The Billionaire's Secret Princess

“It would never work,” Natalie had replied. Which wasn’t exactly a no. “No one will ever believe I’m you.”

Valentina waved a hand, encompassing the pair of them. “How would anyone know the difference? I can barely tell myself.”

“People will take one look at me and know I’m not you. You look like a princess.”

“You, too, can look like a princess,” Valentina assured her. Then smiled. “This princess, anyway. You already do.”

“You’re elegant. Poised. You’ve had years of training, presumably. How to be a diplomat. How to be polite in every possible situation. Which fork to use at dinner, for God’s sake.”

“Achilles Casilieris is one of the wealthiest men alive,” Valentina had pointed out. “He dines with as many kings as I do. I suspect that as his personal assistant, Natalie, you have, too. And have likely learned how to navigate the cutlery.”

“No one will believe it,” Natalie had insisted. But she’d sounded a bit as if she was wavering.

Valentina tugged off the ring on her left hand and placed it down on the counter between them. It made an audible clink against the marble surface, as well it should, given it was one of the crown jewels of the kingdom of Tissely.

“Try it on. I dare you. It’s an heirloom from Prince Rodolfo’s extensive treasury of such items, dating back to the dawn of time, more or less.” She smiled. “If it doesn’t fit we’ll never speak of switching places again.”

But the ring had fit her double as if it had been made especially for her.

And after that, switching clothes was easy. Valentina found herself in front of the bathroom mirror, dressed like a billionaire’s assistant, when Natalie walked out of the stall behind her in her own shift dress and the heels her favorite shoe designer had made just for her. It was like looking in a mirror, but one that walked and looked unsteady on her feet and was wearing her hair differently.

Valentina couldn’t tell if she was disconcerted or excited. Both, maybe.

She’d eyed Natalie. “Will your glasses give me a headache, do you suppose?”

But Natalie had pulled them from her face and handed them over. “They’re clear glass. I was getting a little too much attention from some of the men Mr. Casilieris works with, and it annoyed him. I didn’t want to lose my job, so I started wearing my hair up and these glasses. It worked like a charm.”

“I refuse to believe men are so idiotic.”

Natalie had grinned as Valentina took the glasses and slid them onto her nose. “The men we’re talking about weren’t exactly paying me attention because they found me enthralling. It was a diversionary tactic during negotiations, and yes, you’d be surprised how many men fail to see a woman who looks smart.”

She’d freed her hair from its utilitarian ponytail and shook it out, then handed the stretchy elastic to Valentina. It took Valentina a moment to re-create the ponytail on her own head, and then it was done.

And it really was like magic.

“This is crazy,” Natalie had whispered.

“We have to switch places now,” Valentina said softly, hearing the rough patch in her own voice. “I’ve always wanted to be...someone else. Someone normal. Just for a little while.”

And she’d gotten exactly what she’d wanted, hadn’t she?

“I am distressed, Miss Monette, that I cannot manage to secure your attention for more than a moment or two,” Achilles said then, slamming Valentina back into this car he dominated so easily when all he was doing was sitting there.

Sitting there, filling up the world without even trying.

He was devastating. There was no other possible word that could describe him. His black hair was close-cropped to his head, which only served to highlight his strong, intensely masculine features. She’d had hours on the plane to study him as she’d repeatedly failed to do the things he’d expected of her, and she still couldn’t really get her head around why it was that he was so...affecting. He shouldn’t have been. Dark hair. Dark eyes that tended toward gold when his temper washed over him, which he’d so far made no attempt to hide. A strong nose that reminded her of ancient statues she’d seen in famous museums. That lean, hard body of his that wasn’t made of marble or bronze but seemed to suggest both as he used it so effortlessly. A predator packed into a dark suit that seemed molded to him, whispering suggestions of a lethal warrior when all he was doing was taking phone calls with a five-hundred-thousand-dollar watch on one wrist that he didn’t flash about, because he was Achilles Casilieris. He didn’t need flash.

