Adrenalin rushed her bloodstream at the thought of Alexei discovering the truth. But there was no other option.
All she had to do was hold out for a couple more days.
A rap on her door made her stiffen.
‘Carissa?’
Mina’s heart thumped and she knew a craven desire to admit defeat. To open the door and tell him everything.
Except Carissa relied on her. Carissa, who’d been there when Mina was desperately homesick and convinced she’d never make it as an artist. Carissa, whose warm, gentle nature made her the best friend Mina had ever had. The only real friend, since all the people she’d mixed with in Jeirut had been hand-picked by her father.
Carissa didn’t care about her royal status. She liked Mina for herself. She was genuine and caring and Mina refused to see her throw her happiness away for some moody tycoon.
Mina breathed deep and tiptoed to the glass door that led outside.
Behind her the door rattled. ‘Carissa?’
The sound sent her catapulting into the garden, eyes on the path to the beach, her phone gripped in one clammy hand.
He wouldn’t be happy. In fact, Alexei would be furious. The thought lent her speed, though of course there was no real escape. The best she could do was ensure he didn’t discover she wasn’t Carissa. It still amazed her that he hadn’t bothered to check her photo. No one but the immigration official had bothered to view her passport.
Her stride slowed as she approached the beach. Did she really mean to—
A rhythmic thudding reached her ears. Louder than her pumping heart. Mina looked over her shoulder and saw Alexei covering the ground between them in long strides. For a second, a primitive thrill of fear engulfed her, freezing her limbs. But Mina was no cornered prey. Her hand tightened on the phone. Then she turned, hauling her arm back and letting go.
Alexei grabbed her arm a moment too late. She heard his rough breathing, felt the clamp of his fingers on her wrist and the heat of his massive frame behind her as the phone arced over the water and disappeared into the endless azure sea.
The die was cast.
* * *
With a sense of disbelief, Alexei watched the phone plummet into the sea.
He’d almost convinced himself that despite her contrariness Carissa was an innocent pawn in her father’s scheme.
Because her kiss blew you away.
A kiss meant nothing. Logically he knew that, yet Alexei had been close to believing in her.
Because he’d wanted her since she stepped across his threshold. Her feisty attitude and subtle sexiness were a unique turn-on, especially combined with that indefinable sense of connection, as if behind the charades they played he knew her and she him. As if at a level so deep it defied logic, they understood each other.
When they’d kissed it was combustible.He’dbeen combustible.
She’d been far more than he expected. Responsive. Blatantly hungry for him, wildly passionate and yet, when he’d first tasted her he’d sensed a hesitance that felt almost like innocence.
Innocence! She was in cahoots with her thieving father. She was messing with his mind.
‘You’re so desperate that I don’t contact your father?’ He slid his free arm around her waist, holding her back against him in a travesty of the passionate embrace they’d shared on this very beach.
Now the passions he felt were fury and jarring disappointment. He’d actually wanted to believe in Carissa.
Because you want her in your bed. You’d begun to trust her. Even now, knowing she’s part of his scam, you can’t turn off your hunger.
It was true. His arm around her middle wasn’t lover-like and his grip on her wrist was unbreakable, yet his body reacted to the soft pressure of her rump against him, the underside of her breasts brushing his arm and the scent of her hair teasing his nostrils.
If anything, ire hiked his arousal higher. His sharpened senses picked up her ragged breathing and her quick, thrumming pulse and the tension of her muscles, as if she waited for him to slacken his hold so she could run.
There was nowhere she could go that he wouldn’t find her.