I frown. I’ve eaten sautéed vegetables before, but I’ve never had to sauté anything myself—what exactly does that entail?

  I glance up at Elle, prepared to ask her, but when I see the look in her eyes—she seems to know I have no idea what I’m doing—I think better of the plan. I quickly do a search on my phone.

  “I believe you said you wanted to talk,” I say, hoping to distract her. It’s more difficult to bluff my way through this process with her standing right here watching me. “Why don’t you tell me more about your family?”

  I grab two onions and pull a knife from the wooden block sitting on the counter. Chopping these shouldn’t be too difficult.

  “You’ve already met Owen,” Elle says. “There’s not much left to say about him. Oh—and there’s a cutting board below the sink. That’s probably easier than cutting them on a plate.”

  “Thank you,” I say, turning quickly toward the sink. “I didn’t want to assume your kitchen was stocked with professional tools.”

  She laughs. “A cutting board is hardly a professional tool. Most people have one. I have pans, too, believe it or not. They should be in the cabinet beside the oven.”

  I retrieve the cutting board and the pan, trying—and failing—to come up with a charming remark to offset what is quickly becoming a fine display of incompetence.

  Elle, meanwhile, seems to be finding the entire thing far too amusing. Perhaps I shouldn’t have given her wine on an empty stomach—she looks like she’s hardly containing her laughter.

  “I thought you were in Montovia’s Royal Military?” she says. “Didn’t they teach you basic cooking skills?” She sets down her glass. “And make sure you take the skin off those onions first.”

  “Members of the royal family sleep in separate quarters and receive separate meals during their time in the Royal Military,” I say, inelegantly peeling the skins off the two onions in front of me. “For security reasons, you understand.”

  Her eyes widen slightly. “Like they thought someone would try to poison you or something?”

  “It was a consideration, yes,” I say. Also because the rations they consume in the military are far below my family’s usual standards. “Even in times of peace, members of the royal family can be targets of violence or kidnappings.”

  I can’t tell whether she’s impressed or simply further amused by this statement. “Which is why you attacked Matthias when he was following you into the rainforest that day?”

  “My family has wealth and political influence,” I say. “I must always be on guard for those who would take advantage of my position.” I begin to take the knife to the onions. Vegetable chopping isn’t a skill most princes are obliged to learn, but I do know how to use a knife—though the utility knives we used in the military were far different than the one I now have in my hand.

  Elle is silent while I chop. When I glance up at her, she appears to be deep in thought. I’m grateful for her momentary distraction and quickly finish chopping the onion—while I’m effectively accomplishing the task, even I can see my effort is clumsy at best. The bits of onion are all different shapes and sizes, and they keep sliding out from beneath my blade. Finally, I give up and pour them all into the pan. I cover them liberally with olive oil and turn on the heat to let them cook while I turn back to the rest of my ingredients.

  Elle is finally looking at me again.

  “Do lots of people try to take advantage of your position?” she asks. “Not just kidnappers, I mean. Normal people you meet.”

  I pull a green bell pepper onto the cutting board in front of me.

  “Anyone with large amounts of money or influence is subjected to all manner of requests for both,” I say. “It’s difficult sometimes to discern whether someone’s interest in me is purely selfish on their part.”

  “Their interest,” she repeats, almost to herself. “Are you talking about women?”

  It’s my turn to laugh. “I’ve no doubt that my money is quite attractive to many women, especially since I take such great joy in showering my dates with luxury. But I suspect my romantic life would be a little different if I were four decades older and three hundred pounds heavier. Then again, maybe not.” I look up at her. “You tell me, Elle. Do I have nothing to offer a woman but my money or my title?”

  Her cheeks redden. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I should hope not.” I grin. “Perhaps I flatter myself, but I’d like to think that most of my appeal with women comes from my natural charm and dashing good looks.”

  She grins. “Certainly not your humility.”

  “I should hope not.”

  She laughs in response, and the bright sound makes something swell inside of me. Having her here next to me, smiling and laughing with me, fills me with a deep pleasure. I thought I was under her spell before when I only had her passion. I wasn’t prepared for what I’d feel when I had her joy as well.

  I’m so enamored of the sound of her laughter that I don’t pay attention to my knife—or my finger.

  “Fuck!” I curse as the blade slips, slicing deep into the skin on the index finger of my left hand.

  Blood wells up immediately, spilling onto the half-sliced pepper.

  Elle is at my side in an instant. She grabs a paper towel from the roll on the counter.

  “Here,” she says. “Apply pressure.”

  She doesn’t hand the towel to me, though. Instead, she takes my hand and squeezes the towel against my cut herself. Her fingers are soft and slightly cool, and though the touch isn’t sexual, my body responds immediately.

  “You need to be more careful,” she says.

  “I was distracted. Has anyone ever told you that you have the most delightful laugh?”

  Her ears flush pink. “You need to pay attention to what you’re doing when you’re using a knife. Don’t let yourself get distracted.”

