Free Prince of Scandal by Annie West

that would come if I gave up the throne.’ He paused. ‘Remember why you agreed to come here.’
    Blazing eyes meshed with hers and any hope she’d harboured that he wouldn’t follow through on his threat vanished. This man would do whatever it took to get what he wanted. How had she let last night’s fake tenderness blind her to that? Or his solicitude here in the car?
    Luisa pulled her jacket close and turned to face the window. She couldn’t face him with her emotions so raw.
    They’d left the highway for the old part of the city. Cobblestones rumbled under the wheels as they crossed a wide square of pastel-coloured baroque buildings that housed expensive shops.
    The car turned and before them appeared a steep incline, almost a cliff. Above that, seeming to grow from the living rock, towered the royal castle. Dark grey stone with round towers and forest green roofs just visible behind the massive battlement.
    Guidebooks said the castle was a superb example of medieval construction, updated with spectacular eighteenth century salons and modern amenities. That it commanded extraordinary views to the Alps and down the wide river valley. Thatits treasure house was unrivalled in central Europe and its ballroom an architectural gem.
    But what stuck in Luisa’s mind was that in almost a millennium of use no one had ever escaped the castle’s dungeons once locked up by order of the king.
    Her suite of rooms was airy, light and sumptuous. Not at all like a dank prison cell. Yet Luisa barely took in the silk and gilt loveliness.
    She stood before the wide windows, staring to distant snowcapped mountains. That was where Ardissia lay. The place that tied her to wealth and position and a life of empty gloss instead of emotional warmth and security. Tied her to Raul. A man whose ambition repelled, yet who made her tremble with glorious, dreadful excitement.
    Luisa trailed her fingers appreciatively over the antique desk. It wasn’t that she didn’t like beautiful things, or the designer clothes wealth could buy. It was that she knew they weren’t any substitute for happiness. For warmth and caring and love. She’d grown up with love and her one disastrous foray into romance had taught her she couldn’t accept anything else.
    On impulse she snatched up the phone. A dialling tone buzzed in her ear and her heart leapt at the idea of calling home. She looked at her watch, calculating the time difference. With the help of the phone book she found the international code and rang home.
    ‘Oh, pet! It’s so good to hear your voice.’ Mary’s excited chatter eased some of the tension drawn tight in Luisa’s stomach. She sank back onto a silk upholstered chair in front of the desk.
    ‘We’ve been wondering how you are and what you’re doing. Are you well? How was the trip? Did that lovely Prince Raul look after you?’
    Luisa bit her lip at the memory of how well Raul had looked after her. He’d played on her vulnerability and used his owncompelling attraction to lay bare naïve longings she hadn’t even realised she harboured.
    ‘The trip was fine, Mary. I even had my own bed on the plane. And then we stopped in Paris—’
    ‘Paris? Really?’
    Soon Luisa was swept along by Mary’s demands for details, peppered with her aunt’s exclamations and observations. Eventually the talk turned to home.
    ‘We’ve been missing you, love. It seems strange with that new bloke and his son in your house. But I can’t deny they’ve made a good start. He’s a decent manager, by the look of it. And he reckons the changes you and your dad began to modernise the co-op were spot on. Well, I could have told him that! And between you and me, it’s such a relief knowing that debt’s going to be settled. Sam is like a new man without that weighing on him. And Josie’s all agog about moving into town to take up an apprenticeship, now we’ll be able to afford to help her with rent. And little Julia Todd is looking so much better these