Off-Limits to the Crown Prince Read online

  Hannah wasn’t paint spattered anymore, as if that had been some kind of barrier separating them.

  Her shoes weren’t trainers, but polished black knee-high boots that wrapped around her slim calves. Dark jeans hugging her gentle curves. A crisp white shirt unbuttoned enough to interest, but too high to give anything but a frustrating hint of her cleavage.

  What the hell was he doing? She couldn’t be anything to him. He was on a quest for a bride to join him on the throne. A professional matchmaker was putting a list together at this very moment. And now he’d set down that path, his behavior must be impeccable. No casual liaisons to report to the press in a tell-all that sought to bring him down to his father’s level where Alessio would never go.

  This woman, while beautiful and challenging, was effectively his employee. Someone to be afforded appropriate distance and dutiful respect. Not to be the subject of carnal thoughts about her mysterious eyes or how luscious and kissable her mouth appeared...

  When Kali Anthony read her first romance novel at fourteen, she realized a few truths: there can never be too many happy endings, and one day she would write them herself. After marrying her own tall, dark and handsome hero in a perfect friends-to-lovers romance, Kali took the plunge and penned her first story. Writing has been a love affair ever since. If she isn’t battling her cat for access to the keyboard, you can find Kali playing dress-up in vintage clothes, gardening, or bushwhacking with her husband and three children in the rain forests of South East Queensland.

  Books by Kali Anthony

  Harlequin Presents

  Revelations of His Runaway Bride

  Bound as His Business-Deal Bride

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Kali Anthony

  Off-Limits to the Crown Prince

  To my beloved editorcat. Our last book together. I miss your paws on my keyboard every day. Nineteen years was not enough.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM MARRIED FOR ONE REASON ONLY BY DANI COLLINS

  CHAPTER ONE

  HANNAH STOOD IN a shaft of bright sunlight at the rear of her studio. A sickening pulse beat in her chest. The dizzying smell of paint and solvent, usually a reminder of everything she loved, threatened to overpower her. She hurried to the window and threw it wide open onto the rambling tangle of a cottage garden. Gulped in the warm, summer’s air.

  The hollyhocks were in bloom.

  Her mother had loved the hollyhocks best of all the flowers growing here.

  ‘Miss Barrington?’ A bodyguard. One of three mountains of men who’d arrived minutes before. Two of whom were now stalking through the place, assessing her home for any risk. The one staying with her frowned, no doubt concerned she might be letting in an assailant to harm their employer, whose arrival was imminent. As if she could organise anything like that with the half-hour’s warning of his impending visit her agent had given.

  ‘The smell of paint.’ She waved her hand about like she was shooing away any offending scents. ‘It might irritate His Highness.’

  The man nodded, likely satisfied she was thinking of his employer’s comfort. They probably wouldn’t care about hers, or that in this moment it was like a hand had grabbed round her throat and squeezed. She took another deep breath. The bodyguard stationed himself at the doorway separating her studio from the rest of the house and crossed his arms as though he were guarding her. Did she look as if she were about to run?

  Tempting, but there was nowhere else to go.

  Her country cottage, the family home. Her safe place and haven was all she had left of her parents. She looked around the bright room she’d made her studio when she’d been old enough to move out on her own. People said she was crazy to come back here, away from the city, to a place tired from nine years of tenants. But people didn’t understand. Even though there’d been a fresh lick of paint, no one had covered over the marks on the wall in the laundry where her parents had notched her height over the years. The low-ceilinged kitchen remained unrenovated, a place where they’d sat to eat their meals and laughed. The whole place sang with those memories. The happy and the devastating.

  The burn of tears pricked her eyes. Now all this was at risk. Her aunt and uncle had been her guardians. Looked after her inheritance when her parents had died. Taken in the broken teenager she’d become. Sure, they’d been distant rather than cruel, never having wanted children of their own and not knowing how to deal with her. But she’d trusted them, and her uncle’s betrayal still cut deep and jagged. An investment she hadn’t wanted gone terribly wrong. Almost everything, lost. Her father would be trying to claw his way out of the grave over the way his brother had behaved towards his only niece.

  Everything seemed tenuous in this moment. Nothing else had broken her. Not her parents’ death in the accident, not the loss of her horse and everything she loved. She’d clambered out of the well of grief on her own. Sure, her fingertips might have been bloody, nails torn, the scars carved into the soul of her waiting to open at any given moment. But to have to sell this, the little farm where she’d lived some of the best days of her life? That would crack her open and no king’s horses or men would ever be able to put those pieces back together again.

  Perspiration pricked at the back of her head, a droplet sliding beyond the neck of her shirt, itching her skin. She moved closer to the window. Fished a hair tie from her jeans pocket, scraped her hair back and tied it up in a rough topknot.

  The bodyguard looked down at her. Crossed his arms. ‘You seem nervous.’

  How could she tell him that his employer’s past and her own were inextricably bound? That his employer was the last person she wanted to see, because he was a reminder of the worst day of her life? Of teenage dreams destroyed?

