Royal Seductions: Secrets: The Duke's Boardroom Affair

“I could ring her and tell her you don’t want to stay,” she told Charles. “That you have better things to do than spend time with your parents. Although, you know, they’re not getting any younger.”

“Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “You and my mother would get along great.”

She doubted that. His mother didn’t strike her as the type to socialize with the hired help.

“Was there anything else you needed?” she asked, wanting him off her desk. He was too close, smelled too good. “I’d like to get back to work.”

“Pressing business?” he asked.

“Keeping up on all the calls and e-mails from your female admirers is a full-time job.”

“Maybe, but right now,” he said, locking his chocolate eyes on hers and leaning closer, so she was crowded against the back of her chair. “I only have one special woman in my life.”

Uh-oh.

Please, please, Victoria silently pleaded, let it be anyone but me.

He held up the message slips. “And I’d better go call her and tell her just how much I’m looking forward to the party.”

She let out a quiet, relieved breath.

He rose from the corner of her desk, but his scent lingered as he walked to the door. “Buzz me if you hear about the ad.”

“The second I hear anything,” she promised. Hoping this would be the last time she saw him until it was time to leave for the evening.

Even that would be too soon. Maybe she could just sneak out unnoticed.

It was a dangerous game they had begun playing, but she wasn’t about to surrender. She wouldn’t let him win. He needed to be knocked down a peg or two. Put in his place. And she was just the woman to do it.

Eight (#ulink_15db3e41-3473-59a1-84c2-91d0c6e4f6a6)

Charles’s mother rang back not fifteen minutes later. The woman was ruthless.

Victoria struggled to sound anything but exasperated by her repeated calls. “I’m afraid he’s in a meeting,” she said, just as he had instructed her. In a meeting, on another line. He never took personal calls at work. “But I would be happy to take a message.”

“I don’t mean to bother,” she said, which is how she began all of her phone conversations, whether it was the first or tenth call of the day. “I’m just calling about the party, to extend a formal invitation.”

Again? Hadn’t Victoria already sent an RSVP for him? How many times did she have to invite her own son? “I’ll let Charles know,” she said automatically.

“Oh, no, not for Charles,” she said. “For you.”

For her? But…

Oh, no, he didn’t. He wouldn’t. “For me, ma’am?”

“He told us you’ll be joining him for the weekend,” she gushed excitedly. And the weird thing was, she actually sounded happy. “I just wanted you to know how eager we are to meet you. Charles rarely brings his lady friends home.”

Lady friends? Did she think…? “Ma’am, I work for Charles.”

“Oh, I know. But he values your friendship. And any friend of Charles is a friend of ours. His father and I just wanted you to know that you’re welcome.”

Friendship? Since when were she and Charles friends?

“So, we’ll see you then?” his mother asked.

Did Victoria really have the heart to tell her the truth? She sounded so genuinely eager to meet her. How could she tell her it was nothing more than a cruel trick?

So she said the only thing she could. “Yes, of course. I’ll see you then.”

Victoria was out of her chair before she hung up the phone. Not bothering to knock, she barged into Charles’s office. And got the distinct feeling he’d been waiting for her to do just that. He was sitting back in his chair, elbows on the armrests, hands folded across his chest. But it was too late to turn around now.

“You call me evil?” she said.

He smiled. “I take it my mother phoned you.”

“That was low, even for you.”

He looked pleased with himself. “An eye for an eye. Isn’t that what they say?”

“I do not what to spend a weekend at your parents’s estate.”

“Neither do I. But I guess neither of us has a choice now.”

“They’re not my parents. I have no obligation to be there.”

He shrugged. “So, ring her back and tell her you don’t want to come. I’m sure they won’t be too offended.”

She glared at him.

“Or, you could come with me and you might actually have fun.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“Why?”

“Why? You don’t even want to go!”

“My parents are good people. They mean well. But when it’s just the three of us it can get…stifling. I get there Friday night, and by Saturday afternoon we’ve run out of things to talk about. With you there it might take a little bit of the pressure off.”

“I wouldn’t have a clue what to say to your parents. They’re completely out of my league.”

His brow edged into a frown. “How do you figure?”

“I’m an employee of the royal family.”

“So what? You’re still a person. We’re all just people.”

Was he really so naive? Did he truly not understand the way the world worked? They were royalty, and she was, and always would be, a nobody in their eyes. Or was this just part of the game he was playing? Lure her to his parent’s estate so he could humiliate her in front of his entire family?