her. She looked beautiful, even with her hair in a simple ponytail and without the efforts of her make-up artist. His gaze was locked with hers, and in hers he saw...uncertainty? Or was he just projecting how he suddenly felt? ‘I—’

  But Jas halted his words when she stepped close, curled her fingers into his hair, and pulled his mouth down to hers. Hard.

  It was a determined kiss, almost an angry kiss, and definitely a frustrated kiss.

  Marko kissed her back with all of his own frustration of the past twenty-four hours, and of the way things with Jas now didn’t feel easy. He kissed her with frustration that she wasn’t bumping her shoulder against his when they walked, or asking him to teach her Slavic swear words in the car. Her eyes weren’t sparkling when she looked at him, and her lips weren’t quirking at even the silliest little joke he’d make.

  He didn’t fully understand what had happened, but he knew he didn’t like this new distance between them. Right now, the best way to remedy that seemed to be to get as close as it was possible for two people to be.

  Thankfully, as Jas yanked his shirt upwards and popped open his buttons, she certainly seemed to be thinking the exact same thing.

  His own hands tugged the elastic from her hair and then slid beneath her silk blouse to caress hot, perfect skin, and press her as close against him as possible. His hardness against her softness, her breasts squashed against the bare chest her impatient fingers had now revealed.

  He somehow backed her against the door to her room, and part of him was lucid enough to reach for the door handle—before he was completely distracted by the way Jas was shifting her hips against his.

  Then all he could focus on was lifting her up so she could wrap her jeans-clad legs around his waist, and kissing her harder: hot, and long, and raw.

  At some point, as he kissed Jas’s jaw and neck and made his way downwards, she suddenly whispered in his ear: ‘I think we have company.’

  He followed her gaze to an obviously hastily abandoned bucket and mop, lying haphazardly down the hall.

  He grinned as he finally opened the door to Jas’s suite.

  ‘I’ll apologise to the staff later,’ he murmured.

  He could feel Jas smile against his cheek as he carried her into the room. ‘They’ll understand,’ she said. ‘Everyone thinks we’re madly in love.’

  Marko took a moment to laugh in response, her blithe comment oddly jarring. But he didn’t have time to think about it, in fact, now that he’d deposited Jas onto her bed, and she was looking up at him, her shirt and bra askew, and her eyes hot and seductive...

  Right now was definitely not the time for thinking.

  Right now was all about how Jas made him feel.

  * * *

  Jas closed her eyes as she let the warm water pour over her, the shower pressure just high enough to provide a satisfying sting against her scalp.

  When she opened her eyes, Marko—also in her shower with her—smiled.

  He reached out, running a finger beneath her left eye. ‘I hadn’t realised you were wearing make-up,’ he said.

  ‘Are you nicely saying I have panda eyes?’ she asked as she reached around him for her face wash—before remembering it was still in Marko’s bathroom.

  The realisation was irrationally annoying—after all, she’d first realised she was face-wash-less this morning, and she’d managed well enough then.

  But now, with Marko here...

  Should she bring her face wash back? Or leave it where it was as now she’d go back to staying in Marko’s room? Or should she buy another one, so that she and Marko could continue to be all free and casual and non-committal about whatever they had going on?

  Marko’s finger now traced the smudge beneath her other eye, and then, so gently, traced the shape of her cheekbones, jaw, and then lips. His touch—so sensual, and so delicate, in delicious contrast to the water still firm against her back—made her eyes slide shut.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked, low and soft.

  ‘Toiletries,’ she muttered.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  Jas’s eyes snapped open. Marko looked at her curiously.

  He stood very close to her. They’d showered together before, but Jas hadn’t tired of looking at Marko soaking wet. He was almost beautiful rather than simply handsome, with water droplets caught in his eyelashes, and the hard, wet edges and planes of his shoulders, chest and abdominal muscles.

  ‘Jas?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to know where to put my face wash,’ she said honestly.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, his brow creasing. ‘Is this a metaphor for something?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I don’t like not knowing what’s really going on here. It’s been weird between us since yesterday—and I don’t like it.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Marko said bluntly.

  He was looking at her intensely, but Jas couldn’t interpret it.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  Ah—Jas could understand it now. It was subtle, but there. The tension in his shoulders, and in his jaw. Just as she’d felt when she’d made her joke about them—apparently—being madly in love.

  ‘I wanted to tell you about the photos yesterday,’ she said. ‘I thought it wasn’t appropriate to—I mean, it was pretty serious. Not really part of our fun and no-strings arrangement, right?’ Even though she wasn’t cold, she rubbed her hands up and down her upper arms. ‘But I realised that I don’t like having sex with someone that I can’t talk to about stuff like that. I mean—I love having sex with you, but—’

  She shook her head, trying to refocus.

