The Prince's Pleasure

It shouldn’t have hurt.

Yet it was pain as much as fury that drove her to ask, ‘And what did that prove, except that you’re stronger than I am?’

Caustic amusement gleamed in his gaze, curved the mouth that now knew hers intimately. ‘It proved that you want me as much as I do you,’ he returned on a note of courtesy that lacerated her composure.

‘That means nothing,’ she retorted, trying to convince herself. Beneath the surface control, she realised, he was blackly furious.

‘An admirably liberated view,’ he said, not hiding the flick of contempt in his tone.

The skin over her high cheekbones heated and she forgot tact and discretion and plain common sense to flare, ‘Perhaps, but I’m not so liberated that I sleep with every good-looking man who wants a bit of publicity.’

‘No,’ he said lethally, ‘you merely pander to the avid eagerness of people who want to read that sort of trash.’

Hot with chagrin at her humiliating rudeness, she said between her teeth, ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. But, for the last time, I did not notify the newspaper.’

He surveyed her with aggression bordering on menace. ‘If news of those kisses makes it into the media I’ll know how much your word is worth.’

‘As much as yours,’ she said tersely. ‘I’d hate to be as mistrustful as you are.’

‘I imbibed it with my mother’s milk,’ he said, adding with cold distaste, ‘Literally.’

Shocked by the stark authenticity in his words, she muttered, ‘There’s someone at the door.’

‘They’ll wait.’

Possibly his staff were accustomed to waiting for him to finish with the woman of the moment!

Alexa turned away, paradoxically feeling safer now they were back in adversarial mode. ‘They won’t have to. I’m going.’

‘Perhaps you should comb your hair,’ he suggested in a voice that was a maddening mix of amusement and mockery. ‘You look—tumbled.’

Glaring at him, Alexa shook her hair back from her face, but the heavy copper tresses clung to her hot cheeks and temples. She pushed it back with her fingers, but when his dark gaze lingered on her shaking hands she gave up. With a crisp ‘Goodbye’ she walked abruptly towards the door.

Halfway there, she stopped. ‘Thank you for the flowers.’

‘Don’t throw them into the garbage just because I sent them.’ He sounded more than a little bored.

‘It isn’t their fault they came from you.’ She couldn’t resist adding, ‘Although I’ll bet you ordered a minion to send them!’

‘Alas, the days of minions are long past,’ he said, deadpan, adding, ‘Have you got your car back yet?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Torn by a debilitating mixture of anger and resentment and desolation, she swept out past the man who waited on the other side of the door.

Luka’s eyes met Dion’s and he jerked his head. Obeying the unspoken order, Dion closed the door. He’d accompany her down to her car.

Alone once more, Luka turned away and walked across to the window, to stare at the elaborate terraced garden and pool outside.

Shortly after his seventh birthday he’d screwed his courage to the sticking point and dived through a waterfall to the pool behind it. He’d felt the way he did now—as though the gleaming darkness was a gateway into some other dimension, a place of perilous beauty where he risked the slow dissolution of his innermost self.

Every muscle clenched while he fought to leash an unwanted onslaught of desire. He understood the primitive strength of his own needs and instincts, and over the years he’d caged them in a prison of will-power and discretion.

Yet Alexa Mytton’s smile and the glittering promise in those pale, crystalline eyes had pushed him over the knife-edge of control.

He shouldn’t have kissed her, and once he’d done it he certainly shouldn’t have surrendered to that overmastering need to find out whether she tasted as good the second time as she did the first.

He tried to resurrect his anger, but primal impulses still raced recklessly through his cells. He had work to do.

He was leafing rapidly through papers when another knock at the door signalled Dion’s return. When the other man was inside Luka asked, ‘Did you see her to her car?’

Dion said abruptly, ‘Yes. Luka, the last sighting of Guy was a week ago, when he boarded a ship loaded with medical supplies for Sant’Rosa. I’ve checked, but no one seems to know where it went or what happened to it.’

Luka swore—low, virulent oaths that startled his companion.

When he stopped Dion drew in a sharp breath and said, ‘You’d better tell me what this is all about.’

‘Guy is a hostage,’ Luka said, only a thread of steel in the deep voice betraying his emotions.

