Claiming His Princess: Duty at What Cost? / A Throne for the Taking / Princess in the Iron Mask. Kate Walker
Ava’s mind before she could stop it. The silver. He’d want her to blend into the background.
‘The red,’ she said decisively, angry with herself for wanting to dress to please Wolfe. And racy might help pick up her mood. Ava rolled her shoulders to ease the tension her warm bath had failed to alleviate.
‘Great choice.’ Lucy beamed. ‘Prince Lorenzo will find you irresistible!’
The sound of the music being clicked off made Lucy’s last words ring loudly in the sudden silence. Lucy gasped, her hand pressed against her chest. ‘Monsieur Wolfe!’
‘Leave us, Lucy,’ Wolfe commanded icily.
Lucy hesitated, her eyes darting to Ava’s.
Ava handed Lucy the red gown. ‘If you could have this pressed and return it when it’s done, Lucy, that would be lovely.’
She could tell instantly that Wolfe was in a dangerous mood; the expression on his face was as black as his clothing.
After waiting for Lucy to close the sitting room door, she turned to face him. ‘I didn’t hear you knock.’
‘That’s because I didn’t.’
Their eyes connected and Ava couldn’t have looked away to save her life. Then he prowled to the other side of the room and slammed her window closed before turning to face her. ‘Big night tonight?’ His eyes fell on the silver dress draped over her bed.
‘A state dinner is always important.’ Her heart thumped in her chest and she moved to sit on the stool facing the dressing table, started unwinding her hair from the topknot she’d put it in while she bathed. If nothing else it gave her hands something to do. Although she knew he was angry, she had no idea why. ‘Did you want something?’
Now, there was a loaded question. But it wasn’t one Wolfe was in a state of mind to answer. Not with her wearing that flimsy midnight-blue kimono that perfectly matched her eyes and most likely nothing underneath.
He was in a foul mood and he knew why. He was frustrated with the lack of progress he’d made on her case—and frustrated with himself. He’d lost focus somewhere in the middle of last week and stopped thinking of her as a job. Somewhere along the way he’d started to admire her work ethic, her commitment to master a duty she’d never thought would be hers…and then he’d gone and exacerbated the situation by spilling his guts to her.
‘Understood what, Wolfe? That you were a child who couldn’t rely on his mother’s love?’
Wolfe silently cursed as her nosy question replayed once again inside his head. That’s what you got for opening up to a woman. Psychobabble and a week-long headache.
He’d made a mistake—too many where she was concerned—but as long as he made the other night his last he could live with it.
Now all he had to do was to reinstate the cool professionalism he was renowned for and get back on task.
In some ways he had hoped taking last night off would help with that. He’d met a mate in Rome at a nightclub he’d hated before he’d even made it past the officious bouncer. When he’d hit the dance floor with a super-sexy Italian girl his head had started aching from the loud music and his body had all but yawned with boredom. Boredom? At breasts bursting out of a short dress that would send any normal man into a frenzy of desire? Ridiculous. Or so Tom had informed him.
‘Wolfe?’
His name falling from Ava’s delectable lips was like a husky invitation to his senses. In his mind’s eye he imagined her rising gracefully from the cushioned stool on which she sat. Saw her loosen the sash on her robe, knew that it would fall halfway open, catch on the crest of her nipples and hold, revealing the temptation of her flat belly and the brunette curls he longed to bury his face in. She would hold his gaze, tilt her cute nose and saunter towards him. Then she’d arch her imperious brow, wrap her arms around his neck and pull his mouth to hers.
Of course she didn’t do any such thing.
Instead she picked up her hairbrush and ran it through her hair in long, languid strokes. Wolfe glanced sideways and saw the discarded jodhpurs and billowy white shirt she had worn riding earlier that day with suitor number two hundred and one, and all he wanted to do was ride her. Hard.
For nearly three weeks he’d held it together. Held his desire for her at bay. Held his self-control in check. Why was it pulling at him now? Making him sweat?
But he knew, didn’t he?
Lorenzo, the urbane Prince of Triole, wanted her—and her father had decided he was the one. He’d asked Wolfe to do a special security check on him to clear the way. Tonight Lorenzo would no doubt try to stake his claim on her. Knowing how much she sought her father’s approval, how much she wanted to do the right thing by her country, he was very much afraid she’d go along with it. Not that he should care. It wasn’t as if he had made a claim on her himself.
‘Wolfe?’ Her voice had risen with concern at his delayed response to her question. ‘Do you have news about who caused Frédéric’s accident?’
‘No.’ Wolfe grated harshly, holding up the crumpled piece of paper he’d printed out five minutes ago. ‘I’m here about this.’
She glanced at the document before cutting her eyes back to him. ‘Am I supposed to know what “this” is?’
‘Your itinerary.’
‘Oh, that.’ She turned back to the mirror dismissively. ‘You told me to tell you in advance when I planned to make changes to it.’
‘I remember telling you it was dangerous to change it.’
Her nonchalant shrug ratcheted up his tension levels. ‘It’s going to be a lovely day tomorrow and—’
‘You’ve been to Paris before,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘Hell, you lived here for eight years. Why do you need to go on some convoluted walking tour?’
‘I have not been here for nearly a month. I want to see the city again.’
Wolfe bit back a string of curses at her determined expression. ‘Look out of the window.’ He gestured to the one behind him without really seeing anything. ‘To the right the Eiffel Tower, to the left Notre Dame.’
‘Actually, that’s Hôtel de Ville to the left. You cannot see Notre Dame from that window.’ She regarded him steadily. ‘Have you ever actually walked around Paris before, Wolfe?’
‘Sure. I’ve strolled from the airport to the car and from the car to whatever building I needed to enter.’
‘Well, that at least explains why you don’t understand my need to reconnect with the city,’ she said. ‘I might not be back here for some time and I want to wander up through Montmartre to Sacré Coeur, have lunch, and check out the new installation in my gallery before it is disassembled.’
‘You agreed to let me decide when you could visit your gallery.’
‘I’ve changed my mind.’
‘You’re angry because I’m calling the shots.’
‘That has nothing to do with it. Did you have fun last night?’
The unexpected question threw him, and he watched through narrowed eyes as she rose and slowly approached the bed, gripping the bedpost in a provocative pose he wasn’t even sure she was aware of.
‘I can fit in Sacré Coeur, but you’re not walking around Montmarte and your gallery is off-limits until I say so.’
He had leaked a fake itinerary to a couple of key suspects and the one she had devised for herself came too perilously close to it for comfort. Letting her have her way would put her in danger, and he couldn’t live with himself if something happened to her. If she should—
‘Look at you,’