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And yet all he was aware of was a crushing sense of disappointment because the woman who looked at him today was merely a caricature of the one he had held in his arms. Gone was her scrubbed and fresh-faced appeal—for she had changed completely. From being like a sweet, native flower plucked on impulse from the meadow, she was now the manufactured and forced bloom of the hothouse.
The lush breasts at which the ill-fitting blouse had merely hinted so alluringly were now displayed in a tightfitting and too-short overall, which only just stopped short of vulgarity. Likewise, her petite charms had been vanquished by the wearing of heels as high as a skyscraper. And her eyes! He had thought them mesmerising in their natural state. But now they were ringed with make-up—their sooty outline somehow diminishing the effect of their clear, aquamarine hue.
She looked like a tramp!
He felt the dulling edge of disillusionment and yet surely he should have been used to it by now. Because this kind of thing happened all the time. People were never truly themselves in the presence of a royal personage. They dressed to get themselves noticed. They said things they thought you wanted to hear. They were puppets in awe of his powerful position and sometimes he tired of knowing he could jerk their strings whichever way he chose.
‘Your Serene Highness,’ said Rupert. ‘May I suggest—?’
‘You may not,’ snapped Xaviero as his disdainful scrutiny continued, ‘suggest anything.’ He recalled the familiar way the Englishman had just been admiring her as he had walked in. Was she his? he wondered. Xaviero felt the steady beat of his heart, remembering how, on more than one occasion, men had offered him their women in their pathetic attempts to ingratiate themselves with him. Would this man do likewise?
His mouth hardened. And would he accept such an offer? Did not his ancestors enjoy the charms of the opposite sex if they were presented to them in the same way as they might be presented with a goblet of good wine, or a plate of delicious food? He flicked his eyes over the blonde—noting the small pulse which fluttered frantically at the base of her neck. ‘Who is this woman?’
‘This is Cathy. She’s our chambermaid—among other things,’ said Rupert, and then he lowered his voice. ‘I can get rid of her if you like, sir, if you’d like to speak to me in private.’
Xaviero gave an impatient flick of his hand to silence him. The presumption! As if he, Xaviero, should seek the private company of such a man as this! ‘And she has knowledge of the area?’
Cathy wanted to open her mouth and tell them to stop talking about her as if she weren’t there.
‘Yes, she has,’ said Rupert, as if she were some kind of performing animal. ‘In fact, she’s lived here all her life.’
Xaviero turned to her then, registering the automatic dilation of her blue eyes in response to his stare, and he felt a slow beat of satisfaction. Yes, she would be his. And before the day was out, too. Because this inconvenient hunger must be fed if he was to be rid of it. ‘Good. Then she will be my guide while I am here.’
Cathy’s lips parted and she stared at him in horror. ‘But…but I’m not qualified as any kind of guide,’ she protested in a voice which suddenly sounded squeaky.
‘So?’ challenged Xaviero, on a silken drawl.
‘Surely…’ Cathy swallowed as she twisted her fingers together. It mustn’t happen. He can’t mean it to happen. ‘Surely you should have someone who is properly specially trained in royal protection, Your Highness.’
Xaviero’s suggestion had been carelessly made—it would have meant nothing for him to retract it—but her objection secured his determination to have her. By expressing a wish to make herself inaccessible, she had sealed her fate. For a man who had spent his lifetime having his wishes met, it was the almost unheard-of protest which always intrigued him. Suddenly, the eager little blonde was not so eager any more!
‘How very thoughtful of you to be so concerned about my welfare,’ he murmured sardonically, ‘but I want a guide, not a bodyguard. And someone with local knowledge is always much more useful than one of my own people.’
Cathy flinched. Useful. He had called her useful. It was the kind of word you might use to describe the pair of rubber gloves you wore when you were washing up. A deeply unflattering description, but maybe that had been his intention. Had he chosen it with malice and care? She glanced over at Rupert. Can’t you do it? her eyes begged him. ‘And besides, I work here,’ she said. ‘I…I can’t just disappear at the drop of a hat to be your guide.’
