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Luciana? Hold on a minute… Querida?
What the hell was going on?
‘Luciana? Is this man bothering you?’
Thane whipped around to face him. ‘Back off, Augustus,’ he ground out, jabbing his finger at the other man while he tried to think around the incessant clatter in his brain. ‘And while you are doing that, if you know what is good for you, turn around and walk away.’
Augustus paled beneath his tanned skin, nodded and went to do just that. But not before he motioned to Ana with a jerk of his chin. Or was it Luciana? Dios, Thane felt as if his head was splitting in two.
‘Why are you beckoning her? How do you know each other?’ Thane asked, darkly incredulous.
Augustus straightened to his full height. Thane would give the man points for the gutsy move if he still weren’t several inches shorter than him and trying on a smug smirk for size. But what really set Thane’s teeth on edge was the way the disturbingly dashing Viscount—who was as suave and golden as Thane was dark and untamed—practically stripped the sheath from Ana’s body with his lustful covetous gaze. It made a growl threaten to tear up his throat. He felt as if he could grow fangs.
‘Luciana is to be my fiancée, Prince Thane. So I would appreciate it if you…’
The rest of his words were swept away on a tide of realisation and a watery rush sped through his ears, drowning out sound.
‘Fiancée?’ he repeated, black venom oozing from his tone. Because that meant… That meant…
With predator-like grace he pivoted to look back at the woman who had bewitched him so long ago. Invaded his every salacious dream for five years.
Eyes closed, she tucked her lips into her mouth and bit down hard enough to bruise.
‘Do I take it I am in the company of Princess Luciana of Arunthia?’ His voice seethed with distaste, so cold and hard he imagined it could shatter every windowpane within a ten miles radius. ‘Am I?’
His increase in volume snapped her awake and she elevated her chin, stood tall and regal, while she ruthlessly shuttered her expression.
‘You certainly are, Prince Thane of Galancia,’ she said, in a sexy, sassy voice that sent a dark erotic wave of heat rushing down his spine.
Ah, this was his Ana, all right. She looked more fearsome than Augustus could any day of the week, and Thane had the absurd desire to kiss that mulish line right off her lush, sulky mouth. Even knowing who she was. A Verbault. Henri’s daughter. And didn’t that fill him with no small amount of self-disgust? This had to be the universe’s idea of a sick joke.
Thane crossed his arms over his wide chest and arched one livid brow as they faced off in the hallway.
‘Did you know who I was back then?’
Had she known and set out to destroy him by luring him in? Because the Arunthian hussy had almost managed it. Almost driven him to the brink of insanity in the aftermath of her disappearance.
If he’d blinked he would have missed it. The way her smooth throat convulsed. The way she shot a quick glance in Augustus’s direction as if to check he was still there. He was. Unfortunately. Soaking up every word.
‘I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never met you before in my life. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I suddenly find I’m very tired.’
Stupefied, he rocked back on his heels as she blew past them like a hurricane, leaving her signature trail of destruction in her wake.
A flash fire started in the pit of his gut and his mood took a deadly turn. The voracious heat was exploding to sear through his veins, to fire his blood as pure, undiluted anger blazed through his system.
Had she actually denied knowing him? Him? Prince Thane of Galancia? Had she actually walked away from him? Again?
A haze of inky darkness clouded his vision, his mind.
Ah, Princess. Big mistake. Huge. Massive, grave error of judgement.
He wanted answers. Now. Wanted to know if she’d known his true identity all along. If she’d been toying with him. Why she’d vanished in the middle of the night after she’d promised she would stay. Why she’d plunged him into the pit of Hades for months on end—something he would make her pay dearly for. But most of all he wanted her away from this sleaze-bag. Thane may no longer want to bed her, but he’d be damned if he stood by while Augustus took what was his.
Fact was he wanted her full attention. And, by God, he would get it.
* * *
This was not happening. This was just not happening.
Luciana shoved her clothes into her suitcase with one hand while she grappled with a cordless phone in the other.
Lord, she was shaking so hard she was likely calling Venezuela. One touch from that man and it was as if she’d been dormant in some cryonic stasis for five years and he’d plugged her into the national grid. Twenty minutes later her body was still burning; incinerator-hot, making her feel like a living, breathing flame.
Dangerous. That was what he was.
