‘Tell me who you are and why you are attempting to break into the palace.’
She paused at that. So he hadn’t recognised her yet. Surely if he was a kidnapper he would have come here knowing the faces of the royal family. Although it was dark, she supposed. Her choices were limited. She had no panic buttons down here—no guards within shouting distance.
She needed to get away.
She turned her head towards the door, breathing a little faster with anticipation as his shrewd gaze followed the movement and he saw the sliver of light coming through the gap.
‘You managed to find a way inside, I see,’ he said with surprise. ‘Come on, then. Let’s see what you were after, shall we?’
He held her forearm tightly, dragging her behind him up the steps and into the lavish dressing room. Her eyes adjusted quickly once again, to take in the rows and rows of her wardrobes. The room was empty, as it would be for a while, seeing as her staff presumed her to be at the races for the rest of the day.
Olivia gulped hard. She had just led an uncleared intruder right into the heart of the palace.
She took a moment to look at him for the first time in the light.
‘It’s you…’ she breathed, realising it was the man from the racetrack.
To his credit, he also looked momentarily stunned as he took in her face in the light.
He was taller this close—almost an entire foot taller than her five feet three inches. All the self-defence classes in the world wouldn’t give her a hope against such a brute. Dark hair, dark eyes and a jawline that would put Michelangelo’s David to shame. He had a fierce beauty about him—as if he had just stepped off a battlefield somewhere—and he thrummed with vitality.
Her grandmother had always said she watched too many movies. Here she was, in very real danger, and she was romanticising her captor.
‘You have taken a break from saving servants, I see.’ His eyes lowered to take in the coat that covered her cocktail dress. ‘You seem to be a woman of many talents.’
Olivia stayed completely silent as he spoke, knowing the more she said the more chance there was that he would put two and two together and guess her identity. She glanced to her left, searching the room for possible weapons for when the time came to run. If she could find something to kick at him, perhaps…
She looked down at her bare feet, cursing her own stupidity.
‘We are in the south wing,’ he mused, looking around the room. ‘One of the royal apartments. How did you find out about the hidden tunnel?’
She shrugged, looking down at her feet and taking one tentative step away from him while his attention wandered.
‘I saw how you slid down there. You knew exactly what you were doing. Just like you know what you are doing right now.’ He grabbed her arm, stopping her progress.
She couldn’t help herself then—she cursed. A filthy word in Catalan that would make her father blush if he heard her.
The stranger smiled darkly. ‘We’re going to get absolutely nowhere if you don’t speak to me. Why are you here?’ he asked again, releasing her arm and pushing her to sit down in the chair in front of her dressing table.
Exactly where she needed to be.
‘I could ask you the same question,’ she replied, slowly reclining backwards under the pretext of stretching her tender muscles.
‘That’s simple. I’m here for people like you,’ he said simply, crossing his arms and staring down at her.
‘People like me?’ she asked breathlessly, her hand feeling blindly along the dressing table behind her for where she knew an alert button had been placed. She tried to calm her breath and prayed he would not see what she was doing. She felt a smooth round bump and pressed it quickly, holding her breath in case she needed to run.
No sirens sounded…there were no flashing lights. She moved to press it again, only to have his fingers encircle her elbow and place her hands in her lap.
‘Keep your hands where I can see them.’
It was clear this wasn’t going to be over any time soon.
He tilted his head to one side, looking at her in such an intense way it made her toes curl into the carpet under her feet. His eyes lowered, darkening as they swept down her legs.
The way he looked at her, the blatant male appreciation on his striking features, made something seem to uncoil in the pit of her stomach. She felt warm under his gaze and turned her face away in case she blushed.
‘Whomever you think I am, I can tell you now that you are very wrong.’
His answering smile was raking, and made goosebumps break out across her arms.
The stranger bent down so that their faces were level. ‘I think that, whoever you are, beautiful, you are a lot stronger and a lot more dangerous than you seem.’
‘YOU SOUND LIKE quite the expert,’ she purred, her catlike eyes seeming to glow in her pale features.
Roman frowned. ‘I can tell by your eyes that you’re worried about being caught in the act, and yet you mock me.’
‘You’re quite arrogant and you deserve some mocking, I think,’ she replied sweetly.
He fought the urge to laugh at this situation. Here he was, with a thief held captive inside the palace walls, and he was enjoying their verbal sparring too much to make a decision over what to do with her.
He couldn’t simply waltz up to the King’s offices and present him with this gift. Problem one being that the King was out of the palace today, along with the rest of the royal family. Problem two being that the Palace Guard had no idea he would be here today. As far as they were concerned he would be just as much a criminal as the sharp-tongued redhead who sat staring at him as though she’d like to claw his eyes out.
He would have to call Khal and tell him that their plan had encountered a minor diversion. It was no matter, really. He had identified a serious security blind spot and provided the Palace Guard with an attempted burglar to boot. All in all, quite a success.
So why did the thought of handing her over make him feel so uneasy?
He had got where he was by trusting his gut, and right now his gut was telling him that something wasn’t quite right here. That this woman was not all that she seemed. Something made him pause, his brain weighing the situation up piece by piece.
‘You are quite possibly the most ladylike thief I have ever encountered,’ he mused. ‘Do you always go barefoot on a job, or was today an exception?’
‘You assume that I make a habit of this?’ She glared up at him.
‘Correct me, then.’ He held her gaze evenly until she looked away.
