Prince's Love-Child. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ shoulder-length hair, kissed every inch of her gamin-featured beauty and tasted the intimate delight of her luscious lips and mouth.

      Sapphie, as if becoming aware of Rik’s lingering gaze, of the thoughts running through his head, seemed to gather herself up to attack. ‘Let me make one thing clear, Mr Prince—’

      ‘I thought it was to be Rik and Sapphie,’ he reminded her tauntingly, smiling his thanks at the waiter as he placed the pot of fresh coffee and cups down on the table.

      ‘Mr Prince,’ Sapphie enunciated carefully once they were alone again, ‘I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. Is that clear enough for you?’

      She really was beautiful, Rik acknowledged slightly dazedly; not that he had thought—even five years ago when he needed to block out the pain—that he would have been attracted to someone who wasn’t beautiful. It just came as a surprise to him now to realise quite how beautiful Sapphie Benedict was.

      More beautiful than Dee? Well…no. But Dee’s beauty was made up of golden hues, whereas this woman was all fire and light; her hair, for example, gleamed red as the sunlight caught it, and her eyes had taken on the colour of leaping flames.

      There was also the fact that, notwithstanding how much in love he’d been with Dee five years ago, the two of them had never gone any further than a few clandestine kisses. Whereas he and Sapphie Benedict had shared the most complete intimacy there was between a man and a woman.

      ‘Very clear, Sapphie,’ he finally answered her slowly. ‘But if that really was the case, how would I know about the birthmark you have on your—?’

      ‘Will you stop that?’ she snapped furiously, sitting forward. ‘Dee and Jerome are on their way back now,’ she hissed warningly after a brief glance over his shoulder. ‘This conversation is over as far as I’m concerned!’

      Rik turned to give a cursory glance in the direction of the married couple as they strolled along hand in hand, pausing to look in a store window now, his mouth twisting with distaste even as he acknowledged how right they looked together: Dee so tall and goldenly beautiful, Jerome with that natural confidence of a successful middle-aged man.

      ‘I would keep that emotion under wraps too, if I were you,’ Sapphie bit out impatiently. ‘Jealousy can be so unattractive!’

      Rik turned back to find her looking at him scathingly. Jealousy? Of Jerome’s role as Dee’s husband, was what Sapphie meant. Was he still jealous of Jerome? No, in all honesty, he couldn’t say that he was, any more.

      Did that mean that he really was over his love for Dee…?

      He raised dark brows as he returned Sapphie Benedict’s challenging look. ‘You would know, I suppose,’ he drawled mockingly, but took no pleasure in the way her face fell at his deliberate taunt.

      How ironic, how absolutely incredible, that the two of them should both have been in love with other people five years ago. Although Sapphie denied that she still felt that way about Jerome. And he…He realised with another lightening of his heart that, without even knowing it, he’d got over Dee. She was still one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, but he could now view that beauty dispassionately.

      Sapphie eyed him dismissively now. ‘I never took you for an idiot, Rik. Misguided in your love for Dee, perhaps, but never an idiot.’

      He looked at her curiously. ‘You don’t like Dee very much, do you?’ he realised wonderingly; he had never met anyone before, male or female, who didn’t instantly fall under Dee’s charming spell. Although being in love with the other woman’s husband would probably do it, he allowed.

      ‘Of course I like Dee,’ Sapphie bristled resentfully. ‘Knowing a person’s weaknesses and faults doesn’t preclude your liking them.’

      Rik gave her a rueful grin. ‘Knowing mine doesn’t seem to have endeared me to you!’

      She eyed him bleakly. ‘There are always exceptions to every rule,’ she retorted before turning to smile warmly at Dee and Jerome as they rejoined them, her expression affectionately indulgent as she took in the new handbag that Dee carried. ‘I see you preferred the larger design,’ Sapphie teased.

      Dee grinned unabashedly, her pleasure in the gift obvious. ‘If you’re going to have a designer bag, then it may as well be a big one!’ She dropped gracefully into the chair next to Sapphie before placing the new purchase on the table. ‘Isn’t it absolutely gorgeous?’

      The white bag, printed with a pattern of the designer’s motif in different colours, was certainly big, Rik acknowledged. However, it also wasn’t the little purse initially suggested. But then, why shouldn’t Dee choose a much more expensive number? Jerome was so rich he made the multimillionaire Prince brothers look like paupers!

      ‘It’s lovely,’ Sapphie assured the other woman warmly.

      Rik couldn’t help but admire, on the other couple’s return, the way in which Sapphie seemed to have shaken off her obvious animosity towards him. Anyone glancing in their direction now would be sure to think they were just four friends enjoying a cup of coffee together on this glorious Parisian day.

      Rik wasn’t actually quite sure whether he could really class the four of them as friends, given all the emotions teeming beneath their surface politeness!

      Nevertheless, he was reluctant for their time together to end. It had taken five years for him to meet Sapphie Benedict again and—surprisingly!—he found he was so intrigued, that he didn’t want there to be another five before it happened again!

      ‘I was just suggesting to Sapphie,’ he gave her a sideways glance, his mouth quirking humorously as he noticed the disapproving tightening of her full lips, ‘that it would a good idea if the four of us were to have dinner together this evening.’

      He had turned back to the married couple by the time he made this suggestion, so he didn’t actually see Sapphie’s reaction to his suggestion—but he certainly felt it!

      Shock was quickly followed by waves of pure animosity in his direction which she made no effort to conceal!

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘YOU’RE incredibly stupid or totally insane—and as I don’t believe for a moment that it’s the latter, I can only assume that it’s the former!’ Sapphie spoke vehemently even as she marched her way past Rik and into the sitting-room of his hotel suite, not sparing her obviously luxurious surroundings a second glance as she turned to glare at him.

      ‘Come in, why don’t you?’ Rik drawled sardonically, taking his time about closing the door and joining her.

      Giving Sapphie the opportunity to take in exactly how handsome he looked in the black evening suit and snowy white shirt and black bow-tie. Not that she hadn’t ever noticed how devastatingly attractive he was, it was just that he just looked breathtakingly so in this formal attire, every inch the wealthy and powerful screenwriter that he was.

      She had responded to the way he looked five years ago, but also to the way he’d made her feel; she’d been attracted to his inborn confidence and sophistication as much as to his handsome features. But this was something else entirely.

      Now he wasn’t just Rik Prince, the youngest, and reputedly the most sensitive, СКАЧАТЬ