‘I’m not biting.’ She smiled sweetly at him. A prince in waiting and a gentleman to the core, Max had always enjoyed putting the cat among the pigeons.
Max grinned. ‘You can’t blame me for trying. It doesn’t appear as if my future bride has the Marandis fighting spirit your future king has in spades. I fear she’ll make me a poor opponent.’
Jazmine shook her head. Having read the investigative reports into the brother and sister, she doubted Lia lacked anything, including spirit. Her story of anorexia survival proved that, but Max would have to find out in his own time and way.
Grandfather waved them all into chairs facing him. By the way he drew himself up and refused to sit, he was about to hold court, as he called it.
She called it laying down the law.
‘Tea,’ he ordered a servant, who bowed and disappeared. The room emptied.
To Jazmine’s surprise, Charlie took a seat beside her. He was glancing from her to Giulia—who sat on Jazmine’s other side—but his expression didn’t change. He still looked grim and protective.
‘We will have no public displays in future of family discord, Kyriacou.’
Grandfather never descended to such terms as ‘do you hear me?’ As king, he could enforce his word with the full force of the law, even in the twenty-first century. He believed the Hellenican people liked it that way.
Jazmine had other ideas, but they’d remain her own until she was queen. If she became queen. She kept her gaze on the man who held her entire future in his hands.
Charlie was sprawled in his chair, watching her grandfather with polite interest, as if the king was an unusual exhibit at the zoo. ‘It’s been a long time since anyone defied you, I’d guess, Your Majesty.’
Grandfather put a hand on the back of the carved-oak chair. His brows lifted a touch. ‘Certainly.’
Charlie said politely, but with finality, ‘Well, here’s the lowdown on family discord, sire. I’m not your family. I met you five minutes ago. I am an Australian citizen—’
The king’s smile stopped him mid-sentence.
‘Actually, Kyriacou, you are a Hellenican citizen,’ Grandfather stated with well-bred relish. ‘You are a descendant of the royal family. You have been Hellenican, subject to its laws and regulations, from the moment you stepped into the consulate in Canberra.’
The silence was absolute. Even the servants didn’t breathe.
After a minute that seemed to take an hour, the king went on. ‘My word is law in Hellenia. You will do as I tell you, and leave only when I allow it.’ He smiled at Charlie in barely restrained triumph.
Giulia’s face was pale as she turned towards her brother. Max lifted his brows.
Jazmine felt herself gulping on air. Whatever Charlie said or did, unless it was capitulation or an abject apology, would only throw a landmine into Grandfather’s proud, stubborn face—and, on five minutes’ acquaintance, she felt sure ‘capitulation’ and ‘apology’ were words as foreign to the prince’s nature as they were to the king’s.
After an interminable minute, Charlie answered without the expected fire. ‘Without prior knowledge of Hellenican law, we’ve been subjected to false imprisonment, which is subject to international law under the terms of the Geneva Convention.’ He smiled back at Grandfather, whose lined, regal face whitened. ‘You made a mistake in underestimating me, Your Majesty. I will not be forcibly detained here. Nor will I allow you to force my sister or me to accept the positions. We are not political prisoners. If you make us such, I’m sure the world media would love to know about it.’
War declared—and it was about to be accepted. Before she knew it, Jazmine was on her feet, looking down at Charlie. ‘May I speak with you, please, Your Highness?’
Arrested by her intervention into the hostilities, Charlie turned and looked at her. A brow lifted as he searched her eyes. Jazmine’s panic grew as he seemed to be looking past her projected calm. Seeing more than she wanted him to.
‘Of course, Your Highness. I’m at your service.’ Just as slow, seeming almost insolent, he rose from the chair, stood and held an arm out to her as he’d seen Max do.
He was a quick learner when he wanted to be…but the challenge in his eyes told her the changes would come only in his time and way.
This man definitely had hidden depths—and, as he’d said to Grandfather, it was a mistake to underestimate him.
‘Do the goons get in line every time you move?’ he said in a conversational tone as they headed to a parlour, and four Secret Service people followed at a discreet distance.
‘Actually, two of them are yours. They’re here to protect you.’ Resisting the urge to pull her arm from his—the Secret Service would report the disharmony to Grandfather—she checked his reaction.
Bad mistake. The brows were up over laughing, derisive eyes. ‘Protect me? A little, five-foot-four Miss Perfect is going to take me down? I need help handling you?’
She nodded at their combined minders to step outside, then closed the parlour door behind them. ‘I’m five-foot three,’ she retorted, intensely aware of keeping her dignity. ‘And, though we both know it isn’t me you need protection from, I have a green belt in karate.’ She could also fly a jet and combat swim: they were basic requirements for the royal heirs of Hellenia.
She wondered if that would pique his interest; he was a man of action after all. How would he take it if he knew that both she and Max, whom he saw as pampered royals, could do all he did and then some?
Charlie grinned. ‘Are you going to bring me to the mat? Want to know how many ways I could take you down, princess?’
She shook herself. This half-sexual banter put her in a ridiculous situation; it was beneath her. ‘We’ve just come out of ten years of civil war. There were ten million people in Hellenia fifteen years ago. We’re down to eight million. Lord Orakis tends to eliminate competition in violent ways, and you and I both stand in his way. The king doubled the protection of all the royal family three years ago.’ After the palace attack. And she intended to change the over-the-top protection levels, too, if—when—she became queen. He had to listen to her. He had to.
Charlie’s brows lifted again, and she guessed he was digesting another facet to his unwanted elevation in status.
She sat down. ‘We should get comfortable. There are things you need to know.’
‘Shake out the list, it’s miles long.’ His tone was as dry as new wine as he sat opposite her. It seemed he was a man who liked his personal distance. ‘We might need to ask the goons to bring in dinner and breakfast while they’re out there doing nothing.’
The words made her hesitate; he was already on edge, and obviously didn’t want to belong here. She abandoned her original, perhaps too harsh, words. ‘Life is very different here—’
He laughed, hard-edged. Words couldn’t adequately describe the wealth of half-repressed emotions it held.
Trying again, she forced herself to hold to her resolve. He’d been here less than an hour and he’d been threatened, had been given veiled bribes, and told he had no rights. A man like Charlie was bound to react badly to that. ‘No doubt you’ve been brought up very differently to those of us within the royal family, but you’re no longer in Australia.’
‘Gee, thanks, Dorothy. If I could find my red shoes I’d disappear back to my life and career, and make everyone’s lives easier.’ He cocked his very handsome head back in the general direction of the door. ‘His Furious Majesty’s less than impressed with the new heir.’
Strange that his speech sounded so arrogant, yet she heard rough exhaustion, and his acceptance that Grandfather was