Read Online His Royal Prize by Katherine Garbera - Free Book Online Page B

run. She stepped out of her dress as Geoff quietly undressed next to her. She opened a jar of bath salts and poured a small scoop into the warm water.
    She turned on the towel-warming rack and got an extra towel out for him. As silly as it sounded, she’dnever bathed with another person before. Geoff seemed at home, though, and that put her at ease. He held her hand and helped her into the tub, then climbed in after her.
    He settled himself back against the wall and drew her down so that her back was pressed to his chest. Then he took the loofah sponge she had on the tray next to the bathtub and poured some bath gel onto it. Her skin tingled in anticipation.
    “Tell me more about growing up. How did you become a world-famous heiress?”
    She tipped her head back against his shoulder and looked up at him, trying to see if he was teasing her, but his expression was sincere. “I think I’m more infamous.”
    “No, you aren’t,” he said. “Tell me.”
    “What do you know about me?” she asked. “I take it you don’t want the story of my birth.”
    He laughed, a deep rumbling sound that echoed off the bathroom walls. “No, I don’t. I know your father is Augustus Munroe and your mother is Mia Domenici, the legendary fashion designer.”
    “My father was married when he met my mother, but they have what she calls ‘fiery passion,’ and that, apparently, is something that can never be denied.”
    “It can’t?” Geoff asked.
    She shook her head, realizing that she understood now what her mother had meant. She’d never experienced passion like it until Geoff. Why him? What draws people to each other in such an extreme way? She was sure her own mother wondered why Gus Munroe had inspired that kind of passion in her.
    “Have you experienced it?” he asked.
    “Only once,” she said. She didn’t want to reveal that she was thinking of him, of what had just happened between them. She had no idea what this all meant to him. Perhaps she was just another woman to pass the time with until he found someone suitable to be his wife.
    He stroked the sponge over her body. She knew she shouldn’t want him again so soon but every time the sponge brushed over her breasts she felt an answering pulse between her legs.
    “Have you experienced it?” she asked him.
    “Define it for me,” he said.
    She shrugged. She didn’t know how to put it into words without revealing that he was the man who’d inspired it in her. She really hoped that her affair with Geoff didn’t turn out as disastrously as her parents’ relationship had. Despite their marriage, they had never found the happily-ever-after that Amelia wanted for herself. She wondered if passion precluded happiness.
    She hoped not.
    “I don’t really know how to put it into words. I only know that in my parents’ case, it wasn’t enough. They need each other desperately but can’t live together.”
    “Sounds painful. Did you understand that as a child?”
    She shook her head. “No I didn’t. Auggie and I often felt as if we were on a sailboat in the rough sea, trying desperately to keep ourselves from capsizing.”
    Amelia had the sensation once again that she was revealing way too much. She decided to close hereyes—and her mouth—and revel in the feel of his touch, however long it lasted.
     
    Geoff wanted to protect Amelia but she was a woman who had always scorned the protection of others, hadn’t she? That had been his impression. Listening to her talk about her childhood, however, made him believe that she’d always had to make her own way and figure everything out on her own.
    “I don’t remember seeing much of you in the papers when you were a child,” he said vaguely, fishing for information from her. He already knew that if he demanded it she’d simply clam up and tell him nothing.
    “I spent most of my childhood in New York, but frankly, they weren’t at all interested in me until I turned eighteen. I’m afraid to say I was a bit of an ugly