by India Grey
Kiki gave a short, incredulous laugh. ‘But that’s—’
‘Out of the question,’ Emily cut in sharply. ‘I don’t want to leave here.’
‘What? You’re kidding, aren’t you? I don’t want to lose you but, Emily, this solves everything .’ A smile spread across Kiki’s face and she took hold of Emily’s arms, her silver bangles jingling as she shook her slightly, excitement shining in her eyes. ‘You can leave that horrible bedsit and tell your slimy boss to shove his revolting lap-dancing job up his—’ She stopped just in time, and cleared her throat. ‘Sorry, Your Highness.’
‘Lap dancing?’ Luis threw Emily a look of unconcealed disdain. She ducked her head.
‘I hadn’t said yes.’
‘But you were going to because you didn’t have a choice,’ Kiki said happily. ‘That’s what you said a moment ago, but now—’
Emily felt like the canoe was hurtling headlong towards the top of a huge waterfall. ‘But what about the children?’ she interrupted, looking imploringly at Kiki. ‘About Larchfield?’
‘I’ve thought about that.’ Levering himself gracefully away from the door frame, Luis reached into his pocket. ‘I know it will be a blow to lose such a valuable member of your team, Ms Odiah, so I want to make a donation to the centre. Perhaps then you could hire someone to continue Miss Jones’s classes…?’
Kiki’s eyes widened cartoonishly as she looked at the figure on the cheque he held out.
You had to hand it to him, Emily thought dully. She was utterly outclassed and outmanoeuvred. That little hesitation before he said ‘Jones’ wasn’t lost on her. He had her over a barrel and he knew it.
‘Aren’t you both forgetting something,’ she snapped. ‘I haven’t agreed to any of this yet.’
He smiled lazily, his eyes glittering with menace. ‘But I hope you will. You can think about it while we go back to your flat and pick up your belongings. I’m sure you won’t want to stay another night in that horrible bedsit. I’ll wait in the car, shall I?’
He went out and instantly the room seemed to darken. Emily slumped forward, the breath whooshing from her in a ragged sigh. Stepping forward, Kiki took hold of her arms again, bending so she could look into her face. Her eyes were still shining with excitement. ‘Hey—talk about Prince Charming! That’s all your problems solved at a single stroke, and…and…crikey, Emily, he’s absolutely gorgeous !’
Yes. He was.
And that was a whole new problem all on its own.
CHAPTER SIX
SANTOSA is an archipelago of twelve islands in the Atlantic, some fifty kilometres from the coast of Brazil. With its crystal-clear waters, exquisite white-sanded beaches and excellently preserved sixteenth-century Portuguese colonial architecture, the biggest and only inhabited island is one of the most seductively beautiful places in the world.
Emily shut the guidebook that Kiki had bought her as a leaving present. Oh, well, she thought, looking out into the hazy blue infinity beyond the window of the plane, if you were going to be miserable and lonely, you might as well be miserable and lonely in one of the most seductively beautiful places in the world.
Stifling a yawn, she leaned back in her butter-soft leather seat and stretched out her legs, taking care not to touch Luis’s as she did so. As a Balfour she was used to luxury travel. Childhood holidays had been spent in either Klosters or on Oscar’s island in the Caribbean, and flying in one of Oscar’s private jets meant that queuing to get through security and waiting in crowded lounges for delayed flights were not part of the Balfour holiday experience.
And yet even Oscar’s no-expense-spared attitude to travel began to look a little low-rent when compared to flying with the Crown Prince of Santosa.
But despite the jaw-dropping luxury of the plane she still felt pent-up and on edge, her brand-new designer trouser outfit as hot and restrictive as a suit of armour. When Luis had driven her round to Bedford Street he had taken one shuddering glance into the broken wardrobe and forbidden her from taking a single item. The next day Tomás had taken her shopping on Luis’s orders, waiting in the shiny black car which was parked on double yellow lines outside the front door of Harvey Nichols. After the grim financial struggle of the past weeks, entering the gleaming, perfumed halls of London’s most exclusive department store should have felt like a return to paradise but, aware that every designer garment had an invisible price tag that was nothing to do with the one displayed in pounds sterling, Emily had kept her purchases to a few businesslike basics. Clothes for work, not for pleasure.
