by Jagger Cole
“What the hell is going on?” I hiss. The man in the suit turns and seems to stop himself when his eyes land on me. He looks at one of the guards, and they both look back at me and nod. Suddenly, the two of them and three more guards are marching right over to us.
“Excuse me! Um, hi, Emily Hudson, lead producer with the Los Angeles Herald? What’s going…”
“Ms. Hudson, we request that you get back in your van and head back to the airport.”
I frown. Wait, what the hell is this?
“Pardon me?” Emily scoffs. “No, we just got here.”
“And now it’s time to go.” The man isn’t being a dick, or even raising his voice. But you can tell he means business, even if he’s actually being pretty polite.
“No, no that won’t do. We were told we’d have an hour.”
The man shrugs. “Plans have changed, Ms. Hudson. The guards will escort every crew safely back to the airport, immediately.”
“Hang on!” I finally blurt. I step forward, scowling. “No, that’s not happening. We just got here, and we were promised an hour!”
“Um, Claire,” Jason murmurs. He tugs on my arm and nods. Some of the other crews who aren’t willingly packing up are being “helped” by groups of guards back into their vans and cars.
“No, this is bullshit,” I snap. I turn back to the man in the suit and glare at him. “You think this is how Bullogia cleans up its image? By kicking out journalists? Are we in East Germany?”
The man in the suit actually smiles, but his stance doesn’t change. He turns to Emily and Jason. “I’m sorry, but we’re quite firm on this matter. You have to leave, now.”
“Like hell we are!” I growl.
He turns back to me with his thin, neutral smile. “You may stay.”
I blink rapidly. “Wait, what?”
“You,” he says in a deep, Mediterranean accented voice. “May stay.”
“Oh! Great!” Emily cheers. The man turns to look at her with an amused smile.
“No, not you. And not you,” he nods to Jason. “Please get in your van and leave. The palace is closing.”
“Hang on, I don’t understand,” I croak.
He shrugs. “You are staying. Your friends are leaving. Please, follow me.”
My heart races. I turn and glance at the castle, and my eyes sweep over it. Up there, at the top balcony overlooking the square, my eyes land on him. My heart skips, and my eyes grow wide. Enzo Amantea himself, dressed in a crisp white suit and looking somewhere between a royal prince and a mafia Don. And he’s staring right at me.
I tremble, and fear but maybe a twitch of excitement tingles inside of me.
“No, hang on!” Emily barks. “You’re not keeping…”
“It’s fine.” My words surprise even myself. I tremble and turn to my friend and producer. “Em, it’s fine, really. Look, if he wants to see me, and everyone else is going home? That’s an exclusive! What if he’s just decided that the LA Herald is going to be the one to bring Bullogia to the world?”
“With no camera?” Jason croaks.
“No cameras. Just her,” the man in the suits says evenly.
“I don’t like this,” Emily whispers.
“I’ll be fine,” I smile weakly. “If you have to leave, just wait for me at the airport. I’ll see what he wants to share, see if I can get any quotes, and then I’ll meet you there. Okay?”
Emily looks like she wants to say no. But she also knows I’m a professional. And she knows this is one hell of a story.
“Okay, okay, fine,” she mutters. “But keep your damn phone on. And don’t let go of your passport.”
“Time for you to leave.” The man in the dark suit points at my friends. He gestures, and with a scowl, Emily and Jason get back in the van. “And you,” he says with an emotionless smile. “You come with me. The King will see you now.”
3
Enzo
I pace my office like a caged dog, growling and clenching my fists. There’s a light knock finally, and Giotto steps in.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses at me. Only he can speak to me like this. It’s because we’ve been friends since we were boys, and because we both almost died together in our struggle to take back the throne.
“Leave it,” I mutter.
“I will not, Enzo. Christ, why are you sending them all home? We talked circles around this. We agreed on this!”
“Did you see the asshole with the burned flag?” I snarl.
