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

Another one of Anne’s comments snuck into her consciousness. ‘Women drop like lemmings around him,’ she’d said at lunch. ‘But he lives a fast-paced life. According to Gilles, the man is never in the same city for longer than a few days at a time. It’s like he’s combing the globe for some holy grail.’

More like variety in his bed, Ava thought with a burst of asperity. And good luck to him. She hoped he enjoyed himself.

He did invite you to dinner, that devil’s voice reminded her.

Yes, out of some sort of guilt, she told herself. He’d sensed her uneasiness after the sex and had made the invitation on the spur of the moment. It had been a nice gesture but his voice had lacked conviction. And his actions this morning only backed that up.

No.

She wouldn’t be having dinner with Wolfe. He didn’t really want to take her out and it would only be prolonging the inevitable. Also, she could think of nothing worse than forcing someone to do something they didn’t want to do. That was her father’s modus operandi, not hers.

Okay.

Shower. Get dressed. Hire a car. Drive back to Paris. She had a meeting with a new artist she was sure was going to be a pain in the backside but who had the potential of van Gogh and she couldn’t be late.

She didn’t have time to dwell on a man who had taken as much pleasure as she had without any promises for the future.

When the right one came along she would know it, and until then—well, she was nearly thirty. She didn’t have time to waste time on casual encounters with ripped Australian security experts. And if fate was kinder than it had been yesterday she wouldn’t run into him this morning and would be spared the whole awkward morning-after thing.

Feeling more like her normal self after a shower, she smiled as she crossed the marble foyer and propped her small suitcase beside the front door. Bending down, she’d retrieved the thank-you note she’d written to Anne and Gilles, which she planned to leave with Gilles’s butler, when she heard a dark voice behind her.

‘Leaving so soon?’

Ava wheeled around, her hair flying over her shoulders in a slow arc. Wolfe stood in the arched doorway, ruggedly handsome in worn boots, black low-riding denims and a basic white T-shirt that drew her eye to every solid inch of him.

Placing her hand against her chest, Ava tried to smile into his hard face. ‘You scared me.’

He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Obviously.’

‘I…ah…’ God, she sounded like a silly debutante! And why did he look so angry all of a sudden? It wasn’t as if she had been the one to walk out on him before the birds had started chirping. ‘I have a busy day lined up.’

Wolfe could tell instantly that Ava had put last night behind her. It was in the regal tilt of her head, the squared shoulders and the way her gaze didn’t quite meet his. Not to mention the small, reserved smile she bestowed on him, as if all that had passed between them last night had been polite conversation instead of intimate body fluids. It was the same smile he’d seen her give plenty of other men the night before, and to say he felt infuriated by it would be a grand understatement.

He recalled the way she’d told him he could leave her room after sex. At the time he’d thought she had been politely trying to give him an out, but what if she’d been trying to get him out instead?

‘On a Sunday?’

Her chin came up, most likely because of his sceptical tone. ‘Yes.’

‘And what about dinner?’ he asked casually.

It appeared she had a guilty conscience, because her gaze cut to the left before returning to his. ‘Tonight?’

Damn.

Wolfe read her meaning in that single word and knew she had no intention of having dinner with him, that night or any other. He didn’t like it. ‘Yeah. You, me, a bottle of red. Or do you prefer champagne?’

‘Actually, I have a meeting with someone this afternoon, so I won’t be able to make tonight.’

Someone she was sleeping with, perhaps?

Wolfe raked her slender figure in a floaty summer dress and lightweight sandals and tried to rein in his uncharacteristically possessive response as his mind immediately stripped her naked.

On some level he knew he was behaving completely irrationally. Really, he should be rejoicing that she didn’t want to complicate things between them by prolonging the inevitable, because—well…he knew his interest in her would wane at some point.

‘And it’s probably better this way, don’t you think?’ she said a little too quickly.

‘Better what way?’ He refolded his arms and rocked back on his heels. No way would he make this easy for her.

Her gaze snapped irritably to his and then cast over him, lighting little bushfires in its wake. ‘Better if we forget dinner. Forget last night.’

