A Ring to Secure His Crown

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘I’m not spending the rest of my life with you.’ Or even another second, if she had her way.

  ‘My loss, I’m sure,’ he drawled sarcastically.

  She clenched her teeth. ‘But why the cameras? The journalists? I don’t understand.’

  His dark brows lifted. ‘Really? I’d heard you were bright. Ah, well, bright doesn’t always equate with quick on the uptake, I suppose,’ he conceded as she flushed angrily. ‘There has been a leak.’

  Crazily, all she could think about with those blue eyes mocking her was the leak in her bathroom that had occurred last winter, the one that had taken the landlord a month to fix.

  He sighed, the sound the auditory equivalent of an eye roll. It was the last straw for Sabrina.

  ‘Look, I’m sure having cameras and microphones thrust in your face is all part of a normal day in your life but it’s not in mine, so shall we pretend just for a moment that you have an ounce of sensitivity? I’m badly traumatised and, like you said, not so quick on the uptake!’

  A tense silence followed her outburst. She never yelled!

  ‘Ever heard of volume control?’

  She said nothing, afraid if she opened her mouth again she’d do something even more embarrassing like cry.

  As he stared at her the humorous glint in his eyes completely faded, though there was certainly no softening in his blunt delivery as he spelt out the situation. ‘Someone in the inner circle sold the story: wedding, reunification, the whole master plan.’

  She shook her head and swallowed past the lump the size of a tennis ball that was lodged in her throat ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe for money?’

  She gnawed on her full lower lip, resenting the ease with which he made her feel gauche and naive.

  ‘But don’t worry, we know it wasn’t you.’

  Her eyes flew wide, the pallor that emphasised the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her small straight nose deepening. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, first thought was that you might have got tired of waiting for Luis to pop the question and decided to nudge things along.’

  ‘Why the hell would I want to do that?’ In the hothouse emotional atmosphere her knee-jerk reaction emerged uncensored. ‘I mean...’ Her eyes fell from his searing stare. No, he couldn’t see what was in her head; how the hell could he? At that moment she didn’t even know what was in her head.

  ‘I touched a nerve...interesting.’

  ‘I am not a science experiment!’

  One side of his mouth lifted in an incredibly attractive half-smile that made her fight to catch her breath while her skin prickled with antagonism.

  ‘I am sensing that this is bad timing?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The bad timing was the twisting sensation in her stomach.

  ‘No need to be coy. I’m assuming that there is a boyfriend in the wings you want to break the news to? Does this guy know that you’ve been tagged as a sacrifice to the great cause of reunification for years?’

  ‘I am not a sacrifice!’

  ‘Sorry, a willing victim, then. How many barrels of oil do you reckon marrying my brother is worth, just an estimate?’

  She clenched her teeth. ‘I am not a victim—’

  ‘And the oil deposits in your rocky little kingdom have nothing whatsoever to do with the sudden enthusiasm to reunify our lovely island state? Sorry, not actually sudden. How old were you when they told you the plan? That the feel-good factor of a royal wedding would silence the traditionalists on both sides of the border who cling to the good old days when we hated each other’s guts.’ He pushed his broad, muscular shoulders a little deeper into the leather backrest and let his head fall back. ‘It must make you feel very special to know that you make up an entire chapter in a legal document that took two countries ten years to agree on.’

  ‘You forgot one important factor...my family ran out of male heirs and, for the record, some guts,’ she told him with grim sincerity, ‘are easier to hate than others.’

  His head lifted; he was grinning his insanely attractive smile. ‘Go ahead,’ he invited, tossing her his phone, which she caught on instinct. ‘I’ll pretend to be deaf.’

  Lips clamped tight, she tossed it back. ‘Thanks but I have my own phone and I don’t have a boyfriend.’ At university she’d dated a bit, but nothing serious, and then her best friend had met, fallen for and got engaged to a fellow student all in the space of a month. And though Sabrina could not imagine finding herself similarly smitten she had asked herself, what if?

