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That was a lie, she thought now, cupping a hand over the nape of her neck as if she could ease the tension she felt. Adriana knew exactly what was happening. She didn’t want to understand it, because she didn’t want to admit it. Yet the way her father had looked at her today, as if she was somehow visibly tainted by the family history, made it impossible to keep lying to herself.
She’d heard it all her life. It had been flung at her in school and was whispered behind her back even now. It wasn’t enough that she was assumed to be traitorous by blood, like all her male relatives. She was the only female Righetti of her generation, and more, was the very image of her famous forebears—there were portraits in the Royal Gallery to prove it. They were well-known and well-documented whores, all the way down to Adriana’s great-aunt, who had famously beguiled one of the king’s cousins into walking away from his dukedom, disowned and disgraced.
And Adriana was just like them.
She knew exactly how tainted she really was, how very much she lived down to her family’s legacy. Because it wasn’t Lenz who had dreamed of something more familiar. It was her.
Lenz was good and kind, and he’d believed in her. He’d given her a chance. Adriana was the first Righetti to set foot in the palace since her traitorous ancestor had been executed there a hundred years ago, and Lenz had made that happen. He’d changed everything. He’d given her hope. And in return, Adriana had adored him, happy simply to be near him.
And yet she’d dreamed of Pato in ways she’d never dreamed of his brother. Wild and sensual. Explicit. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise her that she couldn’t get Pato out of her head, she thought now in a wave of misery. Maybe it was programmed into her very flesh, her bones, to want him. To want anything, anyone royal, moving from one prince to the next. To be exactly what she’d always been: a Righetti.
That was what they said in the tabloids, which had pounced on her switch from Lenz’s office to Pato’s with malicious glee, after three years of going a bit easier on her. She’s failed to snare Prince Lenz with her Righetti wiles—will the shameless Pato be easier to trap?
Maybe this had all been inevitable from the start.
Her mobile phone chirped at her from the bedside table, snapping her eyes open. She reached for it and tensed when she saw the name that flashed on the screen. It felt like confirmation that she was cursed. But she picked it up, because Pato was her job. Her responsibility. It didn’t matter what she felt.
It only mattered what she did, and she controlled that. Not him. Not the ghosts of her slutty ancestors. Not her own treacherous blood.
Stop being so melodramatic, she ordered herself, pulling in a deep breath. Nothing is inevitable.
“It’s eight-fifteen in the morning,” she said by way of a greeting, and she didn’t bother to sweeten her tone. “Surely too early for your usual debauchery.”
“Pack your bags,” Pato said, sounding uncharacteristically alert despite the hour. “We’re flying to London this afternoon. There’s some charity thing I had no intention of attending, and now, apparently, must. My brother commands it.”
Adriana blinked, and sorted through the possibilities in her head.
“Presumably you mean the Children’s Foundation, of which you and your brother are major benefactors,” she said crisply. “And their annual ball.”
“Presumably,” he agreed, that alertness blending into his more typical laziness, and prickling over her skin no matter how badly she didn’t want to be affected. “I don’t really care, I only follow orders. And Adriana?”
“Yes?” But she knew. She could hear it in his voice. She could imagine that smile in the corner of his mouth, that gleam in his eyes. She didn’t have to see any of it—she felt it. Her eyes drifted shut again, and she hated herself anew.
“It’s never too early for debauchery,” he said in that low, stirring way that was only his. “I’d be delighted to prove that to you. You can make it back to the palace in what? Twenty minutes?”
“You need to stop,” she retorted, not realizing she meant to speak, and then it sat there between them. Pato didn’t reply, but she could feel him. That disconcerting power of his, that predatory beauty. She dropped her forehead into one hand, kept her eyes shut. “I’m not your toy. I don’t expect you to make my job easy for me, but this is unacceptable.” He still didn’t speak, but she could feel the thrum of him inside her, the electricity. “Not every woman you meet wants to sleep with you.”
He laughed, and she felt it slide through her like light, illuminating too many truths she’d prefer to hide away forever. Exposing her. Making that curl of heat glow again, low and hot, proving what a liar she was.
“Rule number four,” he began.
“Would you like to know what you can do with your rules?” she demanded, desperate.