Worse still, when she’d literally crashed into him for a split second she’d thought she was dreaming again. That she’d conjured up his memory to save her from the nightmare her return had condemned her to. So often she slept with him in her bed, his fingers a ghost-like touch drifting over her body. Caressing, devouring with a fervour she longed for. And during that breathless moment in that hallway suddenly, shockingly, she’d wanted to cry. Weep in sheer relief that he was here. Holding her once more. Wrapping her in his ferocious unyielding strength.
That body… Such inordinate power that he vibrated with it. She’d met some powerful men in her time but Thane… No comparison. None. His every touch was a jolting shockwave of acute pleasure and pain. And it had been so long since she’d been touched. She’d almost begged him to crush her against his hard, muscular chest for one blissful second, just so she could live in the illusion that he was here and she was safe.
But that was all it was—a fantasy. A fallacy. She would never be safe in Thane’s arms.
So why did a part of her still crave him? Even knowing what and who he was?
Luciana moaned out loud. Her father was right—she was an absolute disgrace.
She’d do well to remember that invariably her dreams turned dark and his hands turned malicious and she woke in a cold, clammy and anguished sweat. That in actuality he was the most lethal, autocratic man in Europe, who co-ruled his country and his people with a merciless iron fist.
And that look in his glorious dark eyes when he’d gazed at her… As if she was his entire world… A lie. Her cruel imagination. If she needed proof to substantiate that theory all she had to do was recall his blistering disgust and anger as he’d ground out her title. Realised her true identity.
His granite-like countenance hadn’t broken her heart. Certainly not. The man was rumoured to be a mercenary, for pity’s sake.
Imagine that man getting hold of your son and using him as a pawn in his power-play?
Over her dead body.
That hypothesis was akin to someone upending a bucket of cold water over her head and she calmed enough to hit the right keys.
‘I need a car outside in five minutes and a private jet waiting at the Altiport to take me to Arunthia. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, madame.’
‘Thank you.’
Depressing the call button, she flipped the lid of her case and yanked the zipper all the way around.
She had to get home. Get Natanael out of the country until she was sure Thane wouldn’t come after her. The savage vehemence pouring off him as she’d left had scarred her for eternity. That was not a man you messed with.
The tap on her door flung her heart into overdrive and she crept up to the door to peek into the security viewer.
Shoulders slumping, she unlatched the lock and allowed the porter in to collect her bag. ‘Thank you. I’ll meet you downstairs.’ Luciana pulled a two-hundred-euro note from her jacket pocket and conjured up a sweet smile. Feminine wiles and all that.
‘The back door, okay?’
His boyish grin told her she was in the clear and she grabbed her handbag and scarpered from the room.
Down in the private elevator she went. Out through the back exit and into a frosty evening that nipped her cheeks.
The door of the limousine was an open invitation and Luciana sank into the plush leather, not wasting one vital moment. ‘Can you take me to the Altiport, please? Fast as you can.’
The door slammed shut with a heavy clunk.
The locks clicked into place.
‘Sure thing, lady.’
Lady? Frowning, she glanced up into the rearview mirror to see a peculiar pair of deep-set titanium-grey eyes staring back at her.
Luciana’s blood curdled in her veins.
Then that voice—as brutal and vicious as the thrash of a whip—sliced through the leather-scented cabin, its deadly effect severing her air supply.
‘We meet again, Princess of Arunthia.’
Vaulting backwards in her seat, she crushed herself into the corner and scoured the dim recesses of the car, her heart thudding a panicked tempo.
Black sapphire eyes glittering as starkly as the stars in the Courchevel sky, he raised one devilish dark brow and said, scathingly, ‘Did you really think I would allow you to turn your back on me a second time, Luciana? Disappear into the night once more? How very foolish of you.’
Dressed from head to foot in a bespoke black Italian suit, he lounged like an insolent predator—a sleek panther perusing his kill.
‘Well, let us get one thing perfectly clear right now. This time you will not walk away from me.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ee078219-e81f-5a4d-981b-b69dea0f2bad)
SHE COULDN’T MOVE. Not one muscle.
‘This time you will not walk away from me.’
What did he mean by that? Did she have to wait until he walked away from her? How long was that going to take? An hour? A day?
If she didn’t start breathing she’d never find out.
Luciana yanked her focus dead ahead in order to stitch up the tattered remnants of her composure. She couldn’t do that and look at him at the same time. It was futile. The mere sight of him, dangerous and dominating, skewed her equilibrium and turned her brain to mush.
