Deceiving Her Prince

But all the bracing lectures in the world couldn’t keep that glowing thing inside her chest from expanding as she gazed at the princess in the mirror, until it felt as if it was a part of every breath she took. Until she couldn’t tell where the light of it ended and that shaking thing began. And she didn’t need little voices inside of her to tell her how dangerous that was. She could feel it deep in her bones, knitting them into new shapes she was very much afraid she would have to break into pieces when she left.

Because whatever else this was, it was temporary. She needed to remember that above all.

“Your Highness.” It was the most senior of the aides who traveled with the princess, something Natalie had known at a glance because she recognized the older woman’s particular blend of sharp focus and efficient movement. “His Royal Highness Prince Rodolfo has arrived to escort you to the gala.”

“Thank you,” Natalie murmured, as serenely and princessy as possible.

And this was the trouble with dressing up like a beautiful princess who could be whisked off to a ball at a moment’s notice. Natalie started to imagine that was exactly who she was. It was so hard to keep her head, and then she walked into the large, comfortably elegant living room of her hotel suite to find Prince Rodolfo waiting for her, decked out in evening clothes, and everything troubling became that much harder.

He stood at the great glass doors that slid open to one of the terraces that offered up stunning views of Rome at all times, but particularly now, as the sun inched toward the horizon and the city was bathed in a dancing, liquid gold.

More to the point, so was Rodolfo.

Natalie hadn’t seen him since that unfortunate kissing incident. Not in person, anyway. And once again she was struck by the vast, unconquerable distance between pictures of the man on a computer screen and the reality before her. He stood tall and strong with his hands thrust into the pockets of trousers that had clearly been lovingly crafted to his precise, athletic measurements. His attention was on the red-and-gold sunset happening there before him, fanciful and lovely, taking over the Roman sky as if it was trying to court his favor.

He wasn’t even looking at her. And still he somehow stole all the air from the room.

Natalie felt herself flush as she stood in the doorway, a long, deep roll of heat that scared her, it was so intense. Her pulse was a wild fluttering, everywhere. Her temples. Her throat. Her chest.

And deep between her legs, like an invitation she had no right to offer. Not this man. Not ever this man. If he was Prince Charming after all, and she was skeptical on that point, it didn’t matter. He certainly wasn’t hers.

She must have made some noise through that dry, clutching thing in her throat, because he turned to face her. And that wasn’t any better. In her head, she’d downgraded the situation. She’d chalked it up to excusable nerves and understandable adrenaline over switching places with Valentina. That was the only explanation that had made any sense to her. She’d been so sure that when she saw Rodolfo again, all that power and compulsion that had sparked the air around him would be gone. He would just be another wealthy man for her to handle. Just another problem for her to solve.

But she’d been kidding herself.

If anything, tonight he was even worse, all dressed up in an Italian sunset.

Because you know, something inside her whispered. You know, now.

How he tasted. The feel of those lean, hard arms around her. The sensation of that marvelous mouth against hers. She had to fight back the shudder that she feared might bring her to her knees right there on the absurdly lush rug, but she had the sneaking suspicion he knew anyway. There was something about the curve of his mouth as he inclined his head.

“Princess,” he murmured.

And God help her, but she felt that everywhere. Everywhere. As if he’d used his mouth directly against her heated skin.

“I hear you wish to build our public profile, whatever that is,” she said, rather more severely than necessary. She made herself move forward, deeper into the room, when what she wanted to do was turn and run. She seated herself in an armchair because it meant he couldn’t sit on either side of her, and his fascinating mouth twitched as if he knew exactly why she’d done it. “King Geoffrey—” She couldn’t bring herself to say my father, not even if Valentina would have and not even if it was true “—was impressed. That is obviously the only reason I am here.”

“Obviously.” He threw himself onto the couch opposite her with the same reckless disregard for the lifespan of the average piece of furniture that he’d displayed back in Murin. She told herself that was reflective of his character. “Happily, it makes no difference to me if you are here of your own volition or not, so long as you are here.”

