Avoiding Mr Right (15 page)

She said mockingly, ‘I’m surprised you dared to take me on, in that case.’

‘Much against my private office’s advice.’

‘Am I supposed to be flattered?’

‘Don’t be facetious.’ His voice was clipped.

‘I’m not. I take this very, very seriously.’ The mockery fell away. Her tone became pure steel. ‘I’ve never worked for a man who spied on me before.’

‘I… was … not … spying.’

‘Oh, I think you were. Spying and testing me out. To see how much you could get me to tell you about myself.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I assure you I do. I was there, don’t forget. Tell me, as a matter of interest, was seducing me part of the strategy of the investigation, or just a chance bonus?’

He laughed—not a pleasant laugh. ‘If you think I seduced you, then your experience is even less than I thought.’

Christina could have screamed. She had walked right into that one. She set her teeth. ‘Well, what were you trying to do? Prove that you could get a girl into bed who didn’t know you were a prince? Ego needs a bit of a boost does it,
Your Highness
?’

There was a sharp little silence. She could not make out his expression in the shadows, but Christina had the impression that he was outraged. Presumably he was not used to people speaking to him like that, she thought savagely. Well, if he had told her who he was in the first place, she would have behaved properly. Now he would get what he deserved. When he lied and cheated, he forfeited all rights to courtesy from her.

She told him so, the words tumbling over themselves.

Luc stiffened. ‘You really think you’ve got it all worked out, don’t you? Has it not occurred to you that I could have been trying to protect you?’

Christina laughed.

He was coldly impatient. ‘This is ridiculous! You don’t have the slightest idea what my life is like. Until you took this job you’d never even heard of me, had you?’

‘Should I have done?’ Christina said as nastily as she could. ‘I admit I don’t read the gossip columns.’

‘I’m not talking about gossip.’ Luc pounded his fist against the wooden bulkhead behind her. He sounded as if he was about to explode. ‘I’m talking about dissidents, international terrorists: men with guns and bombs who think taking out someone like me would be good public relations.’

‘Wh-what?’
Christina was shocked.

‘I’m a target,’ he said. He sounded tired suddenly. ‘I have been for years, ever since I became a UN negotiator. When I meet a girl I—like, I have to be sure that she is what she seems. That she’s not a plant. That’s she’s not dangerous—to me or to the people around me. When I’m going to spend time with the children—well, it becomes doubly important.’

Christina had got her breath back. ‘I understand that,’ she said without expression.

‘Then—’

‘And I understand something else as well. In spite of my limited experience—’ she mimicked his voice again ‘—I understand that you saw me and decided you would have me—no pretty nonsense about meeting a girl you like, if you please. This was a straightforward acquisition from the start. You bought me with this job the way you’d buy the stores and the bottled gas.’

He said nothing. In the dark she could feel his eyes on her like lasers. She could feel the anger in him. Oh, no, the Prince of Kholkhastan was certainly not used to being spoken to like this, thought Christina. She ignored it. She felt triumphant at ignoring it.

‘You tracked me down. You put a “sold” sticker on me. And you waited for the results of your investigation. Efficient. Not very human, perhaps, but efficient. I’m impressed.’

‘No, you’re not. You’re in a rage.’ He sounded amused again all of a sudden. ‘But I can—’

She swept on. ‘And then you got your report on me. You must have done because you wouldn’t have let me come on the boat with the children otherwise. So the report must have said that I was no international terrorist. What a relief. You didn’t need to worry any more about what I might do if I knew you were the Prince of Never-Never Land.’

‘Kholkhastan,’ he interjected quietly. She did not think he was laughing any more.

Christina waved aside the interruption. ‘So what does our concerned, responsible hero do then? Does he come down and talk to this girl he says he likes, like any normal human being? Tell her who he is? Tell her why he behaved like that?
No!’

‘Christina…’ It sounded like a warning.

But she was not about to be warned off. She took a hasty step towards him in the dark. ‘No. What he does is carry on pretending. Now, why could that be?’ she mocked. ‘Would you like to hear my theory?’

He made a strange, wild gesture, abruptly stilled.

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me,’ he said quietly.

