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Time to work out solutions to both problems.
Would there never be an end to this hideous nightmare? All around her beautiful people ate beautiful food, had fabulous conversations and partied while inside Liss felt as alive as petrified wood.
She talked to a few local socialites, all wanting to regale her with all the gossip, and wanting to get more from her—about Cassie and Sebastian’s relationship especially. Liss clammed up—Cassie and her brother had a right to privacy, had been through enough already. And the mention of Cassie’s name only made her feel worse. She still hadn’t been able to see her.
They asked about Sydney—and she found she couldn’t share much about that either. As they were getting nothing from her, the women’s conversation strayed onto royal affairs—literally.
‘You’ve heard the latest one—that your father had an affair with a palace maid?’ one beauty asked rather gleefully.
Her father, King Aegeus. The uncomfortable lump in her chest expanded. She’d hardly known him—the only times he’d shown interest in her in recent years was when he’d expressed his displeasure at her pursuits. She’d genuinely grieved at his death—for the relationship that could have been as much as for the life that had passed. She knew she’d missed out. He’d missed out too.
This new rumour annoyed her—maybe she got the gene for inappropriate lust from him. And the tales the women were telling only reminded her that tonight the dirt-dishing media wolves weren’t here, and they should be.
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,’ Liss snapped. ‘You should know that.’
There was a momentary silence, which Liss filled by simply having a long sip of her champagne. Not that it helped.
‘Is that your boss?’ one woman asked, looking over to Liss’s right. ‘Wow. He looks intense.’
‘He looks hot,’ said another.
Liss knew he was looking their way but she refused to look back. Instead she punished herself more by answering, ‘Yes. And he’s single. Why not go introduce yourselves?’
Slowly, after several long hours, the guests left. At last she could sneak away and shrivel up in peace.
Or not. As she made her way to the door James called her to him, the first time he’d spoken to her since he ’d torn strips off her. Bracing herself, she walked over, looked into his darkly handsome face. To her surprise he was actually smiling. ‘It’s well after midnight. Going to start emptying those bottles now?’
And fire up her inner ‘wild child’? Not now, possibly never again. But she wasn’t going to show him how much tonight had affected her.
‘Maybe a few, yes.’ All bravado again. Maybe she should have a few dozen. Get blotto and wipe out all memory of this cursed night. But she knew it wouldn’t work. She’d never forget this nightmare.
‘Come finish one with me, then.’
Surely he was kidding? But he picked up a couple of glasses from a waiter and lifted, not a half-empty one, but a whole bottle of champagne. Carrying the lot in one large hand, he took her arm with his other and she pretty much had no choice but to walk the way he guided.
‘Right.’ She choked. ‘Why not?’ Her smile was half strangled and she felt like the damned going to dine with the executioner.
They left the ballroom—now almost empty except for waiting staff starting the big clean-up. Her heels sank a little on the thickly carpeted hallway. And even though the elevator whisked them up to the top floor with incredible smoothness, her stomach felt as if she’d been on an extreme roller coaster. And in the silence her heart beat louder than twenty drums in a marching band. And to make it all worse she felt dangerously close to tears.
He swiped his key card and ushered her into the penthouse suite. Gleaming marble tiles led to a kitchen, to a bathroom. Other doors must lead to bedrooms.
In the large lounge he’d set up office and it was to the desk that he headed, setting the glasses down and filling them. He held one out to her. She took a sip and he left his on the desk. ‘So.’
She clutched the glass, stepped back and tried not to stare as he shrugged out of his jacket and put his shoulders even more on display in the fine white shirt. ‘I won’t bother coming back to Sydney with you. I can have my stuff packed and shipped.’
He leaned back on the desk, legs stretching out long in front of him. ‘Are you resigning?’
‘I thought it was too late for that.’
‘I haven’t fired you, princess. Not yet.’
‘Oh.’ What on earth was she going to do for him now? Be the tea lady? It would only take one hour of that occupation before he’d turf her out of it. Hell, she couldn’t even make a decent coffee.