Nothing as vulgar as money changed hands, of course. Upstairs on the designer fashion floor, each item she tried on had been whisked away from her by invisible hands and returned to her when she emerged, shrouded in tissue in shiny carrier bags. Emily found herself unable to meet the curious glances of the shop assistants as they handed them over. Despite the soberness of the clothes she had chosen she knew that they thought she was the Prince of Santosa’s mistress.
Which was ironic, she thought with a stab of black humour. She must be the only woman in the world between the ages of eighteen and eighty that he was actively not interested in.
Almost reluctantly she glanced over to where Luis sat. He was completely absorbed in reading the sports pages of the Santosan newspaper, giving her the opportunity to look at him without having to endure the scrutiny of those golden brown eyes. He was obscenely good-looking, she thought, her lungs constricting painfully. Even unshaven, with his too-long hair untidy where he’d pushed his fingers through it as he read, he looked like a screen idol, relaxing between takes for some Hollywood blockbuster.
Restlessly she forced herself to look away, turning her body slightly so she was facing the window. She winced as pain shot down her arm from the tender spot where a Harley Street physician had given her last-minute injections. Yellow fever and typhoid, he’d explained smoothly as he’d jabbed the needle into her arm—nasty illnesses that could really knock her for six if she was unlucky enough to be affected.
Emily sighed, closing her eyes and shutting out the view of the ocean far below. There was something she was at far more risk of suffering from, and which had the potential to cause her much greater discomfort. But there probably wasn’t an immunisation against the lethal attraction of Luis Cordoba.
Luis read the same line of the match report from Santosa’s game against Santa Cruz for a fourth time. Somehow, completely unexpectedly, Santosa had won, two goals to one, but Luis had no idea how this miracle had come about because his attention kept wandering away from the page and in the direction of the sleeping girl opposite him.
Not that she looked much like a girl in that outfit, he thought acidly, giving up trying to read and tossing the paper down on the table. He’d sent her out shopping for clothes to replace the monstrosities in her wardrobe, and she’d come back with stuff that made her look like an off-duty nun.
His eyes travelled disdainfully over her sober black trouser suit. No one could say she wasn’t going to be a suitable role model for Princess Luciana, but would anyone with half a brain buy the fact that there was supposed to be something romantic between them? She was as far removed from the women he was usually linked with as it was possible to be. Thank goodness Tomás had alerted him to the fact that she’d come out of the shop with suspiciously few bags, so he’d been able to ring Harvey Nichols’s personal-shopping department and order some more suitable clothes in her size. The assistants had been delighted and slightly vindicated to be able to package up all the items Emily had flatly refused to try on first time round.
The smile faded, and he looked thoughtfully at her sleeping face. Her dark hair was drawn back from her forehead in a way that might have been intended to look sophisticated but which merely seemed to emphasise her vulnerability. With her wide-set eyes closed, that incredible Balfour blue hidden, her face was oddly bleached of colour, giving her the appearance of a girl in a Victorian sepia-tinted photograph. His gaze lingered curiously on her lips, whic
h were about the only part of her you could describe as plump….
He looked quickly away, shifting irritably in his seat as razor blades of forbidden desire cut through him. Deus , this self-imposed celibacy was doing unpleasant things to his head, and his body.
But of course that, he thought bitterly, was entirely the point of any punishment. It made you focus on your crime and repent.
Tomás appeared beside him. ‘We’ll be landing in a few minutes, Your Highness. Welcome home.’
Luis nodded, taking a deep breath in as the usual feeling of claustrophobia descended on him. ‘Home,’ he echoed ironically. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be where you can relax and be yourself?’
Tomás threw him a rueful look. ‘Very funny, sir.’ He nodded in Emily’s direction. ‘Would you like me to wake Miss Balfour?’
