by Dani Collins
Amy’s distant assumption when she had recognized Luca was that she would be tasked with finessing some remnant of Luca’s father’s libidinous reputation. Or perhaps shore up the cracks in the new king’s image since there were rumors he was struggling under the weight of his new position.
Even so... “To the best of my knowledge, your image is spotless. Why would you want a scandal?”
“Have I hired you?” Luca demanded, pointing at the slip of paper. “Am I fully protected under client confidentiality agreements?”
She opened her mouth, struggling to articulate a response as her mind leaped to her five-year plan. If she accepted this assignment, she could reject the trust fund that was supposed to come to her when she turned thirty in eighteen months. Childish, perhaps, but her parents had very ruthlessly withheld it twice in the past. Having learned so harshly that she must rely only on herself, Amy would love to tell them she had no use for the remnants of the family fortune they constantly held out like a carrot on a stick.
Bea and Clare would love a similar guarantee of security. They all wanted London Connection to thrive so they could help people. They most definitely didn’t want to tear people down the way some of their competitors did. Amy had no doubt Bea and Clare would have the same reservations she did with Luca’s request, but something told her this wasn’t a playboy’s silly whim. He looked far too grim and resolute.
Coiled through all of this contemplation was an infernal curiosity. Luca intrigued her. If he became a client... Well, if he became a client, he was absolutely forbidden! There was a strange comfort in that. Rules were rules, and Amy would hide behind them if she had to.
“I’ll have to tell my partners something,” she warned, her gaze landing again on the exorbitant sum he was offering.
“Say you’re raising the profile of my charity foundation. It’s a legitimate organization that funds mental health programs. We have a gala in a week. I’ve already used it as an excuse when I asked my staff to arrange this meeting.”
“Goodness, if you’re that adept at lying, why do you need me?”
Still no glint of amusement.
“It’s not a lie. The woman who has been running it since my mother’s time fell and broke her hip. The entire organization needs new blood and a boost into this century. You’ll meet with the team, double-check the final arrangements and suggest new fundraising programs. The full scope of work I’m asking of you will remain confidential, between the two of us.”
His offer was an obscene amount for a few press releases, but Amy could come up with a better explanation for her friends later. Right now, the decision was hers alone as to whether to take the job, and there was no way she could turn down this kind of money.
She licked her dry lips and nodded.
“Very well. If you wish to hire me to promote your charity and fabricate a scandal, I would be happy to be of assistance.” She stood to offer her hand for a shake.
His warm, strong hand closed over hers in a firm clasp and gave it a strong pump. The satisfaction that flared in his expression made all sorts of things in her shiver. He was so gorgeous and perfect and unscathed. Regal.
“Now tell me why on earth you would ask me to ruin you,” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
“It’s the only way I can give the crown to my sister.”
CHAPTER TWO
LUCA RELEASED HER hand with a disturbing sense of reluctance. He quickly dismissed the sexual awareness dancing in his periphery. Amy Miller had a scent of biscotti about her, almonds and anise. It was going to be incredibly distracting to sit with her on the plane, but she was now an employee and he finally had a foot on a path that would allow his sister to take the throne. His entire body twitched to finish the task.
“Eccellente,” he said in his country’s Italian dialect. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” Amy fell back a half step and blinked her sea green eyes. “Where?”
“I’m needed in Vallia. We’ll continue this conversation on our way.”
He glimpsed a flash of panic in her expression, but she quickly smoothed it to show only professional calm.
“I have to take your details first. Prepare and sign the contract. Research—”
Impatience prickled his nape. “I want a secure location before we discuss this further.”
“My office is secure. We don’t have to go to Vallia.” She made it sound like his home was on another planet.
“It’s only three hours. My jet is waiting.”
Amy’s pretty, glossed mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Luca had had his doubts when she had first come onto his radar. He didn’t trust anyone who seemed to enjoy being the life of the party, and her job involved nonstop networking with spoiled, infamous attention-seekers. Her online presence was filled with celebrity selfies, club events and influencer-styled posts. It all skated too close for comfort to the superficial amusements his father had pursued with such fervor.
Along with awards and praise from her colleagues, however, she came highly recommended when he’d made a few discreet inquiries. In person, she seemed levelheaded and knowledgeable—if aware of her ability to dazzle with a flick of her more-blond-than-strawberry locks and not the least bit afraid to use such tactics. She was mesmerizing with her peaches and cream skin. Her nose was cutely uptilted to add playfulness to her otherwise aristocratic features, and there was something intangible, a certain sparkle, that surrounded her.
But the very fact she entranced him kept him on his guard. He was long practiced at appreciating the fact a woman was attractive without succumbing to whatever lust she might provoke in him. He was not and never would be his father.
Even if he had to convince certain people he was enough like him to be undeserving of his crown.
“But—” She waved an exasperated hand. “I have other clients. I can’t just drop them all for you.”
“Isn’t that what I just paid you to do? If you needed more, you should have said.”
