Arranged Marriage, Bedroom Secrets

“Gentlemen, thank you for all your support. I know you, too, have suffered a great loss with the death of my father. You have been in service to my family for longer than I can remember and I am grateful to you. Should you need time to grieve, please know it is yours once we return home.”

Both men spluttered their protestations as they assured him that they would take no leave. That it was their honor to serve him. It was as he’d expected, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t carry a sense of loss deep inside.

“I mean it,” he affirmed. “Nico, will you see to the packing? I believe our plane will be ready by 8 a.m.”

The head of his security, Armaund, entered the suite with three of his team.

“Sire, when you’re ready.”

With a nod of thanks to Pasquale and Nico, Thierry headed for the door. Three security guards fell in formation around him as one went ahead to the private elevator that serviced this floor.

“We thought the side entrance would be best, sire. We can avoid the lobby that way and hotel security have swept for paparazzi already.”

“Thank you, that’s fine.”

He felt like little more than a sheep with a herd of sheep dogs as they exited the elevator downstairs.

“Some space, please, gentlemen,” Thierry said firmly as he picked up his pace and struck out ahead of his team.

He could sense they didn’t like it, but as long as he didn’t look as if he was surrounded by guards, he was relying on the fact that in a big city such as New York he’d soon become just another person on the crowded sidewalk. It was the team who would likely draw attention to him rather than his own position in the world.

Thierry rounded the corner and headed for the exit. Not far now and maybe he could breathe, really breathe for the first time since he’d heard the news.

* * *

“‘Fun,’ she said,” Mila muttered under her breath as she walked the block outside the hotel for the sixth time that evening.

Once she’d overcome the sheer terror that had gripped her as she’d escaped Sally’s family’s hotel suite, anticipation had buoyed her all the way here. But she’d yet to feel that sense of fun that Sally had mentioned. Leaving the suite had been nerve-racking. She’d been sure that Bernadette or one of the guards would have seen past the blond wig she wore and realized that it wasn’t Sally leaving the suite, but they’d only given her a cursory glance.

The walk to the prince’s hotel hadn’t been too bad, but it had given her too much time to think about what on earth she was doing here. And far too much time to begin to regret it—hence the circuits around the block. Any minute now she’d be arrested, she was sure of it. She’d already started getting sideways glances from more than one person.

She took a sip from the coffee she’d bought to steady her nerves and ducked into a doorway at the side of the hotel just as the skies opened with a sudden spring shower of rain. Great, she thought, as she watched the rain fall, making the streets slick and dark and seeming to emphasize just how alone she was at this exact moment, even with the tens of thousands of people who swirled and swelled around her. One of those people jostled her from behind, making her lurch and sending her coffee cup flying to the pavement. She cried out in dismay as some of the scalding liquid splashed on her hand.

“Watch it!” she growled, shaking the residue from her stinging skin and brushing down the front of her—no, she corrected herself, Sally’s—jacket.

So much for making a good impression, she thought. Wet, bewigged and now coffee-stained—she may as well quit and go home. This had been a ridiculous idea from start to finish and there’d be hell to pay if she got caught out.

“My apologies.”

The man’s voice came from behind her. It was rich and deep and sent a tingle thrilling down her spine. She wheeled around, almost bumping into him again as she realized he was closer to her than she’d anticipated.

“I’m sor—” she began and then she looked up.

The man stood in front of her, an apologetic smile curving sinfully beautiful lips. A dark beanie covered the top of his head, hiding the color of his hair, and he wore sunglasses. Odd, given the late hour but, after all, this was New York. But then he hooked his glasses with one long tanned finger and slid them down his nose, exposing thick black brows and eyes the color of slate. Everything—all thought, all logic, all sense—fled her mind.

All she could focus on was him.

Prince Thierry.

Right there.

In the flesh.

Mila had often wondered if people were exaggerating when they talked about the power of immediate physical attraction. She’d convinced herself that her own initial reaction to the prince years ago had been largely due to nerves and a hefty dose of overactive teenage hormones. Now, however, she had her answer. What she’d felt for him then was no exaggeration, since she felt exactly the same way now. Her mouth dried, her heart pounded, her legs trembled and her eyes widened in shock. Even though she had come here with the express purpose of meeting him, the reality was harder to come to terms with than she’d anticipated.

