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‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?’ she asked, before gnawing on her crimson bruised bottom lip.
‘As soon as I figure it out, yes.’ Because despite his misgivings, despite what she’d said, something…something told him she held the key to his fate. He couldn’t explain it if he tried—just as he’d never been able to explain how he’d known she was in grave danger the day they’d met. How when their eyes had locked he’d known she belonged to him.
Ignorant of his internal debate, she heaved a great sigh at his cool reply. But it had taken him less than ten seconds to figure out the best way to play this game: total emotional lockdown. Which was no inconsiderable feat when that aloof haughtiness kept invading her body like some freakish poltergeist and he was overcome with the violent need to grab her and shake it loose. Then there was the way her mind clearly often wandered down a path that he suspected was paved with turmoil, because guilt would walk all over her face. It made him want to climb into her brain and seduce her secrets.
The bright lights of the Altiport runway came into view, as did his sleek black private jet embellished with the Guerrero family crest—a large snake curling around the blade of a sword—and she clutched her bag to her chest as if it held the crown jewels. Which, he conceded, might be true. His knowledge of women’s paraphernalia was zilch.
‘Thane, look. Be reasonable about this. I’m your enemy—there isn’t anything I could give you but trouble. For starters, the bellboy saw me drive away in your car. Does he know who you are?’
He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘I imagine so. I believe I am very difficult to miss.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Arrogance really should be your middle name. My point is: come morning, Augustus will know I’m with you. Then he’ll call my father—because, let me tell you, they are as thick as thieves. Soon after my father will be on the warpath. So you have to let me go home. My family will worry if I just vanish into thin air.’
‘Let them suffer,’ he said. Just as he’d done. Trying to fill the empty, aching void of losing her. Had she cared for him? Obviously not.
She huffed in disgust. ‘Well, how gallant of you. How would you feel if someone you loved disappeared off the face of the earth?’
His mouth shaped to tell her he knew exactly how it felt, but first his pride stopped him, and then her words. Love? This had nothing to do with love. He was a protective man by nature, and naturally that extended to her. She’d been his. Correction: she was his. Regardless of her true identity. Moreover, he would kiss Arunthian soil before he admitted any hint of vulnerability to her. To anyone. He’d been nine years old when he’d last made that mistake—telling his father that enclosed spaces made him violently sick. Twenty-four hours down an abandoned well had taught him much.
‘Honestly, could you be a more heartless brute?’
It didn’t escape him that he’d been called worse things in his time—a murderer, a mercenary, a traitor—so why the devil it stung coming from her was a mystery.
‘I’m sure I could if I put my mind to it,’ he drawled darkly.
‘But you’re going to be a wanted man. Do you want to spend the rest of your days in a jail cell?’
Thane turned to face her and raised one mocking eyebrow. ‘Your father would have to catch me first princesa—and, believe me, that is impossible.’
‘It’s not about catching you,’ she said, pointing at his shirt before turning the same finger back on herself. ‘He’ll come for me. Do you want an Arunthian army on your doorstep?’
As if.
‘They would never get through Galancian airspace. Do you forget who I am? Your security and your army are no match for mine.’
‘You’re probably right. But that’s because we are peacekeepers. Not fighters. Our people don’t live in fear of an iron-fisted rule. We are rich in life and happiness and that is more important to us.’
Thane scoffed. Did she think he didn’t want those things for his own people? What did she think he fought for? The good of his health? But the topic did bring him full circle to his hellishly risky concept. She could, in effect, help him gain a better life for them. Relax that iron-fisted rule she’d just accused him of by placing his crown in his hands.
Dios, it was mad even to think any union could possibly work, but the notion spun his brain into a frenzied furore. Snagging on one name: Augustus.
