‘What is it, darling?’ Alexei taunted, the most fiendish smile curling the corners of his beautiful mouth. ‘Not enjoying this? It’s no fun having to beg, is it? No fun having to crawl to someone you’d much rather die than even talk to.’

Once more that searing gaze raked over her, from the top of Ria’s uncharacteristically controlled hair down to the neat, highly polished black shoes. It was a look that took her back ten years, forced her to remember how coldly he had regarded her before he had walked away and out of her life. For good, she had thought then.

‘And I should know, angel—I’ve been there, remember? I’ve been exactly where you are now—begged, pleaded—and walked away with nothing. Tell me, what is the price of betrayal these days? Is it still thirty pieces of silver? Of course you could try asking …’

ROYAL AND RUTHLESS

The power of the throne, the passion of a king!

Whether he is a playboy prince or a masterful king

he has always known his destiny:

Duty; first, last and always.

With millions at his fingertips

and the world at his command,

no one dare challenge this ruthless royal’s desire …

Until now.

In June 2013

Kate Walker brings you

A THRONE FOR THE TAKING

Look out for Caitlin Crew’s

A ROYAL WITHOUT RULES August 2013

About the Author

KATE WALKER was born in Nottinghamshire, but as she grew up in Yorkshire she has always felt that her roots are there. She met her husband at university, and originally worked as a children’s librarian, but after the birth of her son she returned to her old childhood love of writing. When she’s not working she divides her time between her family, their three cats, and her interests of embroidery, antiques, film and theatre—and, of course, reading.

You can visit Kate at www.kate-walker.com

Recent titles by the same author:

 THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES

 THE RETURN OF THE STRANGER

  The Powerful and the Pure)

 THE PROUD WIFE

 THE GOOD GREEK WIFE?

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

A Throne for the Taking
Kate Walker

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For the class of Fishghuard, February 2012. Thanks for such a fun and inspiring weekend.

CHAPTER ONE

HE WAS COMING. The sound of footsteps in the corridor outside told her that. Brisk, heavy footsteps, the sound of expensive leather soles on the marble floor.

A big man, moving fast and impatiently towards the room where she had been told to wait for him. A room that was not as she had expected, but then nothing had been as she had expected since she had started out on this campaign, least of all this man she hadn’t seen in so long. It had been more than ten years since she had spoken to him, but they would now be coming face to face in less than thirty seconds.

How was she going to handle this?

Ria adjusted her position in the smart leather chair, crossing one leg over the other then, rethinking, moving it back again so that her feet were neatly on the floor, placed precisely together in their elegant black courts, knees closed tight, her blue and green flowered dress stretched sleekly over them. Lifting her hand, she made to smooth back a non-existent wandering strand of dark auburn hair. Her style would be immaculate, she knew. She’d pulled her hair back tightly from her face so that there was nothing loose to get in a mess or distract her. Nothing to look frivolous or even carefree. That was not the image she’d aimed for.

She’d even fretted at the thought that her dress might be a little too casual and relaxed when she’d put it on, but the below knee length of the swirling skirt covered her almost as much as the tailored trousers she’d considered wearing, and the lightweight black linen jacket she’d pulled on over the top added a needed touch of formality that made her feel better.

The room she sat in was sleek and sophisticated with pale wood furniture. Far sleeker and much more luxurious than she had ever anticipated. One of the soft grey walls displayed a set of dramatic photographs, sharply framed. In black and white only, they were the sort of images that had made Alexei Sarova his reputation and his fortune. They were superb, stunning but— Ria frowned as she looked at them. They were bleak and somehow lonely. Photographs of landscapes, places, no people in them at all. He did sometimes photograph people—she knew that from the magazines she had read and the stunning images that had appeared in the articles—but none of those commissions were displayed here.

Outside the door, those determined, heavy footsteps slowed, then halted and she heard the murmur of voices through the thick wood, the deep, gravelly tones making it plain that the speaker was a man.

The man. The one she had come here to meet, to give him the message that might save her country from all-out civil war, and she had vowed that she was not leaving until she had done so. Even if the nerves in her stomach tied themselves into tight, painful knots at the thought and her restless fingers had started to beat an unsettled tattoo on the wooden arm of the chair.

‘No!’ Ria reproved herself aloud. ‘Stop it! Now!’

She brought her nervous hand together with the other one, to clasp them both demurely in her lap, forcing herself to wait with every semblance of control and composure, even if the churning of her stomach told her that this was very far from the case. Too much rested on this meeting and she wasn’t really sure that she could handle it.

Oh, this was ridiculous! Ria drew in a deep, ragged sigh as she put back her head and stared fixedly at the white-painted ceiling, fighting for control of her breathing. She should be well able to cope with this. She’d been trained practically from birth to meet strangers, talk with them, making polite social chit-chat at court events. It was what she could do as naturally as breathing while all the time keeping her head up high, her spine straight so that she looked as good as possible, with first her nanny’s then her father’s voice in her ear, telling her that the reputation of the Escalona family—an offshoot of the royal family—should be the first and foremost thing in her mind.

She could talk to presidents’ wives about their trips round the glass-making factories, discuss the agricultural output of the vineyards, the farms. She could even, if she was allowed, converse intelligently on the vital role of exports, or the mining of eruminum, the new miracle mineral that had just been discovered in the Trilesian mountains. Not that she was often asked to do any such thing. Those important details were usually left to her grandfather or, until recently, to her second cousin Felix, the Crown Prince of Mecjoria.

But she had never before had to deal with any mission that meant so much in the way of freedom, both to her country and herself. That restless hand threatened to escape her careful control and start its nervous tattoo all over again at just the thought.

‘Do it, then.’

The voice from the corridor sounded sharp and clear this time, bringing her head up in a rush as she straightened once again in her chair. Shoulders back, head up … She could almost hear her father’s strict commands as she drew in a long, deep breath to calm herself as she had done on so many other previous occasions.

But this wasn’t one of those events. This man wasn’t exactly a stranger and polite chit-chat was the last thing she expected to be exchanging with him.

The handle turned as someone grasped it from the other side. Ria tensed, shifted in her chair, half-looked over her shoulder then rethought and turned back again. She didn’t want him to think that she was nervous. She had to appear calm, collected, in command of the situation.

Command. The word rang hollowly inside her head. Once she had only to command something and it would be hers. In just a few short months her life had been turned upside down, and in ways that made her status in society the least of her concerns, so that now nothing was as it had ever been before, and the future loomed ahead, dark and dangerous.

But perhaps if she could manage this meeting with some degree of success she could claw back something from the disaster that had overtaken her country—and family. She could hope to put right the wrongs of the past and, on a personal level, save her mother’s happiness, her sanity, possibly. And for her father … No, she couldn’t go there, not yet. Thoughts of her father would weaken her, drain away the strength she needed to see this through.

