“The past will never be forgotten.”

And his request won’t be denied...

Ten years ago, Mason McAulty was swept into an overwhelming affair with Prince Danyl Al Arain—which ended tragically. Now Danyl has arrived at her struggling Australian farm with a million-dollar demand to attend his royal gala. She cannot refuse—or deny their still-burning fire. As memories pull Mason back into the arms of the sheikh, will their secret pain be overcome by their intense desire?

Enter the prince’s desert kingdom with this reunion romance!

PIPPA ROSCOE lives in Norfolk near her family and makes daily promises to herself that this is the day she’ll leave the computer to take a long walk in the countryside. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t dreaming about handsome heroes and innocent heroines. Totally her mother’s fault, of course—she gave Pippa her first romance to read at the age of seven! She is inconceivably happy that she gets to share those daydreams with you. Follow her on Twitter @PippaRoscoe.

Also by Pippa Roscoe

Conquering His Virgin Queen

The Winners Circle miniseries

A Ring to Take His Revenge

Claimed for the Greek’s Child

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Reclaimed by the Powerful Sheikh

Pippa Roscoe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08797-1

RECLAIMED BY THE POWERFUL SHEIKH

© 2019 Pippa Roscoe

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

MASON MCAULTY COULDN’T tell if she was breathing.

It was highly likely, an automatic physical directive obeyed by her body through necessity, but often during a race she didn’t have the time to remind herself to do it. But then, often during a race she didn’t have unwanted thoughts intruding on her mind. Usually her mind was like a cool stream running quick and clear. Not this time. Mason should be focused on the horse beneath her, not the man from her past—the man in her present—the man she wanted to run from. Danyl.

She stopped short the shiver of ache that vibrated within her chest from thoughts of what might have been before it could take hold. Before it could synchronise with the rhythm of the pounding of horses’ hooves and overwhelm her. She shoved the thought away and focused on the invisible line halfway round the racetrack, beyond a corner that was coming up. Very quickly.

The burn in her thighs, holding her just above Veranchetti’s spine, felt good. Felt right. Sound in her ears was nothing but an unending roar. Her knees, absorbing the undulations of the horse beneath her. Hooves thundering in place of a heartbeat. For her. For Veranchetti. They were perfectly in time with each other.

This.

This was what sent adrenaline coursing through her veins. It wasn’t like flying, it wasn’t effortless, it wasn’t easy. It took fierce determination, muscle, control, understanding and intuition to harness the power of such a horse, to be able to direct that power, to be able to meet that power and do incredible things together.

Mason could have been riding for hours, years even, but it had only been seconds. Perhaps only as long as a minute. But it was the last eighteen months that condensed into this moment. Nothing else mattered, but everything mattered. She had to win this race. For her father. For herself. For everything that she’d been through and everything that she would go through.

With ruthless focus, Mason blocked out the thoughts, blocked out the sight of the horse in front of her, the one beside her and the many behind her. She blinkered her vision, just like Veranchetti, as they came to the last corner on the flat race.

Anticipation rose within her like lightening glass, twisting and twining inside her, solidifying into a tangible thing. This was the moment that Veranchetti came into his own. As if he too blocked everything out until the very last second.

This was the moment when she allowed herself a small smile. The moment Veranchetti threw himself into the race, as if everything before had just been to get them to this point. She felt it in him, the moment he found that inconceivable burst of strength, the moment that he surged ahead, the moment he surprised everyone but her.

The moment when there was only a breath between victory and failure. Between past and present, present and future.

Just one moment...one breath.

CHAPTER ONE
December, present day

DANYL NEJEM AL ARAIN needed to breathe. Needed to focus on what one of his best friends and co-owners of the Winners’ Circle Syndicate was saying. But he couldn’t. His mind was being torn in a million different directions, all pointing to the royal palace’s gala in a week’s time. The gala that would be the final undoing of his sanity.

‘Antonio, I—’

‘Have to go, yeah, I got it. Things to do, countries to run... Listen, don’t worry. John and Veranchetti are on their way.’

‘On their way to where?’ Danyl asked, the suspicion sneaking through his usually quick mind deeply unsettling.

‘To Ter’harn.’

‘What?’

‘As per your mother’s request. As they were already set to come to you for the New Year’s Day meet, she asked that they arrive a few weeks early so that they could be part of the celebrations.’

‘This gala is getting completely out of hand.’

‘Not as much as my soon-to-be mother-in-law’s wedding plans. Fifty doves. The woman wants to release fifty doves as we leave the church. Never has Las Vegas looked so appealing!’

‘Las Vegas?’ Danyl struggled to keep track of the words pouring from Antonio’s mouth.

‘Are you even listening to me?’ Impatience bit into the earpiece of the phone.

‘Las Vegas. If you really want to move the wedding there, count me in,’ Danyl said, forcing an energy he didn’t feel into the promise.

‘Appreciated. Look, the point of the call... I need to know who your plus one will be for the wedding. So, who do you have up next to audition for the role as your future and perfect Queen? I have to admit, from what Dimitri said about Birgetta—’

‘I’ll let you know, when I know,’ Danyl bit back.

‘It’s just that, given the recent press attention from McAulty’s win, we’re having to get extra security in place.’

‘Got it. Look, I’ll get back to you on the plus one. And I’ll see you and Emma in a week for the gala.’

Danyl hung up on whatever response Antonio would have given, knowing that his friend would forgive him.

Things to do, countries to run...

He slipped his phone into his pocket, rather than hurling it across the room as he wanted. What on earth was his mother thinking, bringing their racing syndicate’s trainer John and their prize thoroughbred Veranchetti to the gala? Not only that, but also to go behind his back and speak directly to Dimitri and Antonio? She was clearly up to something and he had to put a stop to it. Now. The more she added to the line-up of entertainment, the more risk there was that something would go wrong, that it wouldn’t be perfect. And the gala had to be perfect.

He backed the chair away from the solid wooden desk piled high with paperwork and yellow legal notepads full of his tightly scrawled handwriting, so different from the sleek glass design and state-of-the-art technology of his office in central Aram, capital of Ter’harn. He missed the smooth efficiency and calm simplicity of his professional setting, gently cursing his mother for the melodrama that had brought him reluctantly back to the royal palace.

Entering the hallway sent a couple of house staff scattering and drew his personal bodyguard along in his wake. His parents would be in the dining room at this hour, Danyl was sure of it. Marching along the hallways with brusque determination, he failed to take in the centuries of elaborate decoration lining the walls, the fine tiled details on the flooring, soft earthy tones contrasting with bright whites, blues and greens, yet his shoulders still felt the burden of the palace. If he twitched them in reflex, he didn’t realise it.

