A Throne for the Taking (6 page)

It was only as the door swung to behind her, the wood thudding into the frame, that he realised how unconsciously he had used exactly the words that she had thrown at him in their last meeting in Mecjoria ten years before. She had been the one to turn and walk away then too, marching away from him without a backward glance, taking with her the last hope he had had.

Recalling how it had felt then, it was impossible not to remember all he had ever wanted and now could never have—all over again. He had wanted to belong, damn it, he’d tried. He’d thought that when his parents had reconciled that at last he’d found the father, the family, he’d always wanted. But his father’s illness had meant that he had never had the time to make a reality out of that dream. It had all crumbled around him.

But this time it had been his own decision to throw it all away. He had had his revenge for the way she and her family had treated him, turning the tables on her completely and reversing the roles they had once had. It should have been what he wanted. It should have provided him with the sort of dark satisfaction that would have made these last ten years of exile and of struggle finally worthwhile. But the troubling thing was the uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his stomach that told him that satisfaction was the furthest thing from what he was feeling. If anything, he felt emptier and hungrier than ever before.

The royal document still lay on his desk where he had dropped it, and for a moment he let himself touch it, resting his fingers on the ornate signature next to the dark-red seal. The signature of his grandfather. King of Mecjoria.

King.

Just four letters of a word but it seemed to explode inside his head. Ria had offered him the chance to return to Mecjoria, not just as himself—but as its king.

It was ironic that Ria claimed to have come here today to ask him to take the crown—to be King of Mecjoria when all that her appearance had done was to bring home to him how totally unsuited he was for any such role. He had failed as a prince, but that had been as nothing when compared to his failure as a father. But she thought that she could persuade him that he was needed in her homeland.

Her homeland. Not his.

But then she had said that the only alternative was for Ivan to be king. What a choice. Poor Mecjoria. To be torn between a bully boy and a man who knew nothing at all about being a royal—let alone running a country. His father’s country.

His father must be spinning in his grave at just the thought.

And yet his father had had Ivan sussed even all those years ago. From the corners of his memory came the recollection of a conversation—one of the very rare conversations—he had had with his dying father. Weak, barely able to open his eyes, let alone move, his father had known of the stand-up argument, almost a fight, Alexei had had with Ivan the previous day.

‘That boy is trouble,’ he had whispered. ‘He’s dangerous. Watch him—and watch your back when you’re with him. Never let him win.’

And this was the man who could take over the throne—unless he stopped him.

Moving to the window, he looked down into the street to see Ria’s tall, slim figure emerge from the front of the Sarova building and start to walk away down the street, pausing to cross at the traffic lights. He had wanted her to leave, so why did he now feel as if she was taking with her some essential part of him, something that made him whole?

The part he had once thought that Belle would fill.

‘Hell, no.’

He turned away fiercely as the scene before him blurred disturbingly.

Did he really think that Ria would fill that hole in his life? It was just sex. Nothing but the reawakening of his senses that had started from the moment he had walked into the room and set eyes on her. And he had the disturbing feeling that there was only one way to erase the yearning sensations that tormented his body.

The only real satisfaction he could find would be to have Ria—the Grand Duchess Honoria—in his bed so that he could sate himself in her body and so hope, at last, to erase the bitterness of memories that had been festering for far too long. But he had just destroyed his chances of ever having that happen. He had driven her away, and in that moment he had believed that that was the wisest, the only rational course.

Except of course that rationality had nothing to do with the burning sensuality of his reaction to her, the carnal storm that still pounded through him, even after she had left the room.

Rationality might tell him that walking away from her was the sanest path to take but the bruise of sexual hunger that made his body ache still left no room for sanity or rational thought. This restless, nagging feeling was so much like the way he had felt when he had first come to England, into exile with his mother, a feeling that he had thought he had subdued, even erased completely. One brief meeting with Ria had revived everything he had never wanted to feel ever again, but in the past those feelings had been those of a youth who had not long left boyhood behind. Now he was a grown man, with an experience of life, and Ria was a full-grown woman. He
wanted
Ria as he had never wanted another woman in his life, craved her like a yearning addict needing a fix, and he knew that these feelings would take far more than ten years longer to bury all over again—if, in fact, they could ever be truly buried at all.