Giotto frowns and adjusts his dark suit. “I did.”
“I won’t have the monkey show, Gio,” I say with a snarl. “I won’t have them making a mockery of us and what we’re doing here. Nor will I suffer them to drum up false outrage by showing their viewers a burned American flag on my palace grounds.”
“I know, I know, Enzo,” Giotto growls. “And you know I’m with you. But what about her? Why her?”
“One reporter can’t hurt.”
He smiles. “Can’t hurt that she’s the prettiest one out there either, I suppose?” I grit my jaw. Giotto sees it. “My friend, you can have any woman you want…”
“I don’t want any woman.”
“No, just one that will cause an international incident when it gets out that you’ve kept her here.”
I regard him coolly. “I’m not keeping her here.” I frown and look down at my hands. “Yet.” I grit my teeth, and Giotto swears.
“Fuck, Enzo. Don’t do this!”
I clench my teeth tightly together. “I have to,” I hiss. “Gio, I fucking have to. I can’t not have her here.” He growls under his breath, but he knows me enough to know when I’m unwavering. Right now is one of those times.
“Is she here?” He hesitates, and my anger flashes. “Is she!?”
“Yes, Enzo,” he growls. “And you need to relax.”
“I can’t,” I groan. I whirl and pace my office again. I can’t, either. Not with her here for the taking. She’s a rose for me to pluck. “Her name?”
“Claire.”
Claire. My obsession has a name. “Claire.” I let her name roll off my tongue like silk, or a fine wine.
“She’s just through there.” He nods at a set of double doors that lead to the palace library.
I nod. “Leave me to her. Alone, Gio. I won’t be disturbed.”
He frowns. “We don’t know her, Enzo.”
“Then get a team together and find out every single thing there is to know about her.”
He sighs. I can tell he’s opposed to this, but we both understand the dynamic here. Gio will give me shit, but he also knows when I’m not fucking around.
“I don’t want to be disturbed, Gio.”
“As you wish, comandante,” he mutters dryly. He gives me one last look and then leaves through a side door. I take a breath, stride to the doors to the library, and fling them wide. And there she is. Like an angel here in my library. She’s sitting by the window, but she springs to her feet and whirls when I step inside. Her eyes are big and blue, and the widen at the sight of me. My own gaze slides over every single tempting curve of her, from her gorgeous dark hair to the shimmering thong sandals on her pedicured feet.
“King Amantea,” she whispers. Her face reddens, and she makes a small and awkward curtsey. The move amuses me, and I smile. “Your highness, what’s going on? Why am I—?”
“Enzo, please,” I murmur with barely contained possession.
She swallows. “Okay, Enzo, what’s going on? Why am I here and why is my crew being escorted back to the airport?”
“Because they’re going home.” I shrug plainly.
“And the rest of them? The other news crews?”
“Also going home.”
She swallows. It’s almost as if she’s not daring to ask the obvious next question.
“Ask,” I say.
“And me?”
I shake my head, giving her a small smirk. “I thought you might stay.”
Claire frowns. “As a
reporter or something?”
“Or something.”
She trembles, and goddamn is she beautiful. My heart surges being this close to her. My cock swells.
“What happened to the open border? The media access to show the real Bullogia?”
“It ended when one of those assholes started planting burned American flags and bullet casings,” I growl. “My enemies are everywhere, and they’re trying to foment dissent in my country. They’re tearing it apart while I try to hold it together.”
“With an iron grip,” she adds quietly.
I smile thinly. “Yes.”
“You can see why people might call you, well…what they call you.”
My brow arches subtly. “Say it.”
Claire takes a slow breath. “Tyrant,” she whispers.
I smile. “Yes, I do see why they call me that. Perfectly.”
“Is that why you brought the international media here? To show you’re not?”
I let my eyes hold her big blue ones, my pulse beating like a runaway train. “Do you think I am?”
