‘Our audience.’
A barrage of flashes set up around them. He raised one hand in acknowledgement and the crowd cheered harder.
The information she’d found on the web mentioned his dedication to his country but she hadn’t realised how popular he was. Cynically she did a quick survey of the crowd and noticed women outnumbered men three to one. That explained some of the excitement.
It would be easy to fall for Raul if you didn’t know the man behind the gorgeous exterior.
He swept her towards a gleaming limousine. No lengthy wait for passport and customs checks for him.
They’d almost reached the car when Luisa saw what had provoked such interest. Someone held up a page from a newspaper, with a blown up photo of a couple embracing so passionately it felt voyeuristic to look at them.
It took a moment for the truth to slam into her. The man staring so intently down at the woman he held possessively was Raul. His face was harsh with stark sexual hunger. Or intense calculation.
And the woman with her kiss-swollen lips, apparently swooning in his arms, was her!
Luisa’s skin crawled in horror. Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed frantically. She felt … violated at the knowledge anyone else had seen that moment. Had viewed her vulnerability. Bad enough Raul knew her appalling weakness, but to have others witness it, splash it in newsprint.
She gasped, her breath sawing painfully in cramped lungs.
‘Come, Luisa.’ Raul urged her forwards. ‘Don’t stop here in front of the cameras.’
The mention of cameras moved her on till she found herself seated, shivering, in a limo. Her brain seemed to have seized up and her teeth were chattering.
‘Luisa?’ Warm hands chafed her icy ones. Dazedly she heard a muttered imprecation, then her knees were swathed in warmth as Raul tucked his jacket around her legs.
‘I don’t need it. I’m fine.’ Her voice sounded overloud in the thick silence now the privacy screen had been raised. But a chance glance out of the window to the people milling about, watching their vehicle, made her shrink back into the soft leather.
‘You’ve had a shock. I apologise. I should have warned you.’ Luisa could almost believe that was genuine regret in his deep voice.
But her brain was branded with the memory of his expression in that photo. She wasn’t stupid enough to believe he’d been overcome by passion. He’d recovered too fast and too completely. He’d probably been calculating how successful his seduction had been. Assessing how compliant she’d be in future.
Fury pierced the fog of shock.
‘You did that!’ She rounded on him, too angry to feel more than a tremor of surprise at how close he sat, his thigh warm against hers. ‘You set me up for that photo.’ How could she have forgotten her suspicion last night when he’d suggested taking her out? She should have guessed he was up to something.
Hauteur iced his features.
‘I don’t do deals with the paparazzi.’
Luisa shook her head. ‘Someone did! They were there, waiting for us. You can’t tell me—’
‘I do tell you, Luisa.’ His voice held a note of steel that silenced her. ‘I have nothing but contempt for the media outlets and the photographers who spend their time beating up such stories.’ His jaw tightened and Luisa found herself sinking back into her seat.
Gullible she might be, but everything from the set of his taut shoulders to the glitter in his dark eyes convinced her he was telling the truth.
‘The press are always on the watch for photo opportunities. They follow constantly, though given my security detail, usually at a distance. It’s part of being royal. A fact of life.’
‘I don’t think much of being royal then.’ Her stomach was painfully tight after the sudden welling nausea.
To her surprise, Raul’s mouth lifted in a rare smile that made something inside her soften. ‘I don’t either. Not that part of it.’
His hand enfolded hers and for an instant she knew a bizarre urge to smile back, sharing a moment of intimacy.
Except it was a mirage. There was no intimacy.
‘I regret the photo, Luisa. If I’d realised we were visible …’ He shrugged.
To her amazement she found herself wanting to believe him. ‘But even if the press had reported our—’ she swallowed, her mouth dry as she remembered his kiss ‘—our trip on the river, I don’t see why the crowd would be excited about my arrival. Surely they don’t turn out to see all your … girlfriends.’
His smile faded and his grip tightened. Clearly he didn’t like explaining himself.
Tough!
Luisa dragged her hand from his, refusing to notice the loss of warmth.
‘I told you. I instructed my staff to explain who you are if asked.’
‘But my name wouldn’t mean anything!’
Silently he surveyed her as if waiting for her to catch up. ‘Your title does. Princess Luisa of Ardissia.’
Luisa froze as the implications sank in. ‘I’m not princess yet. I haven’t signed—’
‘But you will.’ His voice was a rich, creamy purr. ‘That’s why you came, isn’t it?’
She nodded, feeling again that hated sense of being cornered. Suspicion flared.
‘That’s not all they said, is it?’ Urgently she leaned towards him, thrusting his jacket off her legs, uncaring she was close enough to see the individual long lashes fringing his eyes, or the hint of a nick on his smoothly shaven jaw. To inhale the warm scent of his skin.
‘They just happened to mention the marriage contract, didn’t they?’
Raul held her gaze unblinkingly and for one crazy moment she felt an echo of last night’s emotions when he’d hauled her close and introduced her to bliss.
Heat scorched her cheeks and throat.
‘Didn’t they?’
‘It’s not a secret, Luisa, though the details weren’t widely known.’
She sat back, her heart pounding.
‘You don’t give up, do you?’ It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Not after he’d manoeuvred her into coming here. ‘What did you hope to achieve? Pressure me into agreeing?’
It was as if he’d known she still held out hope of avoiding marriage. Wearily she raised a hand to her forehead, smoothing the beginning of an ache there.
‘I won’t be forced into marriage because your precious public expects it. If I pull out the story would be all about you. How you were jilted. Not about me.’
In an instant his face whitened to the colour of scoured bone. His nostrils flared and the flesh seemed to draw back, leaving his clear cut features spare and prominent. Almost she could believe she’d scored some unseen injury.
Energy radiated from him. A sense of barely controlled power. Of danger.
This time she did retreat.
‘There will be no jilting.’ Fascinated, Luisa saw the tic of Raul’s pulse at his jaw.
‘I will not leave my people to the chaos that would come if I gave up the throne.’ He paused. ‘Remember why you agreed to come here.’
Blazing eyes meshed with hers and any hope she’d harboured that he wouldn’t follow through on his threat vanished. This man would do whatever it took to get what he wanted. How had she let last night’s