A Throne for the Taking

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How had he missed such an important event? The people he had employed to watch what was happening in Mecjoria should have been aware of it. They should have investigated and reported back to him.

‘It’s been kept very quiet—at the moment my father is officially “resting” to recover from illness.’

‘When the reality is?’

‘That he’s under arrest.’

Her voice caught on the word, a soft little hiccup that did disturbing things to the tension at his groin, tightening it a notch or two uncomfortably.

‘And is now in the state prison.’

That was the last thing he’d expected and it shocked some of the desire from him, making his head swim slightly at the rush of blood from one part of his body to his head.

‘On what charge?’ he demanded sharply.

‘No charge.’ She shook her head, sending her dark hair flying. ‘Not as yet—that—that all depends on how things work out.’

‘So what the hell did he do wrong?’ Gregor had always seemed such a canny player. Someone who knew how best to feather his own nest. So had he got too greedy, made some mistake?

‘He—chose the wrong side in the recent inheritance battle. For the throne.’

So that was what was behind this. Alexei might never want to set foot in Mecjoria ever again, but he couldn’t be unaware—no one could be unaware—of the struggle that had gone on over the inheritance of the throne once old King Leopold had died. First Leopold’s son Marcus had inherited, but only briefly. A savage heart attack had killed him barely months into his reign. Because he had died childless, his nephew Felix should have inherited the crown, but his wild way of life had been his undoing, so that he had died in a high-speed car crash before he had even ascended to the throne. Now there were several factions warring over just who was the legal heir to follow Felix.

‘And then when Felix died … My father is currently seen as an enemy—as a threat to the throne.’

She wasn’t telling the full truth, Alexei realised. There was something she was holding back, he was sure of it. Something that clouded those amazing eyes, tightened the muscles around her delicate jawline, pulling the pretty mouth tight, though there was no mistaking the quiver of those softly sensual lips.

Lips that he wished to hell he could taste, feel that trembling softness under his own mouth, plunder the moist interior …

‘It will all work out in the end.’

Once again his own burning inner feelings made the words sound abrupt, dismissive, and he saw her blink slowly, withdrawing from him. Her head came up, that smooth chin lifting in defiance as she met his stare face-on.

‘You can promise that, can you?’ Ria asked, her tone appallingly cynical.

And where her unexpected weakness hadn’t beaten him now, shockingly, her boldness did. There was a new spark in her eyes, fresh colour in her cheeks. She was once more the proud Grand Duchess Honoria and not the strangely defeated girl who had reached out to something he had thought was long dead inside him. This Ria was a challenge; a challenge he welcomed. The sound of his blood was like a roar inside his head, the heated race of his pulse burning along every vein. He had never wanted a woman so much as he wanted her now, and the need was like an ache in every nerve.

‘How would you know? You were the one who turned your back on Mecjoria—haven’t even been back once in ten years.’

‘Not turned my back,’ Alexei growled. ‘We weren’t given a chance to stay. In fact it was made plain that we were not wanted.’

And who had been behind that? Her father—the very same man who was now, according to her story, locked in a prison cell. Did she expect him to feel sorry for him? To give a damn what might happen to the monster who hadn’t even waited to allow him and his mother time to mourn their loss, or even to attend the state funeral, before he had had them escorted to the airport and put on the first plane out of the country?

First making sure that every penny of his father’s fortune, every jewel, every tiny personal inheritance, had been taken from them, leaving them with little but the clothes they stood up in, not even the most basic allowance to see them into their new life in exile. Worst of all, Gregor had taken their name from them. The name his mother had been entitled to, and with it her honour, the legality of her marriage into the royal house of Mecjoria. He must have done it deliberately, hiding away the document that showed the old king’s permission. The document that Ria had been commissioned to bring here so unexpectedly—because it now suited her father. Was it any wonder that he loathed the man—that he would do anything to bring him down?

But it seemed that Gregor had managed that all on his own.

‘And I don’t have to be in the country to know what is going on.’

‘The papers don’t report everything. And certainly not always accurately.’

