By Royal Demand. Robyn Donald
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She made up with restraint, settling on a faint darkening of her eyes and berry-coloured lipgloss rather than the full armour. She couldn’t afford, she thought cynically, to look like a woman on the make!
Carefully she pulled back her hair, pinning it into a neat, classic chignon at the back.
A tactful knock at the door set her heart slamming in her chest. Calm down, she told herself sternly. No Igor, no vampires; this is a job—and your future depends on it, so go out there and do your best.
The manservant stood back as she came through. ‘This way, madam,’ he said, and took her down in the lift, although not all the way to the bottom floor, then escorted her along another stone corridor.
‘To the parlour,’ he told her in his colourless voice. ‘It is less formal than the drawing room.’
Oh, good, so this wasn’t going to be a formal occasion.
Trying to regulate her heartbeats, she gazed discreetly around for clues to the taste of the owners. In spite of her American client, the original ancestors were still in residence; Sara met the painted eyes of one haughtily beautiful woman and wondered who she was, and why she seemed strangely familiar.
Her companion stopped outside a door and flung it open, announcing, ‘Miss Milton.’
And Sara walked into the nightmare that had haunted her dreams for the past year.
After the tasteless kitsch of her bedroom, the elegant, panelled study came as a shock—but not as much a shock as the man who stood beside the marble Renaissance chimneypiece.
Gabe Considine, the man she’d loved and had been going to marry. Tall, lean, yet powerfully built, clad in the formal black and white of evening clothes, his boldly chiselled features and slashing cheekbones exuding an uncompromising impression of power and authority.
And although not a muscle in his lean, handsome face moved when he saw her, Sara sensed a dark, formidable satisfaction in him that chilled her through to her bones.
For a terrified second every muscle in her body locked into stasis, holding her frozen to the floor.
‘Thank you, Webster,’ Gabe said, his voice cool and autocratic. He waited until the door closed behind the man, then smiled, and drawled, ‘Welcome to my ancestors’ castle, Sara.’
Pride stiffened her spine; pride, and the sick knowledge that a trap had been sprung.
After swallowing, to ease her arid throat, she said thinly, ‘I won’t say it’s a pleasure to be here.’
‘I didn’t expect you to.’ Eyes the colour and warmth of polished steel raked her face, summoned scorching heat to her skin as his gaze drifted downward.
Cynically, Gabe decided that she’d dressed carefully for this. Although her clothes were outwardly demure, the neckline revealed the lovely lines of her throat and her every breath subtly called attention to the curves of the breasts beneath the silver mesh.
As for the straight black skirt, so simple and straight—until she took a step, and the skirt opened just above the knee to showcase a long, elegant leg.
A cold haze of jealousy clouded his brain. According to the firm that was running surveillance on her, she hadn’t gone out with anyone else in the past year, but her salary wasn’t enough to buy clothes like this. Second-hand? Probably; whatever, it didn’t matter.
The classic hairstyle revealed her perfect features, cool and composed except for the luscious mouth, and even that she’d toned down with a mere film of rosy colour. She wore no jewellery at all, yet the overall effect was of a woman confident of her body and her sexuality.
Unbidden memories swamped his mind—of her beneath him, soft and warm and silken, of her little gasping cries as she climaxed around him, the scent of her skin and the silken cloak of her hair, the way her voice changed from crisp confidence to an enchanting husky shyness when he made love to her, the way she laughed—
Ruthlessly Gabe reimposed control over his unruly body.
‘You look well,’ he said smoothly. ‘Cool, sophisticated, yet businesslike. But then, image is your talent.’
He watched the colour fade from that exquisite magnolia skin. No sign of blusher, he noted.
‘I hope my talent is a little more substantial than that,’ she said, crisply turning the unspoken insult from herself to her work. ‘I like to feel that interior decorating does more than create a pretty background. This, for example—’ looking around his study ‘—bears no resemblance to the bedroom you’ve given me. I’m sure I don’t need to ask you which room you feel most comfortable in.’
A quick rally; but then, people who made a living from conning others had to have instant recovery when they were caught out.
‘I chose to meet you here in the study because this is how I want the rest of the castle to be,’ he said smoothly. ‘Appropriate is probably the best word to use. Would you like a drink?’
To his surprise she accepted, although her eyes widened when he poured champagne. She’d noticed that it was an extremely good vintage, and she was wondering what he was celebrating. Good; he wanted her unsettled.
And he’d succeeded. When she took the glass her fingers tightened for a betraying few seconds around the fragile stem.
Gabe waited, then said, on a note of caustic appreciation, ‘Here’s to reunions.’
Her lashes drooped over the tilted grey-green eyes, and his pulses leapt. She was, he thought with savage self-contempt, the only woman who could override his common sense with one sideways glance.
She took a swift sip of the wine, then set the glass down and turned her head to gaze into the leaping flames in the fireplace. Her hair gleamed rich mahogany against the matt satin of her skin.
‘Why did you bring me here?’ she asked, her voice level and toneless.
He didn’t answer straight away, and after a moment she glanced back at him.
She’d lost weight, he thought with an irrational spurt of concern. ‘I thought it was time we discussed things without the unnecessary complication of emotions.’
Had he got over her so soon? A swift glance at his implacable face convinced her. Of course he no longer loved her…if he ever had.
Probably their relationship had been a temporary aberration on his part. He couldn’t have felt anything true or lasting.
After all, what could the scion of a princely house, a man who moved confidently in the upper regions of power and influence, have in common with a woman like her? No money, no family—no idea of her father’s name, even—and no status.
She hid her pain with another sip of the champagne. But he could have been kinder—well, no. Her lips sketched a cynical little smile. He thought she’d conned him out of his most precious possession, and the huge media fall-out from their break-up would have rubbed his pride raw.
‘I don’t know why you set this up,’ she said evenly. ‘I have nothing to say to you, beyond that I don’t know where the necklace is. If I’d known you were here I would never have come.’
He lifted a mocking brow. ‘I find that hard to believe. You once told me that you researched your clients well before you started a job. And you knew I had links to Illyria.’
‘I knew you were a cousin of the Prince, but I had no idea that you owned a thumping great castle here!’ she countered. ‘Anyway, you’re meant to be in—’
His cold smile stopped the betraying words.
‘Don’t lie, Sara.’ Like her Polynesian friends in Fala’isi, he pronounced her name with a long vowel—Sahra…
She’d always loved the way he said it, the two syllables falling lazily, sensuously, from his tongue like an endearment, his tone a seduction in itself.
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