first time they’d gone out she’d heard one tabloid hack shout a question about Jules’s family—specifically how the queen felt about his behaviour. Maddie had asked him about it. He’d shut her down with a snapped response she was sure had been a lie, and reminded her of the ask no questions rule.
The possibility that she’d struck a bargain with a minor royal had triggered unease. Media attention was the last thing she wanted.
Despite needing the money desperately, she’d voiced her concerns. Jules’s suggestion that she wear headphones with the music turned up high to avoid the paparazzi’s questions, and keep her head down to avoid the camera’s flash had worked a treat. After all, she couldn’t answer questions she couldn’t hear.
Maddie was sure that her perceived rudeness had earned her a disparaging label on social media. But the great thing about selling your laptop so you could buy food and using your phone only for emergency calls to avoid expensive bills was the blessed absence of the burden of social media.
So here she was, firmly ensconced in Wonderland, with no inkling of why she was playing pretend girlfriend to a handsome, spoilt, maybe minor royal who travelled with two bodyguards.
She watched him beckon one of them. Jules whispered in his ear, then loudly ordered another half-dozen bottles of Dom Perignon as the young guard headed to the back of the nightclub.
In the gleeful melee that followed the arrival of more booze, very few people noticed Jules following his bodyguard.
The sudden realisation that she’d aligned herself with a man who was headed down the same path of addiction as her father was enough to propel Maddie to her feet. She wasn’t sure exactly how she would deal with Jules Montagne if she caught him taking drugs, but her burning anger and anxiety couldn’t be contained.
She was halfway across the floor when a commotion by the front doors caught her attention.
Except it wasn’t a commotion. It was more a force of nature invading the onyx-and-chrome interior of the Soho nightclub.
Two bodyguards, taller, sharper and burlier than the ones who followed Jules around, parted the crowd.
The man who sauntered forward and paused under a golden spotlight nearly caused Maddie to swallow her tongue.
Frozen in place, she stared unashamedly, certain that the faint tendrils of artificial smoke and strobe lighting were causing her to hallucinate the sheer magnificence of the god-like creature before her.
But no.
He was flesh.
The quiet fury and electric energy blanketing him clearly transmitted through the muscle ticking in his jaw.
He was blood.
Royal blood, if the arrogant, regal authority with which he carried himself and the further four bodyguards who formed a semi-circular barrier around him were any indication.
There was something vaguely familiar about him, although where she could possibly have caught a glimpse before of that square, rugged jaw, those haughty cut-glass cheekbones or those sinfully sensual lips eluded her.
Eyes like polished silver gleamed beneath slashed dark brows, scanning the crowd as he continued to prowl through the semi-dark space.
As he drew closer Maddie knew she should look away. Not out of shame or discomfort, but out of sheer self-preservation. He radiated enough sensual volatility to urge her to avoid direct eye contact. To take herself out of his magnetising orbit before she was swallowed up in his vortex.
And yet she couldn’t make her feet move. In fact she was fairly sure her lungs had stopped working too, now she was witnessing the way he moved. Like a jungle cat on the prowl... Each step a symphony of grace and symmetry and power.
Utterly absorbing.
Infinitely hypnotic.
She was unashamedly gawking when his eyes locked on her. For a fistful of heartbeats he stared.
Hard. Intense. Ice-hot.
Then with long strides he zeroed in on her. His scent invaded her senses as powerfully as the man himself. He smelled of ice and earth, elemental to the core and so utterly unique she could have stood there breathing him in for an eternity, her sore ribs be damned.
‘Where is he?’ he breathed, and the sound was electrifying enough to send skitters of stinging awareness over her skin.
Whether by some silent command, or simply because everyone in the room knew they were in the presence of greatness, the volume of the music had dropped. That was the reason she heard him and knew that his voice was deep and accented, resulting in sensually wrapped words that triggered a yearning to hear him speak again just for the hell of it.
Maddie knew that would never happen. When this man spoke it was for immediate and masterful effect, no extraneous words necessary.
Seconds passed. His nostrils flared slightly. She realised she hadn’t answered.
‘I...’ She swallowed hard. ‘Where is...? Who do you mean?’
‘The man you’re here with. Jules—’
‘What are you doing here?’
The snapped question from Jules held anger, panic and defiance, slicing through Maddie’s comprehension that the stranger—whoever he was—knew her, knew she was with Jules.
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead he studied Jules from head to toe, causing him to fidget and adjust his ruffled clothes.
‘What did you think would happen when you refused to answer your summons?’ he asked icily. ‘Did you think your activities would be allowed to continue unchecked?’
Jules opened his mouth, but the other man stopped him with a wave of his elegant hand that would have been poetic had it not been filled with foreboding.
‘I will not have this conversation with you here, while you’re in this state. Come to my hotel tomorrow morning. We will have breakfast together.’
Each statement was a stern directive, permitting neither disagreement nor disobedience.
It rubbed Jules the wrong way. His chin jutted out. ‘Pas possible. I have plans in the morning.’
Low thunder rumbled across the stranger’s face. ‘According to your assistant, the only thing you have scheduled is sleeping off your hangover. You will be present, in my suite, at 9:00 a.m. sharp. Is that understood?’
They faced off for less than ten seconds, but it felt like an hour.
Jules’s abrupt nod bordered on the insolent, but at the piercing, relentless regard directed towards him his head dropped the way a dog’s might when confronted with its disobedience by its master.
The older man stared down at him for another long stretch before his eyes slid sideways to the usually raucous group Jules partied with, who were now respectfully, watchfully silent.
Then his gaze switched to Maddie. He took his
