Emily's Innocence

‘Exactly, sir. She could profit handsomely from such a story.’

‘My night of passion with the playboy prince?’ Luis suggested mockingly, then shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t do that.’

‘With respect, sir, you don’t know that for sure. Some of these girls have no concept of privacy…’

‘With respect, Tomás, I do know it for sure, because I also know that that girl has considerably more to hide than I do. I’m not going to seduce her—I’m going to find out what a nice girl like Emily Balfour is doing in a place like this.’

‘Emily Balfour, sir? But I thought her name was—’

‘Jones? No. That, Tomás, was Oscar’s youngest daughter. Or the one that used to be his youngest until a subsequent claimant to the position arrived on the doorstep.’ Looking out of the window Luis frowned slightly.

‘I’ll ask security to go in and get her, shall I, sir?’ Tomás asked, glancing nervously around. ‘This probably isn’t the best place to hang around.’

‘The car is fully bullet-proof,’ Luis reminded him drily. ‘We’re quite safe. And I don’t think she’ll respond well to being hauled out by security. As I recall from last year, Emily Balfour won’t be pushed into doing anything she doesn’t want to.’

‘Ah, here she is now, sir,’ Tomás said with evident relief. ‘I’ll just get—’

But Luis had already got out of the car. Tomás swore with uncharacteristic crudeness, whipping his mobile phone out of his pocket and speed-dialling the head of security in the other car. At times he found the Crown Prince’s lack of regard for protocol and formality refreshing, but mostly it was just a giant pain in the backside. He just hadn’t seemed to grasp that, since his brother and sister-in-law’s shocking deaths, he was the future of Santosa.

God help them.

Trying to prepare Luis to take the reins of his ailing father was like taking a tiger from the jungle and trying to teach it to jump through hoops. Difficult and dangerous. And, he thought gloomily, if anything went wrong he would be the one to get his head bitten off.

‘’Night, Kiki—see you tomorrow!’

Hastily, not waiting for a reply, Emily slipped out of the door and into the cool, blue evening, wrapping her cardigan tightly around her. Usually she waited while Kiki locked up and the two of them walked part of the way home together, but tonight she just wanted to get out of there and be alone.

‘Can I offer you a lift?’

She jumped, giving a little gasp of shock as a figure emerged from the twilight and stood in front of her, barring her way.

‘Sorry,’ said the same husky, amused drawl. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. But I think that just proves my point that it’s really not safe for you to be out on the streets on your own in the dark. It’s just as well I’m not some drug-crazed youth with a gun in his hand.’

‘I’ll take my chances, thank you,’ Emily muttered, attempting to slip past him. But he was too quick for her. She bit back another gasp as strong fingers closed around her wrist, stopping her in her tracks and pulling her back round so she was facing him.

From the shadows beyond the car someone said something in rapid Portuguese. Luis didn’t turn his head, didn’t loosen his grip, didn’t take his eyes from hers. ‘Sim, obrigado, Tomás.’ he said curtly. ‘This won’t take long.’

‘No, it won’t,’ she said shakily, ‘because I’m not going anywhere with you. Goodbye…’

It was said with more hope than conviction. Her heart was hammering out an uneven rhythm against her ribs, her whole body flooded with adrenaline. In the violet dusk his face was indistinct, but she could see the shadows beneath his aristocratic cheekbones and the glitter of his eyes.

‘What a disappointment. I saw that Pink Flamingo T-shirt and just assumed you’d grown up a bit since last time we met.’

‘I have.’ She spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Which is why I’m not getting into a car with you. Now, if you’ll let me go, it’s been a long day and I want to get home.’

He let her go without resistance. ‘Funny. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’

The icy edge to his voice stopped her in her tracks and filled her with sudden misgiving. She turned back to him.

‘What?’

‘Home.’ He paused, his face impossible to read in the gloom. Emily felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. Beyond the black car that waited behind him she could hear the sound of voices from the street, the distant wail of a siren. ‘I was at Balfour Manor last night.’

A door slammed inside the community centre. Emily darted an anxious glance over her shoulder, hoping Kiki hadn’t heard him. ‘Please…’ she implored.

In one smooth movement he turned and pulled open the car door. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer to have this conversation in the car, before your cover is blown and your new friends find out that “Miss Jones” is really the daughter of a billionaire who could end all the financial problems of this extremely valuable community resource just by asking Daddy nicely…’

Emily shrank back, as if the plush interior of the car was the mouth of a giant whale, waiting to swallow her up. Her voice was cracked and faint. ‘But I have nothing to say to you.’

‘That’s fine.’ His voice was cool as he placed a hand in the small of her back and brought her forward. ‘You can just listen.’

There was someone else in the car—a man in his thirties perhaps, in a dark suit. He smiled as Emily slid reluctantly onto the seat beside him, and she felt slightly reassured. At least she wouldn’t be alone with Luis.

On the downside, there wasn’t so much room. As Luis finished speaking to the driver and got in beside her, Emily found herself far closer than was comfortable to his long, hard thigh on the seat. The only alternative was to move more towards the silent, suited man on her other side. Forget ‘better the devil you know,’ she thought miserably. No one could be more dangerous than Luis Cordoba. She inched away, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

No such luck.

‘That’s Tomás, my private secretary,’ Luis said sardonically. ‘You can sit on his knee, if you like. He’s very good with children.’

Tomás smiled, with the indulgent air of someone who had seen all this before. ‘Take no notice of His Highness, Miss Balfour.’

‘Thank you, Tomás.’ Emily turned back to Luis. ‘I’m not a child, and you’re certainly not my father, so I don’t know why you think you can order me around.’

The car pulled out of the Larchfield compound and onto the road. ‘Thank goodness I’m not your father,’ Luis said laconically. ‘From what I saw of him yesterday Oscar isn’t a happy man.’

‘W-what do you mean?’

‘Well, there’s all this for a start.’ He leaned forward and plucked a copy of the newspaper Emily had bought earlier from a pocket in the back of the driver’s seat.

Holding her head up very stiffly she glanced at it in distaste. ‘I know. I’ve seen it. Look, don’t you want to know where I live?’

‘No, not really,’ he said in a bored voice. ‘Not unless you’re going to insist on going back there to change.’

A dart of alarm shot through her. ‘Change? Into what?’

‘Anything that wasn’t hand knitted by medieval peasants from yak’s wool,’ he suggested disdainfully, his gaze travelling downwards from her cardigan to the cheap, flat shoes she’d bought for work. ‘As disguises go I must say you’ve chosen very well. Who would have thought one of the celebrated Balfour girls would go around dressed like a refugee from a hippy commune?’

Emily raised her chin, ignoring the jibe. ‘Why would I want to change? Where are we going?’ A horrible thought occurred to her. ‘Not home? Not back to Balfour, because I can’t. I—’

‘Relax.’ He cut through her mounting panic. ‘I’m taking you out to dinner.’

‘Isn’t it polite to ask first?’ Emily slumped back against the seat, folding her arms mutinously. Of course, the normal rules of courtesy didn’t apply to the Prince of Santosa. His title made him think he could do anything and have anything. Or anyone.

‘If I had asked would you have accepted?’ he said evenly.

She shook her head.

‘Exactly. Just think of it as being cruel to be kind.’