  ‘Look, for as long as this lasts, I’d like to be able to talk to you. And I want you to talk to me. Otherwise, maybe it’s best I just go get my face wash from your bathroom, and we end this now.’

  Jas realised, too late, that she could very well be about to be dumped while naked.

  But then—of course—she hadn’t planned any of this.

  ‘For as long as this lasts,’ Marko repeated.

  Jas nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Whether it’s for another week or the rest of my time as your fake fiancée.’

  Only now did Marko release the tension in his shoulders.

  Oh—he’d thought she was asking for more—something beyond their contracted time together.

  Marko makes me happy.

  Everyone thinks we’re madly in love.

  Her own words echoed traitorously inside her head.

  No.

  This was never about for ever. She didn’t want for ever. Or rather—she didn’t trust it.

  Plus, that didn’t even matter—Marko clearly didn’t want for ever, anyway.

  But did he still want ‘right now’?

  Marko still hadn’t agreed with her. His gaze travelled across her face, and Jas realised she was holding her breath.

  Then—he stepped out of the shower.

  He grabbed a fluffy white towel off a hook, and as Jas watched rubbed himself dry, and then wrapped it low aroun
d his hips.

  Then, he grabbed another towel, stepped back to the shower, and reached behind Jas to turn off the water.

  Suddenly, Jas was freezing cold, regardless of the room’s perfect climate control.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing her the towel. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Lukas for days, but I’m not going to talk about my brother and my dad while you’re standing in front of me naked in the shower.’

  Jas gave a shocked burst of laughter.

  Then she took the towel, and said gently, ‘You can talk to me any time.’

  ‘I know,’ he said with a crooked smile. ‘How about we start now?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  MARKO HADN’T MADE his decision when he’d got out of that shower, or even as he’d wrapped the towel around his waist.

  If Jas had told him about being blackmailed as soon as she’d received the email, he definitely would’ve listened, and he definitely would’ve been there to support her—but clearly, she hadn’t believed that. And to be honest, she really had no reason to believe he would.

  But being prepared to listen to Jas—in fact, wanting to be there for Jas—was quite another thing from revealing his own emotions to her.

  He hadn’t been willing to share anything with anyone for such a long time, he wasn’t even sure if he was capable of doing so now.

  But in the end, it had been Jas—standing in the shower, as naked and vulnerable as it was possible to be—that had made his decision obvious.

  He wasn’t walking away from her.

  It seemed that right now he needed Jas in a multitude of ways: bodyguard, fiancée, lover and now...confidante.

  But now was not for ever.

  And now was what he needed.

  They sat, sprawled, on Jas’s unmade bed, both wearing their monogrammed palace bathrobes. He’d organised for dinner to be brought up to the room, and they each held glasses of maraština wine.

  He just talked.

  About Lukas, and what it was like growing up with him. And then about his father. About how he’d felt when his father was first diagnosed with cancer, and how—after he’d got over the initial shock—he’d been so adamant that his dad would be okay. Because, of course, his father had had access to the world’s best oncologists, the most cutting-edge treatments—Marko had been so sure that doctors and science would cure him.

  Or maybe it had just been his way of dealing with it all.

  His dad actually had responded well to his initial treatment. But a year later the cancer had returned, and that original treatment had been less effective a second time. Other treatments hadn’t worked. And then—initially slowly, but later far more rapidly—his strong, fit, powerful father had deteriorated. And eventually, with his mother holding his dad’s hand and Lukas and Marko on the other side of the bed, holding onto each other...his father had died.

  He’d rushed out of the hospital blindly.

  People had been yelling—his brother, his mother, their bodyguards—for him to stop, to wait.

  But he couldn’t. He’d just needed to move. To not be in that hospital room any longer, sitting across from his horrifically still father.

  So he’d raced out of the main entrance—which, of course, had been stupid. What had he expected? If he’d thought it through for even a second he would’ve known what to expect. He would’ve known that to run anywhere but out of that door was a better option.

  But he hadn’t been thinking, he’d been feeling. Feeling emotions he’d barely been aware he’d possessed. Pain and grief and this deep, echoing sense of loss that made him feel sick and empty and impossible. As if this couldn’t possibly be happening. His father couldn’t possibly be dead.

  King Josip’s death hadn’t been announced yet, so he supposed it wasn’t entirely the paparazzi’s fault. Because, really, they hadn’t known they were photographing a son who had just lost his dad. A man who hadn’t even begun to think about concealing his grief. A man who shouldn’t have had to conceal anything.

  Later he would, though. Over the next days, and weeks, and months he would draw a curtain over how he really felt.

  The papers had got their photographs that day. And of course they’d published them, even when they had heard of the King’s death. That was definitely the paparazzi’s fault. To print those raw photos that exposed everything, exposed emotions he hadn’t even been able to let his mother and brother see, and yet they’d been shown to the world...

