Off-Limits to the Crown Prince Read online

  Perhaps her own. He raised a supercilious brow, his normally full and transfixing lips now a tight line. ‘Are you accusing me of not being masculine enough?’

  ‘No.’ Not a single woman on the planet could ever accuse him of that. She stared at the dark shading of stubble on his jaw, even though it was mid-morning and he must have shaved, at the broadness of his shoulders, the narrow taper of his waist. She was almost suffocated by how masculine he was. All that testosterone made her quite giddy. ‘You’re the epitome of masculinity. That suit. The bold red tie saying leader. Does your valet choose the colour based on what duties you have to attend to? Red for ruling, blue for official visits, yellow for meeting children...’

  ‘Now you’re questioning my sartorial choices? What makes you assume I keep a valet?’

  ‘I’m sure all princes have them. To...darn your socks if they get holes in?’

  ‘My socks do not require darning.’

  ‘No, they’re probably woven from magical thread by some goddess. I imagine that’s your style, impeccable as it is.’

  Behind Alessio, his secretary jumped from his chair. He might have looked stricken, but instead he appeared to be choking.

  Alessio stood too, and she was forced to look up at his imposing form, the energy around him almost palpable. Not so impassive now, with his jaw hard, nostrils flaring. Even if he wasn’t a prince, this man could rule any room he entered.

  ‘Stefano. Please attend the oracle and request the goddess weave me more socks whilst I deal with Signorina Barrington’s mocking of me.’

  ‘Any particular colour, Your Highness?’

  ‘Black.’ He turned and speared Hannah with a hot glare. ‘The colour of my righteous anger.’

  * * *

  Alessio began to pace, something blazing and unfamiliar bubbling in his chest. After years of attempting to inject calm and order into the palace and his life, this woman seemed intent on destroying it in the space of a day. He could not allow anyone to witness it, sending Stefano away before the man fell about laughing, which would have led to jokes at his expense for weeks.

  ‘Alizarin Crimson,’ Hannah said.

  ‘What?’ He didn’t understand her, not at all.

  ‘That would be the colour of righteous anger. It’s a deeper colour than simple red...solid, less flash. Now, if you were plain angry, the light version of cadmium red would suit better. So I suggest you should have sent Stefano for red socks rather than black.’

  Alessio kept up his pacing, unable to sit still. No one questioned him any more, no one mocked him, or disagreed with what he said. After years of chaos in the palace, his rule was absolute. That was by his design, and his demand. People knew what he expected of them and complied. No arguments. Gone was the frustration at ideas cast aside, attempts to thwart his father ignored by those who sought to profit from Lasserno’s losses. Graft, corruption and sheer negligence had been rooted out ruthlessly. Stefano argued he should release the reins, relax a little. Allow people to see the man rather than the Crown Prince. But that was the way to chaos, no matter what the press made up about him. The standards he set were highest for himself. His recent life was about calm and control. This? Hannah Barrington seemed designed to torment him.

  ‘I don’t want to speak about socks. What’s the point of these ridiculous questions?’

  All the while she’d sat there in her own chair. Wearing black leggings, and some kind of soft grey top which clung to her slender form, sheer enough so he could see the trace of a bra. No colour on her, yet she was the most vibrant thing in the room, and he couldn’t look away. Right now she wasn’t looking at him, instead gently sweeping an infernal pencil over the page as he wore a path through the carpet, burning through his frustration. She didn’t seem to notice. Nibbling on her plum-coloured bottom lip. A slight frown on her brow. Such focus on a piece of paper, not on him.

  ‘I’m trying to engage in conversation,’ she said, ‘which would be easier if you participated by conversing back.’

  ‘I am speaking to you.’

  She glanced up at him briefly, her gaze searching. Flickering over him as if in a quick and efficient study, then back down at the page in front of her. ‘Conversation is a different thing entirely. It’s an exchange. You’re not exchanging, you’re...dictating.’

