Off-Limits to the Crown Prince

by Kali Anthony

  She placed her hand on his chest again. ‘Now lie back and relax.’

  He almost laughed. How could he relax when he was wound so tight he wanted to snap? His thighs shook. The whole of him quivered with barely restrained desire. It was like nothing he had ever experienced. She positioned herself over him and lowered slowly. He watched her body take him, the shock of the feeling, coupled with the vision, electric. Her head thrown back, hair tumbling over her shoulders, nipples tight and beading with arousal. Such an erotic picture she painted for him. Hannah rode his body as he thrust up into her. Lost in her heat. The sounds she made. Her pure, erotic abandon had the tight, bright sting of arousal crack and shatter with one hard, sharp thrust and shout. Then Hannah tightened around him and broke as well, falling forward onto his heaving chest as he wrapped his arms round her.

  ‘You’re well messed-up now,’ she said with a shaky laugh, which told him she was probably well messed-up herself. And there was nothing he could say or do because she was right. The problem was, he might never wish to go back to his tidy, perfect, righteous life, ever again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  TWO NIGHTS AND three days of bliss and it was now over.

  Hannah sat in the front of an anonymous-looking grey car with Alessio at the wheel. They’d spent the early morning swimming in the deep, cobalt waters of the Mediterranean. Avoiding the inevitable. Pretending the world couldn’t touch them. It touched them now. Everything tightening, tensing.

  As they drove towards the outskirts of Lasserno’s capital, where they would return to the palace, Alessio began to change the most. It was like watching the ground freeze over by degrees. As if the cold chill of winter were creeping up on them, slowly and relentlessly. Where once he’d been loose and relaxed, all of him seemed to be on high alert. Their easy conversation on the yacht dried away, his grip on the steering wheel almost white-knuckled.

  She settled back and tried to relax into the seat. The fantasy of the weekend was well and truly over, those few days where they ate, slept, made love, soon to be but a precious memory. She’d thought this would be enough, that she’d be unaffected by it all. But what she hadn’t banked on was how much changed when you got to see a real person. And Alessio had become real to her. Not a prince like he was on paper but a magnificent, kind, self-deprecating man who could make her laugh and would soon make her cry, of that she had no doubt.

  She wanted to cry for him now. She didn’t know how he’d marry some princess in a cold, practical relationship, when their own days had been full to the brim with passion. She couldn’t see him as surviving with anything less than what they had had. She could barely take in any air at those thoughts. Of Alessio married, with children. Without her. The idea of him in any other woman’s arms thrust through her with all the brutality of a sword to the heart. She looked over at him. His jaw was set, as though he was steeling himself for a life he didn’t want.

  As if he knew she was looking at him, Alessio turned his head a fraction. ‘You’ve had a touch of the sun. Your skin’s pink.’

  She shrugged, blinking away the burn in her eyes. His concern and notice could undo her, and she wasn’t sure there was thread enough in the world to stitch herself together again. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s a little sunburn.’

  ‘I should have paid more attention.’ She couldn’t see his eyes, hidden behind sunglasses as they were, but his voice was filled with care. ‘Remembered the sunscreen. Your beautiful skin is so pale.’

  ‘Too much time indoors, painting.’ She’d never felt like that before, but there’d been a blissful sense of freedom to being in the sunshine, the breeze in her hair. Something other than standing in her studio surrounded by solvent and paints. The same way she’d forgotten the joy of being on horseback, not practising her showjumping, just the pleasure of the ride. All the small things she’d shoved away from herself over the years. Perhaps when she returned home, she could buy a little horse. Take some time to ride again. If she could afford to, because even with Alessio’s commission, funds would still be tight. But there was a kernel of hope there, for something more, even if she couldn’t have him.

  Hannah let out a slow, even breath. She’d not be here much longer and time seemed to be speeding up and careening away.

  ‘I’d like to do a bit of sightseeing in the capital before I leave. I should get a souvenir for Sue.’

