One Reckless Decision: Majesty, Mistress...Missing Heir / Katrakis's Last Mistress / Princess From the Past

It was only when she’d finally made her way into the impressive rail station with the huge clock tower that reminded her of Big Ben back home in the UK that the reality of her situation had hit her.

She had no money. And, worse, no access to any money.

She’d tucked her bank card into her evening bag before she’d left her home in York last night, but she hadn’t thought to bring it with her when she’d left Tariq’s house. She’d been entirely too focused on getting out of there to think about such practicalities.

Once again, she was a fool.

All of the emotions that Jessa had been trying to hold at bay rushed at her then like a tidal wave, forcing her to stop walking in the middle of the crowded station. She thought her knees might give out from under her. She was nearly trampled by the relentless stream of commuters and holidaymakers on all sides as they raced through the building, headed for trains and destinations far away from here. But Jessa was trapped. Stranded. How could she possibly keep Jeremy a secret if she couldn’t even take a simple train journey to somewhere, anywhere else? She was soaked through to her skin: cold, wet, miserable, and alone in Paris. She had no money, and the one person she knew in the city was the last person on earth she could go to for help.

What was she going to do?

She felt a hand on her arm and immediately turned, jostled out of the dark spiral she was in.

“Excuse me,” she began, apologetically.

But it was Tariq.

He wore another dark suit, expertly fitted to showcase his lean hunter’s physique, and a matching scowl. He held her elbow in his large hand much too securely. She did not have to try to jerk away from him to know she would not be able to do so if he didn’t allow it. She had no doubt she looked pathetic—like a drowned rat. Meanwhile, he looked like what he was: a very powerful man at the end of his patience.

She hated the way he looked at her, as if she had done something unspeakable to him. When she had only ever acted to protect Jeremy! Hadn’t she? She hated that he did not say a word, and only seared her straight through with that dark glare of his. She hated most of all that some part of her was relieved to see him, that that same traitorous part of her wanted him to rescue her, as if he was not the one responsible for her predicament in the first place!

Her eyes burned with tears. He only stared at her, his dark eyes penetrating, implacable. She felt her mouth open, but she could not speak.

What could she say? She didn’t know whether to be relieved or appalled that he was beside her, even though he was what she had run from. She only knew there was an ache inside that seemed to intensify with every breath, and it had nothing at all to do with sex. It had to do with the way he looked at her, as if he was disappointed in her. As if she had wounded him in ways words could not express. She couldn’t imagine why that should hurt her in return, but it did.

“Come,” he said, his voice a powerful rumble yet curiously devoid of anger, which made the dampness at the back of her eyes threaten to spill over again. “The car is waiting.”

The damned woman was likely to catch her death of pneumonia, Tariq thought darkly, which would not suit him at all, as she still kept so many secrets from him. As he stepped outside the station, two of his aides leaped to attention, umbrellas in hand, and sheltered them both as Tariq led her to the sleek black car that waited by the curb. Not that an umbrella would do her any good at this point. She might as well have jumped, fully dressed, into the Seine.

His driver opened the back door and Tariq handed Jessa inside, then climbed in after her, sitting so he could look at her beside him. He watched her settle into her seat and told himself he did not notice the way the soaking wet shirt clung to her curves, leaving nothing at all to the imagination. Not that he needed to imagine what he could still taste on his tongue and feel beneath his hands. He wordlessly handed her a bath towel as the car pulled into traffic.

“Thank you.”

Her voice was hushed. Almost formal. She looked at the towel on her lap for a moment and then raised her head. Her eyes seemed too wide, too bright, and haunted, somehow. To his surprise, the anger that had consumed him earlier had subsided. Which was not to say he was happy with her, or had forgotten what she’d done to him—the lies she was still telling with her continued silence—but the fury that had seized him and forced him to walk away from her rather than unleash it in her presence had simmered to a low boil and then faded into something far more painful. Anger was easy, in comparison.

He didn’t know why. He had been coldly furious all day, and doubly so when she’d left the house. He had had his people monitor her movements as a matter of course, and had seethed about it while he ought to have been concentrating on his official duties. When it became clear where she was headed and he had called for the car, he had felt the crack of his temper, but somehow the sight of her standing in the middle of the busy train station had gotten to him. She had looked so forlorn, so lost. Not at all the warrior woman with more fire and courage than sense who had made love to him all night long. Who had stood up to him consistently since he’d walked back into her life. By the time he’d reached her side, he had been amazed to discover that the angry words on his tongue had dissolved, unsaid.

