The Mistress That Tamed De Santis

He endured her presence three more times over the next two days. At a charity brunch, at the unveiling of the plans to redevelop the marina, at the opening night of the new exhibition in the national art gallery...

Every time he saw her, the craving bit harder.

He avoided speaking directly to her, but more than once he met her gaze. Across the crowd in the gallery, during speeches, every glance seared, stopping that breach in his armour from sealing shut again.

Three days since that morning in her office, he seethed at his inability to wrest back his self-control. His mind wandered every chance it got. When he should be focused, when he should be listening to someone else, when he should be thinking about things so much more important than himself, he thought about what he’d do to make her writhe in his arms until he heard her soft cry of release again.

That cry had made him harder and more wanting, yet more satisfied than he’d ever been in his life. He’d revelled in it for one incredible moment. Then he’d remembered. He couldn’t have any kind of relationship.

Then he’d run.

But that cry had tormented his dreams day and night since. Now it was all he could think of.

He glanced at the valet pointlessly polishing Antonio’s already buffed-to-brilliant shoes. He had a performance at the opera house to attend tonight and there was no way Bella Sanchez wouldn’t be there.

‘Leave me.’ Abruptly he dismissed the man.

‘Sir?’ The servant looked nonplussed at the sudden command.

Varying from his schedule was impossible, given how crammed it was, but Antonio needed to pull himself together and cool this burn with a reality check. He needed to see through Bella Sanchez and remind himself she was merely a woman. And he’d refused hundreds, if not thousands of women. It was in their best interests that he had.

‘I need ten minutes alone,’ Antonio ordered.

His valet swiftly bowed and left. Antonio picked up the tablet he used to scan newspaper headlines. With a couple of swipes he opened up a video channel. The simplest of searches retrieved an endless list of clips. He clicked on the first. Lifted from a performance at one of the US’s most prestigious ballet theatres, it had been viewed millions of times.

Bella Sanchez dancing the title role of Carmen. In this scene she was seducing a soldier to get him to do her bidding. Antonio watched, his gut tightening, as Bella sent the man a smouldering look over her shoulder—alluring, enthralling, practised. It was a move she performed on stage night after night after night, yet she made it utterly convincing. At the end of her solo the audience exploded, chanting her name over and over, stomping their feet, delaying the rest of the performance for a full five minutes while they called for encores. He stared at the screen, as spellbound as everyone in the audience had been, watching as she didn’t break character for even a second. Haughtily she waited, accepting the adulation and keeping them in her sexual thrall as if it was only to be expected.

But when she’d lain before him, warm and exposed, she’d not been at all practised or polished. She’d been unrehearsed and real and what had happened had taken her by surprise as much as it had him. And the raw emotion in her eyes when he’d pulled away from her?

He’d hurt her. He regretted that. He regretted touching her.

Yet all he wanted was to do it again.

He tossed the tablet back onto the desk. Reduced to watching her like this, like some unbalanced stalker, was no way to find relief.

Why couldn’t he end this aching awareness of her? The slow burn threatened to send him insane. He’d resisted already, hadn’t he? He’d stopped before taking the pleasure he’d wanted so badly. He’d proven himself.

But he was tired of having to prove himself, tired of devoting every minute of his life to his crown. Maybe resisting had been the wrong action.

Why shouldn’t he have something for himself for once? He’d been restrained for so long. Every other damn prince took lovers. His younger brother had been a total playboy. In other countries princes, politicians, people with power and wealth indulged their desires. Ordinary people did too. It was normal.

But not for Antonio.

Not when he knew the heartache the inevitable intense media coverage would cause. Nausea churned in his gut from guilt as he remembered. He was sure Alessia’s parents knew the truth of what he’d done to their daughter. They never discussed it, but they knew. So the least he could do was protect and honour both them and the memory of her. It was his duty. Having a public affair with a woman like Bella Sanchez would destroy everything he’d worked so hard to maintain. And an affair would become public.

Slaking this haunting lust was impossible.

But still his blood burned.

At the theatre he saw her immediately. She’d made that unavoidable. A scarlet petal in a sea of black suits, she wore the colour of seduction and vampishness, unapologetically sensual and attention stealing and a bold choice given the red highlights in her hair. Held up by thin straps, her dress was cut low over her generous breasts, their size and shape accentuated by her slender waist. Her strappy sandals made her almost tall enough to look him in the eye. Except tonight she refused to look at him at all.