Claiming the Royal Innocent (Kingdoms & Crowns)

by Jennifer Hayward

  She blinked. That could be weeks. Months. “Surely you have to travel... You can’t stop doing business because of me.”

  “I’m going to do it from here. I’ll do day trips if I need to.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Your business is all over the world. I don’t need a babysitter. I can take care of myself.”

  He stopped and looked down at her. The warmth in his gaze had vanished, replaced by a cold black stare. “The king has entrusted you to my care. You are a potential target in these games Carnelia is playing should they elect to make a point out of you. You are therefore my responsibility and will do what I say while you are on this island. Understood?”

  An icy feeling invaded her. She wasn’t sure if it was this vastly intimidating version of Aristos that did it, or the fact that he’d just marked her a kidnapping target.

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “You don’t really think Idas would come after me or Stella, do you?”

  “No. I think it would be highly unwise of him. But taking chances would be equally foolhardy.”

  Right. She shut her brain down before her imagination ran wild and considered, instead, Aristos’s distinctly cool demeanor as she followed him up the steps of the sprawling, airy structure with its incomparable views of the sea. Gone was the incorrigible, devilish version of him she’d come to expect, replaced by the Aristos she’d met the night of the ball.

  Apparently Aristos ran hot and cold. Too bad the last time he’d run hot she’d practically begged him to kiss her.

  “You can pretend I’m not even here,” she suggested. “Better yet, put me to work. I’ve managed a hotel. I’m sure there are things I can do.”

  “There are no guests here right now. And what,” he tossed over his shoulder, “would the king think of me putting you to work?”

  “He’d be happy that you’ve kept me occupied?”

  “I don’t think so, Princess. Not going to happen.”

  She and Aristos were alone on this island. Well, them and a few dozen staff, likely. She digested that fact as she followed him up to the third level.

  “When do the next guests come?”

  “I’m not hosting any groups while you’re here for security reasons. With the exception of an invitation-only poker game in three weeks. Everyone attending is a personal acquaintance of mine, each one thoroughly screened with background checks.”

  Oh. Her heart plummeted as she stepped onto the third-floor landing. His gaze speared hers. “What’s the matter, Princess? Afraid to be alone with me?”

  Not in your current chilly state, no. She lifted her chin. “Why would I be?”

  Their gazes clashed, black battling with blue. “Oh, that’s right,” he said silkily. “You’re looking for ‘integrity, intelligence and kindness.’ You’d best go find your duke.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I already told you, there is no duke.”

  He turned and strode down the hall. She followed, staring at his broad back. What had she done to annoy him? Or maybe he was simply irritated with the situation?

  Her confusion fell to the wayside as she stepped into the ridiculously large, high-ceilinged bedroom Aristos had entered at the end of the hall. Her suite at the palace had been straight out of a fairy tale, but this, this was something else. Paradise, perhaps.

  The three walls that enclosed the room were a cream-colored canvas for the bright, beautiful island art that covered it. The final wall that faced the sea comprised floor-to-ceiling glass with sliding doors that opened onto a terrace, offering a spectacular view of the endless blue horizon.

  With that jaw-dropping perspective as a backdrop, the suite descended into sumptuous, hedonistic heaven. Gauzy cream-colored curtains were drawn to either side of the dark wood canopy bed. A decadent-looking daybed enjoyed a perfect view of the sea, promising hours of reading pleasure.

  “Aristos,” she breathed. “This is incredible.”

  “Nothing too good for the princess in residence.”

  She ignored the gibe, too caught up in the magic of the ethereal room. “I love it. It’s perfect.”

  “Good. My bedroom is there,” he said, pointing to the terrace beside hers. “So I can keep an eye on you. My office is in the casino. Yolande will show it to you this afternoon so you know where to find me.” He turned and gestured toward the writing desk tucked away in the corner of the room. “There’s a secure phone and internet line. You’re not to use your usual devices. Turn them off and keep them off.”

  She bit her lip. “Okay.”

  “As for meals,” he continued, “the chef on the main level is at your disposal. As are any of the water sports and activities. The staff are available to accompany you. The only thing you will not do is swim unaccompanied. The undertow can be strong with the meltemia.”

  “I’m Akathinian, Aristos. I was born on the water.”

  “The rule still applies.” He leaned against the wall. “A few things. You will notice armed guards posted on the island. They carry big guns. There’s no reason to be alarmed—they’re for the protection of the guests we host, many of whom are VIPs whose safety is a top priority. To that end, there is no way on or off this island without my personal knowledge and approval. There’s a three-mile blackout around us, meaning no aircraft or boat crosses it without my team’s knowledge.”

  Armed guards with big guns and a no-fly zone? What had she walked into?

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “Yes. More than one of my guests have been kidnapped and held for ransom. It won’t happen here.”

  That word again. Kidnapped. She wiped a palm over her brow.

  “I thought we could have dinner. Sometime around eight?”

  She met his cool gaze with one of her own. “I meant what I said. You don’t need to babysit me or keep me company. I’ll be fine.”

  “I have time tonight.” He headed toward the door. “Enjoy your tour.”

