He’d gone out, she thought, despite the consequences. Despite everything. Hadn’t that wild, groping kiss they had shared sent his system churning as it had hers? Perhaps she had been wrong, deeply and completely wrong, when she had thought the need had run rampant in him. If it had, how was it possible, even with his control, to block it out while he sat through a seven-course meal?

What was wrong with her? Weary of herself, Eve rubbed her fingers over her eyes. She’d been angry when she’d thought he had wanted her only to compete with Bennett, furious that he had wanted but held himself back because he’d believed she had slept with his brother. Then she’d been enraged because he no longer believed it and still wanted her. Now she was miserable because he might not want her as much as she’d thought.

What did she want? Eve demanded of herself. One minute she admitted it was Alexander, and the next she was drawing back, knowing there could be nothing lasting, nothing real between them. A man like Alexander would have to marry, and marry properly. He had to produce heirs. Royal heirs. Even if he desired her, even if he cared for her at all, he would have to look to the European aristocracy for a mate.

Amazed that her thoughts were drifting in that direction, she shook her head. When had she started thinking beyond the moment, an affair, and toward permanency?

She knew about men—when they were attracted, when they desired, when they wanted only a toy for an evening or two. And she knew how to deal with them. Why was it she knew so little of this man? All the evenings and hours she had spent trying to find the answers, some key to Alexander, had resulted only in finding a key to herself.

She was in love with him. Even the little jabs of fear and the constant twinges of doubt couldn’t diminish the scope of the emotion.

And she did fear. She was a woman who had been sheltered most of her life by an indulgent father, a pampering sister. The choice she had made only a handful of years before to strike out on her own had been made as much by whim as curiosity. There had been no real danger in it. If she had failed, there had always been the net of family and family money beneath her.

Even if Eve had squandered her personal inheritance, she would hardly have been left alone to flounder.

True, once she’d begun she hadn’t thought of using her family to soften whatever blows she’d encountered. Her troupe had become the focus of her life and the success or failure of it personal.