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‘He gave a fantastic after-dinner speech—funny, moving, intelligent and short!’
‘I hope he paid the writer lots.’
‘Methinks I detect a note of cynicism,’ Carole said as they turned towards the service lift. ‘Don’t you approve of the monarchy?’
How could she say that Prince Luka had made such an impact on her she couldn’t think straight? It sounded foolishly impetuous, like falling in love at first sight.
Alexa shrugged. ‘As an institution I think it’s probably on its way out, but our lot have done pretty well by us, so who am I to tell the Dacians how to run their country? If they like their Prince, that’s fine. And I gather he’s doing great things for them with his bank.’
Pressing the button to call the lift, Carole said in an awed voice, ‘The bank uses the Dacian crown jewels as security.’
Suddenly tired, Alexa covered a yawn. ‘Crown jewels?’ she said vaguely. ‘Oh, yes, I remember—don’t they have fabulous emeralds?’
‘And the rest! Literally worth a prince’s ransom.’ The lift slid to a halt in front of them, doors opening. ‘Have you got your car?’ Carole asked, jabbing the button to keep the doors apart.
Alexa shook her head. ‘It’s in dry dock. Something to do with the radiator, I think. Whatever, it made funny noises.’
‘Then take a taxi—and keep the receipt because you’ll be reimbursed.’
‘I’ll drop it off or post it to you. Goodnight.’
After the lift had whirred Carole upwards Alexa took the next one down to the ground floor, but one glance at the foyer changed her mind about trying to get a taxi there.
People were pouring out, taxis leaving as soon as they’d arrived, doormen moving fast to clear the crowd. Not to worry—the nearest taxi rank was only a couple of hundred yards away, just around the corner of a well-lit street. And as the hotel car park opened onto the same street there’d be enough passing traffic to make it perfectly safe.
Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Alexa set off, shivering slightly because it had rained while she’d been offering delicious food to the rich and powerful.
Down in the basement car park, in the restricted area, Luka of Dacia stood beside the anonymous car his agent had hired and listened courteously to his head of security.
‘At least let me follow you in another car,’ Dion said urgently. ‘I don’t like anything about this—why do they want you to go alone to meet them?’
Luka said calmly, ‘These men have been fighting a desperate war for the past twenty years—a war that’s turned brother against brother, father against son. I don’t imagine they trust anyone any more.’ He understood their behaviour. His life had been built on a lack of trust.
‘That’s no reason to put yourself in their power,’ Dion expostulated angrily. ‘Luka, I beg of you, think again! Your father would never have permitted you to take such a risk.’
‘My father judged risks differently from you.’
Dion said in exasperation, ‘Your father would have risked everything for Dacia. This is not for Dacia—these people are nothing to you—their Pacific island is as far from Dacia as any place can be. Let them fight their futile war until they’re all dead!’
Luka’s brows rose but his voice was crisp and abrupt as he said, ‘Somehow I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that. Apart from my obvious neutrality, they must have a reason to choose me as an intermediary between them and their opponents.’
‘What possible reason can they have?’
‘That’s what I plan to find out. These people aren’t rebels—they are the elected government of Sant’Rosa. So they’re not going to kill or kidnap me. And apart from the humanitarian aspects I have also to consider that although their country may be in ruins now it has the largest copper mine in the Asian Pacific region, not to mention other extremely valuable minerals, and the possibility of a flourishing tourist industry. Good pickings for the bank.’
Dion, who knew perfectly well that it was the humanitarian aspects that had persuaded his Prince, said angrily, ‘Why ask for this secret meeting late at night and alone?’
‘Possibly because they don’t want to lose face. If tonight leads to further discussions between the two factions on Sant’Rosa, and if I can persuade them to accept some sort of protocol for peace, the Bank of Dacia can help them rebuild their economy. By ensuring their prosperity, I can help promote ours.’ He paused, then added coolly, ‘My father would have thought any—every—sacrifice worth that.’
Dion’s frown deepened at the complete determination in his Prince’s voice. ‘Let me come with you,’ he said, knowing it was hopeless. ‘No one will know I’m there.’
‘I will know,’ Luka said inflexibly. ‘I gave them my word I’d go alone, and I intend to keep it.’ He looked down at the man he called friend and demanded, ‘Give me your word you won’t do anything to jeopardise this meeting.’
Dion met the Prince’s hard eyes with something like anguish. ‘You have it,’ he said stiffly, and stood back, holding the door open to let his ruler into the car.
Luka slid behind the wheel, his face sombre as he turned the key and heard the engine purr into life. Although he was early for the meeting, he was also a stranger to Auckland, so in spite of memorising the route he’d probably make enough wrong turnings to use up the extra hour.
Putting the car into gear, he eased it out of the parking bay and through the car park, slid his card into the slot and waited for the grille to roll back.
A security man posted there gave him a keen look and a respectful nod—another instance of the meticulous attention to detail by the conference planners.
