A Throne for the Taking

How had he missed such an important event? The people he had employed to watch what was happening in Mecjoria should have been aware of it. They should have investigated and reported back to him.

‘It’s been kept very quiet—at the moment my father is officially “resting” to recover from illness.’

‘When the reality is?’

‘That he’s under arrest.’

Her voice caught on the word, a soft little hiccup that did disturbing things to the tension at his groin, tightening it a notch or two uncomfortably.

‘And is now in the state prison.’

That was the last thing he’d expected and it shocked some of the desire from him, making his head swim slightly at the rush of blood from one part of his body to his head.

‘On what charge?’ he demanded sharply.

‘No charge.’ She shook her head, sending her dark hair flying. ‘Not as yet—that—that all depends on how things work out.’

‘So what the hell did he do wrong?’ Gregor had always seemed such a canny player. Someone who knew how best to feather his own nest. So had he got too greedy, made some mistake?

‘He—chose the wrong side in the recent inheritance battle. For the throne.’

So that was what was behind this. Alexei might never want to set foot in Mecjoria ever again, but he couldn’t be unaware—no one could be unaware—of the struggle that had gone on over the inheritance of the throne once old King Leopold had died. First Leopold’s son Marcus had inherited, but only briefly. A savage heart attack had killed him barely months into his reign. Because he had died childless, his nephew Felix should have inherited the crown, but his wild way of life had been his undoing, so that he had died in a high-speed car crash before he had even ascended to the throne. Now there were several factions warring over just who was the legal heir to follow Felix.

‘And then when Felix died … My father is currently seen as an enemy—as a threat to the throne.’

She wasn’t telling the full truth, Alexei realised. There was something she was holding back, he was sure of it. Something that clouded those amazing eyes, tightened the muscles around her delicate jawline, pulling the pretty mouth tight, though there was no mistaking the quiver of those softly sensual lips.

Lips that he wished to hell he could taste, feel that trembling softness under his own mouth, plunder the moist interior …

‘It will all work out in the end.’

Once again his own burning inner feelings made the words sound abrupt, dismissive, and he saw her blink slowly, withdrawing from him. Her head came up, that smooth chin lifting in defiance as she met his stare face-on.

‘You can promise that, can you?’ Ria asked, her tone appallingly cynical.

And where her unexpected weakness hadn’t beaten him now, shockingly, her boldness did. There was a new spark in her eyes, fresh colour in her cheeks. She was once more the proud Grand Duchess Honoria and not the strangely defeated girl who had reached out to something he had thought was long dead inside him. This Ria was a challenge; a challenge he welcomed. The sound of his blood was like a roar inside his head, the heated race of his pulse burning along every vein. He had never wanted a woman so much as he wanted her now, and the need was like an ache in every nerve.

‘How would you know? You were the one who turned your back on Mecjoria—haven’t even been back once in ten years.’

‘Not turned my back,’ Alexei growled. ‘We weren’t given a chance to stay. In fact it was made plain that we were not wanted.’

And who had been behind that? Her father—the very same man who was now, according to her story, locked in a prison cell. Did she expect him to feel sorry for him? To give a damn what might happen to the monster who hadn’t even waited to allow him and his mother time to mourn their loss, or even to attend the state funeral, before he had had them escorted to the airport and put on the first plane out of the country?

First making sure that every penny of his father’s fortune, every jewel, every tiny personal inheritance, had been taken from them, leaving them with little but the clothes they stood up in, not even the most basic allowance to see them into their new life in exile. Worst of all, Gregor had taken their name from them. The name his mother had been entitled to, and with it her honour, the legality of her marriage into the royal house of Mecjoria. He must have done it deliberately, hiding away the document that showed the old king’s permission. The document that Ria had been commissioned to bring here so unexpectedly—because it now suited her father. Was it any wonder that he loathed the man—that he would do anything to bring him down?

But it seemed that Gregor had managed that all on his own.

‘And I don’t have to be in the country to know what is going on.’

‘The papers don’t report everything. And certainly not always accurately.’

Something new had clouded those clear eyes and turned her expression into an intriguing mixture of defiance and uncertainty. There was just the tiniest sheen of moisture under one eye, where a trace of an unexpected tear had escaped the determined control she had been trying to impose on it and slipped out on to her lashes.

Unable to resist the impulse, he reached out and touched her face, letting his fingers rest lightly on the fine skin along the high, slanting cheekbone, wiping away that touch of moisture. The warmth and softness of the contact made his nerves burn, sending stinging arrows of response down into his body. He wanted so much more and yet he wanted to keep things just as they were—for now. It was a struggle not to do more, not to curve his hand around her cheek, cup that defiant little chin against his palm, lift her face towards his so that he could capture her mouth …

And that would ruin things completely. She would react like a scalded cat, he had no doubt. All that silent defiance would return in full force, and she’d swing away from him, repulsing the gesture with a rough shake of her head. She was still too tense, too on edge. But like any nervous cat, with a few moments’ careful attention—perhaps a soothing stroke or two—she would soon settle down.