“What a lovely sentiment. Every bride dreams of such poetry, I am certain. I am certainly aflutter.”

“There is no need for sarcasm.” But he sounded amused. “All that is required is that we appear in front of the paparazzi and look as if this wedding is our idea because we are a couple in love like any other, not simply a corporate merger with crowns.”

Natalie eyed him, wishing the Roman sunset was not taking quite so long, nor quite so many liberties with Rodolfo’s already impossible good looks. He was bathed in gold and russet now, and it made him glow, as if he was the sort of dream maidens might have had in this city thousands of years ago in feverish anticipation of their fierce gods descending from on high.

She tried to cast that fanciful nonsense out of her head, but it was impossible. Especially when he was making no particular effort to hide the hungry look in his dark gaze as he trained it on her. She could feel it shiver through her, lighting her on fire. Making it as hard to sit still as it was to breathe.

“I don’t think anyone is going to believe that we were swept away by passion,” she managed to say. She folded her hands in her lap the way she’d seen Valentina do in the videos she’d watched of the princess these past few nights, so worried was she that someone would be able to see right through her because she forgot to do some or other princessy thing. Though she thought she gripped her own fingers a bit more tightly than the princess had. “Seeing as how our engagement has been markedly free of any hint of it until now.”

“But that’s the beauty of it.” Rodolfo shrugged. “The story could be that we were promised to each other and were prepared to do our duty, only to trip over the fact we were made for each other all along. Or it could be that it was never arranged at all and that we met, kept everything secret, and are now close enough to our wedding that we can let the world see what our hearts have always known.”

“You sound like a tabloid.”

“Thank you.”

Natalie glared at him. “There is no possible way that could be construed as a compliment.”

“I’ve starred in so many tabloid scandals I could write the headlines myself. And that is what we will do, starting tonight. We will rewrite whatever story is out there and make it into a grand romance. The Playboy Prince and His Perfect Princess, etcetera.” That half smile of his deepened. “You get the idea, I’m sure.”

“Why would we want to do something so silly? You are going to be a king, not a Hollywood star. Surely a restrained, distant competence is more the package you should be presenting to the world.” Natalie aimed her coolest smile at him. “Though I grant you, that might well be another difficult reach.”

The sun finally dripped below the city as she spoke, leaving strands of soft pink and deep gold in its wake. But it also made it a lot easier to see Prince Rodolfo’s dark, measuring expression. And much too easy to feel the way it clattered through her, making her feel...jittery.

It occurred to her that the way he lounged there, so carelessly, was an optical illusion. Because there wasn’t a single thing about him that wasn’t hard and taut, as if he not only kept all his brooding power on a tight leash—but could explode into action at any moment. That notion was not exactly soothing.

Neither was his smile. “We will spend the rest of the night in public, princess. Fawned over by the masses. So perhaps you will do me the favor of telling me here, in private, exactly what it is that has made you imagine I deserve a steady stream of insult. One after the next, without end, since I last saw you.”

Natalie felt chastened by that, and hated herself for it in the next instant. Because her own feelings didn’t matter here. She shouldn’t even have feelings where this man was concerned. Valentina might have given her blessing to whatever happened between her betrothed and Natalie, but that was neither here nor there. Natalie knew better than to let a man like this beguile her. She’d been taught to see through this sort of thing at her mother’s knee. It appalled her that his brand of patented princely charm was actually working.

“Are you not deserving?” she asked quietly. She made herself meet his dark gaze, though something inside her quailed at it. And possibly died a little bit, too. But she didn’t look away. “Are you sure?”

“Am I a vicious man?” Rodolfo’s voice was no louder than hers, but there was an intensity to it that made that lick of shame inside of her shimmer, then expand. It made the air in the room seem thin. It made Natalie’s heart hit at her ribs, hard enough to bruise. “A brute? A monster in some fashion?”

“Only you can answer that question, I think.”

“I am unaware of any instance in which I have deliberately hurt another person, but perhaps you, princess, know something I do not about my own life.”