‘Forget last night?’ Wolfe wasn’t sure if this had ever happened to him before. A woman waking up after a night of phenomenal sex who not only didn’t want to have dinner with him but looked as if she never wanted to see him again either.

‘Oh, come on, Wolfe.’ Her slender hands fitted around her hips just as his had done last night. ‘I’m sure this isn’t a novel concept for you. In fact it’s probably a relief.’

His eyes rose to hers as he forced himself to focus. A relief? Yes, it should have felt like a damned relief. The fact that it felt more like an insult only increased his aggravation.

‘You think I pick women up and sleep with them every time I go out?’

‘I don’t know.’

And she didn’t care, if he read her tone correctly.

‘But why are we arguing? Did you want more from last night than just sex?’

He stiffened, suddenly uncomfortable as she turned the tables on him. Saying no just felt wrong, but…‘No.’

She nodded quickly, as if she’d expected his answer. Wanted it, in fact. Did she do this all the time? Pick up men for a night of no-strings sex? The idea made his stomach knot.

‘Great, so we’re on the same page. Last night was lovely. I had a good time. Hopefully you did, too.’

She shrugged almost apologetically and he had an unpleasant moment of wondering if this was how women felt when he walked away from them. But then with all the previous women in his life he’d established the parameters from the start. Perhaps he was just reacting badly because this time he hadn’t done that.

‘What more is there to say?’

Ava’s challenging question brought his mind back to her.

‘Clearly nothing,’ Wolfe ground out. ‘You seem to have it all worked out.’

She mashed her lips together, as if confused by his tone, and Wolfe warned himself to stop being stupid. This was the perfect scenario, wasn’t it?

The sound of footsteps coming down the grand staircase drew his eye, and then he heard Ava swear in French.

‘Gilles is coming. I don’t want…Can we just pretend this never happened?’ She tinkled a laugh. ‘Yes, the wedding was gor—Oh, Gilles. Bonjour. Where’s Anne?’

Wolfe thought about telling her never to try her hand at acting. She looked as innocent as someone trying to make off with the family jewels.

He narrowed his eyes as Gilles put his hands on her waist and gave her a kiss on each cheek, disturbed by the unexpected urge to pull him off her.

‘As quaint as Anne finds the ancient staff bell in our room, it didn’t work this morning—so I’ve been sent in search of coffee.’

‘What a fantastic idea.’ Ava nodded enthusiastically. ‘I think I might join you.’

‘You want one, Wolfe?’ Gilles rubbed his eyes, as if he hadn’t had much sleep.

Wolfe knew how he felt.

‘No. I’ve had enough coffee to last me a lifetime.’ Ava’s pout firmed, and Gilles threw him a quizzical look.

Deciding it was past time he left, he shoved his hand into his pocket for his keys and felt the phone he’d put there to give to Ava.

‘This is for you.’ He held out a silver smartphone. ‘I took the liberty of placing your SIM card into a spare after my men found yours broken in your car.’

‘Oh.’ She looked confused by the gesture. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

He knew he didn’t. He’d wanted to.

He turned it on and passed it to her, before informing Gilles of his plans to hit the road earlier than he’d intended.

While Gilles tried to convince him to reconsider, Ava’s phone beeped a string of incoming messages. They both turned to see her frowning at it.

Wolfe immediately felt his guard go up. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘My father has left ten messages. Excuse me while I retrieve them.’

She dialled a number and pressed the phone to her ear at the same time as Gilles’s butler hurried into the foyer.

Momentarily distracted when he handed Gilles a piece of paper, Wolfe returned his gaze to Ava in time to see the colour leach out of her face.

She turned almost blindly to Gilles, her breathing erratic. ‘Frédéric has been involved in an accident. Gilles…’ Her voice trailed off when Gilles looked at her, and if possible she lost even more colour. ‘Quoi?’

Wolfe didn’t think she’d realised that she had reached out and was gripping his forearm in a talonlike hold.

Gilles shook his head as if in a daze.

Hell.

‘I need to speak with my father. Find out what hospital he is in.’ Ava’s shaky hands fumbled with the phone, and it would have dropped if Wolfe hadn’t swiftly bent to catch it.

‘Ava, he’s not in hospital.’