“Adriana,” he chided her, though she could hear the thread of laughter in his voice. Somehow, that made it worse. “I’m fairly certain I could legally have you beheaded for speaking to me in such an appalling fashion, given the medieval laws of our great kingdom. I am your prince and your employer, not one of your common little boyfriends. A modicum of respect, please.”
She was too raw. Too unbalanced. It crossed her mind then that she might not survive him. Certainly not intact. That he might be the thing that finally broke her.
“I apologize, Your Royal Highness,” she said, her voice much too close to a whisper. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Rule number four,” he said again, softly. And meanwhile her heart thudded so hard in her chest that she could feel the echo of it in her ears, her teeth. Her sex. “If you can’t muster up the courage to say it to my face, I’m not going to take it seriously.”
Because he knew, of course. That she was using this phone conversation to hide, because she doubted her own strength when he was standing in front of her. He’d watched it, hadn’t he? Exploited it. He knew exactly how weak she was.
And now she did, too.
“London,” she said, changing the subject, because she had to end this conversation right now. She had to find her balance again, or at least figure out how to fake it. “A charity ball. I’ll pack appropriately, of course.”
“Say it to my face, Adriana,” he urged her, and she told herself she didn’t recognize what she heard in his voice then. But her skin broke out in goose bumps, even her breasts felt heavy, and she knew better. She knew. “See what happens.”
“I should be back in the palace within the hour, Your Royal Highness,” she said politely, and hung up.
And then sat there on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands, and wondered what the hell would become of her if she couldn’t find a way to control this. To control herself.
Because she was terribly afraid that if she couldn’t, Pato would.
CHAPTER THREE (#u42e1f619-d2d7-5205-b1df-9abd9277b5c2)
THE CHARITY BALL in London was, of course, as tedious as every other charity ball Pato had ever attended. He smiled. He posed for obligatory photographs with Lenz and the chilly Lissette, as well as with any number of other people whose names he forgot almost before he heard them. He then contemplated impaling himself on the dramatic ice sculpture near the lavish buffet to see if that might enliven the evening in some small way.
“Restrain yourself,” Adriana replied, in that stuffy voice that he found amused him far more than it should, when he announced his intentions. Pato angled a look at her.
She stood beside him as she had all evening, never more than three steps away, as if she’d put him on an invisible leash and was holding it tight. Her lovely face was smoothed to polite placidity, she knew exactly how to blend into the background whenever someone came to speak to him, and she held her mobile phone tight in one hand as if she planned to use it to subdue him if he made a break for it. She’d been nothing but irritatingly serene and unflappably professional since she’d returned to the palace with her packed bag this morning. And all this time, across the span of Europe and the whole of London, she’d managed to avoid looking at him directly.
Pato found her fascinating.
“Restraint?” he asked, noting the way her shoulders tensed beneath the cap sleeves of the elegant black sheath she wore when he spoke. Every time he spoke. It made him want to press his mouth to her collarbone, to lick his way up the curve of her neck to the subdued sparkle of small diamonds at her ears. “I’m unfamiliar with the concept.”
She smiled slightly, but kept her attention trained on the dance floor in front of them. “Truer words have never been spoken, Your Royal Highness.”
He laughed. He liked it when she slapped at him, when her voice was something more than cool, smooth, bland. He liked when he could sense her temper, her frustration. He found that the more he told her how bored he was, the less bored he actually felt.
Pato knew he was on dangerous ground. He didn’t care. He hadn’t enjoyed himself so much in years.
A curvy brunette in a slinky dress slithered up to him then, her heavily kohled eyes sweeping over Adriana dismissively before she leaned in close and ran her hands over Pato’s chest.
“Your Royal Highness,” she purred, her lips painted a sultry red that matched the fingernails she ran along the length of his tie. “We meet again. I knew we would.”
Pato smiled indulgently. He had no idea who she was. “And you were right.”
Beside him, he felt Adriana bristle, and he enjoyed that immensely, so he picked up the brunette’s hand and kissed it, making her lean even more heavily against him.
“Dance with me,” she commanded him in a sultry voice.
Pato didn’t feel like dancing and he wasn’t particularly fond of commands, but he could feel Adriana’s disapproval like a cold wind at his back, and so he smiled wider.
“I’m afraid I’m here with my own version of an electronic ankle bracelet,” he said blithely, turning slightly. He indicated Adriana with a nod of his head, and was pleased to notice she flushed. At the attention? Or was that the sweet kick of her temper? And why did he want so badly to know? “It’s like a walking house arrest.”
