The Ice Prince

The hostess, wise soul, took a step back. The woman took a step forward. She was only inches away from him now, close enough that he could see that her eyes were a deep shade of blue.

“I am,” she said haughtily, “on a business trip. A last-minute business trip. First class was sold out. And I have an important meeting to attend.”

This time it was her intonation that was interesting.

He had not bothered shaving; he had taken time only to shower and dress in faded jeans and a pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the top button undone. He wore an old, eminently comfortable pair of mocs and, on his wrist, the first thing he’d bought himself after he’d made his first million euros—a Patek Phillipe watch for no better reason than the first own he’d owned he had stolen and, in a fit of teenage guilt, had a day later tossed into the Tiber.

In other words he was casually but expensively dressed. A woman wearing an Armani suit would know that. He’d reserved two costly seats, not one. Add everything together and she would peg him as a man with lots of money, lots of time on his hands and no real purpose in life, while she was a captain of industry, or whatever was the female equivalent.

“Do you see why the seat is so important to me?”

Draco nodded. “Fully,” he said with a tight smile. “It’s important to you because you want it.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “My God, what’s the difference? The seat is empty.”

“It isn’t empty.”

“Damnit, will someone be sitting in it or not?”

“Or not,” he said, and waited.

She hesitated. It was the first time she had done so since she’d approached him. It made her seem suddenly vulnerable, more like a woman than an automaton.

Draco felt himself hesitate, too.

He had booked two seats for privacy. No one to disturb his thoughts as he worked through how to handle what lay ahead. No one with whom he’d have to go through the usual Hello, how are you, don’t you hate night flights like this one?

He was not in the mood for any of it; if truth be told, he was rarely in the mood for sharing his space with others.

Still, he could manage.

He didn’t like the woman, but so what? She had a problem. He had the solution. He could say, Va bene, signorina. You may have the seat beside mine.

“You know,” she said, her voice low and filled with rage, “there’s something really disgusting about a man who thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

The hostess, by now standing almost a foot away, made a sound that was close to a moan.

Draco felt every muscle in his body tighten. If only you were a man, he thought, and for one quick moment imagined the pleasure of a punch straight to that uptilted chin ….

But she wasn’t a man, and so he did the only thing he could, which was to get the hell out of there before he did something he would regret.

Carefully he bent to the table where his laptop lay, turned it off, put it in its case, zipped the case closed, slung the strap over his shoulder. Then he took a step forward; the woman took a step back. Her face had gone pale.

She was afraid of him now. She’d realized she had gone too far.

Good, he thought grimly, even though part of him knew this was overkill.

“You could have approached me quietly,” he said in a tone of voice that had brought business opponents to their knees. “You could have said, ‘I have a problem and I would be grateful for your help.’”

The color in her face came back, sweeping over her high cheekbones like crimson flags.

“That’s exactly what I did.”

“No. You did not. You told me what you wanted. Then you told me what I was going to do about it.” His mouth thinned. “Unfortunately for you, signorina, that was the wrong approach. I don’t give a damn what you want, and you will not sit in that seat.”

Her mouth dropped open.

Hell. Why wouldn’t it? Had he really just said something so foolish and petty? Had she reduced him to that?

Get moving, Valenti, he told himself, and he would have …

But she laughed. Laughed! Her fear had given way to laughter.

His face burned with humiliation.

There was only one way to retaliate and he took it.

He closed the last inch of space between them. She must have seen something bright and icy-hot glowing in his eyes, because she stopped laughing and took another quick step back.

Too late.

Draco reached out. Ran the tip of one finger over her lips.

“Perhaps,” he said softly, “perhaps if you had offered me something interesting in trade …”

He put his arms around her, lifted her into the leanly muscled length of his body and took her mouth as if it were his to take, as if he were a Roman prince in a century when Rome ruled the world.

He heard the woman’s muffled cry. Heard the hostess gasp.

Then he heard nothing but the thunder of his blood as it coursed through his veins, tasted nothing but her mouth, her mouth, her sweet, hot mouth …

She hit him. Hard. A surprisingly solid blow to the ribs. The sting of her small fist was worth the rage he saw in her eyes when he lifted his head.

“Have a pleasant flight, signorina,” he said, and he brushed past her, leaving Anna Orsini standing right where he’d left her, staring at the lounge door as it swung shut behind him while she wished to hell she’d had the brains to slug the sexist bastard not in the side but right where he lived.

Where all men lived, she thought grimly as she snatched up her carry-on and briefcase that had somehow ended up on the floor.

In the balls.

CHAPTER TWO

ANNA stalked through the crowded terminal, so furious she could hardly see straight.

That insufferable pig! That supermacho idiot!

Punching him hadn’t been enough.

She should have called the cops. Had him arrested. Charged him with—with sexual assault ….