‘Ne sois pas absurde, Gilles. The accident sounds serious.’ She shook her head, unable to say more.

Wolfe cursed under his breath.

‘Ava—’

‘No.’ She held up her hand and cut him off, backing away from both of them, so disorientated she would have bumped into the wall if Wolfe hadn’t reached out and grabbed her by the elbows.

‘Breathe, Ava,’ he instructed levelly. ‘In. Out. That’s it.’

Her gaze cleared a little and her body went rigid as she pushed his hand away. ‘I’m fine.’

Wolfe’s mouth tightened. ‘Give me the phone,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll call your father.’

She swallowed heavily, her navy eyes bruised. He would have wrapped his arms around her then, pulled her in close, but she was so rigid she might as well have been wearing armour. He’d thought he’d sensed fragility in her—the same as he’d sensed last night—but if he had it was long gone.

Ignoring the voice in his head that told him he should butt out of her affairs and mind his own business, he scrolled through her phone. When he couldn’t find an entry under ‘Dad’ or ‘Father’ he glanced at her. ‘What’s his name?’

‘It’s listed under “The Tyrant”.’

Her chin came up, as if defying him to make a comment; the action told him that the moniker hadn’t been given in jest. But was her father really a tyrant? Or was she just another spoilt little girl who threw tantrums when things didn’t go her way? And why did he even care?

Dumping a lid on the list of questions forming in his mind, he quickly dialled the number and introduced himself when the King answered on the first ring. ‘Your Majesty, this is James Wolfe, head of Wolfe Inc. I have your daughter here. Yes, Gilles is with her. Ava?’

She took the phone with a shaky hand. ‘Sir—’

Her voice trembled and despite trying to keep himself detached the sound of it cut Wolfe to the quick.

‘Of course. Oui. I can get a flight. Yes. Okay.’ She rang off and frowned at the phone as if she didn’t know what it was doing there.

‘Ava?’

She glanced at Gilles as if she didn’t know what he was doing there either.

Shock. She was going into shock. Wolfe recognised the signs.

‘I have to…’ She gave a tiny shake of her head, collected herself. ‘I…Frédéric has died. He…I have to organise a flight home.’

Gilles barely blinked, but Wolfe could see his friend’s utter devastation below the façade of calm. ‘Wolfe, can we borrow your plane?’

‘Of course. But there’s no we, Gilles. I’ll take her.’

‘Frédéric was a good friend. I’ll—’

‘You should be with Anne—’

‘I can organise myself,’ Ava cut in.

Wolfe’s hands clenched into fists when Gilles put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Don’t be silly, Ava. You can’t be alone at a time like this.’

‘Shouldn’t your priority be to your new wife and your house guests?’ Wolfe hated himself for reminding Gilles so flatly. Hated himself for the stab of jealousy over a woman he’d never planned to see again.

‘Would you two stop?’ Ava demanded. ‘I am more than capable of—’

‘Getting on my plane and letting me escort you home,’ Wolfe commanded.

She scowled up at him. ‘I don’t want to put you out.’

Wolfe didn’t know if she was being stoic or just obstinate, but he knew he wasn’t letting Gilles take her to Anders. ‘Too late,’ he growled.

When the butler approached Gilles again Wolfe stepped closer to Ava, invading her personal space. ‘Is that your only suitcase?’

She stepped back. ‘I told you before. I don’t get off on barbaric men.’

Her view of him grated but he pushed his feelings aside. ‘Do you really have time to argue?’

‘No.’ His words seemed to trigger something inside her and her eyes grew distant. She paced. Looked at Gilles and then turned back to him. ‘Fine. You may take me.’

Wolfe mentally shook his head, almost awed at the way she’d managed to turn her acceptance into an order.

Ava was functioning on autopilot and barely registered Wolfe buckling her seat belt while the plane taxied down the runway. Somehow he had got her to Lille and on board a plane without her conscious awareness of it.

Her brother was dead.

The news was shocking. Indescribable.

A helicopter accident. Ava couldn’t think about it, her mind incoherent with grief. Her brother was the rock of the family. The future heir. He was five years younger than her and, while they had struggled to be close after her mother died, she had always looked out for him. Anticipated that he would always be there. He couldn’t be gone. He was only twenty-four.

