Leon shrugged and spread his hands. ‘You refused a security team when my secretary contacted you. But I can’t let you go withoutanyprotection.’
She frowned. Her father had washed his hands of her. It felt odd to have someone watch out for her. ‘That’s a lot of trouble to go to, locating someone able to blend inandintervene if there’s trouble.’
Serious eyes met hers and she felt a dart of shock as she read Leon’s concern. ‘I don’t want you hurt, Rosa. You’re my sister.’
A lump lodged in her throat. He wasn’t worried about the outcry if something happened to a member of the royal family. He was concerned forher.His sister, not merely his obligation. It wasn’t what she’d expected when she’d been summoned to the palace.
She’d barely ever spent time alone with Leon. She wasn’t used to tenderness from her family, not since her mother died years before.
‘I…’ She cleared her throat. ‘What arrangements have you made?’
Seeing relief spread across his features, Rosamund knew she’d accept his plan. He’d taken the trouble to find a compromise she could live with. That was unprecedented. The palace never compromised. And he’d done it because he cared.
She silently vowed that when she returned to Cardona, she’d spend some time with the brother she barely knew.
‘He’ll meet you off the plane in Paris. There’s just one condition.’
‘Go on, I’m game. What is it?’
‘The only way he can reasonably be by your side all the time without appearing like the bodyguards you detest. As far as the public’s concerned, you’re a couple. That will explain why he’s at your side at every event. Just don’t say anything to dispel the idea and there’ll be no questions raised.’
A pretend lover? ‘But—’
‘That’s the deal, Rosa. You’ve got no idea how difficult this was to organise. But he’s agreed, on condition he calls the shots. Any hint of danger and he’s in charge.’ The warmth she’d seen in Leon’s expression vanished, leaving him looking almost as stern as their father. ‘So, Rosamund, will you take it or leave it?’
You should have left it. You should have said no and walked straight out the door. He wouldn’t have barred you from leaving the country. Probably.
But regrets were pointless. She was almost there. Far below, she saw the sprawl that was Paris. Leon had loaned her the king’s private jet. The main thing was that she’d be at the event as promised.
Thatwas what she had to concentrate on.
Not the way all her plans had been disrupted.
She’d been on her way to the airport when she learned her Paris hotel booking had been cancelled. Ditto the car she’d rented to drive south when the Paris events were over.
Then, after rushing to be at the airport by the revised deadline, she’d discovered the earlier departure time wasn’t because Leon needed the plane but because his bodyguard-who-wasn’t-a-bodyguard had decided she needed to arrive in Paris early.
Without consulting her. About anything! He’d just decreed and somehow everything had changed.
Rosamund chewed her lip, banking down fury at the man’s high-handedness. If this was how he operated, they were going to clash. Despite her father’s view of her, she wasn’t flighty or stupid, and she appreciated common decency. Like a request and an explanation. Not finding out after the fact that everything had been altered.
Fotis Mavridis clearly didn’t believe in consultation.
It irked her that in the little time she’d spent researching him she’d found virtually nothing. He was Greek. He ran a company called Mystikos, which she learned was Greek for secret or hidden. The word was annoyingly apt because though she’d found a few sparse references to it providing advice to various governments, she couldn’t find the company website or details of its business.
As for Fotis Mavridis, he could almost be a figment of her brother’s imagination. There were no photos, few biographical details, almost nothing to indicate what sort of man she was about to meet.
Apart from bossy, rude and, by definition, unlikable.
She thought of the policy advisors she’d met. They led sedentary, office-bound lives. It was hard to imagine one of them protecting her should Ricardo try to get even with her for disrupting his plans.
Her mouth twisted wryly as she tried to imagine a balding bureaucrat standing between her and danger, his agitated breaths straining his shirt across a podgy stomach.
There must be more to this man than Leon’s description suggested.
The jet landed and taxied to the edge of the private airfield. There was a bustle at the door as steps were put in position.
Rosamund was reaching for the shoes she’d slipped off when her skin prickled. The atmosphere changed, becoming charged, like at the onset of an electrical storm.