The brunette blinked, looking from him to Adriana and then back.
“What did you do?” she asked, wide-eyed, no doubt plotting her call to the tabloids as she spoke.
“Haven’t you heard?” Pato asked, his eyes on Adriana and the way her hand tensed around her mobile as she glared out at the crowd. “I’ve been very, very naughty. Again.”
The brunette made some reply, but Pato watched Adriana, who dragged her gaze to his then as if it hurt her to do it. Even better, her meltingly brown eyes shot fire at him.
“There you are,” he said quietly, with a satisfaction he didn’t bother to hide. He smiled when her eyes narrowed. He tried to make his voice sound like a supplicant’s, but what came out was more like lazy challenge. “Am I allowed to dance, Adriana? Is that permitted?”
“Stay where I can see you,” she ordered him, all smooth command, as if she really did have him under her control. His smile deepened when she turned a cool gaze on the brunette. “Please don’t force me to invoke Kitzinian law, ma’am. No leaving the ballroom. No public displays. Keep it clean and polite. Do you understand?”
The woman nodded, looking slightly dazed, and Pato laughed.
“My very own prison warden,” he said, as if he approved. “I am duly chastened.”
He pulled the brunette into his arms as he took to the floor, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Adriana, who stood where he’d left her, looking calm and unruffled. Serene. She even gazed at him across the swell of bodies, a kind of victory in her dark eyes. He felt it like a direct challenge.
When the interminable dance was finished, he murmured the appropriate things to the brunette, forgot her and then prowled back over to the assistant he’d never wanted in the first place. This time, she looked at him as he approached. More than that, she met his eyes boldly. He didn’t know why that should affect him far more than the way the lush brunette had leaned against him throughout the dance, trying to entice him with her curves.
“You don’t know who that woman is, do you?” Adriana asked when he reached her side, her tone mild. Polite. Pato knew better than to believe it.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“But you slept with her.” Something like panic flared in her dark gaze, intriguing him even as she blinked it away. The tips of her ears were red, he noticed, up there near her swept-back blond hair, and her eyes were too bright. “Didn’t you?”
“Probably.” He arched a brow at her. “Are you asking that in an official capacity, Adriana? Or are you jealous?”
“I’m merely curious,” she said with a sniff, sounding as if she was discussing something as dry and uninteresting as his daily schedule. “I imagine, at this point, you can’t walk across a single room in Europe without tripping over legions of former conquests.”
“Well,” he said. “I rarely trip.”
“It must be difficult, at this point, to find someone you haven’t already been intimate with.” She smiled at him, that killer smile he’d seen before, sweet and deadly, which was supposed to be a weapon and instead delighted him. “Then again, it’s not as if you can remember, anyway, can you?”
Pato stood there for a moment, that same jagged restlessness beating at him, making him want things he’d given up a long time ago. Making him hard and wild, and shoving him much too close to a line he couldn’t allow himself to cross.
And still she smiled at him like that, as if she could handle this kind of battle, when he knew she was completely unaware of how much danger she was in.
“Ah,” he said in the low voice he could see made her shiver, and then he smiled as if she was prey and he was already on her. In her. “I see.” And he was closer than he should have been. He was much too close and he didn’t care at all, because her eyes widened and were that intoxicating shade of the finest Swiss chocolate. “You’re under the impression that you can shame me.”
They stared at each other, while laughter and conversation and the music kicked around them. Her lovely face flushed red. He saw the flash of that same panic he’d seen before, as if she wasn’t at all as controlled as she pretended, but she didn’t look away. Brave, he thought. Or foolish.
Pato lost himself in her dark gaze then, electric and alive and focused on him as if nothing else existed. As if he was already buried deep inside her, and she was waiting for him to move.
That image didn’t help matters at all. He blew out a breath.
“Come,” he said shortly, annoyed with himself. He turned on his heel and started across the great ballroom, knowing she had no choice but to follow, to keep him on that absurd leash of hers. And she did.
“Where are you going?” she asked as she fell into step with him. He didn’t think that hint of breathlessness in her voice was from walking, and it carved out something like a smile inside him.
“It’s like we’re chained together, Adriana.” He couldn’t seem to find his footing, and that was a catastrophe waiting to happen. And still, he didn’t care about that the way he knew he should. “Think of the possibilities.”
