The Playboy's Princess (11 page)

“No,” she said with as much confidence in her voice as she could, but he seemed to know better and cocked an eyebrow at her. She gulped and then slowly nodded her head.

One side of his mouth twitched upward, but he kept a stern look on his face. “I thought we talked about this. Do we need to do some desensitization exercises?” he whispered, leaning closer to her so that she could feel his warm breath cascading over her cheek.

She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t even breathe steadily. All she could do was stare into his deep blue eyes and feel her heart thundering in her chest. A part of her registered that his fingers were gently stroking her cheek as his other hand reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Jade’s own hand moved, without her consent, and snaked up his chest and around his neck. Her fingers grasped the soft hair at the base of his neck. He smiled and brushed his lips against her cheek before stopping by her ear, whispering so softly that she barely heard him, “Good girl.”

Jade was shocked with herself. Two minutes ago, she’d been so nervous she could barely move, and now touching Drew seemed like the most natural thing in the world. She didn’t just want to touch him; she needed to touch him.

“Ahem.” A throat cleared from behind them, and Drew jumped back from her quickly, shock on his face.

“Oh, Caroline! I wasn’t expecting you so quickly,” Drew said as he stood and took the large picnic basket the woman was holding. “Caroline, this is Jade. Jade, this is my family’s housekeeper, Caroline.”

“Hello,” Jade said politely, but she knew her face must have been as red as a tomato. She let the word
housekeeper
sink into her brain and then rolled her eyes. So Drew
was
used to having a staff to serve his every whim. That was one less question she would have to ask.

“Will there be anything else, Drew?” Caroline asked.

“No, thank you,” he said with a smile, and Caroline winked at him.

It looked like they had a friendly relationship, and that comforted Jade a little. They said you could always tell the character of a person by how they treated the people in their employ.

“Have a good night,” Caroline said before turning and letting herself out.

“So…you have a maid?” Jade asked with a half smile.

“Well, my parents do,” he replied with a shrug. He placed the large basket down on the coffee table and then started pushing the armchairs against the walls.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he came over and pushed the couch back, with her still sitting on it.

“Making room for our picnic.” He laughed.

She watched curiously as he pulled a blanket out of the basket and laid it on the floor before kicking his shoes off and kneeling down.

“Join me?” he asked, holding his hand out.

She slid off the couch and crawled across to the blanket, where she kicked off her own shoes and curled her legs under herself.

Drew gave her a smile and started to unpack the basket. Jade wasn’t sure what she was expecting him to have brought for them to eat, but she was pleasantly surprised to see salad, sandwiches, and fruit. There was a part of her that had half-expected him to pull out seafood and caviar.

“I hope this is okay. I didn’t want to do anything too fancy and set your standards too high. I’d have nowhere to build to,” he said with a wink.

“It’s perfect,” she assured him as she reached out and took one of the turkey sandwiches off the plate.

“Drink?” he asked as he pulled a bottle of white wine from the basket and expertly removed the cork.

“Thanks,” she said through a mouthful of food, and Drew smiled at her again before handing her a glass.

“You know, it’s kind of funny that you’ve trained to be a marine biologist and you got cast as Ariel.” He laughed and took another drink from his wine glass.

Jade rolled her eyes. “That was a complete coincidence. I think I was cast purely for my hair.”

“Nah, you must be good at what you do. Disney only has the best actors in their parks. They have a reputation to uphold.”

“I’m really lucky. I actually love the job. The auditions were brutal but worth it.”

“What was it like growing up in Florida?” he asked, changing the subject.

She shrugged. “It was normal, I guess. My parents were one of the few who weren’t divorced, so I guess I was different from my friends in that way, but my life was pretty boring. I did well in school, only had one boyfriend…”

Drew choked on his wine and spat it over the plate of sandwiches.

“Sorry,” he said, looking mortified. He grabbed the plate of soggy bread and put it back in the basket, obviously thinking of the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy.

“It’s okay,” she said, but she couldn’t help but giggle a little. It was so nice to not be the clumsy fool in the room. It was a relief to know that Drew was just human, even if he was an extremely attractive human.

“What happened with your boyfriend?” he asked, and she noticed that his voice was a little harder than it had been before.

“Oh, nothing really. I left for LA, and he went to college in Boston. I haven’t seen him since.”

Drew nodded, but Jade could see he was thinking deeply about something.

“What about you? Any ex-girlfriends hiding in your closet?”

Drew laughed. “I’m not the type of guy who has girlfriends. There have been many girls, but no one I care to remember.”

That troubled Jade. He sounded so cold and unfeeling in his disregard for the women in his past. Even though her ex-boyfriend hadn’t been the love of her life, she still thought fondly of him. If Drew was that cold toward the other women he’d dated, how could she ever expect him to be a husband? She stopped her train of thought and had to remind herself
again
that he wasn’t
really
going to be her husband. She felt her mood sink instantly.