The privacy glass rose up before her, sending her heart slamming around her ribcage. For a second she toyed with the idea of launching herself from the car, but then remembered the locks had snapped into place. A moment later the limousine began to rock down the steep incline from the lodge and the risk of hyperventilating became a distinct possibility.
Breathe, Luce, for heaven’s sake breathe. He probably just wants to talk on the way to the Altiport.
Why, oh, why hadn’t she looked at which car she was getting into? She was supposed to be avoiding trouble. Being good. The refined, beyond reproach, virtuous Queen she was born to be. She could already hear her mother… So reckless, Luciana. So unthinking.
She let loose a shaky exhalation, then took a deep lungful of air. And another. Then seriously wished she hadn’t. His audacious dark bergamot and amber scent wrapped around her senses like a narcotic, intensely potent and drugging as it swirled up into her brain, making her vision blur. Her entire body wept with want.
How did he still do this to her? After all this time? How? It was as if he engulfed her in his power, lured her in with his black magic. Well, any more of his lethal brand of masculinity and she’d be done for.
Clearing her throat, she straightened in her seat. With far more sangfroid and bravado than she felt, she said, ‘Why am I here? What exactly is it you want from me?’
Seconds ticked by and he didn’t so much as murmur. Merely allowed the atmosphere to stretch taut. And, since she was hanging on to the very last fraying threads of her control, it didn’t take her long to snap.
Up came her head—big mistake as she realised too late it was exactly what he’d been waiting for, what he wanted: her full attention, total control over this…whatever this was. His gaze crashed into hers. Unerringly. Mercilessly.
Oh, Lord.
Overwhelming anguish held her in stasis as her every thought fled and she allowed her treacherous heart to devour the dark beauty that was Prince Thane.
Devastating—that was what he was. Bewitching her with that breathtaking aura of danger. Those high, wide slashing cheekbones and obsidian eyes framed with thick decadent inky lashes. That chiselled jaw that was smothered in a seriously sexy short beard. On anyone else it would be labelled designer stubble. But this was Thane and he wasn’t vain in the least. Or he hadn’t been. In truth, she’d been amazed at just how clueless to his gorgeous looks he was.
His hair was longer, she noticed. Dishevelled was a ridiculously romantic word for the mussed-up glossy black hair that fell in a tumble to flick his shoulders, one side swept back and tucked behind his ear. Unkempt, maybe. Hideously long… But she kind of liked it. Craved to run her fingers through it. Had to fist her hands to stop herself from doing just that.
The dim interior lighting camouflaged his facial scars but she remembered every one. The slash in his top lip, just shy of the full cupid’s bow. The second, enhancing the sensuous, kissable divot in his chin. Another slicing into the outer corner of his left eyebrow.
Her throat grew tight, swelling in sadness and hurt for him. Just as it had five years ago. Not that he’d ever talked to her about them. The one time she’d asked he’d shut down so hard it had taken her sitting astride his lap wearing nothing but lace panties to tease him out of it.
Ah, Luce, don’t remember. Don’t.
His tongue sneaked out and he briefly licked his lips, but otherwise he remained still, watching…waiting…his sensationally dynamic body vibrating with dark power. And she clutched her handbag tighter still, fingers burying into the leather—
Whether it was the feel of her phone poking through the side of her bag or the sudden realisation that the car was at a standstill she wasn’t sure, but she crashed back to earth with a thud.
The car had actually stopped!
Luciana shuffled on her bottom to peek out of the window and saw the huge security gates of the lodge swing open in front of the car. Electronic operation. Unmanned. Drat.
Twisting the other way, she grasped the cushioned leather and peeked out of the back window, her eyes widening as she spied her bellboy, still at the top of the drive, waving for her attention, with her case in his hand.
Oh, my life!
Her speech faculties finally deigned to kick in. ‘You have to turn around,’ she said, with her best do-it-or-else regal intonation. ‘You’ve left my case back there.’
And as soon as they pulled up back at the lodge she was making a run for it.
‘Really?’ he drawled, mock astonishment lifting his brows high above his vivid eyes. ‘How unfortunate.’
Luciana narrowed her gaze on him. That was it? Unfortunate?
‘Well? Aren’t you going to go back for it?’ she asked, her tone pitched to an ear-splitting squeak.
‘And give you the opportunity to run again? I think not, princesa. Consider yourself under lock and key.’
The limo turned right onto the main road and picked up speed. But not nearly as fast as her temper.
