Читать книгу Cinderella's Royal Seduction / Crowned At The Desert King's Command: Cinderella's Royal Seduction / Crowned at the Desert King's Command - Dani Collins - Страница 15

RHYS VAGUELY WONDERED if there was an aphrodisiac in these waters, because he had never climaxed so hard in his life. Despite aching from the force of it, he wanted nothing but to pull Sopi astride him and sink into the satin depths he’d claimed with his touch.

He gently cradled her trembling body against his unsteady heart, trying to find his breath. Trying to find a shred of sense, because all-night lovemaking had a place—and it wasn’t a primordial pond in the frozen wilderness.

With a virgin disguised as a woodland nymph.

He didn’t disbelieve her about her inexperience, but he was incredulous that such a passionate woman hadn’t found someone to share her sensuality with.

No one has ever made me feel like this.

Him, either, and that shook him. He wasn’t entitled to this sort of high. His deepest instincts began to war, one side warning him that he couldn’t have this. The other, greedier side wanted to mate and mate some more. Grind himself against her until they were nothing but dust.

She posed a very serious danger, this curious, unassuming goddess of a woman.

He rose abruptly, making her gasp at the shock of cold air on her wet skin.

He twisted to ease her back under the warmth of the water, seating her on the flat ledge he’d vacated.

She blinked in surprise, mouth pouted and shiny from their endless kisses, all but her collarbone hidden from his insatiable gaze.

“I’ll fetch you a towel and a robe.” He waded out of the water, welcoming the bracing slap of winter frost that cleared his head so he could think.

“You don’t have to,” she said in a small voice behind him.

“I want to,” he insisted, pushing his wet arms into his robe and belting it tightly. “Two minutes.”

Sopi was reeling from what she’d done with the prince. Her whole body tingled with lassitude, the kind that made her want to groan in luxury at how deliciously sated she felt. She couldn’t think of any other experience that had left her so dreamily satisfied.

His abrupt departure caused her a pinch of distress, though. The longer she sat here, the more she began to feel self-conscious about her lack of inhibition. About waiting here like a harem girl for the sheik to return.

When she heard his footsteps crunching through the trees, she sat a little straighter, mouth trembling into a shy smile of greeting.

It wasn’t him. It was one of his bodyguards. The clean towel and robe he carried glowed like an armload of snow as he approached.

Throat locked, eyes burning in mounting horror, Sopi watched him look indecisively between the soggy pants and shirt she’d left atop her shoes and the snow-covered bench nearby.

“The prince offers his regrets that he couldn’t bring these himself. He said he will speak to you in the morning. Um… Here?” He shook out the items and hung them on the fence, then stepped through the gate and stood with his back to her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, appalled when he stayed there.

“I’m to escort you safely indoors.”

Her embarrassment turned to outrage. “I’m fine. Go.”

“With respect, I have my orders. Take your time.”

She stewed with impotent fury as she realized her choices were to argue while she boiled or end this as quickly as possible. Why was the practical choice always to give in?

And why hadn’t Rhys come back himself? Had she turned him off? Had he finished with her already? Was he mad that she hadn’t put out with actual sex?

Growing more and more horrified by what she’d done, she waded out and shook the robe open, struggling into it without bothering to dry herself. When she scooped up her clothes, she glanced at the thick snow on the far side of the pool and decided to find her underwear in the morning, when it was light.

Moments later, she stomped through the trees toward her cabin, surprising the bodyguard into saying, “Ma’am?” He hurried to follow her new direction.

She ignored him, aware of him trailing her, but she didn’t even look at him as she got to her door, unlocked it, then closed it in his face, locking it again from the inside.

With hot, dry eyes and wet, tangled hair, she fell into bed.

Rhys had returned to the deserted spa in time to hear Nanette trying to pull rank on his bodyguard.

“I’m the owner. I can go anywhere I want,” she insisted.

“Your mother claims to own it,” Rhys had said flatly, moving forward to prevent her from realizing he was coming from the hallway to the building’s exit, not the men’s room.

Nanette faltered, frosty expression morphed into welcome.