Ter’harn was an oil-rich country, perfectly placed for both the desert climate and the almost Mediterranean temperature of the mountainous coastline that gave way to the Arabian Sea. It was a heady mix of cultures and influences, everything from the remains of the Ottoman Empire to modern Africa and Arabic nations, brought together within Ter’harn’s borders. Of the country’s three palaces, this was by far the grandest. It had withstood five centuries, three invasions and one attempted coup. Every corner, hallway, room and garden proudly displayed the fingerprints of those who had come before. Whilst other countries had shifted allegiances, royals and rulers, Ter’harn was one of the few kingdoms that had stayed immovable. His family one of the last to remain unseated. It was all resting on his shoulders. And to ensure that their legacy continued, he needed to find a queen to provide an heir. A thought that twisted and turned in Danyl’s stomach.

Travelling at such a speed didn’t give the house staff enough time to announce his presence at the dining-room doorway, a mistake he realised only too late.

His father and mother were by the window in what could only be described as a clinch. His father’s hands clutching his mother’s...

Danyl spun on his heel, facing the wall as if he had been caught out rather than his parents. He wasn’t a prude. But they were his parents!

He cleared his throat, heard a somewhat flustered response and a shifting of movement, counted to ten, and then an extra five for good measure, before turning back to find them facing him, neither a hair out of place nor a shred of embarrassment visible.

‘Did you really need to bring Veranchetti halfway round the world for a party? Don’t you think it a little ostentatious to parade a horse from my syndicate in front of all your guests?’

‘Darling, we’re fine, thank you for asking. It is good to see you too,’ his mother mocked. She often complained that he only had one speed: ruthless efficiency. ‘We’re royal, Danyl. People are going to think that anything we do is ostentatious. We might as well have a little fun and play up to it, no? You used to love playing up to it,’ she said, unable to hide the hint of censure that often came with such a declaration. A silent reminder that he used to have fun. Once. ‘Besides, I simply spoke to the boys—’

‘They are not boys, Mother.’

‘I have known them since you were all at university together. You were boys then, and you’ll always be boys to me.’

‘You went behind my back.’

‘Oh, Danyl, don’t be so dramatic.’ Her exasperation was undermined by an overly emphatic and somewhat disappointed sigh. ‘Veranchetti was already due to come to Ter’harn and you know that. I simply asked if they would be able to move up the date of their arrival for the New Year’s Day race to coincide with the gala, which is—in part—a celebration of your achievements.’

‘I would hardly call it my achievement, Mother,’ Danyl replied.

‘Ah, yes. The delightful Mason McAulty. She has yet to respond to our invitation.’

‘You invited Mason?’ If his mother noticed the ice-cool tone his voice had contained, she didn’t show it.

‘Yes, what a wonderful feat, winning all the three races in the Hanley Cup. Quite extraordinary. For a woman.’

Elizabeth Al Arain’s words settled into a buzzing sound between Danyl’s ears. Just Mason McAulty’s name was enough to short-circuit his perfectly ordered mind. Images of thick, dark brown hair curling over a sun-kissed shoulder haunted his mind, the echo of a laugh from ten years before, the slight smell of leather and hay...odd scents of feminine silk-soft skin. His mind reared back in self-defence and Danyl sought anger, fury, anything to cover over the moment of mental weakness her name had brought.

Mason McAulty.

He didn’t want her here. Not in Ter’harn, not in the palace. He hadn’t even wanted her to ride in the Hanley Cup for their syndicate the Winners’ Circle, but Dimitri Kyriakou and Antonio Arcuri had been quite taken with the idea. Two against one. Although, in all likelihood, if Danyl had refused they would have accepted his decision without question. But the moment she had approached them in the exclusive private members’ club in London...frankly he’d been shocked. Shocked enough to utter a few barbed comments Mason had refused to rise to. He’d tried to send her away, but the stubborn woman had refused. And most of all, that had been what had impressed the Winners’ Circle. That and the sheer audacity of what she’d suggested. Who could have imagined that she would deliver on her promise?

‘Well, I want her here,’ his mother pressed on. ‘You know how much I love horse racing. Where do you think you got the bug from?’

‘My investment in horses is not a “bug”.’

‘Danyl Nejem Al Arain, do not take that tone with me. What Mason McAulty has achieved is nothing short of miraculous. Coming first in each of the three legs of the Hanley Cup with horses from one syndicate—your syndicate—hasn’t been achieved in over thirty years. You know that, I know that, and I want to celebrate the success of such an incredible female jockey. I always thought that had I not been an actress—’

‘You would have liked to be a jockey, yes, I know. But you were too tall, Mother.’

Her response was a delicate sniff. ‘It didn’t stop me from being an excellent rider though. I want to meet this young woman, Danyl, and I want you to do whatever it takes to make it happen. Go to Australia in person, if you have to. Either way, consider it an early Christmas present.’

‘What are you really getting out of this, Mother?’ he asked, feeling his own eyes narrow in suspicion. But of what, he couldn’t quite place, or he didn’t want to.

‘Oh, darling, it will be the best party we’ve had here for years. With relationships on the borders doing so well, thanks to all your hard work, your father and I are thinking of stepping back further to allow you the room to take the throne.’

Danyl cast a look to his father, silently watching the conversation as if intuiting undercurrents that Danyl was missing.

‘But tradition dictates that you wait until I am married,’ he said, fury giving way to frustration as a series of efficiently arranged dates with poised princesses and highly capable CEOs filtered through the last few months of his memory. Anything to prevent the full impact of his mother’s words from raining down upon him. That he was finally going to ascend to the throne. That he would finally inherit the weight of responsibility for hundreds of centuries of culture and nearly three million people.

‘Well, as you are failing so spectacularly to produce such a fiancée,’ she said, gently mocking him, ‘we can’t wait for ever, can we? We’re not getting any younger, and it’s about time that I had my husband to myself for a change. Either way, that’s what I want. Mason at the party. And I want you to do whatever it takes to make that happen.’

* * *

The morning heat was already fierce and Mason was conscious of time running out. She needed to get a move on if she was to get to the outer fencing of their Australian farmland. She hitched up the saddle strap one hole tighter, threading it back through the buckle as Fool’s Fate shifted on his hooves. She gave the horse’s flank a reassuring pat and turned to find her father standing behind the saddlebags in the stable’s courtyard.

He looked as if he had aged ten years, rather than the eighteen months she’d been away. The grey at his temples now firmly white. The hollows beneath his eyes a darker shade of blue. She toned down the flare of frustration, the painful ache of sadness, knowing Fool’s Fate would pick up on her feelings if she vented them. Her father picked up one of the bags and held it out to her. She took it from him, turned back to the horse, strapping it to the saddle, and took the moment she needed.

