Royals: Wed To The Prince: By Royal Command / The Princess and the Outlaw / The Prince's Secret Bride

Prince Guy of Dacia, Lauren thought woodenly, jettisoning hopes she’d barely recognised.

Oh, she knew that name; prince, hugely successful businessman, lover of beautiful women, and reclusive object of intense media interest. She closed her eyes, but when she opened them he was still frowning out from the page.

She’d heard of him, seen photographs—why hadn’t she recognised him when she’d met him in Sant’Rosa?

Because stubble had blurred the aristocratic features, and because—well, because you simply didn’t expect to find a European prince on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

And because she’d been so aware of him that she’d temporarily lost her mind!

Why hadn’t he told her? She bit her lip. Presumably he expected her to know that Bagaton was the family name of the Dacian royal family. Well, she hadn’t.

A turbulent mix of emotions—a stark, wholly irrational sense of betrayal, fury and dark desolation—razed every thought but one from her brain. She had been a complete and utter fool, wilfully ignoring anything that didn’t fit her first impression of him.

No wonder the Press had met her with such avid determination at the airport! This jet, with its luxurious seats and its atmosphere of privilege and power, its crested china and silver, was either his or his cousin’s—the reigning prince.

The distance between Lauren Porter and their world of birth and privilege loomed like a cliff face, dangerous and insurmountable.

How long would it be before someone started digging into her background? Her stomach tightened as fear kicked in. If they hadn’t already begun. She was already linked to Marc; would someone pursue that link and find out that she and her boss were half-siblings?

If anyone made the connections, she’d be revealed as the bastard daughter of Marc Corbett’s father, the cuckoo in her father’s nest. She could cope with that, but her parents would be exposed to sly, sniggering insinuations that would hurt them unbearably and strain her father’s precarious health.

All to sell a few more newspapers…

Trying to swallow the lump in her throat, Lauren stared down at the photograph of Guy. By the forbidding expression of his angular face he’d been furious at being snapped. Setting her jaw, she forced herself to read the rest of the blurb.

Prince Guy is probably the richest of the playboy princes; he inherited millions from his mother, a Russian heiress and great beauty, and he set up his own software firm after leaving university. It now earns him millions each year. Fiercely protective of his privacy, he’s also a humanitarian who is interested in ecology.

Lauren closed the magazine and fought back despair. If she’d known who he was, she’d have taken her chances on Sant’Rosa.

As for making love with him—never!

Somewhere deep inside her, a mocking voice laughed. Oh, yes, you would, it mocked. You wanted him desperately. You still do. And you’re angry with him because not telling you means he didn’t trust you.

Which was ridiculous, because she hadn’t trusted him with the entire truth about herself.

Her ears popped as the plane banked and turned. Lauren stared stonily ahead, trying to convince herself that no one would be able to find out that Marc was her half-brother.

It was extremely unlikely that they’d discover that he had donated his bone marrow to her. And why should they search twenty-nine years in the past to discover that her mother and Marc’s father had been on the same cruise through the Caribbean?

No, her parents were safe from media prying—and even if they weren’t, Guy had pulled them out of the vortex and into temporary safety.

When the seat-belt sign flashed on with a melodious chime, she relaxed her hands from their death grip on each other in her lap and began to breathe deeply, and out, in and out, until the wild turbulence of her emotions abated. If it killed her she’d be calm, because she didn’t dare be anything else.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#u88f76df3-e888-5052-864b-e224043d63bd)

AT THE Dacian airport the steward escorted Lauren into a private room, empty except for flowers and some comfortable lounge furniture, then went off to get her luggage. She waited tensely until Guy came into the room.

Her heart clenched. You can do this, she told herself with ice-cold resolve, determined not to wilt under his keen scrutiny. You’ll be polite and crisp and very, very restrained. You are infatuated with this man, but it won’t last, because you won’t let it.

She took another deep breath.

Guy said, ‘Your luggage will be here in a few minutes. Did you manage a nap?’

‘No,’ she said, adding with a smile that hurt the muscles in her cheeks, ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

He didn’t seem to notice anything different about her attitude, but she didn’t fool herself. Like every predator, he was acutely tuned to his surroundings.

Neither spoke as they went down in a lift and walked out of the building into heat that sucked the breath from her lungs. Ahead, a limousine purred softly, like a waiting cat. Apart from that and the sound of a jet in the distance, it was blessedly silent. No hounds of the Press yapped around her, no lights flashed in her eyes. A uniformed man gave a short salute to Guy and held the back door open. Behind the wheel she made out the form of a driver.

Sliding into the seat, she commented in a voice with no expression at all, ‘It’s every bit as hot as the tropics, but not at all humid.’ And because she could no longer hold the question back, she asked with a cool lack of emphasis, ‘What exactly were you doing on Sant’Rosa?’

‘I have interests there. And friends.’ He glanced down at her, thick lashes veiling the glimmering depths of his eyes. His tone told her nothing as he went on, ‘Several years ago I spent a few weeks there as a hostage.’

A hostage?

Horrified, she asked unevenly, ‘How on earth did that happen?’

‘I delivered medical supplies during the civil war, and the government of Sant’Rosa saw a way of using me.’ He shrugged, looking straight ahead as the car drew smoothly away. ‘They kidnapped me to persuade my cousin to act as intermediary between them and the rebels.’

She stared at him. ‘What happened?’

‘I escaped the second night,’ he said nonchalantly. A swift grin reminded her again of the buccaneer she’d first met, as did the wry note in his voice when he added, ‘It wasn’t difficult; they were pretty half-hearted gaolers.’

She closed her eyes. ‘You escaped, but you stayed on the island? In the middle of a civil war?’

‘They were desperate,’ he said briefly. ‘And I liked them. They knew the Republic was ready to move troops across the border if there was any chance of a truce between the warring sides. In fact, we fought off an incursion while I was there.’

Appalled at the risks he’d taken, she demanded, ‘We fought off?’

His broad shoulders lifted. ‘I was involved in a very minor way,’ he said casually. ‘They were much better bush fighters than I was, but terror makes fast learners.’

‘Or dead ones,’ she said tightly.

‘Life’s for living; it’s not worth much if you’re forever looking over your shoulder.’

The car purred quietly down a road shared with an occasional donkey and many more motor-scooters, all ridden by young men with very white teeth who waved insouciantly at the limousine as it eased past them.

Lauren clamped her lips together to stop herself from raging at Guy for valuing his life so cheaply.

‘We’re heading inland to a villa up in the hills; I thought your parents would prefer it to the coast because it’s cooler there,’ he told her.

‘Thank you.’ She had to fight back a heavy thud of disappointment. For some reason she’d thought they’d be at the same place…

Fool! A sensible woman would want as much distance between them as possible.

But she wasn’t sensible about Guy. From the moment she’d seen him, villainously unshaven on Sant’Rosa, she’d battled a ferocious, elemental appetite that had nothing, she reminded herself stringently, to do with love or respect.

He said, ‘My cousin, Luka, and his wife would like to meet you, but they’re sure that you and your father need to rest today, so it will probably be tomorrow.’