‘Of course you can,’ Rupert said, completely ignoring the silent plea in her eyes. ‘The hotel is closed to other guests while the Prince is here—and I’m sure that someone else can sort out the linen! Cathy is at your service for as long as you need her, Your Serene Highness.’ He smiled and an unmistakable warning was arrowed in her direction. ‘And what the Prince wants, we must make sure the Prince gets, mustn’t we, Cathy?’
Cathy felt slightly sick—because Rupert seemed to have reduced her job and her status down to something as basic as linen-sorting. How sycophantic he sounded. Didn’t he notice the Prince curling his arrogant lips in response to his toadying attitude?
But there were more pressing concerns than the Prince’s arrogance—because she had very real reasons for wanting to refuse to be his ‘guide’. Fleetingly, she thought of his kiss and her response to it. A heady encounter which seemed the most highly charged of her life had been given an even more piquant edge once she had discovered his true identity. She thought of the danger of being in such close proximity to him and excitement warred with fear. What on earth was his motive in making such a request?
She risked another look, meeting the cool mockery lurking in the depths of his golden eyes, and realisation hit her like a velvet hammer. He wants you and, what’s more, he thinks he’s going to have you. Cathy bit her lip. And in view of the way you acted with him—can you really blame him for thinking that?
And yet, if the truth were known, didn’t she want him, too—even now? Hadn’t the touch of his lips and his tight embrace made her feel really wanted—her broken and rejected spirit erupting into life at the thought that such a man could desire her?
Willing the hungry clamour of her body to calm down, Cathy hoped that her shrug disguised the frantic pounding of her heart. ‘What can I say?’ she questioned flatly. ‘That I’d be delighted?’
Xaviero’s eyes narrowed. Surely that was not resignation he could hear lurking in the depths of her soft voice? Or was she merely playing a coy game with him? Trying to show a little decorum where last week she had shown precisely none? ‘Excellent,’ he murmured.
Rupert beamed. ‘Well, if that’s all sorted—perhaps you would like to come with me, Your Serene Highness, and then I’ll show you to your suite.’
‘No, no.’ Xaviero’s voice was soft as he flicked his hand dismissively at Rupert. ‘Go and leave us,’ he ordered. ‘The girl will attend to my needs.’
Rupert hesitated for one slightly puzzled moment before he left the reception area like a small child sent out into the rain to play and Cathy was left alone with the Prince. For a moment, there was silence and she didn’t know where to look or what to say. All she was aware of was the prickle of her senses and the wild thunder of her heart as he caught her in the crossfire of his gaze.
‘You look wary,’ he commented softly as he reacquainted himself with the aquamarine beauty of her darkening eyes. ‘Are you?’
She swallowed. Wary as anything—and frighteningly excited, too. ‘Why would I be wary, Your Highness?’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’ Dark eyebrows arched in arrogant query. ‘Are you wary of me?’
There was a pause. ‘Not at all,’ Cathy answered, but she lowered her gaze lest he read the lie in her eyes.
Xaviero’s lips curved into a speculative smile. Didn’t she realise that desire was shimmering hotly from her tense and voluptuous frame, no matter how much she tried to disguise it? And yet the fact that she was trying to resist him was proving to be an irresistible aphrodisiac.
From the cold, bleak space which seemed to have inhabited his body for so long, he felt the answering tug of desire.
‘Then show me to my suite,’ he commanded softly.
Chapter Three
‘YOU look different today,’ Xaviero observed.
His words whispered over her skin like liquid silk but for a moment, Cathy said nothing. Her thoughts were scrambled and her senses working overtime as she tried to come to terms with the fact that she was standing in the newly decorated bedroom suite alone with a royal prince. How disturbingly claustrophobic it felt—with his golden eyes searing into her as if they could see right through her tight uniform to the trembling body beneath. And close by was a giant, king-size bed. A bed she had made herself…
His bags must have arrived earlier, for as well as a whole sheath of official-looking papers littering the desktop there were lots of precious-looking things lying around the place. A pair of gleaming golden cufflinks stamped with an intricate crest, a beautiful silver-backed hairbrush inlaid with jewels. They looked priceless and ancient—but even more dauntingly they were his personal artefacts, reminding her of the intimacy of their surroundings.