  But he’d learnt, of course. Years later, he was still hiding.

  Until now. Until Jasmine.

  ‘I don’t want Lukas to die,’ Marko said, sinking into the pillows and staring up at the ceiling.

  It was such an obvious thing to want, and such an obvious thing to say—and yet he hadn’t said it, to anyone, until right at this moment. He’d barely allowed himself to think it.

  He heard a clink as Jas rested her glass somewhere, and then the rustling of sheets as she crawled across the bed to where he lay, propped amongst a mountain of pillows.

  She met his gaze briefly, and he nodded his permission just before she settled in beside him, curled against his side, her head resting on his chest.

  She rested one hand against his chest, and one of his hands found itself in her hair, absently tangling the long strands loosely around his fingers.

  ‘I know he’s doing well. I know he’s supposed to survive this. But I still worry. I just—’

  His voice cracked, and he swallowed.

  ‘I try to be positive for Lukas. I mean, it doesn’t help anyone if I’m all doom and gloom. And he seems pretty upbeat too, but then—maybe he’s doing the same as me?’ Marko shook his head as this occurred to him. ‘Maybe all the Pavlovic men are being stoic and non-communicative about how they really feel.’

  ‘I’d say that’s a strong possibility,’ Jas said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

  Marko talked a bit more, and none of it was anything groundbreaking, or unexpected. He didn’t have an epiphany or anything.

  But it still helped. Just voicing the fears he’d kept locked in his head seemed to help, even if the fears themselves weren’t going anywhere.

  After a while Marko fell silent, and he watched as Jas rose and fell against his chest as he breathed. Eventually, Jas shifted, and hauled herself further up his body, so she could kiss him on the mouth.

  With her lips still brushing his, she said: ‘Thank you for trusting me.’

  He kissed her back, because that was it exactly—the reason why he’d been so intensely private for so many years: trust.

  First, it was the obvious type of trust. The trust that the person he told was not secretly recording the conversation with plans to sell it to the highest bidder.

  Secondly, and—he realised—more importantly, trust that the person he told would not change their opinion of him once he did. This was what he’d been unable to find until now.

  Maybe it was something to do with the intensity of their current arrangement: the fake fiancée lie they shared, the amount of time they were spending together, the incredible sex...

  Whatever it was, he did trust Jas to see him for the man he actually was.

  And that was...liberating.

  He laughed out loud. Liberating? Now he was having some sort of weird, out-of-body epiphany. And an overreaction. He liked having Jas to talk to—it was no more than that.

  ‘Laughter,’ Jas said, her head now back on his chest, ‘is not the reaction I’m looking for when I’m wrapped around a man in nothing more than some terry towelling.’

  Immediately Marko rolled Jas onto her back as she shrieked with laughter, so he loomed above her, his hands bracketing her face.

  ‘Is this more like it?’ he asked.

  But as he watched he saw the playfulness fade from her eyes.

  ‘Wan
t to see some naked photos of me?’ she said.

  * * *

  He said no, quite firmly, but Jas persisted.

  ‘I don’t need to see them,’ he said.

  ‘Odds are you’re going to, eventually,’ Jas pointed out. The palace’s press release was scheduled for the following day.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ Marko said. ‘Anyone who looks at those photos is a—’ And he then said a string of Slavic words that—from the few she recognised—Jas was pretty sure were the foulest, filthiest terms possible.

  Jas gently pushed against his shoulders, and immediately Marko rolled away. Jas sat up, and then reached for her phone on the bedside table.

  ‘I want you to see the photos,’ she said. Then, looking up from the screen, she added: ‘I think I need you to. Up until now everyone—except the original recipient—who’s seen them has done so without my permission. I’d like to make a decision for someone to see them—and that someone is you.’

  ‘Everyone?’

  But she’d get to that in a moment. For now, she simply handed the phone to Marko.

  He just held it—without looking anywhere near it—for what felt like ages, and so Jas scooted off the bed to the bureau, where their bottle of white wine still nestled in its ice bucket, although it was mostly ice water, now.

  She’d left her glass on Marko’s bedside table, so she strode over to it, aiming for nonchalance. ‘Would you like another?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Just look at the stupid photos,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  And then, with her back to him, she busied herself with pouring a glass of wine. Reflected in the mirror above the bureau she saw Marko finally scroll through her phone, and as he did she closed her eyes and breathed out. Long and slow.

  She took a long, long sip from her glass before she finally turned around to face Marko again.

  He’d laid the phone screen-down on her bed.

  ‘You look beautiful in the photos,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I remember being pretty pleased with them at the time.’

  Marko nodded, but didn’t say anything more.

  She knew this was her cue—after all, she’d just allowed Marko to talk, and now it was her turn.