It turned out the Prince was as effective with a slap down as her boss. Natalie sat a bit straighter, but she didn’t back down. “Everyone knows a little too much about your life, Your Highness. Entirely too much, one might argue.”

“Tabloid fantasies are not life. They are a game. You should know that better than anyone, as we sit here discussing a new story we plan to sell ourselves.”

“How would I know this, exactly?” She felt her head tilt to one side in a manner she thought was more her than Valentina. She corrected it. “I do not appear in the tabloids. Not with any frequency, and only on the society pages. Never the front-page stories.” Natalie knew. She’d checked.

“You are a paragon, indeed.” Rodolfo’s voice was low and dark and not remotely complimentary. “But a rather judgmental one, I fear.”

Natalie clasped her hands tighter together. “That word has always bothered me. There is nothing wrong with rendering judgment. It’s even lauded in some circles. How did judgmental become an insult?”

“When rendering judgment became a blood sport,” Rodolfo replied, with a soft menace that drew blood on its own.

But Natalie couldn’t stop to catalog the wounds it left behind, all over her body, or she was afraid she’d simply...collapse.

“It is neither bloody nor sporting to commit yourself to a woman in the eyes of the world and then continue to date others, Your Highness,” she said crisply. “It is simply unsavory. Perhaps childish. And certainly dishonorable. I think you’ll find that there are very few women on the planet who will judge that behavior favorably.”

Rodolfo inclined his head, though she had the sense his jaw was tighter than it had been. “Fair enough. I will say in my defense that you never seemed to care one way or the other what I did, much less with whom, before last week. We talked about it at length and you said nothing. Not one word.”

Valentina had said he talked at her, defending himself—hadn’t she? Natalie couldn’t remember. But she also wasn’t here to poke holes in Valentina’s story. It didn’t matter if it was true. It mattered that she’d felt it, and Natalie could do something to help fix it. Or try, anyway.

“You’re right, of course,” she said softly, keeping her gaze trained to his. “It’s my fault for not foreseeing that your word was not your bond and your vows were meaningless. My deepest apologies. I’ll be certain to keep all of that in mind on our wedding day.”

He didn’t appear to move, and yet suddenly Natalie couldn’t, as surely as if he’d reached out and wrapped her in his tight grip. His dark gaze seemed to pin her to her chair, intent and hard.

“I’ve tasted you,” he reminded her, as if she could forget that for an instant. As if she hadn’t dreamed about exactly that, night after night, waking up with his taste on her tongue and a deep, restless ache between her legs. “I know you want me, yet you fight me. Is it necessary to you that I become the villain? Does that make it easier?”

Natalie couldn’t breathe. Her heart felt as if it might rip its way out of her chest all on its own, and she still couldn’t tear her gaze away from his. There was that hunger, yes, but also a kind of certainty that made her feel...liquid.

“Because it is not necessary to insult me to get my attention, princess,” Rodolfo continued in the same intense way. “You have it. And you need not question my fidelity. I will touch no other but you, if that is what you require. Does this satisfy you? Can we step away from the bloodlust, do you think?”

What that almost offhanded promise did was make Natalie feel as if she was nothing but a puppet and he was pulling all her strings, all without laying a single finger upon her. And what sent an arrow of shame and delight spiraling through her was that she couldn’t tell if she was properly horrified by that notion, or...not.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” was the best she could manage.

“You only confirm my suspicions,” he told her then, and she knew she wasn’t imagining the satisfaction that laced his dark tone. “It is not who I might or might not have dated over the past few months that so disturbs you. I do not doubt that is a factor, but it is not the whole picture. Will you tell me what is? Or will I be forced to guess?”

And she knew, somehow, that his guesses would involve his hands on her once more and God help her, she didn’t know what might happen if he touched her again. She didn’t know what she might do. Or not do.

Who she might betray, or how badly.

