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‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he said.
She swallowed the pulse of anger in her throat. ‘And I’m not going to. It’s insulting. I don’t know you from Adam and yet you think you can just throw money at me and I’ll do your bidding?’
He didn’t respond immediately. Not until the limo stopped at a set of traffic lights a mile from her flat. ‘I haven’t done any throwing since you haven’t given me your price. How long have you known Jules?’
Unease ramped up the vibrations in her belly. ‘I don’t see how that’s relevant—’
‘You’ve known him a little over a week. You’ve been out with him almost every night and yet you’ve never returned to his apartment with him.’
The depth of his knowledge sent a sheet of ice gliding over her skin. ‘That doesn’t mean anything.’
‘On the contrary, that leads me to conclude you’re holding out for something. What is it, Miss Myers?’
She smiled. ‘Sex, drugs and rock and roll—what else?’
Her dripping sarcasm went straight over his head as he threw a disdainful glance out of the window.
‘Jules wouldn’t be caught dead in this neighbourhood. So, unless you’ve been copulating somewhere other than his apartment, I highly doubt it’s sex. And I know for a fact that it’s not drugs.’
‘That’s ridiculous. How would you know that?’ she threw back.
Slightly narrowed eyes were the only indication that he found her questioning insolent. ‘Because it’s a condition of his remaining in my royal bursar’s good graces that he stays clean. In return for his generous allowance, he’s tested for drugs on a regular basis.’
Although the information allayed her earlier fears, Maddie was still disturbed by the revelations. ‘Tested? You’re saying that you pay him to stay off drugs?’
Prince Remirez’s lashes swept down. ‘Among many other things,’ he murmured.
Curiosity ramped high. ‘Really? Like what?’ she asked, telling herself it really was time she found out more about the man who’d promised to pay her to pretend to be his girlfriend.
‘Like things that are none of your concern,’ Prince Remirez returned chillingly. ‘And, just in case you’re inclined to peddle what I’ve just told you, know that I’ll sue you for everything you own if any of this makes it into tomorrow’s papers.’
‘Yeah, good luck with that,’ she replied waspishly, before she could help herself.
‘You think my caution is idle?’ he mused coolly, his stance relaxed in a way tha
t said he found her in no way threatening.
She shook her head, smiling with more than a little relief when the limo pulled into her street.
‘Not at all. I meant good luck finding anything of value to sue me for.’
The moment the words left her lips she wanted to snatch them back. But it was too late.
Eyes like laser beams latched onto the truth. ‘You’re destitute,’ he declared after a taut pause.
Shame crawled over Maddie’s skin. Followed instantaneously by searing anger. ‘What I am is none of your business. We’re strangers to one another. So I won’t jump to the conclusion that you’re a rich, pompous royal bastard who looks down his aristocratic nose at the less fortunate, if you don’t assume I’m some worthless gold-digger who’s just itching to jump straight out of your car and into a paparazzo’s pocket.’
‘I don’t have proof that you’re a worthless gold-digger, but I’m growing certain that you’re a shameless exhibitionist,’ he replied in that charismatically accented voice that threw her for a second before his meaning sank in.
‘Excuse me? What gives you the right—?’ She glanced down sharply and gasped as flames of embarrassment shot into her face.
Oh, God.
The hem of her dress had crept up almost to her crotch, and somehow one creamy slope of a breast was exposed in the gaping neckline of her halter top. The wardrobe Jules had provided for their outings was one of the many things she’d baulked at. One of the many things he’d stated were deal-breakers.
‘I suggest you pull yourself together before that notion becomes concrete,’ he advised, with a new husk in his voice and a banked blaze in his eyes that directed the flamed inward, singeing low in her belly and then lower, in places she didn’t want to acknowledge.
She hurriedly pulled down her hem and adjusted her neckline, aware that his gaze tracked her every movement. Aware she’d been judged and found severely lacking.