‘I’ll expect a report on my desk by the end of the day.’

The door was opening, swinging wide. The man she had come to see was here, and she had no more time to think.

As he entered the doorway her heart jerked sharply under her ribcage, taking her breath with it. For the first time she felt suddenly lost, vulnerable without the ever-present security man at her back. All her life he had been there, just waiting and watching in case he was needed. And she had come to rely on him to deal with any awkward situation.

The once ever-present security man, she reminded herself. The protection that was no longer there, no longer part of her life or her status here or in her homeland of Mecjoria. She was no longer entitled to such protection. It was the first thing that had been stripped from her and the rest of her family in the upheaval that had followed Felix’s unexpected death, and the shocking discovery of her father’s scheming in the past. After that, things had changed so fast that she had never had time even to think about the possible repercussions of the changes and to consider them now, with the possible consequences for her own future, made her stomach twist painfully.

‘No delays … Good afternoon.’

The abrupt change of subject caught Ria on the hop. She hadn’t quite realised that his companion had been dismissed and that he was now in the room, long strides covering the ground so fast that he was halfway towards her before she realised it.

‘Good afternoon.’

It was stronger, harsher, much more pointed, and she almost felt as if the words were hitting her in the small of her back. She should turn round, she knew. She needed to face him. But the enormity of the reason why she was here, and the thought of his reaction when she did, made it difficult to move.

‘Miss …’

The warning in his tone now kicked her into action, fast. Her head jerked round, the suddenness and abruptness of the movement jolting her up and out of her seat so that she came to her feet even as she swung round to face him. And was glad that she had done so when she saw the size and the strength of his powerful form. She had seen pictures of him in the papers, knew that he was tall, dark and devastating, but in the 3D reality of living, breathing golden-toned flesh, deep ebony eyes and crisp black hair, he was so much more than she had ever imagined. His steel-grey suit hugged his impressive form lovingly, the broad, straight shoulders needing no extra padding to enhance them. A crisp white shirt, silver and black tie, turned him into the sleek, sophisticated businessman who was light-years away from the Alexei she remembered, the wiry boy with the unkempt mane of hair who had once been her friend buried under the expensive tailoring. Snatching in a deep, shocked breath, she could inhale the tang of some citrus soap or shampoo, the scent of clean male skin.

‘Good afternoon,’ she managed and was relieved to hear that her control over her voice was as strong as she could have wanted. Perhaps it made it sound a little too tight, too stiff, but that was surely better than letting the tremor she knew was just at the bottom of her thoughts actually affect her tongue. ‘Alexei Sarova, I assume.’

He had been moving towards her but her response had a shocking effect on him.

‘You!’ he said, the single word thick and dark with hostility

He stopped dead, then swung round back towards the door, grabbing at the handle to stop it slotting into the frame. This was worse than she had expected. She had known that she would have to work hard to get him to give her any sort of a hearing, but she hadn’t expected this total rejection.

‘Oh—please,’ Ria managed. ‘Please don’t walk out.’

That brought his head round, the black, glittering eyes looking straight into hers, not a flicker of emotion in their polished depths.

‘Walk out?’

He shook his dark head and there was actually the faintest hint of a smile on those beautifully sensual lips. But a shiver ran down Ria’s spine as she saw the way that that smile was not reflected in his eyes at all. They remained as cold and emotionless as black glass.

‘I’m not walking out. You are.’

It was far worse than she had expected. She hadn’t really believed that he would recognise her that fast and that easily. Ten years was a long time and they had been little more than children when they had last had any close contact. She knew she was no longer the chubby, awkward girl he had once known. She was inches taller, slimmer, and her hair had darkened so that it was now a rich auburn instead of the nondescript brown of her childhood. So she had expected to have to explain herself to him. But she had thought that he would wait to hear that explanation, had hoped, at least, that he would want to know just why she was here.

‘No …’ She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not.’

Dark eyes flashed in sudden anger and she barely controlled her instinctive shrinking away with an effort. Royal duchesses didn’t shrink. Not even ex-royal duchesses.

‘No?’

How did he manage to put such cynicism, such hostility into one word?

‘I should point out to you that I own this building. I am the one who says who can stay and who should go. And you are going.’

‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’

If she had thrown something into the face of a marble statue, it couldn’t have had less effect. Perhaps his stunning features became a little more unyielding, those brilliant eyes even colder, but it was hard to say for sure.

‘Not really. In fact, not at all. What I want is you out of here and not coming back.’

No, what he really wanted was for her never to have come here at all, Alexei told himself, coming to a halt in the middle of his office, restless as a caged tiger that had reached the metal bars that held him imprisoned. But the truth was that it wasn’t anything physical that kept him captive. It was the memories of the past that now reached out to ensnare him, fastening shackles around his ankles to keep him from getting away.

He had never expected to see her or anyone from Mecjoria ever again. He thought he had moved on; he’d turned his life around, made a new existence for himself and his mother. It had taken years, sadly too many to give his mother the life she deserved as she’d aged, but he’d got there. And now he was wealthier than he’d ever been as a … as a prince, his mind finished for him, even though it was the last thing he wanted. He had no wish to remember anything about his connection to the Mecjorian royal family—or the country itself. He had severed all links with the place—had them severed for him—and he was determined that was the way it was going to stay. He would never have looked back at all if it hadn’t been for the sudden and shockingly unexpected appearance of Ria here in this room.

He waited a moment and then pulled the door open again. ‘Or do I have to call security?’

Ria’s eyebrows rose sharply until they disappeared under her fringe as she turned a cool, green gaze on him. Suddenly she had become the Grand Duchess she was right before his eyes and he loathed the way that made him feel.

‘You’d resort to the heavy gang? That wouldn’t look good in the gossip columns. “International playboy needs help to deal with one small female intruder”.’

‘Small? I would hardly call you small,’ he drawled coolly. ‘You must have grown—what?—six inches since I saw you last?’

She had grown in other ways too, he acknowledged, admitting to himself the instant and very basic male reaction that had taken him by storm in the first moments he had seen her. Before he had realised just who she was.

He hadn’t seen such a stunning woman in years—in his life. Everything that was male in him had responded to the sight of her tall, slender figure, the burnished hair, porcelain skin, long, long legs …

And then he had realised that it was Ria. She had grown up, grown taller, slimmed down. Her face had developed planes and angles where there had once been just firm, round, apple-rosy cheeks. He had loved those cheeks, he admitted to himself. They had been soft and curved, so smooth, that he had loved to pinch them softly, pretending he was teasing but knowing that what he actually wanted was to feel the satin of her skin, stroke it with his fingertips. These days, Ria had cheekbones that looked as if they would slice open any stroking finger, and the rosy cheeks were carefully toned down with skilful make-up. The slant of those cheekbones emphasised the jade green of her eyes, and the soft pink curve of her mouth, but it was obvious that any softness in her appearance was turned into a lie by the way she behaved.