She doesn’t hesitate this time. “You’ve just sent home the international media from a country you took by force, and now rule, calling yourself king or comandante, while you wear a military outfit, and while you keep me hostage.”
I hold back the smile. I like her brashness very much. I like her… well it isn’t defiance. Yet. But it’s something that stirs my arousal.
“Your point?” She blushes. “No, speak. I won’t be offended. Do you think that makes me a tyrant?”
Claire worries her lip.
“Speak, Claire,” I say, her name glides over my tongue like a lover’s whisper. Her eyes widen at the use of her name. I watch her cheeks flush pink.
“If the shoe fits,” she finally murmurs.
I smile. “Well, perhaps you’ll change your mind.”
She frowns. “When?”
“Whenever.”
Her frown deepens. “You mean before I leave tonight?”
I smile wider. “No, Claire. I mean while you stay here, as my guest.”
Her face pales. “Excuse me?”
“I mean you’re not leaving,” I clarify. “You’re staying.”
Her pretty lips worry, and a fear creeps across her face. “For how long?” I smile and walk closer, and she trembles. “Are you keeping me here?” she breathes.
I’ve never seen any sense in lying. “Yes. I am.”
She gasps audibly. “You can’t do that!”
“I’m a tyrant king, Claire,” I smile thinly. “I can do what I please.” I’ve been approaching her slowly for a minute. But now, I come to a stop right in front of her. I reach for her, as if she’s already mine. My hands land on her hips, and she gasps. She whips her hand back, and suddenly, she slaps me hard across the face. I grunt through my teeth, but then, I’m grinning.
Claire goes utterly pale, and she looks horrified, and scared. She doesn’t have to be. It takes far more than a hard slap to wound me. Though the balls on her for doing it impresses me.
“You’ll be cared for as an honored guest,” I growl. I don’t move my hands from her hips, and it’s making my cock swell even harder. “Like a princess.” I turn and finally pull my hands from her. I walk to the wall and press a button. The door opposite the one I came through opens, and two of my guards walk in. Claire whips around to stare at them, and then looks back at me. Her face is pale, and her eyes are so wide and blue.
“Wait, you can’t do this!” she yells. My men come to a stop behind her and go to grab her. But I snarl.
“Don’t touch her,” I hiss. They both yank their hands back immediately and look pale as they nod smartly. My rage deflates, and my eyes swivel back to land on Claire. I move closer to her again, my gaze fixated on the way she sticks her chin out so defiantly. She’s not cowering, she’s figuring out how to fight me, and I like that.
“You can’t just keep me here,” she spits.
“Actually, I can.”
I know this is terrible for my image, and for the image of Bullogia I’m trying to improve internationally. But it can’t be helped. I can’t help but keep her. Just like I can’t change the fates that have brought her to me.
“These men will escort you to your quarters. If they are anything less than fit for a queen, please let me know.”
“Your highness…!”
“Enzo,” I correct. “Please.”
I move towards her once more, and I raise my hand. She gasps when I let it hover an inch above her cheek, and if daring myself to cup her jaw. I move close, and it truly does take everything I am not to bring her to me and kiss her. I push back at my desire, and I finally step away from her with the sheer will of a god.
“Dinner is at six.” I turn, and storm out of the room. She’s staying. She’s staying and she’s mine. She just hasn’t figured that out yet.
4
Claire
The door shuts tight and locks behind me. I gasp, having assumed the guards were following me through. I run to it and slam my fists against it, hammering loudly. I yell for someone to open it, but obviously, they don’t. The panic rises, and I whirl and whip my phone out. But of course, there’s no service. There hasn’t been since I landed, even with the international plan I had set up before coming here.
I turn back to the ornate ivory-colored double doors and start pounding on them again. “You can’t just keep me here!” I scream. “This is fucking illegal!”
There isn’t a single peep as an answer, and I groan. My forehead sinks against the door, and I try and keep my breathing from escalating to hyperventilating. I close my eyes tight, forcing myself not to lose all control and freak out. Finally, I turn, and I let myself actually take in where I am.
