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Prince Guy of Dacia, Lauren thought woodenly, jettisoning hopes she’d barely recognised.
Oh, she knew that name; prince, hugely successful businessman, lover of beautiful women, and reclusive object of intense media interest. She closed her eyes, but when she opened them he was still frowning out from the page.
She’d heard of him, seen photographs—why hadn’t she recognised him when she’d met him in Sant’Rosa?
Because stubble had blurred the aristocratic features, and because—well, because you simply didn’t expect to find a European prince on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
And because she’d been so aware of him that she’d temporarily lost her mind!
Why hadn’t he told her? She bit her lip. Presumably he expected her to know that Bagaton was the family name of the Dacian royal family. Well, she hadn’t.
A turbulent mix of emotions—a stark, wholly irrational sense of betrayal, fury and dark desolation—razed every thought but one from her brain. She had been a complete and utter fool, wilfully ignoring anything that didn’t fit her first impression of him.
No wonder the Press had met her with such avid determination at the airport! This jet, with its luxurious seats and its atmosphere of privilege and power, its crested china and silver, was either his or his cousin’s—the reigning prince.
The distance between Lauren Porter and their world of birth and privilege loomed like a cliff face, dangerous and insurmountable.
How long would it be before someone started digging into her background? Her stomach tightened as fear kicked in. If they hadn’t already begun. She was already linked to Marc; would someone pursue that link and find out that she and her boss were half-siblings?
If anyone made the connections, she’d be revealed as the bastard daughter of Marc Corbett’s father, the cuckoo in her father’s nest. She could cope with that, but her parents would be exposed to sly, sniggering insinuations that would hurt them unbearably and strain her father’s precarious health.
All to sell a few more newspapers…
Trying to swallow the lump in her throat, Lauren stared down at the photograph of Guy. By the forbidding expression of his angular face he’d been furious at being snapped. Setting her jaw, she forced herself to read the rest of the blurb.
Prince Guy is probably the richest of the playboy princes; he inherited millions from his mother, a Russian heiress and great beauty, and he set up his own software firm after leaving university. It now earns him millions each year. Fiercely protective of his privacy, he’s also a humanitarian who is interested in ecology.
Lauren closed the magazine and fought back despair. If she’d known who he was, she’d have taken her chances on Sant’Rosa.
As for making love with him—never!
Somewhere deep inside her, a mocking voice laughed. Oh, yes, you would, it mocked. You wanted him desperately. You still do. And you’re angry with him because not telling you means he didn’t trust you.
Which was ridiculous, because she hadn’t trusted him with the entire truth about herself.
Her ears popped as the plane banked and turned. Lauren stared stonily ahead, trying to convince herself that no one would be able to find out that Marc was her half-brother.
It was extremely unlikely that they’d discover that he had donated his bone marrow to her. And why should they search twenty-nine years in the past to discover that her mother and Marc’s father had been on the same cruise through the Caribbean?
No, her parents were safe from media prying—and even if they weren’t, Guy had pulled them out of the vortex and into temporary safety.
When the seat-belt sign flashed on with a melodious chime, she relaxed her hands from their death grip on each other in her lap and began to breathe deeply, and out, in and out, until the wild turbulence of her emotions abated. If it killed her she’d be calm, because she didn’t dare be anything else.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u88f76df3-e888-5052-864b-e224043d63bd)
AT THE Dacian airport the steward escorted Lauren into a private room, empty except for flowers and some comfortable lounge furniture, then went off to get her luggage. She waited tensely until Guy came into the room.
Her heart clenched. You can do this, she told herself with ice-cold resolve, determined not to wilt under his keen scrutiny. You’ll be polite and crisp and very, very restrained. You are infatuated with this man, but it won’t last, because you won’t let it.
She took another deep breath.
Guy said, ‘Your luggage will be here in a few minutes. Did you manage a nap?’
‘No,’ she said, adding with a smile that hurt the muscles in her cheeks, ‘I’m fine, thank you.’
He didn’t seem to notice anything different about her attitude, but she didn’t fool herself. Like every predator, he was acutely tuned to his surroundings.
Neither spoke as they went down in a lift and walked out of the building into heat that sucked the breath from her lungs. Ahead, a limousine purred softly, like a waiting cat. Apart from that and the sound of a jet in the distance, it was blessedly silent. No hounds of the Press yapped around her, no lights flashed in her eyes. A uniformed man gave a short salute to Guy and held the back door open. Behind the wheel she made out the form of a driver.
Sliding into the seat, she commented in a voice with no expression at all, ‘It’s every bit as hot as the tropics, but not at all humid.’ And because she could no longer hold the question back, she asked with a cool lack of emphasis, ‘What exactly were you doing on Sant’Rosa?’