Beyond the stables, the rolling emerald-coloured fields stretched out towards the mountains in the distance. Mountains that had always brought her a sense of peace, yet now seemed to loom as some kind of dark prophecy. Taking a deep breath, she felt the warm air fill her lungs, heavy and hot.

Joe McAulty had something on his mind. Not that he’d open his mouth to speak until he was ready. There was no rushing the man, never had been and never would be. So she just carried on packing the saddle bags until he said his piece.

Tent, phone, food, she mentally ticked off, coffee...

‘I didn’t think he’d call it in so soon.’

‘Pops, it can’t be helped.’ It was the same response she’d made when he’d first told her about the debt collection.

‘But after everything you did, the purses you won from the Hanley Cup...’

‘Pops, Mick died.’ She threw the words over her shoulder, shrugging off the swell of grief she felt for the neighbour who’d seemed an old coot even when she was a child. But her dad was a plain speaker, and emotions were an unknown language over which he stuttered and stumbled. ‘Who could have known that his son would call in the debt so soon? And yeah, if he hadn’t, the money from the wins might have kept us going for a couple of years, but something else might have come up.’

She finally allowed herself to turn around. Her father was kicking the dirt floor, keeping his focus on the spray of dust caught in the sun’s early rays.

‘The farm isn’t lost yet, Pops.’ Mason knew he felt responsible, but she couldn’t blame him. Not at all. ‘Our work, the work we do with the kids here, it’s as important to me as it is to you. And it’s expensive. Keeping all the horses, the counsellors, the physios, the staff... Mick’s son calling in the loan, it’s just something we have to deal with.’ Another something, she said to herself, to add to the many others. ‘Joe,’ she said, calling him by the same name all the other farmhands and staff used, finally getting his attention. ‘I’m not going to let this go without a fight. Especially to that trumped-up wannabe ranch owner.’

A sad smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. Defiance was something that ran through them both in spades. She turned back to the horse behind her, faking the need to check the bags one more time. ‘Perhaps I can find another syndicate to race for. There’ll be plenty of options after the Hanley Cup.’

‘I wouldn’t ask you to do that.’ Her father’s voice had lowered, full of the same gravel and grit he’d just kicked up off the floor.

‘It wasn’t that bad, Dad,’ she said, unable to turn to face him. He’d know. He’d raised her singlehandedly from the age of two. There wasn’t a secret she could keep, a lie she could tell, without him knowing. Racing again... No, it hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought. Riding Veranchetti had made her feel...alive. Complete in a way she hadn’t felt for years. But it had been hard. Had thrown up a lot of feelings. Ones that she needed to sort through. Which was why she had decided to go and fix the outposts herself.

Yes, riding had been tough, but Danyl? No. Her feelings about him hadn’t been hard to discern at all. She needed to stay away from him at all costs.

* * *

Mason swept up the tendrils of her long, dark hair into a band, allowing the cool breeze to nip at her hot neck, and watched the sun set between the giant clefts of the mountains bordering the Hunter River Valley, breathing in the first calm lungful of air she’d tasted in almost eighteen months. The ride out here had been incredible, the familiar dips and rises of the stunning horse farm she’d been lucky enough to grow up on as familiar as the wooden knots on the farmstead’s dining-room table.

Whenever she came out here, whenever she saw the sweeping stretches of the green valley, bordered by mountains that seemed like immoveable watchtowers guarding the land, she found herself wondering how her mother could have left. Her father had tried to explain over the years, the yearning for something more that her mother had felt. And perhaps, if Mason was honest with herself, she had felt a thread of that too when she’d gone to America to train as a jockey ten years ago. But home and wanting wasn’t at the end of a rainbow. It was at the start of it. She’d learned that lesson hard. Mason wouldn’t regret leaving, but she’d not be doing it again.

She brought the steaming hot mug to her lips and inhaled the scent of roasted coffee beans, wet earth and the wood near by. If she discerned the aroma of sweat, hay, manure, grief and something male she refused to acknowledge it—just her memory playing tricks again.

Before her, the night sky crept over the valley’s emerald patchwork quilt and it wouldn’t take long for it to reach behind her and the farm that she had tried so very hard to save. The money from the purses of the three races she’d won for the Winners’ Circle should have been enough. She stamped down the little voice in her heart that pleaded to know why it wasn’t. She had never been one for self-pity, and if she had? She would have been done for, long before now.

She’d have spoken to Mick’s son if she didn’t already know he was a bottom feeder, wanting to turn the farm next to theirs into prime real estate, wanting to sell off land that had been in his family for nearly seven generations to the highest bidder. Money. Why did it always come down to money?

What she and her father did on their farm, the way they helped troubled kids—kids with learning difficulties, kids that just needed something positive in their lives—interact with horses, learn to ride, to care for another living thing and be cared for in return...there was no price to put on that. When Pops had been forced to stay at the farm, to give up his training career to raise her after her mother had left, he’d seen a way to carry on what he loved most. His love for the horses was now spread through hundreds of children, teenagers and young adults. It might not have been a fix-all, it might not have helped every child that passed through the farm, but it had helped enough. The sheer delight at seeing a child, unable to look anyone in the eye, finally come out of themselves, transform into something brighter, the first smile, laugh, in what looked like years for some of them... That was worth it all.

But in order to continue they needed to expand. They needed more room for the counsellors, staff and children. They weren’t operating at a loss as such, but without increasing the scope of the business they wouldn’t survive either. And now with the loan? The purse money would go to that, and they were back at square one. Everything she’d done in the last eighteen months, wiped clean.

Coffee hit her stomach hard as Mason considered riding in another race. The last three had been physically and mentally challenging. Though reluctant to admit it, ten years made a difference to a body and the training had been intense. The first thing her dad had done when she’d returned to the farm after the race series was force-feed her enough food to feed an army. She hadn’t lost weight as much as body fat, all of it turning to enough muscle to harness the power of the two incredible horses she’d had for the Hanley Cup. Eighteen months of six day a weeks, morning and afternoon training, one meal days.

She might have left racing after what had happened ten years ago, but her body hadn’t forgotten, and there hadn’t been a day in between that she hadn’t been on a horse. Her father had said she’d been born to it, and the pride at the time...the pride before had been enough to make her want to fulfil that childhood dream of being Australia’s best jockey. Not best female jockey. Just best jockey.

And for a few moments, riding Veranchetti and Devil’s Advocate, she’d felt that need unfurl within her, the knowledge that she could make it happen, she could still have that childish dream and turn it into reality...it had been seductive, a whisper of what could be.

But to race again, for a different syndicate, on different horses? No. She knew that wasn’t an option. Neither was going back to the Winners’ Circle.

