It didn’t help at all that she was sitting opposite the most devastatingly attractive man she had ever seen in her whole life. Her schoolgirl crush on the adolescent Alexei seemed like froth and bubble compared to the raw, gut-deep sensual impact of his adult self on all that was female inside her. If he so much as moved, her senses sprang to life, heat and moisture pooling between her thighs so that she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs restlessly.
‘I told you...’
Another smile was a swift flash on and off, one that put no light in his eyes.
‘Tell me again.’ It was a command, not a suggestion. ‘We have plenty of time.’
It was going to be interesting to see if she came up with exactly the same arguments as she had given him yesterday, Alexei reflected. Arguments that would change his way of life; hell, his whole future if the decision he had come to in the middle of the night was anything to go by. He hadn’t been able to sleep and had spent long hours surfing the Internet, researching the situation in Mecjoria even more intensely than usual, finding out as much as he possibly could. There was plenty he already knew. In spite of the mask of indifference he had hidden behind when Ria had confronted him, he had kept a careful eye on all that was happening in his father’s homeland ever since he and his mother had been exiled from the place. His research had told him that everything she had said was true, but this time, driven to dig more deeply, he had found there was more to it than that. That there was one vital element to this whole succession business that he had never suspected, and that she had not revealed.
And that was something that changed everything.
Why had she not told him the full truth? What did she have to gain from keeping it from him?
In the seat opposite, Ria stirred slightly, the soft sound of her denim-clad legs sliding across each other setting his senses on red alert in a heartbeat. It was hell to sit here with his body hardening in response to just the thought of her being there, so close and yet so far away. He should never have touched her, never have let the feel of the warm velvet of her skin, the scent of her hair, start off the heavy pulse of hunger that was like a thickness in his blood. It stopped him thinking straight and made him want. And wanting was going to have to be put aside for now, for a time at least. He had her just where he wanted her, and he wasn’t going to let her get away. But first he was going to make her acknowledge that this was the only way that it could be. The sensual pleasure he anticipated would be one thing. Bringing her to admit that she had nowhere else to go would add a whole new dimension of satisfaction to his revenge on the family that had been responsible for his and his mother’s exile from the country where they belonged.
‘Persuade me.’
With no other alternative, Ria had to go over it all again. The one thing she didn’t do was to mention anything about personal involvement. Deep down inside she knew instinctively that that could only act against her. She knew now how much he hated her family, how he would do anything rather than help them in any way. It was perhaps an hour and a half later that she stopped, drawing in a much-needed breath, reaching for the glass of water that had replaced the coffee of earlier. Gulping down the drink she had left ignored as she focussed totally on the man opposite her, she struggled to ease the discomfort of her parched throat as she waited for his response.
It was a long time coming. A long, uncomfortable time as he subjected her to a burning scrutiny. Like her he reached for his crystal tumbler of iced water but the swallow he took was long, slow and indolently relaxed.
‘Very interesting,’ he drawled, leaning back in his seat, never taking his eyes off her for a moment. ‘But you neglected to explain that the situation is not quite as simple as you made out. There’s one more thing I want to know.’
‘Anything.’ She didn’t care if she sounded close to desperate. That was how she felt, so why try to hide it at this delicate stage?
‘Anything?’ There was a definite challenge in the dark-eyed look he slanted in her direction. ‘Then tell me about the marriage.’
‘The—the marriage...’
Ria’s stomach twisted painfully, her discomfort made all the worse by the way that the plane had suddenly hit a patch of turbulence and lurched violently, dropping frighteningly, down and then back up again.
‘Yes, the marriage your father has arranged for you. I am the heir to the throne if the individual positions in the hierarchy—the direct line—are considered. On my own, I have the stronger claim—if I want it.’
There it was again, that note of threat that he might refuse the crown, and leave her stranded without a hope of finding any other way out—as she now suspected he had known all along. How he must have enjoyed watching her perform all over again, knowing all the while that he understood the real truth of her position, the cleft stick she was caught in with little hope of escape.
‘But you omitted to point out that it is not just Ivan who also has a distant potential claim to the throne.’
The glass he held was placed on the table with deliberate care. The same control showed as he stood up, big and dark and lean, towering over her and making even the space of the luxurious jet feel confined and restricted in a sudden and shocking way. Forced to raise her head to look up at him, she found that the air in the cabin seemed to have thickened and grown heavier.
‘You forgot to say...’ His tone made it plain that he didn’t think for a moment she had forgotten anything. ‘that you and Ivan have a unique connection where the crown is concerned. Individually his claim is so much weaker, but together you would be almost unassailable.’
Ria could almost feel the blood draining from her face. She must look like a ghost, and that would show him how perfectly he had hit the mark.
‘There is no together!’
His gesture might have been flicking away a fly, it was so scornfully dismissive of her protest.
‘Are you saying that none of this is true? That Ivan’s claim to the throne is clear and open, with no other help needed—and you won’t need him to free your father, restore your family fortunes to the way they used to be?’
He made it sound so mercenary. But then what had she expected from a man who so blatantly despised her and every member of her family?
‘No—’
There was no togetherness between Ivan and her. Nothing except the one that had been forced on her, that she would have to accept if Alexei didn’t listen to her pleas. The prospect of freedom from the future she dreaded that had seemed to open up before her now seemed to be moving further away with every breath she took. Ria pushed herself to her feet, needing the greater strength of a position facing him on a much better level, her green eyes meeting his head-on.
‘I mean, yes, it’s true that if I marry him his right to the throne is strengthened...’
‘Isn’t it when you marry him?’ Alexei slipped in, cold and deadly. ‘I understand that the contract has already been signed.’
By her father. Without any consultation or even her knowledge. She had been used as a pawn in the political bargaining.
‘I— How did you find out that?’ How could he know about the contract her father had made with Ivan, when she had only become aware of it herself just days before?
‘I have my sources.’
He’d been up all night, and he’d called in all his contacts, investigating exactly what was behind this sudden desire of hers to have him as king in Mecjoria. All the time she had been talking yesterday—and again just now—he had sensed she was holding something back, keeping something hidden. He had never expected that it would be this.
Once he had found the real explanation he had been unable to think of anything else. Because this turned everything upside down from the way he’d seen everything at first. He’d been convinced that Ria had brought him the document that proved his parents’ marriage valid, and that he was the rightful king, because that would give her—and her family—an advantage if he came to the throne. She was softening him up so that he would release her father, restore the family fortunes...
The discovery of the proposed marriage to Ivan Kolosky made a nonsense out of all that. Even more so because she had never said a word about it.
That marriage would give her everything she wanted—and more. It would make her Queen of Mecjoria and he knew that had always been Gregor Escalona’s deepest ambition. The reason why he had insisted on his daughter’s immaculate behaviour, training her to be the perfect young royal, controlling every move, every decision she made. It was the reason why Gregor had betrayed his father’s memory by bringing the legitimacy of his marriage into question. So why had she even brought the marriage certificate to him in the first place? And why had she never mentioned the proposed marriage to Ivan?
Last night he had thought he had decided on a way to play this that would give him retribution for all that had happened to him and his mother when they had been exiled from their home, losing every last penny of the fortune that should have been theirs, his mother’s good name along with it, but at last it seemed that payback was within his grasp.