In a series of pulsing jolts, like the effect of an electric current pounding into him, he had known stunning attraction and the rush of desire that heated his entire body, the shock of recognition, of disbelief, of frank confusion as to just why she should be here at all. And then, just as the memory of how they had once been together had slid into his mind, she had destroyed it totally, shattering the memory as effectively as if she had taken a heavy metal hammer to it.

That had been when she had looked down her aristocratic nose at him, her expression obviously meant to make him feel less than the dirt beneath her neatly-shod feet. And Ria, who had once been his friend and confidant, Ria who he had just recognised as a sweet girl who had grown into a stunningly sensual woman, had become once more the Ria who together with her father and her family had stuck a knife in his back, ruined his mother’s life and cast them out into the wilderness.

‘And, as to the gossip columns, I’m sure they’d be much more interested in the scoop of seeing the Grand Duchess Honoria Maria Escalona being forcibly ejected from the offices of Sarova International—and I can just imagine some of the stories they might come up with to explain your expulsion.’

‘Not so much of a Grand Duchess any more,’ Ria admitted without thinking. ‘Not so much of a duchess of any sort.’

‘What?’

That brought him up sharp. Just for a second or two blank confusion clouded those amazing eyes and he tilted his head slightly to one side as a puzzled frown drew his brows together. The small, revealing moment caught on something in her heart and twisted painfully.

He had always done that when she had known him before. When they had been children together—well, she had been the child and he a lordly six years older. If he was confused or uncertain that frown had creased the space between his dark brows and his head would angle to the side …

‘Lexei—please.’ The name slipped from her before she could think. The familiar, affectionate name that she had once been able to use.

But she’d made a fatal mistake. She knew that as soon as the words had left her mouth and his reaction left her in no doubt at all that the one slip of her lips, in the hope of getting a tiny bit closer to him, had had the opposite effect.

His long body stiffened in rejection, that slight tilt of his head turned into a stiff-necked gesture of antagonism as his chin came up, angry, rejecting. His eyes flashed and his mouth tightened, pulling the muscles in his jaw into an uncompromising line.

‘No,’ he said, hard and rough. ‘No. I will not listen to a word you say. Why should I when you and yours turned your back on my mother—on me—and left us to exile and disgrace? My mother died in that disgrace. It’s not as if anything you have to say is a matter of life or death.’

‘Oh, but …’

It could be … The words died on her tongue, burned away in the flare of fury he turned on her, seeming to scorch her skin so painfully.

This was not how she had planned it, but it was obvious that he wasn’t prepared to let her lead up to things with a carefully prepared conversation. Hastily she grabbed at her handbag, snapping it open with hands made clumsy by nerves.

‘This is for you …’ she managed, holding out the sheet of paper she had folded so carefully at the start of her journey. The document she had checked was still there at least once every few minutes on her way here.

His eyes dropped to what she held, expression freezing into marble stillness as he took in the crest at the head of the sheet of paper, the seal that marked it out for the important document it was.

‘You know that your mother needed proof of the legality of her marriage,’ she tried and got the briefest, most curt nod possible as his only response, his gaze still fixed on the document she held out.

It was like talking to a statue, he was so stiff, so unmoving, and she found that her tongue was stumbling over itself as she tried to get the words out. If only someone else could have been given this vital duty to carry out. But she had volunteered herself in spite of the fact that the ministers had viewed her with suspicion. A suspicion that was natural, after the way her father had behaved. But they didn’t know the half of it. She had only just discovered the truth for herself and hadn’t dared to reveal any of it to anyone else. Luckily, the ministers had been convinced that she was the most likely to be successful. Alexei would listen to her, they had said. And besides, with success meaning so much to her personally, to her family, she would be the strongest advocate at this time.

It was a strong irony that all the discipline, the training her father had imposed on her for his own ends, was now to be put to use to try to thwart those ends if she possibly could.

‘And for that she needed evidence of the fact that the old king had given his permission for your father—as a member of the royal family—to marry all those years ago, when they first met.’

Why was she repeating all this? He knew every detail as much as she did. After all, it had been his life that had been blasted apart by the scandal that had resulted when it had seemed that his parents’ marriage had been declared illegal. Alexei’s father and mother had been separated, with him living with his mother in England until he was sixteen, and the fact that her husband was ill—dying of cancer—had brought his mother to Mecjoria in hope of a reconciliation. They hadn’t had long and, during what time they had had, Alexei had found the old-fashioned and snobbish aristocracy difficult to deal with, particularly when they had regarded him and his mother as nothing more than commoners who didn’t belong at court. His rebellious behaviour had created disapproval, brought him under the disapproving gaze of so many. And too soon, with his father dead, there had been no one to support his mother, or her son, when court conspiracy—a conspiracy Ria had just discovered to her horror of which her father had been an important part—had had her expelled, exiled from the country, taking her son with her.

Then there was her own part in all of it—her own guilty conscience, Ria acknowledged. That was an important part of why she had volunteered to come here today, to bring the news of the discovery of the document … and the rest.

‘This is the evidence.’

At last he moved, reached out a hand and took the paper from her. But to her shock he simply glanced swiftly over the text then tossed it aside, dropping it on to his desk without a second glance.

‘So?’

The single word seemed to strip all the moisture from her mouth, making her voice cracked and raw as she tried to answer him.

‘Don’t you see …?’ Silly question. Of course he saw, he just wasn’t reacting at all as she had expected, as she had been led to believe he would inevitably react. ‘This is what you needed back then, this changes everything. It means that your parents were legally married even in Mecjoria. It makes you legitimate.’

‘And that makes me fit to have you come and visit me? Speak to me after all these years?’

The bitterness in his tone made her flinch. Even more so because she knew she deserved it. She’d flung that illegitimacy—that supposed illegitimacy—at him when he had asked for her help. She hadn’t known the truth then, but she knew now that she’d done it partly out of hurt and anger too. Hurt and anger that he had turned away from her to become involved in a romantic entanglement with another girl.

A woman, Ria. She could hear his voice through the years. She’s a woman.

And the implication was that she was still a child. Hurt and feeling rejected, she had been the perfect target for her father’s story—what she knew now were her father’s lies.

‘It’s not that …’ Struggling with her memories, she had to force the words out. ‘It’s what’s right.’

She knew how much he’d loathed the label ‘bastard’. But more so how he’d hated the way that his mother had been treated because her marriage hadn’t been considered legal. So much so that Ria had believed—hoped—that the news she had brought would change everything. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

‘Right?’ he questioned cynically. ‘From where I stand it’s too little too late. The truth can’t help my mother now. And personally I couldn’t give a damn what they think of me in Mecjoria any more. But thank you for bringing it to me.’