  ‘I’ve never met a prince before.’ It wasn’t exactly a lie. ‘And I haven’t had time to tidy up.’

  The bodyguard’s gaze roved over her in a disapproving kind of way. She looked down at her hands. Nails short and blunt. Cuticles ingrained with paint. She grabbed an old rag and wet it with solvent, rubbing at her fingers in a vain effort to clean them. Perfect princes probably wouldn’t admire commoners with filthy hands. Not that she was seeking admiration, but still. She supposed she had to keep up some kind of an appearance. After a short effort she dropped the now dirty rag on the tabletop and sniffed at her fingers, which smelled like pine.

  She held them up. ‘Better?’

  The bodyguard grunted.

  Hannah checked her phone. Still some time. She picked out a slender paintbrush and stood back from her easel. Her art usually calmed her, a way to lose herself in colour and light. Nothing could touch her when she was in the flow of a portrait. She tried to loosen the death grip of her fingers. Dipped her brush into some paint. A swipe of Tasman blue, a touch of titanium white. She frowned. The eyes in this portrait gave her trouble. Too much sadness, not enough twinkle. She reached out her brush to add a dash of colour near the pupil, trying to ignore the tremor in her hand.

  The cheery tinkle of a doorbell rang through the room. Hannah’s paintbrush slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor, leaving smudges of blue paint on the old boards.

  The burn of bile rose to
her throat. He was early. She left the portrait and wiped her damp palms on her jeans.

  ‘Remember to curtsey,’ the bodyguard said.

  The teeth of anger bit her then, at this man’s disdain when she was the one being imposed upon today. She’d said no to this commission when it had first been proposed months ago, before she had had any idea how bad her finances were. His employer had ignored her refusal. It was just like saying no to her uncle when presented with a speculative investment. He’d ignored her too. She gritted her teeth, hating that these people hadn’t listened to her, as if her opinion were meaningless. But even though things were bad it didn’t mean she had to grin and bear it.

  Hannah stalked up to the man guarding the doorway and glared. He towered over her but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to be pushed around, by anyone. Looming bodyguard or prince.

  ‘I do have a concept of manners. And I understand how to behave around royalty.’

  The man didn’t move, but his eyes widened a fraction as if in surprise. Good.

  A murmur of voices drifted down the hall. The tap of fine leather on floorboards grew louder. She backed further into the room, tried to swallow the knot rising in her throat but her mouth was dry.

  A shadow appeared in the hall behind more security. Grew and grew till it took human shape, striding through the doorway.

  ‘His Royal Highness, Crown Prince of Lasserno,’ the bodyguard announced.

  Alessio Arcuri.

  More beautiful than she’d remembered, though the recollection was coloured by her youth at the time. Then, she’d only caught thrilling glimpses of the handsome, fairy-tale prince, a rider on the showjumping circuit. The young man her teenage heart had crushed over with a terrifying ferocity. Now, she could fully appreciate the height and breadth of him. His severe yet tantalising and lush mouth. The perfection of his aquiline nose. The caramel of his sun-bronzed skin. The shock of his thick, dark hair. She could pretend her admiration was one of an artist surveying his commanding masculine shape. But who was she kidding? This was a distinctly female attraction to a male in his absolute prime.

  After nine years, she still felt like that giddy teenager.

  It made her prickly all over. Too big for her skin. She wanted to shed parts of herself like a husk, and come out more sparkling, more polished. Just more. Because she didn’t need a mirror to realise she looked like some ruffian and he looked as if he’d walked straight from a red carpet.

  She resented his perfection, when his snap visit with little warning meant she’d had no time to tidy her own appearance. His exquisitely cut suit in the deepest of navy, a pristine white shirt. Red and blue tie in the finest of glowing silk. She was sure she stared before remembering her manners, dipping into a curtsey. ‘Your Highness.’

  ‘Signorina Barrington.’ He canted his head in a way that suggested she was adequate, then motioned to the man standing behind him. ‘This is my private secretary, Stefano Moretti. He’s been communicating with your agent.’

  The other man was almost as perfectly attired and presented as his employer. Attractive, but without the indefinable presence of the Prince. She nodded to him. He smiled back.

  ‘Welcome to my home and studio. It’s a surprise and I’m underprepared. I didn’t expect royalty to drop by today. Would you like a tea?’ She motioned to a battered table in the corner of her studio, the ancient electric kettle, some chipped cups.

  Alessio looked to where she’d indicated, gaze sliding over the table as though viewing a sad still life. No one came here—this was her private space—so there was no one to bother about damaged crockery. Personal sittings took place in her public studio on the outskirts of London. The one she’d only recently given up, her uncle’s actions meaning it was an extravagance she couldn’t afford. Yet seeing the room with Alessio in it reminded her how tattered and worn it seemed. She’d never worried before. This was her home. But all it took was a perfectly pressed prince to bring into screamingly sharp relief how threadbare her life had become.