“You really don’t know what my work is, do you?” She frowned with consternation before adding in a disgruntled voice, “I’ll have to shift things around. I wish you’d made it clear when you called that you expected me to travel. I would have brought a quick-run bag.” She moved to the leather satchel she’d left on a stool at the bar.
“Are you a PR rep or a secret agent?” Luca asked dryly.
“Feels like one and the same most of the time. At least my passport is always in here.”
He eyed her slightly-above-average height and perfectly proportioned curves. Amy wore nothing so pedestrian as a skirt suit. No, her rainbow-striped dress was styled like an ankle-length shirt in lightweight silk. She’d rolled back her sleeves to reveal her bangled wrists and left a few buttons open at her throat and below her knees. It was a bohemian yet stylish look that was finished with a black corset-looking device that made him want to take his time unbuckling those five silver tongue and eye closures in the middle of her back. Her black shoes had silver stiletto heels that glinted wickedly, and the shift of filmy silk against her heart-shaped ass was positively erotic.
Not her, Luca reminded himself as a bolt of want streaked from the pit of his gut to the root of his sex. He was woke enough to know that objectifying women was wrong, that women who worked for him were always off-limits, and that grabbing anyone’s backside without express permission was unacceptable—even if she’d gawked at his own like she’d wanted to help herself to a handful.
When he’d caught Amy checking him out a few minutes ago, he’d considered scrapping this whole idea in favor of suggesting he refile his flight plan so they could tour the king-size bed in the other room.
Luca didn’t place nascent physical attraction over real world obligations, though. Whether it looked like it or not, allowing his sister to take his place was the greatest service he could do for his count
ry. He wouldn’t be swayed from it.
If that left room in his future to make a few less than wise decisions with a woman who attracted him, that was icing. For now, he had to keep his mind out of the gutter.
Or rather, only go there in a very shallow and deliberate manner.
Look at the bar Papa set, his twin had sniffed a few weeks ago when he’d been relaying his frustration with the Privy Council’s refusal to allow him to abdicate. You have a long way to sink before they would even think of ousting you in favor of me.
Luca didn’t want to put the country into constitutional crisis or start firing dedicated public servants. He only wanted to make things right, but there were too many people invested in the status quo. He’d tried cultivating a certain incompetence as he’d adopted the duties of king, pushing more and more responsibilities onto Sofia to show she was the more deserving ruler, but the council dismissed his missteps as “adapting to the stress of his new role.” They hovered more closely than ever and were driving him mad.
Sofia’s casual remark had been effortlessly on the nose, providing Luca with the solution he’d been searching for. He needed to sink to that unforgivable depth in one shot, touch bottom very briefly, then shoot back to the surface before too much damage was done.
Amy Miller was uniquely positioned to help him make that happen, having bailed countless celebrities out of scandals of their own making.
She was helping herself to items from the hospitality basket, dropping an apple and a protein snack into her bag before adding a water bottle and a bar of chocolate.
“I’ll deduct this from your bill,” she said absently as she examined a lip balm before uncapping it and sweeping it across her naked mouth. She rolled her lips and dropped the tube into her bag. “I’ll buy a change of clothes from the boutique in the lobby on our way out.”
“We don’t have time for a shopping spree. I’ll make arrangements for things to be waiting for you when we arrive.”
“I’m hideously efficient,” she insisted. “Shall I meet you at the front doors in fifteen minutes?” She plucked the black motorcycle jacket off the back of the stool and shrugged it over her dress.
Something in that combination of tough leather over delicate silk, studded black over bright colors, fine blond hair flicked free of the heavy collar and the haughty expression on her face made him want to catch her jacket’s lapels in his fists and drag her close for the hottest, deepest kiss of their lives. His heart rate picked up and his chest heated.
Their eyes met, and they were close enough that he saw her pupils explode in reaction to whatever she was reading in his face.
Look at the bar Papa set.
“Car park. Ten minutes.” He pushed a gruff coolness into his tone that made it clear he was not invested in her on any level. “Or the whole thing is off.”
She flinched slightly, then gave him what he suspected was a stock keep-the-client-happy smile, saying a very unconcerned, “I’ll risk it.”
It was cheeky enough to grate, mostly because it lit an urgency in him, one that warned him against letting her get away. He started to tell her that when he said something, he meant it, but she was already gone.
* * *
Amy fled the suite. She had reached the limit of her ability to pretend she was cool with all of this and desperately needed to bring her pulse under control, especially after what had just happened.
What had just happened?
She had found an excuse to escape his overwhelming presence, dragged on her jacket, glanced at Luca, and a crackling surge of energy between them had nearly sucked her toward him like a tractor beam pulling her into an imploding sun. For one second, she’d thought he was going to leap on her and swallow her whole.
Much to her chagrin, she was a teensy bit disappointed he hadn’t. In fact, she was stinging with rejection at the way he’d so quickly frozen her out, as if he hadn’t handpicked her to make his worst nightmare come true.
As if she’d been obvious in her attraction toward him and he’d needed to rebuff her.
