Emily and the Notorious Prince

by India Grey

  King Marcos Fernando gave a snort of wheezing laughter that threatened to dislodge the oxygen tube beneath his nose. ‘That’s more like it,’ he huffed, when he’d recovered enough breath to speak again. ‘A spark of the old Luis. I haven’t seen enough of that these past few months.’

  ‘No, well it would hardly have been appropriate to be sitting here cracking jokes while you’re—’

  ‘On my deathbed? Why not? It might have taken my mind off things a bit. Far too much time to lie here and think. And worry. About you mainly.’

  ‘You and the rest of the royal household,’ Luis said levelly, looking out of the window of the private clinic onto a severely well-maintained garden filled with gaudy flowers. ‘Tomás and Josefina are on tranquilisers at the thought of me taking the throne.’

  ‘Well, it was a role you were never supposed to have.’ Never the most tactful of men, illness and a sense of time running out had made King Marcos more blunt than ever. ‘You’re not made for it like Rico was. It won’t be easy for you like it would have been for him.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  The king ignored the undisguised sarcasm in his second son’s tone. ‘It’s an observation, not a criticism. Anyway,’ he said shortly, resting a blue-veined hand on a pile of newspapers on the table over the bed. ‘You seem to be doing everything right these days—taking an interest in the charities, sounding suitably concerned about your decrepit old father, managing to keep your sexual adventuring out of the papers…’ He looked across at Luis shrewdly. ‘Where’s the catch?’

  Luis kept his tone and expression deliberately blank. ‘What do you mean?’

  His father shifted in the bed, wincing momentarily as he knocked the tube that was dispensing colourless fluid into the back of his hand. ‘There’s always a catch with you,’ he said breathlessly. ‘When you were at school I worried most about you when your reports were good, because that always meant you were up to something and working extra hard to cover it up.’ He stopped to take a deep, wheezing breath, his eyes narrowing as he remembered. ‘Like the term you seduced the headmaster’s daughter. When he told me you were going round every night for extra Latin tutorials I knew that something wasn’t right.’

  Luis smiled blandly. ‘It wasn’t his daughter, it was his wife. But anyway, you needn’t worry this time. I’m behaving impeccably.’

  ‘That’s why I’m worried.’ King Marcos Fernando picked up a paper from the top of the pile and unfolded it with shaking, frail fingers. Luis felt a tiny pulse of electricity shoot through him as he found himself looking at the picture of him kissing Emily beside the car at the opera house. ‘This was your most recent indiscretion, and it was three weeks ago,’ his father remarked gruffly, scowling down at the picture. ‘Virtually a lifetime by your standards. Oscar Balfour’s youngest, isn’t she?’

  ‘Emily. That’s right.’ With heroic effort Luis tore his gaze away from her upturned face in the picture, but it remained imprinted on his mind anyway. ‘She’s here teaching Luciana ballet.’

  ‘Good.’ His father eyed him suspiciously. ‘Well, take her out again. You look like you enjoyed it and the press loved it. You have to be careful all this charity work and hospital visiting doesn’t make you look too dull. The public won’t like that either.’

  Luis got abruptly to his feet, thrusting his hands into his pockets as he strode over to the window and stared unseeingly out over the dispiritingly perfect garden. ‘Don’t you ever stop thinking of things in terms of how they look ?’ he said with quiet resignation. ‘Or what people think?’

  ‘No. That’s our life. In our position that’s what counts.’ From the bed behind him his father’s tone was brisk, containing an echo of its old autocracy. Then he added, more thoughtfully, ‘This Emily… You’re not in love with her, are you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  The response was instantaneous. Automatic. Meeting his own reflected eyes in the window Luis felt a hollow pang of self-disgust.

  ‘Thank God for that.’ King Marcos’s voice was breathless with relief, as if Luis had just denied being a serial killer. ‘Love is not for us, Luis. You have to marry, of course, and you have to produce an heir, but you look on that as a business deal. A merger, if you like. Love will only make you miserable.’

  ‘How romantic.’

  ‘Romance?’ The king made a contemptuous noise. ‘Leave romance to Hollywood and fairy tales. The reality of being royal is accepting that you lead a double life. There is business. And there is pleasure. You work hard and you make sacrifices for the business, but you enjoy as much discreet pleasure as you can on the side. If you stick to the rules no one gets hurt.’

