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Why would he, when he clearly had his pick of society’s brightest and prettiest? There’d been a constant stream of women being brought to the island in the past few days. Nothing had been said at the base—they knew that discretion was the better part of business success—but she knew from personal experience. Prince Raphael was a man of big appetites …
Her stomach churned, the taste of bile bitter in her mouth as she completed the preflight checklist. The sooner she was away from this island and the sooner there was no risk she would run into the man who’d so unceremoniously thrown her out of his life, then the sooner this damned queasiness would settle down. Ever since she’d been told she’d been rostered on for this assignment she’d felt physically ill. Montvelatte was the last place on earth she wanted to be. Knowing she’d just delivered his latest love interest made it doubly so.
Sienna yanked herself back from that thought with a mental slap to the head.
What was she thinking? Genevieve, or whatever her name was, was welcome to him. She was out of here.
There was the roar of another engine, the blast of horns and she turned to see a jeep screeching to a halt alongside the helipad in a spray of gravel and dust, and the churning in her gut took a turn for the worst. It didn’t get any better when four uniformed officers jumped out, gesturing to her to cut the rotors. This was supposed to be a simple drop-and-run. Surely there was no obscure paperwork she’d forgotten to complete?
She was making a move to open the door when it was pulled open for her from the other side. The officer saluted so properly that even over her own thumping heartbeat, Sienna imagined she could hear the snap of his heels clicking together. She’d seen that uniform before—in the footage of the former Prince and his brother being carted away—and she wasn’t at all sure that was a comforting thought.
‘Signorina Wainwright?’
Breath caught in Sienna’s lungs and gave birth to a new strain of fear. They knew her name?
She shook her head, removing her headset once again. ‘Y-yes,’ she stammered. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘There is no problem, I assure you,’ the officer told her in his richly accented English. ‘Please, if you would just step outside the aircraft,’ he added, offering her his hand to alight the helicopter. His words and actions were accompanied with a smile so seemingly genuine that for a moment she thought everything must be fine after all, that her most recent panic attack was unwarranted and that this was merely some kind of quaint formality nobody had thought to warn her about.
But once outside he made it clear that he expected her to keep moving. Towards the jeep.
Sienna stopped, the men either side of her coming to a halt also. ‘What’s going on?’
‘It is but a short trip to the Castello,’ he said, neatly sidestepping her question and throwing her thoughts into turmoil.
Her eyes swung up to the palace that sat atop the massive rock that made up this part of the island. It stared down at her with its thousand window eyes, and for the first time she didn’t notice the beauty of the ancient stone architecture with its arched windows and flag-topped turrets, but the thick walls and the fortifications all around that had protected it from invaders for centuries. This time the fairy-tale palace had disappeared, and it was the fortress that she noticed, the fortress she knew instinctively would be just as hard to escape from as to break into.
The fortress that contained the man she least wanted to see in the world.
Oh, no. No way was she going there.
She swallowed back on the sick feeling in a stomach that was once again threatening to unload its pitiful contents at any time, while the hot sun wrung even more perspiration from her nervous body. Her overalls stuck to her in all the wrong places, and sweat beads slid lazily along the loose curling tendrils at her fringe and neck.
‘Look, I don’t really have time for this. I have to get the chopper back to base. They’re expecting me.’ She cast a desperate look back over her shoulder towards the helicopter, frowning when she noticed that the remaining two officers had taken up guard duty in front of the chopper, strategically placing themselves between her and the door and effectively cutting off that means of escape. Even if she could have outrun these two beside her.
‘Please,’ the officer urged, gesturing towards the jeep.
Finding what little shred of courage she still had left, she kicked up her chin. ‘And if I insist on being allowed to leave? If I refuse to accompany you to the palace?’
He smiled again, but this time it was a little lighter on the charm, a little heavier on the menace. ‘In that unfortunate case,’ he said, adding a little bow, ‘you would leave me with no choice. I would be forced to arrest you.’
CHAPTER THREE
SIENNA had had enough. For almost three hours she’d been stuck inside this drawing room, prowling the walls holding her prisoner like a caged lion at the zoo.
It didn’t matter that the drawing room was the size of a small country and that the accoutrements, the Renaissance tapestries gracing the walls, the crystal chandeliers and fine furniture, made it much more pleasant than any zoo enclosure she’d ever seen. Nor did the constant visitors make a shred of difference, bustling in and out and offering her refreshments and any number of pastries or other tasty delights that she desired.