The wet street appeared deserted, but his eyes narrowed when he saw a woman striding towards the corner; adrenalin pumped through him as he noticed the two men coming up behind her, leashed violence smoking around them like an aura. They were taking care not to make a noise—hunters with prey in their sights.
Luka’s hand thudded onto the horn and he stamped on the accelerator. The stalked woman jumped and whirled, mouth opening in a scream he could hear even over the squealing tyres and revving engine. By the time he’d driven across the footpath between her and the men she’d backed into the wall, hands in front of her in a classic posture of self-defence.
Trained? No, but ready to defend herself, Luka guessed with approval, himself expert in a lethal martial art. He leapt out of the car, but the two men were already sprinting across the street.
Luka ignored them. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded harshly.
The street lamp revealed a face he recognised, a face that had lodged like a burr in his mind since she’d offered him a savoury before dinner. A highly appropriate offering, he’d thought then—oysters for sexual stamina. He’d looked into eyes, like a blast of winter set between black lashes and brows, and wanted her with a violence that startled and irritated him.
‘I’m fine, thanks to you,’ she said, the words coming clumsily.
Although she was pale her wide, soft mouth was held under tight discipline. Unwillingly Luka admired her self-control even while some part of him wondered what she’d look like when she lost it.
Wild; those fantastic ice-grey eyes half hidden by heavy eyelids, her hair tossed and tumbled like skeins of copper silk… The flush of passion would turn her skin to peaches and cream, and her mouth would soften into a sensuous welcome.
To take his mind off that purely male speculation—and the stir it created in his body—he suggested quietly, ‘You can drop your hands now. You’re quite safe.’
They fell to her sides. She managed a rapid, set smile and said, ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
Her teeth bit into her bottom lip for a moment before she answered, ‘For getting involved.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Some people don’t,’ she said, dragging a sharp breath into her lungs.
Luka wrenched his gaze from the extremely interesting lift and fall of her breasts. In a voice he realised was too harsh, he demanded, ‘Who are you, and just what are you doing in a back street at this time of night?’
‘I’m Alexa Mytton,’ she answered, stiffening as her chin came up, ‘and I’m going to the taxi rank around the corner.’
‘Why not ask one of the doormen to get you a cab?’
So he’d recognised her. Something warm and satisfied, a kind of purr of femininity, smoothed over Alexa. Afraid she’d fall apart if she relaxed, she straightened her shoulders and said quickly, ‘I’m not a guest at the hotel. Thanks very much for being so quick to respond. I’ll—I’ll go now and get a taxi.’
‘I’ll walk there with you,’ he said with a crisp purpose that warned her he wasn’t going to leave her there alone.
Clamping down on a shiver, the aftermath of the terror that had surged through her, she said feebly, ‘You can’t leave your car blocking the way.’
‘Then can I offer you a lift to the rank? You are really in no fit state to walk there by yourself.’ A hint of impatience threaded his decisive voice.
Alexa knew she should say no and head briskly off. She glanced up into a face carved in granite, and then looked away, her stomach knotting; although definitely a dangerous man, there was no criminal menace about him. The peril radiating from him was the simple, sensual danger a potent male represented to a woman’s composure.
‘Thank you,’ she said tightly, repressing another shiver.
With courteous speed the Prince put her into the front seat beside him and drove around the corner.
And of course the taxi rank was empty—as was the street, apart from one man lurching from lamppost to lamppost. Alexa stifled a little hiss of dismay.
‘If you’ll trust me with your address I’ll take you home,’ the man beside her said with an aloofness that should have reassured her as he pulled into the empty space in the taxi rank, clearly not at all concerned by the prospect of any cruising cab-driver’s outrage.
‘Thank you, but you don’t need to do that,’ she told him swiftly. ‘Perhaps you could take me to the nearest police station—if it’s not too much trouble,’ she added swiftly when he hesitated.
‘Of course,’ he said remotely, and put the car into gear again. When she’d given him instructions he said evenly, ‘Promise me that you won’t again walk by yourself at night in the inner city.’
‘I don’t make a habit of it. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ she defended herself. ‘I suppose they thought it would be easy enough to grab my bag and get away before anyone arrived.’
‘Perhaps. And perhaps they didn’t want money.’
‘What else would they have wanted?’ she asked, then flushed at his derisive glance. A slow cold shudder tightened her skin. She’d only had one glimpse of their faces before they’d turned and sprinted across the street, but they were imprinted on her mind. ‘They can’t possibly have thought they could get away with…assaulting me on a public street when traffic and pedestrians could arrive—’
‘You forget the car,’ he broke in. ‘And surely your mother told you that beautiful women are always prey.’
‘What car?’ His words chilled her, yet she tingled because he’d called her beautiful.
The swift blade of the Prince’s glance skimmed her profile. ‘They’d parked down that little alley over the street. Didn’t you hear them drive off?’
