Free [Montacroix Royal Family Series 01] - Guarded Moments by Joann Ross

you want to know about that?"
    "You're the one who doesn't want me to think you're the princess in the papers," he pointed out. "I'm just attempting to separate fact from fiction."
    "My marriage was a mistake."
    "So are fifty percent of the ones in this country. But they don't receive nearly so many headlines."
    "Why do I have the feeling that there's more to your question than mere curiosity?"
    "Beats me."
    She'd managed to extricate the chip and took a bite, eyeing Caine thoughtfully as she chewed. "All right, among other things, Greg Masterson was a pathological liar. In the beginning, I was too infatuated with him to notice the warning signs. Later, I developed sort of a built-in radar, like those—what do they call them—those instruments that sense earthquakes."
    "Seismographs."
    Chantal nodded. "That's it. I possess a very accurate internal seismograph, Caine. And at this moment its needle is going off the chart."
    "That's ridiculous."
    "Is it?"
    "All right," Caine hedged, wondering exactly how to squirm out of this one. "It's more of a half-truth. Sort of a white lie."
    During his childhood years, first his father, then later the nuns at Saint Gregory's Catholic School, had punished him severely every time he'd attempted to tell a lie. Being a bright kid who caught on fast, Caine had decided that it was easier and a great deal less painful to stick to the truth. The outcome of such youthful lessons was that Caine was a lousy liar. Yet in the past ten days, he'd probably been forced to tell more falsehoods than he had in his entire thirty-three years.
    " 'A white lie,'" Chantal repeated, her tone inviting elaboration.
    "I was just trying to figure out what kind of damn fool would let you get away," he said, surprised to discover as he heard the words leave his lips that there was more truth to the quickly thought up explanation than he had intended.
    His tone, gruff with the desire he'd been trying to conceal, gave the proper veracity to his words. As she stared across the table at him, Chantal felt that same draining weakness she'd experienced too many times to count.
    "That's a very nice thing to say," she managed, her own voice husky as she struggled to clear it.
    "It's the truth."
    Chantal would have found his words far more encouraging if he hadn't looked so angry. "So you are attracted to me. I'd wondered."
    Caine knew it would be futile to lie. "What man wouldn't be?" he returned with forced casualness. "You're beautiful, intelligent, albeit a bit stubborn—"
    "I prefer tenacious," Chantal murmured.
    "Stubborn," Caine insisted. "Hardheaded. Like a Missouri mule."
    "A Missouri mule?" she inquired, allowing herself to be sidetracked by a reference she didn't understand. "This is a new American expression to me. Why not a Washington mule? A Kansas mule? Or even a Montacroix mule?"
    "Hey, it's just a saying, okay? I don't have any idea where it came from."
    "Perhaps they raise a great many mules in the state of Missouri," Chantal suggested helpfully.
    "Perhaps that's it. The point I was making, before I was interrupted—" Caine was cut off by the arrival of the waiter with their main course.
    "You were saying?" Chantal asked once they were alone again.
    "I was just attempting to explain that any man would be attracted to a woman like you," he said gruffly.
    "But some men would not be happy about it. You are not happy about it."
    He put down his fork to meet her strangely vulnerable gaze. "Look, Chantal, it's nothing personal."
    "It's not?"
    Damn, she definitely wasn't making this easy for him. "Of course it's not. Whatever I feel for you—"
    "And I for you," she interjected quietly.
    "Whatever we feel, the fact remains that we live in two different worlds. You're a princess, for crying out loud, and I'm just a, uh, deputy under secretary of state."
    Her dark eyes displayed hurt. "I did not realize that Americans believed in class distinctions."
    "We don't, but—"
    "Yet," she continued gravely, her eyes not