‘No. I’ll do it.’
Tomás wasn’t the only one who was surprised by the sharpness of his reply. Anyone would think I want an excuse to touch her, Luis sneered inwardly, moving round the table so he was sitting beside her. Her head was tilted to one side, exposing the long sweep of her pale, delicate neck, and his gaze travelled along it, from the sculpted hollow at the angle of her jaw to the place where it disappeared beneath the stiff fabric of her jacket. However, his imagination didn’t stop there. Eagerly it filled his head with images of the supple, girlish body under the grown- up clothes. The small breasts that he’d seen when he’d lifted her from the bath…the concave midriff and narrow hips…
Tomás’s quiet voice broke into his thoughts. Fortunately.
‘I just had a call from Josefina in the press office, sir. She’s tipped off her contacts about your arrival, so we can expect a…select press presence.’ Tomás glanced meaningfully at Emily.
‘Let the circus begin.’ Luis kept his voice very low so as not to disturb Emily, but the bitterness in it was still all too audible. ‘So tomorrow morning Santosa will be waking up to front-page pictures of me getting off the plane with my new “love interest”?’
‘That’s what we’re hoping, sir,’ Tomás whispered. ‘A feel-good story, to divert attention away from the less happy news of His Majesty’s illness. So perhaps if you just bear that in mind as you walk to the car with Miss Balfour…?’
‘What, and ravish her on the tarmac, just to get the message across?’
‘Oh, no, sir.’ Straightening up, tugging his cuffs smartly into place beneath the sleeves of his jacket, Tomás’s tone was brisk. ‘We’re trying to reinvent your image, remember? This isn’t about sex, it’s about showing that you’ve put those days behind you. Presenting you as a sensitive, honourable, caring prince.’
Letting his head fall back against the seat, Luis laughed. It was a harsh, joyless sound. ‘Tell me, Tomás. Does any of this ever strike you as wrong?’
‘Wrong , sir? What could be wrong with that?’
‘That in order to appear decent I have to lie? In order to appear honourable I have to use people?’
‘It’s part of the job, sir,’ Tomás said simply, looking out of the window. ‘You’re doing it for the monarchy. For Santosa. Ah. We’ll be landing directly. You’d better wake up Miss Balfour.’
It was dark, and Emily was dancing.
It felt good as her body took the familiar positions—neat, tight, controlled—but something was wrong, and as she raised her leg in a passé she realised that instead of ballet shoes she was wearing high heels.
She faltered, teetering dangerously as the darkness around her was filled with a loud roaring sound, and she was suddenly sickeningly aware that she standing on a very small platform, high, high up. Someone was holding her, with strong hands that were making warmth spread through her muscles, melting them and turning her body boneless and languid. She stiffened against them, knowing that she had to keep dancing, had to keep her body taut and hold those rigid positions, because if she didn’t she would fall into the void, but it was no good. However much she tried to resist, the warmth was seeping through her, and she was melting, unable to stop herself, and falling, falling, falling…rushing downwards…hurtling through space….
There was a jolt. Emily’s eyes flew open.
Luis’s face swam in front of her, and for a moment the warmth washed through her again as she looked into the golden pools of his eyes. It was his hands on her shoulders, holding her, his thumbs gently massaging her collarbones.
She sat up. The plane had landed, she realised groggily. That explained the sensation of falling, although not why her stomach still had that feeling you get in a lift, speeding upwards.
‘We’re here,’ Luis said tonelessly, letting her go.
Emily blinked, trying to drag her unwilling brain back to consciousness. How typical that after two nights in the hotel where sleep had proved irritatingly elusive, it had claimed her now with such undignified thoroughness. God, she’d probably snored. Or had her mouth ridiculously open for the past two hours.
‘This is Santosa?’ she muttered, bowing her head as she fumbled with her seat belt.
‘Yes. There’s a car waiting to take us to the palace.’ Luis had got to his feet and he towered over her so that she felt dizzy just looking up at him. Instead she focused on his hand, hanging loosely at his side, which was right in line with her gaze. His skin was smooth and tanned to the colour of golden syrup and his fingers were long, but broad and unmistakably strong.
