by Maya Blake
The line went dead, and Violet couldn’t stop the uncouth word that erupted from her lips. That little catharsis freed a layer of tension and propelled her to her tiny bedroom, where she rummaged through her meagre wardrobe in search of the gown she hadn’t worn since her twenty-first.
Recalling how different that birthday had been from her eighteenth, she pursed her lips. A three-hundred-plus guest list shrunk to a half-hearted twenty-five, so-called friends having fallen away like rats deserting a sinking ship, some exhibiting shocking cruelty on their way out that still hurt to this day.
Violet had endured the occasion only because her mother had insisted on marking the day, spending money they hadn’t had for a birthday party no one had wanted to attend, wearing a dress she suspected had come from a charity shop, not the haute couture line her mother had insisted it’d come from.
Whatever the genesis of the dress, Violet couldn’t fault its simple but tasteful lines. The dove-grey pleated bodice swept from a shallow V over her cleavage to wrap around her upper arms and back, leaving her shoulders and lower back bare, before the soft chiffon gently moulded her hips and fell away to her ankles.
Since she’d already showered in anticipation of slipping into her pyjamas for an early night, her only task was to slip on the dress, brush and sweep her hair into a tidy chignon, add a simple string of pearls inherited from her grandmother, shoes and make-up, and spritz on her favourite perfume.
Her doorbell went for the second time within half an hour as she was tossing her keys into her small, matching clutch. Her heart attempted to jump into her throat, until she assured herself that royalty didn’t conduct such mundane tasks as climbing four flights of dark, dank stairs to knock on the front doors of apartments in buildings within a short sprint of a housing project.
She went to the door, opened it and froze, her jaw sagging at the sight of the man framed in her doorway.
‘Do you normally throw open your door with very little regard for your safety?’ Prince Zakary Montegova asked coldly.
Violet stared, convinced that the combination of memories, exhaustion and his earlier phone call had colluded into make her hallucinate him. But, no, that steady breathing, those much too incisive grey eyes, that towering, mouthwatering body and especially that aftershave convinced her he was all too real.
‘I... What are you doing here?’
One sleek, winged eyebrow rose, sarcasm dripping from that small motion.
‘I meant you didn’t have to come up and get me yourself. You could’ve called. Or sent one of your bodyguards.’ She managed to drag her gaze from him long enough to confirm the security guards without whom he never travelled were indeed present, watchful and crowding her poorly lit hallway.
‘And missed this scintillating peek into your life? One that makes me question why you have a peephole and an adequate-looking security chain on your door but chose to use neither?’
That tight bite of irritation had thickened, even as his gaze swept over her from hair to heels, dragging awareness over every inch of skin he scrutinised, all the parts he couldn’t see.
It was that bite, that suppressed energy that intensified her awareness, dragged even more unnervingly arresting pieces of Zak Montegova into focus.
The sharp classiness of his bespoke tux highlighting his brooding sexiness.
An innate sensuality overlying a raw masculinity that’d earned him Most Eligible Royal status for more years than Violet cared to count.
‘You told me you’d be here in fifteen minutes about...fourteen minutes ago. It doesn’t take a wild leap to conclude who was knocking on my door. And, really, are we going to waste more time debating safety protocols? Because I assure you that would take up even more of my precious time.’
‘Your precious time? You signed a piece of paper, I believe, stating that every moment of your secondment was mine. Have you forgotten?’ he drawled, his gaze flickering past her shoulders and into the apartment. Sharp eyes lanced over cheap furniture, cheaper blinds and the stack of conservation books on her coffee table before returning to hers, a little less cynical and a lot more...turbulent. ‘Did I interrupt something? Were you entertaining, perhaps?’
Violet pulled the door closer, unwilling to let him see the small sanctuary she’d created for herself. While she kept her space neat and tidy and as homely as a temporary living space could be, the truth was she had very little spare funds to make it any more than functional.
To a man whose kingdom delivered precious gems by the quarry-full, amongst other priceless resources, an apartment like hers would probably make him shudder. But more than that, Violet wanted nothing to escalate his belief that her mother’s agenda to marry her off advantageously was hers as well. That she was here in New York for any reason other than to gain as much work experience as she could.
‘I think you’re a little misguided. You’re my mentor for the hours I spend at the trust and perhaps a few extra-curricular duties, but I don’t account to you for every moment of my time, and what I do with my private time is none of your business.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ he asked.
For some reason, her belly somersaulted, and her breath hitched. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
For the longest minute he simply stared at her, eyes slowly narrowing. Then he sharply veered from her doorway, granting her the freedom to shut it behind her.
‘You’re right. The matter of your security and extra-curricular activities can await another time. I don’t wish to keep my minister waiting.’
The fact that he’d simply evaded answering her question puzzled her before she assured herself she didn’t really want to know what he’d meant. After all, it had nothing to do with her work.
She told herself that with every step down the long flights of stairs. With every arrogant step that testified that the man who walked beside her was no ordinary man. That he was high born and could trace his ancestry back almost half a millennium.
