Royal and Ruthless: Innocent Mistress, Royal Wife / Prince of Scandal / Weight of the Crown

‘Just that it seems someone is monitoring your communications with the outside world.’

‘I’m sure you’re wrong,’ she retorted.

His smile was condescending. ‘Why don’t you ask de Couteveille? He comes now, and if I read him right he is not happy to see us talking together.’

Indeed, Rafiq sent her a keen glance as he approached, but although his tone when he greeted Felipe again was cool, it certainly wasn’t brusque. Felipe chatted a little about the hotel development before Rafiq and Lexie moved on.

From then on they were never alone. They stayed another hour, saw another dance, this one even more sensual than the first, and then it was time to go.

On the way back to the castle Lexie was aware of a certain air of constraint in Rafiq. He was courteous, amusing, interesting—and unreachable.

Felipe’s observations gnawed at her mind. She wanted to confront her host with them, yet another part of her brain told her to be sensible. Why on earth would Rafiq monitor her phone calls?

Eventually, as they drove in through the gates, she said, ‘Felipe said he’s been trying to contact me, but the staff were uncooperative.’

‘I’m afraid they probably were,’ Rafiq said coolly. ‘I have people who are trained to handle the media, and they dealt with all the calls about you. I gave your sister’s name to them, which is why she was put straight through, but I gained the impression that you wouldn’t want Gastano to have free access to you. If I was wrong, I will of course add him to the list.’

Hastily Lexie said, ‘No, it doesn’t matter, thank you. He won’t be calling again.’ As for the emails—even if Felipe did have her correct address, they’d been known to disappear into cyberspace for days, sometimes weeks, at a time. Curiosity and a certain relief drove her to ask, ‘Were there many approaches from the media?’

‘Quite a few. Some of the big news agencies have stringers on the island, and of course news travels fast.’ His tone hardened. ‘I didn’t think you’d like to be discussed in the gossip columns.’

Distastefully, she replied, ‘You were right.’

Her brief encounter with gossip writers and paparazzi had sickened her of the whole industry. In Illyria she’d been shielded from the worst of their excesses, but she’d seen the havoc they could create, and she wanted no part of it. Besides, she had a feeling that if Jacoba found out she was staying with Moraze’s ruler she’d send Prince Marco down to check him out.

The last thing she wanted was for Rafiq to discover who her father had been.

Honesty warred with shame. Perhaps she should tell him—right now. Yet the words froze in her throat. The sins of the fathers were indeed visited on their sons—and their daughters, she thought wearily, remembering how suspicious the Illyrians had been of her. Mud stuck; occasionally she even found herself wondering if she’d inherited any of her father’s brutality.

No, much better to leave things as they were. Then Rafiq might remember her as an ordinary woman, not as the child of a monster.

Once inside the castle, Rafiq asked, ‘How did you enjoy the evening?’

‘Very much,’ she told him, her tone more brittle than bright. ‘It was interesting to meet the people who’d actually worked on the project. And their singing was fantastic.’

‘What did you think of the dancing?’

His voice was amused, and his eyes half-hidden by his lashes. They were walking towards the terrace with the pavilion and the pool, and she could feel that forbidden, intoxicating anticipation chipping away at her control.

‘It was very sexy,’ she said firmly. ‘And amazingly athletic! At times I thought they might dislocate their hips.’

He threw his black head backwards and laughed, the sound full and unforced. ‘Did it give you the desire to try it?’

‘I know my limitations,’ she said. Curiosity drove her to ask, ‘Can you do it?’

‘Every Moraze-reared person can dance their version of our national dance,’ he said gravely. ‘Our nurses teach us it in our cradles—or so they say.’

They walked across to the pavilion, its translucent draperies floating languidly in the sea-scented breeze. A moon smiled down, silvering everything in a soft, unearthly light—the pool, the white-and-pink water lilies, the shimmering expanse of gauze that surrounded them and shut out the world.

Lexie swallowed something that obstructed her throat and said chattily, ‘I think you’d probably need to learn it in the cradle to be able to do it without falling over or making a total idiot of yourself. And constant practice must be necessary to give your hips and legs that flexibility.’

‘Don’t be so wary—I am not like the dancers at the hotels who sometimes lure tourists onto the sand to show them how very lacking in flexibility their hips are. And to dance properly you need drums and music.’ He looked down at her, his eyes gleaming and intent. ‘But I would like to teach you,’ he said deeply.

‘Teach me what?’

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_0d0789d6-9d2a-52d9-925f-19cb9deb74bb)

LEXIE swallowed again, her throat closing. He was talking about dancing, not making love. He didn’t even know she was a virgin, and she had no intention of telling him.

In a voice she barely recognized, she said, ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be here long enough to learn—to dance, that is.’

‘You’re very graceful, so I’m sure you have a natural aptitude,’ he said, his smile cool and subtly mocking.

‘I don’t know about that.’ This banter with its tantalising undercurrents was new to her. Nervously she glanced away, eyes widening as she saw that the table had been set with trays of small delicacies and what was clearly a bottle of champagne.

‘I thought we should toast your stay on Moraze,’ Rafiq told her. ‘I noticed that you didn’t drink anything stronger than fruit punch at the party, but I’m hoping to tempt you with some champagne.’

Lexie knew she should refuse. In this magical glimmer of moonlit enchantment, any sensible woman would make sure her brain was in full control.

But then a sensible woman would have seen danger in the prospect of an evening with Rafiq, and would have pretended a fragility she didn’t feel. And once at the party, no sensible woman would have allowed herself to be carried away by the erotic rhythms and hypnotic drumbeats of the dancing, the whirl of colour and the open sensuousness.

And even a halfway-sensible woman would have avoided any sort of post-party drinks, and said a briskly cheerful goodnight at the door of her room before shutting said door firmly on him.

All right, so she wasn’t sensible. She certainly wasn’t going to walk back to the arid, lonely refuge of her bedroom.

To the crackle and heat of bridges burning behind her, she said, ‘I’m easily tempted,’ adding hastily when she realised what she’d implied, ‘To champagne.’

Colour burned across her cheekbones and she fought back embarrassment, holding her head high and her smile steady.

One black brow lifted to shattering effect. Without saying anything, Rafiq turned to ease the top off the bottle. Instead of a pop it emitted a soft sigh—of satisfaction?

Don’t even think about satisfaction! Small sips, Lexie promised herself as he poured the sparkling wine into long, elegant flutes. She’d take tiny little sips, at long, long intervals…

And when she got back to real life she’d remember this evening—this whole stay on Moraze—without regret. Instead she’d feel gratitude that the man who summoned those reckless, dangerous impulses from her was a man of honour and integrity.

‘So,’ Rafiq said calmly, handing her a glass, ‘We drink to your continued good health.’

After one tiny, wholesome sip, she said, ‘Oh, that’s superb wine.’

‘It is French, of course. Moraze produces some excellent table wines, but for champagne we rely on France.’ He set his glass down. ‘I’m glad you like it.’

Lexie made the first comment that came into her head. ‘New Zealand makes good wines too.’

‘Indeed it does. I have drunk a very supple, subtle Pinot Noir from the south of the South Island, and some extremely good reds from an island off the coast of Auckland.’

‘Waiheke. It has its own special microclimate.’

Her innocuous words were followed by silence, far too heavy with unspoken thoughts, unbidden desire.