Page 6 of A Ring to Claim Her Crown
For a man who had spent fourteen years cultivating his alter ego and burying his past, he felt no unease as he saw the confusion morph into shocked recognition on her delicate features. Almost in slow motion he watched as the ornate champagne flute she’d been clutching slid from her grip and fell to the floor, smashing into a thousand glittering pieces.
With recognition came a flash of fury in her eyes, so bright he thought she might send him into flames on the spot. Minerva had recognised him...and she was absolutely furious.
CHAPTER TWO
OFALLTHEways Minerva had imagined softly spoken Prince Oliveiro reappearing in her life over the past fourteen years, one where he had morphed into a fiercely confident hunk with arms like tree trunks had not been one of them. She didn’t know what had caught her eye from the opposite side of the garden—perhaps a reflection or a movement—but one moment she was looking out at the crowd and the next she was pinned by a familiar pair of green-grey eyes.
Shocked emotion blossomed in her chest as her mind tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
Liro.
No. How could it be him? Her mind struggled to process the slow smile that spread across his lips. A smile that was unmistakeably Liro’s, despite the changes in the rest of him. She went onto full autopilot, somehow managing to get through the rest of her speech without crumbling into a babbling mess on the floor. Her heartbeat still hadn’t slowed down, but her hands began to shake a little less once she’d practically run from the stage and downed an entire glass of champagne.
He clearly knew that she’d recognised him, and yet he had not attempted to leave or approach her. Still, she felt his eyes upon her the entire time as she was forced to speak with various delegates and politicians. When the guests were called to the grand dining hall, she found that seats had been assigned well in advance by the event staff, her position flanked by some of the suitors her mother had selected. She took her seat near the top of the table, looked up and there he was, seated directly across from her.
Such was the width of the grand table that she could barely hear a snippet of his conversation with the elderly woman to his left, something about shipping lanes and the cost of transit. He smiled politely at the woman, but it was not his old prince’s smile. This man was someone completely different. The young man she had fallen for had smiled with warmth and genuine affection, but this man seemed to exude nothing but cold indifference.
She hadn’t realised she was staring until green-grey eyes met hers, and she saw the challenge in them, just as she had the moment she’d first recognised him from the stage. She had passed off her glass-smashing as simple nerves, but now she could feel her mother’s attention upon her.Stay calm, she reminded herself. ‘Crown princess’ mode meant control and grace:rein it in. Was she imagining it or was he smirking at her ever so slightly?
As she listened to other guests comment upon his apparent success as a global shipping magnate of some sort, she felt her insides tighten. He was well known by his pseudonym, apparently, and had been leading a life of luxurious freedom upon a yacht. The same ridiculous, giant black super-yacht she’d stared down at from her bedroom window that morning. It felt as if fourteen years of repressed rage was building up through her skin with every bite of food she tried to force down.
How dared he? How dared he come here and use a false name, of all things? What was he up to? What was his motivation for blindsiding her this way? Revenge? She felt the mad urge to call the guards and have him thrown out of the kingdom all over again, just to see how it might feel.
Did her mother have any idea who she’d invited? Almost as soon as the idea entered her head she brushed it away: her mother had been the one to banish the prince, after all. Her mother had not played a role in his family’s downfall, but she had heard rumours about those who believed Arqaleta had benefited from the fall of their neighbours. Perhaps Liro had decided to come for revenge.
Conversations blurred into one as dinner wound down and the guests began to move towards the lively band that had set up stage in the ballroom. The clammy air was stifling as she moved through the crowd, smiling at the handful of faces she recognised. The band was a mixture of traditional Arqaletan folk music and a more modern sound, and soon dancers filled the floor. She politely refused one suitor’s quick request to join in and waited a beat before slipping quietly through an archway to the main hall.
She had made it no more than a few steps along the lamplit corridor before a large, looming shadow stepped out from an alcove, blocking her path.
The scent of cool sea air and cedarwood filled her nostrils as she took in the utter absence of any sign of the boy she had once loved. It was not him, and yet it was. Really...how had she not seen it at very first glance?
His short red hair was bathed in the light from the candelabra above, burnished golden in places, but much darker than the strawberry-blond it had been when she had known him. Was that why she hadn’t recognised him immediately? He had been wearing sunglasses too, a fact that offset the aquiline nose he had once so maligned.
Apart from that, his jaw was wider and covered with an expertly trimmed beard; he seemed broader everywhere, in fact, and more angular. The boy she had known had been tall but this man was huge. Large, taut muscles strained the shoulders of his jacket and the long cords of his neck. Prince Oliveiro could easily have been described as handsome, if a little awkward, but this man was brutally attractive. The fact that she had felt such an instant attraction to him without fully recognising his identity made her angry all over again.
‘Howare youhere?’ The words left her mouth in a furious rush, shocking her. She shook her head, holding up a hand to stop him from coming any closer. Or perhaps to stop herself...she didn’t know. All she knew was that she’d woken up this morning, fully open to the idea of matrimony after fourteen years of bitterness and cynicism... And this was the day he decided to walk back into her life? Pain rioted within her chest, pushing against her carefully posed exterior. She was becoming unhinged.
‘I received an invitation, princess. Just like everyone else.’ His voice was still as deep as she remembered. But had it always sounded so menacing?
‘So that’s how you’re going to play this...feigning innocence? Did you think that no one would recognise you?’
‘No one did, not even you at first.’
‘So what? You planned to come here as your alter ego? To accept an invitation as one of my suitors...after what you did?’ Her voice broke on the last word, the final shred of her control now dangerously thin.
He stepped close, his eyes strangely devoid of any emotion, eerily so. ‘I accepted an invitation addressed to my business name, nothing more.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘You think I would come here to parade myself in a line of men hoping to become your king?’
‘No. You had your chance at that position once, I suppose. But you decided against it, didn’t you?’ She let a small, hard laugh escape her lips. ‘It would have been nice to have been informed of your feelings before you disappeared without a trace—leaving me in a cloud of scandal, of course.’
‘Minerva.’
She turned back to face him, fully intending to continue the speech she had practised over and over in her mind for months after he’d run from his duty. After he’d run fromher. He deserved to know exactly how awful it had been. But he had stepped closer without her realising so that, instead of having a safe distance between them, she somehow wound up pressed flush against his chest.
Instinctively, her hands rose to push him away...or at least, that had been her intention. And yet moments passed when she remained frozen in place with the heat of his skin scorching her hands through his dress shirt. His muscles felt hot and solid underneath her fingertips. He was so much larger and stronger than she remembered. What was she doing, feeling him up?