‘No.’ Because her whole attention had been focused on him. Fear cramped her stomach as she realised how close she’d been to disaster. Alexa muttered through teeth she had to clench, ‘It was just bad luck—’
‘And foolishness,’ he said with a bite in his tone, startling her by pulling into the kerb and shouldering free of his jacket.
Before she had time to say more than, ‘What on—?’ he tossed the garment at her. It landed on her lap, warm and as superbly cut as the dinner jacket he’d been wearing in the hotel.
‘Wrap that around you,’ he commanded, when she stared mutely at him. ‘You’re shocked and cold.’
Startled and dismayed, she pushed at the garment. ‘I’m all right—’
‘You’re shivering,’ he pointed out. When she didn’t move—couldn’t move—he commanded, ‘Lean forward.’
Alexa reacted to the crack of authority in his words with automatic obedience. He dropped the garment around her shoulders, pulling it down to cover her arms.
As the cloth enfolded her sensation splintered in the pit of her stomach. Still warm from his body, the jacket sparked a violent, primal tug of awareness deep inside her, an awareness made keener, more intense by the faint, clean scent that had to be his—scent only a lover would recognise.
‘All right?’ he asked, frowning. He dropped his hands over hers, clasping them as he said more gently, ‘You’ve had a very nasty experience, but it’s over now. You’re safe.’
‘Thanks to you,’ she muttered. Safe? When every cell in her body was drumming with a wild, strange need?
He said something in a language that sounded like Italian before freeing her and turning away to set the car in motion. As it pulled away from the taxi rank he asked in English, ‘I have forgotten where we turn next.’
Still shaking inside, she gave him directions. Had he really said something like ‘dangerously beautiful’ in what must be his mother tongue?
Of course not. She tried to straighten her trembling mouth. In spite of a superficial resemblance, the Dacian language was not Italian.
But he found her attractive.
So what? Being rescued from what might have been an exceedingly nasty situation was no excuse for behaving like a halfwit. Prince Luka Bagaton of Dacia might possess courage and some kindness, he might even think she was beautiful, but he was way out of her reach—and she wasn’t reaching! A quick fling with a visiting prince was not her style.
Alexa stiffened her spine and her shoulders. When the car stopped outside the police station she groped for the door handle and said in her most formal voice, ‘Thank you very much for your help. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in New Zealand.’
After a quick glance at his watch, he said, ‘I’ll come in with you.’
Alexa objected. ‘You don’t need to become tangled up in this. You were on your way somewhere…’
To Sandra Beauchamp’s bed, perhaps?
Without looking at her he said, ‘I saw them too. I may be able to help identify them.’
‘I…’ She hesitated, then blurted, ‘You don’t want to get involved.’
‘You’re right,’ he said, courteously inflexible, ‘but it is my duty.’
CHAPTER TWO
HALF an hour later, after separate interviews, the sergeant complimented them both. ‘I wish all our witnesses were as observant as you two! With such good descriptions we should nail them before they do any damage.’ She looked at Alexa and said, ‘We’ll contact you if we need to.’
Alexa nodded. In the small room where she’d made her statement and drawn a sketch of both assailants she’d been given tea and some bracing, professional sympathy. It had helped, but her insides still felt as though someone had taken to them with a drill, and weak, irritating tears kept stinging her eyes.
Luka’s firm hand on her elbow ushered her out to his car. ‘You’ll have to direct me to your address,’ he said after a searching glance.
In a monotone Alexa guided him to her small flat in one of the inner city suburbs. He drove skilfully and well, although a couple of times she had to fill him in on New Zealand road rules.
Once they’d drawn up outside what had used to be a Victorian merchant’s house, now converted to flats, she said sincerely, ‘Thank you very much for everything you’ve done.’
The words stumbled to silence when he looked at her with cool, dispassionate irony, his angular features clamped into an expression of aloof withdrawal. Tension sparked through her, lifting the hair on her skin. Delayed shock, she thought protectively.
Swallowing, she continued with prickly determination, ‘I don’t like to think of what might have happened if you hadn’t come along.’
‘Don’t think of it. Your scream would have brought someone running. I did nothing,’ he said negligently and got out, swinging around the front of the car to open the door for her. ‘But promise me one thing.’
Clinging to the door, she braced herself. He was too close, but even as the thought formed he stepped back and she pulled herself upright on quivering legs.
‘What?’ she asked, her throat tightening around the words so that they emerged spiky with caution.
His smile was a flash of white in the darkness—sexy, knowledgeable and implacable. ‘That from now on you will call the doorman when you leave the hotel.’
‘From tomorrow I’ll be driving my own car, but I promise I won’t go walking alone at night,’ she responded quickly, groping in her bag for her keys. In her turn she smiled at him. Keep it impersonal, she warned herself, angry because she was so acutely conscious of him, tall and lethally masculine, his dark energy feeding some kind of hunger in her. ‘And I don’t work at the hotel,’ she added.
