Dark Desire by Lauren Smith (an ebook reader txt) 📗

He returned to the entryway just as he heard Elena’s steps on the stairs, and his heart skipped a beat as he saw her. She had combed out the loose waves of her blonde hair, letting it tumble past her shoulders. She wore a pair of seersucker shorts that stopped midway down her thighs and a white blouse that had long sleeves that gathered at her elbows. She wore navy-blue cork wedge sandals. It was one of the outfits she had purchased at the store today.

“How do I look?” she asked and bit her bottom lip as she reached the bottom stair. “I still don’t feel comfortable wearing dresses,” she added a bit more quietly.

He understood. Vadym would have kept her in revealing dresses or practically naked for easy access to her body. The thought sickened Dimitri, and he tried to banish it from his mind.

“You look beautiful,” he told her. Too beautiful, if he was honest with himself.

She brightened at that. “So, where are we going?”

He opened the door and gestured for her to go ahead of him. “There is a food truck near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that has a rather interesting reputation.”

“Oh?” Curiosity illuminated her green eyes, and he smiled back at her.

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

It was dusk when they arrived at the row of food trucks. People were already lining up and ordering dinner.

“Are we going to get tacos again? If so, I’m not complaining.” Elena focused on the three Mexican food trucks nearby and almost missed Dimitri’s bemused smile.

They stopped in front of a dark-blue truck with a green, white, and red Italian flag arching over part of the back.

“The Prince of Venice?” Elena read the name and looked at Dimitri.

“You see the man there?” He pointed to an attractive guy with sandy-brown hair who was cooking over a stove by the truck’s open windows as he spoke with customers.

“Yeah . . .”

“That is Emanuele Filberto di Savoia. He is the grandson of King Umberto II, the last reigning king of Italy. He is of the royal Savoy dynasty that has existed since 1003 in the Savoy region of Italy.”

Elena studied the prince more closely. “I didn’t know the Italians had a king so recently.”

“After Mussolini’s regime ended, King Victor Emmanuel III was temporarily in charge of Italy, but in 1944 he handed his powers over to his son, Umberto, hoping to bolster the monarchy. But Umberto only ruled for thirty-four days, from May 1946 to June 1946. He was called the Re di Maggio, the May King. Now his grandson, a true prince, runs this food truck. This is the most authentic Italian food you will find in Los Angeles.”

“Wow . . .” Elena’s lips parted as she simply stared at the food truck. “A real prince.”

Dimitri put a hand on her back, his touch gentle as he guided her to the line in front of the prince’s food truck.

“What would you like?” Emanuele asked as they stepped up to the window.

Dimitri looked to Elena, who scanned the menu before she ordered. “I would like the orecchiette al pesto.”

“And I would like the lemon bucatini,” Dimitri added, then slipped Emanuele his credit card.

Their pasta was soon ready, and they took their carryout boxes to a park nearby that had some comfortable picnic tables.

“It’s crazy to be wearing shorts in the middle of winter,” Elena said as she took her first bite of pasta. It was so creamy, so decadent, the flavors so rich and savory, that she barely stopped herself from moaning.

“You and I both come from cold places. Maine and Russia.” Dimitri chuckled and raised his bottled water in salute.

Elena smiled. After a few more bites, she realized she had at least a dozen questions that still needed answering. “Dimitri, if we do this, I need to know who you are.” She’d sensed from the beginning that he wasn’t just some beautiful badass dominant. Something about him was filled with an almost heartbreaking tenderness, which seemed to be at constant war with the darker side of him. He wasn’t just any man. He was someone powerful, but in what way she didn’t have a clue.

His blue eyes softened, and he looked away for the briefest second. “Kiska, there are some things that I cannot tell you, things that only my family or my wife could be told.”

“You’re married?” she gasped.

“No, no, I am not,” he rushed to reassure her. “But someday, if I married, those deeper truths would be explained to my wife.”

His wife . . . For some reason, the thought of him marrying someone sent a pang of desperate longing through her that echoed like a church bell. But she couldn’t think about marriage, or even Dimitri marrying; that was a muddled mess of thoughts and emotions she wasn’t ready to untangle, so she forced herself back to her line of questions.

“What can you tell me? I need something, Dimitri.”

He reached across the table to take one of her hands and hold it between his own. He gazed deeply into her eyes in a way she was beginning to suspect mesmerized her.

“My name is real. I have not hidden that from you. What I will tell you now is known only to a few, and I hope you will respect my confidence in sharing it with you.”

She nodded.

“My mother died when I was four, murdered by agents of the Kremlin. My father raised me, but I wasn’t alone. He gave me brothers in the life he chose for me. That life is what I must keep hidden, but the brothers of my heart, I can tell you a little about them.”

“You aren’t like Vadym, are you? Into mobster stuff and hurting people for the pleasure of it . . .”

“No, I am the opposite of that bastard. My brothers and I fight against everything men like him represent.” Dimitri rubbed gentle patterns over her palm with his fingers. Such a simple thing, to be caressed, and so innocent a location, yet