There had been plenty of journos just waiting to get her story, and the money they were offering for interviews and photoshoots would be worth considering if it hadn’t been those very same people who had destroyed her career first time round. The coffee turned bitter on her tongue, and she knew that even as a last resort she couldn’t do it. She had learnt enough about herself to respect the person she had become, and to honour that by being truthful and faithful and kind to herself. It might have taken these last ten years, but she wouldn’t sell herself out to the highest bidder.

The sun had now firmly set behind the mountains, stars beginning to wink out of the night sky. Fool’s Fate pricked his ears and snickered, pawing at the ground and shifting his head against the rope tied to a tree behind her.

Mason frowned, as the sounds of crunched twigs and leaves met her ears. It wouldn’t be Pops, not knowing that she wanted to be alone. And the farmhands were out in town tonight, settled in at the pub. It couldn’t be anyone from Mick’s farm, the border between their land too far away from her camp. That just left poachers. She threw her coffee over the embers of the fire, sending a hiss out into the air, and reached for her shotgun.

* * *

Danyl cursed into the dark as the glimmer of light he’d seen from a fire disappeared. It had been a beacon and now he could only smell burnt coffee and damp ash. Perhaps he should have listened to Joe McAulty. He’d left his horse tied up a little way back because he hadn’t wanted to scare her. He felt twigs crunch and crack under his feet, the sound echoing like gunfire in the silence of the night. Ignoring the feeling in his gut, the one that poked at him as if to say that perhaps he shouldn’t have left his men back at the farm, he pressed on. He couldn’t have had this conversation in front of an audience. His men hadn’t been happy about it, but they’d done as he’d commanded.

He came out from underneath the wooded area, and for a moment the beauty of the sight stopped him. The night scene before him stole his breath; it almost matched the awe he felt when he looked out at the Ter’harn desert. That’s why, he told himself later, it took a moment to realise the camp that he’d overlooked was empty. The moon passed behind a cloud, casting the still smoking fire and the small tent in shadow.

He cursed again, exhausted and frustrated. Where the hell was she? No longer disguising his footfalls, he stomped into the clearing. Given the flight, the particularly painful meeting with Ter’harn’s Prime Minister, and the even more barbed conversation with Joe McAulty, Danyl had just about had enough.

He scanned the site again, looking for signs of where she might be. He’d followed Joe’s instructions, and clearly found where she had set up, but—

The sound of the chamber being pulled back on a pump-action shotgun stopped his thoughts in their tracks. Logic did nothing to slow the sudden jolt of adrenaline coursing through his veins. Logically he knew it was Mason, logically he knew that she wouldn’t shoot him. But still...

‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ he heard a voice from behind him say.

CHAPTER TWO
December, ten years ago

‘I SHOULDN’T HAVE come here,’ Mason said, pulling at the short hemline of the dress Francesca had somehow talked her into wearing.

‘It’s New Year’s Eve, Mase! It’s time you let your hair down instead of being all train, train, train, diet, exercise, no alcohol, no fun,’ her friend replied in the rapid-fire American accent Mason was only just about getting used to.

‘I look ludicrous.’

‘Are you insane? You look fab-u-lous!’ Francesca replied, hanging on to every syllable of the word.

‘How are you supposed to walk in these instruments of torture?’

‘Wash your mouth out—those are Louboutins,’ she said, this time slicing the brand into almost three separate words.

‘Then perhaps he should have stuck with boots,’ Mason muttered under her breath.

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Listen, girly, I know you only got off the boat four months ago—’

‘It was a plane.’

‘And America isn’t Australia, and New York isn’t the hick town in whatever part of New South Wales you’re from, but it’s time to acclimatise to these surroundings.’

Mason bridled at the comment, her shoulders squaring at the slight against her home, softening only when she caught sight of Francesca’s tongue, literally pressed against the inside of her cheek.

But, stealing another glance at the surroundings, Mason felt as if this was a glimpse into a world in which she did not belong. That perhaps if she stared too long, or stayed too long, she might lose herself.

When the bus from the training stables had dropped them off outside one of New York’s most renowned hotels, the Langsford, she had looked up at the huge, sweeping circular driveway, the gilded graphics on the Roman-style pillars that fronted the building, and thought... They’re not going to let me in here.

Between with the heels Francesca had forced her into and the black and white marble foyer, she’d nearly broken her ankle as she’d walked towards the biggest spiral staircase she’d ever seen. And even Francesca had let out a low whistle when she’d seen the ‘reception room’ hired for the night’s event, arranged by America’s richest horse owners.

Smooth, sleek lines of chrome and black dropped away at the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over Washington Square Park and the surrounding area. Purple NYU flags hung from buildings and a few brave souls were risking hypothermia out in the snow-covered streets, revelling or hurrying towards whatever party or group they were out to join before midnight.

A smartly dressed waiter passed with a tray of champagne flutes, a small piece of strawberry the only adornment to the alcohol. Francesca grabbed two glasses, thrust one into her hands so quickly she nearly dropped it, and Mason watched, shocked, as Francesca took a third before allowing the waiter to move on.

Francesca consumed the entire contents of the first glass in one mouthful before placing it on a side table, and flashed Mason a beaming grin before returning to sip from the second. Her eyes locked on to something over Mason’s shoulder, a whispered excuse trailing behind in the wake of a speedy departure. Mason turned to find Harry, their trainer, making his way towards them...or, well, Mason at least.

‘You doing okay?’

‘I’m...acclimatising,’ she said and smiled at her father’s old friend, before taking a sip of champagne. It was expensive, but not very nice.

‘You’re doing better than Joe would have.’

‘No.’ She smiled ruefully, thinking of how he might have behaved amongst these people. ‘Pops wouldn’t have acclimatised to this very well.’

Harry grinned. He was a large man, who smiled deeply, laughed heartily and trained his jockeys to within an inch of their lives. ‘This is an opportunity for you to meet some of the horse-racing syndicates that may take you on in the future.’

Confusion marred Mason’s brow. ‘I thought you were happy with O’Conner.’

‘I am, and I’m looking forward to the first race of the season, but that doesn’t mean I, or you, will be riding and training for him for the rest of our careers. You never know, you could be riding for one of the people in this room within the year.’

Mason turned to scan the room with different eyes. This time she saw people forging connections, not just small talk, not just flirting, but making investments in their future. As her eyes traversed the room, they caught on one particular figure at the edge of the crowd, his elbow leaning against the bar, at least a head taller than those around him.

Power. Raw and untamed.

It was the first thought she had, the moment her eyes rested on him. Although his body cut a lazy figure, seeming almost bored in the way his head leant to one side, there was something leashed about him. Tension thrummed through his body, vibrating at a pitch she was surprised those about him couldn’t feel. She could. All the way from the other side of the room.

