Free Passion and the Prince by Penny Jordan Page B

reluctantly admitting to himself that it was a relief to be there in the solitude of his room, where he could escape from the effect Lily’s presence had on his self control, when he heard the frantic knocking on his suite door—the kind of knocking that overrode logic and sent his body into immediate emergency response. It had him grabbing a towel to wrap around his hips before striding towards the door.
    He wasn’t sure what he had expected to see when he opened it, but it certainly hadn’t been Lily. Even less welcome than her arrival was the fact that she had rushed past him and was now in his room, inside his sanctuary from the conflict she had set raging inside him.
    Safety … Sanctuary … Such was the extent of Lily’s relief that it was only once she was inside his suite that she took in the fact that Marco’s torso and hair were damp and that all he was wearing was a towel.
    Her gaze slithered and skittered as she tried to avoid looking at him and couldn’t. The swift response of her senses to him momentarily distracted her from her purpose in coming to him.
    Marco, a man to whom the right and the ability to control his life was something he took for granted, always chose who was allowed into his life and when. No one had ever dared to challenge that right. It had been unthinkable that they should. He was the Prince di Luchessi. No one broke the rules he had made for the way he lived his life. Until now. Until Lily had come—uninvited and unwanted—into his room. He had to struggle to come to terms with the fact that she had dared to breach his defences. His personal boundaries, like his privacy, were very important to him. People did not cross those boundaries because he did not allow them to do so. He did not want casual physical intimacy with others, because casual physical intimacy could lead to pressure for emotional intimacy. That was something he would never want or give.
    His status meant that a good deal of his life was played out in public. That made the privacy he claimed for himself even more important to him. As a lover he considered it his duty to ensure that his partners found pleasure and satisfaction in his arms, but as a man he preferred to sleep alone afterwards. And now here was Lily, intruding into his personal space and looking at him as though.
    Did she know what she was doing to him, looking at him like that? Marco wondered grimly. Of course she did. That was why she was doing it. He was not vain about his body—he ate healthily and kept fit without being excessive about it—but that wide-eyed look of dazed, entranced delight Lily was giving him right now, as though his was the most magnificent male form she had ever seen, would boost any man’s ego. Never mind what it was doing to his body. But this was a woman who knew all about manipulating others, Marco reminded himself. Whatever Lily had come to his suite for it certainly wasn’t because she had been filled with an urgent desire for him, no matter what impression she might be trying to give him right now.
    ‘Why are you here?’ he demanded stiffly. ‘What do you want?’
    The sound of Marco’s voice broke the spell that the intimacy of his nearly naked body had spun round her, his curtness bringing Lily back to reality.
    ‘I had to come. Seeing Anton again after so long … so unexpectedly … He knows my suite number. I couldn’t stay in my room. He …’ Fear and shock disjointed her words.
    ‘Anton?’ Marco checked her, and then wished that he had simply told her to leave. After all, he wanted her out of his room. He wanted her out of his
life,
he acknowledged.
    ‘Anton … Anton Gillman.’ Just saying his name made Lily shudder. Watching her, Marco frowned, guessing, ‘The man you were with earlier this evening, after dinner?’
    ‘Yes,’ Lily acknowledged.
    ‘You gave him your room number?’
    ‘No. I dropped my keycard and he saw it. I was afraid that he’d come looking for me …’
    ‘Why would he