Princess in the Iron Mask (12 page)

The sound of her feet scoring asphalt, as if she were about to
trip in her haste, was a kick to his protective gut and he snagged Claudia’s
arm, tugging her into a darkened corridor leading to the armoury.

‘Breathe, Claudia.’ Grasping her shoulders, he manoeuvred her
to lean against the stone wall...then backed the hell away. Before he hauled her
into his arms. The situation was already complex enough. But,
Dios,
she wanted him to. He knew from the way her eyes
devoured his wide shoulders, his chest, even as she wrapped her own delicate
hands around her body.

He clenched his fists so hard a spear of pain lanced up his
forearms. ‘Why are you running?’

‘I’m not running anywhere,’ she said, still breathless. ‘We’re
leaving...aren’t we?’

Lucas thrust his fingers through his hair. ‘
Sí.
After you calm down, speak to me.’

Closing her eyes, she gently banged her head on the stone
wall—once, twice. ‘God, Lucas, what do you want from me. I came, didn’t I? Just
like you wanted.’

‘No, just as your parents wanted.’ Yet there had been no
embrace. No words of joy. Only duty. While he understood duty took priority over
all else, pure empathy had torn through him as he’d watched her encounter such
insouciance. After all she’d been through.

A humourless laugh slipped from her lips. ‘Oh, yes—except they
want someone who doesn’t exist.’

Lucas frowned. ‘Explain this to me.’

‘I can’t be what they want,’ she said, her voice pitching with
frustration. ‘Do I look like a princess of the realm to you? No. What if I
embarrass them in front of the world? Make some pithy remark to the King of
Salzerre? Look ridiculous in some frou-frou dress with no sleeves—?’

‘Look at me,’ he demanded.

When she did not obey he slid his fingers up her jaw, cupped
her face and tilted it to look at him. He felt himself almost drowning in her
amber eyes. Eyes that were now brimming with hurt.

‘No more excuses. You must believe in yourself. In what you are
capable of. As I do.’

‘You...you do?’

‘
Sí.
Of course. Do you know what
your people call you, Claudia? The Lost Princesa. How right they are—for still
you are lost. When I saw Bailey I knew. You hide. You need to break free. Show
them who you truly are inside. The rest will come.’

He could feel her pulse thrumming against the ball of his hand,
her throat convulse.

‘Being back here—’ Her voice cracked on a whisper. ‘I’m twelve
years old again. So sick. So cold.’

A giant fist punched him in the guts. ‘You have bad memories of
being here.’ It made perfect sense, but there was more, he knew. Problem was, he
was treading perilously close to quicksand. For her relationship with her
parents, however awkward and frigid, was none of his business. Still, he was
unwilling to watch her fall or unveil another damn façade.

‘You are sick no more, Claudia. While I am angry as hell that
life has dealt you such a card, you have found your way. You have become an
accomplished, intelligent woman in your own right. Be proud of this.’ With his
thumbs he drew small circles on her soft cheeks, luring her in to believe him.
Fighting the craving to kiss the sadness from her lips. ‘Be proud of your brave
heart.’

‘I don’t feel brave,’ she whispered. ‘I feel lost. I know my
role back home. I know my job. Here—I’m not one of them. I don’t know how to
be.’

Lucas pulled back, his hands slipping from her face to rake
around the back of his neck. ‘And do you think I did?’ he asked, aggravated by
the tightness in his voice, yet determined to show her he understood. ‘I was not
born to this world, Claudia. Far from it.’

Her lips parted on an indrawn breath. ‘But you’re perfectly at
ease here.’

‘
Sí.
I too had to learn. And I
found honour in doing so.’ He’d found more than honour. He’d found a way of
life. One that had saved him from the dark side. Given him the strength to move
on, to fight. ‘Fear has no place in your heart right now.’

Eyes firing with the first spark of that spirit he craved, she
said, ‘I’m not scared. I—’ Her brow creased as she bit her lip. ‘Maybe I am. A
little. But you said so yourself. I look
dour.
I
can’t be elegant like
her.
Like my sisters. It’s
impossible.’

Lucas raised one brow and gave her The Look. ‘And where is the
woman who told me only yesterday that nothing is impossible?’