  Did she really want to find her soul mate only to be forced to walk away from him? The anger she hadn’t even acknowledged to herself at the time suddenly found its voice—its loud voice.

  ‘I don’t date. You go on dates to hopefully get butterflies wondering if he is the one, right? So what would be the point?’ She stopped, bringing her lashes down in a concealing curtain across her eyes, appalled as much by the bitter outburst as the person she had chosen to open up to. ‘Besides, I’ve been far too busy with work for much else.’

  ‘And now you’re going to give that up too like a good little girl, anxious to please. I can see now why it never actually crossed anyone’s mind that you were the leak. The general consensus being that you have never broken a rule in your life.’

  His scorn stung, even if what he claimed was depressingly true. She had always been the good girl; she was not about to apologise for it. ‘You make that sound like a vice.’

  ‘As opposed to what...a virtue?’ On the point of answering his own blighting question, he seemed to change his mind when after a short static pause he added, in an oddly flat voice, ‘The culprit—and, mea culpa, he is one of ours—has been found, and he is, as we speak, being dealt with severely.’

  ‘Dealt with?’ It sounded sinister, especially when Sebastian said it.

  His grin reappeared but it didn’t reach his blue eyes. ‘Don’t worry, despite the bad press we get we haven’t actually executed anyone for a century or so, as for thumbscrews we have found them not really that effective, so we just sacked him.’

  ‘He lost his job?’

  The air escaped through his clenched teeth in an irritated hiss. ‘You’re worried about the fate of a man who was responsible for throwing you to the wolves back there? Wow, you really are going to have to toughen up if you’re joining our family, sweetheart!’ he ground out. ‘But if it makes you feel better the guy won’t be penniless. His insider story of what goes on behind closed doors is pretty much guaranteed to make the bestseller list after it has been serialised in the Sunday papers.’

  The colour that had been seeping back into her face retreated. ‘That’s terrible!’

  ‘But hardly news,’ he responded, sounding very relaxed about the situation. ‘The fact my stepmother has a plastic surgeon on speed dial is not exactly the best-kept secret, neither is my father’s tendency to throw the first thing that comes to hand when thwarted.’

  It crossed Sabrina’s mind that an outsider’s view of the place could not be any more jaundiced than this cynical insider’s.

  ‘So what actually happens now?’

  ‘Now you go get measured for your wedding dress.’ His gaze slid down her body.

  Smiling through clenched teeth, Sabrina struggled not to react to the calculated insolence in his scrutiny, sweat breaking out across her upper lip as she fought the impulse to lift a hand to shield her shamefully hardened nipples.

  ‘Size eight, am I right? Or maybe a ten up top and an eight in the hips?’ His eyes dropped to her legs where her ankles were neatly crossed one over the other, making her aware that she was rhythmically rubbing one calf against the other.

  The abrupt cessation of movement brought his heavy-lidded gaze back to her face. ‘I’m c
urious—did it ever occur to you to say no?’

  ‘No?’ she echoed, wondering if any woman ever had to say no to him. It seemed very unlikely.

  Her sense of disorientation increased as his eyes narrowed on her face. ‘Or are you actually content to be a pawn?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Really? Next you’ll be telling me that you love Luis, that he is the one.’

  Her full lips thinned as she framed a carefully expressionless response to his contemptuous question. ‘I’m not going to tell you anything...’ Then spoilt the effect by instantly exploding resentfully, ‘I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand.’

  Sebastian levered his shoulders from the leather padded backrest and seat as he leaned forward, angling his body towards her. ‘And what exactly wouldn’t someone like me understand?’

  She clamped her lips and shook her head, not that the action lessened the feeling of being cornered or the nerve-rattling impact of the aura of testosterone he exuded. If the option to crawl out of her skin had been offered at that moment she would have taken it.

  ‘Duty,’ she choked through clenched teeth.

