Buch lesen: «An Heir Fit For A King»

CHAPTER ONE

LEILA VERUGHESE WAS just wondering morosely to herself what would happen when her dwindling supplies of perfume ran out completely when out of the corner of her eye she spotted something and turned to look, glad of the distraction to her maudlin thoughts.

It was a sleek black car, pulled up outside her small House of Leila perfume shop. The shop she’d inherited from her mother, on the Place Vendôme in Paris. When she took a closer look she saw a veritable fleet of sleek black cars. The lead one had flags flying on the bonnet, but Leila couldn’t make out what country they were from—even though she’d spent most of her life identifying the glamorous comings and goings from the exclusive Ritz Hotel across the square.

A man hopped out of the front of the car, clearly a bodyguard of some sort, with an earpiece in his ear. He looked around before opening the back door and Leila’s eyes widened when she saw who emerged. As if they had to widen purely to be able to take him in better.

It was a man—unmistakably and unashamedly a man. Which was a ridiculous thing to think... One was either a man or a woman, after all. But it was as if his very masculinity reached out before him like a crackling energy. He uncoiled to a height well over six feet, towering over the smaller, blockier man beside him. Powerfully built, with broad shoulders in a long black overcoat.

He looked as if he was about to come towards Leila’s shop when he stopped suddenly, and Leila saw a moment of irritation cross his face before he turned back to talk to someone who had to be in the back of the car. A wife? A girlfriend? He went and put a big hand on the roof of the car as he consulted the person inside.

Leila caught a glimpse of a long length of bare toned thigh and a flash of blonde hair and then the man straightened again and began striding towards the shop, flanked by his minders.

It was only now that Leila even registered his face. She’d never seen anything so boldly beautiful in all her life. Dark olive skin—dark enough to be Arabic? High cheekbones and a sensual mouth. It might have been pretty if it hadn’t been for the deep-set eyes, strong brows and even stronger jaw, which had clenched now, along with that look of irritation.

He had short hair—dark, cut close to his skull. Which had that same beautiful masculine shape as his face.

Shock held Leila still for a long moment as he got closer and closer. For a second, just before the shop door opened, his eyes caught hers and she had the strangest notion of a huge sleek bird of prey, swooping down to pick her up in his talons and carry her away.

* * *

The dark-haired shop assistant behind the glass of the shop barely impinged on Alix Saint Croix’s consciousness as he strode to the door. Surprise me. His mouth tightened. If he’d been able to say that the previous night had been...pleasurable, he might have been more inclined to ‘surprise’ his lover. He was a man who was not used to obeying the demands of anyone else, and the only reason he was indulging Carmen’s sudden whim for perfume was because he was all too eager to get away from her.

She’d arrived in his suite the previous evening, and their subsequent lovemaking had been...adequate. Alix had found himself wondering when was the last time he’d been so consumed with lust or by a woman that he’d lost his mind in pleasure? Never, a little voice had whispered as his lover had sauntered from the bed to the bathroom, making sure all her assets were displayed to best advantage.

Alix had been bored. And, because women seemed to have a seventh sense designed purely to detect that, his lover had become very uncharacteristically compliant and sweet. So much so that it had set Alix’s teeth on edge. And after a day of watching waif-thin models prancing up and down a catwalk he was even more on edge.

But, as his advisor had pointed out when he’d grumbled to him on the phone earlier, ‘This is good, Alix. It’s helping us lull them into a false sense of security: they believe you have nothing on your agenda but the usual round of socialising and modelising.’

Alix did not like being considered a modeliser, and he pushed open the door to the shop with more force than was necessary, finally registering the shop assistant who was looking at him with a mixture of shock and awe on her face.

He also registered within the same nanosecond that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.

The door shut behind him, a small bell tinkling melodically, but he didn’t notice. She had pale olive skin, a straight nose and full soft lips. Sexy. A firm, yet delicate jaw. High cheekbones. Her hair was a sleek fall of black satin behind her shoulders and Alix had the bizarre compulsion to reach out and see if it would slip through his fingers like silk.

But it was her eyes that floored him... They were huge light emerald gems with the longest black lashes, framed by gracefully arched black brows. She looked like a Far Eastern princess.

‘Who are you?’

Was that his voice? It sounded like a croak. Stunned. There was an instant fire kindling in his belly and his blood. The fire he’d lamented the lack of last night. It was as if his body was ahead of his brain in terms of absorbing her beauty.