He gestured her forward at the front door. She stepped through, then startled at his sharp exhalation. A furtive glance over her shoulder showed the briefest flare in the straight blade of his nose. The tiniest hungry flicker in his eyes as they dropped down to her bare back.
A second later he was back under control, prompting her to wonder if she’d imagined that reaction.
Because Zak Montegova didn’t betray superfluous emotion. In all things he held himself under supreme control. As if he were still in the military position he’d held in the Montegovan air force in his twenties.
But he had that night.
That hard-packed body had been alive with passion, impatiently aroused and breathlessly all-consuming with it. Even though he’d snapped into chilling rebuttal afterwards, she’d experienced that blistering moment when his guard had dropped. When he’d given her a glimpse beneath his armour-plated façade.
For years Violet hadn’t quite been able to dismiss that fraction of a moment from her thoughts. Not as easily as the Prince had dismissed her, anyway. Even when she’d imagined she’d seen a residual memory lurking in his eyes the handful of times fate, or her mother, had thrown them together.
But it wasn’t until her arrival in New York that she’d known she was mistaken. It’d all been in her imagination. And she needed to kill those thoughts once and for all if she hoped to get ahead in life.
And she had.
For the most part...
But that vital final step eluded her. The last memory of sizzling heat, masterful hands on her body that had ruined her for much longer than she cared to admit. It was why she’d rebuffed any advances from the opposite sex. Because after a few tentative tries she’d known she was wasting time better spent pursuing a fulfilling career. Because even if those advances hadn’t eventually been ruined by her mother’s meddling or male interest only piqued by the whiff of scandal that followed her name, the memory of Zak
ary Montegova had always been there, a formidable apparition, rendering every man who came close an unworthy imitation of the accomplished Prince.
The man lauded as a genius. While his brother had been tasked with preserving Montegovan interests, Zak had been tasked with interests abroad. Within a handful of years he’d had heads of states at his beck and call. And that acclaim had gained power and glory with each passing year.
The sights and sounds of New York blasted in the moment they stepped out of her apartment building.
And into the path of a bicycle courier. The cyclist swerved, just as Violet took a hurried step back. Into the hard, towering body of Zak Montegova.
Strong arms gripped her arms to steady her. Fierce eyes drilled into her with a mixture of concern and brusque irritation and that enigmatic gleam that immediately drove the breath from her lungs. Everything fell away.
The courier’s irritated shout despite his blatant contravention of cycling laws.
The blare of taxi horns and loud hiss of bus brakes.
The scent of stale hot dogs and hot pretzels.
Only the searing awareness of skin-on-skin contact remained, taking up ever-expanding room in her consciousness until it was the only thing that mattered. Until even breathing became redundant. Secondary to the rush of having her every fear confirmed.
That, regardless of her mother’s machinations and Zak’s blatant reservations about her presence in New York, she harboured terrible secrets of her own. Secrets she’d taken turns scoffing at and then fearing.
On a sordid little street corner in New York City, Violet accepted the truth that the fairy tale was very much alive.
That the man who’d taken her in his arms, kissed her with soul-stirring expertise while murmuring husky Montegovan words to her, was still very much present beneath that stoic facade. That the man who’d come within a heartbeat of taking her virginity on the night of her eighteenth birthday was still the man she secretly yearned for.
That Zakary Montegova was the reason Violet was, at the ripe old age of twenty-four, still a virgin.
Hard on the heels of the bracing indictment came the realisation that he knew. It was there in the blaze of his grey eyes, in the awareness that rippled through his body. In the thumbs brushing her bare skin...testing her weaknesses?
A shiver ran through her body, spreading goosebumps all over her skin.
His gaze released hers for a moment to track her reaction while his hypnotic caress continued. When her nipples began to pearl, he didn’t miss it. Didn’t miss the acceleration of her heartbeat or the erratic cadence of her breathing.
As if from a distance, she watched his expression change, morph into calculation. It didn’t take a genius to guess he was cataloguing his every effect on her for possible use against her.
He made a sound under his breath, a curious cross between a growl and a visceral sound of satisfaction. Of a hunter having stalked his prey into a tight corner.
It was enough to drag Violet out of her stupor. Enough to stress the urgent need to redouble her efforts to resist her mother’s intentions.
But most of all to prevent Zak from confirming the truth.
At all costs.
CHAPTER TWO
WEAK MOMENTS HAD the power to bring down kingdoms.
Zakary Montegova knew this all too well.
So when Violet scurried away from him towards the limo idling at the kerb as if he’d suddenly contracted a flesh-eating plague, he let her go, following at a slower pace and absolutely rejecting what the sight of her smooth bare back and pert, rounded bottom did to his libido.
Dio mio, hadn’t his father delivered an abject lesson in weakness from beyond the grave? The repercussions of it had been deep and traumatic, and still haunted the royal Montegovan household to this day in the form of his much more reserved and circumspect brother, Remi. In the form of his mother’s quiet anguish, well hidden behind the façade of royal duty and the solemn, defiant refusal to be cowed by any circumstance. It was well documented in the antics of his illegitimate half-brother, Jules, the physical manifestation of their father’s weakness.