Last night’s meeting had begun in an atmosphere that had reeked with suspicion, but he had thought he’d managed to convince the men from Sant’Rosa that he was an entirely neutral emissary. They had discussed the sort of peace they envisaged.

And then they’d produced their trump card in the form of his cousin.

‘In Sant’Rosa? We can spring him,’ Dion said instantly.

‘Without alerting the government?’ Luka shook his head. ‘He’s safe enough for the present. They really want an end to this war, and they’re convinced the rebels want it too. However, they don’t trust anyone—not even anyone from the other side of the world.’ His voice hardened into iron. ‘When Guy appeared they recognised him from the gossip columns and realised they had the perfect way to stop me from double-crossing them. According to the Prime Minister, he is quite safe.’

‘And you believe him?’

‘That far, I believe him,’ Luka said deliberately. ‘And I believe that if any word of this peace initiative gets out to the media Guy could be in serious trouble. Before anyone knows of any possible treaty, they want the deal to be signed and sealed, with a peace-keeping force already on the island.’

Dion frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because,’ Luka said evenly, ‘the neighbouring state is poised to march across the border and take over. They’ll stay on the sidelines as long as they think the two sides are bleeding to death, but any hint of peace will see them invade. Guy is being kept three miles from the border on the main route to the capital city.’

Dion swore this time.

‘Exactly,’ his Prince said harshly. ‘He’s safe as long as no one knows anything about the possibility of a treaty between the Sant’Rosa rebels and the government.’

‘So what do we do?’ Dion asked, crisp and professional.

Luka said deliberately, ‘From what I heard last night, the rebels won’t be too hard to persuade—especially if they’re promised a place in the new order of things. The government has guaranteed this. I’ve put out feelers amongst the local refugees from Sant’Rosa—apparently there are several with direct links to the rebels.’ He looked at Dion, recognising the other man’s frustration and need for action. ‘Make sure the jet’s ready to fly—we may need to airlift them into Auckland and take them up to the beach house. Apart from that, you’ll do nothing—yet.’ He smiled ironically. ‘And before I start work on a peace plan that will satisfy both sides, I plan to swim.’

Dion said, ‘Guy is tough, Luka. He’ll probably get himself out of there.’

Luka gave a crooked smile. ‘I know.’ He paused and said abruptly, ‘There is something else you can do. Make sure Alexa Mytton is not permitted into the hotel until after the conference is over.’

Although he turned up the jets in the private pool to full power, swimming didn’t clear his mind. Instead of working out a way to free his cousin, or bring both bitterly divided sides to a neutral meeting place, all he wanted was to feel Alexa’s hair around him like some silken tent, each coiling tress caressing his skin into feverish ecstasy. He wanted her to look at him with her ice-clear dangerous eyes smouldering with desire, in the full knowledge of what she was doing. He wanted to feel that passionate mouth on his skin…

He hauled himself out of the pool and strode towards the shower, sweat gathering on his forehead as his body responded to the goad of his thoughts.

More than anything in the world he craved to take her, bury himself deeply in her strong slenderness, mark her by his possession so that any other man’s touch on her would be unthinkable—an insult, an unbearable horror.

Because he was fastidious—and circumspect—there hadn’t been many women in his bed, but without conceit he knew he was a good lover. Partly it was his true appreciation of women’s needs, his pleasure in their softness and their curves, his understanding that making love was an infinitely greater risk for a woman than for a man. But it was the self-mastery taught to him by the courtesan his father had summoned as a sixteenth birthday present that brought his lovers to sobbing fulfilment before he yielded to his own climax.

And it was that control that enabled him to keep himself emotionally distant from each one. He’d been trained in a hard school to think of his country before anything else.

Yet now he’d been ambushed by a hunger that clamoured to take a woman hot-bloodedly and without finesse, loosen control and let mindless white-hot passion ride him to satiety.

A photographer, for God’s sake! And sniffing around now, at the very worst of times. One hint of publicity and the desperate men he’d met last night would disappear out of New Zealand and back into their tropical jungle, and more people would die, more children would grow up uneducated, knowing only war and famine and disease.

And Guy, his younger cousin, could well lose his life.

With a quick, savage flick of his fingers he turned the shower onto full, and when that didn’t tame his rampant body he punched the palm of one hand with a clenched fist and fought the dangerous frustration with hard common sense.