She blinked and those long lashes veiled her stunning eyes for a moment.

‘I’m the owner of the shop, Leila Verughese.’

The name suited her. Exotic. Alix somehow found the necessary motor skills to put out his hand. ‘Alix Saint Croix.’

Recognition flashed in her eyes, unmistakable. She flushed, her cheeks going a pretty shade of pink and Alix surmised cynically that of course she’d heard of him. Who hadn’t?

Her hand slipped into his then, small and delicate, cool, and the effect was like a rocket launching deep inside Alix. His blood boiled and his hand tightened reflexively around hers.

He struggled to make sense of this immediate and extreme physical and mental reaction. He was used to seeing a woman and assessing her from a distance, his desires firmly under control. This woman... Leila...was undeniably beautiful, yes. But she was dressed like a pharmacist, with a white coat over a very plain blue shirt and black trousers. Even in flat shoes, though, she was relatively tall, reaching his shoulder. He found himself imagining her in spindly high heels, how close her mouth would be if he wanted to just bend down slightly...

She took her hand back and Alix blinked.

‘You are looking for a perfume?’

Alix’s brain felt sluggish. Perfume? Why was he looking for perfume? Carmen. Waiting for him in the car. Immediately he scowled again, and the woman in front of him took a step back.

He put out a hand. ‘Sorry, no...’ He cursed silently—what was wrong with him? ‘That is, yes, I’m looking for a perfume. For someone.’

The woman looked at him. ‘Do you have any particular scent in mind?’

Alix dragged his gaze from her with an effort and looked around the small shop for the first time. Each wall was mirrored glass, with glass shelves and counters. Glass and gold perfume bottles covered the surfaces, giving the space a golden hue.

The decor was opulent without being stifling. And there wasn’t the stench of overpowering perfume that Alix would normally associate with a shop like this. The ambience was cool, calm. Serene. Like her. He realised that she exuded a sense of calm and that he was reacting to that as well.

Almost absently he said, ‘I’m looking for a scent for my mistress.’

When there was no immediate reaction such as Alix was used to—he said what he wanted and people jumped—he looked at the woman. Her mouth was pursed and an unmistakable air of disapproval was being directed at him. Intriguing. No one ever showed Alix their true reactions.

He arched a brow. ‘You have a problem with that?’

To his further fascination her cheeks coloured and she looked away. Then she said stiffly, ‘It’s not for me to say what’s an appropriate term for your...partner.’

Leila cursed herself for showing her reaction and moved away to one of the walls of shelves, as if to seek out some perfume samples.

Her father had once offered the role of mistress to Leila’s mother—after she’d given birth to their illegitimate daughter. He’d seduced Deepika Verughese when he’d been doing business in India with Leila’s grandfather, but had then turned his back on her when she’d arrived in Paris, disgraced and pregnant, all the way from Jaipur.

Her mother had declined his offer to become his kept woman, too proud and bitter after his initial rejection, and had told Leila the story while pointing out all the kept women of the various famous people and dignitaries who’d come into the shop over the years, as a salutary lesson in what women were prepared to do to feather their nests.

Leila’s mind cleared of the painful memory. She hated it that she’d reacted so unprofessionally just now, but before she could say anything else she heard the man move and looked up into the glass to see him coming closer. He looked even larger reflected in the mirror, with his dark image being sent back a hundred times.

She realised that his eyes were a very dark grey.

‘You know who I am?’

She nodded. She’d known who he was as soon as he’d said his name. He was the infamous exiled King of a small island kingdom off the coast of North Africa, near Southern Spain. He was a renowned financial genius, with fingers in almost every business one could think of—including most recently an astronomical investment in the new oil fields of Burquat in the Middle East.

There were rumours that he was going to make a claim on his throne, but if this visit was anything to go by he was concerned with nothing more than buying trinkets for his lover. And she had no idea why that made her feel so irritable.

Alix Saint Croix continued. ‘So you’ll know that a man like me doesn’t have girlfriends or partners. I take mistresses. Women who know what to expect and don’t expect anything more.’

Something hardened inside her. She knew all about men like him. Unfortunately. And the evidence of this man’s single-minded, cynical nature made her see red. It made her sick, because it reminded her of her own naivety in the face of overwhelming evidence that what she sought didn’t exist.

Nevertheless she was determined not to let this man draw her down another painful memory lane. She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Not all women are as cynical as you make out.’

Something hard crossed his face. ‘The women who move in my circles are.’