  She tried to. Yolande was lovely, and Larikos was paradise. Whereas Stygos relied on its wild, natural beauty to attract visitors, its way of life virtually unchanged from a hundred years ago except for the most necessary of modernizations, Larikos was sleek and sophisticated.

  From its sensational tropical gardens to the world-class clay tennis courts to the Romanesque-inspired casino, the island sparkled with an opulence that was reflected in every detail. But all that sophistication only made her pine for home. For beaches that were just as beautiful, views just as spellbinding. Her mother, who must be terrified as to what was to come...

  She would have given anything in that moment for everything to be back to normal, where life had made sense. But nothing was normal anymore—perhaps never would be again. Her world as she knew it had vaporized, and she felt completely, utterly adrift.

  * * *

  Aristos spent the afternoon in his office, immersed in conference calls to make up for where he was supposed to be had he not been babysitting a princess. Almost all of them were to pacify nervous investors about the Akathinian situation, including one of his biggest, Russian oligarch Dimitri Smirnov, who had seemed even more wily and elusive than ever, marking the Akathinian political situation as “worrying” and refusing to give him a firm commitment that he would stick with him.

  He’d therefore put plan B into motion: using his shrouded-in-secrecy, much-anticipated, invitation-only annual poker game on Larikos to keep everyone happy.

  He never messed with the sanctity of the game. Any of the business contacts he mixed with the pros were players who could hold their own, but this year, he had invited all his key financial backers, including a wild card in Dimitri, so he could keep a finger on the pulse of them all. He only hoped it wouldn’t destroy the game.

  Frustration swirled through him, singeing his skin. Too many calls. Too many uncertainties.

  He slammed a fist on his desk. If he’d been in Moscow as he was supposed to be, he could have talked Dimitri into a commitment. Instead he was here, protecting a prin
cess he was supposed to have dinner with in a few minutes. Entertain. He could only hope the Russian would take the bait and attend the game he’d long coveted a place in. It wasn’t looking promising.

  Noting the espresso he’d spilled in his tirade, now eating up the pages of a report on his desk, he uttered another choice word, grabbed some napkins from his drawer and started mopping it up. He refused to consider the graveyard of men who’d conquered Vegas and Atlantic City, only to end up destitute, consumed by their own greed.

  That would never be him. He wadded up the napkins and threw them in the trash. His risk had been big but calculated. Bold but not foolhardy. He couldn’t imagine a day when he forgot what it was like to wonder where his next meal was coming from, where he was going to sleep that night. It was the kind of desperate clawing existence that was burned into your brain forever, no matter how far your star shot up in the sky—no matter how distant a memory it became.

  It was something every human being knew if they were reasonably self-aware. Everything you had could and would go away in the flash of a neon Sin City sign if you didn’t keep your eye on the prize.

  Just as his own life had once vaporized in the space of a head-poundingly hot Athens night in which heated accusations had been delivered, ultimatums issued and decisions made that could never be taken back.

  He pulled himself out of his ruminations with a scowl. It was the thinking of a man who hadn’t slept enough, who had subsisted on a diet of far too much coffee and too little food today, his hesitation in heading toward sustenance with only one name: Alex.

  She’d had another of those lost, disoriented, utterly out-of-her-element looks on her face when she’d arrived. And why wouldn’t she? She’d been ripped away from her family once again with a war looming in Akathinia, clearly no happier to be here with him than he was to be stuck with her.

  He had been cold with her, yes, stifling what seemed to be his natural desire to comfort her, because it was the only way to manage the attraction between them.

  The women he dated were sophisticated creatures with the benefit of a world of experience. Who knew the score with him. Who didn’t complain about his lack of commitment because they’d known from the start it was never coming, and for the time they were together, he provided them with everything money could offer.

  It had been that way since his early days in Vegas. Since he’d discovered that having money meant an endless supply of women who cared more about his wealth than the man behind it. Which had suited him just fine. After his parents’ disastrous marriage that had seen his mother kick his father out after years of vicious fighting and his infidelity, he had no desire to ever enter into the illusionary institution of marriage.

  Carin, his PA, stuck her head in his office and prompted him about dinner. He rolled to his feet, threw his laptop into his briefcase and headed toward trouble. Trouble he was going to neutralize. If Aleksandra’s innocence wasn’t enough of a deterrent for him to keep his hands off her—which quite honestly, he suspected it might not have been under different circumstances—the fact that the king had warned him off her was.

  Which meant keeping Alex at a distance by whatever means necessary.

  * * *

  Showered, changed, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and still not entirely free of his filthy mood, Aristos found the princess waiting for him on the terrace of the Great House. The fragile image she cut against the dusky pink-and-red sky, a tiny figure versus the big, scary universe she’d been thrown into, tugged at his heart. He was, after all, partially responsible for encouraging her to embrace this brave new world.

  “I should have told you the dress is casual here unless we’re having a formal night.”

  She turned around, a wry smile curving her mouth. “And here I was just getting used to the training that’s been drilled into my head. “Refined dress on all occasions, Aleksandra. Classy yet understated.”