His tone took the words to a meaning at the far opposite of genuine thankfulness.

There was much more to it than this. The proof of his legitimacy came with so many repercussions, but she had never expected this reaction. Or, rather, this lack of reaction.

‘I’m sorry for the way I behaved …’ she began, trying a different tack. One that earned her nothing but a cold stare.

‘It was ten years ago.’ He shrugged powerful shoulders in dismissal of her stumbling apology. ‘A lot of water has passed under a lot of bridges since then. And none of it matters any more. I have made my own life and I want nothing more to do with a country that thought my mother and I were not good enough to live there.’

‘But …’

There were so many details, so many facts, buzzing inside Ria’s head but she didn’t dare to let any of them out. Not yet. There was too much riding on them and this man was not prepared to listen to a word she said. If she put one foot wrong he would reject her—and her mission—completely. And she would never get a second chance.

‘So now I’d appreciate it if you’d leave. Or I will call security and have you thrown out, and to hell with the paparazzi or the gossip columnists. In fact, perhaps it would be better that way. They could have a field day with what I could tell them.’

Was it a real or an empty threat? And did she dare take the risk of finding out? Not with things the way they were back home, with the country in turmoil, hopes for security and peace depending on her. On a personal level, she feared her mother would break down completely if anything more happened, and she would be back under her father’s control herself if she failed. One whiff of scandal in the papers could be so terribly damaging that she shivered just to think of it. The only way she could achieve everything she’d set out to do was to get Alexei on her side—but that was beginning to look increasingly impossible.

‘Honoria,’ Alexei said dangerously and she didn’t need the warning in his tone to have her looking nervously towards the door he still held wide open. The simple fact that he had used her full name was enough on its own. ‘Duchess,’ he added with a coldly mocking bow.

But she couldn’t make her feet move. She couldn’t leave. Not with so much unsaid.

CHAPTER TWO

It’s not as if it’s a matter of life or death, Alexei had declared, the scorn in his voice lashing at her cruelly. But it would be if the situation in Mecjoria wasn’t resolved soon; if Ivan took over. The late King Felix might have been petty and mean but he was as nothing when compared to the tyrant who might inherit the throne from him. With a violent effort, Ria controlled the shiver of reaction that threatened her composure.

She hadn’t seen Alexei for ten years, but she had had close contact with his distant cousin Ivan in that time. And hadn’t enjoyed a moment of it. She’d watched Ivan grow from the sort of small boy who pulled wings off butterflies and kicked cats into a man whose volatile, mean-minded temper was usually only barely under control. He was aggressive, greedy, dangerous for the country—and now, she had learned to her horror, a danger to her personally as a result of her father’s machinations. And the only man between them and that possibility was Alexei.

But she knew how much she was asking of him. Especially now, when she knew how he still felt about Mecjoria.

‘Please listen!’

But his face was armoured against her, his eyes hooded, and she felt that every look she turned on him, every word she spoke, simply bounced off his thick skin like a pebble off an elephant’s hide.

‘Please?’ he echoed sardonically, his mouth twisting on the word as he turned it into a cruelly derisory echoing of her tone. ‘I didn’t even realise that you knew that word. Please what, Sweetheart?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

Bleak honesty made her admit it. She could read it in his face, in the cruel opacity of those coal-black eyes. There wasn’t the faintest sign of softening in his expression or any of the lines around his nose and mouth. How could he take a gentle word like ‘sweetheart’ and turn it into something hateful and vile with just his tone?

‘Oh, but I do,’ Alexei drawled, folding his arms across his broad chest and lounging back against the wall, one foot hooked round the base of the door so as to keep it open and so making it plain that he was still waiting—expecting her to leave. ‘I’d love to know just what you’ve come looking for.’

‘Really?’

Unexpected hope kicked hard in her heart. Had she got this all wrong, read him completely the wrong way round?

‘Really,’ he echoed sardonically. ‘It’s fascinating to see the tables turned. Remember how I once asked you for just one thing?’

He’d asked her to help him, and his mother. Asked her to talk to her father, plead with him to at least let them have something to live on, some part of his father’s vast fortune that the state had confiscated, leaving Alexei and his mother penniless as well as homeless. And not knowing the truth, not understanding the machinations of the plotters, or how sick his mother actually was, she had seen him as a threat and sided with her father.

‘I made a mistake …’ she managed. She’d known that her father was ruthless, ambitious, but she had never really believed that he would lie through his teeth, that he would manipulate an innocent woman and her son.

For the good of the country, Honoria, he had said. And, seeing the outrage Alexei’s wayward behaviour had created, she had believed him. Because she had trusted her father. Trusted him and believed in the values of upright behaviour, of loyalty to the crown that he’d insisted on. So she’d believed him when he’d told her how the scandal of Alexei’s mother’s ‘affair’ with one of the younger royal sons was creating problems of state. It was only now, years later, that she’d discovered how much further his deception had gone, and how it had involved her.

‘What is it, darling?’ Alexei taunted. ‘Not enjoying this?’

She saw the gleam of cruel amusement in his eyes, the fiendish smile curling the corners of the beautiful mouth. Each of them spoke of cold contempt, but together they spelled a callous triumph at the thought of getting her exactly where he wanted her. She knew now that this man would delight in rejecting anything she said, if only to have his revenge on the family that he saw as the ringleaders of his downfall. And who could blame him?

But would he do the same for his country?

‘It’s no fun having to beg, is it? No fun having to crawl to someone you’d much rather die than even talk to.’

Once more that searing gaze raked over her from the top of her uncharacteristically controlled hair down to the neat, highly polished black shoes. It was a look that took her back ten years, forced her to remember how coldly he had regarded her before he had walked away and out of her life. For good, she had thought then.

‘And I should know, angel—I’ve been there, remember? I’ve been exactly where you are now—begged, pleaded—and walked away with nothing.’

He might look indolently relaxed and at his ease as he lounged back against the wall, still with those strong arms crossed over the width of his chest, but in reality his position was the taut, expectant posture of a wily, knowing hunter, a predator that was poised, watching and waiting. He only needed his prey—her—to make one move and then he would pounce, hard and fast.

But still she had to try.

‘You are wanted back in Mecjoria,’ she blurted out in an uneven rush.

She could tell his response even before he opened his mouth. The way that long straight spine stiffened, the tightening of the beautiful lips, the way a muscle in his jaw jerked just once.

‘You couldn’t have said anything less likely to make me want to know more,’ he drawled, dark and slow. ‘But you could try to persuade me …’

She could try, but it would have no effect, his tone, his stony expression told her. And she didn’t like the thought of just what sort of ‘persuasion’ could be in his mind. She wasn’t prepared to give him that satisfaction.