He had vowed to himself that he would throw her out of his life and forget about her. Already he was regretting and rethinking that vow, knowing that forgetting her was going to be impossible. He was going to have her—but it had to be on his own terms.

CHAPTER SIX

‘Y
OU
MUST
HAVE
this wrong.’

Coming to a dead halt, Ria stood in the doorway, staring out across the airport tarmac, shaking her head in disbelief. The sleek, elegant jet that stood gleaming in the sunshine was not at all what she had been anticipating and she couldn’t imagine why anyone should think that it was there for her.

When she had arrived at the airport for her flight home, she had been feeling more raw and vulnerable than she had ever been in her life. With her one hope gone, the future now stretched ahead of her and her country, dark and oppressive, with no way of rescue or escape unless she took the way her father had planned.

She certainly hadn’t expected to be greeted by a man in uniform, swept through the briefest of security checks and delivered out here where the luxurious private jets of the rich, famous and powerful waited for permission to take off to whatever private island or sophisticated resort might be their ultimate destination.

‘There really has to be some mistake...’ she tried again, coming to an abrupt halt at the foot of the steps up to the plane, as he stood back to let her precede him.

‘No mistake.’

The words came from above her, at the top of the steps, and in spite of the noise of the wind blowing across the tarmac she knew immediately who had spoken.

The open door at the head of the steps was now filled with the tall, powerful figure of Alexei Sarova, the man she had believed she had left behind in London and would never, ever see again. Casually dressed in a loose white shirt and worn denim jeans, his hair blown about in the breeze, his powerful frame still had a heart-stopping impact, an effect that was multiplied a hundred times by his dominant position so high up above her.

‘No mistake at all,’ he said now, dark eyes locking with hers. ‘I asked for you to be brought here.’

‘You did? But why?’

‘It seemed ridiculous to let you fly cattle class when we are both going to the same place.’

‘We are?’

Had she heard right? Was he actually saying that he was flying to Mecjoria? Could he be thinking of agreeing to her request that he claim the throne? The man who had turned his back on her both physically and emotionally.

‘We are. So are you going to stand there dithering for much longer or are you going to come up here and take your seat? Everything is ready for take-off but if we don’t leave soon we will miss our allocated slot.’

‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’

He couldn’t have reversed that brutally unyielding decision in the space of less than twenty-four hours, could he? And yet if not then why was he here?

The slightest of adjustments in the way that he stood gave away the hint of a change in his mood—for the worse.

‘So it really isn’t a matter of life or death that I go to Mecjoria and look into the situation for the accession after all?’

As he echoed the description she’d given him, he managed to put a sardonic note on the words that twisted a knife even more disturbingly in her nerves. She didn’t know why this was happening, she only knew that suddenly, for some reason, he seemed prepared to toss her a lifeline, one that she would be the greatest fool in the world to ignore.

‘All right!’

Not giving herself any more time to think, Ria pushed herself into action, flinging one foot on to the steps and then the other, grabbing at the rail for support, almost tumbling to the ground at Alexei’s feet as she reached the top.

What else could she do? She had spent last night wide awake and restless, going over the scene in his house again and again, berating herself for failing so badly, for driving him further away rather than persuading him round to her side. She had cursed herself for bringing her father into the discussion, seeing the black rage and hatred simply thinking of him had brought into his eyes. She had even reached for her phone a couple of times, wondering if she rang him that he might actually listen, and each time she had dropped it back down again, knowing that the man who had turned his back on her and told her to leave so brutally had no room in his mind or his heart for second thoughts or second chances. Today she’d faced the prospect of going back home knowing that everything was lost, and with no idea how she was going to face the future.

And then suddenly this...

‘I don’t understand.’

She was gasping as if she’d run a mile rather than just up a short flight of steps, but it was tension and not lack of fitness that caught her round her throat, making it impossible to breathe.

