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Maybe so.
Alyssa figured that would go a long way toward explaining the way her father—her adoptive father—had treated her mother. It would explain how he’d tried to treat her. How he had treated her, as it turned out, thinking he could sell her as if time had turned back hundreds of years.
She was being carried off by a stranger, an arrogant, unwelcome visitor in this house that should have been hers.
The feel of his arms closing around her stunned her, but not for long. When Lucas began striding from the room, her useless lawyer sputtering weak protests as he scurried after them, Alyssa’s shock turned to fury.
“Hey!” she shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The Lord of the Universe didn’t answer. He just kept walking toward the front door.
“Wait a minute!” Her voice rose higher. “I said—”
“I heard what you said.” He shifted her weight, opened the door and stepped onto the porch. A chorus of crickets and tree frogs greeted his appearance. “At close to a thousand decibels, how could I not?”
The old wooden porch creaked as he walked across it and made his way down the steps. To where? Alyssa thought crazily, but the answer was obvious.
He was taking her to Thaddeus’s black Cadillac.
The hell he was!
She kicked. She cursed. She pummeled his hard, unyielding shoulders. And she might have been an annoying mosquito, for all the response that got her.
“Damn it,” she shrieked, “you can’t do this!”
The prince dropped her to her feet beside the car.
“Norton. Give me your keys.”
The command rang with authority. So did the pressure of the hand that kept her pinned to his side. Alyssa threw a desperate look at the lawyer who was watching the drama unfold with his pudgy mouth hanging open.
“Thaddeus,” she said, “say something!”
Thaddeus stared at her. Then he cleared his throat.
“Your Highness. Your Majesty. Really, I don’t think—”
“That’s correct,” Lucas said coldly. “You can’t, or you would never have written that contract.”
“I told you, it wasn’t me, sir! It was your grandfather’s people. Madeira, Vasquez, Sterling and Goldberg. Madrid, London, New York—”
“Spare me the roadmap, Norton. I know where they’re located. Just give me your keys.”
“Don’t listen to him, Thaddeus!”
“She’s right, sir. I mean, she could be right. About you not being able to do this. In fact, my legal opinion is—”
“He’s useless,” Lucas said to Alyssa. “If he weren’t, you wouldn’t be in this fix to start with. His advice is the last thing you need.”
“You just want me to lose the ranch!”
“You’ve already lost it, Alyssa. It’s been sold. You have no claim to it any longer.”
Her face heated. “Unless I marry you.”
“There’s no chance of that,” Lucas said sharply. “If you think I’d let myself be ensnared in some old man’s scheme…”
“You, ensnared? I’m the one who’s trapped.” Alyssa choked back a laugh. “It’s like waking up and discovering you’re starring in a bad old movie. The landlord. The maiden—”