As if she had consciously been issuing an invitation—which she hadn’t!
She was reacting on a purely physical level and was mortified that it was so potent. So obvious. She didn’t understand why it was happening. Even before all her PR management courses, she’d had a knack for being dropped into a situation that demanded swift, decisive action and turning it around. Now it was her day job to create space for clients to freak out and sob and come to terms with whatever drama might have befallen them. She was adept at processing her own reactions on the fly, but today she was shaking and wishing for a paper bag to breathe into.
Luca was the diametric opposite of everything she’d ever encountered. He wasn’t a boy from the council flats who’d stumbled into stardom and didn’t know how to handle it. He’d been raised to be king. He was a man of impeccable reputation who wanted her to engineer his fall from grace. Instead of his looks and wealth and privilege getting him into trouble, he needed her to make that happen for him. I want you, he’d said.
He’d made it sound as if he saw her as exceptional at what she did, but there was that niggling fear deep in her belly that she’d been chosen for other, bleaker reasons.
Even as she was texting Clare and Bea from the lift, informing them she was leaving town with an important new client who’d offered a “substantial budget,” she was stamping her feet to release the emotions that were accosting her.
There was no tricking herself into believing Luca Albizzi was a client like any other. He wasn’t. Not just because he was a king. Or because he radiated more sex appeal than a whole calendar of shirtless firefighters. He was...magnificent.
He was causing her to react like a—She pinched the bridge of her nose, hating to admit it to herself, but it was true. She was behaving like damned schoolgirl.
That would not do. She was older and wiser than she’d been back then. Infatuation Avenue was firmly closed off. Men were no longer allowed to use her very natural need for affection and companionship as a route to taking advantage of her. Besides, he was a client. Their involvement had to remain strictly professional. It would, she vowed.
As the lift doors opened, Clare texted back that she would run things remotely. Bea promised to email their boilerplate for the contract. Neither protested her disappearing, darn them for always being so supportive.
Amy hurried to the boutique. Thankfully, she was blessed with a body that loved off-the-rack clothing. It took longer for the woman to ring up her items than it did for Amy to yank them from the rod. She didn’t need to buy a toothbrush. She always kept the grooming basics in her shoulder bag since she often had to freshen up between meetings.
She was catching her breath after racing down the stairs to the car park when the lift bell rang. Luca’s bodyguards stepped out. One checked as he saw her hovering, nodding slightly when he recognized her. An SUV slid to a halt, and Luca glanced at her as he appeared and walked across to the door that was opened for him.
“I didn’t believe you could find what you wanted in less than an hour.” His gaze dropped to the bag she swung as she hurried toward him. “Your ability to follow through on a promise is reassuring.”
“Reassurance is the cornerstone of our work. I’m not being facetious. I mean that.” She let his bodyguard take her purchases and climbed into the vehicle beside Luca, firmly ignoring the cloud of the king’s personal fragrance, which may or may not have been a combination of aftershave, espresso and undiluted testosterone.
Whatever it was, it made her ovaries ache.
As the door shut and the SUV moved up the ramp into the daylight, Amy withdrew her tablet from her satchel, determined to do her job, nothing more, nothing less.
“I was going to look up some background information unless you’d rather brief me yourself?”
He pressed the button on the priva
cy window, waiting until it was fully shut to ask, “How much do you know about my family?”
“Only the—” She pursed her lips against saying sketchiest. “The most rudimentary details. I know your father passed away recently. Six months ago? I’m very sorry.”
He dismissed her condolence with an abbreviated jerk of his head.
“And your mother has been gone quite a bit longer?” she murmured gently.
“Twenty years. We were eleven.” The flex of agony in his expression made Amy’s attempts to remain impervious to him rather useless.
“That must have been a very hard loss for you and your sister. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” he said gruffly, and something in his demeanor told her that even though his mother’s death was two decades old, he still mourned her while his grief over his father was more of a worn-out fatalism.
“And Princess Sofia is...” Amy looked to her tablet, wishing she could confirm the impressions that leaped to mind. “I believe she’s done some diplomatic work?” Amy had the sense it was far more substantial than a celebrity lending their name to a project.
“Sofia is extremely accomplished.” His pride in his sister had him sitting straighter. “She began advocating for girls when she was one. We both studied political science and economics, but when I branched into emerging technologies, she pursued a doctorate in humanities. More recently, she played an integral part in the trade agreements in the Balkan region. She’s done excellent work with refugees, maternal health and global emergency response efforts.”
“I had no idea,” Amy said faintly. Her parents had disinherited her and she’d come a long way from a hard start, but women like his sister made her feel like a hellacious underachiever.
“She’s remarkable. Truly. And has way more patience for politics that I do. I don’t suffer fools, but she’s willing to take the time to bring people around to her way of thinking. We both know where Vallia needs to go, but my instinct is to drag us there through force of will. She has the temperament to build consensus and effect change at a cultural level. She’s better suited to the role, is arguably more qualified and, most importantly, she’s an hour older than I am. The crown should be hers by birthright.”