Page 35 of Claimed By the Crown Prince

‘I’m making a seafood platter for dinner, okay?’

‘Sounds perfect. I’m going down to the pontoon. Some fresh supplies are coming in.’

Dax looked at her. She was backing away.

‘Needless to say, please don’t try anything. The security guards will be watching.’

Dax was irritated that his first thought wasn’t to devise some way to overcome the boatman and make his escape, but to welcome some distance between him and Laia. Right now, if she’d told him she was leaving him on the island while she went back to the mainland he would have welcomed it.

Laia carried the bags back up to the villa. Her face burned when she thought of one thing in particular that she’d ordered. A big box of condoms.

The box was light in the bag, but it felt like a ton weight. Weighed down by her hubris in thinking that she could entice Dax into more than a kiss. He’d made no reference to it just now. Clearly sending a signal that it had been, as he’d called it, a mistake.

Buthehad kissedher. So she knew he wanted her.

Her conscience pricked again at the thought of pitting him against his brother, but as far as she was concerned his brother had no jurisdiction here and no claim over her. This was her last few days as a free woman. And she wanted Dax to be her first lover.

What if it hadn’t worked out like this? Would you still be hating Prince Dax or would you be able to move on?

As Laia huffed her way up the steps she had to concede that if she’d never come face to face with Dax again then she might have fooled herself into believing she disapproved of him and didn’t find him remotely attractive.

But all it would have taken would have been a face-to-face meeting like this one and she would have been forced to acknowledge her desire and complicated feelings for the man.

In a way, it was a blessing that it was happening now, here on this island. She could put Dax and her attraction to him behind her after this. Move on with no regrets. No unfulfilled fantasies.

First you have to sleep with him, reminded a little voice.

Laia got to the top step, out of breath, sweat running down her forehead and between her breasts.

Suddenly Dax appeared, and Laia had to take a moment to appreciate the incongruity of the image—the world’s most infamous playboy with a tea towel thrown over his shoulder.

And yet it didn’t diminish his sex appeal one little bit. If anything, the hint of domesticity added to it.

Once again he looked totally at ease and at home in shorts and a polo shirt open at the neck. Laia wanted to press her mouth there and then move it down, over his chest, her teeth finding a nipple, biting gently before—

‘Bags?’

Dax interrupted her suddenly rampant imagination and she saw he was holding his hands out to take the bags. Laia handed them over, but at the last second remembered and kept one back, clutching it to her chest muttering, ‘Feminine products.’

The thought of Dax seeing the box of condoms was too horrifying to contemplate.

He went back towards the kitchen. ‘I’ll put these away.’

Laia fled upstairs with her cargo and put the box deep into one of the bathroom cabinets. She looked at herself in the mirror. Eyes wide, cheeks flushed. She looked guilty. She was in full on crush mode and it was heady. She’d never really fancied anyone before.

Because it had always been Dax.

Feeling restless, Laia locked her door and dug out her phone, hoping that there might be a message from Maddi, but there was nothing. She suspected that Maddi had disabled her phone in a bid to protect Laia.

Laia went online to check what was happening, and saw pictures of King Aristedes and Maddi at a posh Santanger restaurant having lunch.

Maddi was wearing a jumpsuit, her arms bare. She looked very sleek and very beautiful. The King was wearing a suit. Laia immediately compared him to Dax. They were similarly good-looking, but where Aristedes was all clean lines and a neat, short beard hugging his jaw, Laia knew that Dax in the same scenario would be somehow...messy. Either his hair, or the stubble on his jaw that he couldn’t be bothered to shave after a night of passion with his latest lover...

He’d certainly given that impression every time he’d appeared in the tabloids.

Laia emitted a sound of frustration and got off the bed to pace back and forth. Everything in her education and upbringing had schooled her to find King Aristedes attractive. Not his reprobate brother.

But his brother was the one she wanted with every pulse of her blood.