The Prince's Fake Fiancée by Leah Ashton

Author:Leah Ashton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-10-13T12:47:27+00:00

Chapter Ten

HE’D NEVER SLEPT with a woman in the palace.

This realisation—in both senses of the word—came to Marko as the dawn crept its way around the edges of his curtains.

Although, he wasn’t so much looking at his curtains as looking at Jasmine—her shape revealed in increasingly more satisfying detail as the morning light gradually entered his suite.

She lay, fast asleep, naked, beside him. She had her back to him, his sheets caught up around her waist, but leaving her back bare. While he’d been contemplating the realisation that Jas was the only woman who’d lain beside him here, he’d only been able to see as much as the darkness would allow: not much more than her silhouette, her hair a dark wave against the crisp whiteness of her pillow.

But now, he could appreciate the pale alabaster of her skin, and the gentle curve of her spine. He could recognise the smattering of freckles he’d discovered last night on her shoulders, and he could be grateful that his sheets did not hide the smooth roundness of her bottom.

And he could also wonder at how he felt, having a woman here. In the palace. With him.

Last night, it hadn’t even been a consideration. Nothing had been more important than returning home, and kissing Jasmine again. And again.

It also would’ve been ridiculous to go anywhere else.

They were supposedly engaged. To take her to a hotel would’ve been ludicrous, if it had even occurred to him.

But it hadn’t. So here he was, with a woman in his room.

He supposed, up until now, bringing a woman into the palace had never been a possibility. The palace wasn’t the place to bring a one-night stand—and yes, at one stage, he’d had his fair share of those—but it equally wasn’t the place to bring any woman he’d been seeing.

To do so would imply too much—it would imply a relationship, and a relationship was something he’d never had.

But even if he had—if something had stretched from weeks to months with a woman—the palace was not the place he would’ve wanted to take her.

This place, to Marko, was a place of suffocation. And of scrutiny and surveillance. Here he was controlled by the expectations of his birth, of his family, his brother—and of everyone in Vela Ada.

Here there was no pretending that he wasn’t a prince. Here it was all he was.

He’d never wanted to bring a woman into that. To put her through that.

Yet, despite all that—here Jas was. In the palace, and in his bed.

So—how did he feel about it?

Not great.

But also—not entirely bad.

Not even close to bad, actually.

His unease at the situation was more an itchiness in his subconscious—an awareness that he should be feeling regret right now.

Yet he didn’t. He wouldn’t say he felt comfortable, exactly. But equally, he didn’t want Jas to leave his bed any time soon.

The realisation surprised him, but, as he watched Jasmine roll onto her back, still asleep, one arm out-flung and now almost touching his shoulder, it probably shouldn’t.

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