Achilles was something else.

It was the power that seemed to emanate from him, even when he was doing nothing but sitting quietly. It was the fierce hit of his intelligence, that brooding, unmistakable cleverness that seemed to wrap around him like a cloud. It was something in the way he looked at her, as if he saw too much and too deeply and no matter that Valentina’s unreadable game face was the envy of Europe. Besides all that, there was something untamed about him. Fierce.

Something about him left her breathless. Entirely too close to reeling.

“Do you require a gold star every time you make a statement?” she asked, careful not to look at him. It was too hard to look away. She’d discovered that on the plane ride from London—and he was a lot closer now. So close she was sure she could feel the heat of his body from where she sat. “I’ll be certain to make a note to celebrate you more often. Sir.”

Valentina didn’t know what she was doing. In Natalie’s job, certainly, but also with this man in general. She’d learned one thing about powerful people—particularly men—and it was that they did not enjoy being challenged. Under any circumstances. What made her think Achilles would go against type and magically handle this well?

But she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

And the fact that she had never been one to challenge much of anything before hardly signified. Or maybe that was why she felt so unfettered, she thought. Because this wasn’t her life. This wasn’t her remote father and his endless expectations for the behavior of his only child. This was a strange little bit of role-playing that allowed her to be someone other than Princess Valentina for a moment. A few weeks, that was all. Why not challenge Achilles while she was at it? Especially if no one else ever did?

She could feel his gaze on the side of her face, that brooding dark gold, and she braced herself. Then made sure her expression was nothing but serene as she turned to face him.

It didn’t matter. There was no minimizing this man. She could feel the hit of him—like a fist—deep in her belly. And then lower.

“Are you certain you were not hit in the head?” Achilles asked, his dark voice faintly rough with the hint of his native Greek. “Perhaps in the bathroom at the airport? I fear that such places can often suffer from slippery floors. Deadly traps for the unwary.”

“It was only a bathroom,” she replied airily. “It wasn’t slippery or otherwise notable in any way.”

“Are you sure?” And something in his voice and his hard gaze prickled into her then. Making her chest feel tighter.

Valentina did not want to talk about the bathroom, much less anything that had happened there. And there was something in his gaze that worried her—but that was insane. He couldn’t have any idea that she’d run into her own twin. How could he? Valentina had been unaware that there was the faintest possibility she might have a twin until today.

Which made her think about her father and his many, many lectures about his only child in a new, unfortunate light. But Valentina thrust that aside. That was something to worry about when she was a princess again. That was a problem she could take up when she was back in Murin Castle.

Here, now, she was a secretary. An executive assistant, no more and no less.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Casilieris.” She let her smile deepen and ignored the little hum of...something deep inside her when his gaze seemed to catch fire. “Are you trying to tell me that you need a bathroom? Should I ask the driver to stop the car right here in the middle of the George Washington Bridge?”

She expected him to get angry again. Surely that was what had been going on before, back in London before the plane had taken off. She’d seen temper all over that fierce, hard face of his and gleaming hot in his gaze. More than that, she’d felt it inside her. As if the things he felt echoed within her, winding her into knots. She felt something a whole lot like a chill inch its way down her spine at that notion.

But Achilles only smiled. And that was far more dangerous than merely devastating.

“Miss Monette,” he said and shook his head, as if she amused him, when she could see that the thing that moved over that ruthless face of his was far too intense to be simple amusement. “I had no idea that beneath your officious exterior you’ve been hiding a comedienne all this time. For five years you’ve worked at my side and never let so much as a hint of this whimsical side of your personality out into the open. Whatever could have changed?”

He knows. The little voice inside her was certain—and terrified.

But it was impossible. Valentina knew it was impossible, so she made herself smile and relax against the leather seat as if she’d never in her life been so at her ease. Very much as if she was not within scant inches of a very large, very powerful, very intense male who was eyeing her the way gigantic lions and tigers and jaguars eyed their food. When they were playing with it.

