Royals: Wed To The Prince: By Royal Command / The Princess and the Outlaw / The Prince's Secret Bride

Even then she hovered on the brink of surrender until hard common sense forced its way through the mists of desire.

‘No,’ she repeated quietly, uncompromisingly, because she knew that she’d never be safe, that the only way to stop herself from falling headlong into infatuation was to end it now.

But oh, it was hard to say, with his strength and his heat seducing her, with the sexy, evocative aroma of his skin scrambling her brain, and his taste on her lips, in her mouth—when every cell in her body screamed for the release only he could give her.

His mouth hardened. ‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t want this.’ The lie hurt, and it hurt more that he knew it was a lie. ‘I find you very attractive,’ she hurried on, surprised at the clarity of each word, ‘but the idea of being married to you—if that’s what I am—is ridiculous. And I certainly don’t want an affair with you.’

She invested the final word with a flick of scorn, and saw it register on his face. He smiled, and as she shivered he freed her and stepped back.

‘Really?’ he said politely. ‘I can think of plenty of words to describe such a marriage, but ridiculous doesn’t come to mind. As for the affair— I thought we’d already had it.’

‘We spent a few days together,’ she corrected, gripped by intolerable anguish. Yet she had to send him out of her life. ‘I’m sorry, but a tropical fling is not expected to last beyond the tropics. I’ll always be grateful to you for saving my life, because I suspect that’s what you did.’

‘Stop right there,’ he advised with an inflection so deadly it chilled her into temporary paralysis. ‘If you’re telling me that you slept with me out of gratitude, I’ll just have to show you that you’re wrong. We made love because we wanted each other.’

‘Of course I did—we did!’ She struggled to clear her mind. ‘You know very well that I—that we—that it was mutual.’ She stopped and dragged in a jerky breath before finishing defiantly, ‘But it’s over.’

For a charged moment he surveyed her, his beautiful mouth hard against the chiselled angles of his face. Finally he drawled, ‘Then there’s nothing more to say,’ and turned away. ‘Goodbye, Lauren.’

Aching with a bleak sense of loss and pain, she watched him stride towards the thick row of trees that hid the helicopter pad. Fate and war had shackled them together until they could get free of this marriage.

Whatever she felt for Guy Bagaton couldn’t possibly be love; that involved much more than gratitude and great sex.

Only a loser would love a man who thought she was another man’s mistress, and she wasn’t a loser. She didn’t even know him.

Not really.

The sound of the helicopter’s rotor blades drove her to shelter beneath the overhanging branches of one of the great trees bordering the champagne curve of the beach. As she listened to the machine carry Guy away from her, she found herself thinking of all the ways she did know him…

Perhaps when people had forgotten about the war in Sant’Rosa, it might be safe to see him again. Without all this other baggage cluttering up their relationship, they could perhaps meet as ordinary people.

No. She’d sent him away.

And she’d do it again. When she’d asked her mother why, of all the people in the world, Marc’s bone marrow matched hers, Isabel’s admission of adultery had been shattering enough, but what had appalled her was her mother’s response when Lauren began to ask if her father knew.

After the first two tentative words her mother had interrupted fiercely, ‘He does now. Don’t ever speak to him about it. The stress could kill him.’

Lauren didn’t know how her parents had worked through this rough patch, but their love had held them together through the trauma.

When the steady thump-thump-thump of the rotors had died away, she went back inside and rang London.

‘How’s Dad?’

‘He’s fine,’ her mother said reassuringly. ‘How are you, darling?’

‘Fine too, but I’ve had an unsettling visit from the man who got me out of Sant’Rosa.’

Censoring heavily, she told her mother why Guy had come, ending with, ‘I think I’ll come home as soon as I can.’

‘No,’ Isabel said firmly. ‘You need that holiday, Lauren—your health isn’t anything to take lightly.’

‘I feel perfectly normal again,’ Lauren assured her. Well, apart from worrying about journalists, the marriage, and obsessing about Guy. ‘But if some reporter finds out about this wretched marriage they’ll probably come looking for you.’

After a silence in which her mother absorbed the implications, Isabel responded with even more firmness, ‘So we will just ignore them.’

Lauren said bleakly, ‘They might start digging around.’

