until after the conference is over.’
Although he turned up the jets in the private pool to full power, swimming didn’t clear his mind. Instead of working out a way to free his cousin, or bring both bitterly divided sides to a neutral meeting place, all he wanted was to feel Alexa’s hair around him like some silken tent, each coiling tress caressing his skin into feverish ecstasy. He wanted her to look at him with her ice-clear dangerous eyes smouldering with desire, in the full knowledge of what she was doing. He wanted to feel that passionate mouth on his skin…
He hauled himself out of the pool and strode towards the shower, sweat gathering on his forehead as his body responded to the goad of his thoughts.
More than anything in the world he craved to take her, bury himself deeply in her strong slenderness, mark her by his possession so that any other man’s touch on her would be unthinkable—an insult, an unbearable horror.
Because he was fastidious—and circumspect—there hadn’t been many women in his bed, but without conceit he knew he was a good lover. Partly it was his true appreciation of women’s needs, his pleasure in their softness and their curves, his understanding that making love was an infinitely greater risk for a woman than for a man. But it was the self-mastery taught to him by the courtesan his father had summoned as a sixteenth birthday present that brought his lovers to sobbing fulfilment before he yielded to his own climax.
And it was that control that enabled him to keep himself emotionally distant from each one. He’d been trained in a hard school to think of his country before anything else.
Yet now he’d been ambushed by a hunger that clamoured to take a woman hot-bloodedly and without finesse, loosen control and let mindless white-hot passion ride him to satiety.
A photographer, for God’s sake! And sniffing around now, at the very worst of times. One hint of publicity and the desperate men he’d met last night would disappear out of New Zealand and back into their tropical jungle, and more people would die, more children would grow up uneducated, knowing only war and famine and disease.
And Guy, his younger cousin, could well lose his life.
With a quick, savage flick of his fingers he turned the shower onto full, and when that didn’t tame his rampant body he punched the palm of one hand with a clenched fist and fought the dangerous frustration with hard common sense.
Where had he seen those astonishing eyes before, so pale they were almost transparent, their colour a violent contrast to her warm Mediterranean colouring of creamy skin and copper hair?
A knock on the door brought his head up. ‘What is it?’ he asked with harsh precision.
‘A message, sir,’ his private secretary said urgently. ‘The one you’ve been waiting for.’
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
