Princess in the Iron Mask. Victoria Parker
groin and his mouth turned as dry as Arunthian dirt. He had to drench his lips with moisture in order to speak.
‘I have a jet on stand-by. We’ll leave the country within two hours.’ Lucas could have her home within five and his job would be done. In future he’d only have to see her at state functions. By then, having appeased his newfound sexual appetite, he’d be able to look at her without imagining her naked. For he knew her body would be sublime. Soft and pliable to his steel and strength, and tall enough to be the perfect fit.
‘Rather presumptuous of you, isn’t it?’ she said.
Madre de Dios! Had he said that out loud? Lucas focused on her bent head as she slid the files lying on her desk into a large briefcase, one on top of the other.
He cleared his throat of pure want. ‘What is?’
‘To assume I’m leaving with you.’
The tightness in his neck drained down his spine. ‘Apologies, Just Claudia.’
Her hand stilled, and from his sideways vantage point he watched one eyelid shutter while she inhaled deeply, her breasts rising with life, pinky rouge blooming up her cheeks.
Did he affect her? The notion sucker-punched him straight in the solar plexus.
Her gentle touch forgotten, she began to ram two or three more files into the case, pushing until the bag was fit to burst. Maybe she was imagining it was his head. Oh, he certainly affected her. With annoyance rather than sexual attraction. Instead of relief he felt ridiculously irked.
How typical that the one woman in the world he could never have was a nemesis he instinctively wanted to devour.
‘So. What is your decision?’ He already knew it, but if she wanted to put up the pretence of a fight he would humour her. For now.
Kid gloves were his current choice of weapon.
‘I’m coming with you.’
His lips curved.
‘But not today.’
They flattened faster than a bomb detonation site.
‘What?’
‘I need three days,’ she said, adamant.
‘Impossible.’ He wouldn’t last two days without assaulting her gorgeous mouth.
Lucas worked to his own schedule, but just the thought of spending time near that sensational body while his stomach churned with a noxious mixture of frustration and fury ratcheted his deadline up into the red zone.
‘Delaying the inevitable is not only a foolhardy display of awkwardness on your part but a waste of time.’
‘Not for me. I need to go back to my apartment and pack. I have a personal matter to attend to, and most of all I need time to think,’ she said, tucking a wayward curl around the delicate shell of her ear.
‘Think?’ What did she need to think about? How many lab coats to pack? ‘I have no time to spare.’ Lucas blinked. Wait a minute … Personal matter? Dios, he’d never thought of that. And why did it make him feel like punching the wall?
‘Tough. Find time. Because I’m not going anywhere today.’ There it was again—that surge of heat when she used that sexy, stern voice.
And there she was, being selfish again. Why did he keep forgetting what kind of person she was? ‘Claudia, I cannot stay in London. I have to work.’
‘Oh, really?’ she said, yanking the case off the table and almost toppling over as it fell to the floor with a thud. ‘Well, now you know how I feel. I’m being dragged away from mine for three weeks. I’m sure you can afford to take three days.’
His nostrils flared. ‘My terms—’
‘Lucas,’ she said, attempting to disguise her rude interruption with an untried honeyed tone that made his skin prickle, ‘you will quickly come to realise I forget nothing. Your terms are—and I quote—three weeks’ leave, effective from nine this morning. Coupled with my return to Arunthia. On no occasion did you state a day of departure.’
Dios! Lucas seethed. She was impossible. ‘It is almost noon. You have eight hours.’ Let it not be said that he couldn’t compromise.
Arms crossed tight, her full breasts were pushed upwards to stretch the stiff cotton and she canted her hip in a sexy pose. The ten-bell alarm siren going off in his head almost rendered him deaf. Almost.
‘Two days,’ she bartered.
Lucas ground his jaw. ‘Twenty-four hours. Final offer.’ He was crazy. Certifiable. A day of Claudia would tip him over the edge of reason to plummet headlong into insanity. He did not negotiate. Ever. People obeyed him. Always.
She smiled. It might have been small and somewhat triumphant, but she actually smiled at him.
Lucas felt his eye twitch.
‘Done,’ she said, all smug sweetness.
God help him if she ever put her heart and soul into it. Because Lucas had an uneasy feeling it would be him that would be ‘done’.
‘Fine,’ he snapped, his abnormal behaviour pushing his soaring anger levels from dangerous to critical.
He only prayed her apartment on the Thames had separate floors. Or at least a fifty-foot distance between bedrooms. Fighting with bloodthirsty night demons would be child’s play in comparison to the blistering temptation that would be down the hall.
Lucas didn’t look happy, Claudia mused. Waves of dark fury poured from his tight shoulders, much like the rain streaming in rivulets down the black bodywork of his Aston Martin Vanquish.
The engine of his Aston Martin Vanquish roared like a sleek panther as he revved his displeasure, and she wiggled on the cream cowhide in an attempt to cover her quivering reaction. She’d never thought of a car as arousing before. Well, she’d never thought of anything as arousing before. Today seemed to be a day for firsts. Even the heady smell of leather and damp clothing couldn’t douse the warm, woodsy scent of Lucas lingering in the air.
With the exception of his barking request for her to enter her address into the sat nav, their drive to her apartment had been deadly silent. Now, parked at the kerb, she was desperate to be away from his fiercely primal aura. She was so tired she no longer had the strength to argue, and her legs throbbed so viciously she’d be lucky if she made it inside the building, let alone up the stairs.
‘Erm…thanks for the lift, Mr Garcia. Unless the gods grace me with a reprieve, I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Without further ado, she yanked hard on the door handle. After a third kerthunk, she surrendered, directing her voice to be sweet. ‘Could you open the door, pleeease?’
‘Claudia,’ he growled, nostrils flaring, his chest heaving with barely suppressed anger. Staring out of his window at the three-storey townhouse where she lived on the second floor, he twisted his long fingers around the dark wood steering wheel. Maybe he was imagining it was her neck. ‘Have you ever once acknowledged who you actually are?’
‘Who I am?’ she asked wearily, not entirely sure what he was getting at and unable to summon the energy to care.
‘Yes, Claudia,’ he said slowly, as if speaking to a child. ‘A member of the Arunthian Royal Family.’
Never. ‘Not really. Can I go now?’ She gave the handle another tug. Kerthunk. A long sigh poured from her lungs.
‘How long have you lived in this…this place?’ The way he said place, as if the word was rat poison on his tongue, was like taking a grater to her nerves. Without bothering to look out of the window, her mind’s eye recalled a picture of the tired frontage of this Victorian townhouse on a less than stellar street. What was he getting into a funk about? He didn’t have to live here.
Claudia