Forced Wife, Royal Love-Child

She wasn’t in Rafe’s league and she knew it, economically, socially or sexually, her experience with men up until now limited and frankly disappointing in the bedroom department.

Whereas Rafe Lombardi moved in the highest circles, mixing with the crème de la crème of society, power brokers and tycoons and with the designer women who clung to them like accessories. What would a man like him see in her, a woman who had to work for her living and so far down the social scale as not to register, other than just another chance encounter, another notch in his belt?

So she’d tried to hold him off as long as she could, thinking he’d give up and move on to greener pastures. Expecting he would as soon as she’d told him no the first time.

But he hadn’t. Instead of abandoning the chase, he’d pursued her with a single-minded determination that had simultaneously terrified and secretly thrilled her.

Rafe Lombardi was clearly a man used to getting his own way.

She turned on the shower and adjusted the temperature, stepping in and turning her face into the spray, eyes closed as the liquid massage worked its magic on her newly sensitised skin, caressing places where just so recently Rafe had worked his own unique brand of magic and where he no doubt would again as soon as he kept his promise to join her in the shower.

Her body hummed in anticipation. Rafe, that body and water. That would make for one lethal combination.

A bubble of laughter welled up unexpectedly. She’d turned him down how many times these last few days? She must have been mad. For it was clear after just one night with him that any woman in her right senses would take Rafe Lombardi and whatever he offered and hang onto him as long as she possibly could, and to hell with the consequences.

Besides, she’d been working hard these few months, getting herself established back in Europe, with a new home and a new job. She deserved a bit of rest and recreation.

There would be consequences, nothing surer, but for now she hugged the knowledge that he’d asked to see her again like a secret treasure.

She spun around, letting the water pound the back of her neck as she soaped her hair, half a mind anticipating his arrival, the other half employed on working out what it was that made him so different to every other man she’d ever met. His tall, dark good looks, the designer stubble and thick wavy hair that coiled at his collar just a shade too long to be conservative were enough in themselves to set him apart from the crowd.

But he was so much more than the superficial. There was a confidence in the way he carried himself and in the masterful way he handled people and situations. He wore power as easily as he wore the clothes on his hard-wired body, and it had terrified her to feel that power, and to know it had been directed one hundred per cent towards her.

She shivered despite the warm torrent, remembering how vulnerable he’d made her feel with just one heated glance, one seemingly innocent brush of skin against skin. He had the gift of making a woman feel so desirable, of making her feel she was the centre of his existence and he’d used that gift mercilessly to flatter her during his pursuit, while his eyes had held a look that somehow seemed to burn its way into her soul and beyond.

And then he’d used that gift to wield her to his purpose in his bed.

She directed her face into the spray on a sigh. No, Rafe Lombardi was like no man she’d ever met before. Little wonder he’d left a trail of broken hearts in his wake, because if a woman wasn’t careful, he was everything that a woman could so easily fall in love with…

Oh, no!

She snapped off the tap and yanked the towel from the rail with a determined flick, angry with herself for letting her thoughts drift so far. Remembering how he’d made her feel, recalling the hungry look in his eye while he remained poised over her in that exquisite moment before their union, that was one thing. But building some fairy tale happy ending that could never happen…

Living in Paris must be going to her head. She’d just landed the job of her dreams. An affair was good. An affair was welcome. She wasn’t looking for anything more.

Sienna wrapped herself in a towel, half aware that now the shower was turned off she could hear the sound of the news channel drifting in from the room outside. Rafe had turned it on to check the global money market report before joining her. Which he hadn’t. Proof, if she’d really needed it, that she was nothing more to him than a distraction from his high-powered life.

Albeit a distraction he wanted to see again, just a few short hours away. Right now that was enough.

Her hair wrapped turban style under a towel and wearing one of the plush robes she’d found hanging behind the bathroom door, she emerged from the fog-filled en suite. There was a trolley in the room that hadn’t been there before from which emanated the tantalising scent of fresh coffee and warm pastries, but Rafe was still standing near the storm-tossed bed where she’d left him, though at some stage he’d pulled on a pair of jeans that hung low on his hips, zipped but with the top button still undone. The sight was nearly enough to bring her undone, until she caught the scowl turning his face to thunder as he listened intently to the stream of frenzied Italian issuing from the television.

She moved closer, and, for the first time since they’d been together, he didn’t turn towards her, didn’t greet her with that soul-deep smile. After enjoying his almost instinctive reaction to her presence for the past week, she missed it more than she’d expected.

‘What is it?’ she asked, coming alongside, trying to follow the torrent of Italian delivered too fast for her scant knowledge of the spoken language and, at the same time, unable to resist touching one hand to the small of his back. ‘What’s going on?’

He silenced her with a hiss, shrugging away from the gesture, away from her, and she sensed distance opening up between them where once there had been none. She heard a name—Montvelatte—recognising it as a tiny principality strategically perched in the territorial waters between France and Italy, and saw a reporter against a shifting backdrop—what looked like a fairy-tale palace lit up against the night sky, then the line of famous casinos fringing the harbour and a picture of the former Prince Eduardo. The reporter continued talking animatedly, accompanying footage of an army of maroon-jacketed gendarmes frogmarching the young Prince and his brother into cars before being driven away from the palace. She frowned, trying to make sense of it all. Clearly something was very wrong in Montvelatte.

