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CHAPTER ONE
VIOLET BARRINGHALL HELD the thick envelope in her hand, mutiny brimming in her heart. She managed to dredge up a thin smile for the smartly dressed courier before shutting her apartment door.
She knew its sender without peeking inside. Its weighted richness shrieked wealth, and its creamy, seamless perfection stressed its importance. The gold-embossed emblem on the top right-hand corner was distinctive enough without her years-long exposure to the family that bore it with centuries-old pride and unapologetic arrogance.
But more than that she encountered an even purer strain of that pride and arrogance on a daily basis in the form of His Royal Highness Prince Zakary Philippe Montegova—the sender of the envelope in her hand.
It wasn’t a highbrow invitation.
No, this was a summons.
She knew this because she’d been responsible for sending out those invitations for his latest fundraising event herself, in her role as his long-suffering dogsbody for the last twelve weeks.
Three months, and counting, of pure hell. Of relentless commands and impossible expectations of perfection from a man—no, a prince—who demanded the very best of himself and therefore of everyone else around him as well.
As Director of the House of Montegova Trust, a foundation that dealt with everything from managing Montegovan business interests abroad to charity and conservation work all over the world, the trust had gained international acclaim for the small but immensely wealthy Mediterranean kingdom.
Together with his brother, Crown Prince Remi Montegova, and their mother, the Queen, Zak had elevated the status of the kingdom to even greater heights since the untimely death of the King over a decade ago.
Where others would’ve grown content at achieving multi-billionaire status, unquestioning respect and reverence, and rested on their laurels, Zak was even more driven, his terrifying, breakneck work ethic inexhaustible. Heck, every facet of his life was lived in high octane.
Right down to the revolving-door speed of his personal liaisons.
Violet didn’t want to think about that. Right now, she’d give anything to completely erase Zak Montegova from her memory. At least for the next twelve hours.
But she couldn’t.
She’d committed to being at his beck and call. In fact, that clause was specifically stated in her contract with the trust. While she had several reservations about the man himself, she couldn’t forget that her degree in community development and her personal career ambition as a conservationist would be given a huge boost with a stint at the trust on her CV. It was why her deliberations about accepting the secondment offer in New York had been woefully short but immensely painful.
Because, aside from her grimace-inducing personal history with Zak, it directly played into her mother’s blatant and conniving plans.
Despite telling herself that incident was a thing of the past, Violet hadn’t been able to consign it to history. Like a recurring nightmare, i
t leapt to life and replayed in vivid Technicolor every time she was in Zak’s presence, which these days happened to be several hours of every day.
Three more months. A mere ninety-odd days. What could possibly go wrong?
Like an impossibly perfect spectre, his face loomed in her mind’s eye.
Formidable perfection. Insufferably handsome, with a royal swagger that shouted his awareness of his charisma. The raw prowess she’d heard whispers about long before she’d first encountered him.
Every dismissive word he’d thrown at her that day in her mother’s garden six years ago had been steeped in pure masculine arrogance. He’d carried that entitlement in his thick, broad shoulders and arrogant slant of his head as he’d walked away, secure in the knowledge that his manhood was assured, even worshipped by yet another woman, while he’d cruelly rebuffed the attention he’d garnered.
Violet’s face heated up at the memory. Her hand curled tighter around the envelope, one heartbeat away from crumpling the expensive paper. Slowly, she unclenched her fist, breathed deeply to restore her equilibrium. She wasn’t eighteen any more, hadn’t been for six long, tough years.
She’d had to grow up pretty damned fast shortly after that eye-opening party, thanks to an unexpected heart attack taking her father, and the discovery that the life of luxury they’d led had been lived on the back of a ruthlessly guarded facade of falsehoods, humiliating ingratiation and a blatant and ultimately futile exercise of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The shocking revelation that the Earl and Countess Barringhall weren’t as esteemed or as wealthy as they’d led the world to believe, that they were in fact destitute to the point of bankruptcy, had become an open, humiliating secret. Even far away at university, Violet had been subjected to snide and cruel gossip, social media playing its part in serialising the true status of her family to the world.
It was why Violet had buried herself in her work at the International Conservation Trust. And when the opportunity came up to work away from Barringhall and her mother’s ever-increasing efforts to marry her off to someone socially advantageous, Violet had grabbed it with both hands and taken the position in Oxford.
But with senior positions in the field going to more experienced colleagues, not conservationists with less than two years’ experience, she’d known it was only prudent to redouble her efforts to accelerate her career path and put herself entirely out of her mother’s orbit.
She’d taken this job despite knowing her mother’s close friendship with the Queen of Montegova would be exploited to the utmost in her bid to marry her daughter off.
Violet had considered telling her mother not to bother because she wouldn’t succeed. Little did her mother know that Zak Montegova couldn’t have made his feelings for Violet any clearer than he had that night six years ago or during the last few weeks she’d been working alongside him.