She bared her teeth. She was in such a temper that her voice shook with it. ‘I will. I think you found it easier. I think you’re a rich and powerful man, Your Highness. I think you didn’t want your ship’s cook getting the wrong ideas about your interest in her,’ she flung at him.

His head went back as if she had hit him. The faint noise that she had been aware of became recognisable footsteps. They were getting closer. Neither Luc nor Christina paid any attention to them.

‘I accept the snoops. I may not like it, but I’m not unreasonable. There were the children to consider. I accept that you had to have me investigated.’

Luc was very still. ‘So?’

‘What I don’t accept is the lying,’ Christina said flatly. ‘The face-to-face, personal lying.’

He said evenly, ‘What do you think would have happened if you had known who I was when we came face to face here?’

Christina set her teeth. ‘Something more honest than what did happen.’

‘That depends on your definition of honesty.’

‘My definition is fairly standard,’ she flashed.

He moved closer, bending his head to scan her face in the darkness. The space between their bodies was infinitesimal. She was trapped between him and the wooden wall behind her. Christina turned her head away sharply.

His voice level, Luc said, ‘When my father died, I found out something that most people don’t realise: a prince like me is a sort of actor. I can never forget that. There is the person I am talking to—and then all the rest, watching me talk to him. They’re all watching for signs: signs I’m going to make wrong decisions because I’m angry or tired; signs I’m not going to make any decision at all because I’m out of my depth; signs I don’t understand what is happening in my country or the rest of the world; signs of a weakness, any weakness, they can exploit to their advantage. So the Prince can’t afford any anger or tiredness or bewilderment.’ He paused, then added deliberately, ‘Or weakness.’

Christina felt her anger falter. He sounded so sincere. But then, she reminded herself, hadn’t he sounded sincere before?

‘I didn’t plan it. But when I arrived—you were so angry with the Prince. I thought, If she finds out who I am now, she’ll never see me clearly again.’

He put out a gentle hand and brought her chin round to face him. She could see the gleam of his eyes in his shadowed face. She could feel her pulse hammering at the base of her throat.

‘The Prince is a performance,’ Luc told her quietly. ‘I didn’t want you to know the performance. I wanted you to know me.’

The anger had almost all gone. Only the hurt was left. He had asked her to go to bed with him. When would he have told her the truth? In the morning? At the end of the week? Ever?

‘But I
didn’t
know you, did I?’ she said at last in a small voice. ‘You took good care of that.’

He stared down at her, as if he could read her very soul. Her eyes fell under that penetrating scrutiny. The footsteps were louder, closer.

‘Someone’s coming,’ Christina said, agitated.

Luc took no notice. ‘Everything I ever told you was true,’ he said in a low, urgent voice.

She closed her eyes. ‘You’ve been playing diplomacy so long, you’ve forgotten how ordinary people see the truth. Everything you ever told me was to protect you in case I got too demanding.’

For a moment he was so still that she thought he had stopped breathing. She was so wretched herself that she felt as if she was in actual physical pain. She made a clumsy gesture, repudiating him. There was a silence like the end of the world.

Then Luc’s arms fell. He stepped back.

At last he said very quietly, ‘If you think that, there’s no more to be said.’

Christina’s eyes flew open. This was not what she’d expected. Suddenly he was not the Luc she knew. Even now she had more than half thought that he would shout at her and shake her and kiss her into submission, if that was what it took. In her most secret heart, that was almost what she wanted. This chilly dignity was unnerving.

‘You—’ she began.

But the footsteps were stamping down the companion-way now. They stopped.

‘Who’s there?’ shouted Captain Demetrius out of the darkness.

Luc turned and went to him without a backward look. ‘Good evening, Captain,’ he said in easy Greek.

The captain was less efficient than Simon. He had not brought a torch. He leaned forward over the handrail.

‘Your Highness?’ he said, incredulity in the brandy-slurred tones.

‘As you see,’ Luc said pleasantly, ‘I was able to get away after all.’

She might never have existed. Christina watched his turned back. She could feel her skin getting colder and colder. I can’t stand any more of this, she realised suddenly.