‘I have interests there. And friends.’ He glanced down at her, thick lashes veiling the glimmering depths of his eyes. His tone told her nothing as he went on, ‘Several years ago I spent a few weeks there as a hostage.’
A hostage?
Horrified, she asked unevenly, ‘How on earth did that happen?’
‘I delivered medical supplies during the civil war, and the government of Sant’Rosa saw a way of using me.’ He shrugged, looking straight ahead as the car drew smoothly away. ‘They kidnapped me to persuade my cousin to act as intermediary between them and the rebels.’
She stared at him. ‘What happened?’
‘I escaped the second night,’ he said nonchalantly. A swift grin reminded her again of the buccaneer she’d first met, as did the wry note in his voice when he added, ‘It wasn’t difficult; they were pretty half-hearted gaolers.’
She closed her eyes. ‘You escaped, but you stayed on the island? In the middle of a civil war?’
‘They were desperate,’ he said briefly. ‘And I liked them. They knew the Republic was ready to move troops across the border if there was any chance of a truce between the warring sides. In fact, we fought off an incursion while I was there.’
Appalled at the risks he’d taken, she demanded, ‘We fought off?’
His broad shoulders lifted. ‘I was involved in a very minor way,’ he said casually. ‘They were much better bush fighters than I was, but terror makes fast learners.’
‘Or dead ones,’ she said tightly.
‘Life’s for living; it’s not worth much if you’re forever looking over your shoulder.’
The car purred quietly down a road shared with an occasional donkey and many more motor-scooters, all ridden by young men with very white teeth who waved insouciantly at the limousine as it eased past them.
Lauren clamped her lips together to stop herself from raging at Guy for valuing his life so cheaply.
‘We’re heading inland to a villa up in the hills; I thought your parents would prefer it to the coast because it’s cooler there,’ he told her.
‘Thank you.’ She had to fight back a heavy thud of disappointment. For some reason she’d thought they’d be at the same place…
Fool! A sensible woman would want as much distance between them as possible.
But she wasn’t sensible about Guy. From the moment she’d seen him, villainously unshaven on Sant’Rosa, she’d battled a ferocious, elemental appetite that had nothing, she reminded herself stringently, to do with love or respect.
He said, ‘My cousin, Luka, and his wife would like to meet you, but they’re sure that you and your father need to rest today, so it will probably be tomorrow.’
‘I’ll look forward to that,’ she said untruthfully.
He lifted a lean hand to acknowledge a wave from a donkey rider. Olive trees shimmered in the slow breeze, their leaves gleaming silver against a sky as blue as heaven. Small plants and wild flowers grew against the bases of ancient stone walls that bordered the road.
Guy surveyed her, his eyes cool and intent. ‘What’s the matter?’
Lauren gathered her composure around like cling film, leaned back and showed her teeth.
‘Nothing,’ she said coolly. ‘Well, nothing apart from a dodgy marriage to a man who neglected to tell me he was a prince.’
His brows lifted. Wielding courtesy like a weapon, he said with suave distinctness, ‘It didn’t seem relevant at the time.’
‘Most people would consider it very relevant. I had no idea that you were a member of the Dacian royal family until—’ she glanced at her watch ‘—about half an hour ago, when I saw an article about you in a magazine. When we went through that ceremony on Sant’Rosa I did think Bagaton sounded vaguely familiar, but not enough to ring alarm bells.’
‘Alarm bells?’ he said softly. ‘Why should you be alarmed?’
She lifted her head and met his glinting gaze full on. ‘I’m not in the habit of marrying princes, even to get out of a bad situation.’
‘I didn’t tell you because you didn’t ask,’ he returned with cutting urbanity. ‘You found me useful, so you sensibly used me. Besides, it didn’t matter—it’s merely an accident of birth. The important thing on Sant’Rosa was to get you to safety.’ He flicked her a glance edged with satire. ‘You didn’t ask who I was when I came to you in Valanu.’
Lauren bit back the rash words threatening to tumble from her tongue but couldn’t stop herself from snapping, ‘I thought I knew who you were.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said softly, ‘I should ask you the real question.’
‘Which is?’ Although her voice was crisp with hauteur, she knew the moment she said the words that they should never have been spoken.
‘Why did you offer yourself to me in Valanu?’
Humiliation burned in her throat. Without thinking she flashed, ‘I felt sorry for you.’
His eyelashes drooped and for a frightening second she flinched at the very real menace she saw in the hooded eyes.
But when he said, ‘You have a charming—and very effective—way of feeling sorry for men,’ his voice was insultingly indifferent. ‘Not that it matters. The title is completely irrelevant—apart from affection for my cousins and the islanders, I have only sentimental ties to Dacia. Prince Luka has a very promising four-year-old son, and the prospect of another arriving before the end of the year, so Dacia is well set up without me, a situation I’m more than happy with.’
