A Throne for the Taking

The handle turned as someone grasped it from the other side. Ria tensed, shifted in her chair, half-looked over her shoulder then rethought and turned back again. She didn’t want him to think that she was nervous. She had to appear calm, collected, in command of the situation.

Command. The word rang hollowly inside her head. Once she had only to command something and it would be hers. In just a few short months her life had been turned upside down, and in ways that made her status in society the least of her concerns, so that now nothing was as it had ever been before, and the future loomed ahead, dark and dangerous.

But perhaps if she could manage this meeting with some degree of success she could claw back something from the disaster that had overtaken her country—and family. She could hope to put right the wrongs of the past and, on a personal level, save her mother’s happiness, her sanity, possibly. And for her father … No, she couldn’t go there, not yet. Thoughts of her father would weaken her, drain away the strength she needed to see this through.

‘I’ll expect a report on my desk by the end of the day.’

The door was opening, swinging wide. The man she had come to see was here, and she had no more time to think.

As he entered the doorway her heart jerked sharply under her ribcage, taking her breath with it. For the first time she felt suddenly lost, vulnerable without the ever-present security man at her back. All her life he had been there, just waiting and watching in case he was needed. And she had come to rely on him to deal with any awkward situation.

The once ever-present security man, she reminded herself. The protection that was no longer there, no longer part of her life or her status here or in her homeland of Mecjoria. She was no longer entitled to such protection. It was the first thing that had been stripped from her and the rest of her family in the upheaval that had followed Felix’s unexpected death, and the shocking discovery of her father’s scheming in the past. After that, things had changed so fast that she had never had time even to think about the possible repercussions of the changes and to consider them now, with the possible consequences for her own future, made her stomach twist painfully.

‘No delays … Good afternoon.’

The abrupt change of subject caught Ria on the hop. She hadn’t quite realised that his companion had been dismissed and that he was now in the room, long strides covering the ground so fast that he was halfway towards her before she realised it.

‘Good afternoon.’

It was stronger, harsher, much more pointed, and she almost felt as if the words were hitting her in the small of her back. She should turn round, she knew. She needed to face him. But the enormity of the reason why she was here, and the thought of his reaction when she did, made it difficult to move.

‘Miss …’

The warning in his tone now kicked her into action, fast. Her head jerked round, the suddenness and abruptness of the movement jolting her up and out of her seat so that she came to her feet even as she swung round to face him. And was glad that she had done so when she saw the size and the strength of his powerful form. She had seen pictures of him in the papers, knew that he was tall, dark and devastating, but in the 3D reality of living, breathing golden-toned flesh, deep ebony eyes and crisp black hair, he was so much more than she had ever imagined. His steel-grey suit hugged his impressive form lovingly, the broad, straight shoulders needing no extra padding to enhance them. A crisp white shirt, silver and black tie, turned him into the sleek, sophisticated businessman who was light-years away from the Alexei she remembered, the wiry boy with the unkempt mane of hair who had once been her friend buried under the expensive tailoring. Snatching in a deep, shocked breath, she could inhale the tang of some citrus soap or shampoo, the scent of clean male skin.

‘Good afternoon,’ she managed and was relieved to hear that her control over her voice was as strong as she could have wanted. Perhaps it made it sound a little too tight, too stiff, but that was surely better than letting the tremor she knew was just at the bottom of her thoughts actually affect her tongue. ‘Alexei Sarova, I assume.’

He had been moving towards her but her response had a shocking effect on him.

‘You!’ he said, the single word thick and dark with hostility

He stopped dead, then swung round back towards the door, grabbing at the handle to stop it slotting into the frame. This was worse than she had expected. She had known that she would have to work hard to get him to give her any sort of a hearing, but she hadn’t expected this total rejection.

‘Oh—please,’ Ria managed. ‘Please don’t walk out.’

That brought his head round, the black, glittering eyes looking straight into hers, not a flicker of emotion in their polished depths.

‘Walk out?’

He shook his dark head and there was actually the faintest hint of a smile on those beautifully sensual lips. But a shiver ran down Ria’s spine as she saw the way that that smile was not reflected in his eyes at all. They remained as cold and emotionless as black glass.

‘I’m not walking out. You are.’

It was far worse than she had expected. She hadn’t really believed that he would recognise her that fast and that easily. Ten years was a long time and they had been little more than children when they had last had any close contact. She knew she was no longer the chubby, awkward girl he had once known. She was inches taller, slimmer, and her hair had darkened so that it was now a rich auburn instead of the nondescript brown of her childhood. So she had expected to have to explain herself to him. But she had thought that he would wait to hear that explanation, had hoped, at least, that he would want to know just why she was here.

‘No …’ She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not.’

Dark eyes flashed in sudden anger and she barely controlled her instinctive shrinking away with an effort. Royal duchesses didn’t shrink. Not even ex-royal duchesses.

‘No?’

How did he manage to put such cynicism, such hostility into one word?