The hesitation at the other end of the line revealed that her mother had already thought of that. ‘They won’t find anything,’ Isabel said finally, her voice taut but confident. ‘If this false marriage does come to light, it will be a three days’ wonder. Ah, darling—your father’s just come in.’

Lauren waited tensely, smiling as her father’s voice echoed across the world. ‘Stay there,’ he commanded. ‘By the way, what’s the man who got you off Sant’Rosa like?’

‘Forceful and formidable,’ Lauren said lightly. And judgemental.

‘Would I like him?’

She laughed. ‘Yes, I think you would. You like Marc, don’t you?’

‘Very much,’ he said gruffly. ‘Mind you, Marc saved your life, but then, this man might have too. When this bit of a fuss is over, I’d like to shake his hand. Stay there and finish your holiday, Lauren. I want to see colour in your cheeks when you come back.’

‘Yes, Daddy,’ she said in mock obedience, and heard him guffaw and say goodbye.

He endured his condition like a soldier, gallantly fighting the limitations it put on his life. She said her goodbyes to her mother, and with stinging eyes rang through to the person who handled her travel arrangements. Whatever her parents said, if the marriage ceremony with Guy ended up in the media she wanted to be at home, not stuck on the other side of the world.

Frowning at the skyline of Singapore through the hotel window, Guy swore succinctly under his breath.

The man on the other end of the telephone said drily, ‘At school I used to envy you the ability to swear in five languages. Now I can swear in twenty. But I still can’t pull the birds like you.’

In a level, cold voice Guy said, ‘Bloody tabloids.’

‘They have a place in life.’

‘Bottom feeders. Any idea when it’s due to break?’

He could almost hear his friend shrug. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said succinctly. ‘They’ve got a tasty little piece—the dramatic circumstances of the marriage and that it might turn out to be legal, as well as the insinuation she might be Corbett’s mistress. He’s always good for copy, and it’s always a coup to get the sights on someone as news-worthy and cunning at avoiding we poor hacks as you are. Naturally they want to make the most of it.’

‘Naturally,’ Guy said lethally, fighting back the urge to kill someone. ‘How did you find this out?’

‘I have friends in high places,’ his friend the war corespondent said airily, adding with a muffled snort of laughter, ‘Or low places.’

‘OK, Sean, thanks a lot. I owe you.’

‘Don’t worry, I owe you more. After all, you once saved my miserable life.’

‘Forget it,’ Guy said briefly, and hung up.

He stood for a long time frowning into space before reaching for the telephone again. With the time distance it would be eight in the evening in New Zealand.

As he dialled a number he recalled the way the sun had shone through the window of Marc Corbett’s house, collecting in Lauren’s hair so that it fell like a river of molten obsidian around her face, somehow giving a soft, pearly glow to her milk-white skin.

Skin like satin against his hand…

As Mrs Oliver wasn’t in the house, Lauren picked up the receiver. ‘Hello,’ she said carefully above the noisy thud of her heart.

‘Can anyone overhear what we’re saying?’

Guy! ‘No.’ Marc had made sure the communications system was incapable of being bugged. Cold foreboding knotted her inside. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I have it on good authority that the news of our marriage is about to explode onto the front pages.’ He waited while her hand clenched on the receiver, then asked sharply, ‘Are you there?’

‘Yes.’ She said crisply, ‘Thank you for telling me. I’ll ring my parents straight away and let them know.’

‘Do they know about the marriage?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sensible of you to tell them,’ he said calmly. ‘When do you go home?’

‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’

He asked for the details of her airline and arrival time, then said, ‘I suggest you change your booking to get off the flight in Rome.’

‘That’s being paranoid,’ she said brusquely. ‘I’ll be fine. No one will be expecting me anyway—the airline won’t tell anyone when I’m due in, and my parents are the only other people who know. They’re certainly not going to confide in any nice, inquisitive journalist.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said calmly. ‘Have a safe flight home.’

And he hung up.

Blinking back stupid, unnecessary tears, Lauren put down the receiver. She felt like an animal in hiding, every sense strained to the point of pain while wolves closed in on her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

BUT even though Lauren had prepared herself mentally and emotionally on the long flight, the pack of photographers and reporters that greeted her at Heathrow both shocked and scared her. Light exploded in her face as they bayed her name and took photographs.

