Claiming His Princess: Duty at What Cost? / A Throne for the Taking / Princess in the Iron Mask

Most of all, though, she loved how when everyone else had left for the day he brought her a cup of her favourite tea without her having to ask. Nobody, she had realised that first time, ever did anything for her without her having to ask first.

She looked across at him, willing him to understand. ‘But it can be done.’

Her father’s face tightened. ‘Why are you always so determined to defy me?’

‘This is not about defiance, sir,’ Ava insisted, holding back her tendency to disconnect from her father in order to keep her goal in sight. ‘If you can give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk amongst our people then I’ll listen.’

‘It’s a break in tradition.’

‘Why can’t I start a new one?’

‘A safety risk, then.’

Of course Ava knew he was right, but she also recognised that fear was debilitating. ‘Is it important to rule safely, Father?’ she asked softly. ‘Or with integrity?’

Her father turned from the window and stared at her, his expression pained. ‘You always were a smart child, Ava, but you’re still not leaving this carriage. Wolfe—’ he spoke while still smiling and waving ‘—stop her before she does something stupid.’

Ava hated the fact that yet another man held something so important to her in his power. She lifted her chin, wondering how she would react when Wolfe sounded the death knell to her idea. It was important to her on so many levels…

Fortunately her determination wasn’t to be tested on this as Wolfe, his expression stern, broke her steady gaze to address her father. ‘My job is to keep her safe, Your Majesty, not to stop her.’

‘Thank you.’

Wolfe turned from the narrow window that had once formed part of a parapet when he heard Ava step into the small room he was using as an office. He’d thought she would want to make an early night of it, worn out after walking for miles that day and thrilling her people with handshakes and good wishes. On the contrary, she looked fresh and still buzzed, dressed in some sort of yoga outfit that left little to his hyperactive imagination.

He knew why she was thanking him, but she’d put him in an impossible position with her earnest request and he was still fuming about it. ‘It was a foolish thing to do.’

‘Maybe.’ She threw him a brief smile. ‘But I needed to do it and you understood that.’

‘I understood you had a crazy idea and it came off okay this time. Next time it might not.’

‘Life’s a risk, no?’ She cocked her head. ‘I would have thought your job was full of them.’

‘Calculated risks are different from spontaneous reactions.’

‘It wasn’t a spontaneous reaction,’ she said indignantly. ‘I’d thought about it all morning.’

‘Next time you might want to share that,’ he said dryly.

‘Okay.’ She shrugged. ‘I take your point, but it doesn’t stop me from being happy that I did it.’

Wolfe grunted in response and made the mistake of moving to stand behind his desk. He’d had to train himself to ignore her delicious scent all week, but this close, in the confines of this suddenly overheated room, it was nearly impossible to do.

When she didn’t make a move to leave he glanced at her. ‘Was there something else?’

‘Yes. Do you have any news on who might have killed my brother?’

‘No.’ He had some leads to go on but he had no intention of telling her that. Keeping a client apprised of his intel was not the way he operated.

‘Okay, then.’

Her slender fingers trailed over the top of his desk, but just when he thought she was going to give him a break and leave she swung back towards him.

‘I’m going for a walk outside. Just in case you need to know.’

Of course he needed to know.

‘If you go I’ll have to go with you.’

Her eyes met his. ‘Okay.’

Her voice had a husky quality, and all he wanted to do was haul her across his desk and push that stretchy top up her chest. ‘I suggest you get a jacket. It’s cold outside.’

‘I don’t know where you get your weather information from,’ Ava said ten minutes later, her sneaker-shod feet crunching the gravel footpath underfoot. ‘It’s not cold at all.’

She shrugged out of her lightweight jacket and draped it loosely over her shoulders. ‘I love these cloudless summer nights in Anders. The cicadas singing and the mountains in the background. When I was small I used to lie on the grass with my mother and count the stars. It’s not possible to do that in Paris.’

‘No stars?’

‘It’s not the stars; it’s the grass. If you so much as look the wrong way at the lush lawns in a Parisian park a gendarme will come over and slap you with a misdemeanour charge.’ She wagged her finger playfully. ‘One can look but never touch.’

