Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Convenient Vows: A Royal Vow of Convenience / The Paternity Claim / The Housekeeper's Awakening

There was a pause. ‘William, have you been drinking?’

‘She’s a princess from Isolaverde,’ his assistant continued doggedly. ‘One of the world’s richest islands. Gold, diamonds, petroleum, natural gas, uranium. They hold some international yacht race every year. They’ve even—’

‘I get the idea, William. And I’ve heard of it. Get on with it.’

‘She’s young and beautiful—’

You’re telling me. ‘The facts,’ bit out Rafe.

‘She was engaged to some prince. Prince Luciano of Mardovia—known as Luc. Bit of a player—lived on another Mediterranean island—known each other since they were kids. Just before the engagement was due to be announced he goes and makes some English dressmaker pregnant. Big scandal. He was forced to marry the dressmaker—so the wedding with Princess Sophie had to be called off. And that’s when she disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’ repeated Rafe slowly, his mind spinning as he tried to get his head round the relevant facts. Not just the fact that the name Luc rang a distant bell in his memory, but a far more worrying one. He’d just had sex with a virgin princess?

‘Into thin air. She ran away. Or rather, flew away. Nobody really knew about it because her brother instigated an information lockdown. And no one had any idea where she was. At least, not until now.’ Another pause. ‘They know she’s at Poonbarra, Rafe.’

‘And how...?’ Rafe drew in a deep breath. ‘How the hell do they know that?’

‘Seems like Eileen Donahue—that’s the woman who runs the general store in Corksville—recognised Sophie yesterday. Said she was, and I quote, “All dolled up for a change” and that she seemed “familiar”. So she looked her up on the Internet—and what do you know? Sophie is familiar. She’s royal, no less. Eileen contacted one of the papers in Brisbane and I’m afraid the rest is exactly how you imagine it would be. The journalists did their research and I’m ringing to say that you can expect a deputation of the world’s press on your doorstep before too long.’

Rafe’s fingers clasped the phone so tightly that he heard his knuckles crack. ‘That can’t be allowed to happen, William,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I don’t want a circus invading town. Poonbarra is a place of privacy. The one place in the world where I am guaranteed peace. I want you to kill this story and I want you to kill it now.’

‘I don’t see how that’s going to be possible, boss. It’s already got legs.’

‘Well, just get me out of here before they arrive.’ Rafe’s voice was cold.

There was a pause. ‘Let me see what I can do.’

Rafe swore as he cut the connection and resisted the desire to crush the phone in the palm of his hand. Pushing back the sheet, he got out of bed, trying to temper his mood and think rationally—even though all he wanted to do was storm through the homestead to find Sophie Doukas and give her a piece of his mind. Another wave of anger enveloped him. Not only had she kept her innocence secret, but she’d omitted to tell him that she was a royal. A royal on the run! Deceitful woman. Scheming woman.

Anger and resentment washed over him but he could still smell her on his skin and taste her in his mouth and it was tantalising and distracting. Even the thought of her was making his body grow hard, so he forced himself to stand beneath the icy jets of the shower, which did little to cool his heated blood. Dragging a razor across his jaw, he somehow managed to nick his skin in the process and that only increased his frustration.

Pulling on a shirt and a pair of trousers, he went looking for her but, since it wasn’t quite six, the house was completely silent and there were no sounds of clatter coming from the kitchen. His rage mounting, he strode along the quiet corridors—forcing himself to knock on her door even though part of him just wanted to kick it open in a primitive way, which was not his usual style at all.

She was already up and dressed and answered the knock immediately but her eyes were hooded and cautious when she saw it was him. She was wearing a pair of shapeless cotton trousers and a T-shirt, yet all he could think about was the magnificence of her naked body and the way she’d cried out when he’d opened her legs and entered her. And once again he was furious with himself for the hot surge of lust which flooded through his bloodstream, knowing that he should be concentrating on her lies and subterfuge, not her undeniable physical appeal.

‘Rafe,’ she said, her fingers flying to the base of her throat where he could see a small pulse hammering.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said, with a disdainful curl of his lips. ‘I haven’t come here for sex.’

‘Oh? Then why have you come here?’

She tilted her chin in a defiant gesture and suddenly Rafe wondered how he could have been so dense. Of course she was someone—hadn’t that been apparent from the start? A diamond in the rough—that had been his initial reaction on seeing her and he had been right. And when he stopped to think about it, her high-born status had been apparent in every gesture she made. It had been there in the way she moved and the way she walked. In her flawless skin and heart-shaped face and the thick, lustrous bounce of her hair. She was a princess. Of course she was. A runaway virgin princess who had chosen him as her first lover.