  The sunny room suddenly felt unbearably hot. Luis could feel a pulse beating in his temples as he slowly turned round to face his father in the bed.

  ‘It’s not always that simple though, is it,’ he said quietly, leaning back against the windowsill. ‘You might want it to be, but it isn’t. My mother got hurt.’

  As he said it he felt both surprised and oddly relieved. This was forbidden territory, but suddenly Luis knew he had to explore it. He had spent the past fourteen years trying not to think about what had happened, but as Emily had made him see, it had influenced his life and led him down paths he might not have taken if Cassia Cordoba hadn’t fallen asleep in the bath and never woken up.

  Against the pillows his father’s ashen face was hard. ‘Yes, but not by me. She got hurt because she broke the rules.’

  ‘How?’

  The small silence that followed was filled by the rasping wheeze of the king’s breathing. And then he said, ‘By falling in love.’

  The pulse had increased to a drumbeat. Luis pressed his fingertips absently and fruitlessly against the side of his head, trying to quieten it. ‘With someone else?’

  ‘Yes.’ King Marcos sighed and looked at Luis with eyes full of regret. ‘She wasn’t really cut out for royal life—she was too emotional and sensitive—but she was beautiful and came from a good family, so…’ He let the sentence trail off with a shrug of his frail shoulders. ‘Anyway, things were fine for a while, but then she fell in love with a racing driver.’ Luis flinched. ‘Their affair went on for years, until he was killed in a race and…’

  ‘She killed herself.’ To his own ears his voice sounded hoarse and strange.

  ‘Effectively, yes.’ King Marcos’s sigh seemed to shake his once-magnificent body to its core, again placing the oxygen tube in jeopardy. ‘As you know the official story was that she banged her head in the bath. An accident.’

  Luis had known that, but he had also understood without ever being told that his mother’s death was somehow inextricably linked to the small brown bottles of pills she carried with her at all times, sliding them from her bag and slipping them swiftly between her lips so often that it never seemed strange. That was how he remembered his mother—vague, distracted, unhappy. Absent even when she was there. The emotional, sensitive girl described by his father sounded like someone else altogether.

  Like Emily.

  ‘No, no, no! Is too late !’

  The music came to an abrupt halt, as the exasperated voice of the director echoed across the stage. Emily bent her head, her hands on her hips, breathing hard. It was the third time she had mistimed the leap, and she could hardly blame her partner or the director for beginning to lose patience.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, looking at Adriano, who tossed his head and scowled. Tall, Byronically brooding and romantic, the Brazilian National Ballet’s principal male was the perfect stereotype of an arrogant danseur .

  ‘You maybe have—’ he broke off, scowling as he tried to find the right phrase ‘—overdo it?’

  ‘Yes, I probably have been overdoing it a bit.’ Emily bent down, ostentatiously massaging the tops of her legs to hide a sudden secret smile. Not in rehearsals though. Last night had been particularly exhausting, even by Luis’s standards, and the ache in her thighs had nothing to do with grands jetés and everything
to do with grande passion . ‘Anyway, let’s do it again,’ she called to the director.

  Adriano gave an imperious nod, and said something in incomprehensible Portuguese to Thiago, the diminutive director striding theatrically back towards them as the music started again.

  Santosa’s Grande Teatro was a building of crumbling grandeur and inadequate air conditioning. Emily could feel the sweat running down her spine as she took her opening position for the pas de deux and stared out into the darkness of the auditorium beyond the hot lights. She felt edgy with nerves and the pressure of not screwing up again, and rising up onto her toes she felt the muscles in her inner thighs protest.

  Suddenly the memory of wrapping her legs around Luis’s waist as he held her and entered her, standing up, came back to her. Oh, God, she thought weakly, trying to force her mind back to the present as her body was shot through with flame, how ironic that Luis had put the passion back into her interpre tation, but perfection and precision seemed to have gone out of the window.

  Discipline, focus, control. Arms, feet, spine. Ruthlessly she centred her attention, balancing herself for the leap. This time the timing was exact, and Adriano caught her, his hands spanning her midriff as he lowered her gently back onto her pointes.