“That’s what I mean, of course. My mother is the owner. Your Highness,” she added with a sweet smile especially for him. “When I saw your man standing guard, I wanted to be sure you had everything you need.”

“Everything but privacy.”

Her smile stiffened, and she looked past him. He waited for her gaze to come back and held it with his most unapologetically imperious glare.

She sniffed and said, “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Do.” He waited until she was out of earshot before he muttered his instructions to his bodyguard to take a robe and towels to Sopi, aware Nanette would stake out his floor to see whom he brought back to his room.

Rhys rarely took action without considering the consequences. If he did, he would currently be wondering if a deflowered virgin was incubating a royal baby. He’d had the presence of mind to stay this side of sane with Sopi, thankfully, but he wouldn’t expose her as his lover to the likes of Nanette until such time as he’d weighed the ramifications for both of them. What little she’d told him about her relationship with Maude meant there could be consequences for her.

She had also left him with the impression that she was the rightful owner of this property, if not legally, at least morally. Her father had bought it for her mother, who had lovingly restored it, but Maude was the one trying to unload it in a private sale under the radar.

That had his mind churning as he took the elevator back to his floor, passing Nanette in a chair in an alcove, hair twisted around one finger, an open book in her lap.

“Good night,” she said as he passed, shoe dangling from her toe.

He nodded curtly, entered his room and went directly to the window on the north wall. He thought he might have seen a flash of movement in the trees but wasn’t sure.

Annoyed, he went back to the folio Maude had given him.

Lawyers cost money, Sopi had said.

They did but, as it happened, he had an abundance of both.

Sopi’s morning went from bad to worse very quickly.

She woke with the worst type of hangover—the sober kind that piled nausea on remorse with none of the blurry celebration of alcohol to dampen her memory or give her an excuse for behaving so wantonly. She didn’t even regret the sex part. She had wanted that, but she felt very much like she’d fallen for a line from a playboy who set up conquests like bottles on a log, simply so he could shoot them down.

At least no one would know, she told herself. Then her walk of shame past the pump house turned up fruitless. One of the hotel’s maintenance men must have checked the gate and gathered her bra and underwear. She could only pray her things would be thrown away rather than turned in to Lost and Found.

By the time she was heading into the back door of the hotel and passing Maude’s office, her phone was exploding with the usual work-related texts. Sopi had her head down, reading complaints about late deliveries and equipment needing repair, and didn’t see Maude waiting for her until her stepmother’s haranguing voice said, “Sopi.”

Hiding her wince, Sopi detoured into Maude’s office. “Good morning.”

“Two of Fernanda’s friends are arriving in Jasper in an hour. They don’t want to wait for the shuttle. Can you collect them?”

“Fernanda can’t do it?” Wasn’t that the obvious solution?

“She’s tied up.”

Doing what? Sopi didn’t ask. She was too relieved to have an excuse to disappear for three hours. Plus, the drive was always pretty. Minutes later, she was admiring the golden gleam of snow off the craggy peaks above her and caught the stub tail of a lynx as it slunk into the trees.

Maude’s information on the women’s flight was completely wrong, of course. Sopi wound up with time to kill, so she engaged in retail therapy while she was in the bigger center. Then she sat in the airport addressing as many texts and emails as she could.

When the chartered flight finally arrived, there were a dozen women, too many for Sopi’s SUV, and they’d already arranged for a private shuttle.

Annoyed, but completely unsurprised—this was classic Fernanda—Sopi drove home alone.

Rhys had grown up on the sort of palace intrigue that had resulted in the murder of his parents. The infantile game Maude was playing, trying to sell this property without telling the person it would affect most gravely, was nothing more than a mosquito-like annoyance to him.

Things took a turn into adult parlor games when Rhys decided to play along while he turned the tables. He kept hearing Sopi ask, How long does it last? What happens when it’s over?

They had barely even started and couldn’t really continue, not properly. That infuriated him, but after their intimacy last night, he couldn’t ignore the way Maude was going behind Sopi’s back. He was convinced Maude would pursue the sale with someone else if he declined, so he decided to go through with it. He had Gerard call Maude first thing and tell her to expect the prince’s counteroffer later today.

