The Prince's Convenient Bride

by Robyn Donald

  The Prince’s Convenient Bride

  Robyn Donald

  The passionate prince—

  When Prince Marco Considine sees model Jacoba Sinclair, he wants her—

  The supercool supermodel—

  But Jacoba can never surrender to Marco. She fears he'll discover her secret--

  And a reason for a convenient marriage! When Jacoba's secret is uncovered, Marco seizes his opportunity. By announcing their engagement he can offer her royal protection--and royal passion!

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS, Jacoba Sinclair decided, the perfect setting for an evening of high romance. A full moon sailed across the sky, burnishing the panorama of mountains with heartbreaking glamour and silhouetting their rounded, muscular shapes above a lake that shone with the glossy blackness of obsidian.

  In stark contrast, the people inside the building drank champagne in the sort of clothes seen only at very formal balls. Light from the huge Venetian chandelier gleamed on bare shoulders adorned with jewels, their warm glow highlighting the seductive glimmer of satin and the elegant austerity of men’s evening clothes. Candle flames bobbed from tables set with crystal and silver and festooned with white and gold flowers.

  Jacoba smoothed a hand over her hip, her long fingers skimming the crimson silk that billowed out with subtle sensuality from a tiny waist into an extravagant skirt. The gems in her tiara caught fire from the chandelier, each diamond pulsing with cold, clear fire.

  They were genuine, like the stones in the drop earrings and the necklace—and worth an obscene amount of money. The mountains and the lake, and the Southern Cross emblazoned across the clear New Zealand sky, were real too, their raw permanence mocking the transitory glitter of the room.

  Because everything else inside was as fake as the furs that draped the wall behind her. By day the exotic pavilion led a workaday life as a restaurant at the top of a ski lift, and the elegantly dressed men and women sipping imitation champagne had been hired for their patrician faces and sleek bodies.

  Like her.

  This was her life. She was being paid a vast amount to smile, to look haughty and seductive, as expensive and unattainable as the gems that blazed at her throat and hung from her ears.

  ‘Perfect,’ Zoltan said throatily. ‘Yes, like that, looking down at the lake, then turn—and see your prince. I want a kind of stunned wonder, followed by just the beginnings of a smile, all your glossy confidence transmuted into a flash of wistful longing.’ He paused before adding snidely, ‘Think you can do that?’

  Jacoba knew he’d been lured to direct the advertisement by huge money and the promise of a prestigious campaign—and that he’d wanted a Hollywood screen goddess to play her part. Tired of being addressed as though she were a five-year old, she decided to show him that models knew a thing or two about acting.

  ‘I think I can manage that,’ she drawled, her voice pitched low, and turned her head to fix him with the look he wanted.

  Zoltan gave her a sharp glance. ‘All right, let’s see it for the camera,’ he said curtly.

  Ignoring his open scepticism she switched her attention to the magnificent view, pulling back an artificial taffeta curtain. She recalled how it had felt to look at other families when she’d been a kid, how she’d watched children play with their parents and wondered why she didn’t have a father…

  ‘Great,’ the director said, not bothering to hide his surprise. ‘OK, catch some movement on the other side of the room, look across, and see him. Slowly now…’

  His voice rattled on, tearing at her concentration. Perhaps he’d heard that some photographers used a barrage of talk at fashion shoots to enthuse and inspire models. Irritated, Jacoba tuned him out.

  The extras played their roles, chatting, flirting and laughing softly. Ignoring the camera, she let her gaze drift over the crowd, move on slowly towards the door at the back, find the one particular man who’d just walked in through the door…

  Nobody should have been there. Sean Abbott, the actor who played her lover, was confined to the Lodge with a stomach bug. They’d decided to shoot around his absence, using a body double who’d dance with her.

  But Jacoba’s startled gaze met that of a man who strode through the door as though on cue. Mind spinning, she ignored the feverish shiver that ran the length of her spine as her fingers tightened on the curtain.

  This wasn’t the double!

