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Her breath caught. “I’m … I can handle you.”
He chuckled, low and dark, like rich coffee. “We’ll see.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_e74686c1-9eca-5444-ba33-4bcb093c182c)
“ARE you finding the accommodations to your satisfaction, Ms. Carter?”
Jessica whirled around, her heart thudding against her breastbone. Stavros was standing in the hallway of her hotel, a small smile on his face. “I … Yes, very. I didn’t expect to see you here. Today. Or ever.”
He looked around them, as though checking to see if he was in the right place. “This is one of my hotels.”
“Yes, I know, but I assumed …”
“You assumed that I had no real part in the running of my hotels, casinos, et cetera. But I do. In another life I might have been a businessman.” His tone took on a strange, hard tinge. “As it is, I divide my time between being a prince and running a corporation. Both are equally important.”
She tried to smile and took a step back. “So, to borrow a phrase … of all the hotels you own, on all the island, you walk into mine?”
His sensual lips curved upward. It was hard to call it a smile. “Oh, this was calculated, but I also had a business reason for coming by.”
Her stomach fluttered. Down, girl. What was wrong with her? A man hadn’t made a blip on her personal radar for a long, long time. And Stavros was a client.
Anyway, she wasn’t quite through licking her wounds.
The loss of her five-year marriage, and the circumstances surrounding it, had left her feeling far too bruised to jump back into dating. Which had been fine. She’d left her job, poured everything into starting her own company and perfecting her system of matchmaking.
Those who can’t do, teach, those who can’t find a match, match others.
That wasn’t true. She could find a match. Had found one, back when she’d believed in falling in love accidentally with the aid of some sort of magic that might make it stick. As if it were so simple.
And then life had taken her dreams, her hopes, her beliefs and feelings, and it had jumbled them all together until the wreckage was impossible to sift through.
Until it had been much easier to simply walk out of the room and close the door on the mess, than to try and find some sort of order again.
But her ex-husband had no business wiggling into her thoughts. Not now. Not ever, really. That was over. She’d changed.
Her job had always seemed important. At first, being a matchmaker had been all about indulging her romantic streak. She’d been in love with love. With the mystical quality she’d imagined it possessed.
She knew differently now. Knew that relationships were about more than a flutter in your stomach. Now her job seemed essential in new ways. To prove to herself that it could still be real. That people could get married and stay married.
It was almost funny. She created successful relationships, successful marriages. And she went to bed alone every night and tried not to dwell on her broken one.
She’d had mixed success with that. But she’d had phenomenal success with her business. And that was what she chose to focus on.
“All right, what was your reason?” she asked, taking another step back.
“First off, I had to speak to my manager about handling all of the incoming guests for Mak and Eva’s wedding. One of my gifts to them. Putting Mak’s family up in the hotel. He could do it himself, and he’s argued with me about it no end, but I’m insistent.”
“And you do get your way, don’t you?” she asked. She had a feeling he never heard the word no. That if a command was issued from his royal lips everyone in the vicinity hopped to obey him. It wasn’t that he had the manner of a tyrant, but that he had such a presence, a charisma about him. People would do whatever it took to be in his sphere. To get a look from him, a smile.
He was dangerous.
“Always.” The liquid heat in his eyes poured into her, his husky smooth tone making her entire body feel like it was melting. She was pretty sure she was blushing.
Oh, yeah, dangerous didn’t even begin to cover it.
She cleared her throat, “And the other thing?”
“I came to get you. If you’re going to be aiding me in the selection of my future bride, you need to understand me. And in order to do that, you need to understand my country.”
“I’ve done plenty of research on Kyonos and …”
“No. You need to see my country. As I see it.”
She really didn’t relish the idea of spending more time with him. Because it wasn’t really her practice to buddy up to a client, though, knowing them was essential. But mostly because, between yesterday and today, the strange fluttery feeling in her stomach hadn’t gone away. The one that seemed to be caused by Stavros’s presence.
“Are you offering me a tour?” She should say no. Say she had paperwork. Something.
“Something like that.”
“All right.” She wasn’t quite sure how the agreement slipped out, but it had.
Well, it was best to agree with the one who was signing one’s very large check when all was said and done with the marriage business. Yes. Yes, it was the done thing. So she really had no choice but to spend all day in his presence. No choice at all.
“Great. Do you need to get anything?”
“I was ready to go and have some lunch, so I think I’m all set.” Her cherry-red pumps weren’t the best choice for walking, but she’d packed some black ballet flats in her bag for emergencies. And anyway, they were amazing shoes and worth a little discomfort.
His eyes swept her up and down, a lift in his brow.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“What?” she repeated.
He turned and started walking down the hall and she clacked after him. “Why did you look at me like that?” she asked.
“Do you always dress like this?”
She looked down at her dress. White with black polka dots, a red, patent leather belt at the waist. It was one of her favorites, especially with the shoes and her bright red bag. “Like what?”
“Like you just stepped off the set of a black-and-white film.”
“Oh. Yes. I like vintage. It’s a hobby of mine.” One her new financial injection allowed her to indulge in in a very serious way. Her bed might be empty, but her closet was full.
“How do clothes become a … hobby?”
“Because you can’t just buy clothes like this. Well, you can, but they’re reproductions. Which is fine, and I have my share, but to actually get a hold of real vintage stuff is like a game sometimes. I haunt online auctions, charity shops, yard sales. Then there’s having them altered.”
“Sounds like a lot of trouble for secondhand clothes.”
“Possibly fourth-or fifthhand clothes,” she said cheerfully. “But I love the history of it. Plus, they just don’t make dresses like this anymore.”