So for now it was enough to watch the storm of emotions that swept over her face. The response that turned those citrine eyes smoky, that darkened and deepened the black of her pupils, making them spread like the flow of ink until they covered almost all of her irises. The way that her mouth opened again to show the tips of small white teeth was a temptation that kicked at his libido, making it hungrier than ever. The clamour in his body urged him to act, to make his move now, when she was at her weakest, but for a little while at least he was enjoying imposing restraint on himself, letting the sensual hunger build—anticipating what might come later—and watching the effect his behaviour had on her.

‘So tell me the rest.’

She didn’t know if she could go through with this. Ria struggled to find some of the certainty, the conviction of doing the right thing, that had buoyed her up on her journey here, held her in the room in spite of the frantic thudding of her heart. So much depended on what she said now and the possible repercussions of her failure, personal and political, were almost impossible to imagine. The image of her mother, too pale, far too thin, drifting through life like a wraith, with no appetite, no interest in anything slid into her mind. Her days were haunted by fears, her nights plagued by terrifying nightmares.

Her father was the cause of those nightmares. Since the night that the state police had come to arrest him, taking him away in handcuffs, they had never seen him for a moment. But they knew where he was. The state prison doors had slammed closed on him and, unless Ria could find some way of helping him, then behind those locked doors was where he was going to stay. She had wanted to help him—wanted to return him to her mother—and it had been because she had been looking for some way to do that that she had found the hidden documents, the ones that proved Alexei’s legitimacy and the others that had revealed the whole truth about what had been going on.

The full, appalling truth.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS WHAT she had come here for, Ria reminded herself. To tell him the story that had not yet leaked into the papers. The full details of the archaic inheritance laws that had come into play in the country since the unexpected death of the man they had believed to be the heir to the throne. But that would also mean telling him how those laws involved him, and his reaction just a moment before had made it plain that he harboured no warmth towards the country that had once been his home.

But when he had touched her—the way he still touched her—just that one tiny contact seemed to have broken through the careful, deliberate barriers she had built around herself. It was so long since she had felt that someone sympathised; that someone might be on her side. And the fact that it was someone as strong and forceful—and devastating—as this particular man, the man who had once been a special friend to her, stripped away several much-needed protective layers of skin, leaving her raw and disturbingly vulnerable.

He was so close she couldn’t actually judge his expression without lifting her head, tilting it back just a little. And that movement brought her eyes up to clash with his. Suddenly even breathing naturally was impossible as their gazes locked, the darkness and intensity of his stare closing her throat in the space of a single uneven heartbeat.

In that moment everything that had happened in the past months rushed up to swamp her mind, taking with it any hope of rational thought. Except that right now she needed him. Needed the friend he had once been. So much about him might have changed: that hard-boned face had thinned, toughened into that of a stunningly mature male in his sexual prime; those eyes might now be five inches above hers where once they had been so much closer to her own … But they were still the eyes of the friend she had known. Still the eyes of the one person she had felt she could confide in and get a sympathetic hearing.

They were the eyes she had once let herself dream of seeing warm with more than just the easy light of friendship. And the memory of how in the past she had fallen asleep and into dreams of them being so much more than friends twisted in her heart with the bitterness of loss.

‘Tell me everything.’

‘You don’t really want that,’ she flung at him, gulping in air so that she could loosen her throat.

‘No? Try me.’

Challenge blended with something else in his tone. And it was that something else that made her heart jerk, her breath catch.

Was it possible that he really did want to know? That he might help her? Memories of their past friendship surfaced once again, tugging at her feelings. She was so lonely, so dragged down by it all, so tired of coping with everything on her own. So wretched at the thought of what the future might bring. And here was this man who had once been the boy she adored, the friend who had let her offload her troubles on to his shoulders—shoulders that even then had seemed broad enough to take on the world. They were so much broader, so much stronger now.

Tell me everything, he’d said, and as he spoke the hand that rested against her face moved slightly, the pressure of his fingers softening, his palm curving so that it lay over her cheek, warm and hard and yet gentle all at the same time.

‘Thetruth, Ria,’ he said and the sound of her name on his lips was her weakness, her undoing.

Unable to stop herself, she turned her face into his hold, inhaling the scent of his skin, pursing her lips to press a small, soft kiss against the warmth of his palm.

Instantly everything changed. Her heart seemed to stop, her breathing stilled. The clean, musky aroma of his body was all around her, the taste of his flesh tangy on her tongue. It was like taking a sip of a fine, smoky brandy, one that intoxicated in a moment, sending fizzing bubbles of electricity along every nerve.

She wanted more. Needed to deepen the contact. Needed it like never before.