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She took the device back from him. “It’s a tablet computer. Shall I put that technologically savvy women need not apply?”
“Not necessary, but you can put down that women with smart mouths need not apply.”
Her full lips curved slightly. “Someone has to keep you in line.”
“No one has to keep me in line. I’m going to be king.” That hadn’t kept Xander in line. In fact, he’d pulled himself straight out of line and put Stavros in front. But Stavros wouldn’t falter. He wouldn’t quit.
One well-shaped eyebrow lifted upward. “Oh? Is that so.” She typed something on her onscreen keyboard.
“What? What did you write?”
“Strong tyrannical tendencies. A possible negative in social interactions, possible positive in BA.”
“BA?”
“Bedroom activities. It’s shorthand. Don’t dwell on it,” she said, her tone snappy. “I told you attraction is considered. That said, do you require a virgin bride, Prince Drakos?”
“Stavros will do, and no, I don’t.” He shouldn’t be surprised by her frankness. She had a reputation for being bold, brash even. She also had a reputation for setting up unions that had led to successful mergers and increased fortunes. She was a relationships strategist, more than a matchmaker, and he’d been assured that there was no one better. She knew the rules of society, knew the function a practical marriage served.
His marriage, and securing it, meant nothing to him personally, and being able to pawn off the legwork on Jessica Carter had been too good of an idea to pass up. And if the press happened to pick it up, all the better. He had a reputation for doing things differently. Doing things his way. Turning away from how his father had run the country.
And this was as far from something his father would do as he could think of.
“That’s good,” she said. “It’s always awkward to ask women to submit proof of sexual history.”
“Do you do that?”
“I have. Though not just women.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Ah, now, if I told you I would have to kill you. I operate on the basis of strict anonymity. Unless those involved are seeking publicity, I don’t talk about my clients.”
“But word does spread,” he said. He’d seen an old school friend three weeks earlier, and the smugness had practically been dripping from him as he stood there with his new fiancée. Oxford educated. And a model. She was everything he’d asked for. Beauty and brains. And who had accomplished the feat?
Jessica Carter.
The woman the media called the World’s Most Elite Matchmaker. She catered to billionaires. CEOs, tycoons. Royalty. And she was renowned for making matches that lasted.
That was what he needed. He’d given up on allowing himself any sort of personal interest in the selection of his bride ever since he’d discovered that it was likely he would be assuming the throne for his absentee brother. His wants didn’t matter. He needed a woman who could be a princess, an icon for his country, an aide to his rule. Aside from that, he had some of his own ideas. Someone beautiful, of course. Someone smart. Philanthropic. Fertile.
It shouldn’t be too hard to find.
“This isn’t just about me, Ms. Carter, this is about Kyonos. My family has seen too much tragedy, too much …
upheaval. I have to be the rock. I have to provide a solid foundation for my people to rest on, and establishing a solid marriage is essential to that plan.”
The death of his mother, nineteen years ago, had shaken his people to the core. The abandonment of his older brother, the rightful heir, had caused months of instability. Stocks had tanked, trade had stalled, the housing market going into a deep freeze.
Why had the future ruler really left? Would he truly abdicate? What secrets were the Drakos family guarding beneath that veneer of polish and old world sophistication?
He had been determined to undo all of the unrest brought about by his brother. And he had done it. He’d revitalized Thysius, the largest city on the island, with posh hotels and trendy boutiques. He’d brought in new revenue by having the seat of his corporation on the island, a country much too small to house companies the size of his, when the owner wasn’t the crown prince.
He’d done much to drag his country back from the brink. From the age of eighteen his entire life had altered so that it revolved around his homeland. He hadn’t had the luxury of being a boy. Hadn’t had the luxury of feeling fear or sadness. He’d learned early on that feeling had no place in his world. A ruler, an effective ruler, had to be above such things.
“I understand that this is a big deal,” she said. “Not just in terms of your country, but for you. She is going to be your wife.”
He shrugged. “An acquisition I’ve long known I would make.”
Jessica let out a long, slow breath. “Mr.…Prince Drakos, will you please stop being so candid? It’s remarkably hard to sell a man who clearly has no interest in romantic love.”
“Try this for a tagline—marry the jaded prince and receive a title, a small island, a castle and a tiara. That might make up for it.”
“Money can’t buy love.”
“Nice. Trite, overdone, possible copyrighted by The Beatles, but nice. You might consider tacking this onto the end—love doesn’t buy happiness.”
Something changed in Jessica’s eyes, a shard of ice in the deep green that had been warm a moment before. “That’s for damn sure, but we’re talking about putting together a sales pitch. And you aren’t helping.”
He shifted. “Can’t you put something in my file about my impeccable table manners?”
