there will go away.”
The knock came again. “Your Highness?” Athenia’s voice was thin and apologetic. “Your mother is on the phone. She asks if you and Keeria Santos would come by a few minutes early.”
Alex pressed his forehead to Maria’s. “Yes,” he called, “all right. Tell the queen we’ll be there as soon as we can.” He waited until he was sure the housekeeper was gone. Until he could move without disgracing himself. Then he sat up. “We’ll finish this later,” he started to say, but Maria had already rolled away from him and risen to her feet. Her face was white except for two spots of crimson high on her cheeks.
“Is that how you get your women, Your Highness? By taking advantage of them when they’re asleep?”
Her voice shook with indignation. Hell, he was shaking, too, but with thwarted desire.
“You know that isn’t how it was.”
“What I know,” she said, the words laced with accusation, “is that I woke up and found you all over me!”
He stood and faced her, caught between equal parts of anger and frustration.
“Liar,” he said in a low voice.
She turned her back. He grasped her shoulder and swung her toward him.
“What’s the matter, glyka mou? Don’t you like it when the tables are turned? When you’re not in control of the situation?”
“All right,” she snapped. “You made your point. You—you got me to—to give in to you. Are you satisfied now?”
He gave a sharp, ugly laugh. “We have a long way to go until I’m satisfied, sweetheart.”
The crimson drained from her face. “How can you do this?”
It was, he thought, an excellent question.
Despite everything, he was not a man who would ever take an unwilling woman to bed. That was part of the problem, when he came down to it. Maria said she didn’t want him but each time he took her in his arms, she turned that into a lie. Or did she?
Was she still playing him? Was she using him now, even as he was determined to use her? And how could he tell himself that was what he was doing when the truth was he had never wanted a woman as he wanted her and—be honest, Karedes—and revenge or payback, whatever name he gave his supposed motivation, had zero to do with what he felt once she was in his arms.
He turned away from her. Ran his hand through his thick, dark hair.
He was a man who had always prided himself on logic. On self-discipline. And right now, hell, who was he kidding? Ever since the night he’d first met this woman, logic and self-discipline had gone by the wayside.
Maybe it was enough to admit that he wanted her still, and that at the end of a month she would be out of his system. Damned right, she would, he thought grimly, and he turned and faced her again.
“I suggest you return to the house,” he said brusquely. “One of the maids has unpacked your suitcase. You have—” He glanced at his watch. “You have twenty minutes to get ready and then we leave for the palace.”
Her chin came up. “Where has your devoted slave put my things?”
Thee mou, she enraged him! He wanted to shake her. Or strip her naked and show her who was in charge here.
“Your clothes are where they belong,” he snapped. “In my room. We have an agreement, Ms. Santos, that says you are to fulfill your required duties in their entirety, or have you conveniently forgotten that?”
She gave him a withering look. “How could I forget what is sure to be the worst agreement of my life?”
It was, Maria thought, a fine line.
But the Prince of Arrogance only laughed, and that was the sound that followed her all the way to the house.
WHAT did you wear to dine with royalty?
Probably nothing she’d packed, Maria thought unhappily as she followed Athenia to Alex’s bedroom.
Bedroom? Could you call a room this size a bedroom? It was bigger than her loft. Polished wood floors. Handmade rugs. A cathedral ceiling. Skylights. A wall of glass and, beyond it, a terrace and the pool that seemed to hang suspended over the bay.
And a bed.
A bed centered beneath the skylights, elevated on a raised platform, covered by a black silk comforter and a sea of black and white pillows as if it were a stage set.
“Madam will find her things hung in the dressing room.”
Maria swung toward Athenia. “Yes. I—I—Thank you.”
“Everything has been pressed, keeria, to your liking, I hope.”
“Thank you,” she said again. They seemed the only words she could manage.
The housekeeper smiled politely and shut the door behind her. Maria waited a couple of seconds, then turned the lock. She leaned back against the door, shut her eyes and inhaled deeply.
It was a handsome room. Hell, it was a magnificent room. And that bed…
Do not look at that bed, Maria. Do not even think about it.
She would not. She would shower and dress. She had twenty minutes. Not much time, but enough. Actually, she never took longer than that to get ready for a date. Except, this wasn’t a date. It was business. Business to be conducted at a palace.
She’d seen the palace—from the outside, anyway—the last time she was here.
It made Buckingham Palace look small.
“That’s it,” she whispered. “Work yourself into a panic. That’s going to be a huge help!” Spine straight, she ignored the bed and marched across the room. This was an important night.
Indeed, it was. At the end of it, Alex was going to make love to her.
Maria rolled her eyes. It was stupid to let her thoughts wander. Of course, tonight was important. She had the commission; now, she had to make sure she had the hearts and minds of her clients.
Her clients. The king of Aristo and his queen. She’d come a long way from the phony Frenchman of L’Orangerie.
The dressing room made her laugh. Add some plumbing and most Manhattan residents would have happily called it an apartment. And there were her things, on a rack all by themselves, surrounded by other racks filled with men’s clothes. Alex’s clothes.
And no, she was not going to think about that now. Dinner was everything. It had to go well.
Her clothes, as Athenia had told her, had been pressed,