  He could have told her that on her, with her perfect curves, anything looked sexy. That the very proper turquoise wrap dress she had on only made a man want to unwrap her as a most fortunate present. That her hair, plaited down her back, elicited the same urge. But since his mind was supposed to be out of the gutter when it came to Alex, he declined to go there.

  He crossed to the wine bucket sitting on a table and began uncorking the bottle of sparkling white. “You aren’t supposed to let them turn you into a robot.”

  “I’m not.” She frowned. “It’s just...there are rules. So many rules. Standards to uphold. It’s all a bit much.”

  “Stella knows her own mind.” He filled two glasses, waiting for the fizz to die down to top them up. “Use her as an example.”

  She took the glass he handed her, a contemplative look on her face. She was curious, he knew, about his relationship with Stella, but there was nothing to tell. They had been two consenting adults scratching an itch, whereas Alex was vulnerable, emotional.

  He surveyed the dark circles that lined her eyes, their red-rimmed appearance. Her emotions were not his concern; her safety was. But the tug on his heart at her obvious misery was too strong.

  “So,” he drawled, “what’s eating you? You’ve been off since you arrived.”

  Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth to say something, then clamped it shut. “I’m worried about my mother,” she said quietly. “I feel like I should be there by her side, not here, as lovely as it is.”

  A twinge of guilt assailed him. He should have been more reassuring earlier rather than scaring the hell out of her. “There’s no need to be concerned about the political situation in Akathinia. The minute Idas makes a move, which I still have doubts will ever happen, the world will respond. Akathinia is too important a symbol for its former colonial interests to watch its democracy be compromised.”

  She gave a doubtful nod. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I am,” he said firmly. He lifted his glass. “To your leap. May it lead you to many fantastic adventures.”

  She lifted her glass to his. Remained pensive as she drank.

  He cocked a brow. “What?”

  “I feel like I’ve been ripped away midjump. I was just getting settled, trying to figure out what I’m going to do, and then all this happened.” She pursed her lips. “I need to find my ‘thing.’ My cause to support. All I’ve learned so far is how to smash a bottle of champagne against a ship without maiming myself and how to cut a ribbon without making it fray. It’s making me crazy.”

  He leaned against the railing, balancing his glass on the top. “Rome wasn’t built in a day. Have you been given any direction? Perhaps Stella has some ideas.”

  “She took me on a tour of the new youth center the charity she represents is building. It’s very impressive.”

  “Youth Compass?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m on the board of directors. It’s a good organization.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and tucked her glass beneath her chin. “What got you involved with them?”

  “A percentage of the profits from each of my casinos is diverted to the homeless and youth organizations in the cities we operate in.”

  Her blue gaze turned assessing. “So the big bad casino mogul has a heart.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, Princess. Corporate social responsibility is smart business.”

  “And that explains the staff you’ve hired to work on Larikos who were living on the streets? Who had no particular skill when you hired them and now they’re the head groundskeeper and the engineer who maintains your solar project?”

  He must remember to tell Yolande to cut down on the personal anecdotes. “It’s an issue society has to tackle.”

  She pointed her glass at him. “I need something like that.”

  “You need to be personally invested in it. What turns you on, Princess? Gets those creative juices of yours flowing?”

  Her face went a rosy pink. He knew exactly where her head was, because it was where his was. Where i
t was every time they were within five feet of each other. In bed, satisfying their intense sexual curiosity about each other...

  “Other than me, angel,” he drawled. “We’ve already established that as a nonstarter.”

  Her eyes widened, a deep flush staining her chest to match the one in her cheeks. “You are insufferable sometimes, you know that? And just...deluded.”

  His mouth curved. That was better. Feisty he could handle. The sad puppy-dog look, not so much.

  “Insufferable, yes,” he agreed. “Deluded, I’d argue. You were craving a follow-up to that kiss that night in the gardens as much as I was.” He moved his gaze over her soft, pink, very consumable mouth. “You aren’t exactly subtle with your signals.”

  Her mouth thinned. “Wanting something and acting on it are two different things. In actuality,” she said, pinning her gaze on his, “the duke is much more my type than you. There is a civility about him I enjoy.”

  “Really?” The blatant lie, yet another slight from a Constantinides insinuating he was beneath their blue blood, evaporated his good humor. His rules.

  “If I took that glass out of your hand right now,” he said, holding her gaze, “picked you up and carried you upstairs to my bedroom to do exactly what we both want to do, you would not be complaining, Princess. You would be begging for me to finish it. And that is the truth.”

  She blinked. “That would never happen.”

  “You want to try me, angel?”

  Color leached from her cheeks, leaving behind a pallor that told him he’d gone too far. And still the nerve she’d hit pulsed in his jaw, making it difficult to summon the self-control he knew he needed.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she acknowledged quietly. “But hormones don’t have a lot to do with common sense, do they?”

  She slayed him with that one simple line.

  * * *

  Alex almost turned on her heel and skipped dinner with Mr. Hot-and-Cold after that display. Her deeply ingrained good manners, however, wouldn’t allow her to do it. Mr. Hot might be back, but she could manage him. Manage this. At least she thought she could.