Sally had said he was hot. It had been a gross understatement. The man was incendiary.

Mila lowered her eyes to the base of his throat, exposed by an open collar. A pulse beat there and she found herself mesmerized by the proof he was completely and utterly human. A shiver of yearning trembled through her.

“I’ll get you another coffee.”

“N-no, it-it’s okay,” she answered, tripping over her tongue.

Think! she commanded herself. Introduce yourself. Do something. Anything. But then she looked up again and met his gaze, and she was lost.

His eyes were still as she remembered, but what had faded from her memory was that they were no ordinary gray. They reminded her of the color of the mountain faces that were mined for their pale slate in the north west of her country, and the north east of his. She’d always thought the color to be mundane, but how wrong she had been. It was startling, piercing, as if he could see to the depths of her soul when he looked at her. His irises were rimmed with black and lighter striations of silver shone like starlight within them. And his lashes were so dark they created the perfect frame for his eyes.

Mila realized she was staring and dropped her gaze again, but it did little to slow the rapid beat of her heart or to increase her lung capacity when she most needed a deep and filling breath.

“Si—?”

A man loomed beside them and angled his body between the prince and herself. One muttered phrase from the prince in his home language stopped the man midspeech and he slipped back again. Security, obviously, and none too happy about their prince mixing with the natives. Except she wasn’t native, was she? And, she realized with a shock, he didn’t seem to recognize who she was.

The prince turned his attention back to her and spoke again, his voice laced with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? Look, your hand is burned.”

Mila started as he took her hand in his and held it so he could examine the pinkness left by the hot coffee. Her breathing hitched a little as his thumb softly traced around the edges of the tender skin. His fingers were gentle and even though he held her loosely—so she could tug herself free at any time—they sent a sizzle of awareness across the surface of her skin that had nothing to do with hot coffee and everything to do with this incredibly hot man.

“It’s nothing, really,” she said, knowing she should pull her hand loose but finding herself apparently unable to do so.

Nothing? It was everything. This was the magnetism she’d seen in action on TV earlier today. She was as helpless against it as everyone else had been.

“Please,” he said, letting go of her and gesturing down the sidewalk. “Allow me to buy you another coffee.”

His simple request was her undoing and she searched his face, seeking any sign that he knew who she was, and fighting back the disappointment that rose within her when he didn’t. Of course he wouldn’t expect to find himself face-to-face with a princess on the streets of New York, let alone his princess, she rationalized. But in spite of herself, Mila felt annoyance quickly take disappointment’s place. Was he so disinterested in her and their eventual union that she wasn’t on his mind at all?

But perhaps she could use this to her advantage. The plan she’d made with Sally had been for her to reintroduce herself to the prince, but what if she didn’t? What if she let herself just be another anonymous person on the streets of New York? Without the weight of their betrothal making them formal or awkward with each other, she could use this chance to get to know him better. To see for herself who this man was, while he was emotionally unguarded and not on show, and to gauge for herself what kind of man she would be marrying.

“Thank you,” she said, quelling her irritation and drawing on every gram of serenity and inner strength that had been instilled in her since her birth. “I would like that.”

His lip quirked up at the corner and, just like that, she found herself mesmerized once again. His eyes gleamed in satisfaction, the faintest of lines appearing at their corners. She forced herself to look away, to the street, to the rain, to basically anything but the man who guided her to walk at his side.

Ahead of them, one of his security team had already scoped out the same small coffee shop where she’d bought her cup earlier, and discreetly gestured an all-clear. It was done so subtly that if she hadn’t been so used to looking for it for herself, she wouldn’t even have noticed.

They entered and went to the counter to order. Mila was struck by how surreal this all felt. He was acting as if he did everyday things like walk down the street for coffee all the time, when she knew he certainly did not. His security team were dotted around the premises, two by the door and one near a table to which the prince guided her once they had their orders.

“Friends of yours?” Mila commented, nodding in the direction of his shadow team.

He made a sound that was something between a snort and a laugh. “Something like that,” he acknowledged. “Do they bother you? I can ask them to leave.”