“No, thank you,” she replied, predictably, and he indulged himself and wrapped his hand around her upper arm, feigning solicitousness as he moved her through the door that led out toward the gardens. She jumped when he touched her, electric shock and that darker kick beneath it. He knew because he felt it, too. Her skin was softer than satin, warm and smooth beneath his palm, she smelled faintly of jasmine, and he shouldn’t have done it. Because now he knew.
Her eyes flew to his, and it punched through him hard, making him want to push her back against the nearest wall, lift her against him, lose himself completely in the burn of it. In her.
“Are you sure?” he asked, as they moved from the bright light of the ballroom into the soft, cool dark outside. He led her across the wide patio, skirting the small clumps of people who stood clustered around the bar tables that dotted it here and there. “Five minutes ago my sexual escapades were foremost on your mind. Don’t tell me you’ve lost interest so quickly.”
He looked down at her, and made no effort to contain the heat in him. The fire. He felt a tremor run through her, and God help him, he wanted her more than he’d wanted anything in years.
“I didn’t realize you were so sensitive about your scandalous past, Your Royal Highness,” she said, in a rendition of her usual cool he might have believed, had he not been looking into the wild heat in her gaze. “I’ll take care not to mention it again.”
“Somehow,” he murmured, his grip on her arm tightening just enough to make her suck in a breath, just enough to torture himself, “I very much doubt that.”
At some point, he was going to have to figure out why this woman got to him like this. But not tonight. Not now.
She pulled her arm from his grip as he steered her between two tables, as if concerned they couldn’t make it through the narrow channel side by side. But she rubbed at the place he’d touched her as if he’d left behind a mark, and Pato smiled.
In the deepest, farthest shadows of the patio, he found an empty table, the candle in the center, which should have been glowing, unlit. But he didn’t need candlelight to see her as she deliberately put the table between them, keeping as far out of his reach as she could. His eyes adjusted to the dark and he studied the flush on her cheeks, the hectic sparkle in her gaze.
And then he waited, leaning his elbows on the table and watching her. Her pretty eyes widened. She shifted from one foot to the other. He made her nervous, and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t like it.
“I wasn’t trying to shame you,” she said after long moments passed, just the two of them in a far, dark corner, all the nerves he could see on her face rich in her voice. And there was something else, he thought as he studied her. Something he couldn’t quite identify.
“Of course you were.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did.”
She looked stricken for a moment, then dropped her gaze to the tabletop, and he watched as she crossed her arms as if she thought she needed to hold herself together. Or protect herself.
“What are you ashamed of, Adriana?” he asked softly.
She flinched as if he’d slapped her, telling him a great deal more than he imagined she meant to do, but her expression was clear when she lifted her head. That mask again. She let out a breath and then she opened her mouth—
“Don’t lie to me,” he heard himself say, and worse, he could feel how important it was to him that she heed him. How absurdly, dangerously important. “Don’t clean it up. Just tell me.”
“I’m a Righetti, Your Royal Highness,” she said after a moment, her dark eyes glittering in the shadows. “Shame runs like blood in our veins. It’s who we are.”
Pato didn’t know how long they stood like that, held in that taut, near-painful moment. He didn’t know how long he gazed at her, at the proud tilt of her chin and the faintest tremor in her lips, with that darkness in her eyes. He didn’t know how she’d punched into him so completely that her hand might as well have ripped through his chest. That was what it felt like, and he didn’t want that. He didn’t want this. He couldn’t.
“Adriana,” he said finally, but his voice was no more than a rasp. And then he saw figures approaching from the corner of his eye, and he stopped, almost grateful for the intrusion into a moment that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
She dropped her gaze again, and hunched her shoulders slightly as she stood there, as if warding off whoever had come to stand at the table a small distance behind her. Pato didn’t spare them a glance. He didn’t look away from Adriana for even a moment, and the fact that was more dangerous than anything that had come before didn’t escape him.
He wanted to touch her. He wanted to pull her against him, hold her, soothe her somehow, and he felt hollow inside because of it. Hollow and twisted, and stuck where he’d put himself, on the other side of an incidental table and an impossible divide, useless and corrupt and dismissable.
A fine bed he’d made, indeed.
And then she stiffened again, as if she’d been struck, and Pato frowned as he recognized the voices coming from behind her.