‘Look this way, Lauren!’ ‘Hi, Lauren—can you tell us about this marriage to—?’ ‘Lauren, Lauren, over here!’ until command and shouted comment blended into a din that mercifully blocked out individual yells.

Shaking inwardly, she clamped her lips together, tuning them out while she searched for the quickest route through the milling mass. And then salvation arrived, in the form of two burly men stamped with the indefinable mark of security personnel.

‘This way, please, Ms Porter,’ the largest and most solid one said in her ear while the other commandeered her luggage trolley as a shield.

Locking every muscle against a cowardly impulse to run, she allowed herself to be escorted away from the hordes and along a corridor. They stopped outside a door and the one in front held it open.

Bewildered, Lauren went through.

And stopped as the door closed behind her and Guy Bagaton rose to his feet, big and vital and ablaze with raw power. Her heart jumping in incredulous joy, she managed to say in a brittle voice, ‘Oh—hello. I gather that the news has broken?’

‘This morning.’ He sounded as fed up as he looked, but his size and that indefinable air of competence and authority was hugely reassuring.

Shivering, she rubbed her arms; the impersonal room reminded her sharply of that other room a world away when she and this man had exchanged the vows that now bound them in a false relationship.

‘I see,’ she said unevenly. ‘I expected interest, but nothing like that pandemonium. How did they know I was coming in today?’

With cold contempt he said, ‘There’s always someone who’ll spill the beans.’ Eyes as bright and burnished as fool’s gold narrowed. ‘You look tired. Didn’t you get any sleep on the flight?’

‘Not a lot.’ And now her head was pounding, excitement and shock producing a wild mixture of sensations: intense relief, because she trusted him to deal with any situation, and a fierce sensual charge honed by absence. ‘The plane was seething with high school students embarking on a year’s exchange in Europe. They settled down for an hour here and there.’

‘I see. Come on, let’s go.’ Still frowning, he took her arm and steered her towards a boarding bridge.

Although a debilitating combination of exhaustion and astonishment tempted her to let him take over, she croaked, ‘What’s happening? Where are we going?’

‘Dacia.’

Blinking, she wondered where Dacia was, before remembering a small princedom in the Mediterranean Sea. She balked, trying to stop. ‘Why?’

With an expression as grim as his voice, Guy exerted just enough strength to urge her on. ‘Your parents are already there.’

What on earth was going on? Her mind spun stupidly so that all she could say was, ‘But my father can’t travel by air.’

‘He can if he has a nurse with him,’ Guy told her, escorting her along the bridge. ‘He’s fine; I’ve just been speaking to your mother. I’m sorry you had to run the gauntlet back there.’

Summoning the last remnants of common sense, Lauren dug her heels in. ‘Wait. I’m not sure this is a good idea. What’s going on? Why Dacia, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Because it’s quiet and peaceful and you wanted to be out of the limelight,’ Guy said evenly. ‘A few days there will see the media frenzy die—there’s nothing so stale as last week’s news.’

‘But I—’

‘Your parents agreed that this would be the best idea.’

‘But I don’t understand—’

He rasped, ‘It’s all I can do to protect you from the sort of gossip that could destroy your life.’

‘What? In this day and age? You’ve got a very naïve attitude to modern society if you think that a marriage of convenience is going to do more than mildly titillate readers.’

Flint-hard and formidable, Guy said brusquely, ‘You’re the one who’s completely naïve. To start off with, you might as well kiss your career goodbye.’

The pain in her breast solidified into a rock, so big she couldn’t breathe properly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous—’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ he ground out, eyes cold as frozen fire. ‘Unless you’ve got enough incriminating evidence to blackmail him, Corbett’s not going to keep you once he knows that you and I were lovers. And with journalists combing through Sant’Rosa and Valanu, it won’t be long before he does know.’

‘It won’t matter,’ she said dully. It hurt that he should still believe that ancient piece of gossip.

And that was dangerous, because she shouldn’t care what he thought of her.

Guy said harshly, ‘He doesn’t strike me as a man who’s happy sharing his women, and I doubt if he’d surrender to blackmail.’ Contempt darkened his face and thinned his mouth.

‘No,’ she said, her voice muted. ‘He wouldn’t.’