Where had he seen those astonishing eyes before, so pale they were almost transparent, their colour a violent contrast to her warm Mediterranean colouring of creamy skin and copper hair?

A knock on the door brought his head up. ‘What is it?’ he asked with harsh precision.

‘A message, sir,’ his private secretary said urgently. ‘The one you’ve been waiting for.’

That night, as she cooked dinner and ate it without tasting a mouthful, Alexa replayed over and over again that scene with Prince Luka.

It didn’t take a psychologist to explain the electricity that had scorched through her at his touch. She’d been caught off guard by potent physical attraction, the kind of sensual intuition that splintered the bars of caution and common sense to whisper alluringly of feverish, compelling sex, to counsel surrender to a passion she’d never expected to feel.

Basic, earthy, almost entirely amoral, it should repel her. Emotionally and intellectually it did.

Unfortunately some rash, previously unsuspected part of her found Prince Luka wildly exciting. He’d kissed her like a conqueror, and she’d let him—worse than that, she’d gloried in it, because she’d known she’d breached some barrier in him.

Even more intriguing was that hint of vulnerability, of hidden secrets. Perhaps she could do some research on him—

‘No!’ she said, outraged.

And she should stop beating herself up! It wasn’t as though she was the first woman to have found him attractive. Every magazine and newspaper in the western world was a witness to the number of women who’d fallen for his particular brand of Mediterranean glamour. And as well as being dynamically sexy, he’d been surprisingly kind when she’d started falling to pieces.

The telephone rang. ‘Alexa,’ Carole said in a flat voice, ‘something’s happened that’s rather—upsetting.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I’VE just been speaking to Mike, my boss,’ Carole said, with no sign of her usual dramatic delivery. ‘He’s suggested that you be—that you’re not…’ She hesitated before continuing bluntly, ‘Alexa, he doesn’t want to see you in the hotel for the duration of the conference.’

Stunned, Alexa asked, ‘What? Why? He can’t do that!’ But he would, she realised with a clutch of nausea, if someone with enough power asked him to.

‘I’m afraid he can, and I’m also afraid I must ask you not to lose your temper and try to force your way in,’ Carole said, dropping her tone by several notes.

‘Of course I won’t embarrass you like that.’ Alexa steadied her words. ‘I’m just—gobsmacked. Did your boss give you a reason?’

‘He was told officially that you’re a photographer,’ Carole said, ‘and at the moment photographers are very much personae non gratae. Of course I vouched for your integrity, and pointed out that you’d worked here before and that you had security clearance. Mike knows that, but he’s in a cleft stick; he said it’s temporary, and no reflection on you.’

Fighting a raw sense of betrayal, Alexa unclenched her jaw with difficulty and ignored the faint questioning note in the older woman’s voice to say, ‘Carole, it’s all right. As it happens I’ve got a full programme for the next week, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything for you anyway.’

Carole sighed, a sure sign of her panache returning. ‘Thanks for being so understanding. A model tried to sweet-talk her way into the Prince of Dacia’s suite yesterday—and almost got there. Apparently she sold a story to an English paper. Management is stressing out collectively and individually over security, so when someone said you were a photographer it was the final straw.’

And Alexa knew who that had to be! The Prince of Dacia was no slouch when it came to quick, ruthless decisions. She said brightly, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep well away from the hotel. Are there likely to be any repercussions for you?’

‘Me? Oh, no. Alexa, Mike knows you’re trustworthy,’ Carole assured her earnestly. ‘He’s under pressure from someone, and you can’t blame that someone. It’s just a pity you’re the one to suffer. I have to go, Alexa. Thanks.’

After carefully putting the telephone down, Alexa strode furiously across to her window and threw it open. Salty air from the harbour, almost overwhelmed by petrol fumes, floated in, bringing with it all the noises of the city.

Talk about brutal misuse of power! she thought vengefully. How she’d like to tell Prince Luka of Dacia what she thought of people who used their status to intimidate.

A glance at her watch revealed that she had half an hour to go the gym and work off both her temper and the stupid, baseless sense of bereavement that kept breaking through.

She was a modern woman and Luka Bagaton was fresh out of the Middle Ages—protective of the weak, impersonally kind, hard, ruthless and chauvinist to the core. They had nothing in common, so this unsuitable, reckless attraction would die as soon as it had sprung up.

