slumping, she unlatched the lock and allowed the porter in to collect her bag. ‘Thank you. I’ll meet you downstairs.’ Luciana pulled a two-hundred-euro note from her jacket pocket and conjured up a sweet smile. Feminine wiles and all that.
‘The back door, okay?’
His boyish grin told her she was in the clear and she grabbed her handbag and scarpered from the room.
Down in the private elevator she went. Out through the back exit and into a frosty evening that nipped her cheeks.
The door of the limousine was an open invitation and Luciana sank into the plush leather, not wasting one vital moment. ‘Can you take me to the Altiport, please? Fast as you can.’
The door slammed shut with a heavy clunk.
The locks clicked into place.
‘Sure thing, lady.’
Lady? Frowning, she glanced up into the rearview mirror to see a peculiar pair of deep-set titanium-grey eyes staring back at her.
Luciana’s blood curdled in her veins.
Then that voice—as brutal and vicious as the thrash of a whip—sliced through the leather-scented cabin, its deadly effect severing her air supply.
‘We meet again, Princess of Arunthia.’
Vaulting backwards in her seat, she crushed herself into the corner and scoured the dim recesses of the car, her heart thudding a panicked tempo.
Black sapphire eyes glittering as starkly as the stars in the Courchevel sky, he raised one devilish dark brow and said, scathingly, ‘Did you really think I would allow you to turn your back on me a second time, Luciana? Disappear into the night once more? How very foolish of you.’
Dressed from head to foot in a bespoke black Italian suit, he lounged like an insolent predator—a sleek panther perusing his kill.
‘Well, let us get one thing perfectly clear right now. This time you will not walk away from me.’
SHE COULDN’T MOVE. Not one muscle.
‘This time you will not walk away from me.’
What did he mean by that? Did she have to wait until he walked away from her? How long was that going to take? An hour? A day?
If she didn’t start breathing she’d never find out.
Luciana yanked her focus dead ahead in order to stitch up the tattered remnants of her composure. She couldn’t do that and look at him at the same time. It was futile. The mere sight of him, dangerous and dominating, skewed her equilibrium and turned her brain to mush.
The privacy glass rose up before her, sending her heart slamming around her ribcage. For a second she toyed with the idea of launching herself from the car, but then remembered the locks had snapped into place. A moment later the limousine began to rock down the steep incline from the lodge and the risk of hyperventilating became a distinct possibility.
Breathe, Luce, for heaven’s sake breathe. He probably just wants to talk on the way to the Altiport.
Why, oh, why hadn’t she looked at which car she was getting into? She was supposed to be avoiding trouble. Being good. The refined, beyond reproach, virtuous Queen she was born to be. She could already hear her mother… So reckless, Luciana. So unthinking.
She let loose a shaky exhalation, then took a deep lungful of air. And another. Then seriously wished she hadn’t. His audacious dark bergamot and amber scent wrapped around her senses like a narcotic, intensely potent and drugging as it swirled up into her brain, making her vision blur. Her entire body wept with want.
How did he still do this to her? After all this time? How? It was as if he engulfed her in his power, lured her in with his black magic. Well, any more of his lethal brand of masculinity and she’d be done for.
Clearing her throat, she straightened in her seat. With far more sangfroid and bravado than she felt, she said, ‘Why am I here? What exactly is it you want from me?’
Seconds ticked by and he didn’t so much as murmur. Merely allowed the atmosphere to stretch taut. And, since she was hanging on to the very last fraying threads of her control, it didn’t take her long to snap.
Up came her head—big mistake as she realised too late it was exactly what he’d been waiting for, what he wanted: her full attention, total control over this…whatever this was. His gaze crashed into hers. Unerringly. Mercilessly.
Oh, Lord.
Overwhelming anguish held her in stasis as her every thought fled and she allowed her treacherous heart to devour the dark beauty that was Prince Thane.
Devastating—that was what he was. Bewitching her with that breathtaking aura of danger. Those high, wide slashing cheekbones and obsidian eyes framed with thick decadent inky lashes. That chiselled jaw that was smothered in a seriously sexy short beard. On anyone else it would be labelled designer stubble. But this was Thane and he wasn’t vain in the least. Or he hadn’t been. In truth, she’d been amazed at just how clueless to his gorgeous looks he was.
His hair was longer, she noticed. Dishevelled was a ridiculously romantic word for the mussed-up glossy black hair that fell in a tumble to flick his shoulders, one side swept back and tucked behind his ear. Unkempt, maybe. Hideously long… But she kind of liked it. Craved to run her fingers through it. Had to fist her hands to stop herself from doing just that.
The dim interior lighting camouflaged his facial scars but she remembered every one. The slash in his top lip, just shy of the full cupid’s bow. The second, enhancing the sensuous, kissable divot in his chin. Another slicing into the outer corner of his left eyebrow.
Her throat grew tight, swelling in sadness and hurt for him. Just as it had five years ago. Not that he’d ever talked to her about them. The one time she’d asked he’d shut down so hard it had taken her sitting astride his lap wearing nothing but lace panties to tease him out of it.
Ah, Luce, don’t remember. Don’t.
His tongue sneaked out and he briefly licked his lips, but otherwise he remained still, watching…waiting…his sensationally dynamic body vibrating with dark power. And she clutched her handbag tighter still, fingers burying into the leather—
Whether it was the feel of her phone poking through the side of her bag or the sudden realisation that the car was at a standstill she wasn’t sure, but she crashed back to earth with a thud.
The car had actually stopped!
Luciana shuffled on her bottom to peek out of the window and saw the huge security gates of the lodge swing open in front of the car. Electronic operation. Unmanned. Drat.
Twisting the other way, she grasped the cushioned leather and peeked out of the back window, her eyes widening as she spied her bellboy, still at the top of the drive, waving for her attention, with her case in his hand.