Something new had clouded those clear eyes and turned her expression into an intriguing mixture of defiance and uncertainty. There was just the tiniest sheen of moisture under one eye, where a trace of an unexpected tear had escaped the determined control she had been trying to impose on it and slipped out on to her lashes.

Unable to resist the impulse, he reached out and touched her face, letting his fingers rest lightly on the fine skin along the high, slanting cheekbone, wiping away that touch of moisture. The warmth and softness of the contact made his nerves burn, sending stinging arrows of response down into his body. He wanted so much more and yet he wanted to keep things just as they were—for now. It was a struggle not to do more, not to curve his hand around her cheek, cup that defiant little chin against his palm, lift her face towards his so that he could capture her mouth …

And that would ruin things completely. She would react like a scalded cat, he had no doubt. All that silent defiance would return in full force, and she’d swing away from him, repulsing the gesture with a rough shake of her head. She was still too tense, too on edge. But like any nervous cat, with a few moments’ careful attention—perhaps a soothing stroke or two—she would soon settle down.

So for now it was enough to watch the storm of emotions that swept over her face. The response that turned those citrine eyes smoky, that darkened and deepened the black of her pupils, making them spread like the flow of ink until they covered almost all of her irises. The way that her mouth opened again to show the tips of small white teeth was a temptation that kicked at his libido, making it hungrier than ever. The clamour in his body urged him to act, to make his move now, when she was at her weakest, but for a little while at least he was enjoying imposing restraint on himself, letting the sensual hunger build—anticipating what might come later—and watching the effect his behaviour had on her.

‘So tell me the rest.’

She didn’t know if she could go through with this. Ria struggled to find some of the certainty, the conviction of doing the right thing, that had buoyed her up on her journey here, held her in the room in spite of the frantic thudding of her heart. So much depended on what she said now and the possible repercussions of her failure, personal and political, were almost impossible to imagine. The image of her mother, too pale, far too thin, drifting through life like a wraith, with no appetite, no interest in anything slid into her mind. Her days were haunted by fears, her nights plagued by terrifying nightmares.

Her father was the cause of those nightmares. Since the night that the state police had come to arrest him, taking him away in handcuffs, they had never seen him for a moment. But they knew where he was. The state prison doors had slammed closed on him and, unless Ria could find some way of helping him, then behind those locked doors was where he was going to stay. She had wanted to help him—wanted to return him to her mother—and it had been because she had been looking for some way to do that that she had found the hidden documents, the ones that proved Alexei’s legitimacy and the others that had revealed the whole truth about what had been going on.

The full, appalling truth.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS WHAT she had come here for, Ria reminded herself. To tell him the story that had not yet leaked into the papers. The full details of the archaic inheritance laws that had come into play in the country since the unexpected death of the man they had believed to be the heir to the throne. But that would also mean telling him how those laws involved him, and his reaction just a moment before had made it plain that he harboured no warmth towards the country that had once been his home.

But when he had touched her—the way he still touched her—just that one tiny contact seemed to have broken through the careful, deliberate barriers she had built around herself. It was so long since she had felt that someone sympathised; that someone might be on her side. And the fact that it was someone as strong and forceful—and devastating—as this particular man, the man who had once been a special friend to her, stripped away several much-needed protective layers of skin, leaving her raw and disturbingly vulnerable.

He was so close she couldn’t actually judge his expression without lifting her head, tilting it back just a little. And that movement brought her eyes up to clash with his. Suddenly even breathing naturally was impossible as their gazes locked, the darkness and intensity of his stare closing her throat in the space of a single uneven heartbeat.

In that moment everything that had happened in the past months rushed up to swamp her mind, taking with it any hope of rational thought. Except that right now she needed him. Needed the friend he had once been. So much about him might have changed: that hard-boned face had thinned, toughened into that of a stunningly mature male in his sexual prime; those eyes might now be five inches above hers where once they had been so much closer to her own … But they were still the eyes of the friend she had known. Still the eyes of the one person she had felt she could confide in and get a sympathetic hearing.

They were the eyes she had once let herself dream of seeing warm with more than just the easy light of friendship. And the memory of how in the past she had fallen asleep and into dreams of them being so much more than friends twisted in her heart with the bitterness of loss.