Wolfe knew exactly how that felt.

‘Even princesses?’

She threw him an impish grin. ‘Afraid so. The only people who get special treatment in Paris are the Parisians.’

Wolfe laughed, finding himself relaxing under the vast velvet sky, intrigued as Ava relived her time in Paris and made comparisons between France and Anders. He’d found himself making similar comparisons between Australia and Anders during the week. It was most likely because it had been years since he’d spent so long in one place, but as much as he would have said he was a beach lover he found the small mountainous nation of Anders surprisingly serene and peaceful.

‘How do you feel about being back?’ he asked.

Ava stopped walking and turned to face the mountains, their high peaks barely discernible in the night sky. ‘Two weeks ago I would have said I hated it, but now…now it’s growing on me again.’

She hesitated, and he could see her wrestling with herself about whether to continue. Surprisingly he wanted her to. He liked listening to her talk.

‘Because?’

‘Because I’ve missed the fresh scent of pine in the air and the tranquillity of being surrounded by every shade of green. It feels like home, and being here has made me realise that I miss that more than I allowed myself to think about.’ Her hand trailed a clump of lavender and she raised her fingers to her nose and inhaled the sweet scent. ‘The only fly in the ointment is my father,’ she continued, almost to herself. ‘He’s so determined that he’s always right it becomes exhausting trying to deal with him at times. What about you?’ she asked lightly.

‘No. I find him easy to get along with,’ Wolfe deadpanned.

She stopped in the middle of the path and arched her brow. ‘You know what I mean.’

He did. He just had no intention of talking about his parents.

Stepping off the path onto the well-tended lawn, he walked a short distance and laid his palms against the trunk of an ancient pine tree. He wasn’t sure if she would follow, but then he heard her soft tread on the pine needles and felt glad that she had. ‘They say if you hold your hands against the trunk like this you can feel its secrets.’

‘Really?’

She spread her fingers wide against the trunk beside his and stirred up all sorts of unwelcome responses inside his body.

‘What do you feel?’

Wolfe paused, quite sure she didn’t want to hear what he was really feeling. ‘Bark.’

She laughed and shook her head. ‘And for a minute there I thought you were going to go all deep and meaningful on me.’

‘Mmm, not me.’ Wolfe caught her lingering gaze and moved back to the worn path.

‘You grew up on a farm, didn’t you?’

‘Yep.’ He hoped his short answer gave away just how little he wanted to talk about his past.

‘What was it like?’

No such luck…

‘Dusty.’

‘Pah!’

He glanced at her and couldn’t help chuckling at her disgusted expression.

‘Do you know you close up like a crab whenever I ask you anything personal?’

‘Clam.’

‘That’s what I said.’ She studied him as if she was trying to work him out. ‘Why do you make it so hard to know you?’

Wondering what to say to that thorny question, Wolfe was relieved when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that it was his brother. ‘Excuse me, but I have to take this.’ He pressed the answer button. ‘Ad-man, what’s up?’

His brother hesitated on the other end of the line. ‘Oh, sorry, bro. Have I caught you in the middle of a run?’

It took Wolfe a second to understand his brother’s comment, and then he became conscious that his breathing was tense and uneven. Great. ‘Just work. Don’t tell me you’re still in the office, too?’

‘With you living it large in a European castle, guarding a beautiful maiden, where else would I be?’

Wolfe told his brother he’d trade places with him in the blink of an eye but even as he said it he knew he was lying. Quickly changing the subject, he tormented his brother a little more and then ran through a few work-related issues before ringing off.

‘Well, that was convenient.’

Wolfe lifted his gaze to the woman who was slowly driving him mad and realised that other than his brother she was the only person who had ever teased him about his behaviour.

Feeling overly hot, even though the air temperature had dropped a couple of degrees, he focused on the small cluster of flowers she held in her hands, not unlike a bride waiting to walk down the aisle. Shaking off that disconcerting image, he made his voice curt when he spoke. ‘We should head back inside.’

‘Okay.’ She sniffed the small posy and fell into step beside him. ‘Was that your brother?’

He thought about changing the subject, but knew if he did her interest would only grow, not wane. ‘Yes.’