‘Well, maybe your circles are too small?’

She couldn’t believe the words tripping out of her mouth, but he’d pushed a button—a very sensitive button. She almost expected him to storm out of her shop, but to her surprise Alix Saint Croix’s mouth quirked on one side, making him look even sexier. Dangerous.

‘Perhaps they are, indeed.’

Leila suddenly felt hot and claustrophobic. He was looking at her too intensely, and then his gaze dropped to where the swells of her breasts were pushed up by her crossed arms. She took them down hurriedly and reached for the nearest bottle of perfume, only half registering the label.

She thrust it towards him. ‘This is one of our most popular scents. It’s floral-based with a hint of citrus. It’s light and zesty—perfect for casual wear.’

Alix Saint Croix shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think that’ll do. I want something much earthier. Sensuous.’

Leila put down the bottle with a clatter and reached for another bottle. ‘This might be more appropriate, then. It’s got fruity top notes, but a woody, musky base.’

He cocked his head and said consideringly, ‘It’s so hard to know unless you can smell it.’

Leila’s shirt felt too tight. She wanted to undo a top button. What was wrong with her?

She turned back to the counter and took a smelling strip out of a jar, ready to spray it so that he could smell it. And go. She wanted him gone. He was too disturbing to her usually very placid equilibrium.

But before she could spray, a large hand wrapped around her arm, stopping her.

Heat zinged straight to her belly. She looked up at him.

‘Not on a piece of paper. I think you’d agree that a scent has to be on the skin to be best presented?’

Feeling slightly drugged and stupid, Leila said, ‘It’s a woman’s scent.’

He cocked a brow again. ‘So spray some on your wrist and I’ll smell it.’

The shock that reverberated through Leila was as if he’d just said Take off all your clothes, please.

She had to struggle to compose herself, get a grip. She’d often sprayed perfume on her own skin so that someone could get a fuller sense of it. But this man had made the request sound almost indecent.

Praying that her hand wouldn’t shake, Leila took the top off the bottle and pulled up her sleeve to spray some of the scent. When the liquid hit the underside of her wrist she shivered slightly. It felt absurdly sensual all of a sudden.

Alix Saint Croix still had a hand wrapped around her arm and now he moved it down to take the back of her hand in his, wrapping long fingers around hers. He moved his head down to smell the perfume, his dark head coming close to her breast.

But he kept his eyes on her, and from this close she could see lighter flecks of grey, like silver mercury. Leila’s breath stopped when she felt his breath feather along her skin. Those lips were far too close to the centre of her palm, which was clammy.

He seemed to consider the scent until Leila’s nerves twanged painfully. Her belly was a contracted ball of nerves.

A movement over his head caught her eye and she saw a sleek, tall blonde emerge from the back of the car with a phone clamped to her ear. She was wearing an indecently tight, slinky dress and a ridiculously ineffectual jacket for the cool autumn weather.

He must have picked up on her distraction and straightened to look out of the window too. Leila noticed a tension come into his body as his girlfriend—mistress—saw him and gesticulated with clear irritation, all while still talking on the phone.

‘Your...er...mistress is waiting for you.’ Leila’s voice felt scratchy.

He still had his hand wrapped around hers and now let her go. Leila tucked it well out of reach.

He morphed before her eyes into someone much cooler, indecipherable. Perversely, it didn’t comfort her.

‘I’ll take it.’

Leila blinked at him.

‘The perfume,’ he expanded, and for a moment a glint of what they’d just shared made his eyes flash.

Leila jerked into action. ‘Of course. It’ll only take me a moment to package it up.’

She moved to get a bag and paper and quickly and inexpertly packaged up the perfume, losing all of her customary cool. When she had it ready she handed it over and avoided his eye. A wad of cash landed on the counter but Leila wasn’t about to check it.

And then, without another word, he turned around and strode out again, catching his...whatever she was...by the arm and hustling her back into the car.

His scent lingered on the air behind him, and in a very delayed reaction Leila assimilated the various components with an expertise that was like a sixth sense—along with the realisation that his scent had impacted on her as soon as he’d walked in, on a level that wasn’t rational. Someplace else. Somewhere she wasn’t used to scents impacting.

It was a visceral reaction. Primal. His scent was clean, with a hint of something very male that most certainly hadn’t come out of a bottle. The kind of evocative scent that would make someone a fortune if they could bottle it: the pure essence of a virile male in his prime. Earthy. Musky.

