Swiftly Luisa turned to grab a glass. She gulped down cold water, hoping to restore a semblance of normality. She felt as if she’d been wrung inside out.
Finally she willed her scrambled thoughts into order. It didn’t help that she sensed Prince Raul’s gaze skewer her like an insect on a pin.
Setting her jaw, she turned.
He leaned against the dresser, arms folded and one ankle casually resting on the other. He looked unattainably sexy and a little scary. His brow was furrowed as if something perplexed him, but that only emphasised the strength of his features.
‘When you’ve had time to absorb the news, you’ll see going to Maritz is the sensible thing.’
‘Thank you, but I’ve already absorbed the news.’ Did he have any idea how patronising he sounded? Annoyance sizzled in her blood.
He didn’t move but his big body was no longer relaxed. His folded arms with their bunched muscles drew her eyes. Suddenly he looked predatory rather than suavely elegant.
Her skin prickled.
‘The money doesn’t tempt you?’ His mouth compressed. Obviously he thought money outweighed everything else.
Just like her grandfather and his cronies.
Luisa opened her mouth, then snapped it shut as her dazed brain cells finally revved into action.
Money!
In her shock that hadn’t even registered. She thought of the looming debts, repairs they’d postponed, Sam’s outdated milking machine and her own rattletrap car. The list was endless.
‘How much money?’ She wanted nothing of the high society position. But the cash.
The prince unfolded his arms and named a sum that made her head spin. She braced herself against the table.
‘When do I get it?’ Her voice was scratchy with shock.
Did she imagine a flash of satisfaction in those dark green eyes?
‘You’re princess whether you use the title or not. Nothing can alter that.’ He paused. ‘But there are conditions on inheriting your wealth. You must settle in Maritz and take up your royal obligations.’
Luisa’s shoulders slumped. What he suggested was impossible. She’d rejected that world for her own sanity. Accepting would be a betrayal of herself and all she held dear.
‘I can’t.’
‘Of course you can. I’ll make the arrangements.’
‘Don’t you listen?’ Luisa gripped the table so hard her bones ached. ‘I’m not going!’ Life in that cold, cruel society would kill her. ‘This is my home. My roots are here.’
He shook his head, straightening to stand tall and imposing. The room shrank and despite her anger she felt his formidable magnetism tug at her.
‘You have roots in Maritz too. What have you got here but hard work and poverty? In my country you’ll have a privileged life, mixing in the most elite circles.’
How he sounded like her snobbish grandfather.
‘I prefer the circles I mix in.’ Fire skirled in her belly at his condescension. ‘The people I love are here.’
He scowled. ‘A man?’ He took a step closer and, involuntarily, Luisa retreated a pace before the fierce light in his eyes.
‘No, my friends. And my father’s brother and his wife.’ Sam and Mary, almost a generation older than Luisa’s parents, had been like doting grandparents through her sunny childhood and the darkest days. She wouldn’t leave them, ageing and in debt, for a glamorous, empty life far away.
The sharp-eyed man before her didn’t look impressed.
Had her grandfather once looked like Prince Raul? Proud, determined, good-looking and boy, didn’t he know it!
Standing there, radiating impatience, Raul embodied everything she’d learned to despise.
Determination surged anew.
‘Thank you for coming to tell me in person.’ She drew herself up, level with his proud chin, and folded his papers with quick, precise movements. ‘But you’ll have to find someone else to inherit.’ She breathed deep. ‘I’ll see you out.’
Raul’s mouth tightened as the chopper lifted.
Thrilled! Luisa Hardwicke had been anything but. Just as well he’d told her only about her inheritance, not the more challenging aspects of her new role. She’d been so skittish it was wiser to break that news later.
He’d never met a more stubborn woman. She’d all but thrown him out!
Indignation danced in his veins and tightened his fists.
Something motivated her that he didn’t know about. He needed to discover what it was. More, he had to discover the trigger that would make her change her mind.
For an instant back there he’d been tempted simply to kidnap her. The blood of generations of warriors and robber barons as well as monarchs flowed in his veins. It would have been easy to scoop her up in his arms and sequester her till she saw reason. So satisfying.
An image of Luisa Hardwicke filled his mind. She stared defiantly up with flashing cerulean eyes.
Raul recalled her shirt lifting when she reached for a glass, revealing her lusciously curved bottom in snug jeans. The feminine shape outlined by her shirt when she moved. A shape at odds with his original impression.
Fire streaked through Raul’s belly.
Perhaps there would be compensations after all.
Luisa Hardwicke had a wholesome prettiness that appealed far more than it ought. He’d made it his business these last eight years to surround himself only with glamorous, sophisticated women who understood his needs.
He grimaced, facing a truth he rarely acknowledged. That if he’d once had a weakness it had been for the sort of forthright honesty and fresh openness she projected.
The sort he’d once believed in.
Sordid reality had cured him of any such frailty. Yet being with her was like hearing an echo of his past, remembering fragments of dreams he’d once held. Dreams now shattered beyond repair by deceit and betrayal.
And, despite his indignation, he responded to her pride, her pluck.
It was an inconvenience that complicated his plans. Yet perversely he admired the challenge she represented. What a change from the compliant, eager women he knew! In other circumstances he’d applaud her stance.
Besides, he saw now, a spineless nonentity would never have been suitable for what was to come. Or so surprisingly appealing.
Raul tugged his mind back to