  Tall, effortlessly elegant in the stark black and white of his evening clothes, the newcomer moved with a leashed, vital energy that hooked into something hidden and vulnerable in Jacoba. The breath caught in her throat as her gaze roamed a Mediterranean face honed into formidable angularity, olive skin a startling contrast to pale eyes—eyes that locked on to her.

  The noise faded until all she could hear was the rapid thunder of her heartbeat while Prince Marco Considine of Illyria walked towards her, his arrogant features taut and intent as though she were the only person in the room.

  In a purely instinctive gesture, one gloved fist covered her heart, protecting it from the overpowering impact of a man she’d avoided for the past ten years.

  ‘Brilliant,’ the director said eagerly. ‘Yeah, keep it like that—OK, cut!’

  He turned, and his expression hardened. ‘What the hell—?’ he began explosively, only to rein in his aggression when he recognised the man coming towards them. An ingratiating note appeared in his voice, ‘Ah, Prince Marco—I didn’t expect you.’

  The comment ended in an upward inflection that conveyed a question he dared not ask; it wouldn’t be prudent to quiz one of the most powerful men in the world about his actions.

  Especially not when he controlled the huge cosmetics conglomerate that was spending millions on publicity for their first perfume, Jacoba thought cynically.

  By then she’d composed her face into a mask—proud, aloof, almost disdainful. She stood very still, letting her breath ease out between tense lips, trying to minimise the space she took up.

  Difficult for a woman with hair the colour of a tropical sunset who stood six feet in heels, wearing a dress designed specifically to catch every eye and enough jewels to outshine the southern sky! She fought back a panic-stricken giggle—a shock response left over from childhood—and concentrated on the conversation between the two men.

  ‘I’m staying at the Lodge in Shipwreck Bay,’ Prince Marco said, his voice cool and deep and English-accented. ‘So I thought I’d come up and see how things were going.’

  Jacoba’s stomach knotted. She too was staying at the Lodge.

  But she could deal with that. Like the rest of the world, he had absolutely no idea who she really was. Her parents—actors in the terrifying, unremembered drama that had been her infancy in Illyria—were now dead. And a lot had happened in the past few years in the small, impoverished princedom between the European heartland and the sunny Mediterranean. With the dreaded cadres of the Illyrian secret police disbanded, she and her sister Lexie were safe from them, and it didn’t seem likely that in the twenty-first century her mother’s other fear, the blood feud, would still be part of Illyrian life.

  Anyway, the prince, born and brought up in his mother’s country of France, wouldn’t care.

  She stole a glance at him, and a superstitious shudder iced her skin.

  He’d care. Marco Considine looked as though he believed in revenge. Morbidly, Jacoba found herself recalling stories from Illyria’s history—ancient tales of wars to avenge honour…

  Don’t be an idiot, she commanded, furious with her over-active imagination.

  She switched her attention to the crowd, but there was no escaping the prince’s overwhelming impact. Height had a lot to do with it; she’d probab
ly never have done so well in the modelling world if she hadn’t been so tall. And he topped her by at least four inches. Add his powerful build and lethal male grace, and he quite literally dominated the room.

  But the strong framework of his face proclaimed an intangible, inherent authority. He was a Considine, boasting a heritage that reached back into the ages of myth.

  Younger brother to the Grand Duke of Illyria—who was second in position only to the ruling prince—Marco Considine would have been raised with the same attachment to their castle in the mountains, the same pride in the history of their illustrious family.

  And he was therefore dangerous, and forbidden.

  Jacoba dragged in a sharp breath, and Prince Marco’s gaze settled on her for a second before moving back to the director. Only a moment, yet she felt as though his steel-blue gaze had penetrated her innermost secrets.

  Panic turned her witless, but she fought through it. He didn’t know she was Illyrian by birth too. Apart from her sister, no one did—well, only her oldest and best friend, and Hawke would never tell. To everyone else she was a New Zealander. Her name, coupled with fair skin and brilliant hair, made most people assume she had Scottish connections.

