This was the first real experience of true lust she had ever known and it seemed it had the power to burn away some much-needed brain cells, foolishly allowing her to confuse it with real feelings—emotions that her younger, naïve sense had once dreamed of knowing.
‘No.’
Alexei had felt her withdrawal and his voice seemed to echo her thoughts, but so much more assuredly, calm and controlled—disturbingly so, considering the fires that had just blazed between them, the sparks that still seemed to sizzle in the air.
‘No—we can’t take this any further now.’
Shockingly he dropped another kiss on her upturned face. A brief, casual, almost affectionate kiss on her cheek. And the easiness of his response, the light-heartedness of his touch, rocked her even more than her own shattered thoughts of a moment before. They were kisses of certainty, relaxed, almost careless. The kisses of a man who knew that he could get exactly what he wanted—whenever he wanted—so that he didn’t have to take too much trouble now.
‘Too much to do. A reception committee outside.’
‘Really?’
Knocked even more off-balance, Ria twisted on her heel, still within the confines of his arms, and bent slightly to look out the window.
Someone must have radioed ahead, informing the airport authorities—and more—of their planned arrival. And that someone must have announced not just that Alexei’s private jet requested permission to land—but that Alexei Joachim Sarova, Crown Prince and future King of Mecjoria, was arriving back in his country, ready to take possession of the throne. There was a fleet of sleek black cars drawn up at the far side of the tarmac, smoked glass, bullet-proof windows, black bodyworks gleaming in the sun. A small Mecjorian flag fluttered on the bonnet of the lead vehicle and someone had rolled out a red carpet across the runway, leading to the bottom of the flight of steps that had now been brought to the door of the plane. A door that a member of the flight crew was hurrying to unlock, to let them out.
‘We’re here,’ Alexei said. ‘I’m here. This is what you wanted.’
What she wanted. He was going to make his claim for the throne; and that could only mean that he believed she had agreed to his conditions.
But why shouldn’t he think that? Hadn’t she given him every indication that she had accepted his terms—welcomed them if her response to his kiss was anything to go by?
After all, what other choice did she have? If she wanted Alexei to take the throne instead of Ivan then she had to go along with what he demanded of her. She had to marry him, become his queen. It was either that or marry Ivan, and the way that her blood ran cold at just the thought was enough to tell her that somewhere along the line she had decided to go along with Alexei’s proposal even though she had no recollection of ever rationally doing so. She had no other possible alternative.
Turning back from the window, Alexei looked down into her face, dark eyes probing hers.
‘We can make this work, Ria,’ he said sombrely. ‘Together we can do what’s best for Mecjoria.’
Did he read anything else in her face? She would never know, but something made him pause, then go on to add, ‘You’re right that the royal family doesn’t expect to marry for love—and I’m not offering that. I can’t love you. I loved once—adored her... Lost her.’
Something darkened his face, his eyes. Something reaching out from the past and coiling round his memory, Ria realised as he went on.
Mariette. He meant Mariette, the dark-haired beauty who had been the mother of his child, who had had a total breakdown when the baby died and had ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Refusing ever to see him again.
‘I’ll never feel like that again. But as my queen you would be my equal. My consort. And I know you’ll be a fine queen. How can you not when your father has trained you for this almost from the moment you were born?’
He must have known how the mention of her father would make her react because he waited as she tried to look away, to look anywhere but into his stunning face. Once again he touched her cheek very softly.
‘We’ll finish this later.’
It was his total assurance that terrified her. Particularly when she knew she had only herself to blame. Hadn’t she practically flung herself into his arms like a sex-starved adolescent who had only been kissed for the very first time?
Well, yes, she wasn’t going to deny the desire—the hunger—she felt when he kissed her. But knowing she wanted him was one thing, tying herself to him in the sort of cold-blooded dynastic marriage she had hoped to escape from totally another.
‘Later...’
It was all that she could manage as someone knocked on the cabin door and she found herself released so swiftly that she stumbled backwards and away from him. The speed with which he discarded her and turned his attention to other matters, reaching for his jacket, shrugging it on, smoothing a hand over his hair, made her feel like some dirty little secret to be kept hidden away until he had time for her again. He had her cooperation in the bag, he believed, and now he wanted to focus on the reason why he was—why they were both—here.
Reaction setting in made her vision blur, her hands shake, as she collected her own coat and her bag. She couldn’t look at Alexei, couldn’t bear to see the dark certainty, the satisfaction that she knew must show on his face. She wanted to get out of here, get her feet back down on the ground in more ways than one.
As she reached the door of the plane she was ahead of him. Just a couple of steps but enough. In the doorway at the top of the steps she suddenly realised, all her training kicking in, so that she hesitated, stopped. Reality hit home with the truth of who he now was. Carefully she took that couple of steps back and out of the way.
‘Sir,’ she said, resisting the urge to drop a curtsey even if only to defy him, to prove that he might have her in a cleft stick, but she wasn’t going down without a fight. She was still her own woman and she would hang on to that for as long as she could.
She saw that elegant mouth twitch slightly, curling at the corners in a way that told her he knew only too well what was in her mind and a brief inclination of his head acknowledged everything unspoken that had passed between them. A moment later he was past her, standing in the doorway, looking down at the reception committee waiting for him, before stepping out into the warmth of the evening air.
As he went down the steps to the tarmac with cameras flashing like wild lightning in the distance, warning them of what was to come, what was inevitable now that the prodigal prince had come home, she spotted one moment when he paused, just for the space of a heartbeat, and squared his shoulders like a man accepting his destiny and going to meet his future. He hadn’t wanted this, she recalled. He had practically thrown her out of his house when she had first put the proposition to him. Whatever else she might think of him, she could see that unlike Ivan, who wanted the crown for the prestige, the power, and of course the huge wealth that came with it, Alexei appeared to have totally different reasons for going ahead with this.
Together we can do what’s best for Mecjoria.
Whatever else was between them was personal—this was for the country’s future. And at least on that she and Alexei were in agreement. But it—with her involvement—had taken away his freedom, the life he had lived up to now. His existence would never be the same again, and knowing the position she was in now, with her own freedom given up to secure peace for the country, Ria felt she understood that on a much deeper level than when she had got on a plane here at this same airport to go and try to persuade him to do just this.
So when he paused at the foot of the step, stopping before he actually set foot on Mecjorian land—his country—she spotted it at once. She was there so close behind him that they were almost touching, his sudden hesitation making her almost slam into him from behind. And when he half-turned, dark eyes meeting hers just for a moment, and he held out his hand to her, she moved forward quickly, putting her fingers into his without hesitation or uncertainty. She felt the power of his touch close round her, holding firm and strong, and welcomed it as she walked down beside him, stepping onto Mecjorian soil together.
It was only when she looked back at that moment later, when it was played over and over on national TV, seeing it from the view of the reception committee of government ministers and army top brass lined up beside the red carpet waiting to greet Alexei, that she saw it properly. Saw how clearly it demonstrated that she had made her choice even before she had actually done so rationally within her own thoughts. That she had cast in her lot with Alexei, and without ever saying so had agreed to the future that he had decreed for both of them.