Dark, thick hair fell in slight waves around a face that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a marble statue of perfect male beauty. Skin smooth over his brow, deeply tanned, the colour of the darkest whisky and just as tempting. High cheekbones perfectly captured her gaze, and for a moment she just stared. A trace of stubble on his firm jaw made the palms of her hands tingle, made her want to reach out and feel the texture beneath her skin, made her want to hear the sound of it rasp against her.

She cursed herself for the foolish thought, but couldn’t pull her gaze away. He seemed to be listening to a group of men, but something told her that he wasn’t really paying attention. It was his eyes. They weren’t focused on the man speaking, but somewhere over the man’s shoulder. Then he turned his head slowly, not scanning the room, not aimlessly wandering, but, deliberate, clear, and directed straight at her. His eyes caught hold of her gaze, and refused to let it go.

The burn of a blush against her cheeks was instantaneous. She dropped her eyes, shocked by the spark of electricity that had hissed and snapped its way up her spine, across her skin and into her chest. She chanced a glance back towards the man who had incited such an extreme reaction, only to feel it all over again as her eyes joined his once more.

A gasp?

Had she really gasped?

She turned to Harry in an attempt to sever the connection, but Harry was gone and she was standing alone. Now the blush was one of pure embarrassment. She must look to him exactly what she was—a country bumpkin, or ‘hick’, as Francesca had remarked earlier.

That was when she heard a uniquely feminine laugh from somewhere near to the man who had run a lightning streak through her. Of course. When she looked back, she saw that Francesca had joined the circle of awe around the figure whose eyes were no longer on Mason, but on her beautiful, laughing friend.

‘Hey.’ A familiar voice called for Mason’s attention.

Scott was making his way towards her on slightly unsteady feet. How had he managed to drink so much already? ‘I hate these things,’ he complained.

Mason let out a huff of air, thankful for the distraction offered by the trainee jockey from whatever had just happened. No, she wasn’t naïve enough not to know what it was, but it was certainly the first time she’d felt anything like what she’d read in the romance books that were the only thing her mother had left behind.

‘Not really my thing either,’ she said, turning the half-drunk glass of champagne around in her hands. She made a face at the thought of the alcohol, probably warm now, and put it on the table next to Francesca’s discarded, empty, glass.

‘Wanna get out of here?’

‘The bus isn’t coming for at least another three and a half hours, Scott.’

‘Fresh air. There’s a balcony that wraps around the back of the building.’

Resisting the pull of one last glance at the man, reluctant to feel that punishing spark once more, she took the arm that Scott had offered and let him lead her from the room.

* * *

The American girl’s laugh was grating on what little nerves Danyl had left. The whole evening had been a bust. He was beginning to think that perhaps he should have returned to Ter’harn, to his parents... Until he’d caught sight of the little brunette over in the corner. He’d felt her gaze on him across the room. It was as if a flame had licked across his cheek. In the three and a half years he’d been in New York for his degree and masters in business and international relations, he’d not felt anything like it. But he knew what it meant. And it usually came with a giant neon sign saying STAY AWAY in capital letters.

But, despite the warning, he hadn’t been able to break the connection. She was petite, tiny even, in comparison to his near six feet and four inches, but every single inch of her spoke of strength. Her skin, sun-kissed and lightly tanned, even in the depths of this New York winter had warmed him all over. And his fingers itched to run and play in the sweeping curls of her long hair the colour of burnt sugar. Sweet, the taste on his tongue imaginary and expectant, but as sure as if he’d just eaten a single caramel.

Within one distracted moment, she’d disappeared and he wondered if it was for the best. Danyl looked at his watch. Perhaps he should head back to the embassy. Surely there would be more life in their end-of-year party than this. A morgue would beat this. At first, the thought of having all of America’s best racing syndicates in one room sounded fantastic. A chance to research what had only been a briefly mentioned idea by Antonio a couple of months ago but, taken up by Danyl and Dimitri, was fast becoming a deeply tempting business prospect—to create a world-renowned horse-racing syndicate of their own. They’d toyed with the name for a while, but they kept coming back around to the Winners’ Circle. Only they couldn’t decide where to put the apostrophe.

They should have been here with him. The two students he’d met nearly four years ago at the beginning of their studies had soon become the brothers he’d never had. Having been thrust into the American lifestyle of university, they had been drawn together by the determination to succeed not only in their studies, but also in their pleasures. And the bond of friendship born from similar interests had become something more...vital. Never before had Danyl had such close friendships, the palace being a lonely place for an only child. An only royal child.

This evening was supposed to have been it! Been amazing. It was the last New Year’s Eve he would spend in New York before he went back to Ter’harn and the life of duty that awaited him. And he’d wanted to make it count, wanted it to be the last, greatest chance to let loose, to be...free. But Antonio had been forced to visit his parents and sister, and Dimitri was rescuing his half-brother from some scandal back in Greece.

So here he was, alone at the Langsford, where it seemed he couldn’t escape his royal reputation and the conversation had turned to him instead of horses and racing. For a moment, he thought he might have found something else in the eyes of a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty, but she had disappeared and instead some brash American was making a pass at him. In front of everyone.

She laughed again and that was it.

Forgoing the usual diplomatic politeness that felt as if it had been forced, rather than bred, into him, he walked out of the human circle, leaving one of the men mid-sentence. They’d forgive him. He was royalty after all.

Heading for the exit, he spied the evening’s patrons and knew that he would be waylaid if they saw him. He veered off to a glass doorway leading to the balcony, where, if he was lucky, there might just be a door back in at the other end of it. He ducked out onto the large wrap-around balcony and the sting of the frigid wintry air bit at him, but even that was nothing compared to the shock he’d felt when he’d locked eyes with that girl. It was a shame to leave without seeing what that could have led to, but safer. Yes, definitely safer.

The sounds of hushed angry voices were thrown against him by the whipping wind. He frowned, looking out into the shadows to see two figures just before the bend in the building. A man and...that woman. Before his body could react, he saw her pull her hand away from the man’s clutches, only to be pinned against the brick wall behind her.

‘Get off me, Scott.’

‘Don’t give me that, Mase...’ The man’s slurred voice was muffled by the way his head was buried in her neck.

‘You’re making a fool of yourself. Just stop it.’ The woman’s words were firm rather than angry as she tried to push him away.

‘Oh, come on, Mason, you’ve been making eyes at me for nearly three months now.’

‘I’ve done nothing of the sort, Scott. I’m going back inside.’

‘No, you’re not.’ The man reached out to grab her arm again in the time that it took Danyl to cover the distance between them.

‘Get off me!’

