Beyond Eden by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online Page B

moments, about Sydney and the hateful things she’d done to him.
    â€œTell me about school,” he said, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest and his legs at the ankles. “Do you and the other girls tell each other about your dates? Do you tell each other about how talented the boys are? Do you compare your boyfriends’ physical endowments?”
    She shook her head.
    â€œCome now, you do have boyfriends?”
    â€œNo. Maybe when I go to college. My friend Gayle says that’s when you’re supposed to . . .”
    â€œSupposed to what? Ah, my dearest little love, you mean that’s when you’re supposed to lose your virginity?”
    She couldn’t speak; she nodded. His love. It was all the wine. She wasn’t hearing him right. “I—I’ve never even met a boy I wanted to even, well, to kiss.”
    It was as if he sensed her embarrassment and quickly backed off.
    It began to rain.
    They walked through the rain, uncaring, oblivious, the prince with his arm around her, holding her close to his side, getting her even wetter. They laughed a good deal. She felt such adoration for him, such complete devotion, and she guessed he realized it. She didn’t care.
    When they reached the suite, he didn’t try to hold her in more conversation. He gave her a chaste kiss on her forehead and gently pushed her into her bedroom. She didn’t want the evening to end, but she realized she was drunk, not serious drunk, but dizzy, and wiped out with jet lag. She smiled and giggled a bit when she brushed her teeth in the bathroom. She pulled her cotton nightgown over her head and climbed into her bed. The room shimmered around her like a mirage in the desert. She felt soft and warm and the dizziness was part of the sweetness of her mood. What a wonderful evening, better than anything she could have fantasized. The best evening she’d ever have in her whole life. He was perfect and warm and so tender. Yes, perfect, and maybe tomorrow would be the same.
    She wondered where he would take her tomorrow. This evening they’d wandered through Montmartre and he’d told her wicked stories of the artists who’d lived there at the end of the last century. La Belle Epoque, it was called, and he told her how one artist had painted himself making love to his model and how his wife had come to his showing, seen it, and set it and him and his model on fire. The painting had sold for a stunning sumjust three years before here in Paris. Some Japanese had bought it, he said, laughing.
    He was the most romantic man in the world.
    Lindsay was on the point of sleep, her thoughts drowsy now and vague. The door opened quietly, and a shaft of light fell across her face from the living room.
    She sat up quickly, disoriented. “Is there something wrong, Alessandro?”
    The prince stood in the doorway, wearing a dark blue dressing gown, his feet bare. Her eyes adjusted to the light. She saw that he was smiling. Tentatively she smiled back at him.
    â€œI’ve been thinking, cara ,” he said, and took a step into her room. “I’ve been thinking about you, ever since the wedding. I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”
    She saw then that he didn’t have pajama bottoms on. His legs were as bare as his feet. They were hairy. Black hair. His feet were long and narrow. Something stirred in her, something alarming, something utterly alien, something that made her heart pound in her stomach, something that scared the hell out of her. She pulled the covers to her neck and waited, not understanding, not wanting to understand, really, as his words replayed over and over in her brain.
    â€œI’ve been thinking that it’s absurd for a beautiful innocent girl like you to allow a fumbling boy to take your virginity. You wouldn’t enjoy it at all. You’d cry and hate it. No, I’ve decided I can’t allow that to happen.”
    She