Calling on every ounce of strength she possessed, stiffening her back, straightening her shoulders, she managed to lift her head high, force her green eyes to meet those icy black ones head-on.

‘No thank you,’ she managed, her tone pure ice.

Her father would have been proud of her for this at least. She was the Grand Duchess Honoria Maria at her very best. The only daughter of the Chancellor, faced by a troublesome member of the public. The trouble was that after all she had learned about her father’s schemes, the way that he had seen her as a way to further his own power, she didn’t want to be that woman any more. She had actually hoped that by coming here today she could free herself from the toxic inheritance that came with that title.

‘You might get off on that sort of thing, but it certainly does nothing for me.’

If she had hoped that he would look at least a little crestfallen, a touch deflated, then she was doomed to disappointment. There might have been a tiny acknowledgement of her response in his eyes, a gleam that could have been a touch of admiration—or a hint of dark satisfaction from a man who had known all along just how she would respond.

She’d dug herself a hole without him needing to push her into it. But, for now, was discretion the better part of valour? She could let Alexei think that he had won this round at least but it was only one battle, not the whole war. There was too much at stake for that.

‘Thank you for your time.’

She couldn’t so much as turn a glance in his direction, even though she caught another wave of that citrus scent as he came closer, with the undertones of clean male skin that almost destroyed her hard-won courage. But even as she fought with her reactions he fired another comment at her. One that tightened a slackening resolve, and reminded her just how much the boy she had once known had changed.

‘I wish that I could say it had been a pleasure,’ he drawled cynically. ‘But we both know that that would be a lie.’

‘We certainly do,’ Ria managed from between lips that felt as if they had turned to wood, they were so stiff and tight.

‘So now you’ll leave. Give my regards to your father,’ Alexei tossed after her.

He couldn’t have said anything that was more guaranteed to force her to stay. A battle, not the war, she reminded herself. She wasn’t going to let this be the last of it. She couldn’t.

He was going to let her go, Alexei told himself. In fact he would be glad to do so even if the thundering response that she had so unexpectedly woken in his body demanded otherwise. He wanted her to walk away, to take with her the remembrance of the family he had hoped to find, a life he had once tried to live, a girl he had once cared for.

‘Lexei … Please …’

The echo of her voice, soft and shaken—or so he would have sworn—swirled in his thoughts in spite of his determination to clamp down on the memory, to refuse to let it take root there. Violently he shook his head to try and drive away the sound but it seemed to cling like dark smoke around his thoughts, bringing with it too many memories that he had thought he’d driven far away.

At first she had knocked him mentally off-balance with the news she had brought. The news he had been waiting to hear for so long—half a lifetime, it seemed. The document she had held out to him now lay on his desk, giving him the legitimacy, the position in Mecjoria he had wanted—that he had thought he wanted—but he didn’t even spare it a second glance. It was too late. Far, far too late. His mother, to whom this had mattered so much, was dead, and he no longer gave a damn.

But something tugging at the back of his thoughts, an itch of something uncomfortable and unexpected, told him that that wasn’t the real truth. There was more to this than just the delivery of that document.

‘Not so much of Grand Duchess any more,’ Ria had said to him unexpectedly. ‘Not so much of a duchess of any sort.’

And that was when it struck him. There was something missing. Someone missing. Someone he should have noticed was not there from the first moment in the room but he had been so knocked off-balance that he hadn’t registered anything beyond the fact that Ria was there in his office, waiting for him.

Where was the dark-suited bodyguard? The man who had the knack of blending into the background when necessary but who was alert and ready to move forward at any moment if their patron appeared to be in any difficulty?

There was no one with her now. There had been no one when he had arrived in this room to find her waiting for him. And there should have been.

What the hell was going on?

He couldn’t be unaware of the present political situation in Mecjoria. There had been so many reports of marches on the streets, of protest meetings in the square of the capital. Ria’s father, the Grand Duke Escalona, High Chancellor of the country, had been seen making impassioned speeches, ardent broadcasts, calling for calm—ordering the people to stay indoors, keep off the streets. But that had been before first the King and then the new heir to the throne had died so unexpectedly. Before the whole question of the succession had come under scrutiny with meetings and conferences and legal debates to call into question just what would happen next. He had paid it as little attention as it deserved in his own mind, but it had been impossible to ignore some of the headlines—like the ones that declared the country was on the brink of revolution.

It was his father’s country after all. The place he should have called his home if he hadn’t been forced out before he came to settle in any way. Without ever having a chance to get to know the father who had been missing from his life.

‘Lexei … Please …’

He would have been all right if she hadn’t used that name. If she hadn’t—deliberately he was sure—turned on him the once warm, affectionate name she had used back in the gentler, more innocent days when he had thought that they were friends. And so whirled him back into memories of a past he’d wanted to forget.

‘All right, I’m intrigued.’ And that was nothing less than the truth. ‘You clearly have something more to say. So—you have ten minutes. Ten minutes in which to tell me the truth about why you’re here. What had you appearing in my office unannounced, declaring you were no longer a grand duchess. Is that the truth?’

It seemed it had to be—or at least that something in what he had said had really got to her. She had reacted to his words as if she had been stung violently. Her head had gone back, her green eyes widening in reaction at something. Her soft rose-tinted mouth had opened slightly on a gasp of shock.

A shock that ricocheted through his own frame as a hard kick of some totally primitive sexual hunger hit home low down in his body. Those widened eyes looked stunning and dark against the translucent delicacy of her skin, and that mouth was pure temptation in its half-open state.

His little friend Ria had grown up into a beautiful woman and that unthinkingly primitive reaction to the fact jolted him out of any hope of seeing her just as the girl she had once been. Suddenly he was unable to look at her in any way other than as a man looks at a woman he desires. His own mouth hungered to take those softly parted lips, to taste her, feel her yield to him, surrendering, opening … His heart thudded hard and deep in his chest, making him need to catch his breath as his body tightened in pagan hunger.

‘You don’t believe me?’ she questioned and the uncharacteristic hesitation on the word twisted something deep inside him, something he no longer thought existed. Something that it seemed that only this woman could drag up from deep inside him. A woman who had once been the only friend he thought he had and who now had been reincarnated as a woman who heated his blood and turned him on more than he could recall anyone doing in the past months—the past years.

It was like coming awake again after being dead to his senses for years—and it hurt.

‘It’s not that I don’t believe you.’

The fight he was having to control the sensual impulses of his body showed in his voice and he saw the worried, apprehensive look she shot him sideways from under the long, lush lashes. She clearly didn’t know which way to take him, a thought that sent a heated rush of satisfaction through his blood. He wanted her off-balance, on edge. That way she might let slip more than her carefully cultivated, court training would allow her.

‘Merely that I see no reason why you or any member of your family would renounce the royal title that has meant so much to you.’

‘We didn’t renounce it. It was renounced for us.’