She’d watched enough documentaries and made enough state visits to African countries to know firsthand.

“Perhaps I’ve always been this amusing,” she suggested, managing to tamp down her hysteria about oversize felines, none of which was particularly helpful at the moment. “Perhaps you’ve only recently allowed yourself to truly listen to me.”

“I greatly enjoy listening to you,” Achilles replied. There was a laziness in the way he sat there, sprawled out in the backseat of his car, that dark gold gaze on hers. A certain laziness, yes—but Valentina didn’t believe it for a second. “I particularly enjoy listening to you when you are doing your job perfectly. Because you know how much I admire perfection. I insist on it, in fact. Which is why I cannot understand why you failed to provide it today.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

But she knew what he meant. She’d been on the plane and she’d been the one to fail repeatedly to do what was clearly her job. She’d hung up on one conference call and failed entirely to connect another. She’d expected him to explode—if she was honest, there was a part of her that wanted him to explode, in the way that anyone might want to poke and poke and poke at some kind of blister to see if it would pop. But he hadn’t popped. He hadn’t lost his temper at all, despite the fact that it had been very clear to Valentina very quickly that she was a complete and utter disaster at doing whatever it was that Natalie did.

When Achilles had stared at her in amazement, however, she hadn’t made any excuses. She’d only gazed right back, serenely, as if she’d meant to do whatever utterly incorrect thing it was. As if it was all some kind of strategy.

She could admit that she hadn’t really thought the job part through. She been so busy fantasizing herself into some kind of normal life that it had never occurred to her that, normal or not, a life was still a whole life. She had no idea how to live any way but the way she’d been living for almost thirty years. How remarkably condescending, she’d thought up there on Achilles Casilieris’s jet, that she’d imagined she could simply step into a job—especially one as demanding as this appeared to be—and do it merely because she’d decided it was her chance at something “normal.”

Valentina had found the entire experience humbling, if she was honest, and it had been only a few hours since she’d switched places with Natalie in London. Who knew what else awaited her?

But Achilles was still sprawled there beside her, that unnerving look of his making her skin feel too small for her bones.

“Natalie, Natalie,” he murmured, and Valentina told herself it was a good thing he’d used that name. It wasn’t her name, and she needed the reminder. This wasn’t about her. It wasn’t her job to advocate for Natalie when the other woman might not wish for her to do anything like that. She was on a fast track to losing Natalie her job, and then what? Valentina didn’t have to worry about her employment prospects, but she had no idea what the market was like for billionaire’s assistants.

But maybe there was a part of her that already knew that there was no way Natalie Monette was a stranger to her. Certainly not on the genetic level. And that had implications she wasn’t prepared to examine just yet, but she did know that the woman who was in all likelihood her long-lost identical twin did not have to work for Achilles Casilieris unless she wanted to.

How arrogant of you, a voice inside her said quietly. Her Royal Highness, making unilateral decisions for others’ lives without their input.

The voice sounded a little too much like her father’s.

“That is my name,” Valentina said to Achilles, in case there had been any doubt. Perhaps with a little too much force.

But she had the strangest notion that he was...tasting the name as he said it. As if he’d never said it before. Did he call Natalie by her first name? Valentina rather thought not, given that he’d called her Miss Monette when she’d met him—but that was neither here nor there, she told herself. And no matter that she was a woman who happened to know the power of titles. She had many of her own. And her life was marked by those who used the different versions of her titles, not to mention the few who actually called her by her first name.

“I cannot tolerate this behavior,” he said, but it wasn’t in that same infuriated tone he’d used earlier. If anything, he sounded almost...indulgent. But surely that was impossible. “It borders on open rebellion, and I cannot have that. This is not a democracy, I’m afraid. This is a dictatorship. If I want your opinion, I’ll tell you what it is.”