She wasn’t about to be taken in by window dressing. The now familiar maroon-clad guards she’d spied perched at their posts outside the door every time they’d opened had made it more than clear that she was not some welcome guest, but a prisoner in a cage, albeit a very gilded one.
And while at first she’d been nervous, anxious about having to confront Rafe again and certain that he must be the one behind her detention, after waiting this long with no information she was beyond nervousness and frustration. She was furious.
Not one person she’d met here—was able to tell her exactly why she was being kept against her will or when she would be allowed to leave.
The bearer of the pastries had waved her questions aside with a sweep of a hand and had seemed insulted she hadn’t been more interested in tasting the proffered wares. The tea bearer had pretended he was ignorant of both English and French and had looked benignly down his crooked nose at her when she’d attempted her rudimentary Italian.
She had a helicopter that had been due back at base hours ago and nobody had allowed her anywhere near a phone to let them know she’d been detained. A missing helicopter. A missing pilot with it. And while the fragrant sweet tea had settled her stomach, it would take something a lot stronger, if not a minor miracle, to settle her nerves. Her earlier nausea was nothing to how she felt now. She would lose her job over this for sure.
Then she heard it, the familiar whine of helicopter engines leading up to that whump whump of the rotors. And not just any helicopter. In fact, if she didn’t know better …
She ran, her heart sinking with every step, to the large arched windows overlooking the helipad in time to see the helicopter rise up and turn to point out to sea.
Her helicopter!
‘No!’ she cried, slapping her open palm on the window fruitlessly, knowing there was no chance that whoever was flying the craft could see her, but continuing to slam her hand against the glass anyway as the helicopter accelerated away, already shrinking into the distance.
And mere anger turned incendiary.
There were two doors into the room—one she figured led to the kitchens from where the coffee and cakes had issued. She ran instead to the other, the large double doors she’d entered through and that she knew led to the entrance lobby, the same doors that had remained firmly closed against her until now. She pulled with all her weight against their handles, banging on the wood with her closed fists when she found them locked. ‘That’s my helicopter. Let me out!’ When the doors stayed closed, she rattled the handles some more, her fury rising further as they refused to budge. She cursed out loud. Why the hell wouldn’t they let her out?
‘I know you’re out there,’ she yelled at the wall of solid wood, punching it some more for good measure. ‘I know you can hear me. I demand to see Rafe. Right now. Where is the cowardly bastard?’
‘Here in Montvelatte,’ came a familiar voice behind her, a voice that sent panic sizzling down her spine like an electric shock, ‘the usual form of address is Prince Raphael, or Your Highness, rather than “the cowardly bastard”.’
Sienna swung around, vaguely aware of her braid slapping heavily against the timber door, all too aware of the impact of him slamming into her psyche. She’d demanded to see him and yet still she was totally unprepared for the sheer onslaught of this man on her senses.
And standing there, not two metres away from her, it was some onslaught. It was the same Rafe she remembered, but smoother, his thick wavy hair a little shorter and more tamed, his designer stubble smoothed to a mere shadow. But the sheer intensity contained in his eyes packed as much punch as they ever had. More. Because those eyes pinned her now, scanning her lazily from the top of her head to the toes of her boots and all points in between, until the skin under her uniform tingled, her nipples tightening to peaks under his continued scrutiny.
She swallowed, her breathing still ragged, her colour still high from her exertions on the door, if the heat she was feeling in her face was any indication, and it occurred to her in that moment the gulf between them had never been wider or more extreme. Because Rafe was now a prince and looked every part of it, so cool and urbane in his fine wool jacket, so groomed and superior, whereas she was still a nobody, and right now a dishevelled and flustered one.
But so what? She didn’t give a damn about his title, not after the way she’d been treated. She was little more than a prisoner here. The last thing she would do was grovel.
‘I call it like I see it,’ she shot back, refusing to apologise for the outburst or the terminology she’d resorted to.
His eyes narrowed, his expression hardening. ‘So I noticed. I can see your mood was not improved by the delay. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I was unavoidably detained.’
‘You were detained?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Who are you trying to kid. It was me who was detained, prevented by your goons from taking off, and threatened with arrest if I didn’t go along with their plans. I’m the one who’s been detained for hours, held here against my will, and now my helicopter’s been stolen—’
‘It hasn’t been stolen.’