A frown snapped Alexei’s black brows together sharply as he focussed even more intently on her face, trying to read what was there.

‘And just what does that mean? I’ve heard nothing of this.’

How had he missed such an important event? The people he had employed to watch what was happening in Mecjoria should have been aware of it. They should have investigated and reported back to him.

‘It’s been kept very quiet—at the moment my father is officially “resting” to recover from illness.’

‘When the reality is?’

‘That he’s under arrest.’

Her voice caught on the word, a soft little hiccup that did disturbing things to the tension at his groin, tightening it a notch or two uncomfortably.

‘And is now in the state prison.’

That was the last thing he’d expected and it shocked some of the desire from him, making his head swim slightly at the rush of blood from one part of his body to his head.

‘On what charge?’ he demanded sharply.

‘No charge.’ She shook her head, sending her dark hair flying. ‘Not as yet—that—that all depends on how things work out.’

‘So what the hell did he do wrong?’ Gregor had always seemed such a canny player. Someone who knew how best to feather his own nest. So had he got too greedy, made some mistake?

‘He—chose the wrong side in the recent inheritance battle. For the throne.’

So that was what was behind this. Alexei might never want to set foot in Mecjoria ever again, but he couldn’t be unaware—no one could be unaware—of the struggle that had gone on over the inheritance of the throne once old King Leopold had died. First Leopold’s son Marcus had inherited, but only briefly. A savage heart attack had killed him barely months into his reign. Because he had died childless, his nephew Felix should have inherited the crown, but his wild way of life had been his undoing, so that he had died in a high-speed car crash before he had even ascended to the throne. Now there were several factions warring over just who was the legal heir to follow Felix.

‘And then when Felix died … My father is currently seen as an enemy—as a threat to the throne.’

She wasn’t telling the full truth, Alexei realised. There was something she was holding back, he was sure of it. Something that clouded those amazing eyes, tightened the muscles around her delicate jawline, pulling the pretty mouth tight, though there was no mistaking the quiver of those softly sensual lips.

Lips that he wished to hell he could taste, feel that trembling softness under his own mouth, plunder the moist interior …

‘It will all work out in the end.’

Once again his own burning inner feelings made the words sound abrupt, dismissive, and he saw her blink slowly, withdrawing from him. Her head came up, that smooth chin lifting in defiance as she met his stare face-on.

‘You can promise that, can you?’ Ria asked, her tone appallingly cynical.

And where her unexpected weakness hadn’t beaten him now, shockingly, her boldness did. There was a new spark in her eyes, fresh colour in her cheeks. She was once more the proud Grand Duchess Honoria and not the strangely defeated girl who had reached out to something he had thought was long dead inside him. This Ria was a challenge; a challenge he welcomed. The sound of his blood was like a roar inside his head, the heated race of his pulse burning along every vein. He had never wanted a woman so much as he wanted her now, and the need was like an ache in every nerve.

‘How would you know? You were the one who turned your back on Mecjoria—haven’t even been back once in ten years.’

‘Not turned my back,’ Alexei growled. ‘We weren’t given a chance to stay. In fact it was made plain that we were not wanted.’

And who had been behind that? Her father—the very same man who was now, according to her story, locked in a prison cell. Did she expect him to feel sorry for him? To give a damn what might happen to the monster who hadn’t even waited to allow him and his mother time to mourn their loss, or even to attend the state funeral, before he had had them escorted to the airport and put on the first plane out of the country?

First making sure that every penny of his father’s fortune, every jewel, every tiny personal inheritance, had been taken from them, leaving them with little but the clothes they stood up in, not even the most basic allowance to see them into their new life in exile. Worst of all, Gregor had taken their name from them. The name his mother had been entitled to, and with it her honour, the legality of her marriage into the royal house of Mecjoria. He must have done it deliberately, hiding away the document that showed the old king’s permission. The document that Ria had been commissioned to bring here so unexpectedly—because it now suited her father. Was it any wonder that he loathed the man—that he would do anything to bring him down?

But it seemed that Gregor had managed that all on his own.

‘And I don’t have to be in the country to know what is going on.’

‘The papers don’t report everything. And certainly not always accurately.’

Something new had clouded those clear eyes and turned her expression into an intriguing mixture of defiance and uncertainty. There was just the tiniest sheen of moisture under one eye, where a trace of an unexpected tear had escaped the determined control she had been trying to impose on it and slipped out on to her lashes.

Unable to resist the impulse, he reached out and touched her face, letting his fingers rest lightly on the fine skin along the high, slanting cheekbone, wiping away that touch of moisture. The warmth and softness of the contact made his nerves burn, sending stinging arrows of response down into his body. He wanted so much more and yet he wanted to keep things just as they were—for now. It was a struggle not to do more, not to curve his hand around her cheek, cup that defiant little chin against his palm, lift her face towards his so that he could capture her mouth …

And that would ruin things completely. She would react like a scalded cat, he had no doubt. All that silent defiance would return in full force, and she’d swing away from him, repulsing the gesture with a rough shake of her head. She was still too tense, too on edge. But like any nervous cat, with a few moments’ careful attention—perhaps a soothing stroke or two—she would soon settle down.

So for now it was enough to watch the storm of emotions that swept over her face. The response that turned those citrine eyes smoky, that darkened and deepened the black of her pupils, making them spread like the flow of ink until they covered almost all of her irises. The way that her mouth opened again to show the tips of small white teeth was a temptation that kicked at his libido, making it hungrier than ever. The clamour in his body urged him to act, to make his move now, when she was at her weakest, but for a little while at least he was enjoying imposing restraint on himself, letting the sensual hunger build—anticipating what might come later—and watching the effect his behaviour had on her.

‘So tell me the rest.’

She didn’t know if she could go through with this. Ria struggled to find some of the certainty, the conviction of doing the right thing, that had buoyed her up on her journey here, held her in the room in spite of the frantic thudding of her heart. So much depended on what she said now and the possible repercussions of her failure, personal and political, were almost impossible to imagine. The image of her mother, too pale, far too thin, drifting through life like a wraith, with no appetite, no interest in anything slid into her mind. Her days were haunted by fears, her nights plagued by terrifying nightmares.

Her father was the cause of those nightmares. Since the night that the state police had come to arrest him, taking him away in handcuffs, they had never seen him for a moment. But they knew where he was. The state prison doors had slammed closed on him and, unless Ria could find some way of helping him, then behind those locked doors was where he was going to stay. She had wanted to help him—wanted to return him to her mother—and it had been because she had been looking for some way to do that that she had found the hidden documents, the ones that proved Alexei’s legitimacy and the others that had revealed the whole truth about what had been going on.