She stood then, moving to put the chair between them, aware of the way her magnificent gown swayed and danced as if it had a mind of its own. And of the way Rodolfo watched her do it, that hard-lit amusement in his dark eyes, as if she were acting precisely as he’d expected she would.

As if he was a rather oversize cat toying with his next meal and was in absolutely no doubt as to how this would all end.

Though she didn’t really care to imagine him treating her like his dinner. Or, more precisely, she refused to allow herself to imagine it, no matter how her pulse rocketed through her veins.

“My life is about order,” she said, and she realized as she spoke that she wasn’t playing her prescribed role. That the words were pouring out of a part of her she hadn’t even known was there inside of her. “I have duties, responsibilities, and I handle them all. I like to handle them. I like knowing that I’m equal to any task that’s put in front of me, and then proving it. Especially when no one thinks I can.”

“And you are duly celebrated for your sense of duty throughout the great houses of Europe.” Rodolfo inclined his head. “I salute you.”

“I can’t tell if you’re mocking me or not, but I don’t require celebration,” she threw back at him. “It’s not about that. It’s about the accomplishment. It’s about putting an order to things no matter how messy they get.”

“Valentina...”

Natalie was glad he said that name. It reminded her who she was—and who she wasn’t. It allowed her to focus through all the clamor and spin inside of her.

“But your life is chaos,” she said, low and fierce. “As far as I can tell, it always has been. I think you must like it that way, as you have been careening from one death wish to another since your brother—”

“Careful.”

He looked different then, furious and something like thrown, but she only lifted her chin and told herself to ignore it. Because the pain of an international playboy had nothing to do with her. Prince Charming was the villain in all the stories her mother had told her, never the hero. And the brother he’d lost when he was fifteen was a means to psychoanalyze this man, not humanize him. She told herself that again and again. And then she forged on.

“He died, Rodolfo. You lived.” He hissed in a breath as if she’d struck him, but Natalie didn’t stop. “And yet your entire adult life appears to be a calculated attempt to change that. You and I have absolutely nothing in common.”

Rodolfo stood. The glittering emotion she’d seen grip him a moment ago was in his dark gaze, ferocious and focused, but he was otherwise wiped clean. She would have been impressed if she’d been able to breathe.

“My brother’s death was an unfortunate tragedy.” But he sounded something like hollow. As if he was reciting a speech he’d learned by rote a long time ago. His gaze remained irate and focused on her. “I never intended to fill his shoes and, in fact, make no attempt to do so. I like extreme sports, that is all. It isn’t a death wish. I am neither suicidal nor reckless.”

He might as well have been issuing his own press release.

“If you die while leaping out of helicopters to get to the freshest ski slope in the world, the way you famously do week after week in winter, you will not only break your neck and likely die, you will leave your country in chaos,” Natalie said quietly. His gaze intensified, but she didn’t look away. “It all comes back to chaos, Your Highness. And that’s not me.”

She expected him to rage at her. To argue. She expected that dark thing in him to take him over, and she braced herself for it. If she was honest, she was waiting for him to reach out and his put his hands on her again the way he had the last time. She was waiting for his kiss as surely as if he’d cast a spell and that was her only hope of breaking it—

It was astonishing, really, how much of a fool she was when it counted.

But Rodolfo’s hard, beguiling mouth only curved as if there wasn’t a world of seething darkness in his eyes, and somehow that sent heat spiraling all the way through her.

“Maybe it should be, princess,” he said softly, so softly, as if he was seducing her where he stood. As if he was the spell and there was no breaking it, not when he was looking at her like that, as if no one else existed in all the world. “Maybe a little chaos is exactly what you need.”

CHAPTER SIX

THE CHARITY GALA took place in a refurbished ancient villa, blazing with light and understated wealth and dripping with all manner of international celebrities like another layer of decoration. Icons from the epic films of Bollywood mingled with lauded stars of the stages of the West End and rubbed shoulders with a wide selection of Europe’s magnificently blooded aristocrats, all doing what they did best. They graced the red carpet as if they found nothing more delightful, smiling into cameras and posing for photographs while giving lip service to the serious charity cause du jour.