‘The lady told you to stop.’ Danyl’s loud voice was toned with barely leashed control. He hated men like that. Hated when a man couldn’t take the word no.

‘Go away. This is none of your business.’

Danyl peered at the brunette in the darkness. There was nothing about her that suggested she was faking her distress. Her eyes were large, deep brown pools marred by frustration and even a little fear. Her body was held tight, retreating on itself as if to reduce the physical contact between her and this guy as much as possible.

The man spun round to face Danyl, squaring up to him with arrogance and inebriation.

‘If anyone’s leaving, it’s—’

Danyl had seen the move coming from a mile away, the man’s whole body thrown into a wide, arcing punch that held more bravado than power. It really took very little effort for Danyl to block the man’s punch with his forearm and thrust up his free hand into the man’s nose.

A rather unpleasant crunching sound cut into the night, seemingly worse for the woman’s gasp of shock and the subsequent howl let out by the man now bent double, clutching his nose.

The man scuttled over to the door to the balcony, casting a furious glance at Danyl and the woman whose name he still didn’t know, before re-entering the building, dropping curses like litter in his wake.

Danyl looked back at the woman who had stepped away from the wall, a delicate shiver running across her skin. Her eyes, almost as dark as the night, stared up at him, any trace of fear vanished, and instead he was surprised to find anger.

‘Are you—?’

‘What the hell did you do that for?’ she demanded, husky Australian accents heavy on her words.

‘What?’

‘I had it under control,’ she muttered under her breath, pushing past Danyl. He tried to ignore the spark her touch brought, and focus on the reaction he hadn’t expected.

‘Like hell you did,’ he replied, spinning around to face her. ‘That guy was—’

‘Drunk and harmless. I could have handled him myself,’ she dismissed.

‘Of course you could have. Look at you. You can’t be taller than five feet and two inches!’

‘Size doesn’t matter,’ she responded indignantly.

He narrowed his gaze, desperately fighting back the instinctive retort to the contrary. But it seemed she had read his thoughts as clearly as if he’d said them.

‘Really?’ she demanded, and the scorn in her voice was a little too much for Danyl to bear. Perhaps he should have just stayed out of it. Facing the event’s patrons would have been better than this.

She huffed out an impressively delicate puff of air and disappeared through the door to the reception.

* * *

Mason shook out her hands, a slight trembling the only outward sign of what had happened on the balcony she would allow herself to show. What had Scott been thinking? He had taken her completely by surprise, never having shown any interest in her other than that of a friend. Until now. And contrary to what that stranger had thought, she did have it under control. If she could wrangle an unstable stock horse, she could handle Scott. She willed the adrenaline coursing through her veins from her fight—rather than flight—reaction to leave her body, more angry than scared that she had found herself in that situation. No. That Scott had put her in that situation. She hadn’t seen or heard anything about Scott that indicated he was...like that, and Mason could have handled it herself. But someone else might not. So, she’d be speaking to Harry about it in the morning.

What she hadn’t been able to handle was her reaction to the man who had driven her out to the balcony in the first place. The man who had broken Scott’s nose. She had tried to avoid his gaze and the intense, searing heat she felt every time they locked eyes. As the shivers from just the memory of it wracked her body, she told herself it was from the cold, but knew she was made of sterner stuff than that. The thrill of just being near him was incredible, and she’d only ever felt such a thing galloping down the gentle slopes of her father’s horse farm back in New South Wales.

As she stood in the small hallway that either led back to the reception, or to the bank of lifts that might take her away from the Langsford, the muffled sound of the party reached her ears and she knew she didn’t want to go back in there. She quickly retrieved her long, thick coat from the cloakroom, changed out of the painfully high heels into warmer and much more comfortable black boots and slipped into the lift before anyone could see her leave.

As Mason descended nearly thirty flights, she calculated how long she’d have until the bus came back to pick them up. Two, maybe three hours. She looked at herself in the gold-tinted mirrored panels, and instead saw two hazel eyes in a chiselled marble image of male perfection staring at her as if he knew something about her she didn’t know.

‘I had it under control,’ she whispered angrily to the image of a man she feared she might never forget.

The doors to the lift opened and she strode across the black and white chessboard foyer, her eyes cast down as she held a stern conversation with herself. She’d definitely had it under control, she assured herself as she pushed, too heavily, on the spinning circular doorway, the resulting force shoving her out onto the pavement beyond and straight into the back of...

Oof.

The air was knocked from her lungs the moment her chest met a deliciously muscled back, even if it was a bit painful. She reached out a hand to steady herself, only to find that her fingers had wrapped around a forearm, also disturbingly muscular.

‘I’m so—’

Her apology was cut short as the stranger from the balcony turned, pushing her off balance, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t pulled back the arm she was still clinging to. Instead, she found herself chest to chest with her apparent rescuer.

‘We must stop—’

‘Don’t finish that cliché,’ she warned.

‘Are you always this angry?’ he asked, the half-laughing, half-genuine curiosity dancing in his eyes.

‘No, I’m just...’ She shook her head to loosen the thoughts that were churned up by the very sight of him. ‘Usually more coherent,’ she added ruefully, an answering smile pulling at her lips.

She stepped back, away from the heat of him, the smell...something she wanted to take a little longer to discern. If she’d thought there was power in the man from across the room, being this close, being held by him, was overwhelming. Casting a glance upwards, she could see golden flecks in his impossibly dark eyes, flecks that sparkled with mischief. His lips, curved into an almost irresistible smile, were full and indiscreetly sensual, and Mason found herself responding in a way that was wholly unexpected and inappropriate.

She turned away from the sheer magnetism of the man and looked up and down the street, surprised to find it so quiet. Everyone must either be at their own party, or in Times Square, she mused as breath streamed like smoke into the night air about them.

This was silly. She had to get over him. Over herself, more like.

‘Thank you,’ she said, the words white on the air in front of them, neither, it seemed, willing to look at the other. ‘For...’ She used a hand to gesture up and behind her back towards the balcony.

From the corner of her eye, she saw his powerful shoulder shrug, and felt rather than watched his lips curve into an ironic smile. ‘You had it under control.’ A heartbeat later, ‘You’re leaving?’ his accented voice asked. She couldn’t place it. Somewhere from the Arab states, clearly. But not one she’d encountered at her father’s horse farm before.

She frowned at his question. ‘No,’ she said, once more looking up and down the strangely quiet street. She offered her own shrugged shoulder. ‘The bus coming to take us back to our accommodation isn’t arriving until one a.m.’

‘Our accommodation,’ he mused. ‘Our being you and...’

‘The other trainee jockeys,’ she said, deliberately ignoring his leading question.

‘One of whom would be...’

‘Scott. Yes. He is one of the other trainee jockeys.’

