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

‘I’ll look forward to that,’ she said untruthfully.

He lifted a lean hand to acknowledge a wave from a donkey rider. Olive trees shimmered in the slow breeze, their leaves gleaming silver against a sky as blue as heaven. Small plants and wild flowers grew against the bases of ancient stone walls that bordered the road.

Guy surveyed her, his eyes cool and intent. ‘What’s the matter?’

Lauren gathered her composure around like cling film, leaned back and showed her teeth.

‘Nothing,’ she said coolly. ‘Well, nothing apart from a dodgy marriage to a man who neglected to tell me he was a prince.’

His brows lifted. Wielding courtesy like a weapon, he said with suave distinctness, ‘It didn’t seem relevant at the time.’

‘Most people would consider it very relevant. I had no idea that you were a member of the Dacian royal family until—’ she glanced at her watch ‘—about half an hour ago, when I saw an article about you in a magazine. When we went through that ceremony on Sant’Rosa I did think Bagaton sounded vaguely familiar, but not enough to ring alarm bells.’

‘Alarm bells?’ he said softly. ‘Why should you be alarmed?’

She lifted her head and met his glinting gaze full on. ‘I’m not in the habit of marrying princes, even to get out of a bad situation.’

‘I didn’t tell you because you didn’t ask,’ he returned with cutting urbanity. ‘You found me useful, so you sensibly used me. Besides, it didn’t matter—it’s merely an accident of birth. The important thing on Sant’Rosa was to get you to safety.’ He flicked her a glance edged with satire. ‘You didn’t ask who I was when I came to you in Valanu.’

Lauren bit back the rash words threatening to tumble from her tongue but couldn’t stop herself from snapping, ‘I thought I knew who you were.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said softly, ‘I should ask you the real question.’

‘Which is?’ Although her voice was crisp with hauteur, she knew the moment she said the words that they should never have been spoken.

‘Why did you offer yourself to me in Valanu?’

Humiliation burned in her throat. Without thinking she flashed, ‘I felt sorry for you.’

His eyelashes drooped and for a frightening second she flinched at the very real menace she saw in the hooded eyes.

But when he said, ‘You have a charming—and very effective—way of feeling sorry for men,’ his voice was insultingly indifferent. ‘Not that it matters. The title is completely irrelevant—apart from affection for my cousins and the islanders, I have only sentimental ties to Dacia. Prince Luka has a very promising four-year-old son, and the prospect of another arriving before the end of the year, so Dacia is well set up without me, a situation I’m more than happy with.’

‘Lucky you,’ she said, her voice as wooden as her expression. ‘All of the deference and no responsibility.’

He shrugged. ‘I assume you’re blaming me for the Press frenzy at the airport.’

She said quietly, ‘No. You could have told me who you were when you came to New Zealand to warn me the marriage might be valid, but I suppose there was always the chance that I might have charged you a handsome sum for a quick divorce.’

‘I can deal with blackmailers,’ he said on a ruthless note. ‘Perhaps I should have told you, but it seems pretentious to announce that I’m a prince to people who couldn’t care less.’

‘I suppose it is.’

‘As for the media—’ His voice hardened even more. ‘Yes, if I hadn’t been who I am I doubt very much if there’d have been any reporters to meet you in London. I’m sorry you got caught up in it, but I’m not answerable for people who like to season their breakfasts with highly suspect gossip about princes and pop stars and sportsmen.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ she said in a toneless voice, feeling small and petty.

He covered her rigid hands with his warm, strong one. ‘But knowing who I am wouldn’t have made any difference on Sant’Rosa—you’d have married me if I’d had to hold a pistol to your head.’

Her heart picked up speed, the pulse at her wrist fluttering under his fingers.

Of course he noticed. After a charged second he said on a raw note, ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you.’

Lauren had to force herself to return, ‘Then don’t. It’s not necessary.’

He lifted his hand, but as the car left the main road and began to climb, he said deliberately, ‘I don’t seem to be able to forget that for a few days we were lovers. Can you?’

Her bones melted as images from those few days flashed across her mind with full sensory impact. Attacked by a bitter regret, she said doggedly, ‘It was a time out of time—a lovely tropical fantasy, but now we’re in the real world, and it’s over.’

His ironic laughter stunned her. She flashed a sideways glance and shivered at the compelling determination of his expression. ‘Liar,’ he said calmly.

When Lauren opened her mouth to object he sealed her indignant response with his fingertip. Mutely, her body struggling with an overload of sensation, she stared at his arrogant, handsome face.

With that fascinating hint of an accent underlying each forceful word, he said, ‘No matter how hard we try to pretend, when I touch you we both feel that electricity. Don’t try to convince me—or yourself—that it doesn’t exist. What we need to talk about is how we’re going to deal with it.’

He removed his finger from her lips and sat back in the seat, his profile an angular, uncompromising statement against the silver-grey foliage of the olive trees lining the road.

With stubborn precision Lauren said, ‘We don’t do anything about it.’

Still quivering inside, she dragged her head around to stare blindly out of the window, fuming when Guy made no answer. Instead she heard him speak in Dacian through the intercom to the driver. His voice, easy and relaxed, told her that he wasn’t suffering any inner turmoil.

Lauren clawed back the tattered remnants of her control. Her father had once told her that the tone of a man’s servants told much about the master; listening to the driver, she decided that his respectful reply was entirely free from servility, and that he liked Guy.

Who said no more about the attraction that smouldered between them. Instead, with infuriating self-possession he turned into a tour guide, explaining the age and the reason for various interesting ruins along the way, and discoursing on his cousin’s plans for the island.

The villa in the hills was a tall, square house, redeemed from severity by blush-pink walls and shutters in a muted dark green. Gardens stretched around it, the trees and arbours melding inconspicuously into olive groves.

Delighted by its faded charm, Lauren leaned forward a little as the car swung up the drive.

From beside her Guy observed, ‘According to family tradition the house was built for the Venetian mistress of one of the nineteenth-century princes. She had an embarrassment of children, but he spent most of his time here.’

Lauren stiffened. ‘Why didn’t he marry her?’

‘He was already married to a very stern woman who never, so the story goes, smiled.’

‘I wouldn’t smile either if my husband flaunted a mistress in my face,’ Lauren said astringently, reaching for her bag as the car slowed down.

The second the words left her mouth she realised she’d made a mistake. Guy’s brow lifted and he surveyed her with a twisted smile. ‘Is it the infidelity or the flaunting that you disapprove of?’

‘Both,’ she said shortly, wishing that she could tell him about her relationship with Marc. She couldn’t, of course, because it wasn’t her secret.

Her mother came out of the shadows beneath the portico, graceful and composed as always, the grey eyes she’d bestowed on her daughter serene and limpid. Nevertheless her smile was a little too set, her movements too careful to be natural.

Hurrying out of the car, Lauren gave her a quick hug. ‘How’s Dad?’

Isabel smiled at Guy. ‘Fine. He’s waiting inside for you.’

As Lauren ran up the steps she heard her mother say, ‘Guy, thank you so much for organising this— I don’t know what we’d have done without you.’