He still didn’t break the silence—too focused on scrutinising her with serious displeasure. A tremor ran through her—a visceral response to his attention. Elsie didn’t have affairs, didn’t have boyfriends, didn’t feel lust, let alone act on it. But the moment she’d met Felipe?
‘What do you want from me?’ she muttered.
It wasn’t what she’d meant to ask. Certainly not with a husky whisper.
His jaw tightened.
‘Am I being arrested?’ She stiffened, hating that her voice was still scratchy. ‘Why have I been detained and dragged before you, Your Majesty?’
He’d not liked her calling him that before. He’d acted as if he wanted her to be ‘on the same level’ as Amalia, and by extension him. As if.
‘You were on the flight diverted here.’
‘Yes.’ She lifted her chin. ‘But I didn’t cause some poor woman to go into labour early. It was no plot of mine, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘That’s not what I’m thinking.’
‘Then what?’
She needed him to stop staring at her as if she were guilty of something terrible. The condemnation felt hot and prickly and rubbed everything raw. Shame hurt. She hated that he had the power to hurt her. But he was a two-faced hypocrite. He’d acted friendly and understanding and she’d actually liked him. For a second there she’d thought she might even be able to stay. But behind her back he’d betrayed her, revealing his clinically cold heart.
‘Your armed muscle men wouldn’t even tell me why I was abducted from the airport in broad daylight.’
‘They didn’t know why,’ he explained coolly. ‘They were simply following orders.’
‘Blindly following orders. Indulging the whims of a spoilt royal.’ She glared at him. ‘Being frogmarched through the airport isn’t my idea of a good time.’
‘Did they really cause a great scene?’ His eyebrows lifted.
‘Of course, they didn’t. They were ruthlessly efficient in their armed Men in Black style.’
‘And you didn’t resist?’ he said softly.
She hadn’t resisted at all. And she hadn’t exactly been frogmarched. She’d quietly followed the guy. Right now she really regretted that. But Felipe’s question picked at her wounds. ‘Why should that surprise you? I’ve done nothing wrong. In fact, I’ve only done what I was told. But you don’t trust me.’
His eyes narrowed but he didn’t deny it.
‘Are you going to search my case in case I’ve a surface-to-air rocket launcher in there?’ She stiffened as he edged nearer.
He took the mandolin case from her fingers and set it on the table to his side. ‘My men already know what’s in here. It went through an X-ray scan. So did you. You’re not armed.’
Just with words. With anger.
‘Elsie.’
She froze. It hurt to hear her name on his lips. As if there were an intimacy they’d shared? There wasn’t. That was the point. He’d been charming and she’d thought he’d not just trusted her but welcomed her. Then he’d gone behind her back and wrecked her life without a second thought. Because he was used to getting anything and everything he wanted. He did as he liked without any concern for anyone else.
‘How did you know I was on board?’ she asked.
‘It was an unusual diversion at an unusual time and the manifest was cross-checked by my security.’
‘And my name was flagged?’ She was hurt. Did he really regard her as such a threat? He’d asked her to leave and she had, but he’d gone ahead to wreck the rest of her life anyway.
Elsie Wynter wasn’t listed. Elsie Bailey was. The legal name she’d never given him yet he knew anyway. Thanks to that security team again, right? Had they ripped through the tawdry secrets and shame of her past? The humiliation of the family that she’d once thought perfect, but she’d been such a sheltered fool—
‘Has anyone else been hauled before you, or just lucky little me?’ she asked bitterly.
There was a pause. ‘Just lucky little you.’
‘Well, as honoured as I am,’ she said coldly, ‘I’d like to leave. Now.’