  His throaty laugh was mockingly ironic. ‘Of course, duty.’ His slow hand clap raised the levels of her animosity.

  ‘What is funny about that?’

  He widened his eyes. ‘Sorry,’ he said, sounding anything but. ‘Was I meant to look impressed by your sacrifice? Oh, I don’t think it’s funny, cara, I think it’s tragic that you are embracing martyrdom so enthusiastically. I’d blame the brainwashing but I think perhaps you were always the good little girl.’

  The air left her lungs in a wrathful hiss. ‘I have grown up, unlike some people, and I do not consider myself a martyr!’ Her voice wavered; she was trembling inside and out with the violent rush of emotions his words had shaken loose.

  It was a fact of life—or at least her life—that she had little control over a lot of things, but this was one occasion when she didn’t have to take it—or him!

  ‘You can mock the concept of duty and service, but I’d prefer to be a good girl, as you put it, than a selfish, thrill-seeking, hedonistic waste of space. Has there ever been a moment in your life when you haven’t put yourself and your pleasure above anything else?’

  She probably imagined the flash of something that had looked like admiration before his head tilted to one side as he gave the appearance of considering her question. ‘Probably not,’ he conceded.

  ‘Well, being a selfish waster is not a luxury we can all have even if we wanted it.’

  ‘You enjoy your occupation of the moral high ground and in a few years’ time, when you are wearing the crown, I just hope you will still think it was worth the things you gave up.’

  ‘I haven’t given anything up.’

  ‘How about your work? Why did you waste time, effort and money to qualify as a doctor when you had no intention of ever using that skill?’

  Her eyes fell. ‘Research is important.’

  ‘Granted, but it will have to survive without you, because my instructions are to deliver you to the embassy. Ours.’

  ‘I’m not a parcel, I’m a person!’

  ‘With feelings, of course—where are my manners? The shoulder to cry on...’ He leaned towards her and her nostrils flared as the male, warm scent of his body, mingled with a faint fragrance, filled them. ‘Feel free.’

  ‘I do not require a shoulder and if I did—’

  ‘I’m only the spare,’ he cut in with an exaggerated sigh as she leaned heavily back. ‘I get that totally. You’re saving yourself for the man with the crown.’

  Her hands clenched into fists as she looked at him with burning eyes. ‘You are a really horrible man, you know that?’

  ‘And you are a very beautiful woman.’ A look of incredulity flickered across his face. ‘Wait, are you...?’ He put a finger to her chin and lifted her face towards him. ‘Yes, you’re blushing!’

  ‘I am not blushing.’ A sudden possibility had occurred to her, one that would explain his outrageous attitude and the reckless gleam in his eyes. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘Not for at least two hours.’ He raised his voice to reach the man in the driver’s seat. ‘Charlie, what time did we leave?’

  ‘I believe it was four a.m., sir,’ the man with the tattoo responded in a cultured voice.

  ‘Really? Oh, well, I’m totally sober...well, maybe not totally,’ he conceded. ‘Oh, here we are.’ The car drew up outside the embassy. ‘Oh, and I almost forgot, Luis sent his love, and this.’

  He leaned across and the sudden shock that had held her immobile as his lips covered hers faded into something else as the slow, sensuous exploration deepened. Sabrina was not sure how her arms came to be around Sebastian’s neck but they were, and she was kissing him back as if he were water and she’d spent the last week in the desert. She had never before felt, never imagined anything like the sudden explosion of hot need inside her.

  A need that intensified as she felt a shudder move through his lean body and felt the touch of his tongue between her parted lips. She moaned into his mouth and pushed her body into his as he kneaded his fingers into her hair. She felt on fire, filled with an aching need to...what?

  Luckily, before she found the answer, as suddenly as it had started the kiss stopped.

  She sat there, shivering, eyes wide, sucking in air in tiny laboured gasps as he leaned back in the seat staring at her, his hypnotic blue stare searing. Hot, dark streaks of colour emphasising the contours of his sharp cheekbones.