Most of all, it was what he’d witnessed within hours of his father’s death and the revelation of the late King’s infidelity. How close the seat of power had come to being usurped by greedy generals and shameless opportunists, eager to capitalise on the kingdom’s instability; that had shown Zak just how precarious temptation could be.
Weak moments had the power to bring him down.
It was why he led a life of hard work, harder diligence and zero trust in his fellow man. Why no woman had even the smallest chance of claiming him. Why he was more than content to leave the production of heirs to his brother, the Crown Prince.
So why had he allowed Violet Barringhall to burrow beneath his skin six years ago?
He’d nearly refused his mother’s request to attend her birthday party. He’d had better things to do than indulge his mother’s misguided friendship with the notorious Margot Barringhall, the infamous gossipmonger, opportunist and tabloid lover.
Everything he stood against. But his mother had insisted.
And from the first moment he’d seen the grown-up version of the girl he’d met very briefly only twice before, Zak had been unable to take his eyes off Violet. The hour he’d intended to spend at her party had turned to two, then four. Despite his distaste at the increasingly drunken behaviour of her so-called friends, he’d lingered. Followed her out into her mother’s garden, enticed by the timid but alluring feminine wiles she’d seemed determined to flex.
At some point he’d believed he was testing himself, seeing how far her enthralment would last. A misguided attempt at immersion therapy, over-exposure to several hours’ worth of temptation after which he’d walk away, triumphant over the pressure in his groin and the bewildering need to touch her. Taste her.
Find a mundane answer to why Lady Violet Barringhall intrigued him.
So he’d followed. He’d touched. He’d tasted. And craved more with an unending hunger that had dogged his waking hours for months. Driven him to investigate the Barringhalls. He’d felt no guilt over it, as it was in fact a practice he’d followed since his father’s death. He’d thoroughly vetted every affiliation to his family, tenuous or otherwise, ensuring the events following his father’s death never occurred again.
But he’d also secretly entertained the possibility of a liaison with Violet down the line.
Only he’d discovered there was nothing remotely honourable about the Barringhalls.
They were in hock up to their eyeballs, the Earl having depleted his substantial family resources through a dizzying series of bad investments and gluttony before his untimely death. After which his wife, Countess Margot Barringhall, had taken up the mantle, frantic to safeguard her way of life by indiscriminate dalliance with the press and, when they had come of age, attempting to marry off her daughters to any half-decent man with a large bank balance who was thirsty for a shoddy little title.
Zak’s disappointment in the discovery had been searing and shocking, his fury at nearly falling into Margot Barringhall’s well-laid trap elevating her and her daughters to the top of his to-be-watched list.
The phone call from his mother three months ago with the secondment request had fortified Zak’s guard.
Since her arrival, he’d thrown every menial task at her to push her into admitting defeat and pleading for her mother to intercede on her behalf.
The crunch point had never arrived. Perversely, he’d detested being proven wrong about her, and had piled more work onto her slim shoulders. She’d raised her game higher, exhibiting a finely tuned talent for understanding the needs of his trust, especially the work he undertook for the less privileged.
But Zak was rarely impressed. Violet Barringhall was a tougher cookie than he’d given her credit for, but the reminder of h
er body straining against his, her shockingly sexy little whimpers and greedy hands, were testament to her hidden skills. And that sometimes shy demeanour that hid a tart tongue? Si, it’d come within a whisker of rousing his jaded humour.
And therein lay the pitfalls. Allowing himself to be impressed, tempted, by her had nearly resulted in a gross error of judgement that could’ve cost his family untold misery.
It was why he stayed away from tall, statuesque women with silky, chestnut hair and eyes the colour of the turquoise-blue waters that sparkled beneath the Montegovan sun.
He slid into the car, watched her cross her legs in a curiously elegant way that effectively angled her body away from his. Poise, no doubt drilled into her in that expensive finishing school her family had ill-afforded, was evident in her ramrod-straight spine, the hands folded neatly over her clutch in her lap, and perfectly angled jaw.
The only thing giving all that decorum away was the pulse leaping at her throat. Her very silky, very smooth and supple throat. Creamy skin he wanted to stroke. To taste.
Basta!
He stirred in his seat, registered what he was doing and froze.
Dio mio, since when did he fidget?
He told himself it was his annoyance that made him glance over her body, over her shadowed cleavage that gave a tantalising peek of her breasts. It was annoyance causing the fever in his veins.
‘You’re meant to be taking notes, yet you don’t seem to have brought any note-taking equipment with you.’
Shrewd blue eyes met his and...mocked him? ‘Perhaps because it’s no longer necessary to bring a whole stationery cupboard to take notes. I have an app on my phone—approved by the trust, I believe—to take notes and transcribe digitally. Depending on how quickly you want it, I can have it ready in an hour.’
‘And if I want it sooner?’ he asked, simply because his mood was decidedly testy and she was the cause of it.
‘Then I’d have to wonder why you’re even bothering to attend the fundraiser if you have far more pressing matters to deal with. Don’t get me wrong, I know you’re a master at multi-tasking but it would help to know what I’m supposed to prioritise.’
