A Royal Wedding(104)

He shook his head and she knew he thought she was whining.

“You have probably been the most protected young lady on the face of the earth,” he pointed out.

“I’d rather be free than protected,” she told him in no uncertain terms.

He shook his head again, looking her over with a bemused smile. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her royal chin rose again. “I think I have a bit of an inkling,” she told him firmly. “I’ve stared matrimony in the face and I’ve decided it’s not for me.” Her glance his way was cool and flippant. “And I’ll bet that’s more than you’ve ever done. You haven’t come close, have you?”

To her surprise, something flashed in his clear blue eyes— something that signaled pain and an emotion she wasn’t sure she recognized. Her words had wounded him in some way.

“You shouldn’t make bets on things you don’t understand,” he said calmly, reaching for his wine.

She blinked and didn’t answer back. She’d brought up something that had upset him and she wished she hadn’t.

She had assumed he was a playboy and that was what he had always been. Was there something else? Had someone broken his heart in the past? She swallowed hard and looked down at her plate, wishing she could learn to keep quiet when on unfamiliar ground. To think she’d hurt him was like a knife in her chest, but she couldn’t think of a thing she could do to undo it.

The waiter brought dessert—a gorgeous creation of three types of chocolate intertwined and topped off with a heavenly puff of whipped cream. Andre wasn’t hungry any longer, and he set it aside after two small bites, but Julienne devoured the entire thing, commenting on flavors and techniques as though she were an expert in this sort of thing.

He sat back, entertained by her commentary, entertained by her obvious relish of the sweet, and generally enjoying watching her, unable to stop. He liked the look of her so much he was like an addict. He couldn’t stay away. Everything about her was fresh and free and beautiful. He felt faded and old hat. She was new. He didn’t want to sully what she was. She was too special.

Still, he couldn’t sit here watching her forever. They both knew very well that she shouldn’t have come down to find him in the first place, but now that she was here he supposed he was going to have to do something with her.

But what?

He’d already realized he was not going to be taking her back to the convent tonight. He needed space and time to work on her reluctance to marry Alphonso. She had to come to an understanding of what her responsibilities were and why she had no choice but to fulfill them. If only he could think of a good way to do it.

Lecturing was doing no good at all. Bullying wouldn’t make any more headway. It would just put her back up and make her more defiant.

Bottom line: she had to go back and she had to marry Alphonso. His job would be to convince her of that without real blood being spilled.

But how?

A few different scenarios flitted through his mind and he rejected them in turn. He glanced across the table at where she was sitting, looking like a teenager, with her bargain basement clothes and her legs stuck out in front of her. As he studied her, he wondered what it was about her that appealed to him so strongly—and made her so dangerous. She was certainly pretty, but so were most of the women he knew.

She caught at his emotions rather in the way a passionate aria could transport him into feelings he didn’t know he had. She did something mysterious and magical to his soul. And that was why he had to get away from her as soon as possible.

But first he would deal with her concerns and convince her that being a princess was better than the alternative. What could he do to make it appeal to her more?

One thought that came to mind was introducing her to city night-life and what it was like to cruise the clubs as royalty. In one night he could show her what it was like to be a star. After all, she had never been out in public, and had no idea what a princess was actually treated like in her own country. Once she had a bite of the apple …

Might that change her mind? He looked at her sweet face and mentally shook his head. No, that wouldn’t really work. Something told him that swelling around the nightclubs with a bunch of substance-impaired groupies lurching after her wasn’t going to do the trick, no matter how much her subjects would adore her.

And they would fall in love with her at first sight, of that he had no doubt. She was imminently lovable. Even a crusty older man like himself was not immune.