The Mediterranean Prince’s Captive Virgin

The door opened behind her. She turned, almost overbalancing as her head whirled. Grimly she clung to the back of the armchair, taking another deep breath until her vision settled down.

After a soft exclamation the nurse crossed the big room remarkably fast. ‘I think you try too hard, too soon,’ she chided, her dark eyes concerned. ‘Come, I’ll help you into the chair.’

Shaken, Leola let her, and once settled into the armchair decided that from now on she’d eat as little as possible and drink only water she’d run herself from the tap.

The nurse brought her several English magazines—fashion magazines Leola had already seen. She flicked through them, measuring the impact of various outfits, enjoying one acerbic column again, frowning at others, before pushing the magazines aside.

Focus on figuring out a way to get yourself out of here, she commanded herself.

Because she was going to have to. If she didn’t return home on her due date from this holiday no questions would be asked, no people alerted by her absence. She bit her lip. Well, not until her twin sister in New Zealand realised something was wrong.

Which could already have happened, she thought anxiously. They shared a link; what one felt the other recognised. Oh, Lord, she hoped Giselle wasn’t frantically trying to contact her. Then her mouth curled ironically. On the other hand, that would mean release was close, because no prince would be a match for Giselle on the warpath.

Tense with anger and frustration at her growing feeling of impotence, she picked up another magazine, flipping angrily through the pages until her eyelids grew heavy and her head slid sideways.

She woke with a clearer brain and sight; a quick glance around the room revealed that she was alone again. This time she wasn’t nearly as shaky as she stood up from the chair and made her way into the bathroom to get a glass of water.

Once it had been thirstily drained, she looked down at herself. She still wore the same exquisitely embroidered nightdress she’d woken in, and today, she decided, she was going to demand some clothes.

And a walk in the garden.

Plus, she was going to demand to know exactly why Prince Whoever had had her brought here, and what the hell was going on!

She was back in the bedroom when the nurse tapped on the door and entered, beaming at the sight of her charge on her feet. ‘You feel better now?’ she asked. ‘Good. I run water for you in the bath, and then you can get dressed.’

Without waiting for an answer, the woman bustled into the bathroom, humming as she went.

Leola gave a wry grin. So much for her new-found assertiveness! Clearly not needed at all. But a bath would be wonderful in that superb Victorian bath on its four lion feet…

‘It’s ready,’ the nurse said, reappearing. ‘You want me to bathe you?’

Leola said hastily, ‘No, thanks, I’ll be fine.’ She sniffed appreciatively. ‘What did you put in the water? It smells divine.’

‘Oh, something the girls here use to make themselves smell good,’ the nurse said with another smile. ‘From flowers that grow in the hills.’ She nodded and left the room.

Although Leola was still shaky when she finally got out, she did feel much stronger, and her brain seemed to be working with something like its usual speed.

After drying herself with the sumptuous towels she donned the silk dressing gown that had been left for her and walked out into the bedroom, where the nurse indicated a pair of trousers, a silk shirt and underclothes laid out on the newly made bed.

All, she noted, brand-new. And her heart skipped a beat when she recognised the designer—Magda Wright, one of Europe’s most respected, who had made her name and her fortune by dressing Europe’s aristocracy and royalty. Her signature butterfly adorned the pocket of the silk shirt and the waistband of the trousers.

‘They’re not mine,’ Leola said, uncertain how to deal with this.

The older woman nodded. ‘For you,’ she said firmly.

Leola hesitated, but she needed clothes in her campaign to make herself familiar with her prison. Nevertheless…

‘Where are my own clothes?’

The nurse looked wary. ‘I do not know,’ she finally said.

Leola frowned down at the garments. ‘Who brought these?’ she asked.

‘The prince sent them,’ the nurse said, as though Leola should have known who the donor was.

‘What prince?’

This time the woman looked nervous. ‘The Prince of the Sea Isles,’ she said eventually.

‘Prince Roman Magnati?’ Leola held her breath.

‘Oh, no. Prince Nico Magnati. His younger brother.’ The nurse’s sweeping gesture took in the room, the palace and the glorious view outside. ‘Prince Roman is prince over all the Sea Isles, but this—all this place belongs to Prince Nico.’

The Viking?

A dim recollection of reading about a playboy prince fired some brain cells. ‘I see,’ Leola said, looking down at the bra. She didn’t need to read the label to know that it was her size. A kind of dark anger smouldered into life inside her.

Such accuracy meant that whoever had estimated her size was altogether too familiar with women’s bodies.

But of course playboys would be. She searched her mind, trying to locate the source of that tenuous conviction, only to give up when the nurse went to tidy the bathroom.

Her head still buzzing with questions, Leola checked the clothes, somehow not surprised that both the beautifully cut trousers and shirt were her exact size.

So was her Viking Prince Nico Magnati, younger brother of the Lord of the Sea Isles?

She recalled the effortlessly commanding air of the man who’d snatched her from the square and sent her here. Yes, that fitted someone of aristocratic heritage, but although princes certainly had power, she doubted whether many of them possessed that fierce aura of danger, of disturbing sexuality.

And why on earth would a prince be involved in cloak-and-dagger stuff? They had minions for that sort of thing, surely?

Biting her lip, she walked across to the window. At first she didn’t register what she was seeing until the movement caught her attention, and she realised a fast motorboat was clipping through the water towards the island.

Her stomach hollowed out in something close to panic. She turned to the nurse, who hurried across and stood just behind her.

‘The prince,’ she announced happily.

And realising Leola was still standing in a dressing gown, she gestured at the clothes she’d laid out. ‘Quickly, quickly, before he comes.’

Heart beating with heavy impact, Leola scrambled into the clothes, some inner part of her relishing the sleek luxury of silk against her skin, even though she hated the thought of being dressed by a man who’d treated her with such cavalier authority.

The nurse disappeared while Leola grimly combed her hair and smoothed it back from her face. When she found herself tugging the same tawny-gold lock of hair for the third time, she bit her lip. Both the tugging and the biting were leftovers from her childhood methods of diffusing stress, and neither worked. She eased back into the armchair, took several deep, slow breaths, then deliberately relaxed every muscle in her body.

That didn’t work either.

Tension built exponentially until the nurse appeared again, and said without her usual smile, ‘The prince will see you now.’

But when Leola got out of the chair, the older woman shook her head. ‘He will come here.’

It was clear from her tone that she didn’t approve, and equally clear that she didn’t feel she could do anything about it.