  He stopped behind the armchair in which she’d placed him. Gripped the back till his fingers crushed the exquisite fabric. He’d not sat all day, but had been solving a thousand small problems, and a few large ones, on the move. Reviewed the longlist of candidates for Lasserno’s new princess. Whilst he’d wished to be anywhere but here, the thought of stopping for the brief hour he’d allocated to her today had been almost pleasant. Yet she’d kept talking, and those questions had dredged up memories and feelings he hadn’t experienced in years. It was as though, if he let her speak any more, he might tell her everything that had plagued him since his mother’s death.

  ‘So you converse by asking about a valet? What other staff will you be enquiring about? Whether I have my own personal fingernail-buffer?’

  He couldn’t see what she was doing, the book in which she drew tilted the wrong way. She looked up again from her page. Cocked her head. Fixed her attention to his hands again. Her lips parted, then she went back to drawing.

  ‘That would tell me a lot about you, but you strike me as...assured rather than vain.’

  He couldn’t help a bitter laugh. At least there he hadn’t taken after his father. A man always seeking approval, adoration. Being feted for his looks. Searching out women to worship him. His wife’s love had never been enough. In the end coldness and hatred was all that had fuelled their doomed marriage.

  ‘So long as my suits fit, I have little interest. I don’t need to appear on best-dressed lists year after year.’ Unlike his father, who’d eschewed the court-appointed royal tailor for Savile Row. Almost putting the man and his family out of business, when they’d tended royalty in Lasserno for over a century. Alessio had rectified that slight, supporting locals who had a long and proud tradition rather than looking outside the country for what was easily supplied here.

  Anyhow, what did a suit matter when all he wanted to do was spend the limited time available to him on horseback, as if to outride the weight of responsibility that some days seemed as if it could crush him? His suit was a mere costume he wore, the trappings of a leader. It said nothing about the man at all.

  Hannah stopped drawing, looked at him again. Long, slow. Her gaze drifting over his face, lower. To his hands. Fixing itself there. The way she studied him took on a life of its own. His heart beat a little faster. An odd sensation stirring in his gut, almost like excitement. He released his grip on the chair in front of him and stood straighter. Was her assessment of him an artist’s, or a woman’s? Did she like what she saw? He didn’t know why that last question was so important to answer, because the answer was meaningless and changed nothing.

  ‘Your suit fits...exquisitely.’ Her voice was soft, breathy, almost as if what she said surprised her. The tone of it stroked over his skin, touching him everywhere. Alessio relished the sensation. It was like being handed an unexpected gift.

  Hannah placed her sketch pad and pencil face down on the carpet. Stood, pursed her lips. ‘And I think that’s half the problem. Let’s start again. Your Highness, could you please take off your suit jacket and have a seat?’

  Your Highness. Said with her perfect rounded vowels. A slight huskiness to it. He hesitated, almost as if being asked to remove his jacket were stripping him naked. As she waited for him she tucked an unruly strand of dark hair, that had escaped her efforts to secure it, behind her ear. Alessio peeled the jacket from his body, the air of the room cooling him as he did.

  Hannah walked towards him, left hand outstretched. He handed her his jacket. She took it and hung it over the back of a small dining chair, running her hands over the sho
ulders. A stunning flash of heat tore through him as he imagined those hands stroking over his own shoulders. Something that could never, ever happen. He sat in the armchair again. Settling in to get comfortable when all of him was on edge. Tried to lounge with intent, whatever that meant.

  ‘You should take off the tie.’ Alessio didn’t think. He moved his hands to the red silk. Loosened it, and only had a fleeting moment where he could finally breathe before his chest tightened again. He held out his hand with the tie and she took it, the minutest brush of her fingertips on his, and the world could have stopped turning, on the precipice of tempting desires he must ignore.