‘Tell me everything.’

‘You don’t really want that,’ she flung at him, gulping in air so that she could loosen her throat.

‘No? Try me.’

Challenge blended with something else in his tone. And it was that something else that made her heart jerk, her breath catch.

Was it possible that he really did want to know? That he might help her? Memories of their past friendship surfaced once again, tugging at her feelings. She was so lonely, so dragged down by it all, so tired of coping with everything on her own. So wretched at the thought of what the future might bring. And here was this man who had once been the boy she adored, the friend who had let her offload her troubles on to his shoulders—shoulders that even then had seemed broad enough to take on the world. They were so much broader, so much stronger now.

Tell me everything, he’d said, and as he spoke the hand that rested against her face moved slightly, the pressure of his fingers softening, his palm curving so that it lay over her cheek, warm and hard and yet gentle all at the same time.

‘Thetruth, Ria,’ he said and the sound of her name on his lips was her weakness, her undoing.

Unable to stop herself, she turned her face into his hold, inhaling the scent of his skin, pursing her lips to press a small, soft kiss against the warmth of his palm.

Instantly everything changed. Her heart seemed to stop, her breathing stilled. The clean, musky aroma of his body was all around her, the taste of his flesh tangy on her tongue. It was like taking a sip of a fine, smoky brandy, one that intoxicated in a moment, sending fizzing bubbles of electricity along every nerve.

She wanted more. Needed to deepen the contact. Needed it like never before.

The boy who had been her friend had never made her feel like this; never made her pulse race so fast and heavy, her head spin so wildly. In all her adolescent dreams she had never known this feeling of awareness, of hunger. A pulsing, heated adult hunger that grew and sharpened as he moved his hold on her, taking her chin and lifting it so that their eyes clashed and scorched. Something blazed in these black depths, creating a golden glow that had more heat than an inferno and yet was almost—almost—under control.

‘Ria …’ he said again, his tone very different this time, his voice roughening at the edges. He had moved closer somehow, without her noticing, and the warmth of his breath on her skin as he spoke her name sent heated shivers running down her spine, making her toes curl inside her neat, polished shoes.

‘Alex …’

But speaking had been a mistake. It made her mouth move against his skin, brought that powerfully sensual taste onto her tongue once again, so that she swallowed convulsively, taking the essence of him into herself in an echo of a much more intimate blending. Immediately it was as if a lighted match had been set to desert-dry brushwood. As if the tiny flicker that had been smouldering deep inside from the moment that she had come face to face with him again in his office had suddenly burst into wild and uncontrollable flame, the force of it moving her forward sharply, close up against him.

She heard his breath hiss in between his teeth in an uncontrolled response that both shocked and thrilled her. The thought that he felt as she did, so much that he was unable to hide his response from her, made her head spin. She could hardly believe that it could be possible, but there was no denying the evidence of the way that his grip tightened on her chin, hard fingers digging into her skin as he lifted her face towards his with a roughness that betrayed the urgency of his feelings.

‘Alex …’ she tried again, trying to follow the safe, the sensible path and persuade him to stop, but realising as she heard her own voice that she was doing exactly the opposite. The quaver on his name sounded so much more like shaken encouragement.

But a moment later it didn’t matter what she said or how she said it. The truth was that she was incapable of any further speech as Alexei’s dark head swooped down, his mouth capturing hers in a savage kiss. Hard lips crushed hers, bringing them open to the invasion of his tongue in an intimate dance that made her knees weaken so that she swayed against him, her body melting soft and yielding against the hardness of his.

She heard him mutter something dark and deep in his throat and the next moment she was swung round and up into his arms. Half-walked, half-carried across the room, his mouth never leaving hers, until she was hard up against the wall, its support cold and hard against her back. Both thrilled and shocked by his unexpected response, she shivered under the impact of his powerful form on her, the heat and hardness of him crushed against the cradle of her pelvis. If she had needed any further evidence of the fact that his blood was burning as hot as hers, then it was there in the swollen, powerful erection that was crushed between them.