A week later she folded the newspaper so she couldn’t see the Prince, lethally aristocratic and authoritative amongst the other bankers in a final posed photograph on the museum steps. Buttering toast with a vicious sweep of the knife, she said to the empty kitchen, ‘I wonder just how much being superbly photogenic has helped his career as a banker. Lots, I’ll bet.’

A swift glance through the window revealed a mellow autumn day, perfect for travelling. She planned to touch up her tan for ten glorious days at the beach house owned by the parents of a schoolfriend on an island forty miles north of Auckland. She had it all organised: days of glorious solitude stalking the perfect shot that was going to win her a competition.

Still chewing toast and honey, she cast a cold glance at the newspaper. The morning after that icy interview with the Prince the gossip columnist had struck again wondering archly:

What is going on between gorgeous Prince Luka and the lovely photographer? The same little bird that saw them together on the first night of the conference noticed the photographer emerging from the Prince’s private elevator with tumbled hair and distinctly bee-stung lips. Watch this space!

So by now he’d be convinced she was feeding the wretched woman information.

Not that Alexa cared. ‘Not even the tiniest bit,’ she said, smiling brilliantly—and lying.

The island, she decided three hours later, manoeuvring her friends’ elderly four-wheel drive vehicle over the narrow winding track from Deep Harbour, was the ideal place to blob out—and to chisel a dangerously magnetic man out of her brain.

The Thorntons had sited their bach on the ocean side of the island, more exposed to the waves and the winds than the gentler leeward side. That fitted Alexa’s mood perfectly, as did the comfortable middle-aged house crouched above a sweeping beach with sand the colour of fine champagne.

And the forecasters were predicting that the weather would stay in Indian summer mode until after she returned to Auckland.

Determined to enjoy herself, Alexa opened glass doors to let in the air, turned on the power and the water, and began to unload the vehicle. That done, she rang Sally Thornton in Auckland to tell her she’d arrived safely.

Then she ran down the beach for a quick dip to wash off the road grime. At last, clad in denim shorts and a sleeveless blue-green T-shirt that gave some colour to her eyes, she strolled out onto the deck and stared out to sea.

‘Not another house in sight,’ she said with satisfaction. The ruinous farmhouse along the beach, crouched defensively behind thick old trees, didn’t count.

Smiling, she dragged a lounger out onto the deck and squinted along the bay, mentally framing at least three superb shots. Tomorrow she’d go out and see what else she could find. She wanted to play with black and white shots.

Out of nowhere sprang the image of Luka’s face when he’d accused her of leaking gossip to the press—a face with the kind of hard, forceful bone structure that photographed magnificently.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she muttered in frustration.

Absurdly sensitive to beauty she might be, but it was ridiculous to obsess about a man she’d only seen three times. OK, so he kissed like a dark angel, but punishing kisses had gone out with her mother’s generation. No, her grandmother’s!

Alexa grinned suddenly, recalling her grandmother—bright, modern, and tough enough to be a solo parent when it would have been a lot easier to put her son up for adoption. Gran would have had no truck with punishing kisses either. Her smile faded swiftly as loneliness rolled over her in a dark tide.

Her happy, charmed life, so safe and secure, had come to a bitter end. Her mother had died after a long illness when Alexa was just fourteen; two days previously, on the way home from the hospital, Alexa had been the only survivor of a motorway accident that had killed her father and grandmother. Stunned with grief, and left without relatives, Alexa had spent the rest of her school years in a foster home.

Yet, unlike some of the others there, she’d had happy memories. Just what sort of memories haunted Luka of Dacia, who’d admitted to imbibing distrust with his mother’s milk?

‘Get out of my head!’ Alexa commanded the man who’d had her dismissed like a dishonest servant.

Late that night, woken from a deep sleep by something she’d barely heard, she pulled on a woollen jersey against the chilly air and made her way out onto the deck. The timeless silhouette of the hills brooding against the night sky and the subtle obsidian sheen of the sea beneath the stars usually satisfied something deep in her soul, but not tonight. The warm glow from the small lamp in the sitting room beckoned much more strongly.

She’d swung around to go inside again when a point of light stopped her. Adrenalin powered up her pulse-rate by several beats a minute. No one had lived in the old house along the beach since the owner had been forced to spend his final years on the mainland.

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