Jade looked at the half-eaten sandwich in her hand and suddenly didn’t feel very hungry anymore. She was angry at herself for forgetting so easily that this was all just a financial arrangement. Drew didn’t actually care about her, and she shouldn’t be allowing herself to care about him, either. It was so easy to forget that when they were sitting so close having a good time, when they’d just shared such an intimate moment on the couch.

Drew was oblivious to Jade’s change in mood, and he kept eating. He poured her another glass of wine. “So, what about your future? What plans do you have besides finishing school?”

She stared at him for a moment, seriously thinking about telling him that she wanted out of their agreement. She suddenly didn’t know how she could have ever thought of getting herself involved with a fake marriage with a man who cared nothing for the women in his life. How would he think of
her
once he’d gotten what he’d needed and they’d parted ways? Would he laugh and think of her as pathetic? Would he try to forget her, the same way he’d said he didn’t want to remember the other women from his past?

But she couldn’t stay mad at him. He was looking at her with his soulful blue eyes and that contented, crooked smile, and she couldn’t help but want to be around him. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to benefit from this arrangement; a million dollars was a lot of money—and he was just handing it to her. Would it really matter if he didn’t want to remember her? She was starting to feel dizzy from the whiplash of her thoughts.

“Sorry…what?” she asked.

“What do you have in mind for your future?” he repeated.

She thought for a moment. The only thing she really wanted was to have someone, to be in love, to be loved in return. But she couldn’t exactly tell
him
that, so she gave her standard answer when someone asked her what she wanted from her life and she didn’t want to seem like a pathetic love-sick fool.

“I’d love to travel,” she said. It was true; traveling had always been something she was interested in.

“Oh, me too. My parents took me to Europe as a kid, but I’d like to see it again as an adult,” he explained.

“I just want to see absolutely everything. Go everywhere and see
every single thing
the world has to offer. I want to walk along the Great Wall of China and swim the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I want to crawl through the Vietcong tunnels and see the pyramids,” she said.

“That’s a pretty extensive list,” Drew commented, looking impressed. “The one place in Europe I want to see again is Italy.”

Drew slid across the blanket so he was sitting right next to her. He reached up, moving her hair over her shoulder so that the side of her neck was bare to him.

“
Bella Ariel, prometto di fare il vostro sogno si avvera
,” he whispered into her ear, causing shivers to run down her spine.

“Wh-What does that mean?” she asked, her voice huskier than she intended.

Drew leaned back, smiled, and shrugged before grabbing a shiny red apple out of the basket and taking a bite. She knew he wasn’t going to tell her what he’d said, and in a way, that made it more romantic. It was almost as if knowing the words took some of their power away.

“What are
your
dreams?” she asked, trying to take the focus off of herself.

Drew took another bite of his apple and pondered the question. After swallowing, he shrugged again. “I don’t really have any,” he said.

“You don’t have any dreams? There’s nothing you want for your life?” she asked, shocked.

“Well sure, I want
things
. I want a nice house, comfortable finances—but those are just material things. I don’t really have a goal or a purpose,” he explained.

They sat in silence for a minute while Jade thought about what he’d said. “You know, I think there are a lot of people like that out there. People confuse things that they want with life goals.”

“All I know is that I
want
a dream. I want something to want. I just don’t have it yet,” he said seriously.

“Well, that’s a start,” she replied, and stretched her hand out to hold his.

He smiled back at her and squeezed her hand. Jade couldn’t help the way her heart swelled at the thought of spending the next year of her life with this man.

Chapter Seven

Getting Hers

J
ADE
T
OSSED
A
ND
T
URNED
, flinging the sheets off her body.

“Go to sleep, damn it!” she mumbled to herself.

Inside, she felt restless, uneasy. No matter how many lullabies she sang in her mind, or how many sheep she pictured jumping behind her closed eyes, her body wouldn’t relax. She felt like she needed a good, hard fuck.

It had been over a month since her last hook-up, and that hadn’t even been very satisfying. She’d been placating herself with Mr. Right, the name she’d given her vibrating friend, but the thought of pulling him out and then having to clean him afterward was all too much. What she needed was a
man!

Briefly, her mind turned to Drew. His blue eyes swam into her thoughts. Ideally he would be her choice, but she just couldn’t bring herself to muddy that water. She had to keep her head on tight around him now. Imagine how hard that would be after they slept together. No, she had to find someone else.

Jade had never been a friends-with-benefits kind of girl. She’d had one-night stands when she was drunk, but never a repeat with the same guy. And she hadn’t had a proper boyfriend since she’d moved away from home. Suddenly the idea of having someone, not a romantic someone, who she could call up for sex when it suited her, was very enticing. No strings, just orgasms. What a concept!

She wondered if one of the guys at work would be up for it. She knew they would be. Dancers tended to have higher libidos than other people, in Jade’s experience. She thought it was from the connection they had with moving their body to a rhythm. Whatever it was, it translated into great sex.

Rick, one of the live stage performers, flirted with her constantly, and she knew he was single. Nerves built inside her, as well as something else, something good. Excitement. She promised herself that she’d talk to him about it at work the next day.

But, in the meantime, she’d make do with Mr. Right.