His mouth was plundering hers, his tongue sweeping into the innermost corners, tasting her, tormenting her. The heated pressure of his hands matched the intimate invasion of his mouth, hot, hard palms skimming over her body, burning through the flowered cotton of her dress, curving over the swell of her hips, cupping her buttocks to pull her closer to him. Ria’s blood pounded at her temples, along every nerve. Her breasts prickled and tightened in stinging response, nipples pressing against the soft lace of her bra, hungry for the feel of those wickedly enticing fingers against her flesh.

Unable to stop herself, she nipped sharply at his lower lip, catching it between her teeth and taking his gasp of response into her mouth with the taste of him clear and wild against her lips. Pushed into penitence by his reaction, she let her tongue slide over the damaged skin, soothing the small pressure wounds her teeth had inflicted and sucking the fullness of it to ease away any soreness. But the low growl she heard deep in his throat told her that his reaction had not been one of discomfort. Instead he was encouraging her to take further liberties, crushing her hard against him and letting his hands wander freely over her yearning body.

‘Hell, but you’re beautiful …’

He muttered the words against her arching throat, his breath warm against her flesh, and she could hardly believe that she was hearing them. Had he truly said beautiful? Was it possible that the man the gossip columns labelled the playboy prince, who had his pick of the sexiest women in the world—socialites, models, actresses—could think her so attractive? Memories of the adolescent dreams she had once indulged in, the yearning crush she had felt for this man surfaced all over again, reminding her of how much she would have given to hear those words back then, years ago. Then all he had ever shown her was a kind, but rather offhand friendship that was light-years away from this carnal hunger that seemed to grip them now.

‘Who would have thought that you would grow up like this?’

‘It—it’s been a long time,’ Ria managed to choke out, her throat dry with tension and need. ‘I missed …’

But a sudden rush of self-preservation had her catching up the words in shock, clamping her mouth tight shut against what she had almost revealed. The heady rush of sensuality had driven common sense so far from her mind but she needed to grab it back now—and quickly. Alexei was no longer even her friend. He was the man who held her future and that of her country in his hands, even if he didn’t know it yet.

In the strong, sensual hands that had been creating such electric pulses of pleasure in her body only a moment before. Pulses she wanted to feel more of. That made her whole body ache with need. But she must deny herself such caresses even though her whole body screamed in protest at the thought of stopping now, here, like this, when every nerve had suddenly come alive and awake in a whole new way. She had to remember why she was here.

‘You—you’ve been missed,’ she managed, though her voice shook on the words, betraying the effort she was making to get them out. And then, suddenly aware of how that might sound—that he could interpret it as meaning she was telling him just how much she had missed him—she rushed on. ‘You’ve been missed in Mecjoria.’

The sound of that name brought exactly the reaction she feared. She felt the new tension in the long body pressed against hers as he stilled, withdrawing from her immediately, his hands freezing, denying her the shivers of pleasure that had radiated out from his touch.

‘I doubt that very much,’ he muttered, his voice rough and harsh so that it scraped over her rawly exposed nerves. ‘I don’t think that could ever be true.’

‘Oh, but it is!’ Ria protested, forcing herself to go on because this was what she had come here for after all. ‘You’re missed in Mecjoria—and wanted and needed there.’

‘Needed?’

Her heart sank as he pushed himself away from her to stand looking down into her face with icy onyx eyes, all fire, all warmth fading from them in the space of a heartbeat. She had done what she needed to do, turned things back on to the real reason why she was here, so that at last she could tell him just why she had come to find him. But she felt lost and alone, her body suddenly cold and bereft without the heat and power of his surrounding it; her skin, her breasts, her lips cooling sharply as the imprint of his whipcord strength evaporated into the cool of the afternoon air.

She’d lost him again. That much was obvious from one swift glance at his face, seeing the way it had closed off against her, black eyes opaque and expressionless, revealing nothing. His only movement was when his hand went to his throat, tugging at the tie around his neck as if it was choking him. He pulled it loose, flicked open the top button on his shirt, then another, as if just one was not enough. And the restless movement was enough to draw her eyes, make her watch in stunned fascination.

