to herself.
‘Here.’ Raul opened the briefcase Lukas had brought. ‘Here’s your grandfather’s will and your family tree.’
He’d planned for his secretary, Lukas, to take her through this. But he’d changed his mind the moment he saw Luisa Hardwicke and how unprepared she was for this role. Better do this himself. The fewer who dealt with her at this early stage the better.
Raul suppressed a grimace. What had begun as a delicate mission now had unlimited potential for disaster. Imagine the headlines if the press saw her as she was! He wouldn’t allow the Maritzian crown to be the focus of rabid media gossip again. Especially at this difficult time.
He strode round the table and spread the papers before her.
She shifted in her seat as if his presence contaminated her. Raul stiffened. Women were usually eager to get close.
‘Here’s your mother.’ He modulated his tone reassuringly. ‘Above her, your grandfather, the last prince.’
She lifted her head from examining the family tree. Again the impact of that bright gaze hit him. He’d swear he felt it like a rumbling echo inside his chest.
‘Why isn’t my uncle inheriting? Or my cousin, Marissa?’
‘You’re the last of your family.’
Her brow puckered. ‘She must have been so young. That’s awful.’
‘Yes.’ The accident was a tragic waste of life. And it altered the succession.
She shook her head. ‘But I’m not part of the family! My mother was disinherited when she fell in love with an Australian and refused to marry the man her father chose.’
She knew about that? Did that explain her animosity?
‘Your grandfather blustered but he never disinherited her. We only discovered that recently when his will was read.’ The Prince of Ardissia had been an irascible tartar but he had too much pride in his bloodline to cut off a direct descendant. ‘You’re definitely eligible to inherit.’
How much easier life would be if she weren’t!
If there were no Ardissian princess he wouldn’t be in this appalling situation.
‘I tell you it’s impossible!’ She leaned forward, her brow pleating as she scanned the papers.
The scent of lavender wafted to him. Raul inhaled, intrigued. He was used to the perfectly balanced notes of the most expensive perfumes. Yet this simple fragrance was strangely appealing.
‘It can’t be right.’ She spoke again. ‘He disinherited me too. We were told so!’
Startled, he looked down to find her eyes blazing up at him. Her chin was angled in the air and for the first time there was colour in her cheeks.
She looked … pretty. In an unsophisticated way.
And she knew more than he’d expected. Fascinating.
‘Despite what you were told, you’re his heiress. You inherit his fortune and responsibilities.’ He summoned an encouraging smile. ‘I’ve come to take you home.’
‘Home?’ Luisa shot to her feet, the chair screeching across the floor. ‘This is my home! I belong here.’ She gestured to the cosy kitchen she’d known all her life.
She fought a sense of unreality. This had to be an appalling mistake.
From the moment he’d mentioned Ardissia and Maritz bitter recollection had cramped her belly and clouded her brain. It had taken a superhuman effort to hear him out.
‘Not any more.’ Across the scrubbed table he smiled.
He really was unbelievably good-looking.
Until you looked into those cool eyes. Had he thought her too unaware to notice his smile didn’t reach his eyes?
‘You’ve got a new life ahead of you. Your world will change for ever.’ His smile altered, became somehow more intimate, and to her surprise Luisa felt a trickle of unfamiliar warmth spread through her body.
How had that happened?
‘You’ll have wealth, position, prestige—the best of everything. You’ll live a life of luxury, as a princess.’
A princess.
The words reverberated in Luisa’s skull. Nausea rose.
At sixteen she’d heard those same words. It had been like a dream come true. What girl wouldn’t be excited to discover a royal bloodline and a doting grandfather promising a life of excitement and privilege?
Luisa’s heart clutched as she remembered her mother, pale but bravely smiling, seated at this table, telling her she had to make up her own mind about her future. Saying that, though she’d turned her back on that life, it was Luisa’s choice if she wanted to discover her birthright.
And, like the innocent she was, Luisa had gone. Lured by the fairy tale fantasy of a picture book kingdom.
Reality had been brutally different. By the time she’d rejected what her grandfather offered and made her own way home, she’d been only too grateful he hadn’t publicly presented her as his kin. That he’d kept her a cloistered guest during her ‘probation’ period. Only her closest family knew she’d ever been tempted by the old man’s false promises of a joyful family reunion.
She’d been naïve but no more.
Now she knew too much about the ugly reality of that aristocratic society, where birth and connections mattered more than love and common decency. If her grandfather’s actions hadn’t been enough, she only had to recall the man she’d thought she’d loved. How he’d schemed to seduce her when he realised her secret identity. All because of his ambition.
Luisa’s stomach heaved and she reached out blindly for the table, shaking her head to clear the nightmarish recollections.
‘I don’t want to be a princess.’
Silence. Slowly she turned. Prince Raul’s hooded eyes were wide, impatience obliterated by shock.
‘You can’t be serious,’ he said finally, his voice thickening with that appealing accent.
‘Believe me, I was never more so.’
Revulsion filled Luisa as she remembered her grandfather. He’d invited her to join him so he could groom her into the sort of princess he wanted. To do his bidding without question. To be the sort his daughter had failed to be.
At first Luisa had been blind to the fact he merely wanted a pawn to manipulate, not a granddaughter to love.
He’d shown his true colours when news arrived of her mother’s terminal illness. He’d refused Luisa’s tearful, desperate pleas to return. Instead he’d issued an ultimatum—that she break off all contact with her parents or give up her new life. As for Luisa’s begging that he fund
