The Prince's Pleasure

Clamping down on a shiver, the aftermath of the terror that had surged through her, she said feebly, ‘You can’t leave your car blocking the way.’

‘Then can I offer you a lift to the rank? You are really in no fit state to walk there by yourself.’ A hint of impatience threaded his decisive voice.

Alexa knew she should say no and head briskly off. She glanced up into a face carved in granite, and then looked away, her stomach knotting; although definitely a dangerous man, there was no criminal menace about him. The peril radiating from him was the simple, sensual danger a potent male represented to a woman’s composure.

‘Thank you,’ she said tightly, repressing another shiver.

With courteous speed the Prince put her into the front seat beside him and drove around the corner.

And of course the taxi rank was empty—as was the street, apart from one man lurching from lamppost to lamppost. Alexa stifled a little hiss of dismay.

‘If you’ll trust me with your address I’ll take you home,’ the man beside her said with an aloofness that should have reassured her as he pulled into the empty space in the taxi rank, clearly not at all concerned by the prospect of any cruising cab-driver’s outrage.

‘Thank you, but you don’t need to do that,’ she told him swiftly. ‘Perhaps you could take me to the nearest police station—if it’s not too much trouble,’ she added swiftly when he hesitated.

‘Of course,’ he said remotely, and put the car into gear again. When she’d given him instructions he said evenly, ‘Promise me that you won’t again walk by yourself at night in the inner city.’

‘I don’t make a habit of it. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ she defended herself. ‘I suppose they thought it would be easy enough to grab my bag and get away before anyone arrived.’

‘Perhaps. And perhaps they didn’t want money.’

‘What else would they have wanted?’ she asked, then flushed at his derisive glance. A slow cold shudder tightened her skin. She’d only had one glimpse of their faces before they’d turned and sprinted across the street, but they were imprinted on her mind. ‘They can’t possibly have thought they could get away with…assaulting me on a public street when traffic and pedestrians could arrive—’

‘You forget the car,’ he broke in. ‘And surely your mother told you that beautiful women are always prey.’

‘What car?’ His words chilled her, yet she tingled because he’d called her beautiful.

The swift blade of the Prince’s glance skimmed her profile. ‘They’d parked down that little alley over the street. Didn’t you hear them drive off?’

‘No.’ Because her whole attention had been focused on him. Fear cramped her stomach as she realised how close she’d been to disaster. Alexa muttered through teeth she had to clench, ‘It was just bad luck—’

‘And foolishness,’ he said with a bite in his tone, startling her by pulling into the kerb and shouldering free of his jacket.

Before she had time to say more than, ‘What on—?’ he tossed the garment at her. It landed on her lap, warm and as superbly cut as the dinner jacket he’d been wearing in the hotel.

‘Wrap that around you,’ he commanded, when she stared mutely at him. ‘You’re shocked and cold.’

Startled and dismayed, she pushed at the garment. ‘I’m all right—’

‘You’re shivering,’ he pointed out. When she didn’t move—couldn’t move—he commanded, ‘Lean forward.’

Alexa reacted to the crack of authority in his words with automatic obedience. He dropped the garment around her shoulders, pulling it down to cover her arms.

As the cloth enfolded her sensation splintered in the pit of her stomach. Still warm from his body, the jacket sparked a violent, primal tug of awareness deep inside her, an awareness made keener, more intense by the faint, clean scent that had to be his—scent only a lover would recognise.

‘All right?’ he asked, frowning. He dropped his hands over hers, clasping them as he said more gently, ‘You’ve had a very nasty experience, but it’s over now. You’re safe.’

‘Thanks to you,’ she muttered. Safe? When every cell in her body was drumming with a wild, strange need?

He said something in a language that sounded like Italian before freeing her and turning away to set the car in motion. As it pulled away from the taxi rank he asked in English, ‘I have forgotten where we turn next.’

Still shaking inside, she gave him directions. Had he really said something like ‘dangerously beautiful’ in what must be his mother tongue?

Of course not. She tried to straighten her trembling mouth. In spite of a superficial resemblance, the Dacian language was not Italian.

But he found her attractive.

So what? Being rescued from what might have been an exceedingly nasty situation was no excuse for behaving like a halfwit. Prince Luka Bagaton of Dacia might possess courage and some kindness, he might even think she was beautiful, but he was way out of her reach—and she wasn’t reaching! A quick fling with a visiting prince was not her style.

Alexa stiffened her spine and her shoulders. When the car stopped outside the police station she groped for the door handle and said in her most formal voice, ‘Thank you very much for your help. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in New Zealand.’

After a quick glance at his watch, he said, ‘I’ll come in with you.’

Alexa objected. ‘You don’t need to become tangled up in this. You were on your way somewhere…’

To Sandra Beauchamp’s bed, perhaps?

Without looking at her he said, ‘I saw them too. I may be able to help identify them.’

‘I…’ She hesitated, then blurted, ‘You don’t want to get involved.’

‘You’re right,’ he said, courteously inflexible, ‘but it is my duty.’

CHAPTER TWO

HALF an hour later, after separate interviews, the sergeant complimented them both. ‘I wish all our witnesses were as observant as you two! With such good descriptions we should nail them before they do any damage.’ She looked at Alexa and said, ‘We’ll contact you if we need to.’

Alexa nodded. In the small room where she’d made her statement and drawn a sketch of both assailants she’d been given tea and some bracing, professional sympathy. It had helped, but her insides still felt as though someone had taken to them with a drill, and weak, irritating tears kept stinging her eyes.

Luka’s firm hand on her elbow ushered her out to his car. ‘You’ll have to direct me to your address,’ he said after a searching glance.

In a monotone Alexa guided him to her small flat in one of the inner city suburbs. He drove skilfully and well, although a couple of times she had to fill him in on New Zealand road rules.

Once they’d drawn up outside what had used to be a Victorian merchant’s house, now converted to flats, she said sincerely, ‘Thank you very much for everything you’ve done.’

The words stumbled to silence when he looked at her with cool, dispassionate irony, his angular features clamped into an expression of aloof withdrawal. Tension sparked through her, lifting the hair on her skin. Delayed shock, she thought protectively.

Swallowing, she continued with prickly determination, ‘I don’t like to think of what might have happened if you hadn’t come along.’

‘Don’t think of it. Your scream would have brought someone running. I did nothing,’ he said negligently and got out, swinging around the front of the car to open the door for her. ‘But promise me one thing.’

Clinging to the door, she braced herself. He was too close, but even as the thought formed he stepped back and she pulled herself upright on quivering legs.

‘What?’ she asked, her throat tightening around the words so that they emerged spiky with caution.

His smile was a flash of white in the darkness—sexy, knowledgeable and implacable. ‘That from now on you will call the doorman when you leave the hotel.’

‘From tomorrow I’ll be driving my own car, but I promise I won’t go walking alone at night,’ she responded quickly, groping in her bag for her keys. In her turn she smiled at him. Keep it impersonal, she warned herself, angry because she was so acutely conscious of him, tall and lethally masculine, his dark energy feeding some kind of hunger in her. ‘And I don’t work at the hotel,’ she added.