But Alexei was clearly in no mood to offer any explanations. Instead with a bruising grip on her arm he steered her out of the sunlight and into the plane where she blinked hard as her eyes adjusted to the change in light.

Once she would have been the one with access to a private plane. Not for her sole use, or even that of her family, but she had sometimes travelled with a member of the royal family, or accompanying her father in his official role. But it had never been like this. The Mecjorian royal plane had been as old-fashioned and stiffly formal as the regime itself, reflecting the views of the old king. This one was a symphony of cool calm, with pale bronze carpets, wide, soft seats just waiting for someone to sink into their creamy leather cushions. Everything was light and space, and spoke of luxury beyond price; and the impact of it hit like a blow, making her head spin.

Once again that unanswerable question pounded at her thoughts. Just why—
why—
would Alexei want Mecjoria, a small, insignificant, run-down Eastern European country, when he had all this? Why would he even spare a thought for the place or the chaos that would swamp the inhabitants if he refused the throne and let it pass to Ivan?

With his hand still on her arm, the heat of his palm burning through the soft pink cotton of her top and into her skin, the power and strength of his body so close beside her was overwhelming and almost shocking. In spite of the fact that he was so casually dressed, he carried himself with the sort of power that few men could show, making her heart kick hard against her ribs in a lethal combination of physical response and apprehension.

‘Take a seat.’

Ria was grateful to sink down into the enveloping comfort of the nearest seat, her legs disturbingly unsteady beneath her. The air seemed suddenly too thick to breathe, the roar of the engines as the pilot prepared the plane for flight too loud in her ears so that she couldn’t think straight or do anything other than obey him. She was on her way to Mecjoria and, for his own private reasons, Alexei was with her. That and the powerful thrust of the plane as it set off down the runway was more than enough to cope with at the moment.

‘Fasten your seatbelt.’

Alexei was clearly not going to take the trouble to enlighten her on anything—not yet anyway, as he took the seat opposite her, long legs stretched out, crossed at the ankles—and settled himself, ready for take-off.

She was dismissed from his thoughts as he turned his head, focussing his attention through the window to where the green of the grass on the side of the runway was now flashing past at an incredible speed as the plane raced towards take-off. Another couple of minutes and the wheels had left the ground, the jet soaring away from the ground and up into the sky. The impact pushed Ria back into her seat, her head against the rest, her hands clutching the arms of her chair. Unexpectedly, unbelievably, she had another chance and she was going to take it if she possibly could.

But that added a whole new burden of worry to the nervousness she was already feeling. Just for a moment her thoughts reeled. Had she done the right thing coming here? Was she justified in putting her own family, her own personal needs, first like this? It was true that she feared the consequences if Ivan took the crown. She dreaded the thought of what it meant for her personally if she had to follow her father’s plans for that event, but how did she know if Alexei would be any better? The memory of the stories of his life in London that had been reported in the papers back home came back to haunt her. There had been one where he had been caught unaware, his hand half-lifted to his face to escape the flash of the camera. But he hadn’t been quick enough to conceal the fact that he had obviously been in a fight; that his eye was blackened, his nose bloodied.

And of course there had been his neglect of his poor little daughter. A neglect that he hadn’t even tried to deny. Was she right in bringing such a man back to Mecjoria—as its king?

But he was the rightful king. That was the one argument she was totally sure of.

The plane had reached its cruising height and had straightened out of the steep climb but Ria’s stomach was still knotted in that unnerving tension that the fast ascent, combined with her own inner turmoil, had created. She had a dreadful feeling of no going back, knowing that she could only go forward—though she had no idea where that might lead.

‘Would you like a drink? Something to eat?’

It was perfectly polite, the calm enquiry of a courteous host as a slightly raised hand summoned an attendant who jumped to attention as if she had just been waiting for the signal.

‘Some coffee would be nice.’ She hadn’t been able to eat any breakfast before she left for the airport. ‘We do have almost five hours to fill.’