Why?

‘I’m still trying to get my head around what happened last night,’ he said. ‘About the fact that you let a virtual stranger take your virginity. And wondering if there’s anything else you’ve omitted to tell me?’

Sophie went very still, because something in his eyes told her the game was up—but still she clung to her fake freedom for a few last, precious seconds. She tried to convince herself it was her own guilty conscience making her think he’d found out who she really was—but that was impossible. Just because he’d been deep inside her body the night before, didn’t mean he’d suddenly developed the ability to read her mind, did it? How could he possibly know?

‘Like what?’ she questioned nonchalantly.

Her words seemed to make something inside him snap and he took a step towards her. ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he said softly. ‘Why do women find it impossible to give a straight answer? Why is deceit always their default setting? I gave you the chance to tell me the truth, but surprise surprise—you chose not to take it. I’m talking about the fact that you’re a princess—and that the world’s press know you’re here.’

‘No,’ she whispered, her fingers moving from her neck to her lips.

‘Yes,’ he said grimly.

She shook her head. ‘They can’t know. I’ve been here for months and been left in peace. How...how did they find out?’

‘Apparently, the woman who runs the store at Corksville recognised you.’

And Sophie could have wept. How could she have been so stupid? Why hadn’t she just behaved the same way she’d always behaved with her nondescript clothes and her hair hidden beneath a big hat? But, no. Rafe Carter had returned and the lure of feminine pride had been too strong to resist. For once she’d worn a dress. For once she’d applied mascara and left her hair loose. Vanity and desire had been her downfall. She had discarded her habitual disguise and someone had identified her. She had nobody to blame but herself.

But her regret was fleeting. There was no time for regrets. No time for anything except to work out what she did next.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘It’s a bit late for that,’ he snapped.

‘What else do you expect me to say?’ she said, and walked back inside her bedroom. ‘Excuse me. I have a lot to do.’

But Rafe had followed her and was reaching out to catch hold of her wrist, and even in the middle of all her confusion and fear—even in the middle of all that—she could still feel her hotly instinctive response to his touch. She wanted him to pull her close. To kiss her again. To put his tongue inside her mouth and his erection deep inside her body and make her feel all those things he’d made her feel last night.

‘What I can’t work out is how you got here,’ he bit out. ‘A royal princess travelling all the way from Isolaverde to the east coast of Australia without anyone knowing.’

Sophie snatched her hand away and stared at the faint imprint his fingers had left on her wrist. Her journey here seemed like a dream now. Like something out of an adventure film. But why not tell him? Surely it would reinforce the fact that she had been brave and resilient—and she could be those things all over again if only she believed in herself.

‘The man I was meant to marry made another woman pregnant.’

‘So my assistant just informed me.’

Sophie’s mouth pleated in dismay as she experienced that old familiar feeling of people talking about her behind her back. ‘It was the biggest outrage to happen in years and everyone seemed to have an opinion about it,’ she continued. ‘It was claustrophobic on the island and I knew I had to get away. No bodyguards or ladies-in-waiting, or people fussing round me. I just wanted to be on my own for the first time in my life, to lick my wounds and decide what I wanted to do next. But more than that, I wanted to feel like a normal person for once. To shake off all the royal trappings and do something on my own.’

‘I’m not interested in the pop psychology behind your actions,’ he said coldly. ‘More the practicalities.’

‘My brother was away on a hunting trip,’ she said slowly. ‘So I left him a note saying I was leaving and not to try to find me. And then I persuaded one of the palace pilots to fly me to the west coast of the USA.’

He frowned. ‘How the hell did you persuade him to do that?’

She shrugged. ‘It shouldn’t take too much of a stretch of your imagination to work it out. I made it worth his while.’

‘Of course you did. And you would have needed to pay him a lot of money,’ he said cynically. ‘Since presumably smuggling you out of there meant the end of his flying career at the palace?’

‘I didn’t force him to agree!’ She felt a sudden flicker of rebellion. ‘He was happy to do it.’

‘So what happened next?’ he said, in a hard voice.

‘He took me to one of the smaller Californian ports and introduced me to a friend of his—a man named Travis Matthews—who had a boat big enough to cross the Pacific. And that’s what I did.’