Lips curving sweetly, sadly, she said, ‘I have no idea.’

‘Then let us find her.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
, Claudia feast her eyes upon the orange groves lining the driveway leading from Lucas’s estate to the open road and nestled closer to the car door, depressing the window button with the tip of her finger.

An intoxicating sweet scent drifted up her nose, filling her lungs until she never wanted to exhale.

‘I’d forgotten,’ she said. ‘The amazing smell of orange blossom.’

It seemed to cling to her senses, stir something deep inside her...something long forgotten. A surreal feeling of peace washed over her—a sensation that didn’t make any sense.

‘It is heavier during spring when the trees are in full bloom. More decadent, I think.’

Lucas’s deep masculine voice overwhelmed her and made her headier still, her pulse skipping.

Tilting her head to peek skyward through the large gap in the blackened window, she closed her eyes, basking in the morning sun, wondering about the kind of man who proclaimed he didn’t feel and yet used the word
decadent.
The same man who is sheltering you from the storm.
But that, she told herself, was Lucas doing his job. Keeping her in Arunthia to fulfil her duty. A role which had once again kept her eyes wide through the night. But when the dawn had come so had her vow. If Lucas believed she could pull it off and play princess for the night she would give it her best shot. If only to prove to herself that she could. That she wasn’t shackled by the past.

Heavenly rays stroked through the clusters of fruit, the light speckling over her face. Shadows came and went, during which time she could just make out the tiny white flowers clinging to the bulbous dewy fruit.

‘Are they still Arunthia’s main export?’

‘Yes. Although as a country we are now richer from other timely investments. Mango, grapes, olives—that kind of thing.’ Leather creaked as he shifted on the seat beside her. ‘You are too hot, Claudia.’

‘I know,’ she said, tugging at the neckline of her long-sleeved tunic.

‘Close the window and the air-con will cool you.’

‘I need something cooler to wear.’

Black was no good in this horrid heat. And close proximity to Lucas didn’t help. If she hadn’t been distinctly uncomfortable in her own skin before she was now.

‘I have already made an appointment for you at the boutique in town.’

A moan slipped past her lips. Why, oh, why had she agreed to this?
Come on, Claudia. We’re talking clothes, not strains of cholera.

‘Afterwards we will take a stroll. Today is market day, I believe.’

Another moan. ‘Don’t feel the need to ease me in gently, will you, Lucas? This isn’t one of your military operations. At least allow me time to feel comfortable in full regalia before a full inspection.’

‘Dream on, Claudia.’

Was he smiling? She didn’t dare look in case she melted.

‘The people will see you and you will dig deep for that inner radiance and that beautiful smile of yours.’

She blinked. The scenery shuttered in and out of view. That was the second time he’d put her name and the word beautiful into one sentence. Wait a minute...
Inner radiance?
Was he high? Unable to resist looking at him for a second longer, she twisted at the waist and braced herself for the habitual hormone overload. It didn’t work. Utter waste of energy.

Absorbing eighty percent of the oxygen and encompassing ninety-five percent of the space, Lucas was a modern-day gladiator. Leaning pensively on his wrist as he took particular interest in the opposite side of the road.

With a quick glance to check that the privacy glass between themselves and Armande was firmly in place, she snapped back to him, ‘I think you need your eyes tested, Lucas.’

Fist dropping to his lap, he turned and speared her with his don’t-mess-with-me look. ‘It is you who needs an eye-test, Claudia. Maybe then you would not wear reading glasses for long distance.’

She gawped. Outright glared at him. ‘You’re beginning to scare me, do you know that?’

He smiled. The brute actually smiled. And—oh, boy—her stomach flipped, then fluttered as if filled with white blossom bobbing on a breeze. It was a lopsided sinful smile that was loaded with bad-boy charisma. Just a hint of straight pearly teeth and a dimple in one cheek. Licking her lips, she’d swear she could taste that gorgeous mouth of his.

‘A shield, in whatever form, only hides so much,’ he said, before shifting on his hip and reaching up to where her glasses sat visor-like atop her head. ‘You do not need them for visiting, for shopping, for the breathtaking scenery or as a hairband.’

His husky voice... The slide of his fingers, abrasive on her scalp...

‘Do not deny people the pleasure of seeing your amber fire.’

