Page 25 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
‘And you know what?’ he continued, as if she hadn’t even spoken. ‘Suddenly I find myself wondering what else you might be hiding.’
What? No.She couldn’t have him wonderingthat. He might be tempted to go one step further and probe, and what would he discover then? That she didn’t just want him physically but loved him body and soul? Whatever character flaw it was that had prevented her parents from caring about her enough to put her first? Her innate tendency to push away people who tried to get close, even when she didn’t want to? Absolutely not. A conversation like that would be anything but simple. It would expose far too much. Her heart would likely get involved, and she could not allow that to happen.
‘I’m not hiding anything,’ she said, nevertheless alarmed by the thought that if he chose to pursue this line of questioning she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop him wheedling out all her secrets. She knew how tenacious he could be. At countless international conferences she’d watched him persuade people to do whatever he required. How long would it be before he ground her down and she told him everything? And why was he interested anyway?
Clearly, it had been a bad idea to embark on a plan to get to know him. She should not have allowed the sweet lassitude of sexual satisfaction to mess with her head. She should have listened to the voice of reason and stuck to the original plan to keep this physical.
And maybethatwas the way out of the tricky spot she found herself in.
‘But you’re right about one thing,’ she said, deliberately lowering her voice and running her now-smouldering gaze over him so slowly and thoroughly he could not mistake her intentions. ‘Iamblowing hot.’
She placed a hand on his hair-roughened chest and traced the hard muscles that she couldn’t get enough of before sliding it down the delicious contours of his abdomen and under the sheet that bunched around his hips.
His muscles twitched as she went. His erection stirred. But he did not flip her onto her back and have his wicked way with her as she’d hoped. Instead, he gripped her wrist, stalling her progress before she could wrap her fingers around him, and gave it back to her. ‘Don’t try and deflect.’
‘I’mtryingto seduce you. I feel we need to test your theory about delayed gratification again.’
‘Yet I’m sensing evasion.’
‘I can’t think why. Apart from keeping how much I wanted you under wraps, which I’ve explained, I’m an open book.’
‘Honesty works both ways, Sofia,’ he said, the glint in his eye deepening her alarm about his tenacity. ‘And didn’t you promise to obey?’
She had, dammit. And honesty did work both ways. Yet if ever there was a time to renege on her wedding vows and ignore a condition of this arrangement, this was it. She would do anything to keep her heart under lock and key. He didn’t want it, and she couldn’t let it loose to ache for things she could never have. She wasn’t special to him. She never would be. She didn’t know why she’d found that depressing when it had been ever thus.
But what if she couldn’t hold him off? He was perceptive and determined and more or less holding her captive. What if he kept on and on, and she wound up telling him everything? What chaos would that unleash? What damage would that do to her? How—
There was knock at the door.
Sofia jumped. Her spiralling thoughts stopped in their tracks. She heard the muffled announcement of breakfast, and she could have wept with relief. ‘Oh, good,’ she said brightly, as she slid off the bed and into her robe with as much control as she could muster. ‘Just in time. I’m famished.’
Polishing off his second espresso of the morning, Ivo watched Sofia tuck into a plate of pancakes with a focus that precluded a return to the conversation—no doubt deliberately—and thought that although he probably should be concerned about the complete override of his head by his body last night, he wasn’t. He didn’t regret a thing. The experience had been astonishing. A mind-blowing feast for the senses. He’d never encountered such compatibility. Or such stamina. And to think he’d been prepared to accept ‘tolerable’. What a tragedy that would have been.
It had taken him far longer than her to fall asleep. In that time, dark and quiet, he’d revisited the events that had led to the most incredible sex of his life and come to realise that the mad mental ramblings that had plagued him as he’d undressed like a dervish had been nothing more than a consequence of severe sexual frustration. He’d completely overreacted. There was no need to cancel their day off. No line had been crossed really. And so what if he did want Sofia for himself? He could still honour his father’s legacy while enjoying passion in the bedroom. He’d feared distraction, the selfishness of putting his own needs first, but the world hadn’t ended when a waltz had started fifteen minutes late. He was no longer a bedazzled twenty-four-year-old about to drop a major ball. Knowing exactly what he had to do when and where was now second nature. He gave every waking moment to his country and he didn’t begrudge that at all, but why couldn’t the nights be his?
The strange conviction he’d had that she was finally where she was meant to be—in his bed, in his arms, in this marriage—was nothing to worry about, he’d assured himself as he’d listened to the oddly soothing sound of her breathing deeply beside him. It was a bonus to be so attracted to his wife. It boded well for the production of heirs. He saw no reason why their physical relationship should stray into deeper waters. He would certainly do nothing to encourage it. He had no intention of pushing that self-destruct button ever. He would put neither his country nor himself at risk. What they had here was more than enough.
Ivo had therefore been looking forward to spending today exploring Sofia and the chemistry that blazed like a wildfire further, before it settled into something considerably more manageable. But twenty minutes ago, those plans had changed. Now he wanted to find out what she was hiding. Not because he thought it might be something detrimental to the monarchy—his courtiers, who’d commissioned a report into her background upon their engagement, would have alerted him of anything like that. But his curiosity was piqued to such an extent that, left unaddressed, it might prove more a distraction than she was.
So it was back to the original itinerary and the trip to Rafifi Castle he’d already arranged. Only they wouldn’t be doing their own thing as they recharged their batteries before returning to the tour tomorrow. They’d be spending the day together so he could get to the bottom of her caginess.
Sofia put down her knife and fork and dabbed her gorgeous mouth with a napkin. Ivo recalled all the clever things she’d done with that mouth and briefly contemplated a delay.
‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ he asked, as she pushed her chair back and got up from the table.
‘The shower.’
‘I’ll join you.’
Her eyes widened with alarm and he thought, with some amusement,Not so cool now, was she?
‘No, no,’ she said, with a quick smile that was no doubt meant to mitigate the sharpness of her tone. ‘Thank you but I’d prefer to shower alone.’
‘Think of the environment.’
‘I’m thinking of efficiency. And…work.’
Ivo raised his eyebrows. ‘Bored with me already?’