And oh my God. I’m not in a cell, or jail. I’m in a freaking palace. The room I’m in isn’t even a room, it’s an enormous, vaulted ceiling entryway the size of half of my apartment back in LA. I walk slowly across a spotless, polished marble floor adorned with lavish golden throw rugs. Crystal chandeliers hang from the arched ceiling, and I look left and right through polished marble archways into further rooms. Every one of them is decorated as if the royal family of England is about to shoot a Louis Vuitton ad. And apparently, “my quarters” involve three living rooms, a dining room with the table already set for royalty, and two bedrooms. There’s also three white marble balconies with sweeping views of the entire capital, and the ocean beyond.
I glance over the edge of one. But any schemes I have of climbing down to freedom are gone in an instant. Yeah, there’s no way I wouldn’t die trying to scale down from this high up. I go back inside and pace the rooms, staring in awe at where I am. The entire guarded walk here through the palace had the same opulence, too. It’s not just downright impressive, it also goes against everything we’ve seen back home about Bullogia. What little media footage that makes it out of here to air on the news shows the little island country as a ravaged war zone. But everything I’ve seen so far, from the airport, through the countryside, to here in the capital and now this astounding palace has been beautiful.
But I frown and take a pause. Saddam Hussein’s palace was pretty fucking gorgeous too, after all. My frown deepens, and I shake my head. No, I will not be dazzled away from Enzo being who and what he is by crystal chandeliers and quarters that rival the Queen of England’s.
I stroll through the lavish rooms, shaking my head. The style is Italian, almost like Venice. But it’s got a lot of traditional Roman as well. A little Greco, and little of eastern Europe, too. The whole capital does, actually, and it makes sense. After all, Bullogia started off as part of Italy, and then it was part of Croatia. After World War One, it quietly became one of the tiny, autonomous European countries that most people forget even exists, like Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, or Andorra.
I’ve obviously read up on the history before coming here to do this story. Bullogia is a kingdom, and Enzo’s claim to the throne isn’t made up. There’s been a
huge line of Amantea kings, all the way through to the much-loved King Rudolf Amantea, Enzo’s uncle. A coup in the early 2000s though saw him and most of the family assassinated. Enzo and his sister, Viviana, escaped. But while she fled to Italy and found asylum there, Enzo stayed as a guerrilla fighter commander, refusing to leave. He spent the next fifteen or so years waging war on the men who took his family’s crown. It’s a romantic story, especially seeing as a year ago, the rebels actually overthrew the second regime in an underdog victory.
But that’s where the romance ends. Since then, or so we’ve all seen on the news, even my own network, it’s been a civil conflict of blood. All we’ve seen from Bullogia is Enzo being more brutal than even the men he overthrew. Brutal, cold, and tyrannical. And gorgeous. I groan and roll my eyes, thinking of Emily. I mean, he is. The man is like pure sex, but the dangerous kind. He’s the kind of gorgeous that makes for bad decisions. Bad decisions, I think, like fantasizing about the tyrant dictator who’s keeping you hostage in his palace. I blush vividly and march over to the door again. I pound on it hard, and I keep pounding just to take away the dirty daydreams of the sinfully gorgeous man who’s just smiled and told me I’m his prisoner.
But suddenly, after I don’t know how long, the door swings open. I’m mid-swing, and I stop myself right before my fist crashes into Enzo Amantea’s face. Well, his chest, seeing how tall he is.
Enzo smirks. “Getting some steam out?”
I glare at him. “Let me go. Right now,” I demand.
“No,” he says easily with a shrug.
“Please?”
He smiles. “Respectfully, still no.”
“I need a phone or something. Mine gets no service here.”
“I think not.”
I frown. “I need to at least tell my crew—”
“They’ve been told,” he says curtly.
“That you’ve kidnapped me?”