  They held the pose as the pas de deux came to an end, their chests rising and falling in unison. Pressed against the muscular arc of Adriano’s body, Emily felt light headed for a moment as she recalled the way she and Luis had eventually fallen onto the bed, breathless and exhilarated, her flushed cheek pressed against his damp skin, her whole body spreadeagled over him.

  The music finished. ‘Perfeito!’ cried Thiago, springing forward with an expansive sweep of his arms, while from the auditorium behind him came the sound of clapping.

  He whirled round in surprise and affront at having his rehearsal interrupted. Emily squinted out into the gloom and saw someone get up from a seat about halfway back and step into the aisle. Someone tall, and broad shouldered, with the arrogant, loping, predatory walk of a tiger.

  Or a wolf.

  Thiago’s outraged squawk ceased abruptly, and became apologetic and ingratiating as Prince Luis came forward into the lights. Adriano sprang away from her as if she were red hot, backing off and simultaneously bending into a deep bow. ‘Your Highness…’

  Luis nodded curtly, his face oddly expressionless.

  ‘Forgive me for intruding on your rehearsal.’ His voice, even when speaking such bland courtesies, made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. ‘It’s coming together.’ His gaze flickered briefly in her direction and heat bloomed beneath her skin. ‘Sehora Balfour is doing well.’

  ‘Sim,’ Thiago agreed with a sigh, ‘plenty of—how you say it?—paixão. ’

  ‘Passion,’ Luis translated neutrally. In the footlights his eyes gleamed gold, and a muscle twitched above his jaw.

  Thiago planted his hands on his hips and looked at Emily appraisingly. ‘But only a week to performance, so we must take that passion and add to it precisão .’

  ‘Not today.’ Luis shot Adriano a cool glance. ‘I have to take Senhora Balfour away, I’m afraid. Important business.’

  ‘So what’s the problem? Is it Luciana?’

  Across the table Emily’s blue eyes were clouded with anxiety, but Luis took a sip of coffee before answering. They were sitting in a tiny dark bar, in a little side street off Santosa’s main square. It wasn’t exactly the Ritz, but Luis had known the owner for many years and trusted him to keep the paparazzi out. At a table by the door his two bodyguards drank coffee and failed to look inconspicuous.

  ‘No, Luciana’s fine.’ He put the cup back on the saucer with a clatter and ran his hand over his unshaven jaw. He felt tense and edgy with unfamiliar emotions that he was sickeningly aware of but couldn’t bear to examine. The feeling reminded him of when he’d come off a motorbike a few years ago—those few moments of watching the blood seeping through his shirt, feeling the pain but not wanting to look at the wound. ‘I just came from visiting my father.’

  ‘Is he…getting worse?’

  ‘No. On the contrary, he was better than I’d seen him for a while. Certainly more talkative.’

  Her eyes were full of compassion. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said tersely, picking up a sugar cube and crumbling it between his fingers. ‘But weird. As I told you, in our family we don’t go in for talking much.’ It was good that he knew, good that he finally understood the shadow that had hung over his childhood, but it had unsettled him more than he cared to admit. That’s why he’d gone to find Emily. He wanted the reassurance of her normality and straightforwardness. Brushing the sugar from his fingers he leaned restlessly back in his seat. ‘So, how was the rehearsal?’

  She shrugged, a shadow passing over her open face. ‘As you saw. I have the passion nailed and now I need to work on precision.’

  ‘You certainly do have the passion nailed,’ Luis drawled acidly. ‘What do you and Adriano do for an encore? Have sex in the middle of the stage?’

  He had a sudden dizzying flashback to that night in England, when he’d so arrogantly, so bloody calculatingly begun to seduce her in the hotel. Jealousy is a nasty disease to which, thankfully, I’m completely immune . His cold, complacent words came back to him and he recognized the devastating justice of the situation he now found himself in. Turned inside out by jealousy for a dancer , for pity’s sake.

  ‘I have enough sex at the moment, thank you,’ she said softly, and for a moment her eyes met his across the table and he was gripped by a strong urge to pick her up and haul her back to his bed. I don’t , he wanted to say. It felt like he could never have enough of her.

