King's Ransom. Amelia Autin

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      He briefly stopped a passing waiter and took a champagne flute, which he formally offered to her before taking one for himself. Then he saluted her with his glass and spoke for the first time since he’d met her at the top of the stairs, and his voice was just as she remembered. Deep, tender, with that barest hint of an accent to his English. “You are more beautiful in person than any woman has a right to be.”

      She stiffened. Was he mocking her? He’d known her when she hadn’t been beautiful. When she’d been plain and awkward. He seemed to read her mind and shook his head slightly. “No, Juliana. Beauty of face and figure will fade. But your eyes, those windows into your soul, will always be beautiful to me. Forever and a day.”

      Those last four words stabbed at her heart. Once upon a time she’d prayed to hear those words from him. Once upon a time she’d thought he felt them, even if he didn’t say them. But she’d been wrong. Horribly, heart-wrenchingly wrong. She’d paid the price of loving unwisely, while he...

      Desperate to wound him as grievously as he had wounded her with his comment, Juliana drawled cynically, “Ah yes, those immortal words, forever and a day.” She raised her champagne glass to him in a mocking toast. “To love. Immortal love. Isn’t that why I’m here?”

      Andre’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What do you mean by that?”

      “King’s Ransom. A love story for the ages,” she said flippantly. “A fairy tale. As if any man, then or now, ever loved a woman that much.” She tried for a carefree laugh, but couldn’t prevent a tinge of bitterness from creeping in. Couldn’t prevent her own life’s experiences from coloring her perspective. “As if any man in that day and age would take a woman back who had shamed him in the eyes of the known world. Not to mention a king who could easily have the marriage annulled and have his pick of women. Chaste women.”

      She faltered at the icy expression in his eyes and the danger that radiated from him, so palpable she could feel it. She stared up at him, remembering Andre telling her the love story behind King’s Ransom, the story of the founder of the House of Marianescu, the first king of Zakhar. Remembering how she’d hung on every word. Remembering how she’d believed in the immortal love the story represented—once upon a time.

      Remembering, too, how she’d yearned to be a woman like Eleonora, who had inspired that kind of love in her husband, the first Andre Alexei. How she’d dreamed of someday making her Andre love her that way. My Andre? she told herself with redoubled cynicism. He was never my Andre. What a fool I was. As if I ever meant anything to him other than another conquest.

      The frightening look in Andre’s eyes faded. Then he smiled faintly as he slowly, deliberately looked her over from head to toe, and she knew he was aware she was naked beneath her dress. Something flickered in his eyes. Possessiveness. Desire. The sleeping wolf awakening at the sight of a helpless fawn. “Throughout history men have taken women for a variety of reasons.” His gaze held hers prisoner. “Love is only one of them.”

      A frisson of fear ran down Juliana’s spine, and in that instant she knew Andre wanted her. More than that, he was determined to have her. In a different century he would have just taken her—droit de seigneur—whether or not she wanted him, whether or not she already belonged to another man.

      But that can’t happen today...can it? she reasoned with herself, but the sudden pounding of her heart refused to be calmed. Zakhar was one of the last absolute monarchies left in the world, and the man standing in front of her was its king. If she just disappeared...who would know what had happened to her? Who would dare to question the king?

      Her eyes widened and her breath quickened as her body automatically shifted into full panic mode—muscles tightening in a fight-or-flight reflex that told her to...run, damn it! Run! Her fear must have communicated itself to him, because his smile faded, and a tinge of some other emotion entered his gaze, something she couldn’t decipher. It almost looked like...pain. But that didn’t make sense...did it?

      “Do not run, Juliana,” he said softly, reassuringly. “You have nothing to fear from me. You never did.” It wasn’t that easy, of course. She couldn’t just turn off the panic at a word from him. Especially since his words didn’t stop there. “When I make love to you,” he said, his eyes suddenly blazing, his deep voice curling inside her, making her knees weak, “you will come to me of your own free will. You will come to me because you want me the same way I want you.” Naked and trembling. He didn’t say the words, but his vivid green eyes told her he remembered.

      A memory flashed into her mind, a memory she’d resolutely suppressed until now. And suddenly she was seeing Andre as she’d seen him all those years ago, his green eyes in a shaft of moonlight, glowing with what she’d fooled herself into believing was love. She was hearing his voice, that deep, throbbing voice she still heard in her dreams, whispering in Zakharan, “Now it begins.”

      “Never,” she whispered from a throat gone suddenly dry, fighting the sensual web he was weaving. Fighting herself. “Never again.”

      His faint smile returned and his voice dropped a notch. “You will want me again, Juliana. That is a promise, not a threat. And when I take you, you will understand why.” With that parting shot Andre turned on his heels and strode away.

      Arrogant. Breath hissed out of Juliana as she watched him mingle with his other guests, so suave, so debonair, so much the gentleman king. But he hadn’t been a gentleman with her. He’d been an arrogant savage, albeit with a kingly mask cloaking his wolfish intentions. She downed the glass of champagne in her hand, needing something to cool her parched throat. But that was a mistake. She’d had nothing to eat all day and the alcohol went right to her head, making her dizzy. Maybe it’s not the alcohol, she thought wildly. Maybe it’s him.

      He turned just then, his eyes staring at her from across the vast room. Even though she couldn’t see the color of his eyes at that distance, she felt those green orbs stripping her dress off until she shivered. And trembled. The power in him was incredible. It pulled at her, drawing her under his spell the way it had always done. He was a man, first and foremost. The king was secondary. But that was just as frightening as the idea that he might kidnap her and hold her captive until he was ready to let her go.

      If he ever let her go.

      Movement out of the corner of her eye made Juliana tear her gaze away from Andre, and she sighed gratefully as she saw Dirk and Sabrina nearing. Sabrina was wearing a sequined sky blue tunic belted over a long silver skirt, with the delicate filigree sapphire necklace and earrings that suited her. Juliana knew Dirk had given them to her as a pledge of his love years ago from the money he’d earned in his first starring role, and she wore them often. Like Juliana, she had “matched her eyes” with her dress, and from a distance she looked as lovely as she always did. But close up her smile looked forced, and there were two tiny lines of pain bracketing her mouth.

      “Bree, are you okay? You look—”

      Sabrina’s smile widened, but it was an effort. “It’s nothing, just a twinge, that’s all.” She turned in the direction where Juliana had been staring when she walked up. “That is a dangerous man,” she said softly, and Juliana couldn’t hide her sharp intake of breath. “He’s why you didn’t want to return to Zakhar.” The eyes of the two women met, and Sabrina’s were knowing, sympathetic.

      Dirk spoke for the first time. “So that’s the king of Zakhar. I’ve seen the portrait of the first king in the portrait gallery, and I must СКАЧАТЬ