  She had many things to thank her agent for. Many things to curse her for as well, with this commission. It had shown her life had possibilities again, whilst also snatching them away.

  ‘I’ll arrange security for you. A list of places to go.’

  It sounded as if he was making himself responsible for her, and that was something she didn’t need when they should be pulling apart rather than meshing even further.

  ‘I hardly think I’ll have a problem buying a snow globe or something similar. Who’d be interested in me?’

  His hands flexed on the steering wheel, though his focus remained resolutely on the road ahead.

  ‘I want you to be safe. I want that for you.’

  The words were loaded because she was sure he meant far more. Hannah squashed down the lick of heat running through her. He was a good man. He cared. The way he did with the children at the hospital, that was all. It meant nothing more.

  It couldn’t.

  He was not safe, not for her. Not ever. With him, she found herself wanting things she’d not contemplated for years, and those things could crack her in two. Because love meant leaving the door open to your own destruction and inviting the destroyer in. She could never give her whole heart because then she’d lose all over again, and she wasn’t sure she’d survive it when she barely had last time.

  ‘I’d like to go on my own. Having security would be strange and take the fun away from things. But I’ll take a list of places to go. Thank you.’

  ‘If I could have come with—’

  ‘You’re the Prince of Lasserno.’ She put him back in that box where he should remain. Would even tie it with a tight, bright gold ribbon to keep him firmly back in place. ‘You can’t just go sightseeing with some random tourist.’

  ‘You’re not a random tourist, Hannah.’ His voice was soft. The cabin of the car filled with the weight of things unsaid. Of how much more this, between them, had become.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll have too much to do.’

  Alessio checked his watch, now firmly back on his wrist as if it had never left. ‘Always. I may have a parliament for advice, but in the end, this is an absolute monarchy. There is only me.’

  There is only me.

  He’d never let anyone in, and it struck her as sad and exhausting.

  The roads were busier as they approached the capital but the run to the palace seemed clear. As she sat staring at the castle looming on the horizon the roar of a motorcycle came from behind, louder, closing in. Then it was right there. At the passenger side. Two people, one driving, one pillion. Something in their hand. Camera. Trying to shove it against the window of the car. A flash.

  She reflexively held up her hand against the tinted glass, her heart pounding a sickening tempo. Another flash. Alessio hissed something through his teeth. She didn’t need to understand Italian to know he swore. He grabbed the brim of his cap and pulled it lower. Hannah wore nothing on her head but did have sunglasses. She pushed them up her nose, not that it would make much difference.

  ‘In the glove compartment there’s a cap. Put it on. Pull the sun visor down.’

  She did as he said. The motorcycle sped ahead while the passenger turned, trying to get photos through the windscreen. A shrill tone rang out through the car. Alessio’s phone. He answered hands-free and a terse voice filled the interior, speaking rapid Italian. Stefano.

  She couldn’t understand what they said, but the fury in Alessio’s voice, the tight, cold rage, chilled the car by degrees. She wrapped her arms r
ound herself as she took in the importance of what was happening. But what did the press know? It could be he’d taken her out sightseeing as he’d suggested, the Prince showing a guest around his country. That was easily enough explained, wasn’t it?

  The call disconnected. Silence filled the car apart from Alessio’s hard, jagged breaths.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, because what more was there to say? ‘It might not be that bad.’

  ‘It is that bad.’ His grip tightened on the wheel again, his mouth a thin, hard line. ‘They are at the palace. Every entrance, though the western gate apparently has fewer.’

  ‘Can we—?’

  ‘Not now.’ He took one hand from the tight grip of the wheel and dragged it over his face.

