Breathe, Luce, for heaven’s sake breathe. He probably just wants to talk on the way to the Altiport.
Why, oh, why hadn’t she looked at which car she was getting into? She was supposed to be avoiding trouble. Being good. The refined, beyond reproach, virtuous Queen she was born to be. She could already hear her mother… So reckless, Luciana. So unthinking.
She let loose a shaky exhalation, then took a deep lungful of air. And another. Then seriously wished she hadn’t. His audacious dark bergamot and amber scent wrapped around her senses like a narcotic, intensely potent and drugging as it swirled up into her brain, making her vision blur. Her entire body wept with want.
How did he still do this to her? After all this time? How? It was as if he engulfed her in his power, lured her in with his black magic. Well, any more of his lethal brand of masculinity and she’d be done for.
Clearing her throat, she straightened in her seat. With far more sangfroid and bravado than she felt, she said, ‘Why am I here? What exactly is it you want from me?’
Seconds ticked by and he didn’t so much as murmur. Merely allowed the atmosphere to stretch taut. And, since she was hanging on to the very last fraying threads of her control, it didn’t take her long to snap.
Up came her head—big mistake as she realised too late it was exactly what he’d been waiting for, what he wanted: her full attention, total control over this…whatever this was. His gaze crashed into hers. Unerringly. Mercilessly.
Oh, Lord.
Overwhelming anguish held her in stasis as her every thought fled and she allowed her treacherous heart to devour the dark beauty that was Prince Thane.
Devastating—that was what he was. Bewitching her with that breathtaking aura of danger. Those high, wide slashing cheekbones and obsidian eyes framed with thick decadent inky lashes. That chiselled jaw that was smothered in a seriously sexy short beard. On anyone else it would be labelled designer stubble. But this was Thane and he wasn’t vain in the least. Or he hadn’t been. In truth, she’d been amazed at just how clueless to his gorgeous looks he was.
His hair was longer, she noticed. Dishevelled was a ridiculously romantic word for the mussed-up glossy black hair that fell in a tumble to flick his shoulders, one side swept back and tucked behind his ear. Unkempt, maybe. Hideously long… But she kind of liked it. Craved to run her fingers through it. Had to fist her hands to stop herself from doing just that.
The dim interior lighting camouflaged his facial scars but she remembered every one. The slash in his top lip, just shy of the full cupid’s bow. The second, enhancing the sensuous, kissable divot in his chin. Another slicing into the outer corner of his left eyebrow.
Her throat grew tight, swelling in sadness and hurt for him. Just as it had five years ago. Not that he’d ever talked to her about them. The one time she’d asked he’d shut down so hard it had taken her sitting astride his lap wearing nothing but lace panties to tease him out of it.
Ah, Luce, don’t remember. Don’t.
His tongue sneaked out and he briefly licked his lips, but otherwise he remained still, watching…waiting…his sensationally dynamic body vibrating with dark power. And she clutched her handbag tighter still, fingers burying into the leather—
Whether it was the feel of her phone poking through the side of her bag or the sudden realisation that the car was at a standstill she wasn’t sure, but she crashed back to earth with a thud.
The car had actually stopped!
Luciana shuffled on her bottom to peek out of the window and saw the huge security gates of the lodge swing open in front of the car. Electronic operation. Unmanned. Drat.
Twisting the other way, she grasped the cushioned leather and peeked out of the back window, her eyes widening as she spied her bellboy, still at the top of the drive, waving for her attention, with her case in his hand.
Oh, my life!
Her speech faculties finally deigned to kick in. ‘You have to turn around,’ she said, with her best do-it-or-else regal intonation. ‘You’ve left my case back there.’
And as soon as they pulled up back at the lodge she was making a run for it.
‘Really?’ he drawled, mock astonishment lifting his brows high above his vivid eyes. ‘How unfortunate.’
Luciana narrowed her gaze on him. That was it? Unfortunate?
‘Well? Aren’t you going to go back for it?’ she asked, her tone pitched to an ear-splitting squeak.