They were facing each other like enemies, eyes duelling, tense with antagonism. He despised her. ‘So you’ll be notorious; no one will take you seriously. You might get offers for television or some sort of model-ling, but your career’s gone. Face that now. If you lie low on Dacia for a week or so, the fuss will die down and you can regroup.’

Taking her numb silence for consent, he urged her into the cabin. Later, she was convinced that jet lag had scrambled her brain and sapped her will-power; surely that had been why she’d surrendered so meekly to his authoritative handling!

Once inside, a harried glance revealed that the plane was a private one, and they were the only passengers.

‘You’ll get an excellent view from this window,’ Guy said, standing back to let her sink into a superbly comfortable leather seat.

When he leaned down, sensations rioted through her in a delirious mixture of fire and honey and aching need. She swallowed to ease an unbearably dry throat and closed her eyes against the arrogantly angular jaw and the bold male curves of his beautiful mouth.

But as he clicked her seat-belt into place, she couldn’t block out the subtle, spicy scent that was his alone. Memories rushed back, of heat and long tropical nights when the evocative, erotic perfume of frangipani blossoms and the drowsy sound of the sea on the reef provided the perfect setting for passion. And of Guy, taking her to heaven with his lean, skilled hands and experienced understanding of what a woman’s body needed to drive it to unbearable ecstasy…

He straightened, his hard-edged face shutting her out as effectively as a mask. ‘I’m going up to the cockpit. Try to get some sleep.’

With gritty eyes, Lauren watched him walk away, big body moving with a fluid, controlled confidence that came close to arrogance.

What she and Guy had shared was nothing more—nor less—than transcendental sex. Neither then nor in New Zealand had either of them thought about love.

When the door closed behind him she transferred her gaze to the window, not taking in the minor bustle of getting a plane into the air. Surely he couldn’t be the pilot?

But why not? He’d known the man who’d evacuated the resort guests from Sant’Rosa. When he wasn’t fighting wars did he fly charter planes?

A movement from behind called her attention to a steward, who smiled and offered her a drink.

‘Water, please,’ she said thickly.

Once he’d brought it and explained the safety features, the plane taxied out onto the runway. She sank back into the seat and let the cool liquid slide down her parched throat until she’d finished the glass.

At cruising height the steward reappeared, offering food and more drinks.

‘Just a pot of tea, thank you,’ she told him with real gratitude.

She’d occasionally flown in private jets chartered by Marc to get him and his family quickly and privately between New Zealand, where they spent many of their holidays, and Paris, where they lived.

This one, she thought dreamily, had a personal touch that meant someone had cared about its decoration. Elegantly serene, it invited relaxation. She decided she’d like whoever had decided on the colour scheme and the carpet.

Her roving gaze settled on the bulkhead between the cabin and the kitchen. Frowning, she discerned a crest that seemed familiar—a leopard fiercely clawing the air. Something about the outline nagged at her tired mind. She closed her eyes and set about capturing the elusive memory.

The ring! Her lashes flew up. Guy’s ring, the one he’d put on her finger at that mockery of a wedding ceremony. Narrowing her eyes, she stared at the crest, superimposing the remembered lines over the leopard.

It fitted exactly.

Brain working furiously, she recalled a faint note of pride in his voice when he spoke of Dacia. Did this plane belong to a Dacian airline?

‘Would you like something to read?’ the steward murmured after he’d delivered a tray of tea.

‘Yes, thank you.’

He arrived back with a couple of extremely expensive-looking fashion magazines.

Just what she needed—something light and cheerful. With stubborn determination she eyed models in what appeared to be designer shrouds before turning the page to read her horoscope, which announced that she’d met the only man she’d ever love.

Lauren shut the magazine with a snap and stared unseeingly out of the window.

Was Guy Dacian? Part Dacian, anyway; he was built on too impressive a scale to be wholly of Mediterranean stock, but genes inherited from that area would explain his olive skin and beautiful mouth.

And a different first language would be the source of the faint, intriguing hint of an accent that intensified when he was making love…

More dangerously bittersweet memories burned through her. Hastily she picked up the magazine again. Nothing on the pages could banish flashbacks of days and nights on Valanu—the rich gleam of sunlight on Guy’s wet skin, the quick flash of white teeth when he’d laughed, and the note in his voice when he’d spoken her name…

She dreamed about him every night now.