A pulse between Leila’s legs throbbed and she pressed her thighs together, horrified.

What was wrong with her? The man was a king, for God’s sake, and he had a mistress that he was unashamed about. She should be thinking good riddance, but what she was thinking was much more confused.

It made alarm bells ring. It reminded her of another man who had come into the shop and who had very skilfully set about wooing her—only to turn into a nasty stranger when he’d realised that Leila had no intention of giving him what he wanted...which had been very far removed from what Leila had wanted.

She looked stupidly at the money on the counter for a moment, before realising that he’d vastly overpaid her for the perfume, but all she could think about was that last enigmatic look he’d shot her, just before he’d ducked into the car—a look that had seemed to say he’d be back. And soon.

And in light of their conversation, and the way he’d made her feel, Leila knew she shouldn’t be remotely intrigued. But she was. And not even the ghost of memories past could stop it.

* * *

A little later, after Leila had locked up and gone upstairs to the small flat she’d shared with her mother all her life, she found herself gravitating to the window, which looked out over the Place Vendôme. The opera glasses that her mother had used for years to check out the comings and goings at the Ritz were sitting nearby, and for a second Leila felt an intense pang of grief for her mother.

Leila pushed aside the past and picked up the glasses and looked through them, seeing the usual flurry of activity when someone arrived at the hotel in a flash car. She tilted the glasses upwards to where the rooms were—and her whole body froze when she caught a glimpse of a familiar masculine figure against a brightly lit opulent room.

She trained the glasses on the sight, hating herself for it but unable to look away. It was him. Alix Saint Croix. The overcoat was gone. And the jacket. He had his back to her and was dressed in a waistcoat and shirt and trousers. Hands in his pockets were drawing the material of his trousers over his very taut and muscular backside.

Instantly Leila felt damp heat coil down below and squeezed her legs together.

He was looking at something in front of him, and Leila tensed even more when the woman he’d been with came into her line of vision. She’d taken off the jacket and the flimsy dress was now all she wore. Her body was as sleek and toned as a throughbred horse. Leila vaguely recognised her as a world-famous lingerie model.

She could see that she held something in her hand, and when it glinted she realised it was the bottle of perfume. The woman sprayed it on her wrist and lifted it to smell, a sexy smile curling her wide mouth upwards.

She sprayed more over herself and Leila winced slightly. The trick with perfume was always less is more. And then she threw the bottle aside, presumably to a nearby chair or couch, and proceeded to pull down the skinny straps of her dress. Then she peeled the top half of her dress down, exposing small but perfect breasts.

Leila gasped at the woman’s confidence. She’d never have the nerve to strip in that way in front of a man.

And then Alix Saint Croix moved. He turned away from the woman and walked to the window. For a second he loomed large in Leila’s glasses, filling them with that hard-boned face. He looked intent. And then he pulled a drape across, obscuring the view, almost as if he’d known Leila was watching from across the square like a Peeping Tom.

Disgusted with herself, Leila threw the glasses down and got up to pace in her small apartment. She berated herself. How could a man like that even capture her attention? He was exactly what her mother had warned her about: rich and arrogant. Not even prepared to see women as anything other than mistresses, undoubtedly interchanged with alarming frequency once the novelty with each one had worn off.

Leila had already refused to take her mother’s warnings to heart once, and had suffered a painful blow to her confidence and pride because of it.

Full of pent-up energy, she dragged on a jacket and went outside for a brisk walk around the nearby Tuileries gardens, telling herself over and over again first of all that nothing had happened with Alix Saint Croix in her shop that day, secondly that she’d never see him again, and thirdly that she didn’t care.

* * *

The following evening dusk was falling as Leila went to lock the front door of her shop. It had been a long day, with only a trickle of customers and two measly sales. Thanks to the recession, niche businesses everywhere had taken a nosedive, and since the factory that manufactured the House of Leila scents had closed down she hadn’t had the funds to seek out a new factory.

She’d been reduced to selling off the stock she had left in the hope that enough sales would give her the funds to start making perfumes again.

She was just about to turn the lock when she looked up through the glass to see a familiar tall dark figure, flanked by a couple of other men, approaching her door. The almost violent effect on her body of seeing him in the flesh again mocked her for fooling herself that she’d managed not to think about him all day.

The exiled King with the tragic past.

Leila had looked him up on the Internet last night in a moment of weakness and had read about how his parents and younger brother had been slaughtered during a military coup. The fact that he’d escaped to live in exile had become something of a legend.