The full, appalling truth.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS WHAT she had come here for, Ria reminded herself. To tell him the story that had not yet leaked into the papers. The full details of the archaic inheritance laws that had come into play in the country since the unexpected death of the man they had believed to be the heir to the throne. But that would also mean telling him how those laws involved him, and his reaction just a moment before had made it plain that he harboured no warmth towards the country that had once been his home.

But when he had touched her—the way he still touched her—just that one tiny contact seemed to have broken through the careful, deliberate barriers she had built around herself. It was so long since she had felt that someone sympathised; that someone might be on her side. And the fact that it was someone as strong and forceful—and devastating—as this particular man, the man who had once been a special friend to her, stripped away several much-needed protective layers of skin, leaving her raw and disturbingly vulnerable.

He was so close she couldn’t actually judge his expression without lifting her head, tilting it back just a little. And that movement brought her eyes up to clash with his. Suddenly even breathing naturally was impossible as their gazes locked, the darkness and intensity of his stare closing her throat in the space of a single uneven heartbeat.

In that moment everything that had happened in the past months rushed up to swamp her mind, taking with it any hope of rational thought. Except that right now she needed him. Needed the friend he had once been. So much about him might have changed: that hard-boned face had thinned, toughened into that of a stunningly mature male in his sexual prime; those eyes might now be five inches above hers where once they had been so much closer to her own … But they were still the eyes of the friend she had known. Still the eyes of the one person she had felt she could confide in and get a sympathetic hearing.

They were the eyes she had once let herself dream of seeing warm with more than just the easy light of friendship. And the memory of how in the past she had fallen asleep and into dreams of them being so much more than friends twisted in her heart with the bitterness of loss.

‘Tell me everything.’

‘You don’t really want that,’ she flung at him, gulping in air so that she could loosen her throat.

‘No? Try me.’

Challenge blended with something else in his tone. And it was that something else that made her heart jerk, her breath catch.

Was it possible that he really did want to know? That he might help her? Memories of their past friendship surfaced once again, tugging at her feelings. She was so lonely, so dragged down by it all, so tired of coping with everything on her own. So wretched at the thought of what the future might bring. And here was this man who had once been the boy she adored, the friend who had let her offload her troubles on to his shoulders—shoulders that even then had seemed broad enough to take on the world. They were so much broader, so much stronger now.

Tell me everything, he’d said, and as he spoke the hand that rested against her face moved slightly, the pressure of his fingers softening, his palm curving so that it lay over her cheek, warm and hard and yet gentle all at the same time.

‘The truth, Ria,’ he said and the sound of her name on his lips was her weakness, her undoing.

Unable to stop herself, she turned her face into his hold, inhaling the scent of his skin, pursing her lips to press a small, soft kiss against the warmth of his palm.

Instantly everything changed. Her heart seemed to stop, her breathing stilled. The clean, musky aroma of his body was all around her, the taste of his flesh tangy on her tongue. It was like taking a sip of a fine, smoky brandy, one that intoxicated in a moment, sending fizzing bubbles of electricity along every nerve.

She wanted more. Needed to deepen the contact. Needed it like never before.

The boy who had been her friend had never made her feel like this; never made her pulse race so fast and heavy, her head spin so wildly. In all her adolescent dreams she had never known this feeling of awareness, of hunger. A pulsing, heated adult hunger that grew and sharpened as he moved his hold on her, taking her chin and lifting it so that their eyes clashed and scorched. Something blazed in these black depths, creating a golden glow that had more heat than an inferno and yet was almost—almost—under control.

‘Ria …’ he said again, his tone very different this time, his voice roughening at the edges. He had moved closer somehow, without her noticing, and the warmth of his breath on her skin as he spoke her name sent heated shivers running down her spine, making her toes curl inside her neat, polished shoes.

‘Alex …’

But speaking had been a mistake. It made her mouth move against his skin, brought that powerfully sensual taste onto her tongue once again, so that she swallowed convulsively, taking the essence of him into herself in an echo of a much more intimate blending. Immediately it was as if a lighted match had been set to desert-dry brushwood. As if the tiny flicker that had been smouldering deep inside from the moment that she had come face to face with him again in his office had suddenly burst into wild and uncontrollable flame, the force of it moving her forward sharply, close up against him.

She heard his breath hiss in between his teeth in an uncontrolled response that both shocked and thrilled her. The thought that he felt as she did, so much that he was unable to hide his response from her, made her head spin. She could hardly believe that it could be possible, but there was no denying the evidence of the way that his grip tightened on her chin, hard fingers digging into her skin as he lifted her face towards his with a roughness that betrayed the urgency of his feelings.

‘Alex …’ she tried again, trying to follow the safe, the sensible path and persuade him to stop, but realising as she heard her own voice that she was doing exactly the opposite. The quaver on his name sounded so much more like shaken encouragement.

But a moment later it didn’t matter what she said or how she said it. The truth was that she was incapable of any further speech as Alexei’s dark head swooped down, his mouth capturing hers in a savage kiss. Hard lips crushed hers, bringing them open to the invasion of his tongue in an intimate dance that made her knees weaken so that she swayed against him, her body melting soft and yielding against the hardness of his.

She heard him mutter something dark and deep in his throat and the next moment she was swung round and up into his arms. Half-walked, half-carried across the room, his mouth never leaving hers, until she was hard up against the wall, its support cold and hard against her back. Both thrilled and shocked by his unexpected response, she shivered under the impact of his powerful form on her, the heat and hardness of him crushed against the cradle of her pelvis. If she had needed any further evidence of the fact that his blood was burning as hot as hers, then it was there in the swollen, powerful erection that was crushed between them.

His mouth was plundering hers, his tongue sweeping into the innermost corners, tasting her, tormenting her. The heated pressure of his hands matched the intimate invasion of his mouth, hot, hard palms skimming over her body, burning through the flowered cotton of her dress, curving over the swell of her hips, cupping her buttocks to pull her closer to him. Ria’s blood pounded at her temples, along every nerve. Her breasts prickled and tightened in stinging response, nipples pressing against the soft lace of her bra, hungry for the feel of those wickedly enticing fingers against her flesh.

Unable to stop herself, she nipped sharply at his lower lip, catching it between her teeth and taking his gasp of response into her mouth with the taste of him clear and wild against her lips. Pushed into penitence by his reaction, she let her tongue slide over the damaged skin, soothing the small pressure wounds her teeth had inflicted and sucking the fullness of it to ease away any soreness. But the low growl she heard deep in his throat told her that his reaction had not been one of discomfort. Instead he was encouraging her to take further liberties, crushing her hard against him and letting his hands wander freely over her yearning body.