Rodolfo escorted his mouthy, surprising princess down the gauntlet of the baying paparazzi, smiling broadly as the press went mad at the sight of them, just as he’d suspected they would.

“I told you,” he murmured, leaning down to put his mouth near her ear. As much to sell the story of their great romance as to take pleasure in the way she shivered, then stiffened as if she was trying to hide it from him. Who could have imagined that his distant betrothed was so exquisitely sensitive? He couldn’t wait to find out where else she was this tender. This sweet. “They want nothing more than to imagine us wildly and madly in love.”

“A pity my imagination is not quite so vivid,” she replied testily, though she did it through a smile that perhaps only he could tell was not entirely serene.

But the grin on Rodolfo’s face as they made their way slowly through the wall of flashing cameras and shouting reporters wasn’t feigned in the least.

“You didn’t mention which charity this gala benefits,” the princess said crisply as they followed the well-heeled crowd inside the villa, past dramatic tapestries billowing in the slight breeze and a grand pageant of colored lights in the many fountains along the way.

“Something critically important, I am sure,” he replied, and his grin only deepened when she slid a reproving look at him. “Surely they are all important, princess. In the long run, does it matter which one this is?”

“Not to you, clearly,” she murmured, nodding regally at yet another photographer. “I am sure your carelessness—excuse me, I mean thoughtfulness—is much appreciated by all the charities around who benefit from your random approach.”

Rodolfo resolved to take her out in public every night, to every charity event he could find in Europe, whether he’d heard of its cause or not. Not only because she was stunning and he liked looking at her, though that helped. The blazing lights caught the red in her hair and made it shimmer. The gray dress she wore hugged her figure before falling in soft waves to the floor. She was a vision, and better than all of that, out here in the glare of too many spotlights she could not keep chairs between them to ward him off. He liked the heat of her arm through his. He liked her body beside his, lithe and slender as if she’d been crafted to fit him. He liked the faint scent of her, a touch of something French and something sweet besides, and below it, the simplicity of that soap she used.

There wasn’t much he didn’t like about this woman, if he was honest, not even her intriguing puritan streak. Or her habit of poking at him the way no one else had ever dared, not even his disapproving father, who preferred to express his endless disappointment with far less sharpness and mockery. No one else ever threw Felipe in his face and if they’d ever tried to do such a remarkably stupid thing, it certainly wouldn’t have been to psychoanalyze him. Much less find him wanting.

He took care of that all on his own, no doubt. And the fact that his own father found his second son so much more lacking than his first was common knowledge and obvious to all. No need to underscore it.

Rodolfo supposed it was telling that as little as he cared to have that conversation, he hadn’t minded that Valentina had tried. Or he didn’t mind too much. He didn’t know where his deferential, disappearing princess had gone, the one who had hidden in plain sight when there’d been no one in the room but the two of them, but he liked this one much better.

The hardest part of his body agreed. Enthusiastically. And it didn’t much care that they were out in public.

But there was another gauntlet to run inside the villa. One Rodolfo should perhaps have anticipated.

“I take it that you did not make proclamations about your sudden onset of fidelity to your many admirers,” Valentina said dryly after they were stopped for the fifth time in as many steps by yet another woman who barely glanced at the princess and then all but melted all over Rodolfo. Right there in front of her.

For the first time in his entire adult life, Rodolfo found he was faintly embarrassed by his own prowess with the fairer sex.

“It is not the sort of thing one typically announces,” he pointed out, while attempting to cling to his dignity, despite the number of slinky women circling him with that same avid look in their eyes. “It has the whiff of desperation about it, does it not?

“Of course, generally speaking, becoming engaged is the announcement.” What was wrong with him, that he found her tartness so appealing? Especially when not a bit of it showed on her lovely, serene face? How had he spent all these months failing to notice how appealing she was? He’d puzzled it over for days and still couldn’t understand it. “I can see the confusion in your case, given your exploits these last months.”