Rhys then sent his bodyguard to fetch Sopi. He wanted to come clean about his purchase and include her in the negotiations. Maybe they could work out some other arrangement while they were at it. He knew it was next to impossible, though, and that put him on edge.

When his bodyguard returned with Cassiopeia’s neatly bagged delicates and the news that she had driven away in a company vehicle, he nearly snapped.

This was the only time they had!

He was in a brooding, foul mood when Gerard knocked and entered carrying his trusty tablet. “I relayed the stepdaughter’s details to the palace for the due-diligence investigation, sir. You’ll want to see this. The palace investigators dug fairly deeply into the Brodeur background—”

“And Maude is on the run from the law?” he surmised facetiously. “Shocking.”

“Um, no, sir. Maude and her daughters don’t seem to have a criminal record of any kind. But Cassiopeia’s mother is a Basile-Munier.”

Rhys snapped his head around. “But they died out.”

Nevertheless, his blood leaped as he took the tablet and scrolled through the report. It included an image of a birth certificate and a short article by a historian who had visited this spa some years ago. The man had been trying to prove the owner was the surviving child of a prince who had disappeared from public life after an assassination attempt. That prince and his wife had had a daughter late in life. She’d eloped against her father’s wishes.

A marriage certificate and a title search on this property all seemed to indicate Sopi’s mother was that same woman.

“Is this real?”

“A DNA test would confirm it, although I’m not sure where we’d get a sample. Miss Brodeur seems to be the only surviving member. But if you scroll to the photo at the bottom, it would seem, um, like mother like daughter. And granddaughter.”

Rhys stared at a scan of a dated color photograph of two women who both had Sopi’s cheekbones and chin, rich brown hair and gleaming dark eyes.

The room was absolutely still and silent, but he felt as though a gust of wind hit him. Went through him. Nearly knocked him on his ass.

This was too easy. Too perfect. This wasn’t how life worked. Not how it should do in any case, not for him.

At the same time, a roaring thrill went through him. He could have her. He would have her. His agile brain quickly found the rationale for it. A commoner would have been a fight, but a royal would be accepted without question. Even better, she was a lost princess whose story would pull the spotlight from Henrik. His brother dropping out of public life while he sought treatment would barely be noticed by anyone.

“Forget driving down the price of the spa. I want a swift sale, immediate possession and binding terms.”

The checkers game he’d been playing with Maude was flung into the air. This was now grand master chess with a side hand of high-stakes poker.

Within the hour, Gerard had the contract finalized. Maude agreed that the transfer of ownership would remain confidential until such time as Rhys saw fit to announce it. Rhys informed her he would retain all staff but no longer needed a marketing VP or brand ambassadress. The people holding those positions—Nanette and Fernanda—would have to vacate their suite by the end of the week.

“Your late husband purchased this property for his wife?” Rhys asked as he and Maude set their electronic signatures to the final deal. He was curious whether Maude knew of Sopi’s royal blood.

“I understood she had an inheritance of some kind enabling her to renovate it. We rarely spoke about our previous marriages, to be honest. I’m just delighted to finally have this albatross off my hands. I run it as a folly, but it’s more work than it’s worth.”

As Gerard double-checked and pronounced everything settled, Rhys said to Maude, “Would you and your family dine with me this evening?”

“Oh, Nanette and Fernanda would love that.”

No mention of Sopi, her considerable contribution to the business or how this sale would impact her.

Maude’s complete disregard for her stepdaughter incensed Rhys, making his delight in outsmarting her grow exponentially until a bellow of triumph was nearly bursting from his chest.

It was a warning sign that he felt far too strongly about this. About Sopi. If he felt anything, it ought to be the comfortable satisfaction that he had uncovered an opportunity that benefited his brother and was moving strategically to seize it before anyone else could.

Even when he had the spa sewn up, however, Rhys’s powerful sense of urgency didn’t ease. He tried to pace it off, aware that Sopi would be furious with him, but his deal with Maude was the least of the shocks she would receive tonight.

When Sopi returned and confronted Maude over the wasted day, her stepmother frowned and said, “Oh, you know how Fernanda gets distracted when she’s excited. She and Nanette have been invited to dine with the prince tonight. That must be why she mixed things up.”