‘Hell, but you’re beautiful …’

He muttered the words against her arching throat, his breath warm against her flesh, and she could hardly believe that she was hearing them. Had he truly said beautiful? Was it possible that the man the gossip columns labelled the playboy prince, who had his pick of the sexiest women in the world—socialites, models, actresses—could think her so attractive? Memories of the adolescent dreams she had once indulged in, the yearning crush she had felt for this man surfaced all over again, reminding her of how much she would have given to hear those words back then, years ago. Then all he had ever shown her was a kind, but rather offhand friendship that was light-years away from this carnal hunger that seemed to grip them now.

‘Who would have thought that you would grow up like this?’

‘It—it’s been a long time,’ Ria managed to choke out, her throat dry with tension and need. ‘I missed …’

But a sudden rush of self-preservation had her catching up the words in shock, clamping her mouth tight shut against what she had almost revealed. The heady rush of sensuality had driven common sense so far from her mind but she needed to grab it back now—and quickly. Alexei was no longer even her friend. He was the man who held her future and that of her country in his hands, even if he didn’t know it yet.

In the strong, sensual hands that had been creating such electric pulses of pleasure in her body only a moment before. Pulses she wanted to feel more of. That made her whole body ache with need. But she must deny herself such caresses even though her whole body screamed in protest at the thought of stopping now, here, like this, when every nerve had suddenly come alive and awake in a whole new way. She had to remember why she was here.

‘You—you’ve been missed,’ she managed, though her voice shook on the words, betraying the effort she was making to get them out. And then, suddenly aware of how that might sound—that he could interpret it as meaning she was telling him just how much she had missed him—she rushed on. ‘You’ve been missed in Mecjoria.’

The sound of that name brought exactly the reaction she feared. She felt the new tension in the long body pressed against hers as he stilled, withdrawing from her immediately, his hands freezing, denying her the shivers of pleasure that had radiated out from his touch.

‘I doubt that very much,’ he muttered, his voice rough and harsh so that it scraped over her rawly exposed nerves. ‘I don’t think that could ever be true.’

‘Oh, but it is!’ Ria protested, forcing herself to go on because this was what she had come here for after all. ‘You’re missed in Mecjoria—and wanted and needed there.’

‘Needed?’

Her heart sank as he pushed himself away from her to stand looking down into her face with icy onyx eyes, all fire, all warmth fading from them in the space of a heartbeat. She had done what she needed to do, turned things back on to the real reason why she was here, so that at last she could tell him just why she had come to find him. But she felt lost and alone, her body suddenly cold and bereft without the heat and power of his surrounding it; her skin, her breasts, her lips cooling sharply as the imprint of his whipcord strength evaporated into the cool of the afternoon air.

She’d lost him again. That much was obvious from one swift glance at his face, seeing the way it had closed off against her, black eyes opaque and expressionless, revealing nothing. His only movement was when his hand went to his throat, tugging at the tie around his neck as if it was choking him. He pulled it loose, flicked open the top button on his shirt, then another, as if just one was not enough. And the restless movement was enough to draw her eyes, make her watch in stunned fascination.

No, that was a mistake—a major mistake. Looking into those deep-set black eyes, she suddenly saw a new light, a darkly burning, disturbing light in their depths, and it warned that there was more to this than anything she might have anticipated already. Memory swung her back to the scene of just moments before. Then, pinned up against the wall with his hands hot on her, she had known exactly what he wanted. And she had been dangerously close to giving it to him, with no thought of her own sanity or safety. Her body still tingled with the aftershocks of that encounter, the taste of him still lingered on her mouth. If she licked her lips she revived the sensation, almost as if he had just kissed her again. And oh, dear heaven, but she wanted him to kiss her again.

‘There is no one there who would miss me and as for anyone who might want me for any reason whatsoever …’

‘Oh, but you’re wrong there. You really are.’

But how did she convince him of that? If there was anything that brought home to her how difficult her task was then this office, this building, was it. She didn’t need to be told how much Alexei had made his new life here in England. More than a new life, his fortune, his home. And it was plain from the way he spoke of Mecjoria that his father’s country meant nothing to him. Did she even have the right to ask him to give this up?

She didn’t know. But the one thing she was sure of was that she didn’t have the right to keep it from him. The decision, whatever it was, had to be his.

‘I’ll make it easy for you, shall I?’ Alexei drawled cynically. ‘Twice now you have told me that I am wanted—and needed—in Mecjoria. You have to be lying.’

‘No lie. Really.’

‘You expect me to believe that I am needed in the country that rejected me as not fit to be even the smallest part of the royal family? Needed by the place that has disowned and ignored me for the past ten years?’

The only response Ria could manage was a sharp, swift nod of her head. She couldn’t persuade her voice to work on anything else.

‘Then you’ll have to explain. Needed as what?’

‘As …’

Twice Ria opened her mouth to try to get the words out. Twice she failed, and it was only when Alexei turned his narrow-eyed glare on her and muttered her name as if in threat that she forced herself to speak, bringing it out in a rush.

‘As—as their king. You’re needed to take the throne of Mecjoria now that Felix is dead.’

CHAPTER FOUR

AS THEIR KING.

The words hit like a blow to the head, making Alexei’s thoughts reel. Had he heard right?

You’re needed to take the throne of Mecjoria now that Felix is dead.

Whatever else he had expected, it had not been that. She had made it plain that she and her family had suffered some strong reversal of their fortunes in the upheaval that had followed the struggles over the inheritance of the Mecjorian crown. She had come here to ask for help, that much was obvious. Softening him up by producing the proof of his legitimacy first. Perhaps to play on the fact that they had once been friends in order to get him to use his fortune to help, rescue her family. Why else would she be here?

Why else would she have responded to his kisses as she had?

Because even as he had felt her mouth opening under his, the soft curves of her body melting against him, he had known that she was only doing this for her own private reasons.

Known it and hadn’t cared. He had let her lead him on in that way because he’d wanted it. No woman had excited him, aroused him so much with a single kiss. And there had been plenty of women. His reputation as a playboy had been well earned, and he had had a lot of fun earning it. At least at the beginning. It was only after Mariette—and Belle—that everything had changed. His mind flinched away from the memory but there was no getting away from the after-effects of that terrible day. His appetites had become jaded; his senses numbed. Nothing seemed to touch him like before. There was no longer the thrill of the chase.

Not that he had to do any chasing. Women practically threw themselves at him and he could have his pick of any of them simply by saying the right word, turning a practised smile in their direction. He was under no illusions; he knew it was his position and wealth that was such a strong part of the attraction. That and the bad-boy reputation that haunted him like a dark shadow. So many women wanted to be the one who tamed him. But not one of them had ever stood a chance. He had enjoyed them, shared their beds, sometimes finding the oblivion he sought in their arms. But not one of them had ever heated his blood, set his pulse racing in burning hunger as this one kiss from the former friend he had once known as a young girl, but who had grown into a stunningly sexual woman.

A woman who, like so many others, had been prepared to use that sexuality to persuade him to give her what she wanted.

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