  ‘Anyway—’ a flush of pink had spread across her cheekbones and she dropped her gaze ‘—I wanted to talk to you about Luciana. It’s her birthday next week.’

  Luis was relieved at the change of subject. ‘Of course,’ he said tersely. And almost a year since Rico and Christiana died.

  ‘Well, since she doesn’t really have any friends her own age I wondered if we could do something with her, instead of a party. Something fun.’ She looked at him under her eyelashes. ‘Something normal .’

  ‘Do you have something in mind?’

  ‘I do, but you’re not going to like it…’ With a rueful smile she stooped down, reaching beneath the table and wincing slightly. ‘Sorry, my feet are killing me.’

  Frowning, Luis glanced down. Under the table he could see that she had slipped her shoes off and was rubbing her toes. A bolt of pure, blinding lust shot through him. ‘Go on,’ he rasped.

  ‘Well, I thought…’ As she uncrossed her legs her bare foot brushed his knee and he caught hold of it under the table. She smiled, a slow, spreading smile that made the sun rise in her clear blue eyes and heated his blood. ‘I thought…’ she repeated, her voice throaty with undisguised desire as his fingers gently massaged her instep, ‘that we could…’

  He raised his eyebrows, enjoying her unraveling. ‘Yes…’

  She hesitated. ‘I don’t want you to say no,’ she whispered, sliding down in her chair a little, pushing back her loose, silken hair with her fingers, her eyes not leaving his. There was a wicked glitter in them, and suddenly he wasn’t holding her foot any more. She had twisted it neatly from his grasp with a flick of her ankle and slid it between his thighs.

  He tensed, instantly rock hard as her strong, supple toes flexed against him.

  ‘Promise you won’t say no,’ she breathed, her eyes laughing, burning into his.

  ‘Atrevido,’ he murmured hoarsely. Light-headed with want he glanced across at the oblivious bodyguards who were sprawled at their table, chatting desultorily. He looked back at Emily. Her perfect heart-shaped face was composed and serene. Only her eyes, which had darkened to the colour of sapphires and were sparkling feverishly, gave her away. ‘I can’t imagine,’ he said in a voice like honey and gravel, ‘saying no to anything you could suggest right now. So tell me.’
>
  She smiled, wickedly and delightfully, and he swallowed back a groan as he felt her other foot slip between his thighs. ‘Camping. I want to take her camping. In a tent. On the beach.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘OK, NOW both of you, close your eyes.’

  Emily and Luciana looked at each other, excitement shimmering between them on the soft late-afternoon heat. ‘Go on.’ Emily grinned. ‘You first, and then I will.’

  Luciana screwed her eyes up very tightly as if she was afraid they might accidentally spring open. Emily glanced up at Luis.

  ‘You too, Miss Balfour,’ he said sternly, taking her face between his hands and brushing his thumbs down over her eyelids. ‘And keep them shut until I say so.’

  The sand was soft beneath her feet as Luis took each of their hands and pulled them up the last steep bit of the dune. The incline levelled off as they reached the summit and Emily felt the breeze lift her hair and the sun warm her face, and she heard the sigh of the waves and breathed in the evocative salt and ozone scents of the sea.

  ‘Now,’ he said quietly. ‘Open.’

  It was the Arabian Nights, or Camelot, laid out below them on the beach. A number of round white canvas tents were clustered together on the sand, pink pennants flying from their turrets, bunting and balloons strung between them. Luciana was standing transfixed, her hands pressed to her mouth, her eyes brilliant with tears of astonishment and delight.

  Emily knew exactly how she felt.

  ‘Is it real?’ Luciana whispered. ‘Am I really sleeping there tonight?’

  ‘You bet,’ Luis said, and Emily’s throat constricted as she heard the note of gravelly emotion in his voice. ‘Because you’re the birthday girl. Go and look at your bedroom—you might find some people you know down there.’

  And she was off, running down the slope of the dune in the little red shorts and striped T-shirt Emily had bought her as part of her birthday present, her hair flying out behind her. Only then did Emily turn to Luis, laughing as the sentimental tears that shimmered in her eyes spilled over. ‘It’s incredible. Absolutely perfect. Thank you .’