The reporter ended his report with a scowl and an emphatic slash of one hand accompanying the words—‘“Montvelatte, finito!”’

The news programme crossed back to their studio before moving on to their next story. Rafe hit the remote, the screen went black and he turned his back on both the screen and her, raking his fingers through his hair.

She loosened the towel at her hair, began rubbing it in cautious circles, sensing that something major had transpired and knowing she was missing more than what had been reported in the sensational yet indecipherable television coverage.

‘What’s happening? It looked like the police were carting away the entire royal family.’

He spun round, his ruggedly beautiful face reduced to a mask of tightly drawn flesh over bones suddenly lying too close to the surface, his eyes both wild and filled with something that looked like grief.

‘It’s over,’ he said, in a voice that turned her cold. Then his eyes glazed even colder. ‘It’s over.’

An inexplicable fear zipped down her spine. Finally he’d acknowledged her presence and yet she doubted he’d even seen her. Right now it was more as if he was looking right through her.

‘What’s over? What is it that’s happened?’

For a minute she wasn’t even sure he’d even heard her, his only movement the rapid rise and fall of his chest, but then his chin jerked up and his eyes took on a predatory gleam, finding a focus that had been lacking before.

‘Justice,’ he said cryptically, crossing the carpet silently in his bare feet until he stood before her, his turmoil-filled eyes holding hers hostage, his naked chest so close it took her breath away. And before she could ask him what he meant, before she could ask what any of it meant, he reached over and took the damp towel from her hands, tossing it purposefully to one side.

Sienna trembled, her pulse quickening as it always did when she had one hundred per cent of his attention, his scent and his aura wrapping around her and pulling her in.

‘Tell me,’ she whispered in spite of it, refusing to give herself up to his power, knowing that once he touched her, she’d be lost. ‘What does it mean?’

Rafe said nothing. Instead, there was a tug at her waist followed by a loosening, and then the sides of her gown fell open. She felt the kiss of air against her skin, heard the hiss of breath through his teeth as he gazed down at the ribbon of exposed flesh, and felt that searing heat of his eyes like the brand of a torch. ‘It means I want you,’ he said, reaching out the fingers of one hand to scoop back the robe on one side, tracing a path down her aching breast to her nipple and circling that sensitive peak. ‘Now!’

Her body was ready, the swell of her breasts and the insistent thrumming of the pulse between her thighs telling her so. But something flashed across his eyes, and she sensed something of the torment he was feeling, and panic shimmied up her spine as she recognised the truth. He didn’t see her at all, not really. She was merely a vessel, a vehicle for release from whatever demons were plaguing him, and once again, she wondered why he seemed to care so much about a tiny island principality that featured in the tabloids more for the exploits of its young Princes and their latest love interests, rather than for any financial concern Rafe would normally be interested in.

Sienna put her hands to his chest, made a move to push herself away. ‘I don’t know if this is such a good idea,’ she warned, her head shaking even though the rest of her body betrayed her by trembling under his skilled hands, and her hands refused to lift from the wall of his chest. ‘I have to get to work. I’ll be late.’

‘Then be late!’ he growled, uncaring, before sliding a hand around her neck and pulling her to him. His lips captured hers, punishing and demanding, in a kiss in which it was impossible not to feel the turmoil that held him hostage. He tasted of coffee and need and passion—all these things she had tasted before. But now she tasted something new, something triggered by the news report that drove him, an aching fury that moved his kiss beyond mere passion to something dark and dangerous and all-consuming.

And meanwhile his mouth was everywhere—on her lips, at her throat, on her breasts, hungry as he grappled with her robe, reefing it over her shoulders, forcing it down and pulling her naked body against his. She went willingly then, melting into him because she had no real choice, her senses overloaded with the taste and scent of him, the mouth suckling and nipping at her breast, the brush of denim against her legs, the feel of his hot flesh melting her bones, the sound of his zip coming undone…

So many sensations, building one upon the other, a frenzy of feeling that threatened to consume her whole. And then he was lifting her, urging her legs around his waist, only to lower her slowly down until she felt his rock-hard length nudge at her core, and it was her turn to consume him.

He made a sound as he filled her, harsh like the cry of a wounded animal, as if it had been torn from his soul, and she clung to him, afraid for him.

Afraid for herself.

And then he was pumping into her, so fast and furious that sensation exploded inside her like a fireball. She was falling then, his arms still locked around her, barely aware of what was happening when her back met the rumpled bed and he lifted himself, easing out of her until he sat poised there, at the very brink. Through eyes still blurred with passion she looked up at him, looked into his wild eyes and saw the agony that marked his beautiful face and read the words inscribed on her soul—it was already too late—when with a roar he thrust into her, burying himself to the hilt again and again in a final turbulent release that sent her shuddering into the abyss once more.

* * *

It was his voice that brought her back to life, the low, urgent tones as he spoke into the phone rumbling through her like a passing thundercloud, but it was a glance at the clock that catapulted her to full consciousness and back into the bathroom to dress.

He barely noticed her go, his attention almost one hundred per cent on the words his business partner was saying. Yannis Markides, one of the few people on the planet who knew the truth of Rafe’s background and the identity of his father, knew more than anyone what the television reports would mean to him.

‘You have to go,’ Yannis urged. ‘It’s your duty.’

‘Now you’re sounding just like Sebastiano. He’s already in Paris, apparently, and on his way. He certainly didn’t waste any time hunting me down.’