his bloodstream.
Who is she?
He had never seen her before—no woman that stunning would have escaped his eye.
He realised she was gazing at him, stopped in her tracks just as he was. For a moment—an enjoyably adrenaline-fuelled moment—Leon allowed himself the pleasure of meeting her gaze full-on, letting her see just how pleasurable it was for him to look at her...
Then, abruptly, her eyes peeled away from his and he saw colour flare across her high-cut cheekbones. Dipping her head, she hurried forward, veering around him to dive into the waiting elevator behind him. He gave a low laugh. Whoever she was, if she had joined the entourage of the Grand Duke, in whatever capacity, he would at some point see her again. And that would suit him very well...
His thoughts cut out. Realisation slammed into him. Hell, no, it would not suit him to see the breathtaking blonde again!
Taking an incised breath, he strode forward again, heading for the door of the royal suite. The breathtaking blonde, whoever she was, could be no concern of his. He had a princess to woo...
ELLIE SLUMPED BACK against the wall of the elevator car, feeling weak. Her heart was thumping like a sledgehammer. Oh, sweet heaven, what had just happened?
She had issued from her father’s suite and, without the slightest warning that it was about to happen, had all but rushed right into the most devastating male she had ever set eyes on in her life...
Talk about tall, dark and handsome!
She felt weakness flush through her again, her heart-rate quicken. It had lasted only a handful of moments—a silent gasp from her, a sweep of night-dark eyes. That was all she’d needed to take in his Savile-Row-tailoring, his six-foot-plus height, broad shoulders and lean hips, his planed features... And those night-dark eyes, looking her over, liking what he was seeing, making no secret of it.
She shook her head angrily, as if to dissipate the after-burn on her retinas. Oh, what did it matter who that man had been? She had far more important things to think about.
Disbelief was still uppermost—surely her sister was just imagining what she’d told her? That some unknown Greek billionaire thought he could marry her? It was outrageous—just outrageous!
She’s upset, that’s all. Upset, shocked and distraught after what has happened.
And then she remembered what Marika had gone on to say.
‘I’m in love with someone else!’
Ellie heard her sister’s tearful voice as the elevator plummeted to ground level. And when she’d learned just who it was that Marika was in love with, her heart had sunk yet further.
A man Marika’s parents would never allow her to marry...
Leon was bowing over the Grand Duchess’s regally outstretched hand.
‘Herr Dukaris.’ She smiled with an air of stately graciousness, her Germanic accent courtesy of her long lineage of Austrian aristocracy.
‘Highness...’ Leon intoned dutifully, having already made a brief bow to the Grand Duke.
He himself did not stand on ceremony, but what was the point of paying the exorbitant bills of European royalty if he did not acknowledge royal protocol? After all, either they were royal, and marrying into their family would set the glittering seal on his worldly success, or they were simply penniless refugees in a turbulent world, seeking a new life in a less troubled spot.
His eyes went to the royal couple’s daughter. She looked drawn and anxious, and Leon could understand why. Two weeks ago she’d been a princess in a fairy-tale castle in a fairy-tale realm—now she was just a penniless young woman with no prospects other than those an accident of birth had conferred upon her.
Well, if he did marry her, her fortunes would be restored and she would smile again.
He let his gaze rest on the princess with a warmth he hoped she might find encouraging. She was, he acknowledged, very attractive in her own way, with soft features and dark eyes, dark hair and a tender mouth. Yet before he could stop himself memory flashed in his head of that fleeting encounter just now in the penthouse lobby. Now, if that stunning blonde had been the woman now sitting beside the graciously smiling Grand Duchess...
He tore his inappropriate thoughts away again, warming his smile for Princess Marika. But she remained stubbornly woebegone, as if his smiling alarmed her. He gave an inward frown. But then the Grand Duke was relating, with understandable schadenfreude, how the new regime in his homeland was having difficulty getting endorsement from other governments.
‘Perhaps when there has been an election, as promised?’ Leon ventured.
It was the wrong thing to say.
A snort came from the Grand Duke. ‘A stage-managed, propaganda-fuelled plebiscite in order to elect a dictator! That’s all it will be!’
Leon made no reply. Like too many small countries in that highly volatile area of Europe, Karylya was a complicated cocktail of historic rivalries that still ran deep, despite the duchy’s new prosperity as a financial hub for the emerging economies of the former Eastern Bloc. ‘The Luxembourg of Central Europe’—that was the way the country was usually described, which was why he’d visited the place last summer.
And thereby made the personal acquaintance of the royal family and the princess...
His eyes rested on her now, their expression veiled, his thoughts inward. Was he seriously thinking of marrying Princess Marika?
Again the image of that breathtaking blonde out in the lobby fleeted across his consciousness. How could he be considering marriage to one woman if he was still capable of having his attention caught by another one?
Wariness filled him suddenly. Though he would never declare love for a woman, he would never be disloyal to any woman he married. Not like his despised father.
Where his father was now, he had no idea—and he did not want to know. His boyish idealisation of his father, his wanting only to grow up like him, had crashed and burnt to ashes the day he’d deserted him and his mother. His father had put his own selfish interests first, abandoning his heartbroken wife, making a mockery of all those endless romantic declarations of eternal love—and abandoning his own son, betraying his paternal responsibility towards him. Thinking only of himself.
He dragged his thoughts back to the present. Whatever he decided to do now, he must not, out of decency, lead the princess or her parents to hope he would offer for her and then not.
I have to decide.
But to decide meant getting to know her better—and that, after all, was what he was doing here in the Grand Duke’s suite.
‘I was wondering, Highness,’ he said now, addressing Princess Marika’s