  She forced her mind away from the dark shadow of the past to wonder why the prince was wearing evening dress. The garments fitted him with the precision that indicated a superb tailor, subtly emphasising those broad shoulders and narrow hips, and his long, heavily muscled legs. He made every other man in the room look synthetic, a colourless imitation of the real thing.

  OK, she told herself angrily, so he was gorgeous, a truly impressive hunk of a man. But she had worked with some of the most beautiful men in the world; goggling at him like a schoolgirl was embarrassing.

  Composing her face into a serenity she was far from feeling, she forced her attention back to his conversation with Zoltan.

  The prince said deliberately, ‘I hope everything is going well.’

  ‘Very well,’ the director assured him, and embarked on a swift run-down of progress so far.

  Jacoba was accustomed to being valued only for her decorative appeal, but this was the first time she’d been so comprehensively ignored.

  Perhaps I’m getting spoiled, she thought wryly. Just as well I’d decided to give up this life.

  She’d always intended to retire in three years’ time when she reached thirty, but the astonishing payment for this campaign meant she could finish immediately—well, once she’d worked through the two bookings left…

  In spite of the brevity of the conversation, she sensed in the prince a formidable, decisive intellect and an unyielding will that intrigued her. An interesting man, this scion of the house of Considine—and, she thought after a swift glance at his compelling, imperious face, a dangerous one.

  As though he sensed her attention, his cold blue eyes met hers, clashing in a primitive, heady challenge.

  She held his gaze for a couple of seconds, then let her lashes hide her thoughts, but she could feel his gaze as he said smoothly and with just a hint of censure in the deep, slightly abrasive voice, ‘We haven’t met.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the director said shortly, ‘I didn’t realise. This is Jacoba Sinclair.’

  The omission of the rest of the introduction was deliberate, but it didn’t sting. She had better things to do than obsess over stupid men who considered fashion models a lower form of life.

  Summoning her most aloof smile for the prince, she held out her hand. ‘How do you do, sir?’ she said coolly.

  ‘ Sinclair.’ He lifted her hand almost to his lips, dropping a formal kiss into the air just above the glove.

  In anyone else she’d have thought the gesture unbearably pretentious, but somehow the prince turned it into a sensuous invitation. A sliver of sensation knifed its way through her. She realised she was breathing more rapidly and she needed a large slug of that ersatz champagne to wet her suddenly dry mouth and throat.

  Dangerous indeed! she thought, trying hard to be dismissive.

  ‘My name is Marco Considine ,’ he said pleasantly as he straightened up, but his astonishing blue eyes were direct and uncompromising.

  And appreciative. Jacoba had seen the glitter of lust too often not to recognise it, even though this man’s formidable self-possession kept his features under control.

  Her heart rate surged.

  Beside her Zoltan moved uneasily. As well he might; he’d just been reminded that Prince Marco held all the power in this situation. Oh, he’d have a contract, but Jacoba had no doubt that the prince would terminate it with characteristic ruthlessness if he wanted to.

  Meanly, it amused her when the director rushed in with some innocuous comment about their luck with the weather.

  Marco Considine ’s black brows drew together in a frown, but he turned his attention to the other man. Jacoba didn’t dare allow herself to relax. She felt shocked and oddly exposed, as though she’d been pinned by a spotlight, held there by the force of the prince’s will.

  ‘So when will you finish?’ he asked.

  The director told him, ‘We have to be out of here by six o’ in the morning, but it will probably be in the can before then. Jacoba is taking direction remarkably well.’

  Patronising jerk. Jacoba showed her perfect teeth and said drily, ‘You’re too kind.’

  ‘So where is her partner?’ the prince enquired in a neutral voice, although she’d bet her year’s income that he’d filed the little exchange away. ‘Isn’t there supposed to be a passionate waltz?’

  Zoltan spread his hand and shrugged. ‘Sean Abbott is suffering from a bout of stomach flu.’

  Black brows met above an arrogant blade of a nose. ‘Is this a problem?’

  ‘No,’ the director said briskly, not looking at Jacoba. ‘He’ll be in all the close-ups, but for tonight we’re using a stand-in and shooting around him.’