It was a prevarication if not an outright lie. Sopi was dying to say, Oh, really? Because last night, when I was with the prince, he told me he wasn’t interested in either of them.

But she didn’t want to reveal she’d been with the prince. She hadn’t felt sordid when it happened, but after brooding on it all day, she was convinced she’d behaved like those women he’d spoken of so disparagingly. The ones who straddled him whether he wanted them to or not.

She went about her afternoon checking in with staff and pitching in as necessary. When a handsome young man approached her as she was covering the booking desk, she smiled in greeting, caught off guard when he used her full name, not the Sopi on her name tag.

“Cassiopeia Brodeur?”

“Yes.” This was more the type of man she ought to aim for, she thought absently. He was polite and well dressed, but his attitude didn’t scream wealth and privilege. He returned her smile, but with polite reserve. He didn’t move the needle on her body temperature one millimeter, which was delightfully unthreatening if a little disappointing.

“Please call me Sopi. How can I help you?”

“I’m the prince’s assistant, Gerard. This is for you.” The small envelope he offered was imprinted with the royal crest.

Her heart tripped, and she ducked the envelope below the edge of the desk to hide how her hands began to tremble.

“Thank you,” she said in a strangled voice, cheeks scorching. She wanted to glance around guiltily but held his stare and her smile even though it began to feel forced.

“He asked if I could also take your number?” He offered his telephone with a contact already started in her name.

She balked. Rhys had gotten her naked last night, then fobbed her off on his bodyguard when he was finished with her. She wasn’t up for a do-over, if that’s what this was about.

“Perhaps if you read his message,” Gerard suggested, correctly interpreting her mutinous expression.

She withdrew the card, which was a single sheet, not even folded. It was some kind of high-grade linen stock in ivory with raw edges, also embossed with his crest.

His fine-tipped pen had dug in deep and left small trails, as though he’d rushed to write his brief message, barely lifting the pen. Or had written it in anger.

Where the hell did you go today?

Dinner.

No excuses.

Splotch went the ink on the final dot.

She bit her lip and slid the card back into the envelope, glanced at Gerard.

“Seven p.m. in the dining room with the rest of your family? I’ll tell him you’re confirmed?”

The rest of her family? Yech.

He must have read her reaction. “If there are any impediments, please bring them to my attention so I may iron them away.”

She resisted asking him to squash her family flat.

“I’ll be there,” she said, not sure if she was telling the truth. At least she’d bought a new dress today, still stinging over the incident with her stepsisters. The new one wasn’t designer or flashy by their standards, but it had come from an upscale boutique and cost more than Sopi’s weekly earnings. She had planned to return it on her next trip to Jasper.

“Excellent. And would you be so kind…?” He offered his phone again.

She hesitated, then gave him her number. He tried it, smiling when a ping sounded in her pocket. “Please let me know if I can assist you in any way.”

Perhaps he could offer her some strategies on facing the prince after last night?

For the rest of the afternoon, every time she tried to think up a reason to cry off the dinner invitation, she touched the card in her pocket and could hear Rhys’s deep voice warning, “No excuses.” Why did she find his profanity-laced impatience so reassuring? It brought a secretive smile to her lips every time she thought of it.

At five fifty-five, Maude called her. “Sopi. We have a disaster in the kitchen. You’ll have to run out or breakfast won’t happen tomorrow morning.”

Here was her excuse to skip dinner, but a devilish part of her refused to seize it.

“We’re expected to dine with the prince this evening, aren’t we?” she asked with a full pound of smugness. “I had a note from him, personally inviting me. I don’t want to be rude.”

A pause that was loud enough to thunk. Maude might have swallowed. “I assumed you would decline. You tend to set yourself apart from us.”

Oh, was it was her who did that?

Actually, maybe she did. She had never forgiven Maude for keeping her father in Europe or for spending all his money. Still, Sopi pulled the phone from her ear and scowled at the screen. Maude was sounding particularly petty about a simple dinner invitation. Was she that embarrassed of her unrefined stepdaughter?

