And once this show premiered, it would start happening in America, too. My heart went out to him. I wanted to be there for him. To protect him. To make his life easier. To make him happy.
The realization shocked my system like a lightning bolt hitting a rod. The physical attraction was one thing, but this was emotional. Obviously, I cared about him. He was my friend. But this was something more.
It made me feel like I was about to have a panic attack.
“Let’s dance.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I had just had a major life epiphany, and he wanted to dance and hold me close, his strong arms wrapped around me, my hand in his, and it would be more than I could take.
“Sometimes I think you’re afraid to touch me, Limone.”
“Afraid?” My voice hitched when I said it. I hoped he didn’t notice.
The self-satisfied smirk on his face let me know he had.
“Yes, afraid. Like you think you’ll lose all control if we touch.”
That irked me. I wasn’t some kind of deranged wild woman who would ravish him on the dance floor.
At least, I thought I wasn’t.
“I promise to be a gentleman as long as you promise to be a lady,” he said. I hated him teasing me, but I hated knowing he was right even more. Because when he touched me, held me, it was like dropping a blazing torch on a field of dry grass.
We moved into position, and Dante stepped back as I stepped forward. I knew all the waltz steps perfectly, having had them drilled into my head at a very young age, but he was unlike any other partner I’d ever been with. No other man had danced with me and made my heart want to beat out of my chest, or made my stomach flip and flop, or made my whole body tighten up with anticipation.
I was in serious trouble.
“Limone, I want to ask you for a favor.”
The last time Dante had said those exact same words to me had been the second time he kissed me. We were in Monterra, and he was getting ready to play a game of snow polo (horses running on a frozen lake—I was shocked by it too) and he sent me a text and asked me to meet him in his room.
I had spent the entire morning in meetings with various press secretaries as I went over my plans to expand the brand and online presence of the royal family.
Given what had happened the previous night, I was glad for the distraction.
I had knocked on his bedroom door and he called out, “Come in!”
“Are you decent?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see me. “I meant are you dressed yet?”
“Come in and find out.” Which caused a fluttery feeling in my stomach I didn’t want to acknowledge.
He was in his snow polo uniform, which was a long-sleeved red polo shirt, knee-high black boots, and tight white pants that showed off a drool-worthy amount of his muscled legs. He was in the middle of making his bed.
“Want to lend me a hand?”
It was probably not a good plan to go over to his bed. “I’d love to help out, but I can’t. I once killed a man in a bed-making accident.”
“Sounds serious.”
“I don’t really like to clean.”
He turned to look at me as he organized his pillows. “I heard you were a bit of a slob.”
“Who told you that?” He smiled in response, and I wanted to guess he’d heard it from Kat, but seriously, anyone who had ever stepped foot in my room would have been able to tell him. It made me uncomfortable that he was talking with other people about me.
He pulled his comforter into place. It wasn’t very neat looking, but I had to give him props for making the bed himself and not relying on the palace staff to do it. He sat down on his bed and faced me. I found an armchair across the room and settled into it.
“So . . . things with Salvatore are . . .”
I should have known he’d bring it up. I just wanted to forget. “Over.” I don’t know why he asked. He had been with me when I caught Salvatore having sex with a woman behind the nightclub. When, yet again, I had chosen a man who cheated on me the first chance he got.
“He didn’t deserve you.”