The Prince's Pleasure

That night, as she cooked dinner and ate it without tasting a mouthful, Alexa replayed over and over again that scene with Prince Luka.

It didn’t take a psychologist to explain the electricity that had scorched through her at his touch. She’d been caught off guard by potent physical attraction, the kind of sensual intuition that splintered the bars of caution and common sense to whisper alluringly of feverish, compelling sex, to counsel surrender to a passion she’d never expected to feel.

Basic, earthy, almost entirely amoral, it should repel her. Emotionally and intellectually it did.

Unfortunately some rash, previously unsuspected part of her found Prince Luka wildly exciting. He’d kissed her like a conqueror, and she’d let him—worse than that, she’d gloried in it, because she’d known she’d breached some barrier in him.

Even more intriguing was that hint of vulnerability, of hidden secrets. Perhaps she could do some research on him—

‘No!’ she said, outraged.

And she should stop beating herself up! It wasn’t as though she was the first woman to have found him attractive. Every magazine and newspaper in the western world was a witness to the number of women who’d fallen for his particular brand of Mediterranean glamour. And as well as being dynamically sexy, he’d been surprisingly kind when she’d started falling to pieces.

The telephone rang. ‘Alexa,’ Carole said in a flat voice, ‘something’s happened that’s rather—upsetting.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I’VE just been speaking to Mike, my boss,’ Carole said, with no sign of her usual dramatic delivery. ‘He’s suggested that you be—that you’re not…’ She hesitated before continuing bluntly, ‘Alexa, he doesn’t want to see you in the hotel for the duration of the conference.’

Stunned, Alexa asked, ‘What? Why? He can’t do that!’ But he would, she realised with a clutch of nausea, if someone with enough power asked him to.

‘I’m afraid he can, and I’m also afraid I must ask you not to lose your temper and try to force your way in,’ Carole said, dropping her tone by several notes.

‘Of course I won’t embarrass you like that.’ Alexa steadied her words. ‘I’m just—gobsmacked. Did your boss give you a reason?’

‘He was told officially that you’re a photographer,’ Carole said, ‘and at the moment photographers are very much personae non gratae. Of course I vouched for your integrity, and pointed out that you’d worked here before and that you had security clearance. Mike knows that, but he’s in a cleft stick; he said it’s temporary, and no reflection on you.’

Fighting a raw sense of betrayal, Alexa unclenched her jaw with difficulty and ignored the faint questioning note in the older woman’s voice to say, ‘Carole, it’s all right. As it happens I’ve got a full programme for the next week, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything for you anyway.’

Carole sighed, a sure sign of her panache returning. ‘Thanks for being so understanding. A model tried to sweet-talk her way into the Prince of Dacia’s suite yesterday—and almost got there. Apparently she sold a story to an English paper. Management is stressing out collectively and individually over security, so when someone said you were a photographer it was the final straw.’

And Alexa knew who that had to be! The Prince of Dacia was no slouch when it came to quick, ruthless decisions. She said brightly, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep well away from the hotel. Are there likely to be any repercussions for you?’

‘Me? Oh, no. Alexa, Mike knows you’re trustworthy,’ Carole assured her earnestly. ‘He’s under pressure from someone, and you can’t blame that someone. It’s just a pity you’re the one to suffer. I have to go, Alexa. Thanks.’

After carefully putting the telephone down, Alexa strode furiously across to her window and threw it open. Salty air from the harbour, almost overwhelmed by petrol fumes, floated in, bringing with it all the noises of the city.

Talk about brutal misuse of power! she thought vengefully. How she’d like to tell Prince Luka of Dacia what she thought of people who used their status to intimidate.

A glance at her watch revealed that she had half an hour to go the gym and work off both her temper and the stupid, baseless sense of bereavement that kept breaking through.

She was a modern woman and Luka Bagaton was fresh out of the Middle Ages—protective of the weak, impersonally kind, hard, ruthless and chauvinist to the core. They had nothing in common, so this unsuitable, reckless attraction would die as soon as it had sprung up.