‘You sound close to him.’

‘I am.’

‘So, no sibling rivalry?’

He shook his head. ‘We’re less than two years apart so we did everything together.’

‘Does he travel around like you?’

‘No. He’s based in New York.’

‘Does he have a wife? Kids?’

Wolf stopped so abruptly she’d taken two more steps before she noticed.

‘This is starting to feel like an inquisition.’

She shrugged one slender shoulder. ‘I’m just trying to know you a little better.’

‘By asking questions about my brother?’

‘You won’t answer questions about anything else.’

That was because he had never seen the point in talking about himself. And, if he was completely honest, because he was starting to like her in a way that transcended the physical and that scared him. It was dangerous to bond with a client. It caused sloppy work and unrealistic attachments to develop.

‘Look, don’t worry about it.’ She gave him a half smile that seemed paper-thin. ‘When you’re like this…’ She gave another one of those Gallic shrugs that drove him bonkers. ‘I forget you work for my father.’

If she had tried to wheedle information from him, or tried to make him feel guilty, he would have held his line. Faced with the stoic indifference he now knew she used to mask her true feelings, he caved. Or perhaps it was just that she looked so beautiful in the light of the crescent moon.

‘What do you want to know?’ he asked, not a little gruffly.

‘What do you want to tell me?’

Wolfe blew out a breath. It was so typical of her to make him work for something he didn’t even want.

‘My father died ten years ago.’

Ava stopped and looked at him. ‘I’m sorry. Were you close?’

Had they been close? Probably not, if he had to think about his answer. ‘At times.’

‘And your mother?’

Wolfe turned to continue walking. ‘I don’t know where she lives. She left when I was younger.’

‘Oh. That must have been hard.’

‘It is what it is.’

He felt her glance and knew she was seeing more than he wanted her to. ‘Is she the reason you avoid long-term relationships?’

There was a lengthy silence in which he realised even the cicadas had stopped singing. As if they too were waiting with bated breath for his answer. Wolfe made a sound in his throat at the uncharacteristically fanciful thought and nearly missed her next word.

‘Love?’

He did not want to talk about this with her. It was time to end the conversation. ‘Love is the most unstable emotion I’ve ever come across,’ he said fiercely. ‘My mother didn’t just leave once. She left over and over. And every time she returned she told us how much she loved us. It was the only time she ever said it.’

As soon as the bleak words were out he regretted them. The look of pity on Ava’s face only made the feeling ten times worse.

‘Where did she go?’

Wolfe thrust his hand through his hair and promised himself next time he’d stick to monosyllabic answers or none at all, as he usually did. ‘We never knew. Sometimes she would meet a man in town and take off, other times she just went on a “holiday”.’

‘But that’s awful. What did your father say? Was he even there?’

‘He was there,’ Wolfe said grimly. Usually out on his tractor, ignoring reality. ‘But he didn’t say anything. When she came back, sometimes months later, we all just pretended she’d never left.’

‘That hurts the most, no?’ Her delicate brows drew together in consternation. ‘I used to hate it when my father would go off on extended business trips, or lock himself away in meetings and then totally ignore how it made us feel.’

‘I wasn’t hurt by her actions,’ Wolfe denied. ‘But Adam was. Whenever she’d go he used to run away and try and find her.’ He hated remembering those hours of searching for his brother, worried about whether he’d find him alive or dead in the hot, arid bushland that surrounded their farm.

‘But not you?’

Wolfe realised with a start that she had somehow sucked him back into the past against his better judgment, and he felt excessively relieved to find they had arrived back at the palace. ‘No. Not me. I was older. I understood.’

She looked up at him with such a penetrating gaze he felt every one of his muscles grow taut.

‘Understood what, Wolfe?’ Her gaze bored into his. ‘That you were a child who couldn’t rely on his mother’s love?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

AVA VACILLATED BETWEEN the two evening gowns laid out on her hotel bed. She could smell the fragrant Parisian air through her open window, and outside she knew the night sky was streaked with pink and orange, the Seine sparkling under the glow of the street lamps that had just gone on.