‘Lucky you,’ she said, her voice as wooden as her expression. ‘All of the deference and no responsibility.’
He shrugged. ‘I assume you’re blaming me for the Press frenzy at the airport.’
She said quietly, ‘No. You could have told me who you were when you came to New Zealand to warn me the marriage might be valid, but I suppose there was always the chance that I might have charged you a handsome sum for a quick divorce.’
‘I can deal with blackmailers,’ he said on a ruthless note. ‘Perhaps I should have told you, but it seems pretentious to announce that I’m a prince to people who couldn’t care less.’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘As for the media—’ His voice hardened even more. ‘Yes, if I hadn’t been who I am I doubt very much if there’d have been any reporters to meet you in London. I’m sorry you got caught up in it, but I’m not answerable for people who like to season their breakfasts with highly suspect gossip about princes and pop stars and sportsmen.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ she said in a toneless voice, feeling small and petty.
He covered her rigid hands with his warm, strong one. ‘But knowing who I am wouldn’t have made any difference on Sant’Rosa—you’d have married me if I’d had to hold a pistol to your head.’
Her heart picked up speed, the pulse at her wrist fluttering under his fingers.
Of course he noticed. After a charged second he said on a raw note, ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you.’
Lauren had to force herself to return, ‘Then don’t. It’s not necessary.’
He lifted his hand, but as the car left the main road and began to climb, he said deliberately, ‘I don’t seem to be able to forget that for a few days we were lovers. Can you?’
Her bones melted as images from those few days flashed across her mind with full sensory impact. Attacked by a bitter regret, she said doggedly, ‘It was a time out of time—a lovely tropical fantasy, but now we’re in the real world, and it’s over.’
His ironic laughter stunned her. She flashed a sideways glance and shivered at the compelling determination of his expression. ‘Liar,’ he said calmly.
When Lauren opened her mouth to object he sealed her indignant response with his fingertip. Mutely, her body struggling with an overload of sensation, she stared at his arrogant, handsome face.
With that fascinating hint of an accent underlying each forceful word, he said, ‘No matter how hard we try to pretend, when I touch you we both feel that electricity. Don’t try to convince me—or yourself—that it doesn’t exist. What we need to talk about is how we’re going to deal with it.’
He removed his finger from her lips and sat back in the seat, his profile an angular, uncompromising statement against the silver-grey foliage of the olive trees lining the road.
With stubborn precision Lauren said, ‘We don’t do anything about it.’
Still quivering inside, she dragged her head around to stare blindly out of the window, fuming when Guy made no answer. Instead she heard him speak in Dacian through the intercom to the driver. His voice, easy and relaxed, told her that he wasn’t suffering any inner turmoil.
Lauren clawed back the tattered remnants of her control. Her father had once told her that the tone of a man’s servants told much about the master; listening to the driver, she decided that his respectful reply was entirely free from servility, and that he liked Guy.
Who said no more about the attraction that smouldered between them. Instead, with infuriating self-possession he turned into a tour guide, explaining the age and the reason for various interesting ruins along the way, and discoursing on his cousin’s plans for the island.
The villa in the hills was a tall, square house, redeemed from severity by blush-pink walls and shutters in a muted dark green. Gardens stretched around it, the trees and arbours melding inconspicuously into olive groves.
Delighted by its faded charm, Lauren leaned forward a little as the car swung up the drive.
From beside her Guy observed, ‘According to family tradition the house was built for the Venetian mistress of one of the nineteenth-century princes. She had an embarrassment of children, but he spent most of his time here.’
Lauren stiffened. ‘Why didn’t he marry her?’
‘He was already married to a very stern woman who never, so the story goes, smiled.’
‘I wouldn’t smile either if my husband flaunted a mistress in my face,’ Lauren said astringently, reaching for her bag as the car slowed down.
The second the words left her mouth she realised she’d made a mistake. Guy’s brow lifted and he surveyed her with a twisted smile. ‘Is it the infidelity or the flaunting that you disapprove of?’
‘Both,’ she said shortly, wishing that she could tell him about her relationship with Marc. She couldn’t, of course, because it wasn’t her secret.
Her mother came out of the shadows beneath the portico, graceful and composed as always, the grey eyes she’d bestowed on her daughter serene and limpid. Nevertheless her smile was a little too set, her movements too careful to be natural.
Hurrying out of the car, Lauren gave her a quick hug. ‘How’s Dad?’
Isabel smiled at Guy. ‘Fine. He’s waiting inside for you.’
As Lauren ran up the steps she heard her mother say, ‘Guy, thank you so much for organising this— I don’t know what we’d have done without you.’
