Prince's Pleasure

In fact, it might still come to that!

Tyler looked at him narrowly. ‘I have a feeling you’re enjoying playing with me, Zak,’ she said finally.

‘Under other circumstances, I’m sure that I would,’ he taunted, rewarded by the sudden flush to her cheeks. ‘But today? Right now? With a photographer standing on the other side of the door?’ He shook his head. ‘All I want at this moment is to go back to bed. Alone,’ he added with finality.

‘Of course,’ she agreed lightly, walking over to the door with long, determined strides. ‘Perhaps we can meet up again later this afternoon? Without the photographer.’

‘Perhaps we can,’ Zak conceded. ‘Be sure to telephone first, though, hmm?’ he added mockingly. ‘I would hate to shock your delicate sensibilities by having you find me here with someone.’ He raised dark blond brows.

Tyler Wood paused with her hand on the door handle. ‘My sensibilities really aren’t all that delicate, Zak. In fact, it was a pleasant surprise to find you here alone this morning.’

‘Touché.’ Zak nodded an appreciative acknowledgement of her sharp comeback.

She paused before opening the door. ‘Tell me, when you worked with John Devaro last year—’

‘Not another John Devaro fan!’ he groaned before answering her. ‘Yes, he really is as good-looking as he appears on screen. Yes, he really is a very funny guy. Yes—’

‘I was actually only going to ask you if you felt in the least threatened by the fact that his name appeared above yours on the credits,’ Tyler interrupted dryly.

Zak was taken aback at the unexpectedness of the attack—for attack it certainly was. ‘The two of us talked it over and decided we would go alphabetically.’

‘Oh.’ She nodded. ‘See you later, then!’ A slight smile curved her lips as she let herself out of the hotel suite.

Perhaps there was more to Tyler Wood, after all, than a pair of melting chocolate-brown eyes and a stunning smile? Maybe he had underestimated the fact that she was a woman, an American one at that, trying to make it in a country that wasn’t her own, in a profession that was often dominated by men.

And what if he had underestimated her? As he saw it, he had two choices where she was concerned. Considering the way she seemed to get his hackles up without even trying, he could carry on being this obnoxious and uncooperative, or he could give in to the attraction he felt towards her and try charming her into his bed. He was damned if he didn’t, and damned if he did!

Not much of a choice, really.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARROGANT bastard!’ Perry scowled as the two of them made their way across the large hotel reception area to the huge revolving door that led out onto the street.

Tyler couldn’t exactly blame him for being disgruntled at Zak’s decision not to have a photographer following him around all week; the two of them had worked together on and off for six months now, and nothing like this had ever happened to them before.

Posing the question, had Zak realized there was more to this interview than at first appeared?

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she assured Perry as they stepped out into the warming sunshine. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to manage without his cooperation; you always have in the past.’

‘And I’m sure I will this time,’ Perry acknowledged with satisfaction. ‘Although I would much rather have spent the time openly with the two of you rather than creeping around in the background.’

Tyler was well aware that for most of the last six months Perry had wanted to make their relationship into something more intimate, which she had so far resisted.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Perry, and he was certainly a good-looking guy with his overlong dark hair and warm blue eyes, she just didn’t feel that way about him and considered him more like a brother than anything else. Much to his chagrin.

But she couldn’t in all honesty become involved with someone, especially a friend like Perry, without telling him everything about herself—and that she had no intention of doing. No one was to know who or what she was; as far as anyone in England was concerned she was just Tyler Wood, rookie reporter, and that was the way she wanted it to stay.

‘Although I should watch yourself with Zak Prince this week, if I were you,’ Perry added teasingly. ‘From what I’ve heard the man can’t be alone with a woman for five minutes without trying to seduce her into his bed!’

Tyler grimaced. ‘Going on his mood this morning, I don’t think he can succeed too often!’

She knew that wasn’t true, though…Of the three Prince brothers Zak was the good-natured charmer. The oldest, Nik, had remained arrogantly aloof from involvement until his recent marriage. The younger brother, Rik, was the more reserved of the three, keeping himself to himself most of the time.

But obviously nine o’clock on a Monday morning, after what had obviously been a full weekend, was a time when Zak was all out of charm!

It had been Nik Prince, before disappearing on his honeymoon yesterday, who had been the one to set up this morning’s meeting for nine o’clock…

Had it been deliberate? That would have been a little unkind on Nik’s part—to both Tyler and Zak. But, then, kindness wasn’t an emotion very often attributed to the legendary Nik Prince!

He had done it on purpose, Tyler realized with dismay. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning to a week spent in Zak Prince’s company.

* * *

‘Tell me,’ she asked later that evening once she had finally managed to meet up with Zak Prince again in the hotel lounge; he had still been sleeping when she had rung him at four o’clock. ‘I know what I’d done to anger your brother enough to arrange such an early meeting that it was guaranteed to annoy you, but what did you do?’ She quirked dark brows over mischievous brown eyes.

‘Very astute of you, Tyler.’ Zak Prince smiled, much more relaxed this evening as he lounged back in one of the capacious armchairs, wearing ragged denims and a loose black tee shirt. ‘With Nik—’ he shrugged ‘—who knows? Although I actually think it was his idea of a joke.’

‘Ha ha.’ Tyler grimaced.

‘Yeah.’ Zak grinned.

Tyler could see exactly why this man had won three Oscars. His smile was charismatic, almost mesmerizing when taken into account with the rest of his looks: overlong hair the colour of ripe corn, eyes the blue of a perfect summer sky, his features rugged, as if hewn from stone.

Whoa! Tyler brought herself up short. She was here to find a new angle on Zak Prince for her story, not fall under his spell herself.

Because she was sure there was more to this man than the charismatic charmer he was usually portrayed as. There had been rumours, of course, of involvements with married women, and even the possibility that the success of the Prince brothers’ movie company owed much to connections with the shady underworld—which was patently absurd! But there were always rumours about anyone successful; Tyler wanted to get to the truth.

‘Anyway—’ she straightened briskly ‘—I apologize for any misunderstanding this morning and I suggest we move on.’

‘Move on to where exactly?’ he teased.

Tyler frowned, knowing she hadn’t quite phrased that correctly somehow. ‘Background stuff this evening, I thought,’ she ploughed on. ‘Where you were born, family, what you’re working on at the moment, things like that.’

‘Look, Tyler, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job—’

‘But you’re going to anyway?’ she guessed.

He shrugged broad shoulders, seeming completely impervious to the female attention his presence was engendering. Most of the other women in the lounge were unable to take their eyes off him, not quite with their tongues hanging out, but pretty close, Tyler noted disparagingly.

‘Most people already know the background stuff,’ he dismissed, pausing to smile up at the waitress as she brought over the two mineral waters they had ordered.

He was right, of course; the three Prince brothers and their younger sister were the children of the legendary Damien Prince, an actor who had held the public in thrall for over thirty years, before his premature death over twenty years ago.

During the brothers’ youth, Zak had always been the bad boy of the family, in and out of trouble during most of his teens, dropping out of school to take up acting like his father, and then finally finding his niche and settling down to being the charming rogue that he was now known for worldwide.

But all three Prince brothers, the principals in the movie company PrinceMovies, were as successful in their own individual fields, Nik as movie director, Rik as screenwriter.

‘You’re right.’ Tyler nodded, accepting that he was just stating a fact rather than being arrogant. ‘I can probably look all that up.’ She settled back in her armchair. ‘So what do you have planned for this week?’