‘Suck it up, Freya, and hear me out.’ He leant forward. ‘Switzerland is a bad idea. You know it and I know it. Your father has influence there.’
‘My father would rather die than cause another public scandal…’ she began, not even sure why she was bothering to argue the point. ‘He’s not going to come after me in Zurich…’
‘You sure about that?’ he shot back. ‘Because there’s something fishy about his desperation to get you married off to the highest bidder.’
‘He doesn’t want to sell any land in Galicos to someone who is not linked by marriage to the royal family, that’s all. He’s a traditionalist and no member of the Galicois family has ever sold off any of the kingdom before now so…’
‘I’m not buying that this is just about making me or my brother, or Faron for that matter, part of the family any more. Because if all he wanted was to ensure the heirs to the land have royal blood running through their veins, he would have negotiated with me. I’ve got much more chance of fathering a child with you than Faron—who has to be sixty if he’s a day. Plus, we had serious chemistry, he had to be able to see that when he saw us together in September. But he didn’t even contact me…’
‘He heard you tell me you didn’t want to marry me, remember,’ she shouted, her face so hot it was practically on fire… Because the mention of fathering children and their chemistry was not helping to shrink the hot lump that had been wedged between her thighs ever since she had spied him on his bike.
‘Yeah, and he overheard you saying you were never going to marry any guy, so what changed?’ he replied. ‘Why did you ever agree to marry Faron?’
She heard it then, the small crack in his façade, that don’t-give-a-damn attitude that he wore like a shield, and which she suspected very few people ever penetrated… And suddenly, she felt less powerless.
He hadn’t been immune, not entirely. What had shocked her that night—the livewire chemistry that had kept her up at night ever since—had also unsettled him. Maybe his decision to trick her into coming with him wasn’t quite as controlled and deliberate as she thought. Maybe Theo Caras wasn’t asemotionless as he liked to pretend? And somehow that felt validating… Because what had happened that night hadn’t just unsettled her, she had never been able to forget it. Then something else he’d said came back to her.
And then there’s that face. Believe me when I tell you it’s unforgettable, because I’ve put a lot of effort into forgetting it for three solid months and it hasn’t worked.
That comment had disconcerted her earlier, but it was making her feel less insecure now. He hadn’t been able to forget her either. And while that wasn’t necessarily a good thing—because Theo Caras was bad news, he’d proved that multiple times—still it made her feel less panicked about the hot knots in her belly she couldn’t control when she was near him, even though he was a liar and a kidnapper.
‘You don’t know my father,’ she replied to the question he’d hurled at her about her ‘engagement’ to Faron.
‘Come on, you couldn’t just tell him no?’ he scoffed. But she could still hear it, the hollow, bitter note in his voice.
Had Theo, despite his gargantuan ego, been jealous? Because she had been promised to another man?
Before she could get too carried away, though, she took a reality check.
His reaction—that sweet chink in his armour—probably wasn’t personal. After all, he’d discarded her easily enough three months ago. And played her own inexperience against her. But even so, she grasped the idea—that the announcement of her engagement to another man had been an afront to that gargantuan ego—and hugged it close to her chest, because it finally gave her something to shore up the fledgling confidence he had shattered by ruining her escape plans.
‘My father doesn’t hear the word no,’ she said, by way of explanation, not wanting to elaborate on exactly how dysfunctional her relationship with the prince was, because itwould only give Theo Caras more ammunition. ‘And he was already unhappy with me after our…our…’ Her skin flushed. Theirwhatexactly? How was she supposed to describe the most erotic event of her entire life without sounding pathetic, or, worse, besotted? ‘Our kiss in September.’
His eyebrow arched and he let out a rough chuckle. ‘Ourkiss? Really? That’s how you want to describe it?’ His blue gaze coasted over her, making the sweater she wore and her brother’s jeans feel even snugger.
The flush burned. How did he do that? Tap into all her deepest insecurities, while also making her feel so alive and needy? As if she had been plugged into an electric socket and her whole body were vibrating with anticipation…
‘Does it matter how I describe it?’ Her voice trembled, along with every other part of her anatomy.Terrific!‘The point is what happened at your event was a mistake, something we both agreed on at the time. So, I’m not sure why you think whether I agreed to marry Faron, or whether I was just letting my fatherthinkI was agreeing to marry him, so I had time to plan a very detailed escape—which you have comprehensively ruined, by the way—is any of your damn business,’ she finished, her voice rising to a shout as her outrage returned to help her get a grip on all those unwanted vibrations.
But instead of looking chastened, or even regretful, that he’d screwed up the brilliant plan she had spent three months perfecting, his eyes narrowed, the dark expression becoming more intense, and he seized on the most irrelevant part of her reply.
‘Maybe ourkiss,’ he said doing sarcastic air quotes, ‘was badly timed. But a mistake? I don’t think so.’
She tensed. The fierce wave of validation strangely enervating.
She was still trying to make sense of that bizarre—and unwanted—reaction and come up with a suitable comeback, while all her erogenous zones were pulsing alongside the hot brick between her thighs, when a man in a pilot’s uniform appeared in the lounge.
‘Mr Caras, we need to finalise a flight plan and arrange the necessarily permissions. Is the destination Zurich?’
‘No, Nico,’ Caras replied, making her temper tick right back up again, but before she could insist, he addressed her: ‘Seeing as this is your escape, you can pick another destination.’ That he was giving her a choice surprised her, until he added, ‘Just make sure it’s somewhere your father doesn’t have any influence.’
So, this wasn’t a choice, because his caveat would allow him to veto any suggestions.
‘How about Paris?’ she offered. While her best friend from school lived in Zurich, she knew one other who lived in the French capital, and Galicos didn’t have investments there to the best of her knowledge.
He let out a long-suffering sigh that made her bristle.
‘It needs to be somewhere remote, Freya. Somewhere your old man wouldn’t think of looking. Somewhere no one can bug us, especially the press, at least until the new year. He’s got to make the land deal by January sixth at the latest. Which means if there’s a reason he’s linked the marriage to the sale, you’ll be free and clear on that date.’