  She’d been royally dismissed. Experienced it in the sharp cut of his voice. In the way all of the warmth had left him, and he’d turned into Lasserno’s ruler once more. Another motorcycle joined the first. Alessio kept the speed steady and didn’t try to outrun them, for which she was thankful. She stopped looking at the road in front and instead stared down at her lap, her fingers twisting in the soft fabric of her dress. Maybe no one would know who she was, but a sick feeling of bile rose in her throat. Her quiet, anonymous life in the country was likely to be shattered. The protection of those walls she’d built around herself—her art, her peace—all crumbling away. The palace loomed large ahead, and she saw it now like a kind of prison. They didn’t approach from the front, or from the entrance they’d sneaked out of only three blissful days earlier, but a side entrance where palace guards stood, holding back a throng of photographers jostling for position. If this was the western gate, she’d hate to see what the others were like.

  The car pushed through into a large courtyard. Alessio stopped, switched off the engine. Sat for a few moments then turned to her. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses but the whole atmosphere inside the car felt accusatory. As if somehow, she was to blame for this. Then he opened the door, thrusting it wide as he launched himself from the car and slammed it shut behind him.

  Hannah took off her cap to put it back in the glove compartment and grabbed her handbag before following, running to keep up as Alessio barely broke his stride, his staff bowing as he passed, looking at her with some curiosity.

  She didn’t know how long they walked through what appeared to be service corridors, until they reached a vast, familiar hall and a door she immediately recognised. Alessio’s office. Inside, Stefano stood by one of the mullioned windows, speaking rapid-fire on the phone. When they entered, he hung up. Alessio tore off his sunglasses and cap, tossed them on his desk. He and Stefano exchanged a look—Stefano’s all sympathy, Alessio’s barely concealed fury.

  ‘What’s being said?’

  ‘They know about the hospital visits. That’s been online already.’

  ‘The families?’

  ‘Are being protected. They won’t talk. You know that.’

  Alessio’s head dropped. He stared at the carpet as if a solution could be divined there. All the while, Hannah realised she was superfluous. And she didn’t know what to do. Stand. Sit. Pace. Everyone in this room was still. Her, Alessio, Stefano. Like chess pieces waiting for the first move.

  ‘They’re using the sick children to make a story about me.’

  ‘It’s not a bad thing, since it’s a good story. As I’ve said before.’

  ‘What about this?’ Alessio waved his hands between him and Hannah, as if she were nothing. His dismissal sliced sharp and fresh like a paper cut.

  Stefano deigned to look at her then. Nice to know she existed. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, everything about him inscrutable in those moments. But he seemed paler, his eyes tight. No tie, the top button of his shirt undone.

  ‘The speculation online is intense, but only in the less reputable media...for now. The photographs of you in the car will break soon enough. Who knows what they’ll say? My staff won’t talk, if that’s your concern.’

  ‘They never have before. I have no concerns there.’

  ‘I have a team considering the problem.’ Stefano looked at her again and in the deep pit of her stomach she knew she was the problem here. Something to be dealt with. Not a person with fears of her own. ‘I’ll see them now, on how we manage things going forward.’

  He left the room and Alessio walked to the window, looked out over Lasserno. His country. The only thing he desired or needed, she was coming to realise.

  ‘Never complain, never explain,’ she said.

  He wheeled round, all of him so hard and tense it was as if one more push and he might snap. She wanted to do something. Reach out. Comfort. Say it would all be okay. But she knew some things would never be okay again, for either of them.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The British Royal family. That’s what they do.’

  ‘Trust me.’ He began to pace the room in that familiar way of his, as if he needed to expend energy. ‘I won’t be giving statements.’

  ‘How did the press find out?’

  He raised one coal-dark eyebrow at her, the burnt umber gaze of his so heated only hours ago, now cold and forbidding like some bottomless, muddy pool. ‘How, indeed?’

  ‘You think...me?’

  He looked so out of place in this moment, in his disarray. Wearing casual clothes and not the suit he donned as his usual armour. Surrounded by his ancestors glaring down from their lofty height on the walls, as if the weekend of humanity he’d stolen was some kind of disgrace.

  ‘I trust everyone else around me. But this story is a familiar one.’

