Cinderella's Royal Seduction by Dani Collins

Author:Dani Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-11-12T13:49:44+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

“COWARD!” SOPI REPEATED stiffly, flinching and looking away, then lifting her lashes to throw a scold at him. “I’d think you were above name-calling.”

Rhys took it as a good sign that she wasn’t curled on the sofa weeping, but on her feet, consistently pushing back while taking most of this on the chin.

“Peer pressure, süsse,” he mocked lightly.

“Not funny.”

“It infuriates me that your grandfather was unable to retake what ought to be yours,” he admitted with anger he would always struggle to suppress. “I’ve been there. I want you to fight for what belongs to you.”

“You do see the irony in that statement, I hope?”

“I refuse to apologize for buying this property. It was cheaper and more expedient than hiring lawyers. Less public, too.” He drew out a chair for her. “Maude will get her comeuppance in other ways. Sit. Eat. Digest,” he suggested drily.

“I don’t—” She cut herself off and grumbled, “I’m not hungry.”

“So we’ll get to know one another and you’ll begin to trust me.”

After a brief hesitation, she gave a shaky sigh of defeat and sank into her chair.

Rhys stayed behind her, his attention caught by the loop of hair that had been teasing him ever since she had dragged this turtleneck over her head in her squalid little cabin.

He gathered the mass in his fist and gently tugged. She stiffened, then leaned forward so he could work the tresses from inside her shirt. When every last strand was free, he combed his fingers through it, pleased when she shivered in reaction.

“You’ll speak to me before you ever think of trimming this,” he ordered.

“Even what I do with my hair is up to you now?” Her voice quavered.

The fractures in her composure were showing after all. He wound her hair in a rope around his fist and set a light kiss on her crown.

“That was the teasing demand of a lover, süsse. Don’t take it so much to heart.”

“We’re not lovers.”

Everything in him wanted to contradict her. Prove to her in the most basic way that the chemistry between them meant that their engaging in a physical relationship was as inevitable as their marriage.

But he heard the tremor of fear that underlay her bravado. Her remark about being unable to trust him had been a slap in the face. He was doing what he could to buffer her from the sharp edges of her new reality, but she was still being knocked around by it.

“We’re not the sort of lovers I want to be. The kind I hope we will be very soon.” He released her hair so it fell down the front of her shoulder and over the swell of her breast, then set his hands on her shoulders, noting the tension in her, much like an animal ready to bolt. “I’m not going to force you, though. You can relax.”

Her shoulders softened slightly, and he thought he glimpsed a pout of consternation on her lips when he released her and moved to take his chair across from her.

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