A Royal Without Rules

She pulled her arm from his grip as he steered her between two tables, as if concerned they couldn’t make it through the narrow channel side by side. But she rubbed at the place he’d touched her as if he’d left behind a mark, and Pato smiled.

In the deepest, farthest shadows of the patio, he found an empty table, the candle in the center, which should have been glowing, unlit. But he didn’t need candlelight to see her as she deliberately put the table between them, keeping as far out of his reach as she could. his eyes adjusted to the dark and he studied the flush on her cheeks, the hectic sparkle in her gaze.

And then he waited, leaning his elbows on the table and watching her. Her pretty eyes widened. She shifted from one foot to the other. He made her nervous, and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t like it.

“I wasn’t trying to shame you,” she said after long moments passed, just the two of them in a far, dark corner, all the nerves he could see on her face rich in her voice. And there was something else, he thought as he studied her. Something he couldn’t quite identify.

“Of course you were.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You did.”

She looked stricken for a moment, then dropped her gaze to the tabletop, and he watched as she crossed her arms as if she thought she needed to hold herself together. Or protect herself.

“What are you ashamed of, Adriana?” he asked softly.

She flinched as if he’d slapped her, telling him a great deal more than he imagined she meant to do, but her expression was clear when she lifted her head. That mask again. She let out a breath and then she opened her mouth—