There was no reason her heart should have been kicking at her like that, her pulse so loud in her ears she was sure he must be able to hear it himself.

“What an interesting way to foster employee loyalty,” she murmured. “Really more of a scorch-the-earth approach. Do you find it gets you the results you want?”

“I do not need to breed employee loyalty,” Achilles told her, sounding even lazier than before, those dark eyes of his on hers. “People are loyal to me or they are fired. You seem to have forgotten reality today, Natalie. Allow me to remind you that I pay you so much money that I own your loyalty, just as I own everything else.”

“Perhaps,” and her voice was a little too rough then. A little too shaky, when what could this possibly have to do with her? She was a visitor. Natalie’s loyalty was no concern of hers. “I have no wish to be owned. Does anyone? I think you’ll find that they do not.”

Achilles shrugged. “Whether you wish it or do not, that is how it is.”

“That is why I was considering quitting,” she heard herself say. And she was no longer looking at him. That was still far too dangerous, too disconcerting. She found herself staring down at her hands, folded in her lap. She could feel that she was frowning, when she learned a long, long time ago never to show her feelings in public. “It’s all very well and good for you, of course. I imagine it’s quite pleasant to have minions. But for me, there’s more to life than blind loyalty. There’s more to life than work.” She blinked back a strange heat. “I may not have experienced it myself, but I know there must be.”

“And what do you think is out there?” He shifted in the seat beside her, but Valentina still refused to look back at him, no matter how she seemed almost physically compelled to do just that. “What do you think you’re missing? Is it worth what you are throwing away here today, with this aggressive attitude and the childish pretense that you don’t know your own job?”

“It’s only those who are bored of the world, or jaded, who are so certain no one else could possibly wish to see it.”

“No one is keeping you from roaming about the planet at will,” he told her in a low voice. Too low. So low it danced along her skin and seemed to insinuate itself beneath her flesh. “But you seem to wish to burn down the world you know in order to see the one you don’t. That is not what I would call wise. Would you?”

Valentina didn’t understand why his words seemed to beat beneath her own skin. But she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. And her eyes seemed entirely too full, almost scratchy, with an emotion she couldn’t begin to name.

She was aware of too many things. Of the car as it slid through the Manhattan streets. Of Achilles himself, too big and too masculine in the seat beside her, and much too close besides. And most of all, that oddly weighted thing within her, rolling around and around until she couldn’t tell the difference between sensation and reaction.

And him right there in the middle of it, confusing her all the more.

CHAPTER THREE

ACHILLES DIDN’T SAY another word, and that was worse. It left Valentina to sit there with her own thoughts in a whirl and nothing to temper them. It left no barrier between that compelling, intent look in his curiously dark eyes and her.

Valentina had no experience with men. Her father had insisted that she grow up as sheltered as possible from public life, so that she could enjoy what little privacy was afforded to a European princess before she turned eighteen. She’d attended carefully selected boarding schools run strictly and deliberately, but that hadn’t prevented her classmates from involving themselves in all kinds of dramatic situations. Even then, Valentina had kept herself apart.

Your mother’s defection was a stain on the throne, her father always told her. It is upon us to render it clean and whole again.

Valentina had been far too terrified of staining Murin any further to risk a scandal. She’d concentrated on her studies and her friends and left the teenage rebellions to others. And once out of school, she’d been thrust unceremoniously into the spotlight. She’d been an ambassador for her kingdom wherever she went, and more than that, she’d always known that she was promised to the Crown Prince of Tissely. Any scandals she embroiled herself in would haunt two kingdoms.

She’d never seen the point.

And along the way she’d started to take a certain pride in the fact that she was saving herself for her predetermined marriage. It was the one thing that was hers to give on her wedding night that had nothing to do with her father or her kingdom.

Is it pride that’s kept you chaste—or is it control? a little voice inside her asked then, and the way it kicked in her, Valentina suspected she wouldn’t care for the answer. She ignored it.