A robe hung over the back of a chair—its rich, satin folds cascading down like liquid silver. White shirts glimpsed through the half-open wardrobe door—and a riding crop, with a worn leather handle which was leaning against a door. Cathy swallowed down her apprehension and wondered how soon she could decently leave. And yet if she was being honest—wasn’t there a part of her which could have stayed close beside him all day?
‘Very different,’ he murmured as his eyes continued their unashamed scrutiny.
Her heart was beating out a frantic rhythm but at least he wasn’t aware of it and that knowledge helped keep her face completely expressionless. ‘Yes, Your Highness,’ she answered matter-of-factly. ‘I have a new uniform.’
He looked at the buttons which trailed so enticingly down the front—and which seemed to be losing the battle to keep those magnificent breasts contained. ‘So what happened?’ he questioned unevenly. ‘Did you gain some weight while it was being made?’
Cathy suspected that Rupert had deliberately told the dressmaker to make the uniform tighter—but she could hardly turn round and admit that. Disloyalty to your boss was not an admirable trait—no matter how much he might have deserved it. And neither was answering back this insolently rude prince—no matter how much he deserved it.
‘None that I’m aware of,’ she said woodenly.
Xaviero found his gaze travelling over her undulating curves. No, if she’d gained any weight at all, then it had been a complementary gain, because there wasn’t an ounce of flesh on her which shouldn’t have been there. Hers was not a fashionable shape, he decided—much too rounded for modern tastes—but it appealed to the primeval sexual hunger which underpinned the desire of every man. The biological imperative which subliminally announced to the onlooker that soft hips and full breasts equalled fruitful and fertile.
He felt his mouth drying along in time with the increasingly sweet torture of his tightening groin. Those magnificent breasts looked as if they should never be sullied by the wearing of clothes—and maybe he should do them both a favour by removing them as quickly as possible. She looked like one of the naked women adorning his favourite painting in the Throne Room back in Zaffirinthos—the one he used to gaze at with surreptitious longing during his teenage years.
Yet this woman was not responding to him as he had anticipated she would. Xaviero studied her with interest. Today she wasn’t sending out those delicious come-and-kiss-me messages which had made him pull her into his arms without thinking. Her eyes weren’t telling him that he was at liberty to do so again—in fact, on the contrary, she was regarding him with the caution that she might use if she had suddenly found herself alone in a room with a rather terrifying snake. And why was that? Especially when this time they were not in a public place. Rather, one which conveniently had a bed in it—and his guards would not disturb him unless he gave them permission to do so. What the hell was holding her back?
Xaviero’s eyes narrowed. Unless she really did desire the man she had thought him to be more than the man he really was! A woman more turned on by a painter and decorator than a member of one of the most prestigious royal houses in Europe. And, inexplicably, this thought excited him more than anything he could remember.
‘So which is the real you?’ he drawled softly. ‘Did I catch you unawares the other day, all soft and natural. Or is this…showgirl appearance your usual look?’ Irresistibly, his eyes now strayed to the generous curve of her bottom. ‘Maybe you thought that a prince would respond favourably to the rather obvious signals you’re sending out today. Am I right, Cathy?’
