To Claim His Heir by Christmas

His cousin, his second in command, his best friend—the only person he would ever trust—shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘Wouldn’t do you any harm to get laid either, cousin. Come on—I didn’t drag you here just to hurtle down the black slopes all day.’

He knew fine well what Seve had dragged him here for. All work and no play made Thane a dull, arrogant ass, apparently—and for a minute or three he had considered it. But when the redhead sitting to his right had appeared from nowhere he’d turned to stone. Unable even to contemplate getting close to another woman. In fact, if she touched his arm one more time…

Dios, didn’t she know he was dangerous? That his blood ran black and his heart was dead? That he was more powerful and more feared than any other man in Europe? Surely his scars were enough to give her a clue?

Maybe he should give the mindless female a lesson in Princes of Galancia. Top of the list: do not touch.

He hated being touched. Didn’t want anyone close to him. Ever again. While getting beaten to a pulp couldn’t possibly hurt him any longer, it was the softer stuff that was more dangerous. One taste and he might very well crave it. Long for more of it. Glut himself on it. Live for it. Every touch. Every caress. Every kiss. Until it was taken away, as it inevitably would be. Leaving him empty. Aching. Feeling. Weak. And the dark Prince of Galancia could not afford to be weak. Not again. When he was weak he took his eye off the ball and everything went to hell.

Thane reached for his tumbler of rare single malt, his hand stalling in mid-air as an army of ants marched across his nape. Instinct born from a childhood in the barracks made him turn to peer over his right shoulder. Past the garish pine trees smothered in red ribbons and gold baubles, declaring the onslaught of the festive season. How quaint. How pointless.

Ah, yes, there was Augustus. Averting his gaze like an errant schoolboy. No woman with him—not that Thane could see.

But what he did see was a striking, statuesque blonde walking in the direction of the hallway that led to the restrooms. No. Not blonde at all. Her rich, decadent shower of loose tousled waves reminded him of a dark bronze. Like new-fallen acorns.

Now, she was beautiful. And that thought was so incredulous, so foreign, that he felt a tingle of something suspiciously close to shock.

His avid gaze locked on its target, his usual two-second scan turning into a drawn-out visual seduction, and he trailed his eyes over the low scooped neck of the black sheath that hugged her feminine curves. Lingered on the lapels of her long white dress coat, frisking and teasing all that flawless golden flesh.

A faint frown creased her brow and Thane narrowed his eyes as she raised one hand and rubbed over the seam of her lips with the pad of her thumb.

A pleasurable shiver of recognition rippled over his skin and his entire body prickled with an unfathomable heat.

Ana used to do that. Stroke her mouth that way. When he’d asked her why, she’d said it likely came from sucking her thumb when she was a little girl. Thane had smiled and cracked some joke about her still liking things in her mouth, and she’d proceeded to prove him right. Many times over…

The brazen fires of lust swirled through his groin, and when the woman inhaled deeply—the action pushing those full, high breasts of surreal temptation to swell against the thin silk of her dress—ferocious heat speared through his veins until he flushed from top to toe.

It couldn’t be. Could it? His Ana? Here in the Alps? No, surely not. Ana’s hair was sable-black. Her body far more slender.

Look at me, he ordered. Turn around, he demanded. Now.

And she did. Or rather she spared a glance across the room in his direction, then wrestled with her poise, giving her head a little shake.

Thane’s hands balled in frustration. But he kept watching as she reached the slightly secluded archway leading to the restrooms. Alone, doubtless believing she was unseen, she tipped her head back, glancing skyward as if praying to God, and graced him with the elegant curve of her smooth throat.

Another flashback hit with crystalline precision—his woman, arching off the bed, back bowed as she seized in rapture beneath him, inarticulate cries pouring from her swollen ruby-red mouth. And for the first time in his life—or maybe the second—his insides started to shake. Shake.

Dios, was his mind playing tricks on him? Months he had searched for her. For that trail of sable hair, that mesmerising beauty mark above her full lips, those clothes that harked of dark blood, a roaming gypsy. No stone had been unturned in Zurich, since that was where they had met, where she had claimed to live. Torturous years of not knowing whether she was dead or alive. Living with the grief. The ferocious anger and self-hate that choked him at the notion that he might not have protected her. That she could have been taken from him because of who he was.

He blinked and she was gone. Disappeared once again. And before he knew it he’d shoved his chair backwards with an emphatic scrape.

‘Thane?’

‘Restroom,’ he said, and followed the dark blonde, his heart stampeding through his chest.

Thane thrust the double doors wide, then took a sharp right down the first corridor—and came to a dead end. A swift turn about and he flung open the double doors to the wraparound balcony. Empty.

Impatience thrummed inside him. The notion of being thwarted tore at his guts. He closed the doors with a quick click, turned and—

Slam.

‘Ooof.’ He ran straight into another body so hard and fast he had to grab hold of her upper arms to stop her from careening backwards and crashing to the floor.

‘I…I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going. Please…’

Just the sound of her voice washed clean rain over him. She was breathless, winded, clutching his lapels as if he was her life raft in the darkest, most turbulent storm.

‘Please. I need to…’

That soft, husky whimper flung him back in time, sent electricity sizzling over every inch of his skin. And the way she’d jolted—he would hazard a guess she’d felt it too.

Stumbling back a step, she jacked up her chin and their gazes caught, clashed…

Madre de Dios!

‘Ana?’

Brandy-gold eyes flared up at him as bee-stung lips parted with a gasp. And for the endless moments they stared at one another she seemed to pelt through a tumult of emotions. He could virtually see them flicker over her exquisite face. Fancied each one mirrored his own. She was astounded. Bewildered. Likely in denial. Half convinced she was hallucinating. And all the while Thane drank her in as if he’d been dying of thirst and his pulse-rate tripled to create a sonic boom in his ears.

He wanted to take her in his arms. Bury his fingers into the luxurious fall of her hair. Hold her tightly to him. Despite the internal screech of warning not to touch, not become ensnared in her again.

Thane swallowed around the emotional grenade lodged in his throat. ‘Ana, where have you been? I looked for you. What happened? I…’

Unable to wait a second longer, he reached out—but she staggered back another step; her brow pinched with pain.

‘No. No! Don’t touch me. I’m sorry. You must be mistaking me for someone else. I…’

That pain morphed into something like fear and punched him in the gut.

‘Please excuse me,’ she said, and she made to duck past him.

His confusion made his cat-like reflexes take a second too long to kick in.

‘Ana? What are you talking about?’

Why was she scared of him? He didn’t like it. Not one bit. Everyone else? Yes. Her? No.

A man emerged from around the corner and when Thane recognised Augustus he almost swung his fist in the other man’s face. Though at the last second he thought better of it. His word, he’d been told, was vehement enough. Consequently he opened his mouth to deliver a curt command but the Viscount beat him to the punch.

‘Luciana? Are you all right, querida?’

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

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.

Anger sparked. Revving up to be free of its leash. And she let it take hold. Uncoil deep inside her. Unravel at a breakneck pace. It was wonderful. Glorious. Just what she’d hankered for all day. All day? No. Since she’d stepped off the plane from Hong Kong, thoroughly powerless, with her façade firmly in place.