Forbidden Princess’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Annie West
CHAPTER ONE
ROSAMUND SCANNED THE STUDY, antique bookcases rising to a frescoed ceiling. Up there haughty gods stared down at her from puffy clouds. She didn’t need to look up to know how disdainfully they frowned at her. This had been her father’s study. She’d spent too many hours here being told the many ways she didn’t measure up.
She’d reminded him too much of her mother, more interested in people than rules. But her father was gone. Now it was her half-brother sitting behind the royal desk.
She turned to meet eyes so like their father’s that for a second she was flung back to the last time she’d seen the old king. Even on his deathbed there’d been no rapprochement, despite her attempts. Any faint hope that he had, at some level, loved her, had shrivelled.
She should have known better.
Rosamund blinked. Leon’s eyes were the same colour but he didn’t wear their father’s habitual scowl.
She saw shadows beneath his eyes that spoke of tiredness, and reined in her impatience.
‘Leon, I’ve already explained I can’t have a security detail from the palace.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ His frustration was clear. ‘It would be a temporary measure only.’
That was what her father had said when she was seventeen, yet the situation had lasted until she was twenty-one, legally an adult, and finally able to refuse it.
Four years of having not just a single discreet guard but a group of burly, hatchet-jawed men who were as unobtrusive as a diamond tiara in a dole queue. They’d shadowed her so closely she’d had no private space. No wonder they’d scared off even her friends.
Which had been the idea. After the scandal her father hadn’t focused on keeping her safe but ensuring she didn’t embarrass him again. She’d naively fallen for a charming, handsome man only to learn he just wanted her as a stepping stone to power. When she ended things he’d retaliated, leaking salacious stories to the press with damning photos, some not even of her but carefully doctored.
That didn’t matter to the king. She’d damaged the royal family’s reputation. He’d never forgiven her.
Her skin prickled at the humiliating memories. Of being continually surrounded by men who treated her like a prisoner rather than someone needing protection. It had been a very public, very deliberate punishment.
‘It’s not feasible. I have an aversion to oversized thugs being privy to my personal life.’
‘If you’re averse to thugs, you shouldn’t have got mixed up with Brad Ricardo.’
Rosamund rolled her eyes. She’d tried to explain she wasn’t mixed up with the man, but no one wanted to listen. She should have known better than to try. The palace never listened.
‘I have no intention of seeing him again.’
‘He might have other plans. You don’t think a man like that might view you as unfinished business?’
Not in the way everyone thinks!
She remembered Ricardo’s eyes when he realised what she’d done. That dark stare had been like a honed blade, threatening to eviscerate her.
That night she’d acted on impulse but she couldn’t regret her actions. She’d met people like him before, so engrossed in their own needs they’d take advantage of anyone who got in their way.
‘He and I aren’t even on the same continent. I’ve got no plans to return to the States soon.’
This time the silence held a different quality. Not mere frustration but something that made her nape prickle.
‘Leon, what aren’t you telling me?’
‘He’s threatened you, and a man like him has a long reach. He has contacts in Europe.’
Her stomach curdled. She’d told herself his threat had been bluster but never quite believed it. That was why she’d abruptly ended her American stay.
‘You’re saying he’s dangerous? Physically dangerous?’ There was a pause as if he decided how much to tell her. ‘Talk to me, Leon. I have a right to know.’