She shivered and felt a soft blanket settle over her shoulders. She clutched it.

Wolfe placed a glass of water on the table in front of her. ‘Do you need anything else?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’

‘So you keep saying.’

But he didn’t push it, and Ava was grateful. She watched him return to his seat. When he’d come across her in the foyer her heart had turned giddy at the sight of him. It had taken a lot of effort to remind herself that there was no point in seeing him again and even less in sleeping with him! His increasing anger at her response had thrown her a little but then he’d confirmed that, no, he didn’t want more than sex from her, and she’d known she had made the right decision.

After they arrived in Anders she would likely never see him again, and that fact made her feel instantly bereft.

Her mind linked the feeling with a time when she was fourteen and her father had continued with a state trip even though she’d been hospitalised with chicken pox. He’d monitored her condition from afar, as usual, but coming so soon after her mother’s death his behaviour had done little to alleviate her loneliness and her sense of powerlessness at being alone.

That same sense of helplessness and loneliness engulfed her now, and she pushed it back. Her father would expect her to demonstrate more fortitude than that.

More childhood memories tumbled into her mind, like dice on a two-up table. Memories of Frédéric as a boy. Of her mother.

Rather than becoming more available after her mother’s death from cervical cancer, Ava’s father had withdrawn and focused on his work, seeming not to know how to connect with her. He had been fine with Frédéric. Ava had grown more and more resentful of the disparity in the way in which he treated his children, and more and more determined to show him that his views of women were archaic and demeaning.

But nothing she did ever seemed to be good enough for him. Perhaps if she’d been more like her mother, had been able to put his needs first, they might have seen eye to eye. But Ava couldn’t. She had witnessed her mother’s sadness whenever her father chose duty over family, and it had made her want something entirely different for herself.

Now, with Frédéric gone—a thought that just wouldn’t stick in her head—she was next in line to the throne. She could only imagine how her father must be cringing over that, and she felt slightly nauseous at the prospect of having to step into the role.

Wolfe’s voice telling her to refasten her seat belt cut across her tumultuous thoughts, and she glanced outside her window and saw the Anders mountain range as they came in to land.

Imposing a rigid shut-down on her fears about being home, she blanked her mind and switched to cool indifference. From the plane doorway she could see her father’s royal guard standing alongside a line of official black cars, and she nearly turned and asked Wolfe to restart the engine and fly her some place else. Really, she felt about as strong as a daisy in a hailstorm—and she hadn’t even seen her father yet.

Sensing Wolfe directly behind her, Ava had a debilitating urge to turn and rush into his arms, have him tell her that everything would be all right. But that was weak, and Wolfe was the wrong man to lean on in this situation. She wasn’t special to him, and he wasn’t the type to sit back and go unnoticed. He was used to taking charge, and there was no way she was going to let him sideline her in front of her father. She had been handling things on her own for a long time now, and she could handle this, as well.

Images of last night, of falling asleep in his arms after their wonderful lovemaking, filtered through her mind and made her pause. Then the empty space he’d left in the bed that morning intruded and stiffened her resolve. It would be a mistake to think she could rely on James Wolfe even for a short time.

‘Thank you for the use of your plane but I can take it from here.’

‘I told you I would take you home and I will.’

His hot toffee eyes glittered down at her dangerously, and his controlled voice told her he was as determined to have his way as she was.

‘I am home.’

‘Ava—’

‘Wolfe. I’m fine. Really.’

‘You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to break apart.’

Did she? She’d have to work on that between here and the palace. Practising now, she squared her shoulders and stared him down. ‘I’m not. I thought I told you already. I am not the sensitive type.’

Wolfe arrogantly slashed his hand in the air to cut her off in a move that was reminiscent of something her father would do. ‘It’s not open for discussion.’

That was exactly what her father would say, and exactly the reason she couldn’t have Wolfe with her. That and the sudden sense that if she let him Wolfe would hurt her as Colyn never had.

‘No. It isn’t,’ she agreed tightly, hardening herself against the sheer force of his will, the sheer force of her desire for him, which appeared to be even worse now that she had experienced what passion really was.