‘It’s gone! Someone’s taken it without my permission. I call that stolen.’
‘It’s been sent back to base. You’re not the only one who can fly a helicopter.’
‘Oh? And that’s supposed to make everything okay? I was due back with that helicopter. Instead I’ve been locked inside this prison you call a palace. Well, I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.’
Sienna launched herself across the room, aiming for the door he must have come through, figuring that one at least might still be unlocked, when his hand snaked out and took hold of her forearm, using her momentum to spin her back around.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’
The words were a whisper but deadly sure in their intent. She looked down at the hand burning a brand into her flesh, then up to his face, and almost wished she hadn’t. His eyes, once filled with passion and longing and desire for her, now harsh and flat and so cold that she shivered.
‘And if I don’t want to stay?’
‘You’ll stay.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because I want you to.’
The unexpected words sounded like they’d been ground through his teeth, their intensity rocking her to the soles of her feet so that she felt herself sway towards him, as if drawn by some invisible thread. Drawing her so close that his masculine scent wrapped around her and drew her even closer. She’d dreamt of such a moment, on countless sleep-elusive nights, and in pointless daydream wishes. Wished it long and hard, even after she’d seen the news reports declaring that Rafe was indeed the new Prince of Montvelatte, and realising it could never be so.
But she was here now … She searched his face, his eyes, looking for the truth, trying to discover what it meant.
And then damned herself for hoping, straightening suddenly, her back once again rigid and set. This was the man who’d thrown her out of his room and his life without so much as a goodbye once before. There was no way she’d give him the chance to do it again.
‘And that matters to me because?’ She wrenched her arm from his grasp. ‘No, thanks. I’m leaving. And if you won’t arrange my departure, I’ll damn well find a way out of this hellhole myself.’
‘You’re not leaving.’ It wasn’t a question. It was a bald statement of fact and it used up the last remaining shred of patience Sienna had.
‘Who the hell do you think you are to tell me what I can and cannot do? They make you a prince and suddenly you think you’re the ruler of the universe? Well, let me tell you, Rafe, or Raphael or whatever it is you like to call yourself now, you’re not my prince. I didn’t vote for you!’
Silence followed her words, so thick and heavy that she wished away the thump of her heart lest he hear it and read too much into it.
She was angry.
Furious.
Nothing more.
And then, totally unexpectedly, he threw back his head and laughed, really laughed, deep and loud. So deep that it was too much and cut her right where it shouldn’t hurt and yet still did. So deep that she took advantage of his lack of attention and decided to make good her escape.
She didn’t get far.
‘Sienna,’ he said, as his hands trapped her shoulders and collected her in, pulling her around until she faced him, and holding her close. So close than the room shrank until it was just his scent that surrounded her, coiling into her all over again. So close that she had to shut her eyes to block out the sight of the triangle of skin exposed by the undone-at-the-collar shirt, a patch of skin her mouth knew intimately.
‘Let me go,’ she protested, squirming in his arms, lashing out at her gaoler while the prick of tears was dangerously close. ‘Stop laughing at me!’
‘I wasn’t laughing at you,’ he said, with such conviction that she stopped thrashing about and dared open her eyes. And what they met was a gaze so intense and fathomless that she felt it resonate to the soles of her feet. She watched his eyes drift purposefully southwards, felt their heat on her lips before it was the touch of a finger she felt there. She gasped, her lips parting with the shock of it, and dragged in air laced with the very essence of him. ‘Do you know how long it is since I’ve had someone really disagree with me?’
She wavered, thrown off balance by this sudden change in mood and by the electricity generated by his touch. But only for a moment. She knew what charm the man possessed—hadn’t it succeeded in getting her into his bed that first fateful time, even after she’d tried everything she knew to put him off? She couldn’t afford to let him through her barriers a second time.
Even so, it took everything she possessed to muster a defence. She stiffened in his arms, determined to be resolute.
‘Ten minutes? Fifteen at the outside. Surprise me.’
His smile widened, as if delighted by her response, rather than irritated by it as she’d intended. ‘Here I am surrounded by advisers and counsel but not one person has dared to disagree with me since that night I learned I was to become Montvelatte’s ruler.’ He looked down at her, smoothed a wayward tendril of hair from her brow, the touch of his fingers setting fire to nerve endings under her skin. ‘Not until today when you blew back into my life like a breath of fresh air.’
