Defying the Prince

‘And tonight was the engagement of your brother and my sister.’

‘Yes.’

Hearing something in his voice she leapt to the defence of her sister. ‘He’s lucky to have Allegra. She’s worth a hundred of those judgemental, stuck-up skinny women back at that party.’ She’d expected her hotheaded defence of her family to draw a sarcastic response but this time when he turned his head there was no sign of condescension or arrogance.

‘I hope you’re right because Alex can’t afford for this to go wrong. None of us can.’ He focused on the road again but the frown stayed on his face. ‘Did anything seem strange to you about the engagement?’

‘Apart from the fact my sister must be mad to marry a prince? No. Why?’

The pause was fractional. ‘No reason.’

‘Clearly there is a reason or you wouldn’t have asked the question.’ Although her head was spinning, Izzy felt a flash of unease. ‘Allegra would never marry him if she didn’t love him. And he must love her back or he wouldn’t marry her.’

‘You think love conquers all?’ This time his smile was sardonic. ‘How old are you?’

Stung by the mockery, Izzy gritted her teeth. It didn’t matter what she said or did, he still managed to make her feel small. ‘Old enough to know that you and I trapped together is a recipe for disaster. And just for the record I think love is the only reason to get married. There is no other reason.’ She thought about her parents and then immediately pushed the thought away because the reality of their marriage clashed so badly with her own ideals. If she ever reached the point when she was ready for another relationship then she was going to do everything differently.

The prince kept his eyes on the road. ‘So you believe in fairy tales?’

‘I didn’t say that. I said I believed in love, although just for the record I think it’s hard to find. Also for the record I’d like to say that you are the most cynical guy I’ve ever met and you have an unfortunate tendency to stereotype everyone at first glance. Now just drop me off in the next village and I’ll find myself somewhere to stay. That way we just might not kill each other.’

‘We just drove through the last village. There is nowhere to drop you.’

‘What village?’ Izzy turned her head to look over her shoulder and then wished she hadn’t as her brain suddenly felt fuzzy. ‘I saw two houses. Or was it one house and I have double vision?’

‘For the rest of your stay you are drinking water.’

‘Just as long as you have a nice slice of stale bread to go with it.’ But Izzy was starting to realise that her stay with the prince wasn’t likely to be diluted by the presence of other people. ‘When you said you lived miles from anywhere you weren’t joking.’

‘I rarely joke.’

She looked at his black dinner jacket. ‘I thought you were in the air force. Why aren’t you wearing a fancy uniform?’

‘I left active service five years ago. Now I advise the DD.’

‘DD?’ She tried to get her spinning brain round it. ‘Dear Daughter?’

His jaw tightened. ‘Defence Department.’

‘Oh. Cool.’ Izzy peered into the darkness and saw nothing but tall cypress trees and olive groves. ‘So do you spend a lot of time here?’

‘As much as I can. I value my privacy.’ His eyes glittered with a dark emotion that was alien to her. There were dark layers to the man that were hidden away, buried deep beneath a royal exterior that no observer was allowed to penetrate.

Izzy recognised instinctively how complex he was and the gulf between them widened because she knew that she wasn’t at all complex.

Her school report came to mind.

Isabelle is as shallow as a bird bath but is unlikely to provide even that useful service unless she gives up dreams of stardom and attempts to make something of her life.

She’d been determined to prove them wrong but so far she wasn’t making much progress.

‘Look, I’ll just phone a taxi or something when we get to your place,’ she muttered. ‘It would be better for both of us. I can take care of myself.’

‘You’ll stay at my palazzo until I’ve decided what to do with you.’

Like a piece of rubbish, Izzy thought, that needed recycling. Which bin do I throw her in? Plastics or green waste? ‘Right, because we both know I’m really going to fit in there. I can’t think of anything I’d love more than being trapped somewhere isolated with just you for company.’ Her singsong response was supposed to conceal how hurt she was but she saw his eyes narrow speculatively.

‘I wouldn’t have thought a woman who chose to wear a strapless dress made from nothing but sequins cared too much about fitting in.’

‘Well, that shows you know nothing about women.’

‘Funnily enough I thought I knew a great deal about women. Apparently I was wrong.’ His voice was a lazy masculine drawl and her spine tingled.

‘If the women there tonight are the sort you’ve been mixing with it’s no wonder you’re ignorant. They weren’t really women. They didn’t smile or laugh, except when they were laughing at me,’ she muttered, ‘and frankly I’m fed up with being the butt of everyone’s humour. That’s why I’d rather you dropped me off here. Let’s face it, we have nothing in common. I’ll just mess up your precious palazzo and although I’m pretty robust all this frowning disapproval is starting to get to me. I don’t want to leave the island with confidence issues.’

He shot her a look. ‘I cannot imagine you suffering from confidence issues.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Izzy said darkly. ‘Sometimes I feel as though the whole world is frowning at me. Like now, for instance. You keep looking at my dress as if you can’t quite believe your eyes. You’re obviously deeply prejudiced towards sequins.’

‘They’re not exactly subtle.’

‘So? I love this dress.’ She refused to apologise for it. ‘And it’s hypocritical of you to be superior given all the bling you royals own.’

He shifted gears, that strong male hand alarmingly close to her knee. ‘I own “bling”?’

‘Did you see that sparkly tiara thing your mother was wearing this evening?’

‘That “tiara thing” was a gift from a sixteenth century British monarch.’

‘Well, it was sparklier than anything I own so it’s a bit hypocritical of everyone to turn their noses up at my love of shiny things just because some of us can’t afford the real thing. A party needs sparkle and yours didn’t have anywhere near enough. Talking of which, you do realise that I don’t have any luggage, don’t you? So unless you happen to own something that might fit me I’m going to be wearing this not-exactly-subtle dress every day I’m in captivity.’

‘You are not in captivity.’

‘So I can leave whenever I like?’

There was a brief pause. ‘No. The focus needs to be on my brother and your sister. Not you.’

‘So I am in captivity.’

‘Consider it a holiday. You were planning to stay in the hotel for a week. We’ve merely altered the destination and I can assure you that the coastline around my palazzo is stunning. My staff are currently in the process of transferring your luggage—please tell me you own something that doesn’t sparkle.’ His gaze flickered to hers and she felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked from the air because there was something in that look that made her stomach flip.

Even without a smile on his face he was indecently, impossibly sexy.

‘Do pyjamas count?’ It was a good job she could never fall for a man without a sense of humour, Izzy thought shakily, otherwise she’d be in deep trouble. And she’d thought she’d been too badly hurt to even look at a man again. It was the champagne. Surely it was the champagne.

‘Your pyjamas are the only clothes you own that don’t sparkle?’ His gaze skidded to hers and she turned scarlet, wishing she’d never mentioned pyjamas.

Tension throbbed between them and Izzy bit back a wild laugh because even she recognised that the attraction between them was beyond inconvenient. And she didn’t welcome it any more than he did. Her last relationship had been an utter disaster, the fallout from it played out across the world’s media. She had no intention of providing more relationship fodder for public entertainment.