“No, indeed they don’t.”
She gritted her teeth. “I don’t care if you don’t like them. I do.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t.”
“Oh, the implication was all there.”
He paused, then looked hard at her, his expression scrutinizing. “You know I’m royalty, yes?”
She nodded once. “Yes.”
“And yet you still speak to me like this?”
She frowned, a slow trickle of horror filtering through her stomach. She wasn’t backing down now, though—pride prevented it. “Sorry, my mouth gets away from me. Sometimes I need someone to restrain me.”
He chuckled. “Ms. Carter, you have no idea how interesting that sounds.”
Oh, but she did. Especially with the wicked grin crossing his lips. And it had been a very, very long time since she’d been with a man.
Longer since she’d missed it. Longer still since she’d enjoyed it.
“Jessica,” she said, her dry throat keeping her from speaking in a voice that transcended a croak. “Just call me Jessica.” Because for some reason when he called her Ms. Carter in that sexy, sinful voice of his, that Greek accent adding an irresistible flavor, she pictured him calling her that in bed. And that was just naughty. Naughty and completely out of the blue.
She wasn’t interested in sex. Not the responsibility of it, not the repercussions of it. And not the pain that resulted from it.
“Jessica,” he said, slowly, like he was tasting it.
Well, that didn’t help, either.
“Prince Stavros?”
“Stavros. Please.”
Her heart pattered, a sort of irregular beat, like it had tripped. “I don’t assume you’re in the habit of asking commoners to call you by your first name?”
He shrugged. “Titles are fine. In many regards, they are necessary as they establish one’s place in society. I like them for negotiation, for the media. I don’t really like them in conversation.”
“All right then,” she said, “Stavros.” She put a lot of effort into the name, taking her time to savor the syllables, as he’d done to hers. She saw a flicker of heat in his dark eyes and fought to ignore an answering flame that ignited in her stomach.
“We’ll start here,” he said, indicating the halls of the hotel as he began to walk ahead. “This hotel, and many others like it, have been essential to my country. After the death of my mother, my father started neglecting the tourism industry. He neglected a great many things. I was fourteen at the time. My brother, the heir to the throne, was sixteen. He left a few years after that. It became clear that Xander was gone, and that we could not count on him to see to his duties.” Stavros didn’t bother to hide the hint of bitterness in his voice. “That started rumors of civil unrest. And of course tourists don’t want to be somewhere that could possibly be dangerous. As soon as I was able I did what I could to start a revival of the tourism industry. I went abroad for college, established contacts. I studied business, hospitality, economics. Whatever I thought might be helpful in getting my country back to where it needed to be.”
“You turned Kyonos into a business.”
“Essentially. But not for my own gain. For the gain of my people.”
“True,” she said, “but by all accounts you have gained quite a bit.”
“I have. I won’t lie. My own bank account is healthy, in part due to the fact that, at this point, the interest it’s collecting on a yearly basis is more than most people will see in a lifetime.” He turned to look at her. “Do you need my estimated net worth for your records so you can pass it on to the women you’re considering for me?”
“What? Oh, no. I think they’ll feel secure enough in your … assets. I doubt they’ll need anything so crass as actual net worth. A ballpark figure will do.”
“You’re very honest.”
“Yes, well.” She took in a deep breath and tried to ignore the tightening in her stomach. “Hiding from reality doesn’t fix anything.”
“No. It doesn’t,” he said.
She could tell, from the icy tone in his voice, the depth to each word, that he was speaking from experience. Just like her.
Interesting that she could fly halfway across the world and meet a prince who seemed to have more common ground with her than anyone in her real life did.
She had friends, at least, the ones Gil hadn’t gotten custody of after the divorce. But they were still married. They had children.
A hollow ache filled the empty space where her womb had been. The same one that had plagued her so many times before. When she saw babies. Small children on swings.
Women wiping chocolate stains off of their blouses. And sometimes, it happened for no reason at all. Like now.
“No, reality’s one bitch that’s pretty hard to ignore,” she said.
He chuckled, dark and without humor. “A very true statement. That’s why being proactive is important. Sometimes you get problems you didn’t make or ask for, but hiding doesn’t fix them.”
They stopped in front of an elevator and Stavros pushed the button. The gold doors slid open and they stepped inside. The trip down to the lobby was quick, and they breezed through the opulent room quickly, making their way to the front.
There was a limousine waiting for them, black and shiny. Formal. It didn’t fit with what she’d seen of Stavros so far. He didn’t seem like the type of man who would choose to ride in something so traditional.
He seemed to lurk around the edges of traditional, doing everything a man of his station must do, while keeping one toe firmly over the line of disreputable. It ought to make him obnoxious. It ought to make him less attractive. It didn’t.
He opened the door for her and they both slid inside. She sighed, grateful for the air-conditioning. Kyonos was beautiful, but if the breeze from the sea wasn’t moving inland it could be hotter than blazes for a girl from North Dakota.
As soon as they settled in and the limo was on the road, she turned to him. “So, why a limo?”
“It’s how things are done,” he said. He pushed on a panel and it popped open, revealing two bottles of beer on ice. “More or less.”
She laughed and held her hand out. “You’re about fifteen degrees off unexpected, aren’t you?”
He chuckled and handed her a bottle. “Am I?”
“Yes. Hiring a matchmaker to find you a wife and drinking beer in a limo. I’d say you’re not exactly what people expect in a prince.”
“There are protocols that must be observed, responsibilities that must handled. But there are other things that have a bit more leeway.”
“And you take it.”
He shrugged. “You have to take hold to the pleasures in life, right?”