  The prince nodded. ‘Do you mind if I watch?’

  Jacoba most emphatically did, but she knew better than to protest. Sure enough, Zoltan said heartily, ‘Not at all!’

  The prince looked at her, his eyes narrowed a little. ‘No problem?’

  Jacoba smiled. Just as heartily as the director, she said, ‘No, sir.’

  But there was. Marco watched the stand-in fumble another dance step, and wondered how any man could be so clumsy when his partner moved like a dream. Perhaps he was overwhelmed at the prospect of dancing with the famous—and outrageously beautiful—Jacoba Sinclair.

  She was doing her best to cover for the man’s inadequacy, but even her grace couldn’t give him any sense of rhythm. Wondering if the colour of her hair—the exact fiery hue of her dress—was genuine, Marco glanced at his watch.

  Zoltan shouted, ‘Cut!’ He moderated his voice. ‘OK, no offence, but it’s not going to work.’

  The body double scowled petulantly. ‘She won’t follow.’

  Marco said calmly, ‘Will I do?’

  The director stared at him, his astonishment obvious.

  Sardonically amused, Marco continued, ‘I’m roughly the same height and build, and if I can’t dance well enough you can send me packing.’

  He didn’t look at Jacoba Sinclair, but he could sense her consternation. It was a reaction he wasn’t used to; from his sixteenth year he’d never wanted a woman he couldn’t have.

  But she certainly wasn’t sending out lures. Perhaps she was truly in love with the man whose mistress she’d been for some years, even though Hawke Kennedy wasn’t faithful to her.

  ‘Well,’ the director said doubtfully, ‘if you’re sure…’

  ‘You’ve nothing to lose,’ Marco said with cool assurance. His offer had been a rare moment of impulse, but he wanted to know what Jacoba Sinclair felt like in his arms.

  ‘OK, see how you go,’ the director said, hiding his reluctance with an almost convincing smile. ‘And remember, Jacoba, you’re stunned and already half in love. I want emotion and that first excitement of plunging into waters that are way,
way above your head. Show with your body that he only has to ask and you’re his.’

  Faint colour tinged her skin, and Marco smiled, something untamed and intense stirring to life deep inside him.

  Leashing it, he listened intently as Zoltan gave his instructions, stating what he wanted to happen and where they should go.

  It took longer than Marco expected to film their slow walk towards each other, the meeting in the middle of the dance floor. He found the process tedious, but it was interesting to see how such things were done.

  And Jacoba Sinclair was a consummate professional.

  Which was just as well, because Zoltan was a perfectionist, his attitude towards Jacoba Sinclair coming suspiciously close to being aggressive. In spite of that, she gave what Marco considered to be an excellent performance—in fact, he could almost believe that she’d been burnt by an instant passion for him.

  In other words she was an excellent actress, he thought matter-of-factly. There was nothing personal in her sultry glances and half-smiles. Yet he sensed a hidden tension in her, and he didn’t think it was caused by the director.

  Marco wondered if Zoltan had tried to get her into bed and been rejected.

  Surprised at the cold anger that thought aroused, he concentrated on what he was told to do. Easy for him, as the ever-present camera didn’t intrude; its lens was kept on his back.

  ‘OK, good, that’ll do,’ the director said. ‘Now for the actual dance.’ He gave Marco a man-to-man grin that made the prince feel like punching him on the nose. ‘Much more enjoyable.’

  Marco let his brows rise.

  ‘Yes, well, this is what I want you to do…’ Abashed, Zoltan suddenly became brusque, ending his explanation with the comment, ‘And if you get lost, Jacoba will make sure you’re in the right place.’

  Marco held out his arm; Jacoba placed a hand on it, and walked fluidly beside him into the middle of the floor. And then at last she came into Marco’s arms with a silken flutter, a faint, purely feminine perfume teasing his nostrils, her slender, lithe body pliant and yielding in his arms.

  He fought down a surge of hunger so intense it almost unmanned him. The music began again, a waltz that hinted of Victorian ballrooms and demure young virgins scandalised by the close contact the dance allowed.