That was what she needed to focus on.
That, and the situation she now found herself in. Not his perfect skin tone, or even white teeth. Nor his stubbled, square jawline and exotic fragrance
He spoke in his own language, quiet and low. She frowned in confusion. Steph had taught her a few phrases in her native tongue, though it had all evaporated at the precise moment of her arrest.
He hadn’t been addressing her, anyway. A scuttle in the darkened corner of the cell reminded her that she was not alone. The guard with the thick black brows who had looked at her as though she were a hideous mutant was still watching her.
As the servant slipped through the doorway, like a lizard contorting his frame, he paused to give her one last withering glare of complete disdain.
The gate was closed, and the sound of a key in the lock rang through the silence.
Miranda was alone with him.
Locked in a cell.
And her throat seemed to have a lump the size of a lemon lodged in its middle.
She could only watch as he strode purposefully towards her. Somehow, even in the din of the cell, he managed to look utterly regal and pristine.
He stopped just in front of her, his face set in the same angry lines. Up close, he smelled of sandalwood and spices – an intensely masculine fragrance that was making her already overwrought senses work overtime.
“Tell me your name.” His words were accented in a way that Steph’s weren’t. Then again, Steph had lived in London for several years. Miranda had never seen eyes like his before. Green eyes might be uncommon, but they still existed. His weren’t simply green. They were moss and flame and emerald and starlight. She stared into them now, her own expression unknowingly inquiring; sensually inviting as she appraised him with obvious interest.
He exhaled a sigh of barely concealed frustration. “Your name?” He repeated quietly.
Miranda lifted a hand to her blonde plait and toyed with the ends nervously. “M-M-Miranda Hunter.”
He compressed his lips. “British?”
She nodded. The lemon was back. Speech was not possible. And though it was the last thing she should have cared about, she felt embarrassed that she was meeting him like this. While she was dressed in the same crumpled clothes she’d been in for the three days since royal guards had arrested her in the palatial lounge area of Steph’s city apartment.
He wasn’t looking at her black dress, though. His eyes were drawn, by her involuntary movement, to her hair, so pale it was like the sands of the desert on a sun-drenched morning.
He dragged his gaze back to her face; as white as a sheet from fear. Good. She should be afraid. The crime she’d committed was a serious matter. And no one took it more seriously than he. “You do realise you have been arrested on charges of breaking into a royal residence?”
She nodded jerkily. She hadn’t broken in, though. She’d had the access codes.
“And that you were discovered with over two million pounds worth of jewellery and bonds on you?”
She nodded again. But she had taken only what Steph had asked her to retrieve. That wasn’t theft; it was stupidity.
He shook his head. “And that these charges carry extremely heavy penalties?”
She nodded miserably. She knew all this. Steph had made it perfectly clear to her before she’d got on the plane. But Miranda, silly, optimistic Miranda; naïve, sympathetic Miranda, had promised she would do whatever she could to help her best friend.
“Have you nothing to say in your own defence?”
Miranda bit down on her full lower lip. What could she say? She’d given Steph her word. Miranda had promised she’d protect Steph’s secret, and she wasn’t about to break that promise just because she now found herself in trouble.
“I’m sorry?” She whispered throatily, her blue eyes wide and bright in her small, pixie like face.
He laughed! A sound of surprised mirth. “You are … sorry?”
She nodded.
“Do you mean to suggest you didn’t know what you were doing?” He stared down his patrician nose at her, his face thoughtful.
“Of course I knew what I was doing,” she muttered.