Her immediate instinct was to lock the door and pull the blind down—fast. But he was right outside now and looking at her. The faintest glimmer of a smile touched his mouth. She could see a day’s worth of stubble shadowing his jaw.

Obeying professional reflexes rather than her instincts, Leila opened the door and stepped back. He came in and once again it was as if her brain was slowing to a halt. It was consumed with taking note of his sheer masculine beauty.

Determined not to let him rattle her again, Leila assumed a polite, professional mask. ‘How did your mistress like the perfume?’

A lurid image of the woman putting on that striptease threatened to undo Leila’s composure but she pushed it out of her head with effort.

Alix Saint Croix made an almost dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘She liked it fine. That’s not why I’m here.’

Leila found it hard to draw in a breath. Suddenly terrified of why he was there, she gabbled, ‘By the way, you left far too much money for the perfume.’

She turned and went to the counter and took out an envelope containing the excess he’d paid. She’d been intending to drop it to the hotel for him, but hadn’t had the nerve all day. She held it out now.

Alix barely looked at it. He speared her with that grey gaze and said, ‘I want to take you out to dinner.’

Panic fluttered in Leila’s gut and her hand tightened on the envelope, crushing it. ‘What did you say?’

He pushed open his light overcoat to put his hands in his pockets, drawing attention to another pristine three-piece suit, lovingly moulded to muscles that did not belong to an urban civilised man, more to a warrior.

‘I said I would like you to join me for dinner.’

Leila frowned. ‘But you have a mistress.’

Something stern crossed Alix Saint Croix’s face and the grey in his eyes turned to steel. ‘She is no longer my mistress.’

Leila recalled what she’d seen the previous night and blurted out, ‘But I saw you—you were together—’ She stopped and couldn’t curb the heat rising. The last thing she wanted was for him to know she’d been spying, and she said quickly, ‘She certainly seemed to be under the impression that you were together.’

She hoped he’d assume she was referring to when she’d seen the woman waiting for him outside the shop.

Alix’s face was indecipherable. ‘As I said, we are no longer together.’

Leila felt desperate. And disgusted. And disappointed, which was even worse. Of course a man like him would interchange his women without breaking a sweat.

‘But I don’t even know you—you’re a total stranger.’

His mouth twitched slightly. ‘Which could be helped by sharing conversation over dinner, non?’

Leila had a very strong urge to back away, but forced herself to stand her ground. She was in her shop. Her space. And everything in her screamed at her to resist this man. He was too gorgeous, too big, too smooth, too famous...too much.

Something reckless gripped her and she blurted out, ‘I saw you. The two of you... I didn’t intend to, but when I looked out of my window last night I saw you in your room. With her. She was taking off her clothes...’

Leila willed down the embarrassed heat and tilted up her chin defiantly. She didn’t care if he thought she was some kind of stalker.

His gaze narrowed on her. ‘I saw you too...across the square, silhouetted in your window.’

Now she blanched. ‘You did?’

He nodded. ‘It merely confirmed that I wanted you. And not her.’

Leila was caught, trapped in his gaze and in his own confession. ‘You pulled the curtain across. For privacy.’

His mouth firmed. ‘Yes. For privacy while I asked her to put her dress back on and get out, because the relationship was over.’

Leila shivered at his coolness. ‘But that’s so cruel. You’d just bought her a gift.’

Something infinitely cynical lit those grey eyes and Leila hated it.

‘Believe me, a woman like Carmen is no soft-centred fool with notions of where the relationship was going. She knew it was finite. The relationship was ending whether I’d met you or not.’

Leila balked. She definitely veered more towards the soft-centred fool end of the scale.

She folded her arms and fought the pull from her gut to follow him blindly. She’d done that with a man once before, with her stupid, vulnerable heart on her sleeve. It made her hard now. ‘Thank you for the invitation, but I’m afraid I must say no.’

His brows snapped together in a frown. ‘Are you married?’

His gaze dropped to her left hand as if to look for a ring, and something flashed in his eyes when he took in her ringless fingers. Leila’s hands curled tight. Too late.

The personal question told her she was doing the right thing and she said frostily, ‘That is none of your business, sir. I’d like you to leave.’

For a tiny moment Alix Saint Croix’s eyes widened on her, and then he said coolly, ‘Very well, I’m sorry for disturbing you. Good evening, Miss Verughese.’