‘I don’t think you need to worry about filling time on this flight,’ Alexei told her. ‘We’ll have plenty to keep us occupied.’

‘We will?’ It was sharp and tight with a new rush of nerves.

In contrast, Alexei looked supremely relaxed, lounging back in his seat opposite her as he nodded.

‘You have...’ he checked the workmanlike heavy watch on his wrist ‘...four hours to convince me that I should even consider taking up the crown of Mecjoria and allowing myself to be declared king.’

‘But I thought—I mean—you’re here now. And we’re heading for...’

The words shrivelled on her tongue as she looked into the cold darkness of his face and saw that there was nothing there to give her confidence that this was all going to work out right.

‘I’m here now,’ he agreed soberly, dark eyes hooded and shadowed. ‘And we are on a flight path for Mecjoria—for the capital. This plane will land there, if only to let you off so you can go and talk to the courtiers who sent you. But that does not mean that I will disembark as well.’

His tone was flat, emotionless, unyielding, and looking into his eyes was like staring into the icy depth of a deep, deep lake, frozen over with a coating of thick black ice, bleak and impenetrable. He had made one tiny concession and that was all he was going to let her have—unless she could convince him otherwise.

‘Our estimated time of arrival is five in the afternoon, Mecjorian time. You have until then to persuade me that I should not just turn round and head home as soon as we have let you disembark.’

He meant it, she had no doubt about that, and a sensation like cold slimy footsteps crept down her back. The thought of being so near yet so far curdled in her stomach. The attendant appeared with her coffee and she took refuge in huddling over the cup as if the warmth from the hot liquid might melt the ice that seemed to have frozen right through to her bones. Just when she had thought she could relax, that Alexei was heading for Mecjoria, and taking her with him to return home—if not in triumph then at least with some hope of success and a more positive future for the country—suddenly he had shown that he had been working on a totally different plan.

It didn’t help at all that she was sitting opposite the most devastatingly attractive man she had ever seen in her whole life. Her schoolgirl crush on the adolescent Alexei seemed like froth and bubble compared to the raw, gut-deep sensual impact of his adult self on all that was female inside her. If he so much as moved, her senses sprang to life, heat and moisture pooling between her thighs so that she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs restlessly.

‘I told you...’

Another smile was a swift flash on and off, one that put no light in his eyes.

‘Tell me again.’ It was a command, not a suggestion. ‘We have plenty of time.’

It was going to be interesting to see if she came up with exactly the same arguments as she had given him yesterday, Alexei reflected. Arguments that would change his way of life; hell, his whole future if the decision he had come to in the middle of the night was anything to go by. He hadn’t been able to sleep and had spent long hours surfing the Internet, researching the situation in Mecjoria even more intensely than usual, finding out as much as he possibly could. There was plenty he already knew. In spite of the mask of indifference he had hidden behind when Ria had confronted him, he had kept a careful eye on all that was happening in his father’s homeland ever since he and his mother had been exiled from the place. His research had told him that everything she had said was true, but this time, driven to dig more deeply, he had found there was more to it than that. That there was one vital element to this whole succession business that he had never suspected, and that she had not revealed.

And that was something that changed everything.

Why had she not told him the full truth? What did she have to gain from keeping it from him?

In the seat opposite, Ria stirred slightly, the soft sound of her denim-clad legs sliding across each other setting his senses on red alert in a heartbeat. It was hell to sit here with his body hardening in response to just the thought of her being there, so close and yet so far away. He should never have touched her, never have let the feel of the warm velvet of her skin, the scent of her hair, start off the heavy pulse of hunger that was like a thickness in his blood. It stopped him thinking straight and made him
want.
And wanting was going to have to be put aside for now, for a time at least. He had her just where he wanted her, and he wasn’t going to let her get away. But first he was going to make her acknowledge that this was the only way that it could be. The sensual pleasure he anticipated would be one thing. Bringing her to admit that she had nowhere else to go would add a whole new dimension of satisfaction to his revenge on the family that had been responsible for his and his mother’s exile from the country where they belonged.