  It dawned on her then, what he wouldn’t say out loud. He didn’t trust her. ‘It might be an annoyance for your private life, but have you ever thought how this debacle could affect me?’

  He stopped his pacing. Dead.

  ‘You?’

  Said as if he’d only just realised she was a person who might have thoughts and feelings about this too. She threw up her hands and began pacing then. As if Alessio’s will to constantly be on the move had infected her.

  ‘No, clearly you haven’t thought about me at all. Other than to accuse me.’

  ‘I’ve accused you of nothing.’

  The yet hung unsaid.

  ‘I sign non-disclosure agreements with all of my clients. My word about what I discover is absolute. Would any of them trust me if they thought I would spill my secrets to the press? No. Sure, I could paint people, but it would never be the same. It would destroy my process. Ruin everything.’

  The corner of his mouth rose in something like a sneer. Not quite contempt, but close enough.

  ‘You’re financially distressed. Your uncle mismanaged your inheritance. A tell-all about me would fill your bank account,’ Alessio hissed, cold, cruel and furious.

  She stopped then, as if those words had stripped the will to move right out of her. There was such accusation in his gaze. It was as though he was a brittle shell filled with nothing but disdain.

  ‘You honestly believe I would talk about this, us...’ she waved between them as he had done, only this had meant something to her ‘...to the press? What kind of world do you live in?’

  ‘Look around you.’ He spread his arms wide, like some sacrifice. ‘I live in the real world! Where people want what they can’t have and take what they can.’

  His words cracked her, cleaving her in two. She grabbed on to the back of an armchair and gripped the silken fabric tight in case the halves of her fell to the floor. ‘If this is the real world then I don’t want any part of it.’

  ‘Luckily for you, you shall have none.’

  A reminder once again she was being firmly put in her place. A place she’d never sought to leave, until the weekend just past. ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you? I’m glad to hear it, since you’ll leave today. Within the hour. I’ll have your things s
ent to you. My jet—’

  She shook her head. Let go of the armchair’s support. She needed none. She’d lived on her own terms almost since the day her parents had died. She’d do it again. As for now, she needed to get away from him, from his life and the trappings of it. Get back to the comfort and safety of her home and her relative anonymity. She didn’t want sorrowful looks from royal flight attendants as she wept into a cup of tea.

  Because she’d cry, but not in front of him.

  ‘I’ll fly on some airline.’

  He shook his head. ‘You think the press in Lasserno are bad? They’re kittens compared to what you’re walking into. How will you drive home, on narrow country roads being chased by motorcycles? Cars? I think not.’

  If he were concerned he might have looked stricken, but that wasn’t what was happening here. He didn’t care about her. He never really had. His reputation was his only interest and everything else was peripheral. But there was one thing they needed to address: what she was being paid to do, since she was just an employee now.

  ‘Your portrait.’

  Something about him changed then. Alessio seemed to straighten, stand taller. Even if you didn’t know it, seeing him in this moment you’d realise he was ruler of all he surveyed. Uncompromising and absolute.

  ‘I want no portrait. Every time anyone looks at the painting, they’ll speculate about what you saw and exactly how much. It can never be what I wanted it to be, a statement of intent. I’ll find someone else. But don’t fear. You’ll be paid for your time.’

  There was the final blow, his words like a kick to the stomach. It was as if for a second time her world had been taken from her. All of this, here, had been for nothing.

  If she weren’t made of stronger stuff, she might bend in two. But she’d survived the death of her parents and her horse, the rejection of her boyfriend, the dishonesty of her uncle. She could survive Alessio Arcuri. And she’d show him.

  ‘You’ll pay me...for my time. My...services rendered. What a fine way to make a woman feel cheap.’ She took a deep breath, looked him straight in the eye so he could see how strong she really was, and just how much he’d meant to her until this. ‘I don’t want to be paid. I want nothing from you. So go and find your perfect princess. I hear royal weddings and babies are big news. They’ll erase any rumours about me from your life.’