  “I couldn’t help myself.” My grin spreads. “I seem to be injuring myself quite often around you, Elle. It’s a good thing I have you here to take care of me.”

  She shakes her head. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to do something far worse to yourself next time. I swear, I have no idea how you’ve made it this far in life without losing a limb or something.”

  “Because I made it this far without meeting a woman who distracts me the way you do.” I curl my hand, tightening my fingers around hers.

  The amusement is gone from her eyes, and instead she looks hesitant and vulnerable again. “Leo, I…”

  “You what?”

  She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s all right,” I say, my voice a low rumble. “I know enough for the both of us.” I bring her hand up to my mouth and brush my lips across the back of her knuckles. Then I let my tongue slip out and flick it gently against her skin. A quiver moves through her.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she says. “You’re injured.”

  “It’s hardly more than a paper cut.”

  “But it could still get infected.” She pulls her hand out of mine.

  “If you wish to clean and bandage it, I won’t stop you,” I tell her. “But nor will that change what I’m feeling right now.” She hasn’t moved away from me, and I step around her, trapping her against the counter with one arm on either side of her.

  “You really are insatiable. And insufferable.” A bit of the humor has returned to her face, but this time it’s not because she’s let her guard down—this time it’s a shield. A way to deflect my attention.

  “Tell me to move,” I say. I won’t force myself upon her, even if my body is suddenly tense with need. Even if I can think of little else but throwing her down on this counter and taking her right here, the way I nearly did this morning.

  “We haven’t even finished our date yet,” she says.

  Another deflection.

  “Then tell me to finish,” I say. “Tell me you’d prefer that I go back to chopping vegetables.”

  “We really should eat something.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  She hesitates. I wait, my breath frozen in my chest, wondering whether she’ll continue to try and push me away or succumb once more to the hunger between us.

  Finally, ever so slowly, her hands reach up. Her fingers brush gently against my cheeks, and I force myself to remain still, to let her move at her own pace.

  Then, suddenly, she grabs my face and yanks my mouth down to hers.

  It’s the first time she’s initiated a kiss between us. And my blood responds to that knowledge nearly as much as it responds to the heat of her lips against mine. A growl comes from somewhere deep in my chest as my arms loop around her.

  My God, I’ll never get enough of her. I’m wild with hunger, aching with the need to be inside of her again. It’s only been, what—an hour or two? But it feels like a lifetime.

  She buries her fingers in my hair, and I slide my hands down her body. In an instant, I’m fully hard. She groans as my hand curls around her breast.

  “What do you think?” I murmur against her mouth. “Should we finish what we began this morning?” My thumb glides across her nipple, and I feel it tighten into a hard bud beneath her shirt. “Shall I throw you down on this counter?”

  Before she can respond, I drop my hands down to her hips and lift her up, setting her on the edge of the counter in front of me. Her legs wrap around me, pulling me against her as our mouths find each other again.

  I take that as a yes, I think, sliding my tongue across hers.

  I find the waistband of her leggings and slide my hands inside, running them across the soft, smooth skin of her ass. She bites down on my tongue, and I moan. She arches against me, her hips pressing against my arousal.

  I’m going to eat you up. Every last bit of you.

  I hear a growl escape me as I start to push her leggings lower. I have to partially lift her to get them over her ass, but I’m not ready to flip her over onto her stomach yet. Instead, I slip my hand between her legs, just like I did this morning. She’s already dripping wet again, and I smile against her lips as I slide a finger down through her wetness. It slips easily inside of her, and she bucks against my hand.

  I move my finger slowly, in part to tease her and in part to gauge how tender she is at the moment. Honestly, after all the sex we’ve had, I’m feeling a little raw myself—but that pain only heightens the sensations I’m feeling. Nothing will keep me from joining with her again.

  I add a second finger to the first, and this time she pulls her face away from mine. Her head falls back, and a soft, breathy cry escapes her lips. She writhes against me, her body showing me exactly what she wants.

  I need to be inside of her. Now.

  I start to lift her up, preparing to flip her over. My fingers are digging into the soft flesh of her perfect bottom when I hear a loud, sudden WHOOOOSH.

  Elle stiffens. I lift my head, blinking dazedly at her.

  Her eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. She shoves at my shoulder with one hand and tugs at her leggings with the other. “The onions!”

  I’m still half-mad with desire as I lower her back to the counter and turn, but then I instantly go cold when I see what she means.

  The pan with the onions has caught on fire.

  Elle

  Not even stopping to think, I slide myself from the counter and duck under Leo’s arm. I rush to the stove, grab a lid from under the counter and throw it on top of the flaming pan. I pull the entire thing off the burner and turn off the heat. The fire goes out within a few seconds, but the acrid scent of burned onion hangs in the air.

  I let this go too far—watching him try to cook was so damn hilarious I never thought about the very real possibility of him burning my house down. And that was before I lost control again. This incident only proves that things go straight to hell when I let my guard down for even a second.