For a moment neither one of them moved, facing off against each other like two adversaries in a gunfight.

Wolfe’s mouth tightened as he made to turn away from her. Then his fist clenched and his eyes, when he brought them back to hers, were seething with frustration. ‘You are without a doubt the most infuriatingly stubborn female I have ever met.’

His voice, for all its aggression, was as soft as silk and sent a flash of fire beneath the surface of her skin.

He was without a doubt the most beautiful, the most powerfully dangerous male she had ever met, and she was afraid she would dream about him for ever.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘DID MATTHIEU SAY what my father wanted to see me about, Lucy?’

‘No, ma’am.’ Lucy, her new lady’s maid, returned from the wardrobe with two jackets for her to choose from.

Ava shook her head and immediately felt terrible as Lucy’s face fell. Two weeks home and she still wasn’t used to being waited on hand and foot again. She felt sorry for the young girl whose services she’d barely used.

She glanced at her reflection and smoothed her messy ponytail. She hadn’t done her hair properly in days, but her father had requested her presence and she would not let him see her as anything less than perfect.

‘You don’t like my choices, ma’am?’

‘I love your choices.’ She gave Lucy what she hoped was an appreciative smile. ‘But it’s hot. In fact, why don’t you take the afternoon off? Go and see your boyfriend.’

The girl bobbed her head deferentially and Ava sighed heavily and headed out.

She hated being home.

Hated the cold stone walls of the palace that felt more like a prison. She had barely seen her father since she’d returned, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing—except she had barely seen anyone other than staff, and it had given her far too much time to dwell on her grief.

Glimpsing bright summer sunshine through the long row of Gothic windows as she moved from one hallway to the next made Ava feel bleak. It just felt wrong. The sky should be grey, not blue.

Her brother was dead. The royal duties she had always shied away from were upon her, and there was no escape.

As her father had said, the people needed hope in these black times and she was it. They looked upon her to lift them out of the bleak mood caused by the loss of her brother—and, more than that, Ava now knew that her father was ill. One day, sooner than she had expected, she would be Queen—and the thought was completely overwhelming.

What did she know about running a country? Having all those people depend on her? It was criminal how little she knew, and even though that was mainly due to her father’s chauvinistic views that women were trophies, not leaders, it gave her no pleasure that he now had to rely on her to preserve Anders’ future as an economically viable entity.

And what of her gallery? It was closed for the whole of August, but she had dithered about what to do with it. Although of course she knew in her heart that she would most likely have to close it. It was devastating to think that the life she had built for herself could be so easily dissolved. As if nothing she had done in Paris mattered.

Steadying her breath, she hid her pangs of dismay and a gnawing sense of foreboding behind a smile as she stepped inside her father’s plush outer office and greeted his personal assistant.

‘He’s waiting, Your Royal Highness.’

‘Thank you, Matthieu.’

She tried to relax her face as Matthieu opened an inner door and Ava saw her father, as always, behind his enormous rosewood desk. He looked pale and more drawn than usual, and Ava tried to keep her immediate concern from showing in her voice. ‘You wished to see me?’

‘Yes, Ava. Take a seat.’

‘You’re starting to worry me, sir,’ she said, sitting in one of the leather-bound chairs opposite, wondering why he had greeted her in English. ‘Have you received bad news from your physician?’

‘No.’ Her father’s response was clipped. ‘I’ve received disturbing news from the security expert who brought you home from France.’

Wolfe?

Ava’s heart leapt behind her rib cage as an image of him that seemed all too close to the surface of her mind clouded her vision. For two weeks he had filled her thoughts right before sleep took her, and he was the first thing she thought of when she woke up. Even on the morning of Frédéric’s funeral, when she had felt at Her lowest.

Ava sighed. She really needed to stop thinking about those hours they’d spent in bed together. Her dreams of him left her feeling weak and needy, and the man probably couldn’t even remember her name, let alone conjure up her image in his head.

Unlike her good self, who could not only conjure up his image oh, so easily, but his scent as well—woodsy and masculine. It was so vivid that he might as well have been in the room with her right now.