“Well, tonight I’ll join you,” Sopi said cheerfully. “Since it’s not often I get a chance to dine with royalty.” She hung up and stuck her tongue out at the phone.

Then she suffered a churning stomach for the next hour as she showered and dressed. Her hair, which she never bothered to cut because she always wore it up, was ridiculously long, falling to her waist. At least it had a hint of wave, but it tickled her lower back, where her new dress had a circular cutout.

The dress was a sleeveless knit with a high collar, but it made her look fuller in the chest than she was, which balanced hips that were a shade wider than her stepsisters’ fashion magazines told her they ought to be.

She wasn’t much for makeup, but her cheeks were pale with nerves. She gave them a swipe of blusher and painted her lips with a pink gloss. She hadn’t thought about new shoes when she’d been shopping today so she had only the plain black pumps she wore when she played hostess in the dining room.

As she went onto tiptoe in the bathroom, trying to see her bottom half in the mirror, the butterflies in her stomach turned to slithering snakes. She was kidding herself. Not only would she not measure up to Nanette and Fernanda, she would look downright foolish in everyone’s eyes, trying so hard to impress.

Just as she started to kick off her shoes, however, Gerard texted that the prince was sending an escort for her.

Sopi choked on her tongue, texted back that it was unnecessary and decided to do what she’d been doing for years now—brave things out for one more day.

She had put up with Maude’s proprietary orders and her stepsisters’ snobbery because the alternative was to cede the territory to them and wind up with nothing. Cassiopeia’s was her home. She would fight for it to the bitter end.

Which came sooner than she’d expected.

What happens when it’s over?

It would never be over. Rhys had found the woman he would marry. The knowledge should have afforded him nothing beyond a contented sense of completion. He didn’t like the gnawing sense in him that he needed to leap and snatch and hold on tight. Gerard had assured him Sopi had promised to join them for dinner, but she had become so important to him in the last few hours, Rhys feared that if she wasn’t in the dining room when he got there, he might well devolve into shedding blood.

He stalked from the elevator across the short bridge that overlooked the foyer below to the dining room reservation desk. He was as combat ready as any of his ancestral knights, vibrating with a drive to claim.

The babble inside the dining room went silent as he appeared. Everyone rose with a muted shuffle of chairs. A small pocket of women stood to the side of the reception desk. One of them was backed into a corner behind a potted palm.

The tension in their small group hit him like a battering ram, but the sight of Sopi’s drawn cheeks and bravely lifted chin reached out to claw into his chest.

“Ladies,” he greeted.

Sopi stiffened and skimmed her gaze to a distant corner, refusing to make eye contact.

“Your Highness,” the rest murmured.

So. They’d told her about the sale. And she was taking it badly.

Rhys kept an impassive expression on his face, but he wanted to catch her by the chin and force her thick lashes up, so she looked directly into his eyes. He wanted to ask how she dared let these women take advantage of her. Didn’t she realize who she was?

No. She didn’t. Steps had been taken to bury it too deeply.

He had thought to make a dramatic announcement here in the dining room, but as he read the angry hurt in her, he realized he couldn’t spring it on her like that. She would hate and blame him a little longer, but he could withstand it.

Any guilt Rhys might have experienced for his underhanded actions in buying the spa dried up, however. It was past time Sopi learned the truth about her mother and herself. He couldn’t wait for the transformation.

Maude’s younger daughter demanded his attention by stepping forward and offering a curtsy with a breathy, nervous giggle.

“Your Highness, some of my friends have just arrived.” She waved at a long table with a half dozen women down either side, all looking his way with anticipation. A few empty seats had been saved in the middle. “We wondered if you might enjoy a more lively evening? They’re anxious for a chance to meet you.”

“Another time.” He glanced impatiently at Maude.

“Of course,” Maude said smoothly. “We have a quiet table reserved at the back. Sopi?”

“This way.” Sopi didn’t smile, and her voice was cold and pointed as an icicle aimed at the middle of his chest. She led the way through the staring crowd.

Ingrained protocol nearly had him offering an arm to escort Maude and her eldest daughter, but he shunned them at the last second, moving ahead of them, all his attention on the sensual swish of loose hair across the top of a stunning, heart-shaped ass that swayed provocatively as she wound her way between the tables.