Unseen by Luc or the captain, she turned and slipped away into the dark.

She went to her cabin and locked the door decisively. Not that there was any reason for it. The last thing this new, cold Luc was going to do was come to her cabin. But still there was a satisfying symbolism in setting her shoulder to the rickety door and turning the key in the lock.

It was a long time before she lay down. Even longer before she slept. She heard the Princess return in the small hours. The crew were already back and gone to their quarters but someone met her. Wakeful on her bed, Christina heard muffled voices, a sharp protest from the Princess, the slam of a door.

So she was not the only one at odds with His impossible Highness, Christina thought wryly. The Princess suddenly had more of her sympathy than she had ever had before.

The next morning Christina was late and heavy-eyed. The captain and crew hardly spoke over their food. The family breakfast was not much better. The children were sulky and fidgeting. Luc was remote, absorbed in a file of papers. The Princess had retreated behind tinted glasses but she took them off to butter her toast. The puffy red eyelids told their own story.

The Princess grabbed her coffee as if it were the elixir of life and said in a bright, false voice, ‘The party, Christina. Everything in hand?’

Luc did not look up. Out of the corner of her eye Christina saw his brows twitch together but to all intents and purposes he seemed absorbed in his reading.

‘Yes, madam. Do you know how many are coming yet?’

‘No. Now my brother has arrived to play the host we may need to change the guest list a little, of course,’ the Princess said with an edge to her voice.

‘Fine,’ Christina said colourlessly.

Luc did look up at that. Christina felt his sharp inspection although she refused to acknowledge it. She knew that she was not looking her best. She had plaited her hair and pinned it on top of her head to keep it out of her way while she was cooking. The austere style made her face look too thin, her chin too pointed and, after a night like last night, her wide blue eyes huge and haunted. She hoped Luc did not think her wan appearance was because of him. But if he did there was not a thing she could do about it except pretend that he was not there.

She said, ‘I’ll be going to the market in an hour. Shall I take the children again, madam?’

‘Would you like to go with Christina, darlings?’

‘They’ll spend the day with me.’ Luc intervened before Simon or Pru could answer. ‘You should come too, Marie Anne. We can go up the coast, swimming.’

Christina almost winced. Was he taking them to that little deserted cove?

‘Perhaps Christina would like to come too?’ he added.

‘No,’ she said on pure reflex.

It sounded rude. The Princess looked surprised. Luc’s eyes narrowed.

She retrieved her mistake as best she could. ‘I mean, there’s too much to do getting the party ready.’

She gave a meaningless smile which embraced the whole table. Studiously avoiding Luc’s smouldering eyes, she retreated.

Fortunately it was a busy day. After her shopping, she worked in the hot little galley until she thought she was going to collapse. She emerged only when summoned to the main deck.

The Princess was sitting in a sun-lounger looking shattered.

‘What a day,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s got into Kay. I’ve never seen him like this.’

Christina bit her lip. ‘I didn’t know the Prince was back.’

‘Well, he is. And snapping at everything in range.’ The Princess took on a self-righteous expression. ‘How was I to know he didn’t want to see Juliette Legrain? I could hardly ask everyone else from the film and leave her out. Anyway, they were still an item the last I heard. He escorted her everywhere.’

‘Oh,’ said Christina hollowly. She tried to convince herself that she didn’t care who the Prince escorted.

‘But apparently they’ve broken up. So Kay’s mad at me. I must say,’ added the Princess darkly, ‘I wonder if he’s told Juliette.’

Christina shifted uncomfortably. ‘Would you like something, madam?’

‘What? Oh, yes, that’s why I rang. Have you got any of that lemonade you made for the children? I’m parched.’

‘I’ll get it,’ said Christina, glad to escape these unwelcome confidences.

But when she returned with an ice-rimmed jug and glasses her heart fell to her toes. The Prince was back.

He was standing four-square in front of his sister’s lounger. She was looking up at him in trepidation. He acknowledged Christina’s arrival with no more than an unsmiling look.

‘My boat. My holiday. My family. My business,’ Luc was saying. He sounded icy. ‘My bodyguard has got better things to do than follow you round on your assignations with strange men.’