  ‘Tea? No. I was in the area purchasing some horses, and, since you’ve been ignoring my secretary’s requests...’ His voice had the musical lilt of Italian spoken in a glorious baritone. Honeyed tones she could listen to for hours. The voice of a leader that would echo on castle walls. One whose dictates would invariably be followed by most.

  Not by her. She wasn’t this prince’s subject.

  ‘I haven’t been ignoring them. My answer was clear.’

  He hesitated for a second, cocked his head as if he were thinking. She had the curious sensation of being a specimen under glass.

  ‘Have we met before?’

  The high slash of his cheekbones, the strong brows. The sharply etched curve of his tempting lips. Eyes of burnt umber framed by the elegant curl of lamp black lashes. Hannah had never formally met him, but she’d never forgotten him from the showjumping circuit. Alessio Arcuri was the kind of man to leave you breathless. The fearlessness as he rode. The sheer arrogance that he would make every jump successfully. And he did. Horse and rider the embodiment of perfection.

  It was why she and her friend had been chattering away in the back of the car on that terrible day. Gossiping about why he’d retired from competition at the age of twenty-two, much to their teenage devastation. Now, it seemed so young. Back then, he’d been the epitome of an adult and everything a clueless sixteen-year-old craved to be. How he appeared to know, in a way that was absolute, his place in the world. The utter confidence of him, when Hannah was still trying to find her bearings. Then she dropped out of riding too, the deaths of her parents and her horse too much to bear. And she’d tried not to think about Prince Alessio Arcuri since.

  At least, until her agent’s call a little over half an hour ago, when all the memories she’d bottled up had come flooding back.

  ‘No. We haven’t met.’ Not exactly. He’d been handing out the first prize at a showjumping event she’d competed in after his retirement had been announced. Her friend had won that day, Hannah a close second. Unusual for her but Beau had been off, as if her horse were foreshadowing the devastating events of only hours later. She’d been so envious of that first-prize ribbon. How she’d coveted the handshake Alessio had given to her friend. Craved for him to acknowledge her. Then their eyes had met. Held. And for one perfect, blinding second her world had stopped turning.

  After what had come later in the afternoon, those desires seemed childish. It had taken another terrible moment on that day for the world to stop turning a second time. It hadn’t restarted.

  His being here brought back too many memories of a split second when all her innocence and faith in the good of the world had ended. Riding passenger in the car driven by her friend’s parents. Rounding a corner, littered debris...the...carnage. Car and horsebox destroyed. Everything she’d loved, gone. A freak accident. A tractor in the wrong place on a narrow country road. Hannah flinched. Shut her eyes tight against the horrible vision running like a stuttering film reel in her head.

  ‘Are you all right, Signorina Barrington?’

  She opened her eyes again. Nodded. Breathed. Stitched up the pain in her heart where it would stay for ever. Hannah didn’t want to go back to that time, and if Alessio truly remembered he might start asking questions. She couldn’t deal with them, not now.

  Alessio looked at his bodyguards, standing as a brooding presence in the corner. Said something in rapid Italian and they bowed and left the room. The atmosphere relaxed a fraction.

  ‘I’m here to discuss you painting my portrait.’

  Hannah clasped her hands behind her back. ‘As my agent would have told you, I have a number of commissions...’

  Alessio stepped towards her and she was forced to look up because, whilst she wasn’t tiny, he dwarfed her. He was even more astonishing up close. Nothing marred his features. It was as if no part of the man would deign to be anything less
than polished and perfect. He held her transfixed with those velvety brown eyes of his. Till looking at him any more left her head spinning.

  He must have taken her silence as reticence.

  ‘Your fee. I’ll double it. And I’m a prince, so...’

  She stepped back. It was either that or lean into him and all his solidity in a moment when she felt a little broken. ‘I know what you are.’

  What was she doing? Crucifying herself, that was what. She needed this commission, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d made a promise when she first started painting, that she’d only take the jobs she wanted. Trying to establish a connection with your subject could prove taxing some days. In the early stages after her parents died she’d drawn them incessantly, terrified that the memory of how they looked would fade. Day and night she sketched, to perfect them so she could never forget. It had exhausted her, the obsession. Made her ill. Sometimes it still did when she became engrossed with a commission. It was why she chose so carefully.

  Alessio Arcuri would never be a careful choice. Any connection with him could break her.

  ‘Then I promise if you paint my portrait I’ll ensure everyone knows who you are. So far those you’ve painted have been...inconsequential.’

  Portraiture had never been about accolades, but about preserving memories. The minutiae, the nuance of a person. Sure, she was paid well for what she did, but it was never about simply being paid. It was about ensuring people weren’t forgotten.

  She looked at the portrait of the older woman currently on her easel. A believer in justice, lover of barley sugar and Yorkshire tea. ‘I wouldn’t say a judge is nobody. The law’s important, as is doing the right thing. But I mostly like painting pictures of people the world overlooks. They deserve their moment to be seen, to be remembered. You’re seen all the time.’

  Alessio shrugged. That movement seemed out of place on a man who appeared only to move when absolutely necessary. ‘Is anyone truly seen? The press often tries to paint pictures of me and they’re rarely right.’