call it like I see it,’ she shot back, refusing to apologise for the outburst or the terminology she’d resorted to.
His eyes narrowed, his expression hardening. ‘So I noticed. I can see your mood was not improved by the delay. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I was unavoidably detained.’
‘You were detained?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Who are you trying to kid. It was me who was detained, prevented by your goons from taking off, and threatened with arrest if I didn’t go along with their plans. I’m the one who’s been detained for hours, held here against my will, and now my helicopter’s been stolen—’
‘It hasn’t been stolen.’
‘It’s gone! Someone’s taken it without my permission. I call that stolen.’
‘It’s been sent back to base. You’re not the only one who can fly a helicopter.’
‘Oh? And that’s supposed to make everything okay? I was due back with that helicopter. Instead I’ve been locked inside this prison you call a palace. Well, I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.’
Sienna launched herself across the room, aiming for the door he must have come through, figuring that one at least might still be unlocked, when his hand snaked out and took hold of her forearm, using her momentum to spin her back around.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’
The words were a whisper but deadly sure in their intent. She looked down at the hand burning a brand into her flesh, then up to his face, and almost wished she hadn’t. His eyes, once filled with passion and longing and desire for her, now harsh and flat and so cold that she shivered.
‘And if I don’t want to stay?’
‘You’ll stay.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because I want you to.’
The unexpected words sounded like they’d been ground through his teeth, their intensity rocking her to the soles of her feet so that she felt herself sway towards him, as if drawn by some invisible thread. Drawing her so close that his masculine scent wrapped around her and drew her even closer. She’d dreamt of such a moment, on countless sleep-elusive nights, and in pointless daydream wishes. Wished it long and hard, even after she’d seen the news reports declaring that Rafe was indeed the new Prince of Montvelatte, and realising it could never be so.
But she was here now… She searched his face, his eyes, looking for the truth, trying to discover what it meant.
And then damned herself for hoping, straightening suddenly, her back once again rigid and set. This was the man who’d thrown her out of his room and his life without so much as a goodbye once before. There was no way she’d give him the chance to do it again.
‘And that matters to me because?’ She wrenched her arm from his grasp. ‘No, thanks. I’m leaving. And if you won’t arrange my departure, I’ll damn well find a way out of this hellhole myself.’
‘You’re not leaving.’ It wasn’t a question. It was a bald statement of fact and it used up the last remaining shred of patience Sienna had.
‘Who the hell do you think you are to tell me what I can and cannot do? They make you a prince and suddenly you think you’re the ruler of the universe? Well, let me tell you, Rafe, or Raphael or whatever it is you like to call yourself now, you’re not my prince. I didn’t vote for you!’
Silence followed her words, so thick and heavy that she wished away the thump of her heart lest he hear it and read too much into it.
She was angry.
Furious.
Nothing more.
And then, totally unexpectedly, he threw back his head and laughed, really laughed, deep and loud. So deep that it was too much and cut her right where it shouldn’t hurt and yet still did. So deep that she took advantage of his lack of attention and decided to make good her escape.
She didn’t get far.
‘Sienna,’ he said, as his hands trapped her shoulders and collected her in, pulling her around until she faced him, and holding her close. So close than the room shrank until it was just his scent that surrounded her, coiling into her all over again. So close that she had to shut her eyes to block out the sight of the triangle of skin exposed by the undone-at-the-collar shirt, a patch of skin her mouth knew intimately.
‘Let me go,’ she protested, squirming in his arms, lashing out at her gaoler while the prick of tears was dangerously close. ‘Stop laughing at me!’
‘I wasn’t laughing at you,’ he said, with such conviction that she stopped thrashing about and dared open her eyes. And what they met was a gaze so intense and fathomless that she felt it resonate to the soles of her feet. She watched his eyes drift purposefully southwards, felt their heat on her lips before it was the touch of a finger she felt there. She gasped, her lips parting with the shock of it, and dragged in air laced with the very essence of him. ‘Do you know how long it is since I’ve had someone really disagree with me?’
She wavered, thrown off balance by this sudden change in mood and by the electricity generated by his touch. But only for a moment. She knew what charm the man possessed—hadn’t it succeeded in getting her into his bed that first fateful time, even after she’d tried everything she knew to put him off? She couldn’t afford to let him through her barriers a second time.
Even so, it took everything she possessed to muster a defence. She stiffened in his arms, determined to be resolute.
‘Ten minutes? Fifteen at the outside. Surprise me.’
His smile widened, as if delighted by her response, rather than irritated by it as she’d intended. ‘Here I am surrounded by advisers and counsel but not one person has dared to disagree with me since that night I learned I was to become Montvelatte’s ruler.’ He looked down at her, smoothed a wayward tendril of hair from her brow, the touch of his fingers setting fire to nerve endings under her skin. ‘Not until today when you blew back into my life like a breath of fresh air.’
His words flowed like liquid promise through her veins, spreading warmth and hope and all the things she’d missed in these past few weeks, all the things she’d known even back then she had no right to, all the things she had even less right to now. It was exactly the way he’d lured her into their previous affair, by telling her she was different, that she was special. By making her feel special.
And look how that had ended.
Bitterness spiked in her gut, lending her new strength. Sienna shook her head, shrugging off his hand and twisting out of his reach. ‘I can imagine how much it must gall you being surrounded by sycophants,’ she shot back. ‘Now, is there a telephone or some other means of communication I can use to contact my employer and make arrangements for blowing right out of here again?’
To her surprise he let her go this time, and she edged cautiously away, forcing herself not to bolt in case those manacles he called hands locked down on her once again. She skirted the intricately carved lounge suite that held pride of place in the centre of the room in front of a majestic fireplace, all the while scanning the room’s contents for a telephone she might have missed earlier, while