She tapped her foot in time with her favourite jazz album, blaring from the hotel’s sound system, trying to feel okay about her coming dinner with Prince Lorenzo of Triole and not to torture herself about where Wolfe had got to last night.

For a whole week he’d barely uttered a word to her—ever since he’d opened up about his childhood and she’d made that rash statement about his mother. The words had been out of her mouth before she’d thought it through, but she had felt so outraged on his behalf. And clearly he’d felt outraged by what she’d said, because he had stopped sitting beside her in meetings and had even stopped making her evening cup of tea. It was a silly, inconsequential thing to care about, but it had come to mean a lot to her. His support had come to mean a lot. Somewhere along the way she had forgotten that she was just his client. Forgotten that, although they had been lovers, they had nothing else between them.

The devil on her shoulder told her he’d been out with a woman. That he was a man with a large sexual appetite he had not slaked for weeks. Her hands knotted into fists and she forced herself not to think about the heaviness in her heart. Forced herself to concentrate on the crucial task of choosing a gown for the evening. She smiled wryly at Lucy, who clutched the ornate mahogany bedpost with a dreamy expression on her face.

Ever since Ava had submitted to the changes in her life and accepted Lucy’s help their relationship had blossomed into the beginnings of a genuine friendship.

‘Which do you think, Lucy?’

‘Depends on the look you’re going for. The silver is stylish and understated, while the red is very “look at me”. Very racy.’

Which would Wolfe prefer? The thought winged into Ava’s mind before she could stop it. The silver. He’d want her to blend into the background.

‘The red,’ she said decisively, angry with herself for wanting to dress to please Wolfe. And racy might help pick up her mood. Ava rolled her shoulders to ease the tension her warm bath had failed to alleviate.

‘Great choice.’ Lucy beamed. ‘Prince Lorenzo will find you irresistible!’

The sound of the music being clicked off made Lucy’s last words ring loudly in the sudden silence. Lucy gasped, her hand pressed against her chest. ‘Monsieur Wolfe!’

‘Leave us, Lucy,’ Wolfe commanded icily.

Lucy hesitated, her eyes darting to Ava’s.

Ava handed Lucy the red gown. ‘If you could have this pressed and return it when it’s done, Lucy, that would be lovely.’

She could tell instantly that Wolfe was in a dangerous mood; the expression on his face was as black as his clothing.

After waiting for Lucy to close the sitting room door, she turned to face him. ‘I didn’t hear you knock.’

‘That’s because I didn’t.’

Their eyes connected and Ava couldn’t have looked away to save her life. Then he prowled to the other side of the room and slammed her window closed before turning to face her. ‘Big night tonight?’ His eyes fell on the silver dress draped over her bed.

‘A state dinner is always important.’ Her heart thumped in her chest and she moved to sit on the stool facing the dressing table, started unwinding her hair from the topknot she’d put it in while she bathed. If nothing else it gave her hands something to do. Although she knew he was angry, she had no idea why. ‘Did you want something?’

Now, there was a loaded question. But it wasn’t one Wolfe was in a state of mind to answer. Not with her wearing that flimsy midnight-blue kimono that perfectly matched her eyes and most likely nothing underneath.

He was in a foul mood and he knew why. He was frustrated with the lack of progress he’d made on her case—and frustrated with himself. He’d lost focus somewhere in the middle of last week and stopped thinking of her as a job. Somewhere along the way he’d started to admire her work ethic, her commitment to master a duty she’d never thought would be hers…and then he’d gone and exacerbated the situation by spilling his guts to her.

‘Understood what, Wolfe? That you were a child who couldn’t rely on his mother’s love?’

Wolfe silently cursed as her nosy question replayed once again inside his head. That’s what you got for opening up to a woman. Psychobabble and a week-long headache.

He’d made a mistake—too many where she was concerned—but as long as he made the other night his last he could live with it.

Now all he had to do was to reinstate the cool professionalism he was renowned for and get back on task.

In some ways he had hoped taking last night off would help with that. He’d met a mate in Rome at a nightclub he’d hated before he’d even made it past the officious bouncer. When he’d hit the dance floor with a super-sexy Italian girl his head had started aching from the loud music and his body had all but yawned with boredom. Boredom? At breasts bursting out of a short dress that would send any normal man into a frenzy of desire? Ridiculous. Or so Tom had informed him.

