By Royal Demand

Ruthlessly Gabe reimposed control over his unruly body.

‘You look well,’ he said smoothly. ‘Cool, sophisticated, yet businesslike. But then, image is your talent.’

He watched the colour fade from that exquisite magnolia skin. No sign of blusher, he noted.

‘I hope my talent is a little more substantial than that,’ she said, crisply turning the unspoken insult from herself to her work. ‘I like to feel that interior decorating does more than create a pretty background. This, for example—’ looking around his study ‘—bears no resemblance to the bedroom you’ve given me. I’m sure I don’t need to ask you which room you feel most comfortable in.’

A quick rally; but then, people who made a living from conning others had to have instant recovery when they were caught out.

‘I chose to meet you here in the study because this is how I want the rest of the castle to be,’ he said smoothly. ‘Appropriate is probably the best word to use. Would you like a drink?’

To his surprise she accepted, although her eyes widened when he poured champagne. She’d noticed that it was an extremely good vintage, and she was wondering what he was celebrating. Good; he wanted her unsettled.

And he’d succeeded. When she took the glass her fingers tightened for a betraying few seconds around the fragile stem.

Gabe waited, then said, on a note of caustic appreciation, ‘Here’s to reunions.’

Her lashes drooped over the tilted grey-green eyes, and his pulses leapt. She was, he thought with savage self-contempt, the only woman who could override his common sense with one sideways glance.

She took a swift sip of the wine, then set the glass down and turned her head to gaze into the leaping flames in the fireplace. Her hair gleamed rich mahogany against the matt satin of her skin.

‘Why did you bring me here?’ she asked, her voice level and toneless.

He didn’t answer straight away, and after a moment she glanced back at him.

She’d lost weight, he thought with an irrational spurt of concern. ‘I thought it was time we discussed things without the unnecessary complication of emotions.’

Had he got over her so soon? A swift glance at his implacable face convinced her. Of course he no longer loved her…if he ever had.

Probably their relationship had been a temporary aberration on his part. He couldn’t have felt anything true or lasting.

After all, what could the scion of a princely house, a man who moved confidently in the upper regions of power and influence, have in common with a woman like her? No money, no family—no idea of her father’s name, even—and no status.

She hid her pain with another sip of the champagne. But he could have been kinder—well, no. Her lips sketched a cynical little smile. He thought she’d conned him out of his most precious possession, and the huge media fall-out from their break-up would have rubbed his pride raw.

‘I don’t know why you set this up,’ she said evenly. ‘I have nothing to say to you, beyond that I don’t know where the necklace is. If I’d known you were here I would never have come.’

He lifted a mocking brow. ‘I find that hard to believe. You once told me that you researched your clients well before you started a job. And you knew I had links to Illyria.’

‘I knew you were a cousin of the Prince, but I had no idea that you owned a thumping great castle here!’ she countered. ‘Anyway, you’re meant to be in—’

His cold smile stopped the betraying words.

‘Don’t lie, Sara.’ Like her Polynesian friends in Fala’isi, he pronounced her name with a long vowel—Sahra…

She’d always loved the way he said it, the two syllables falling lazily, sensuously, from his tongue like an endearment, his tone a seduction in itself.

Not now, though. He’d turned it into a hard, subtly insolent epithet.

Bitterness and anger shortened her words into sharp little arrows. ‘Of course I made sure that you wouldn’t be in Illyria. Why aren’t you in South America at the United Nations conference?’

‘Because I arranged for you to come here.’

CHAPTER THREE

GABE came towards her, silent and formidably graceful as the wolf his ancestors had been called. Only a tough involuntary pride stopped Sara from taking a backward step, and she lifted her chin to meet his eyes with as much defiant composure as she could produce. She would not be intimidated.

She’d done nothing wrong.

‘I won’t be here for long,’ she retorted smartly.

‘You’ll stay until I send you away, Sara.’

‘You can’t do that!’ She dragged in a sharp breath, but it failed to deliver enough oxygen to energise her stunned brain.

‘I can do anything I want with you.’ He waited, drawing out the silence before finishing softly. ‘No one knows you’re here.’

‘My boss…’

His smile chilled her blood. ‘He won’t help.’ He waited with speculative dispassion while she struggled with the implications of that confident statement.

Sara’s hand clenched on the stem of her glass and a huge emptiness hollowed out her insides. Stonily she asked, ‘Are you implying that you arranged my job for me?’

‘Of course. I wanted you where I could keep an eye on you.’ He spoke casually, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for him to have done.

And, of course, it was.

Sara’s mouth dropped open. Stunned, she gazed at him in stupefied disbelief.

The unexpected offer of a job from a respected interior designer had literally given her something to live for. To learn that Gabe had organised it, and that her work meant nothing, hurt her so deeply she couldn’t speak.

She should have known, Sara thought as humiliation ate into her, leaving her cold and shaky. Gabe didn’t take betrayal lightly; he was famous for his long memory and his insistence on fair play. He’d want revenge. And he had the power and the money to seek it cold, to organise it with ruthless efficiency, so that she had no way of protecting herself.

Struggling to keep a clear mind, she fought back a sense of debilitating helplessness. He’d played with her life as though she were a puppet. It hurt, and it frightened her.

Nevertheless, she wasn’t going to surrender. He’d enjoy that; it would satisfy his desire to humiliate her. ‘I suppose I’m no longer working for him?’

‘That depends entirely on you,’ he said, watching her with coldly speculative eyes. ‘I want the Queen’s Blood, Sara. Tell me where it is and your life will be your own again.’

Her own? She could almost have laughed if his dispassionate tone hadn’t bruised so painfully. Gabe might have been able to cut her out of his life with merciless precision, but her heart was not so easily placated; it still trembled when she looked at him, longing for a commitment that had only ever existed in her wishful thinking.

If he’d loved her, he’d have at least given her a hearing when she’d tried to see him. But, no—he’d accepted the word of his grandmother’s maid rather than listen to the woman he’d been planning to marry!

Knowing it was hopeless, she said in a brittle voice, ‘If I knew where the rubies are, believe me, I’d have told you.’

‘Listen to me,’ he said forcefully, his eyes hooded and dangerous. ‘It occurred to me that you might be afraid. That’s why I brought you here—where you’ll be completely safe.’

‘Not from you!’ she retorted.