‘I should point out to you that I own this building. I am the one who says who can stay and who should go. And you are going.’

‘Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’

If she had thrown something into the face of a marble statue, it couldn’t have had less effect. Perhaps his stunning features became a little more unyielding, those brilliant eyes even colder, but it was hard to say for sure.

‘Not really. In fact, not at all. What I want is you out of here and not coming back.’

No, what he really wanted was for her never to have come here at all, Alexei told himself, coming to a halt in the middle of his office, restless as a caged tiger that had reached the metal bars that held him imprisoned. But the truth was that it wasn’t anything physical that kept him captive. It was the memories of the past that now reached out to ensnare him, fastening shackles around his ankles to keep him from getting away.

He had never expected to see her or anyone from Mecjoria ever again. He thought he had moved on; he’d turned his life around, made a new existence for himself and his mother. It had taken years, sadly too many to give his mother the life she deserved as she’d aged, but he’d got there. And now he was wealthier than he’d ever been as a … as a prince, his mind finished for him, even though it was the last thing he wanted. He had no wish to remember anything about his connection to the Mecjorian royal family—or the country itself. He had severed all links with the place—had them severed for him—and he was determined that was the way it was going to stay. He would never have looked back at all if it hadn’t been for the sudden and shockingly unexpected appearance of Ria here in this room.

He waited a moment and then pulled the door open again. ‘Or do I have to call security?’

Ria’s eyebrows rose sharply until they disappeared under her fringe as she turned a cool, green gaze on him. Suddenly she had become the Grand Duchess she was right before his eyes and he loathed the way that made him feel.

‘You’d resort to the heavy gang? That wouldn’t look good in the gossip columns. “International playboy needs help to deal with one small female intruder”.’

‘Small? I would hardly call you small,’ he drawled coolly. ‘You must have grown—what?—six inches since I saw you last?’

She had grown in other ways too, he acknowledged, admitting to himself the instant and very basic male reaction that had taken him by storm in the first moments he had seen her. Before he had realised just who she was.

He hadn’t seen such a stunning woman in years—in his life. Everything that was male in him had responded to the sight of her tall, slender figure, the burnished hair, porcelain skin, long, long legs …

And then he had realised that it was Ria. She had grown up, grown taller, slimmed down. Her face had developed planes and angles where there had once been just firm, round, apple-rosy cheeks. He had loved those cheeks, he admitted to himself. They had been soft and curved, so smooth, that he had loved to pinch them softly, pretending he was teasing but knowing that what he actually wanted was to feel the satin of her skin, stroke it with his fingertips. These days, Ria had cheekbones that looked as if they would slice open any stroking finger, and the rosy cheeks were carefully toned down with skilful make-up. The slant of those cheekbones emphasised the jade green of her eyes, and the soft pink curve of her mouth, but it was obvious that any softness in her appearance was turned into a lie by the way she behaved.

In a series of pulsing jolts, like the effect of an electric current pounding into him, he had known stunning attraction and the rush of desire that heated his entire body, the shock of recognition, of disbelief, of frank confusion as to just why she should be here at all. And then, just as the memory of how they had once been together had slid into his mind, she had destroyed it totally, shattering the memory as effectively as if she had taken a heavy metal hammer to it.

That had been when she had looked down her aristocratic nose at him, her expression obviously meant to make him feel less than the dirt beneath her neatly-shod feet. And Ria, who had once been his friend and confidant, Ria who he had just recognised as a sweet girl who had grown into a stunningly sensual woman, had become once more the Ria who together with her father and her family had stuck a knife in his back, ruined his mother’s life and cast them out into the wilderness.

‘And, as to the gossip columns, I’m sure they’d be much more interested in the scoop of seeing the Grand Duchess Honoria Maria Escalona being forcibly ejected from the offices of Sarova International—and I can just imagine some of the stories they might come up with to explain your expulsion.’

‘Not so much of a Grand Duchess any more,’ Ria admitted without thinking. ‘Not so much of a duchess of any sort.’

‘What?’

That brought him up sharp. Just for a second or two blank confusion clouded those amazing eyes and he tilted his head slightly to one side as a puzzled frown drew his brows together. The small, revealing moment caught on something in her heart and twisted painfully.

He had always done that when she had known him before. When they had been children together—well, she had been the child and he a lordly six years older. If he was confused or uncertain that frown had creased the space between his dark brows and his head would angle to the side …

‘Lexei—please.’ The name slipped from her before she could think. The familiar, affectionate name that she had once been able to use.

But she’d made a fatal mistake. She knew that as soon as the words had left her mouth and his reaction left her in no doubt at all that the one slip of her lips, in the hope of getting a tiny bit closer to him, had had the opposite effect.

His long body stiffened in rejection, that slight tilt of his head turned into a stiff-necked gesture of antagonism as his chin came up, angry, rejecting. His eyes flashed and his mouth tightened, pulling the muscles in his jaw into an uncompromising line.