A Ring To Secure His Crown. KIM LAWRENCE

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СКАЧАТЬ heavy sigh and despondent attitude would normally have evoked a sympathetic reaction from Sebastian, but today the only thing he felt was a surge of irritation. Didn’t Luis realise that until he showed a bit of backbone the King was never going to stop trying to micromanage his life? Maybe not even then, Sebastian, a realist, conceded. If he were in his brother’s shoes...

      But you’re not, are you, Seb?

      Luis gets the crown and the girl.

      ‘I didn’t think you’d come, neither did...anyone.’

      ‘You asked.’

      Actually his father had ordered, which under normal circumstances would have guaranteed Sebastian’s nonappearance, and yet he was here. So why? He rubbed the towel across his dripping hair and veered away from the question in his head before it formed.

      ‘I asked the last three times I came to visit the Summervilles.’

      ‘You know I have an allergy to duty.’

      ‘So you keep telling everyone. Seriously—’

      ‘It is a very serious allergy.’

      ‘I wanted you to get to know Sabrina.’

      ‘It’s you she’s marrying.’ And me she’s kissing, he thought, the sharp twinge of guilt he felt drowned out by the stronger slug of lusty heat that accompanied the memory of those soft, sweet-tasting lips. If Luis had kissed her more often maybe she wouldn’t have melted in his arms.

      That’s right, Seb, because it’s never your fault, is it?

      He waited for the familiar hit of mingled frustration, sympathy and affection as he watched Luis walk, shoulders hunched in defeat, across the room. Instead, Sebastian found himself feeling anger and something that, had the circumstances been different, he would have called envy.

      But of course it wasn’t.

      Envy would mean that his brother had something that he wanted, and Luis didn’t.

      Luis was welcome to the crown.

      There had been a time when they were growing up that being pushed into the background and being referred to as the spare had got to Sebastian, but that had been before he had recognised that it was a lot worse for Luis, carrying the expectations of a country on his young shoulders. Luis had no choices—even his wife was picked out for him.

      Luis was welcome to his bride; Sebastian had his freedom. His father had told both of his sons that privilege came with a price; well, so far he’d been proving his father wrong. Sebastian enjoyed the privileges that came with his title without any of the responsibilities.

      And Sebastian didn’t want to marry Sabrina—he didn’t want to marry anyone—he just wanted to take her to bed. Even thinking about her now, and that miracle of a mouth of hers, made smoky desire slither hotly through him.

      He ignored it. He’d kissed Sabrina and he wasn’t going to do it again, even if the primal attraction that drew him to this woman was stronger than anything he could ever remember feeling. He knew himself well enough to know that it would pass—it always did.

      And in the meantime there were plenty of women to kiss who were not about to marry his brother, who were not about to throw away their lives. Her business, he reminded himself, her choice.

      Luckily he had recognised, before the entire kiss incident in the car had got out of perspective, the real danger of building it up into something it was not. She had an incredible mouth, beautiful lips and they made him hungry. The need to taste had swept away every other consideration in his head, but it had been what it was: a ‘perfect storm’ moment. Or maybe a perfect moment of madness, fuelled by the alcohol he’d imbibed much earlier in the morning at the nightclub, where he had been even more bored than usual.

      The chances were, seeing Sabrina here, in her natural environment, as a woman who represented everything he had been rebelling against and rejecting all his life, that he would regain his normal objectivity.

      ‘I didn’t expect you to come, but I’m glad you did. I do appreciate the support.’

      ‘Support?’ Sebastian queried with a frown.

      ‘I can’t say I’m exactly looking forward to tonight.’

      ‘Performance anxiety or...don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts?’

      Luis turned away but not quickly enough to hide his flush of annoyance at the joke that presumably offended his highly developed sense of duty. If it was annoyance?

      Guilt? Could he have hit a nerve? Was his brother having second thoughts? Sebastian dismissed the possibility almost straight away, no matter what his personal feelings. For Luis, duty, no matter what form it took, came first.

      ‘So how is the blushing bride?’

      ‘Fine... I guess.’

      ‘You guess? You mean you didn’t spend the night saying hello?’ Sebastian said, immediately imagining himself saying a very long hello.

      ‘I only just arrived and she...we... She doesn’t blush.’

      Sebastian’s brows lifted. ‘Oh?’ he said, remembering the delicious rosy tinge that had washed over Sabrina’s pale skin.

      ‘Not that that is a bad thing.’

      Sebastian’s eyes narrowed in his brother’s face. ‘Which means that you think it is.’

      Luis looked guilty. ‘She just isn’t always what you’d call very spontaneous.’

      Sebastian cloaked his expression as he heard the echo of that soft little mewling cry as she’d opened her mouth to him. His body hardened helplessly at the memory of her soft breasts pushing into his ribcage.

      The effort of fighting his way free of those intrusive memories delayed his response. ‘Spontaneity can be overrated.’ It could also be great...she would be great in bed.

      Never going to find out, Seb.

      He was a bastard but not that much of a bastard.

      ‘Exactly, especially when your every move is being scrutinised. She has all the qualities to make the perfect Queen.’

      The speculative furrow between Sebastian’s dark brows deepened as he listened to his brother, sounding very much like a man who was trying desperately to convince himself that he believed in what he was saying.

      ‘I’m sold,’ he murmured drily. ‘How about you?’

      Luis dodged the soft question and his brother’s speculative stare. ‘Marriage is all about teamwork.’

      ‘So I hear.’ He had never given marriage much thought aside from concluding fairly early on that it was not for him, about the same time that he had nearly made a fatal error. ‘I nearly proposed once,’ he remembered, a rueful smile tugging the corners of his mouth upwards as he tried and failed to visualise the face of the woman who he had decided, at nineteen, was the love of his life.

      ‘You!’ СКАЧАТЬ