that showed the old king’s permission. The document that Ria had been commissioned to bring here so unexpectedly—because it now suited her father. Was it any wonder that he loathed the man—that he would do anything to bring him down?
But it seemed that Gregor had managed that all on his own.
‘And I don’t have to be in the country to know what is going on.’
‘The papers don’t report everything. And certainly not always accurately.’
Something new had clouded those clear eyes and turned her expression into an intriguing mixture of defiance and uncertainty. There was just the tiniest sheen of moisture under one eye, where a trace of an unexpected tear had escaped the determined control she had been trying to impose on it and slipped out on to her lashes.
Unable to resist the impulse, he reached out and touched her face, letting his fingers rest lightly on the fine skin along the high, slanting cheekbone, wiping away that touch of moisture. The warmth and softness of the contact made his nerves burn, sending stinging arrows of response down into his body. He wanted so much more and yet he wanted to keep things just as they were—for now. It was a struggle not to do more, not to curve his hand around her cheek, cup that defiant little chin against his palm, lift her face towards his so that he could capture her mouth …
And that would ruin things completely. She would react like a scalded cat, he had no doubt. All that silent defiance would return in full force, and she’d swing away from him, repulsing the gesture with a rough shake of her head. She was still too tense, too on edge. But like any nervous cat, with a few moments’ careful attention—perhaps a soothing stroke or two—she would soon settle down.
So for now it was enough to watch the storm of emotions that swept over her face. The response that turned those citrine eyes smoky, that darkened and deepened the black of her pupils, making them spread like the flow of ink until they covered almost all of her irises. The way that her mouth opened again to show the tips of small white teeth was a temptation that kicked at his libido, making it hungrier than ever. The clamour in his body urged him to act, to make his move now, when she was at her weakest, but for a little while at least he was enjoying imposing restraint on himself, letting the sensual hunger build—anticipating what might come later—and watching the effect his behaviour had on her.
‘So tell me the rest.’
She didn’t know if she could go through with this. Ria struggled to find some of the certainty, the conviction of doing the right thing, that had buoyed her up on her journey here, held her in the room in spite of the frantic thudding of her heart. So much depended on what she said now and the possible repercussions of her failure, personal and political, were almost impossible to imagine. The image of her mother, too pale, far too thin, drifting through life like a wraith, with no appetite, no interest in anything slid into her mind. Her days were haunted by fears, her nights plagued by terrifying nightmares.
Her father was the cause of those nightmares. Since the night that the state police had come to arrest him, taking him away in handcuffs, they had never seen him for a moment. But they knew where he was. The state prison doors had slammed closed on him and, unless Ria could find some way of helping him, then behind those locked doors was where he was going to stay. She had wanted to help him—wanted to return him to her mother—and it had been because she had been looking for some way to do that that she had found the hidden documents, the ones that proved Alexei’s legitimacy and the others that had revealed the whole truth about what had been going on.
The full, appalling truth.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS WHAT she had come here for, Ria reminded herself. To tell him the story that had not yet leaked into the papers. The full details of the archaic inheritance laws that had come into play in the country since the unexpected death of the man they had believed to be the heir to the throne. But that would also mean telling him how those laws involved him, and his reaction just a moment before had made it plain that he harboured no warmth towards the country that had once been his home.
But when he had touched her—the way he still touched her—just that one tiny contact seemed to have broken through the careful, deliberate barriers she had built around herself. It was so long since she had felt that someone sympathised; that someone might be on her side. And the fact that it was someone as strong and forceful—and devastating—as this particular man, the man who had once been a special friend to her, stripped away several much-needed protective layers of skin, leaving her raw and disturbingly vulnerable.
He was so close she couldn’t actually judge his expression without lifting her head, tilting it back just a little. And that movement brought her eyes up to clash with his. Suddenly even breathing naturally was impossible as their gazes locked, the darkness and intensity of his stare closing her throat in the space of a single uneven heartbeat.
In that moment everything that had happened in the past months rushed up to swamp her mind, taking with it any hope of rational thought. Except that right now she needed him. Needed the friend he had once been. So much about him might have changed: that hard-boned face had thinned, toughened into that of a stunningly mature male in his sexual prime; those eyes might now be five inches above hers where once they had been so much closer to her own … But they were still the eyes of the friend she had known. Still the eyes of the one person she had felt she could confide in and get a sympathetic hearing.
They were the eyes she had once let herself dream of seeing warm with more than just the easy light of friendship. And the memory of how in the past she had fallen asleep and into dreams of them being so much more than friends twisted in her heart with the bitterness of loss.
‘Tell me everything.’
‘You don’t really want that,’ she flung at him, gulping in air so that she could loosen her throat.
‘No? Try me.’
Challenge blended with something else in his tone. And it was that something else that made her heart jerk, her breath catch.
Was it possible that he really did want to know? That he might help her? Memories of their past friendship surfaced once again, tugging at her feelings. She was so lonely, so dragged down by it all, so tired of coping with everything on her own. So wretched at the thought of what the future might bring. And here was this man who had once been the boy she adored, the friend who had let her offload her troubles on to his shoulders—shoulders that even then had seemed broad enough to take on the world. They were so much broader, so much stronger now.
Tell me everything, he’d said, and as he spoke the hand that rested against her face moved slightly, the pressure of his fingers softening, his palm curving so that it lay over her cheek, warm and hard and yet gentle all at the same time.
‘The truth, Ria,’ he said and the sound of her name on his lips was her weakness, her undoing.
Unable to stop herself, she turned her face into his hold, inhaling the scent of his skin, pursing her lips to press a small, soft kiss against the warmth of his palm.
Instantly everything changed. Her heart seemed to stop, her breathing stilled. The clean, musky aroma of his body was all around her, the taste of his flesh tangy on her tongue. It was like taking a sip of a fine, smoky brandy, one that intoxicated in a moment, sending fizzing bubbles of electricity along every nerve.
She wanted more. Needed to deepen the contact. Needed it like never before.
The boy who had been her friend had never made her feel like this; never made her pulse race so fast and heavy, her head spin so wildly. In all her adolescent dreams she had never known this feeling of awareness, of hunger. A pulsing, heated adult hunger that grew and sharpened as he moved his hold on her, taking her chin and lifting it so that their eyes clashed and scorched. Something blazed in these black depths, creating a golden glow that had more heat than an inferno and yet was almost—almost—under control.
‘Ria …’ he said again, his tone very different this time, his voice roughening at the edges. He had moved closer somehow, without