“I haven’t witnessed them, and I don’t lie. You’re my client, yes, but there is a pool of women I work with on a regular basis, and I have great loyalty to them.”
It was intriguing. The way she flashed hot and cold. The way she presented herself, nearly demure, and then she opened that mouth. And such a lovely mouth, too. She was holding it tight. What would it take to make it soften?
The idea made his stomach tighten.
“And you think one of them is my queen?”
“If she isn’t, I’ll walk through all of Europe beating gold-plated bushes until a member of minor nobility falls out. I won’t stop until we get this settled.”
“You are supposed to be the best. You did manage to get a confirmed bachelor friend of mine to settle down.”
“That’s because, in my business, there’s no settling. It’s all about making the best match possible,” she said brightly.
“Somehow, I do not share your enthusiasm.”
“That’s okay, I have enough for both of us. Now …” She looked back down at her tablet computer. “Your sister’s wedding is in just a couple of weeks, and I don’t want you going with a date, are we clear?”
He frowned. “I wouldn’t have brought a date to a wedding.”
Weddings were where one picked up women; he didn’t see the point of bringing one with him. The thought reminded him that it had been a very, very long time since he’d picked up a woman.
“And no leaving with any of the bridesmaids,” she added. “You have to be seen as available, approachable and, oh yes, available.”
“You said that already.”
“It’s important. Obviously, we don’t want to put out a call for all eligible women in the kingdom to show up, so we need to go about this subtly.”
He frowned. “Why aren’t we putting out a call for all eligible women?”
“Look, Prince Charming, unless you want to put a glass slipper on a whole bunch of sweaty feet, you do this my way. That means you behave how I tell you to at Princess Evangelina’s wedding.”
“I wouldn’t have picked up a bridesmaid. My sister’s friends are far too young to interest me,” he said.
“Ah … so you have an age range,” she said, perking up. “That’s important.”
“Yes, no one as young as Evangelina. I’d say twenty-three at youngest. A ten-year age difference isn’t so bad. Maybe cap it at twenty-eight.”
She frowned. “Oh. All right.” She looked down at her computer, then up, then back down again, her mouth twitching, like she was chewing on something. Her words, he imagined. She looked up at him again. “Why, exactly, is anyone older than twenty-eight too old?”
“I need a wife who can have children. Preferably a few of them. Any older and …”
“Right,” she snapped, directing her focus downward again.
“If I ask you how old you are I’ll only make this worse, won’t I?” he asked dryly.
“I have no problem with my age, Prince Stavros, I’m thirty. Not that it’s your business.”
“It’s not personal.”
“I get it,” she said. “And I’m not applying anyway.”
“A pity,” he said, noticing the way color bled into her cheeks.
Jessica set her iPad on the ornately carved table to her right and put her hands in her lap, trying like crazy to stop the slight tremble in her fingers. She was saying all the wrong things. Letting her mouth run away with her. Not a huge surprise since she tended to get prickly when she got nervous.
She’d managed to make that little quirk work for her over the years. People found her bold approach refreshing. And that suited her, since it enabled her to keep all shields up and locked, fully protecting her from people getting too close. Without showing vulnerability.
And now, with Prince Stavros Drakos, was not the time to let her guard down. No, most especially not with him.
“I’ve managed to finagle three wedding invitations,” she said. “They will go to three girls that you and I will work at selecting sometime this week. At the wedding, you will speak to them for twenty minutes apiece, no more. And after that, I want you to pick one to advance to a higher tier. I’ve made a list of questions for you to consider asking.”
“I’m not even getting a full date?” he asked, dark eyebrows lifting.
She shifted in her chair. He was so sexy it was unnerving. Because his aesthetic appeal couldn’t be observed in the cool detached manner she might use to look at a nice piece of art. That was the way she’d been looking at men for the past few years. As lovely objects, nice to behold, but nothing that invoked feeling.
She’d let that part of herself go and she hadn’t missed it. Until now.
Stavros … well, he made a spark catch in her belly. One that had been entirely absent for so long now she’d thought it had gone out permanently. It was a disastrous realization.
She stood up and took a step away from him, hoping distance would bring clarity. Or at least control over her body.
“You don’t need a full date. Not at this stage. I’ve picked out a few candidates based on what we talked about over the phone. And now I’ve refined some of that, and I’ve got a number of women I’d like for you to have an initial meet with. You’ve been matched with them based heavily on compatibility. The kind we can establish from forms, anyway. Attraction,” she said, the word sticking in her throat for some reason, “is actually one of the simpler parts of this stage. But it’s not simple, not … not really.” She felt her stomach tighten. The way Stavros was looking at her was intense, his brown eyes locked with hers. He was gorgeous.