Amber fire?

‘How do you do it?’ she asked, a little breathless, a whole lot stunned. ‘You soak in every nuance. It’s really intimidating. Am I so easy to read?’

‘No. You have many layers and they are proving hard to strip away.’

Strip?
She wished to God he’d strip her right now—or take off his own clothes. She wasn’t picky. Against all logic she wanted to touch him. With one kiss he’d given her a taste of undiluted desire and like a potent drug she craved another shot.

Thought vanished as he pulled her glasses free and the light scrape of his fingers brushed across her cheek. She focused on his eyes. Rich dark blue, hot and intense, pupils dilated.

Claudia held onto the moment and the past forty-eight hours disappeared. She could feel him surrounding her—hard and fiercely passionate. The seductive pull of his mouth. What would his mouth feel like on her neck? Her breasts? Her stomach? What would he feel like deep like inside her?

Something hot and sultry splashed through her midsection and she gripped the edge of the buttery leather seat with one hand and squeezed her thighs together.
Oh, God,
what was happening to her?

Lucas broke the connection and closed the arms of her glasses in on themselves. Bereft, Claudia watched him plop the frames into the cubbyhole lining the door, delve into the inside pocket of his suave black jacket and pull out a platinum-encased pen. Lowering his eyes to the small table in front of him, where a sheaf of papers lay, he began to scrawl his signature, his long fingers stroking the silver column.

Visions—vividly sensual and achingly explicit—poured into her mind. Where they came from she had no idea, but she couldn’t seem to stop them. Clenching her insides, she wriggled to ease the damp sensation between her legs and pulled at the small window button to douse the sweet bouquet of nature. Only to be ensnared in a whirlwind of musk-drenched pheromones.

Vision blurring, she squeezed her eyes shut. ‘How far?’

‘Ten minutes,’ he said, in a growl she’d come to recognise as Lucas being unhappy with her. ‘Nine.’

He was on a countdown. Nine minutes? Heavens above, she’d be a puddle in the footwell by then. She rubbed her brow, felt the moisture coat her fingertips and tore at the high neck of her tunic.

Lucas reached for the control panel between them and lowered the temperature in the car by four degrees. He might as well have hiked it up, because the sight of his long thick fingers stroking the controls detonated the nuclear bomb in the pit of her stomach and she began to literally quake.

‘Are you car-sick?’ he asked.

Sick? She was sick in the head. This had to stop! Frantic, she dug deep to unearth hate and came up blank. When had that happened? Yesterday, when he’d swept her away from the palace? Or when he’d slanted that hot hard mouth over hers? Or had it been when he’d been so damn wonderful with Bailey?

‘Claudia, did you hear me?’

‘Sick. Yes. Terribly.’

Okay no hate. What else did she have? Well, for starters, he didn’t want her. Wasn’t it mortifying enough that one kiss had put him off? And she didn’t even know him! While he was stripping her bare—somehow with all her clothes still intact—she still had no idea who he was.

Lucas lowered the privacy glass to speak to Armande. ‘I will tell him to pull over.’

Claudia gripped his arm, tugged. ‘No. Not that kind of sick. Just...’ She flicked her shoulder, scrambling for a word. Any word. ‘Nervous. Just nervous. Carry on. Honest.’ The more time they spent in this car, the more chance she had of making a fool of herself.

Up went the glass partition, yet his searching eyes never left her face. Since she’d moved to grab him they were too close, but she couldn’t seem to let go—just luxuriated in the touch of fine wool and hot steel beneath. Colour scored his cheeks and she watched, mesmerised, as his throat convulsed, a muscle ticked his jaw.

‘
Dios,
I cannot continue travelling in these confined spaces with you. It is agony.’

There it was. It shouldn’t hurt. But it really, really did.

She snatched her hand away. ‘Agony. Right.’ While she was burning up, ready to spontaneously combust, he abhorred their close proximity.

Slamming the table upright with one hand, he shoved the papers in his briefcase with the other. Breath short, his chest began to heave, and his amazing blue eyes speared an arrow of heat straight to her core. ‘
Dios,
your brain is addled. And I am running out of ideas on how to convince you.’

‘Convince me of what?’

‘That you were not born to hide!’