A week later she folded the newspaper so she couldn’t see the Prince, lethally aristocratic and authoritative amongst the other bankers in a final posed photograph on the museum steps. Buttering toast with a vicious sweep of the knife, she said to the empty kitchen, ‘I wonder just how much being superbly photogenic has helped his career as a banker. Lots, I’ll bet.’

A swift glance through the window revealed a mellow autumn day, perfect for travelling. She planned to touch up her tan for ten glorious days at the beach house owned by the parents of a schoolfriend on an island forty miles north of Auckland. She had it all organised: days of glorious solitude stalking the perfect shot that was going to win her a competition.

Still chewing toast and honey, she cast a cold glance at the newspaper. The morning after that icy interview with the Prince the gossip columnist had struck again wondering archly:

What is going on between gorgeous Prince Luka and the lovely photographer? The same little bird that saw them together on the first night of the conference noticed the photographer emerging from the Prince’s private elevator with tumbled hair and distinctly bee-stung lips. Watch this space!

So by now he’d be convinced she was feeding the wretched woman information.

Not that Alexa cared. ‘Not even the tiniest bit,’ she said, smiling brilliantly—and lying.

The island, she decided three hours later, manoeuvring her friends’ elderly four-wheel drive vehicle over the narrow winding track from Deep Harbour, was the ideal place to blob out—and to chisel a dangerously magnetic man out of her brain.

The Thorntons had sited their bach on the ocean side of the island, more exposed to the waves and the winds than the gentler leeward side. That fitted Alexa’s mood perfectly, as did the comfortable middle-aged house crouched above a sweeping beach with sand the colour of fine champagne.

And the forecasters were predicting that the weather would stay in Indian summer mode until after she returned to Auckland.

Determined to enjoy herself, Alexa opened glass doors to let in the air, turned on the power and the water, and began to unload the vehicle. That done, she rang Sally Thornton in Auckland to tell her she’d arrived safely.

Then she ran down the beach for a quick dip to wash off the road grime. At last, clad in denim shorts and a sleeveless blue-green T-shirt that gave some colour to her eyes, she strolled out onto the deck and stared out to sea.

‘Not another house in sight,’ she said with satisfaction. The ruinous farmhouse along the beach, crouched defensively behind thick old trees, didn’t count.

Smiling, she dragged a lounger out onto the deck and squinted along the bay, mentally framing at least three superb shots. Tomorrow she’d go out and see what else she could find. She wanted to play with black and white shots.

Out of nowhere sprang the image of Luka’s face when he’d accused her of leaking gossip to the press—a face with the kind of hard, forceful bone structure that photographed magnificently.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she muttered in frustration.

Absurdly sensitive to beauty she might be, but it was ridiculous to obsess about a man she’d only seen three times. OK, so he kissed like a dark angel, but punishing kisses had gone out with her mother’s generation. No, her grandmother’s!

Alexa grinned suddenly, recalling her grandmother—bright, modern, and tough enough to be a solo parent when it would have been a lot easier to put her son up for adoption. Gran would have had no truck with punishing kisses either. Her smile faded swiftly as loneliness rolled over her in a dark tide.

Her happy, charmed life, so safe and secure, had come to a bitter end. Her mother had died after a long illness when Alexa was just fourteen; two days previously, on the way home from the hospital, Alexa had been the only survivor of a motorway accident that had killed her father and grandmother. Stunned with grief, and left without relatives, Alexa had spent the rest of her school years in a foster home.

Yet, unlike some of the others there, she’d had happy memories. Just what sort of memories haunted Luka of Dacia, who’d admitted to imbibing distrust with his mother’s milk?

‘Get out of my head!’ Alexa commanded the man who’d had her dismissed like a dishonest servant.

Late that night, woken from a deep sleep by something she’d barely heard, she pulled on a woollen jersey against the chilly air and made her way out onto the deck. The timeless silhouette of the hills brooding against the night sky and the subtle obsidian sheen of the sea beneath the stars usually satisfied something deep in her soul, but not tonight. The warm glow from the small lamp in the sitting room beckoned much more strongly.

She’d swung around to go inside again when a point of light stopped her. Adrenalin powered up her pulse-rate by several beats a minute. No one had lived in the old house along the beach since the owner had been forced to spend his final years on the mainland.