‘Wolfe?’

His name falling from Ava’s delectable lips was like a husky invitation to his senses. In his mind’s eye he imagined her rising gracefully from the cushioned stool on which she sat. Saw her loosen the sash on her robe, knew that it would fall halfway open, catch on the crest of her nipples and hold, revealing the temptation of her flat belly and the brunette curls he longed to bury his face in. She would hold his gaze, tilt her cute nose and saunter towards him. Then she’d arch her imperious brow, wrap her arms around his neck and pull his mouth to hers.

Of course she didn’t do any such thing.

Instead she picked up her hairbrush and ran it through her hair in long, languid strokes. Wolfe glanced sideways and saw the discarded jodhpurs and billowy white shirt she had worn riding earlier that day with suitor number two hundred and one, and all he wanted to do was ride her. Hard.

For nearly three weeks he’d held it together. Held his desire for her at bay. Held his self-control in check. Why was it pulling at him now? Making him sweat?

But he knew, didn’t he?

Lorenzo, the urbane Prince of Triole, wanted her—and her father had decided he was the one. He’d asked Wolfe to do a special security check on him to clear the way. Tonight Lorenzo would no doubt try to stake his claim on her. Knowing how much she sought her father’s approval, how much she wanted to do the right thing by her country, he was very much afraid she’d go along with it. Not that he should care. It wasn’t as if he had made a claim on her himself.

‘Wolfe?’ Her voice had risen with concern at his delayed response to her question. ‘Do you have news about who caused Frédéric’s accident?’

‘No.’ Wolfe grated harshly, holding up the crumpled piece of paper he’d printed out five minutes ago. ‘I’m here about this.’

She glanced at the document before cutting her eyes back to him. ‘Am I supposed to know what “this” is?’

‘Your itinerary.’

‘Oh, that.’ She turned back to the mirror dismissively. ‘You told me to tell you in advance when I planned to make changes to it.’

‘I remember telling you it was dangerous to change it.’

Her nonchalant shrug ratcheted up his tension levels. ‘It’s going to be a lovely day tomorrow and—’

‘You’ve been to Paris before,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘Hell, you lived here for eight years. Why do you need to go on some convoluted walking tour?’

‘I have not been here for nearly a month. I want to see the city again.’

Wolfe bit back a string of curses at her determined expression. ‘Look out of the window.’ He gestured to the one behind him without really seeing anything. ‘To the right the Eiffel Tower, to the left Notre Dame.’

‘Actually, that’s Hôtel de Ville to the left. You cannot see Notre Dame from that window.’ She regarded him steadily. ‘Have you ever actually walked around Paris before, Wolfe?’

‘Sure. I’ve strolled from the airport to the car and from the car to whatever building I needed to enter.’

‘Well, that at least explains why you don’t understand my need to reconnect with the city,’ she said. ‘I might not be back here for some time and I want to wander up through Montmartre to Sacré Coeur, have lunch, and check out the new installation in my gallery before it is disassembled.’

‘You agreed to let me decide when you could visit your gallery.’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘You’re angry because I’m calling the shots.’

‘That has nothing to do with it. Did you have fun last night?’

The unexpected question threw him, and he watched through narrowed eyes as she rose and slowly approached the bed, gripping the bedpost in a provocative pose he wasn’t even sure she was aware of.

‘I can fit in Sacré Coeur, but you’re not walking around Montmarte and your gallery is off-limits until I say so.’

He had leaked a fake itinerary to a couple of key suspects and the one she had devised for herself came too perilously close to it for comfort. Letting her have her way would put her in danger, and he couldn’t live with himself if something happened to her. If she should—

‘Look at you,’ she said testily, her knuckles white where she gripped the bedpost. ‘You are frustrated and angry with me and yet you won’t show it. So controlled. So cool under pressure. Maybe the rumours are true and you are made out of ice.’

She turned, flicking her hair back over one shoulder in a quintessentially feminine gesture that dared a man to follow through with his baser instincts. Wolfe was not in the mood to let such a direct challenge go uncontested.