His words flowed like liquid promise through her veins, spreading warmth and hope and all the things she’d missed in these past few weeks, all the things she’d known even back then she had no right to, all the things she had even less right to now. It was exactly the way he’d lured her into their previous affair, by telling her she was different, that she was special. By making her feel special.
And look how that had ended.
Bitterness spiked in her gut, lending her new strength. Sienna shook her head, shrugging off his hand and twisting out of his reach. ‘I can imagine how much it must gall you being surrounded by sycophants,’ she shot back. ‘Now, is there a telephone or some other means of communication I can use to contact my employer and make arrangements for blowing right out of here again?’
To her surprise he let her go this time, and she edged cautiously away, forcing herself not to bolt in case those manacles he called hands locked down on her once again. She skirted the intricately carved lounge suite that held pride of place in the centre of the room in front of a majestic fireplace, all the while scanning the room’s contents for a telephone she might have missed earlier, while keeping one eye on Rafe. Making sure he kept his distance. It had taken every last shred of self-control she possessed to tear herself out of his embrace. How long could she keep doing so? How many times could she be constrained by those arms before she stopped fighting altogether and gave herself up to the temptation his body offered, the temptation she had given herself up to once before?
How many times?
What a joke.
How few times?
But at least for now he remained where he was, seemingly content to watch her from a distance. If his stance was relaxed and casual, a smile tugging at his lips as he leant back against a polished timber table with his hands at his side on the glossy wood and his ankles crossed in front of him, there was nothing of a smile about his eyes. She shivered, reaching out to clutch the cool wood of the lounge back as she felt their purposefulness wash over her. They were the eyes of a predator, glinting and dangerous, and right now they were fixed on her, content just to watch. She turned away before he might see her fear. The sooner she was out of here and away from Rafe, the better.
Why didn’t he make a move to stop her? Did he know the door she was heading for was locked and her quest to escape doomed accordingly? Her already wary footsteps slowed. Was he merely playing with her like a cat with a mouse, letting her think she would soon be free when she was trapped in here until he deigned to let her out? And would he laugh again when she turned the handle of the door to find that, too, locked?
Sienna swallowed back on a gasp that threatened to turn into a sob, tears of frustration all too close.
‘It’s locked, in case you were wondering,’ he said behind her, reading her thoughts and her intentions with ice-cold precision.
She didn’t want to believe anything he said but she believed that. Why would he allow her any chance of escape when he’d kept her locked up the entire afternoon?
So she threw him a cold look over her shoulder and changed direction, heading towards the wall of full-length windows instead of towards the door, as if that had been her goal all along. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she lied.
She came to a halt next to the window, her arms crossed over her thumping chest, thankful that at least she’d managed to put several metres between them as she pretended to gaze out unconcernedly over a view of sea and sun and cliff-top so spectacular it should have taken her breath away.
But it was the empty helipad that filled her vision and thoughts, a sight that tore at her all over again and freshened the sting of unshed tears. How the hell was she supposed to explain what had happened when she got back?
‘Why are you so desperate to leave?’ Even from across the vast room, his rich voice filled the room like it was little larger than a shoebox. ‘I thought we could use a little time to get reacquainted.’
She shot him a look, sending her braid flicking heavily over her shoulder. ‘You really expect me to believe you mean reacquainted? Or horizontal?’
His eyebrows lifted at that one. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be in such a hurry, but if that’s what you’d prefer …’
Her cheeks burned and she turned back towards the glass. Why the hell had she given him any idea of the direction of her thoughts? And the answer came back instantaneously, loud and clear. Because she only had to look at this man and her thoughts turned horizontal, along with her wishes and desires. ‘The only hurry I’m in is the hurry to get out of here.’
‘You have no desire at all to resume our relationship?’
‘We never had a relationship!’
‘No? What would you call it, then?’
‘A fling. A one-night stand. And I would have thought that given that night is long since over, then so too is any kind of “relationship” we might have shared.’
‘You think it’s over?’
This time it was her turn to laugh. ‘Oh, I think you made that pretty plain at the time.’
She turned, wanting to see his reaction to that but finding him suddenly closer, shocked that she’d been totally unaware that he’d silently closed half the distance between them while she’d kept her gaze fixed sightlessly at the window.