‘And you don’t want to go back to the party.’ It was a statement and a warning, all in one.

Mason pursed her lips into a pout and shook her head, still looking out into the street before her, rather than see—or feel—his eyes on her.

‘I’m hungry,’ he announced in a way that seemed to involve her somehow. ‘With absolutely no ulterior motive, would you like to go and get some food?’

She willed him silently not to hear the rumble of her stomach. The mention of food was enough to set her mouth watering. ‘Weren’t you waiting on Francesca?’ the question was out of her mouth before she could stop it, knowing that it would betray more than a passing interest in him.

‘Who?’

‘The girl you were talking to...’

‘The brash American?’

‘Yes, the brash American,’ Mason replied with a laugh at the apt description of her friend.

‘No, she turned her attentions to a duke when she realised I wasn’t interested.’

He’d moved slightly, subtly, without her noticing, so that he was now clearly within her line of sight. His eyes grazed a little too long over her features, but not in an unpleasant way. It sent sparkles spreading across her skin, and down into a stomach that was now past the ‘growling’ stage, and quickly moving on to the ‘eating itself’ stage.

‘Food would be good. Though we’re not going to find anywhere open. It’s nearly midnight on New Year’s Eve.’

‘They’ll open for me,’ he said confidently.

‘Why? What’s so special about you?’

‘I’m a prince,’ he said with all the arrogance the title implied.

* * *

The sound of her laughter still rang in Danyl’s ears as they picked their way through silent, snow-covered streets, his personal bodyguard hanging a suitably invisible distance behind. It wasn’t that no one else had ever laughed at him before, at least not since he’d met Antonio and Dimitri. It was the laugh itself. A sound so pure, so unbridled, that the only thing that matched it was the joy expanding in his chest. There was something about the fiery young woman. She was like a present that he wanted to unwrap. Slowly.

Even bundled up in the thick winter wool coat she wore, she seemed impossibly small. Something that clearly suited her chosen occupation. How on earth she was able to wrestle control over a powerful thoroughbred, he couldn’t fathom, but somehow he relished the chance to discover. The thought fired the blood in his veins and he silently cursed himself. He should know better. But as a stray tendril of that honey-brown hair escaped the confines of where she’d pushed it into the collar of her coat, he desperately wanted to sweep it back, just to feel the silken smoothness of it.

He let her lead him through the streets, almost sure she didn’t have a particular destination in mind, especially when she paused at a crossroads, looked up and down, and as if at the last moment decided on a left-hand turn.

‘So where in Australia are you from?’

‘Ah, well done. Americans often mistake my accent for English somehow. The Hunter River Valley. It’s in New South Wales.’ The longing in her voice prompted his next question.

‘You miss it?’

She looked up at him with a smile that was both wondrous and a little sad.

‘Yes.’ She shrugged her slim shoulders in the overly large winter coat. ‘This is...strange, and... unfamiliar—but oddly familiar if you know what I mean? Too many TV shows, I suppose.’

She scrunched her nose up as she chose her words. He liked it. It was cute. Though he couldn’t remember liking cute before.

‘New South Wales is beautiful. And open. Not like...’ She gestured with her hands towards the tall buildings around them in explanation.

‘It takes a while to get used to.’

‘Different to where you’re from?’ she asked, cocking her head to the side, as if trying to work something out about him.

‘Yes, very different to Ter’harn,’ he replied, putting stress on the name of his country.

‘And Ter’harn is...?’

‘On the African continent. But it has the benefit of being a coastal country, so has deserts, mountains and a seafront.’

‘What more could you want?’ she asked, smiling, stirring the pit in his stomach.

I could want not to go back. I could want not to take the throne.

But he didn’t say those things. He never said those things.

‘So why are you here in New York?’ he asked instead of voicing his secret thoughts. Because he was genuinely concerned that she’d somehow be able to pull them from the vault he kept them in.

‘To study, train and learn. I’m going to be a jockey,’ she said with pride. Genuine pride, not embarrassment or shame, not coy. ‘My father trained some of the best riders in the world.’

‘And he trained you?’

‘Oh, God, no,’ she said, laughing easily again. ‘He wanted me as far from professional riding as possible. But I had the bug. I have the bug. He...gave up a lot for me. And though he might not have wanted me to ride, I see how proud he is when I win. It’s a legacy and I want to live up to it.’

For a moment he wondered if someone in the palace might have put her up to this. But there was nothing in those eyes apart from truth. And suddenly, he was just a little jealous. He’d give almost anything to feel that way about being a future ruler. To want it, to want to be good at it. He wondered if he ever would.

They rounded the corner and found themselves at Washington Square Park, still open even at this time of night. It was littered only with the die-hards, freezing their backsides off in the middle of winter. He was about to ask about her mother when she spun around to face him.

‘So what do I call you?’ she asked, rubbing the bite of the cold winter air from her hands. ‘My liege? Your Highness? O Great One?’ she asked, turning back to cross the road, leaving him standing in a stream of her gentle mockery.

‘Danyl’s fine,’ he said with a laugh as he caught up with her. ‘And you?’

‘Mason,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she walked through the iron fencing around the park. She’d been marching ahead at such a pace, he almost walked into her as she pulled up short to look at the figures playing chess.

‘Chess!’ she exclaimed wholly unnecessarily, though he enjoyed the sheer delight in her voice. ‘I’ve always wanted to play but I never had time to learn. Not with all that was needed doing on the farm.’

‘Lucky,’ Danyl replied. ‘My father made me play almost every night. He would spend hours preaching the importance of each piece, valuing the Knight above all others and how it could teach me to be a better ruler.’ She’d turned to look at him and narrowed her eyes at his tone. Could she sense the slight bitterness he tried to hold back from his words?

She turned back to the players—old men sitting at the small tables, chessboards etched into the surfaces, wrapped in layers clutching steaming cups—and Danyl felt oddly nostalgic.

‘My father gave me a set when I left to come here for university.’

‘That’s lovely,’ she said with a gentle appreciation.

‘He kept back the Black Knight,’ Danyl amended drily.

She laughed a little and stepped back towards him. ‘I think that’s sweet,’ she decreed.

‘I think it’s silly,’ he responded, taking a step closer to her, bringing him into the warmth she emanated, that slight trace of lime and bay he’d caught earlier.

* * *

Mason looked up at the Prince before her, wondering at the ease that had descended between them. The laughter he drew from her, the memories. Usually she was much more self-contained, ‘closed off’ as Francesca had complained once. But walking with him, talking to him...it felt as if she were a different person, as if she were being her true self, but better. It was a strange feeling.