  Trying to curb at least a small amount of the ridiculous desire that takes over my body every time I’m around him, I pull my clothes back into place.

  I try to smile—I have to cover this up somehow, and he seems to respond better to me at least faking happiness than he does the crappy uncertainty that has taken over again. “I think it might be best if I’m the only person cooking in this house. Unless you have a chef hidden in your suitcase or something.” Widening my phony smile, I try to cover the stabbing pain in my chest, knowing I need to shut this all down. There aren’t going to be any shared meals between us or anything else for that matter. This has to end—and it has to end now. It’s already gone way too far, and I’m the one who is going to suffer.

  Leo walks over to me and touches a finger to my jaw. He tips my chin up, forcing my gaze to his. “I have many more things to show you, Elle. Many.”

  His finger is still bleeding. I go into doctor-mode again, pulling his hand into mine and examining the wound. At least using my medical knowledge to assess his finger might distract me from being pulled under his spell again. “This is going to need more than bandaging, Leo.”

  He pulls his hand away and rolls his eyes. “It’s nothing—”

  “It’s a deep cut. It might need a stitch or two. Considering you cut it right where you bend your finger—”

  “Thank you, Elle. That will be all.” He gives me a dismissive wave of his hand—almost as though he’s excusing me like one of his servants—before his gaze snaps to mine. His eyes widen in what almost looks like horror, and his mouth falls open.

  My jaw tightens. “Oh.” I force another smile. “I see. Well, you can tend to your own bandaging, then, I suppose. But don’t come crying to me when you can’t bend your finger next week.”

  “Elle, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know exactly what you meant.” The stabbing pain in my chest returns, and I try to cover my emotions with another small smile and motion to the other side of the room. “Why don’t you go clean up your cut? There are supplies in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror in the bathroom.”

  “I would appreciate your assistance. If you feel bandaging is necessary—”

  “I will be cleaning up the mess you made in the kitchen while you tend to your wound. But get this straight, Leo. This is the last time I clean up any mess of yours.”

  He stares at me for a long moment. “That came out wrong—what I said. Surely you of all people—”

  “Fuck you, Leo.” I shake my head and turn my attention to the stove without another word.

  He slinks toward the bathroom and I turn to the mess left on the stove by Leo’s botched attempt at cooking. I toss the bloodied peppers into the garbage and put the cutting board and knife into the dishwasher. The main problem is the stinking pan of burned onions, so I grab it to dump it into the trash.

  “Men and their fucking messes,” I mutter to myself as I open the side door and walk outside to the garbage can. I haven’t even lifted the lid before I hear the clicking of cameras. Someone calls out my name before I can even look up, only this time, they’re yelling, “Elle! Elle!” and not calling me Eleanor.

  How the hell did I forget about this mess?

  They start yelling out questions, but so many of them are shouting at once that I can’t really understand any of them.

  I drop my gaze to what I’m doing—I dump the burned onions into the garbage can and keep my head down, making a beeline back to the house.

  But then I hear a lone question—a woman. I’m not sure if the other voices have stopped or if maybe I’m just able to hear her voice alone among the others. But I hear every word she says.

  “How does this end, Elle?”

  I turn and my gaze snaps to hers, but I say nothing. I just feel the twisting sensation in my chest again. I can’t breathe—I stare at her for what seems like an eternity. Finally, I shake my head without saying a word to any of them and go back into the house.

  Stepping into the kitchen, I lift my hands to grasp the edge of the counter and close my eyes, trying to catch my breath.

  How does this end? There is only one answer to this question. Not well. And not well is probably the best I can hope for at this point. If things go on much longer, it’s going to be much, much worse than that.

  A buzzing sound rings in my ears and I have to blink a few times, unsure of what it is or where it’s coming from. I think I might be imagining it, but then I hear it again. And again.

  Leo’s phone is sitting on the counter. I almost laugh when I remember how he had been trying to use it to figure out how to chop onions—I still can’t believe he needed the internet for that. I think it was my first genuine laugh in over a year.

  The phone buzzes again and a few seconds later, it buzzes once more. I finally glance down at it—the screen is full of texts from Andrew.

  * * *

  This is too much. Even for you, Leopold.

  * * *

  Father has reached his limit. He’s calling the local law enforcement to extract you now.

  * * *

  But the one at the bottom—it had to be the first message Andrew sent—makes the knife in my chest turn again.

  * * *

  You said you were done with her.

  * * *

  I stand there staring at the screen until it goes dark, then I close my eyes. I knew there was something else going on here—that there was no way Leo had any more than a passing interest in me. The only reason he came back here was to hide from the media circus he must have known was coming. Why wouldn’t he have come back here—especially when he has a woman here so fucking eager to spread her legs for him? A woman with no sense of control—a worthless, throwaway toy he can dispose of as soon as he’s ready to find something better. Something new. Someone appropriate for a prince like him.

  I’m so stupid. I’m tired of telling myself that—I’m tired of reliving the same story over and over.