  Was she affected too? Her hands caressed the tie, gently smoothing the fabric, wrapping it round her palm to create a perfect spiral and placing it on a side table. Then she faced him. Perhaps the colour was higher on her cheeks? Or perhaps he was projecting his own torrid desires onto her.

  It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. When he realised the extent of his father’s profligate behaviour, he’d seen no choice but for his own to be exemplary. All his waking hours had been taken up with trying to draw attention from his father, hiding his ultimate disgrace, rebuilding Lasserno’s reputation. He would not let his people suffer at the hands of his family. These things required him to be better. He shouldn’t crave the softness of a touch. He’d inured himself to such things because of the job he must do. It required toughness, no distractions. He’d risen above it before. He would again.

  But how for a few bright, blinding moments did he wish he could fall.

  She moved closer again, looking down on him. A strange and discomfiting position to be in. As if for the first time he was at some kind of disadvantage, when his whole life had been full of the advantages of his position. Her eyes were luminous in the late-morning light. A mysterious wash of green and gold, like the ocean close to the shore. Hannah cocked her head. Pointed, waggling her finger at him. He shouldn’t have tolerated that. It was a breach of protocol, but protocol be damned. He didn’t care.

  ‘The top two buttons as well.’

  Dio, in this moment she could have him completely naked if she asked. The thrill of that thought was intoxicating. The whole atmosphere in the room thickened, time slowing to these perfectly innocent words weighted with his illicit imaginings. Alessio didn’t even think. He undid the two buttons on his shirt. More slowly than he ought, since she kept her gaze on every move of his fingers, almost as if hoping he didn’t stop, that he undid all of them.

  Or that was what he imagined. In his fantasies he could allow it. Never in reality.

  She moved her hand, as if she were reaching out again. Hesitated. Checking herself. Her lips parted. Then she dropped her arm and stepped back. Shook her head.

  ‘What?’ His voice was rough as it ground out of him. Frustrated at the things he could not have.

  Hannah went back to her chair. Grabbed her sketch pad and pencil. ‘I thought you might run your hands through your hair. Make it a little untidy.’

  Their gazes clashed and held. He’d look as if he’d rolled out of bed if he did that. Did she want him messy? As though they’d spent a night together? His hands involuntarily gripped the satiny fabric of the chair again, to hold on to something.

  ‘But then I realise that untidy wouldn’t be you...Your Highness.’

  He almost shouted to her that yes, it was. He could be that man. He had been in the past, when life had been freer and he’d thought only of riding for his country, not taking the throne too soon and repairing the disaster wrought by his father. But she’d reminded them both, with his title, that he was born to a job and would not deviate. He clenched his teeth. Swallowed down the bitter taint of disappointment as she began her drawing again, with deft moves of her pencil that felt as if she were inscribing on his skin. He wondered what else she saw of him, with her artist’s eyes.

  ‘Could you answer a question for me?’ she asked. ‘One question, honestly, with no equivocation?’

  Alessio gritted his teeth. He’d kept so much of himself private for so long, particularly after Allegra’s attempts at courting the press, that agreeing to any question he didn’t vet beforehand was unnatural to him. Most respectable journalists in Lasserno knew this and played the game with the rules he’d set. The tabloids made up what they wanted in the absence of a story. He didn’t like this stranger, this young, almost guileless woman, demanding parts of him he rarely granted to anyone.

  ‘Yes.’ She didn’t look up. Showed no reaction to his agreement at all. But he wasn’t giving away everything without exacting a price. ‘So long as you answer one of mine.’

  Her head whipped up from the page. She was paying attention to him now, and something hot and potent thrummed through him. He liked it far too much.

  ‘That’s not how this works. It’s all about you.’

  ‘You want to know so much of others yet give none of yourself.’ She nibbled on her bottom lip again, drawing his attention to her distracting mouth. The way her teeth worked on the soft flesh. He craved to soothe away the sting of her teeth, see if her lips were as soft as they looked.

  ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘People might accuse you of having something to hide.’

  He wasn’t sure she had secrets. She’d been investigated before the commission for his portrait was requested. In his life now, that was a given. But in some perverse way he enjoyed her discomfort, since she was causing him so many inconvenient and uncomfortable thoughts of his own.

  ‘I don’t have any secrets. I just find people prefer to talk about themselves. I’m not that interesting. But if you answer my question, you can ask one of yours.’

  She shrugged, and the soft shirt she wore sagged a little, exposing the hint of a bra strap before she pushed it back onto her shoulder. But he didn’t miss the slice of pale blue, and he firmly shut down imaginings of whether her underwear was lace or something practical. Instead, he checked his watch. Their hour had almost ended, and yet he didn’t want to leave. How long could he wait here, sitting in the chair, before someone would come to find him?

  ‘Then ask what you wish.’

  ‘If you want to escape from it all, what do you do?’

  He could have laughed, the answer so easy it required no effort at all. ‘I ride my horses.’

  Her look softened a fraction, or perhaps it was his imagination. The corners of her mouth turning up, her gaze seeming far away. It almost appeared wistful, but the moment was lost as she went back to her drawing. He could have asked her any question at all, but that fleeting look on her face spoke to him in some way.

  ‘Do you ride, Signorina Barrington?’

  Her pencil dragged to a stop on the page. Her eyes a little wider as she paled, looking almost...fearful.

  ‘I—I haven’t...not for a long time.’

  He wondered whether she would answer more questions if he asked them, but a respectful knock sounded at the door. He let out a long, slow breath. The knock reminded Alessio of his real life, not the fantasy that he could do what he wished, without all the responsibilities he had. He rose from his chair as the door opened and Stefano walked inside. Holding a pair of black socks. An eyebrow raised, meaning he would ask questions about what went on in this room whilst he was away, which Alessio would not deign to answer. He needed to go now, but his decision was simple. She wanted to get to know the man? He had the perfect answer.

  ‘Prepare yourself. Tomorrow, meet me at the stables. Then we’ll ride.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HANNAH HESITATED AT the door of the magnificent stables on the lower reaches of the palace grounds. Assailed by the earthy scents she’d once loved, of lucerne, hay and straw. In the past that smell had signalled her happiest moments. Spending time with her precious horse, Beau. The hours brushing him, mucking out the stables, never a chore. She’d dreamed of owning stables like this back then. Such
fleeting, futile fantasies before everything had turned to dust.

  The awe of the space mingled with a heaviness in her chest, making it hard to breathe. She didn’t want the memories now. This stable, riding, were symbols of a life lost to her. There was no escaping it here. The glint of crushed metal, the tick of a hot, broken engine. The dread silence from her parents. The terrified whinnies of her mortally injured horse. It all came back with a sickening rush. She faltered for a second. Stood to take it in, work it through. For a moment, the pain of that day was as sharp and bright as if it had just happened. But she had no choice other than to be here. Hannah took a deep breath. This was simply a job. Though it didn’t stop the sense of regret and loss almost overwhelming her.

  She walked to where she’d been told to go. Where two horses now stood saddled, with a person she assumed was the groom. Their tack was shiny and perfect.

  That sick feeling intensified...the roar of blood surging in her ears, her heart pounding against her ribcage. Everything was swirling in a dizzying attack to her senses of a day when life as she knew it had ended. She’d lost her hopes and dreams in the accident. Her whole life had changed. She’d rebuilt it, but some days the foundations seemed a little unstable. As if everything could fall apart again. Which was more truth than a lie, after what her uncle had done. A sense of betrayal sliced through her again, that the people she should have been able to trust had failed her. It all came down to work in the end, yet right now if she could turn around and flee, leave handsome princes and shattered dreams behind, she would. But her choices ended with her uncle’s embezzlement. Hannah faltered, stopped for a second. Took some steadying breaths as her legs trembled.