Page 25 of Forbidden Bastard
He straightened like admitting hurt was a problem. “I don’t know her. However, her daughters have both approached me pretty regularly. Her oldest daughter, Cassidy, worked for the princes even before she was known as the matchmaker, so she’s tight with the royal family.”
Sandi had read Cassidy's bio and her interview on how she didn’t quite believe in her own program when it paired her childhood-friend-turned-tormenter-in-high school as her true love.
Her candid story about her own romance had made Sandi want to try out her matchmaking service. She nodded. “Cassidy is the one that matched us.”
“Yes.”
Yet Charles wasn’t close to anyone here it seemed. He wasn’t even connected to his house, as they hadn’t gone in. She raised her eyebrow. “Well, I’d like to meet them all so that I can really understand, but maybe you’re missing something about your father’s side.”
His gaze narrowed. “What’s that?”
She ignored the slight trembles of her body and tried to help him see another side. “Sounds to me like he wants to know you.”
His mouth tightened. “Why would he care?”
She glanced up at him and again the desire to be held hit her but she denied her own wishes. “What if he'd told you the truth--that he had no idea what had happened to you, and the orphanage?”
His brow furrowed. “That seems unlikely.”
She pressed her hand on his chest, not expecting the bolt of energy that hit her. This wasn’t the right time. “But what if it was all your birth mother's doing, and she left you at the orphanage? If so, what wouldyoudo if you found out you had a son out there in the world?”
He traced her hip and his body relaxed. “I suppose it’s possible.”
She'd feared he might be more resistant. “What do you mean?”
His hand went up and down her upper thigh. “I am a big believer in safe sex, and I don’t want to have a child out there who doesn’t know his father, but honestly, if I found out I had a son, I’d want to know him.”
Sandi hadn’t expected him to be some sort of man-virgin but she was glad that he took care in his affairs. She raised her face and stepped on her tiptoes as she asked, “So maybe that’s all that’s in your father’s mind?”
His lips came closer. She batted her eyes and closed them entirely, and a second later he kissed her.
A bolt of lightning shot through her and she held onto him tighter, like she needed support.
Sandi Smith always stood on her own two feet and probably could, once Charles stopped kissing her. But she didn’t want him to ever stop.
If he kept her like this forever, she’d happily be his as the world didn’t matter.
The kiss ended, yet she still saw stars. He wrapped his arms around her shoulder and guided her into the house. “It’s going to rain. Let's get an early dinner as we skipped lunch to fly here.”
“Sounds perfect,” she said though the truth was she wasn’t hungry. She wanted him. And maybe they had a shot at love.
A love like she'd always wanted.
Chapter 8
Charles’s neck felt tight in his shirt collar as they made their way inside the house just before a lightning storm crackled across the sky.
Sandi’s gaze at him, like she cared only about him, made his shoulders rigid.
He was the wrong man for her. The kiss outside had been amazing but wrong.
A good man would send her packing, right now.
He never should have kissed her again.
But then, Charles knew without a doubt he wasn’t a good man. He’d never once been accused of being one.
As the rain pelted against the glass doors behind them, he flipped the light on and Sandi was transfixed by the chandelier.