He said her name quite differently from the way anyone else had ever said it—his tongue seeming to caress the first syllable as if he were kissing it. And even though she was dimly aware that he was insulting her with that sexy drawl of his, that didn’t seem to stop her traitorous body from responding. It was as if she had no power at all over her reaction to him. As if she was helpless in her fight to resist him. She could feel the blood pounding at her pulse points and her throat seemed to have constricted so much that she could barely stumble out her answer. ‘I…I would not dream of being so presumptuous, Your Highness.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ he questioned as he noticed the soft rise of colour washing over her cheekbones. ‘That’s a pity. Because maybe I’m in the mood for a little presumption right now. Maybe I’m bored with the people who always bow and scrape to me. Who act like puppets and tell me only what they think I want to hear.’ He glittered her a look. ‘Because, you know, I rather enjoyed the way you reacted to me the other day.’
‘Sir—’
‘I enjoyed the honesty with which you looked at me and the unashamed hunger you clearly felt for me. The way you gave yourself up to that kiss and melted into my arms—that delicious body promising untold pleasure.’
Her throat dried. Hadn’t she been trying to put the memory from her mind ever since? ‘Sir—’
‘Why, if that infernal alarm hadn’t gone off, then who knows where it might have ended?’ His voice deepened, enjoying the way she was trying not to react to his verbal seduction. ‘Except that we both know exactly where it would have ended, don’t we, Cathy?’
Please stop looking at me like that, she prayed silently. A way which was making her blood move like thick, warm honey as it pulsed its way through her veins. Making her stomach feel as if it wanted to dissolve and her skin tremble as if she were standing in a snowstorm. She struggled to find something to say, but the only thing which came from her dry lips was a strangled little sound which was barely comprehensible. ‘I—’
‘And there’s nothing I hate more than unfinished business,’ he murmured. ‘So I think we’d better do it all over again, don’t you? Kiss me again, Cathy. Only this time without stopping.’
His words both shocked and excited her but Cathy could feel her body thrilling in eager response to the way he was looking at her. Wanting to feel the warm brush of his lips against hers once more. Was that so very wrong?
Xaviero’s eyes narrowed, her hesitation surprising him as he reached out his hand and touched the smooth flush of her cheek. He couldn’t remember ever having to ask twice before. ‘Unless there is something preventing us? Some commitment you have made to another man perhaps?’ But he spoke with the natural arrogance of someone who knew that there was not another man who could not be cast aside in the light of his own wishes. The Prince’s desire overrode anything. The only thing was that meant he might have to wait…and he did not want to wait—not when his appetite felt so exquisitely and unexpectedly sharpened.
Cathy shook her head—her pulse racing erratically. How could she think straight when he was looking at her like that? ‘No. There isn’t.’ She bit her lip as she remembered the sense of aloneness and rejection which had flooded through her on receipt of Peter’s letter. ‘There was…there was someone. I was engaged to be married, but…but…’
‘But what?’ prompted Xaviero, eager to get this one last obstacle out of the way.
‘He…he…well, it’s over.’
Xaviero allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. A fiancé meant that she was experienced—but that she had been faithful, too. Had the man broken her heart? he wondered idly. And if that were the case—couldn’t he, Xaviero, show her that there was life after the end of a love affair? And that she could enjoy the caresses of another man…
He traced the outline of her quivering lips almost thoughtfully, recognising that in a way she would be getting the very best and yet the very worst of a postfiancé lover. Because he was undoubtedly the finest lover she would ever know—but she would spend her whole life searching fruitlessly for a man to equal him.
‘So let’s make love,’ he said simply.
‘Your Highness!’ she breathed, even though she realised that her protest lacked any real conviction. The look of intent which had darkened his golden eyes was just too beguiling—the expectation that he was about to hold her too tantalising to resist. And the sense of burning hunger in her empty heart was like nothing she had ever experienced before. Should she stop him? Shouldn’t she even try?
She would never know. Because now he was pulling her into his arms with a smile on his lips which made her desperately want to kiss him. To relive the amazing sensations he’d awoken in her the other day. Half-heartedly Cathy twisted in his arms but the movement brought from him a low and mocking laugh and she quickly realised why—as she collided with a rock-hard and very formidable groin. She felt the mad, frantic race of her heart and the intoxicating fizz of her blood—her body blindly reacting to the sweet sensation of his touch.
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