  ‘How dare you?’ The sound of her open palm making contact with his cheek was shocking.

  He lifted a hand to his cheek and drawled, ‘Don’t slap the messenger, cara.’

  ‘You are vile!’ She choked, almost falling out of the car when the door was opened by someone wearing a military uniform.

  She could hear his laughter as she walked stiffly up the shallow flight of embassy steps.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SEBASTIAN SET HIS shoulder to the stiff door that opened out onto a small Juliet balcony. It gave suddenly, filling the warm room with a welcome breeze. The view was as dramatic as the plumbing was idiosyncratic. His shower had run cold and then it had almost scalded him. Oh, well, maybe it was time he learnt how the other half lived, even if that half could claim a heritage as illustrious as his own, such as it was.

  For a moment his lip curled into a cynical smile. For reasons obvious when you considered his nickname at school had been the royal bastard, Sebastian had never been able to take the whole heritage thing seriously.

  A tap on the door made him turn, but before he could respond Luis walked into the room, his normal smile absent.

  ‘Reading your body language I’d guess you were just told you’ve got weeks to live, or you’ve just had a heart to heart with our father. How is His Royal Highness?’

  Luis’s heavy sigh and despondent attitude would normally have evoked a sympathetic reaction from Sebastian, but today the only thing he felt was a surge of irritation. Didn’t Luis realise that until he showed a bit of backbone the King was never going to stop trying to micromanage his life? Maybe not even then, Sebastian, a realist, conceded. If he were in his brother’s shoes...

  But you’re not, are you, Seb?

  Luis gets the crown and the girl.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come, neither did...anyone.’

  ‘You asked.’

  Actually his father had ordered, which under normal circumstances would have guaranteed Sebastian’s nonappearance, and yet he was here. So why? He rubbed the towel across his dripping hair and veered away from the question in his head before it formed.

  ‘I asked the last three times I came to visit the Summervilles.’

  ‘You k
now I have an allergy to duty.’

  ‘So you keep telling everyone. Seriously—’

  ‘It is a very serious allergy.’

  ‘I wanted you to get to know Sabrina.’

  ‘It’s you she’s marrying.’ And me she’s kissing, he thought, the sharp twinge of guilt he felt drowned out by the stronger slug of lusty heat that accompanied the memory of those soft, sweet-tasting lips. If Luis had kissed her more often maybe she wouldn’t have melted in his arms.

  That’s right, Seb, because it’s never your fault, is it?

  He waited for the familiar hit of mingled frustration, sympathy and affection as he watched Luis walk, shoulders hunched in defeat, across the room. Instead, Sebastian found himself feeling anger and something that, had the circumstances been different, he would have called envy.

  But of course it wasn’t.

  Envy would mean that his brother had something that he wanted, and Luis didn’t.

  Luis was welcome to the crown.

  There had been a time when they were growing up that being pushed into the background and being referred to as the spare had got to Sebastian, but that had been before he had recognised that it was a lot worse for Luis, carrying the expectations of a country on his young shoulders. Luis had no choices—even his wife was picked out for him.

  Luis was welcome to his bride; Sebastian had his freedom. His father had told both of his sons that privilege came with a price; well, so far he’d been proving his father wrong. Sebastian enjoyed the privileges that came with his title without any of the responsibilities.

  And Sebastian didn’t want to marry Sabrina—he didn’t want to marry anyone—he just wanted to take her to bed. Even thinking about her now, and that miracle of a mouth of hers, made smoky desire slither hotly through him.

  He ignored it. He’d kissed Sabrina and he wasn’t going to do it again, even if the primal attraction that drew him to this woman was stronger than anything he could ever remember feeling. He knew himself well enough to know that it would pass—it always did.

  And in the meantime there were plenty of women to kiss who were not about to marry his brother, who were not about to throw away their lives. Her business, he reminded himself, her choice.