‘Hide? You’re not making sense.’ And why was he always so angry with her?

‘Tell me, what do you feel like right now? In here?’ he said, punching his own rock-hard stomach. ‘Truthfully, Claudia,’ he growled in warning.

On fire. A tight fusion of energy cells clustered into a fiery ball—sparking, fighting to explode. As if she had the worst stomach ache on earth. Or was it the best stomach ache on earth? Regardless, if she moved one muscle and rubbed down
there,
where her knickers were so wet, she’d seriously...

‘Agony,’ she said, the word slipping out before she had a chance to stop it.

‘
Sí.
Agony. As do I.’

Her eyes slid to where the expensive weave of his suit pulled tight around his thick thighs and groin. He couldn’t possibly...

‘Oh,’ she said a little shakily as her insides grew heavier still.

Tucking one of his fingers under her chin, he raised her head until their eyes met. ‘You are clueless, Claudia. You think I could devour you like that and feel nothing?’

‘I just thought...maybe you kiss everyone like that.’

His chin dipped as his eyebrows shot skyward. ‘I appreciate your confidence in my abilities.’

‘And you pulled away. In fact you pushed me away!’

‘Sí,’
he said, ripping his finger from her chin so quickly her head bobbed. ‘For my own damn sanity and your honour. Before I took you against the wall.’

‘Oh? It was good, then?’ she asked, trying to quell the initial elation and excitement until she knew for sure.

Facing front, he thrust his fingers through his hair and clawed down his face. ‘And now I finally see what has been staring me in the face. Tell me, when you look in the mirror, what do you see?’

Shaking her head, she inched backwards. But given the space deprivation she didn’t make much progress.

‘Exactly,’ he said, turning back to face her. ‘You do not like what you see.’

She tore at her lip. Why was he persecuting her like this? In truth she couldn’t remember the last time she’d peered at her reflection—except for in the en-suite bedroom in Lucas’s penthouse. Because she loathed every flaw. Wondered if every slight shade variation on her skin was her imagination or a sign of something to come.

His eyes darkened to the colour of midnight. ‘Why? I ask myself. When you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.’

Stupefied, she parted her lips as a war erupted inside her—her mind tripping over disbelief, her heart squeezing at his earnest words. Because she knew he wouldn’t lie. ‘Oh...’

Lucas snorted. ‘Suddenly you have lost your internal dictionary. It seems I have found another way to shut you up. I shall remember this.’

‘I preferred the other way,’ she said, remembering the way he’d backed her up against the car outside her flat. She’d been right! He’d been going to kiss her. She wanted him to. Right. Now.

He laughed without a speck of humour. ‘Do not even think about it.’

‘Well, why not? If I want to and you want to... Couldn’t we just...?’ She wanted him to kiss her again so desperately she smothered her lips in moisture. Maybe if he touched her, put his hands on her breasts, they wouldn’t ache so much.

‘No.
No.
And do not look at me in that way!’

‘I’m not,’ she said, before his words registered. ‘What way?’

‘With those slumberous eyes and that sexy mouth. I—’ He groaned and flung himself back into the seat.

She
had a sexy mouth? ‘So where’s the problem in that?’

‘The problem with that, Claudia, is that along with your beauty I see a woman who I am forbidden to touch—and no,’ he said, palm facing her in a stop sign, ‘I am
not
only talking about my position at the palace. I am talking about my life. My rules. Did you not listen to a word I said yesterday? I have
sex.
Pure and simple.’

‘Really?’ It sounded kind of exciting to her. She’d never done anything exciting in her whole life. If just the idea exploded some of those fiery cells inside her, imagine what thrilling ecstasy she would experience if they actually did it. Although she guessed excitement was the improper response, because Lucas had seemingly caught the stimulated pitch in her tone and grim contempt slashed across his face.

‘It is just sex, Claudia. Meaningless. A short diversion with women I do not know. Woman who comprehend that I will leave and never,
ever
come back.’

When he said it like that, so cold and detached, she felt a shiver swarm across the base of her spine. He left. But didn’t everyone? Of course they did. Except this time
she
would be leaving. After this trip she’d never see him again. She knew that. And surely the hollow pang she felt inside her at that thought was only because Lucas kept distracting her at breakfast.