It was sort of ridiculous how hot he was. It was as if he’d splashed around in the finest end of the gene pool, only collecting the good, the bad rolling right off. Square jaw, straight, proud nose and his lips … they changed a lot. Firm and unyielding sometimes. And other times, when he smiled, they looked soft. Soft and … kissable.
She swallowed and tried not to think about how very long it had been since she’d been kissed. She tried even harder to stop thinking about kissing Stavros’s lips.
“Anyway,” she said, breathing in deeply. She knew what to say next, knew her system by heart. She could explain it in her sleep. And she could take a few more steps away from him while she did it. “We start with that base attraction. What I call ‘lightning bolt’ attraction—” like the kind she’d felt when she’d walked into Stavros’s office this morning “—or what many confuse with love at first sight. You’ll feel a stronger pull of that immediate attraction to at least one of the women at the wedding. As we go on, we’ll try and figure out which woman you feel a more lasting attraction for. But that’s a different phase of the program.”
“And you’re accusing me of lacking in romance. You have this all worked out to a cold, calculated system. I’m not complaining, but let’s be … what was the word you used? Candid. Let’s be candid, you and I.” A smile curved his lips and he rose from his desk, slowly rounding it. “You’re no more romantic than I am.”
His voice was like warm butter. It flowed over her body, so good, and so very, very bad for her. She cleared her throat. And took a step back. “All right, I’m not a romantic. Not really. I mean I was, at one time. But not so much now. What is romance? Warm fuzzies and the unrealistic ideals we project onto others when we’re first beginning a relationship. Romance is an illusion. That’s why I believe in matching people based on something concrete. From these basic principles, love can grow. And when the foundation is solid, I believe love can be real and lasting. It’s when people go with that lightning attraction only, with nothing to back it up, that’s when you have problems.”
He lifted his arm and ran his hand over his hair, the action stretching his crisp dress shirt tight over his well-defined chest. She wondered what muscles of that caliber would feel like beneath her hands. She’d never touched a chest that looked quite like that.
Oh, dear. Wandering thoughts again. And redirecting …
“So, is that what you did?” he asked. “Follow one of those flash attractions, or whatever you call them, and have it end in disaster?”
She laughed and turned, hoping to look like she was starting to pace and not like she was trying to put space between them. “Something like that.” A lot more complicated than that, but she wasn’t about to get into it. “The point is, I know what works.”
“But you aren’t married.”
She stopped midstep, wobbling slightly on her sky-high stilettoes. “I’m happily divorced, as it happens.” Happily might be overselling it, but she was rightfully divorced, that was for sure. “I just celebrated my four-year anniversary of unwedded bliss.”
He arched an eyebrow. “And you still believe in marriage?”
“Yes. But the fact that my marriage didn’t work helps with what I’m doing. I understand what breaks things down. And I understand how to build a solid foundation. You’ve heard of the wise man who built his house on the rock, I assume?”
“It’s buried somewhere in the ether of my debauched mind. Memories of childhood Sunday school lurk there somewhere.” Oh, he did that charming, naughty smile far too well. It was no wonder he had a reputation as the kind of man who could meet a woman and have her taking her clothes off for him five minutes later.
She found her own hand wandering to the top button of her dress and she dropped it quickly, taking another defensive step back. He answered that move by taking three steps forward.
She cleared her throat. “Excellent, well, I’m helping you build a marriage on a rock, rather than sand.”
His eyebrows lifted, one side of his mouth quirking into a smile. He took another two steps toward her. “Different than a marriage on the rocks?”
She stepped back. “Much.”
“Well, that is good to know,” he said.
“You and I will work together to create a strong partnership, for you and your country,” she said, with all the confidence she could pull out of her gut. Confidence she didn’t really feel.
He closed the distance between them and she took another step in the opposite direction, her back connecting with the wall. She forced a smile, and a step toward him.
He held his hand out, so large and tan and masculine. She just stared at it for a moment, trying to remember what one was supposed to do when they were offered a hand.
Her brain jolted into gear and she stuck her hand out. He gripped it, heat engulfing her as his fingers made contact with her bare skin. She wished now that she’d worn her little white gloves with the pearls. She’d thought them a bit quirky for a business meeting, but the shield against his touch would have been nice.
She just hadn’t realized. Sure, she’d seen his picture, but a picture didn’t do justice to the man. He was broad, nearly a foot taller than her, and he smelled like heaven. Like clean skin laced with a trace of sandalwood.
He made her feel small and feminine. And like she was losing her mind.
She shook his hand once, then dropped her own back to her side, hiding it behind a fold in her full skirt as she clenched it into a fist, willing the burning sensation to ease.
“I’ll hold you to it, Ms. Carter. And I warn you, I can be a tough taskmaster.”