No, that was a mistake—a major mistake. Looking into those deep-set black eyes, she suddenly saw a new light, a darkly burning, disturbing light in their depths, and it warned that there was more to this than anything she might have anticipated already. Memory swung her back to the scene of just moments before. Then, pinned up against the wall with his hands hot on her, she had known exactly what he wanted. And she had been dangerously close to giving it to him, with no thought of her own sanity or safety. Her body still tingled with the aftershocks of that encounter, the taste of him still lingered on her mouth. If she licked her lips she revived the sensation, almost as if he had just kissed her again. And oh, dear heaven, but she wanted him to kiss her again.

‘There is no one there who would miss me and as for anyone who might want me for any reason whatsoever …’

‘Oh, but you’re wrong there. You really are.’

But how did she convince him of that? If there was anything that brought home to her how difficult her task was then this office, this building, was it. She didn’t need to be told how much Alexei had made his new life here in England. More than a new life, his fortune, his home. And it was plain from the way he spoke of Mecjoria that his father’s country meant nothing to him. Did she even have the right to ask him to give this up?

She didn’t know. But the one thing she was sure of was that she didn’t have the right to keep it from him. The decision, whatever it was, had to be his.

‘I’ll make it easy for you, shall I?’ Alexei drawled cynically. ‘Twice now you have told me that I am wanted—and needed—in Mecjoria. You have to be lying.’

‘No lie. Really.’

‘You expect me to believe that I am needed in the country that rejected me as not fit to be even the smallest part of the royal family? Needed by the place that has disowned and ignored me for the past ten years?’

The only response Ria could manage was a sharp, swift nod of her head. She couldn’t persuade her voice to work on anything else.

‘Then you’ll have to explain. Needed as what?’

‘As …’

Twice Ria opened her mouth to try to get the words out. Twice she failed, and it was only when Alexei turned his narrow-eyed glare on her and muttered her name as if in threat that she forced herself to speak, bringing it out in a rush.

‘As—as their king. You’re needed to take the throne of Mecjoria now that Felix is dead.’

CHAPTER FOUR

AS THEIR KING.

The words hit like a blow to the head, making Alexei’s thoughts reel. Had he heard right?

You’re needed to take the throne of Mecjoria now that Felix is dead.

Whatever else he had expected, it had not been that. She had made it plain that she and her family had suffered some strong reversal of their fortunes in the upheaval that had followed the struggles over the inheritance of the Mecjorian crown. She had come here to ask for help, that much was obvious. Softening him up by producing the proof of his legitimacy first. Perhaps to play on the fact that they had once been friends in order to get him to use his fortune to help, rescue her family. Why else would she be here?

Why else would she have responded to his kisses as she had?

Because even as he had felt her mouth opening under his, the soft curves of her body melting against him, he had known that she was only doing this for her own private reasons.

Known it and hadn’t cared. He had let her lead him on in that way because he’d wanted it. No woman had excited him, aroused him so much with a single kiss. And there had been plenty of women. His reputation as a playboy had been well earned, and he had had a lot of fun earning it. At least at the beginning. It was only after Mariette—and Belle—that everything had changed. His mind flinched away from the memory but there was no getting away from the after-effects of that terrible day. His appetites had become jaded; his senses numbed. Nothing seemed to touch him like before. There was no longer the thrill of the chase.

Not that he had to do any chasing. Women practically threw themselves at him and he could have his pick of any of them simply by saying the right word, turning a practised smile in their direction. He was under no illusions; he knew it was his position and wealth that was such a strong part of the attraction. That and the bad-boy reputation that haunted him like a dark shadow. So many women wanted to be the one who tamed him. But not one of them had ever stood a chance. He had enjoyed them, shared their beds, sometimes finding the oblivion he sought in their arms. But not one of them had ever heated his blood, set his pulse racing in burning hunger as this one kiss from the former friend he had once known as a young girl, but who had grown into a stunningly sexual woman.

A woman who, like so many others, had been prepared to use that sexuality to persuade him to give her what she wanted.