Yet he still had the echo of what she’d said earlier ricocheting in his head, close as it was to something his uncle had said to him years before: What kind of man are you? The kind who terrorized women into risking pneumonia on the streets of Paris, apparently. The kind whose former lover defied him to her own detriment, throwing herself out into a cold autumn rain rather than tell him what had become of their child. What kind of man was he, indeed, to inspire these things?

He watched her towel off her face, then try to tend to the sopping mass of her hair. She shivered.

“You are cold.”

“No,” she said, but there was no force behind it.

“Your teeth are about to chatter,” he said with little patience. Would she rather freeze to death than accept his help? Obstinate woman. He leaned forward to press the intercom button, then ordered the heat turned on. “See? Was that so difficult?”

She looked at him, her eyes dark and wary, then away.

“I hope you had a pleasant walk,” he continued, his tone sardonic. “My men tell me you nearly drowned in a puddle outside the Louvre.”

She looked startled for a moment. “Your men?”

“Of course.” His brows rose. “You cannot imagine that a king’s residence is left so wide open, can you? That any passerby could stroll in and out on a whim? I told you what would happen if you left.”

“I didn’t…” She broke off. She swallowed. “You have security. Of course you do.” She shrugged slightly. “I never saw them.”

Tariq leveled a look at her, lounging back against his seat, taking care not to touch her. Touching her had not led where he had expected it to lead. He had meant to control her and rid himself of this obsession, and instead had risked himself in ways he would have thought impossible. Felt things he was not prepared to examine. Damn her.

“If you saw them, they would not be very good at their jobs, would they?” he asked idly.

Silence fell, heavy and deep, between them. She continued to try to dry herself, and he continued to watch her attempts, but something had shifted. He didn’t know what it was. Her desperate, doomed escape attempt that had proved her brave, if reckless? Or the fact that she looked not unlike a child as she sat there, as bedraggled as a kitten, her eyes wide and defeated?

“Why did you stop walking in the station?” he asked without knowing he meant to speak. “You were nearly run down where you stood.”

She let out a rueful laugh. “I have no money,” she said. She met his gaze as if she expected him to comment, but he only lifted a brow in response.

“And what now?” she asked softly, that defiant tilt to her chin, though her hair was still dark and wet against her face, making her seem pale and small. “Am I your prisoner?”

There was a part of him that wanted to rage at her still. But he had not forgotten, even in his fury, even now, how she had somehow touched him once again, gotten under his skin. He, who had believed himself inviolate in that way. How he had yearned for her all of these years, though he had made up any number of lies to excuse it. How he had waited for her to wake this morning, loath to disturb her. He suspected that a great deal of his anger stemmed from that knowledge, that even as she defied him and lied to him, insulted him and dared him to do his worst, he admired her for it. It had taken him hours, and perhaps the sight of her dogged determination to get away from him in order to keep her secrets no matter what the cost to herself, to understand that truth, however uncomfortable it made him.

What kind of man are you?

And could he truly blame her for what she’d done, whatever she’d done? asked a ruthless inner voice. Given what she knew of him back then—a liar, a wastrel—why would she want to share a child with him? It was as his uncle had told him. He had not been a man. He had had nothing to offer any child.

“I need to know what happened,” he said quietly. He did not look at her, watching instead the blurred Parisian buildings and monuments as they sped past.

“So the answer is yes. I am your prisoner.” She let out a breath. “For how long?”

He could have said, for as long as he liked. He could have reminded her that he was a king, that he could have absolute power over her if he wished it. Instead, he turned to her and met her troubled gaze.

“Until you tell me what I want to know,” he said.

“Forever, then,” she said, her voice hollow. “You plan to hold me against my will forever.”

“When have you been held against your will?” he asked, though his voice held no heat. “I do not recall your demands to leave last night. And I did not prevent you from leaving this morning.”

“With no money,” she said bitterly. “Where was I supposed to go?”

“If you are without funds, Jessa,” he replied evenly, “you need only ask.”

“I have my own money, thank you,” she said at once, sharply.

“Then why didn’t you use it?” he asked. She sighed and dropped her gaze to her hands. Again, silence stretched between them, seeming to implicate them both.

“Isn’t this where you threaten me some more?” she asked softly, her attention directed at her lap. Yet somehow her voice seemed to tug at him. To shame him. “That you’ll tear apart my whole life, make it a living hell?”

What kind of man are you?