From the streets and out of the surrounding buildings, voices began to cry out. The countdown to the New Year had begun. The cries rose up around them, breaking into the moment of silence Mason might have held for ever. They were standing so close she could feel the heat from his body.

Ten, nine, eight...

He was so much taller than her, she had to angle her head back to look up at him. Rather than making her feel small, as her diminutive height usually did, it made her feel protected, surrounded by him.

‘Would it be inappropriate for me to kiss you at midnight?’ he asked. His voice, lower and huskier than it had been before. She felt, rather than saw, his palms flatten out against his legs, as if he were preventing himself from reaching for her. Until she gave him permission. Until she allowed it.

She shrugged her shoulder as the subtle tension that had hummed between them since leaving the Langsford built to fever pitch. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The way it had been as she’d led them further away from the hotel. It increased as the time to midnight decreased. Was she really going to let a prince kiss her?

Seven, six, five...

‘I suppose it’s not as if you’re spoilt for choice,’ she replied, looking around them briefly at the few groups that had spilled onto the roads around the park, before being pulled back to his gaze—the one that had not left her.

‘There’s always a choice, Mason.’

Four, three two...

He was giving her an out. He knew it, she knew it. But, looking into his deep smoked-whisky-coloured eyes, she thought she might drown, thought she might not be able to breathe if she didn’t take the chance...the chance to act on the heady desire sparkling between them.

In answer to his question, she reached up to his tie and gently tugged his head down towards hers.

One.

His firm lips pressed against hers, sending a thousand little bursts across her skin...but it wasn’t enough. As his tongue gently swiped over her bottom lip, flames licked up her spine and shivered out over her entire body. Another swipe begged entry, a third demanded it, and she opened her mouth and met his tongue with hers. Her hands came up to the lapels of his coat, pulling him towards her, clinging to them as if she could no longer stand on her own two feet. Need and desire almost crushed her. Adrenaline poured through her veins as she pulled him deeper into a kiss she would never forget.

CHAPTER THREE
December, present day

‘YOU DIDN’T LEAVE me with much choice.’

‘There’s always a choice. You told me that once, remember?’ His own words, spoken in her Australian tones, echoed across the ten years almost to the day since he’d spoken them.

‘Will you put the gun down now? Or are you really going to shoot me?’ he asked.

‘It’s tempting. What are you doing here?’ Mason asked, without the accompanying sounds of her putting the gun away.

‘Can I turn around?’

‘Slowly.’

‘Slowly? For heaven’s sake, would you put it down before you hurt yourself? Or worse, me,’ Danyl said as he made a very slow turn on his feet.

‘I’m not stupid, I do know how to use—’

Danyl pushed the barrel of the gun away from both of them, leaned in, grabbed the toe of the gun with his palm and pushed up, effectively releasing her grip whilst tangling her arms up in each other. He pulled the shotgun towards him slightly, breaking her hold, and dropped it to the floor. The resulting force, however, brought her forward against him, and left her flush along his chest.

He didn’t know what angered him more, that she could have hurt herself, or that his body hadn’t got the message his head had spent the better part of ten years telling him. He let the former win the silent mental argument.

‘Are you mad?’ he demanded, his voice cutting through the miles of silence around them. ‘If that had gone off by accident, you would have just shot a prince!’

She peeled herself from his chest as if he were something contagious, muttering under her breath. He was pretty sure she’d just said that it would have been worth it.

He bit back the answering growl that threatened to emerge from his throat. Pushed down a voice that reminded him that he had stared down leaders of some of the world’s greatest economies, he had resolved international disputes that could have escalated into all-out warfare, and that he should be able to handle one wayward Aussie jockey. Even if she had once broken his heart.

‘Is there any coffee left? I’ve been travelling for hours to get here.’

‘No coffee. No fire. I put it out before I knew it was you.’ There was a distinct lack of sympathy in her tone. ‘I’ll ask again. What are you doing here, Danyl?’ The sigh that left her lips sounded far too emotional for a simple, polite enquiry.

‘You haven’t replied to my parents’ invitation to the gala.’

In the shards of moonlight peeking through the clouds racing across the night sky, he saw an archly raised eyebrow.

‘You came all this way to find out if I’m attending a party?’

‘Yes,’ he ground out between clenched teeth, aware of just how stupid it sounded.

‘Of course! Silly me. I’ll just pop onto my private jet, fly halfway round the world, deck myself out in a pretty dress, smile for the cameras and then leave. No biggie.’

* * *

Mason could tell that he was surprised by her sarcasm. And perhaps the sting of acidity threaded through her words too. When they had first met, he’d encountered her fire, her youthful joy, her optimism. But Mason didn’t think that she’d met him with the layer of sarcastic self-defence she’d developed in the years since. There were so many reasons she couldn’t go to the palace, but the one she’d given wasn’t any less valid than the others.

She turned back to the remnants of the fire and the large felled tree trunk that lay beside the damp, smoking ash, lowering herself to sit on the bark as delicately as any born princess would take to the throne. That he stayed standing irritated her, but was something she should get used to, she chided herself. She had long ago lost the right to stand beside him.

‘This gala is important to my parents. It is quite likely to be the last that they hold as rulers of Ter’harn.’

‘They’re stepping down?’ Mason asked, looking at Danyl not as the young, rakish playboy she’d once known, nor as the man before her, but as a royal. His image had refracted over the years, reformed into that of a king. It made her feel...sad.

‘They are discussing it. And as such it is absolutely vital that it is perfect,’ he stated, and the hard, determined look in his eyes made him into the powerful man lauded in the press as one of the future ‘Kings to Keep an Eye On’, as one particular paper had remarked. It washed away any memories of the man-child she had once known. Even back then there had been traces of Danyl’s search for perfection. Hints at his need to be the unblemished, practically perfect in every way, figurehead for his parents. For his country.

‘Veranchetti has been brought to the palace in Ter’harn. Even John is coming.’

Mason frowned. ‘Is this what you want, or what your parents what?’

‘Would it matter?’ he asked.

Mason bit back the instinct to answer in the affirmative. It surprised her how much it did matter. Instead she focused between the lines. ‘So even a prince must bend to a queen?’ she asked.

The effect was instantaneous. His shoulders spread as his spine straightened, his head rearing back just slightly to allow him to view her from above his proud nose. ‘No. But I do bend to my mother,’ he conceded, his words muddying the arrogance in his stance just a little.

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ she said, the words rising unbidden.

‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...’

‘It’s okay. I get it. I’d do anything for Pops. Which is why I can’t come to the gala.’

Finally he took a seat opposite the dark black pit where the fire had once been.

‘There’s too much going on at the farm at the moment,’ she said, trying to explain, reaching for a reason he might understand and not question.

‘It’s just for a couple of days,’ he interjected.

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