Dear God, that hair. How dare she hide such a thing from him? It was an instant fetish he would need a thousand nights to indulge.

It was a good thing the place was filled with mostly women, because if he caught any man, even one of his lethally trained bodyguards, checking her out, he would duel to the death.

He gritted his teeth, trying to suppress this unwelcome surge of possessiveness. Where was it coming from? It was more than his innate preference to act on his decisions the minute he made them. It was positively primeval. It was an aspect of that wildness he knew lurked in any human, and he didn’t like it. He only hoped it would ease up once he knew she was his. It had to. Otherwise they were doomed.

He was given the position at the head of the table, Maude on his right, Nanette on his left. Sopi sat on Maude’s right and glared at Fernanda, who shrugged across at her in a silent, Don’t blame me.

“I want to thank you for your hospitality,” Rhys said as their champagne arrived and was poured. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”

“You won’t stay the week?” Maude murmured, but she was drowned out by Fernanda’s, “Us, too, in a few days. Finally!” Fernanda raised her glass.

Sopi choked strongly enough they all lowered their glasses. Her eyes glimmered as she shot hard looks at each of them.

“You suck. You all suck,” she croaked.

There was a collective gasp from tables nearby. Maude said a sharp, “Sopi! Consider who you’re speaking to.”

Rhys said nothing, pleased to see she possessed a spine after all. She would need one.

“All of you.” She rose and glared directly at him with betrayed hurt sharp as the edge of a knife.

Her hand jerked, but before she could fling the contents of her wine at him, Rhys’s bodyguard caught her wrist.

“Stand down,” Rhys barked at him, also rising.

Sopi shrugged away from the bodyguard’s hold and stepped away from the table. She threw her glass to the floor in a shattering statement.

“Go to hell. Every single one of you.” She stalked out.

“Someone doesn’t know which side her bread is buttered on,” Nanette said into her champagne.

“True,” Rhys bit out, sending Nanette a dark glower that made her blanch. He set his hands on the table to lean over the three women. “Those who betray others to get what they want should expect the same treatment. Skip the meal and start packing. Be gone by midnight.”

“What—”

He ignored the women’s cries of shock as he straightened and sent a curt nod to Gerard. His assistant would ensure the staff were notified that Maude and her daughters no longer gave the orders and, in fact, were no longer residents of the hotel.

As the buzz of gossip and speculation spread like wildfire through the room, Rhys jerked his head at his bodyguard to lead the way to Sopi’s cabin.

How stupid could she get? She had genuinely thought her worst humiliation was allowing a man with more experience to talk her out of her clothes and take a few liberties with her person. She had thought letting down her physical guard where his sexual intentions were concerned had been the careless act, but no. Last night’s dalliance had been some kind of misdirection so she would be blindly ignorant of what Maude was really doing.

What he was doing. Of course he wasn’t interested in her. He had toyed with her the way some executives spun fidget spinners while brokering a deal.

The pressure in her chest threatened to crack her breastbone, but Sopi refused to scream or cry or release any of the aching sobs branding her throat.

Fine, she’d been thinking for the last twenty minutes, after Fernanda had spilled the beans that Maude had definitely meant to be delivered a few days from now, no doubt after ordering Sopi to load their damned luggage for them. Maude had hissed in warning and Nanette had said, “For God’s sake, Fernie. Mummy told you it’s confidential.”

“What?” Fernanda had had the gall to cast it as a good thing. “She’ll be happy. Mummy sold it all to the prince. We’ll all be out of your hair by next weekend. You should be happy, Sopi.”

Sopi had been utterly speechless, standing there in shock as the prince arrived and everyone stared. She had moved on autopilot, only feeling reality hit her as they reached the table. Instead of holding a chair for their guest the way she would as a hostess, the prince’s assistant, Gerard, had moved behind her and held her chair.

It had been so unexpected, it had knocked her out of her stasis and into a plummeting realization that everything had changed. The one dream she had clung to was gone. The only home she had ever known would never be hers.