She shivered, the dream still vivid in her head, her body still tingling with sensations that were half remembered, half imagined.
Hastily she got to her feet as he stood back to let her go ahead of him into the aisle. At the door of the plane the damp heat hit her. It was like walking into the steam room in the pool complex at Balfour, and that combined with standing up so quickly after being deeply asleep made the blood rush from her head. She faltered on the stupid high heels she’d hoped would make her seem more grown-up, gripping the hand rail for support. And then Luis’s arm snaked round her waist.
‘All right?’
She nodded, not letting herself lean against him. ‘Stood up too quickly,’ she gasped. ‘And the heat…’
They reached the bottom of the steps, but he didn’t loosen his grip on her waist. Instead she felt his other hand move to the front of her jacket, his fingers working deftly at the buttons.
‘What are you doing?’ Looking up at him she made to pull away but he held her tighter, pulling her into his body as he freed the last button and threw open her jacket.
‘Cooling you down,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’re way too hot.’
If the heat of the day had felt intense before, it was nothing compared to the molten lava of desire that erupted inside her, flowing through her veins so her whole body glowed with it. Oh, God, this was what she’d feared. This was the reason why she’d turned down this job, because she knew she didn’t have the sophistication or the defences to withstand his careless, arrogant flirting.
But he didn’t look arrogant now. His face bore none of that sardonic mockery she’d seen so often, and there was a stillness about him that made her stomach turn over. For a heartbeat neither of them moved. His eyes were hidden behind aviator sunglasses which disconcertingly mirrored Emily’s own face back at her, but she was barely aware of that because all she could focus on with any clarity was his mouth. The way his top lip rested on the fuller bottom one—the sharp indentation at its centre, and the slight sheen of sweat on his skin.
The sticky heat ebbed around them, giving the day a strange, slow-motion feel, like swimming through honey. Still drugged with sleep, Emily found herself remembering how it felt to be kissed by that mouth, unconsciously parting her lips and letting her tongue move over them as a breathy sigh escaped her….
He froze, and in the split second before his mouth came down on hers she glimpsed an expression on his face that was almost like pain. And then she was melting into him and he was kissing her with an urgency that was utterly at odds with his habitual insouciance. His arm was still around her waist,
holding her up, and he slipped his other hand beneath her jacket, moving up over her ribs. Forked lightning zigzagged through her, nearly splitting her in two, as he brushed her breast, bare beneath the thin silk of her rose-pink camisole.
A tremor went through him, and for a moment the kiss went from urgent to almost savage. It was as if he was acting against his will, but was powerless to do anything to stop. And then he was pulling himself away, straightening up, setting her back on her feet again without his arms to hold her up.
Behind him, Tomás was coming down the steps of the plane, his expression thunderous.
‘Your Highness, the car is waiting.’
In the car it was cool again. Emily felt the air conditioning turn the sweat in the small of her back to ice water and bring some sense back into her feverish brain. They began to glide smoothly forward across the tarmac and she watched the plane that had brought them from London and familiarity getting smaller as they left it behind.
She didn’t dare look at Luis, slumped at the opposite side of the seat. Everything that she had been afraid of was happen ing already and she’d only got off the plane a few minutes ago, she thought despairingly. Her hands tightened around the guidebook she still held and she looked out of the window. They were driving along a road flanked by palm trees and a few low houses in shades straight from a child’s paintbox. Even the flowers in the window boxes were unfamiliar—exotic splashes of scarlet and magenta and egg-yolk yellow that she didn’t recognise as being like anything from home.
But that wasn’t surprising. Nothing here was like home. Even she was different.
‘I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.’
Startled, she looked round. Luis was watching her, his eyes hooded and his face grim.
The apology took her completely by surprise. She had expected the same cold lack of remorse as he’d shown in the hotel and had been ready with the convenient indignation, but the bleakness in his tone made it all dissolve into ashes.