Swift excitement pulsed through her when the door into the cockpit slid back to let him through. So he was part of the crew.

When he stopped to speak to the steward, Lauren watched him uneasily. He looked different—much less of the beachcomber, much more a sophisticated European. And it wasn’t just the removal of that stubble. She’d always been aware of his bred-in-the-bone authority, but in the hothouse situation on Sant’Rosa and Valanu she hadn’t noticed this cool, urbane detachment.

Now, filling her hungry eyes with the sight of him, she finally accepted something she’d been trying to repress since their first meeting. Some time during their idyll in Valanu she’d slipped over the invisible dividing line between attraction and love.

The knowledge hit with heady impact, sending a tidal wave of adrenaline rushing through her. For a precious few seconds she allowed herself to savour the exquisite thrill of loving Guy. Then she forced herself to lock that love in her heart and throw the key away.

Because Guy didn’t love her. Everything he’d done had been because he was chivalrous and protective. Twice he’d rescued her from unpleasant situations; he’d lent her money and bought her clothes, and he’d made sure she didn’t get pregnant. He’d made love to her with heart-shaking tenderness and raw desire, but all that meant was that for those days he’d wanted her—even though he’d believed her to be Marc’s mistress.

But lust chose without discrimination and died swiftly. The father she shared with Marc had wanted her mother too—for a week—although he’d been married.

She couldn’t let herself love Guy.

He said something that brought a white grin to the steward’s face, then turned. Just in time, Lauren fixed her gaze on the magazine in her lap, every sense strung as tight as piano wire. When he was a couple of paces away she forced herself to glance up enquiringly, because ignoring him would be as much a giveaway as gazing at him with her heart in her eyes.

He sat down beside her with a flash of the reckless grin she remembered from Sant’Rosa. ‘You English and your tea!’

‘Don’t Dacians drink tea?’

His smile disappeared. After a taut second he said, ‘Not a lot—we mostly drink coffee.’

‘You have excellent English.’ It was an inane remark, but it was all her scrambled brain could come up with.

‘I spent some years at school in England, and I’m fortunate enough to be a good linguist.’

She nodded, thinking of his mastery of the Sant’Rosan language, then donned her coollest composure and looked up into his face. ‘Thank you for getting my parents out of that feeding frenzy. I had no idea a media pack in full cry would be so—’ she abandoned frightening to substitute ‘—so intimidating.’

‘Your parents are sensible enough to see when retreat is the best decision,’ he said with a casual lack of emphasis. ‘And you still have holiday time, I believe.’

The aloof enquiry in his tone slammed up more barriers. ‘Another couple of weeks.’

‘You parents said you’d been ill.’

She shrugged. ‘A bout of pneumonia. It wasn’t very serious, and it’s over now.’

‘You’re still pale.’ His voice was deliberate, but an unsettling note in it made her acutely aware of his closeness.

‘I’m always pale, and at the moment I’m jet lagged,’ she admitted with a wry smile. ‘I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep.’ And to convince him, she finished brightly, ‘I’ve never been to Dacia, but I believe it’s beautiful.’

‘Every bit as much as Sant’Rosa or New Zealand,’ he said ironically, ‘although in an entirely different way.’

She relaxed a little while he told her of its bloodstained history and eventual conquest four hundred years previously by a pirate. ‘He sailed into the harbour and imposed a rule that was ruthless and autocratic, but surprisingly enlightened for the time.’

‘He sounds familiar,’ she murmured dulcetly.

He directed an enigmatic glance her way. Her heartbeat shot into overdrive, a wild counterpoint to the drugging sweetness of desire that washed through her, merciless and compelling.

‘Are you calling me ruthless and autocratic?’ he drawled, eyes gleaming with tawny fire.

Laughter bubbled through her. ‘How intuitive of you to guess! Of course you are—you think nothing of ploughing roughshod over anyone who gets in your way.’

‘Admit that I always try to convince with sweet reason before I bring in the heavy artillery,’ he returned virtuously, the lazy note in his voice belying his words.

‘I’ll admit no such thing,’ she retorted. ‘Within a few hours of meeting you I found myself married to you, and I don’t recollect any sweetly reasonably discussion then.’