The nascent fantasy she had had that a prince—a damned royal prince—might see something in her beyond a penniless chambermaid had burst like a bubble, leaving her coated in a residue of disillusion and humiliation.

Slamming into her cabin, she kicked off her shoes. Hard. So that one dented a cardboard box and the other went flying toward the bathroom door.

She wrenched at the dress she’d bought with him in mind. It was meant to be pulled on gently to retain the shape and prevent snags in the delicate knit. She dragged roughly at it. Tried to tear it because she hated it. She yanked it off and dropped it where she stood and wiped her feet on it. She was panting and shaking, still trying to catch her breath after her sprint through the snow-laden trees, filled with an endless supply of hate.

With a final twist of her foot, she flicked it to the side and shoved at a stack of boxes, freshly delivered this afternoon and left for her to move to a more convenient location. Everything was always left to her to do, and she was sick of it. She shoved the stack even harder, so it fell with a tumble.

The crash wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she had hoped, especially when it was followed by a loud stomp of a heavy foot leaping onto her stoop. The door flung open to let in a burst of cold air that swirled like a demon around her nearly naked body.

Him. The instrument of her ruin.

“Bastard,” she muttered and turned away to take her narrow stairs two at a time.

Below her, she heard the door click closed. She glanced down from the loft and gripped the rail with humiliated rage as she watched him take in the clutter and the mess of boxes. He picked up her dress and gave it a light shake.

“Come right in,” she said scathingly. “Act like you own the place.”

He lifted his gaze, and she instantly felt naked. Not just physically, which she mostly was, but as though she was utterly transparent. As if he could see through her sarcasm to those puerile fantasies she’d spun in her head. It was so agonizing to be seen this way, she had to hold back a sob and turn away. She yanked out a drawer in her dresser, digging for jeans and a pullover. The stairs creaked as she stuck her legs into her jeans.

He appeared in the loft and flicked his gaze in harsh judgment of her used furniture and what she had always thought of as a cozy living space. As her turtleneck nearly choked her, and she yanked at her hair enough that it had some slack outside her collar, she saw the loft through his eyes and was mortified to realize it wasn’t humble. It was shabby.

Angry that he was seeing it and forcing her to see it, she said, “I was being facetious. What I really meant was get lost.”

What she really meant were two words she had never said to anyone, no matter how badly Nanette had ever baited her, but she was feeling them this evening. She really was.

He draped her dress over the footboard of her bed. “We’ll continue this discussion in my room.”

“Gosh, I would love to accommodate you, Your Highness, but I have to pack and find a place to live. Because if you think I’m going to work for you, you need to see a psychiatrist about your loose grasp on reality.”

“My people will pack for you. Socks,” he said, nodding at her bare feet.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Süsse, I will carry you out of here kicking and screaming if I have to. We are not talking here.”

“There is nothing wrong with the way I live.” Everything was wrong with it, but she would die on the hill of defending what was left of her home after the way he had treated her. “This is what a person has to do when they’re kicked around by people who have more power than they do.”

“I know that!” he shouted, then seemed to pull himself together with a flex of his shoulders and a clench of his jaw. “It reminds me of the way my brother and I lived when we were in exile. I hate it. I won’t stay here, but you and I will talk. Am I carrying you?”

Shaken by that completely unexpected admission, she only hesitated long enough for one brow to go up in a warning that he was dead serious.

She swallowed and told herself she was only cooperating because this was too small a space for the explosive emotions still detonating inside her and radiating off him. She found a balled-up pair of socks and sat on the top stair to put them on with her boots, aware of him looming over her the whole time.

“I don’t know what we could possibly have to say to one another,” she muttered.

“You will be surprised,” he promised in a dark vow. He followed her down the stairs and out the door.

His bodyguard flanked them as they crossed to the hotel and blocked anyone from joining their elevator.

Sopi refused to make eye contact with the wide stares that came at them from every level of the foyer.

“I forgot my phone,” she murmured as she realized her hands and pockets were empty.

“It will be retrieved.” He let her into his suite himself, waiting while the bodyguard moved through in a swift check of all the rooms. Rhys stationed the man outside his door with, “Only Gerard, and only if the place is burning to the ground.”