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She was utterly lost in their conversation as they walked the streets of Milan, unaware of the young man who tripped over his feet at the sight of her, or the woman who barged her boyfriend with her shoulder for staring at Marit a little too long. Marit seemed completely unaware of the effect she was having—and Lykos knew that it was nothing to do with her title. In fact, from what he had gleaned, despite some rather painful and embarrassing encounters with the press as a young girl and teenager, all attention-seeking behaviour had seemed to stop after the skiing accident she’d had at fourteen. The resulting surgery had impacted her parents’ diplomatic visit to Japan, Marit’s mother returning to Svardia to take care of Marit while her father remained behind with his delegation.
Lykos had flicked through the press articles and photographs of Marit’s mother descending the steps of a small jet, her face hollow with concern. She’d gone straight to the hospital, where more photographs caught her in intense discussions with doctors, appearing beside reports from the school friends on the same trip quoted as saying how scared they’d been and how reckless Marit had been.
Even now Lykos felt rising resentment at the childish behaviour of the young woman beside him. He would have given anything as a child to have his mother be with him when sick, instead of dropping him at an orphanage and not looking back even once.
Aleksander had briefed him on why he needed Marit to return to Svardia. He’d been sworn to secrecy over their sister’s infertility issues that meant Marit needed to step up and into that role. And what had she done? Run away. And when Aleksander needed more time—the reason was honestly none of Lykos’s business—she’d run awayagain. To a blues club.
With one ear he continued to listen to her expounding the virtues of different female singers in country blues and classic blues as he purposefully held onto his irritation. What he couldn’t understand was why the knowledge of her spoilt selfishness was not enough of a deterrent to his body’s reaction to her. Maybe he was coming down with something. A cold? The flu? It was inexplicable.
Lykos was acutely familiar with attraction and arousal. He was a healthy, virile Greek. He enjoyed his sexual exploits as much, if not more, than the next man. But blondes weren’t his type. Princesses weren’t his type. And twenty-two-year-olds who had absolutely no idea what they were doing were Not. His. Type.
He was so busy telling himself that, he hadn’t realised that she’d stopped walking and pulled himself up short to find her staring up at a building ten feet behind him. The look on her face whipped concern through him in a heartbeat.
‘Marit?’ He closed the distance between them in short strides, the distress marring her features making him want to pull her to him. Her eyes sparkled with a sheen of tears she hastily tried to blink away. Teeth pierced her bottom lip, as if to stop it trembling. She swallowed once and then shrugged her shoulder.
‘It’s okay. It was foolish to come here without...’ Marit’s words trailed off as she looked back up at an old building that he could now see had once been a large three-storey bar. Chipboard covered all but a few windows, the rest shards of jagged glass. A sign that read ‘Sforzando’ was missing a few letters, old posters curled and peeled down from the wall, months if not years of rain and pollution destroying images of musicians and set lists. It reminded him of an oldrebetikotavern he and Theron used to sneak into when they were teenagers, but this building was derelict. No music played here any more.
He turned back to see Marit taking in the desolation of the building she had stolen a wallet and crossed countries to reach, and even if she was the spoilt youngest daughter of a king it didn’t make her sadness any less real or evident.
‘Marit,’ he said, stretching out his hand.
She shook her head and stepped back from his reach, looking up and down the street to mask her feelings. She opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come and he realised that she’d come to the end of her fight, the defeat in her eyes so much worse than her rebellion or anger.
He whistled to the cab he saw turning into the top of the street and when it pulled up beside them he ushered Marit into the white car. Throughout the journey his gaze flickered back and forth between Marit, the road ahead and the driver who, thankfully, seemed to have no idea who his royal passenger was.
Lykos checked his watch. It was six-thirty by the time the driver pulled up outside the grand entrance of L’Aranceto. The liveried doorman had a frown on his face until the moment he recognised who it was emerging from the taxi.
‘Signor Livas,’ he said, walking forward with renewed vigour. ‘My apologies, we weren’t expecting you.’
‘Nothing to apologise for, Benito. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision,’ Lykos replied, reassuring the man with a friendly hand on his shoulder. ‘Hence no luggage. Nevertheless, discretion would be appreciated,’ he whispered congenially. Lykos didn’t think that either Aleksander or Marit would appreciate a resurgence of rumours about Svardia’s youngest royal, especially not now.
Benito dipped his head. ‘Of course.’
Lykos turned back to the cab and held his hand out to Marit, who must have been upset as she took it without question or complaint. Which, perversely, Lykos didn’t like one bit. It seemed as if she were in shock, but why it had been the blues club rather than—say—kidnap, a failed wedding or an international chase, Lykos honestly couldn’t fathom.
He guided her through the gold-framed doors that Benito held open and nodded to him as he moved through to the hotel bar, knowing that the doorman would attend to checking them into suitable accommodation.
Over the years Lykos had travelled the globe, the transient nature of his business suiting his needs and his temperament, but this was one of his favourite hotels. The suites all had a balcony, which was necessary for a man who never slept well at the best of times but it was much worse when he couldn’t see the sky, and the staff here knew him and liked him. As evidenced by the smile he was greeted with from Oriana, the dark-haired beauty behind the bar who, despite being twenty years older, enjoyed their flirtatious banter as much as him.
‘Lykos, it is very unkind of you to bring such a beautiful companion into my bar,’ she chided, her English better than his Italian. Although a quirk of Lykos’s intelligence had given him the ability to easily and quickly pick up foreign languages, he knew Oriana enjoyed the practice on a forgiving customer.
‘If the situation wasn’t so dire, I would never have betrayed you in such a way,tesoro mio.’
She flicked a white dishcloth at him that snapped satisfyingly through the quiet of the bar. ‘Go sit down. I will bring you your drinks.’
‘Grazie mille,’Lykos replied, a hand hovering at Marit’s back, guiding her to a booth in the shadowed end of the bar.
Marit let him all but pour her into the seat at the round dark marble table and watched him with large eyes as he took his opposite her. He placed an elbow on the arm of his chair and leaned into his palm, rubbing the stubble on his chin as he watched her as openly as she watched him.
This time their connection wasn’t one of challenge or judgement, rather it was a reassessment of sorts. So far, nothing in the last ten hours had been as he’d expected from the pampered Princess he’d read about in his file from Theron.
‘You didn’t order any drinks.’
‘I didn’t have to.’
‘You’re that good?’ Marit asked with a raised eyebrow.
‘No. Oriana is.’