But the point was, she had no idea how to handle men. Not on any kind of intimate level. These past few hours, in fact, were the longest she’d ever spent alone in the company of a man. It simply didn’t happen when she was herself. There were always attendants and aides swarming around Princess Valentina. Always.

She told herself that was why she was having such trouble catching her breath. It was the novelty—that was all. It certainly wasn’t him.

Still, it was almost a relief when the car pulled up in front of a quietly elegant building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, perched there with a commanding view of Central Park, and came to a stop.

The late-afternoon breeze washed over her when she stepped from the car, smelling improbably of flowers in the urban sprawl of New York City. But Valentina decided to take it as a blessing.

Achilles remained silent as he escorted her into the building. He only raised his chin in the barest of responses to the greeting that came his way from the doormen in the shiny, obviously upscale lobby, and then he led her into a private elevator located toward the back and behind another set of security guards. It was a gleaming, shining thing that he operated with a key. And it was blessedly without any mirrors.

Valentina wasn’t entirely sure whom she’d see if she looked at her own reflection just then.

There were too many things she didn’t understand churning inside her, and she hadn’t the slightest idea what she was doing here. What on earth she hoped to gain from this odd little lark across the planet, literally in another woman’s shoes.

A break, she reminded herself sternly. A vacation. A little holiday away from all the duties and responsibilities of Princess Valentina, which was more important now than ever. She would give herself over to her single-greatest responsibility in a matter of weeks. She would marry Prince Rodolfo and make both of their fathers and all of their subjects very, very happy.

And a brief escape had sounded like bliss for that split second back there in London—and it still did, when she thought about what waited for her. The terribly appropriate royal marriage. The endlessly public yet circumspect life of a modern queen. The glare of all that attention that she and any children she bore could expect no matter where they went or what they did, yet she could never comment upon lest she seem ungrateful or entitled.

Hers was to wave and smile—that was all. She was marrying a man she hardly knew who would expect the marital version of the same. This was a little breather before the reality of all that. This was a tiny bit of space between her circumscribed life at her father’s side and more of the same at her husband’s.

She couldn’t allow the brooding, unreadable man beside her to ruin it, no matter how unnerving his dark gold gaze was. No matter what fires it kicked up inside her that she hardly dared name.

The elevator doors slid open, delivering them straight into the sumptuous front hall of an exquisitely decorated penthouse. Valentina followed Achilles as he strode deep inside, not bothering to spare her a glance as he moved. She was glad that he walked ahead of her, which allowed her to look around so she could get her bearings without seeming to do so. Because, of course, Natalie would already know her way around this place.

She took in the high ceilings and abundant windows all around. The sweeping stairs that led up toward at least two more floors. The mix of art deco and a deep coziness that suggested this penthouse was more than just a showcase; Achilles actually lived here.

Valentina told herself—sternly—that there was no earthly reason that notion should make her shiver.

She was absurdly grateful when a housekeeper appeared, clucking at Achilles in what it took Valentina longer than it should have to realize was Greek. A language she could converse in, though she would never consider herself anything like fluent. Still, it took her only a very few moments to understand that whatever the danger Achilles exuded and however ruthless the swath he cut through the entire world with a single glance, this woman thought he was wonderful.

She beamed at him.

It would not do to let that get to her, Valentina warned herself as something warm seemed to roll its way through her, pooling in the strangest places. She should not draw any conclusions about a man who was renowned for his fierceness in all things and yet let a housekeeper treat him like family.

The woman declared she would feed him no matter if he was hungry or not, lest he get skinny and weak, and bustled back in the direction of what Valentina assumed was the kitchen.

“You’re looking around as if you are lost,” Achilles murmured, when Valentina didn’t think she’d been looking around at all. “When you have spent more time in this penthouse over the last five years than I have.”

Valentina hated the fact that she started a bit when she realized his attention was focused on her again. And that he was speaking in English, which seemed to make him sound that much more knowing.