Princess in the Iron Mask. Victoria Parker

began to slip once more and he closed his eyes, breathed deeply…only to inhale a strange blend of clinical sanitation and elements of her work. Bleached cleanliness punched his gut, gripped and twisted with a hard fist. Sweat bubbled on his upper lip and he turned to pace, exorcising the demons. How could she stand being cooped in this cage? The violent need to escape pumped pure adrenaline through his system, and he clamped his jaw hard enough to crack a molar.

      Shrugging off the discomfort, disgusted at his own weakness, he veered towards her. ‘You may live in a free country but you were born to another and you have responsibilities to uphold. You will always have your work. But right now your family needs to take precedence. Three weeks at the most and then you may return. That is all they ask of you.’

      ‘All they ask?’ she flared. ‘Why should I do anything for them?’

      Lucas scrubbed at his nape, smacked with the need to butt his head against a brick wall. ‘Your selfishness is astounding. Do you not feel one iota—?’

      ‘I have responsibilities here, Mr Garcia. Petri dishes full of them,’ she said, her arm outstretched, pointing to a wall where a bank of shelves held a legion of chemical equipment, jars and small plastic dishes of what looked like goop.

      He raised a dark brow in her direction, only to be faced with one ink-smudged palm. The slight quiver of her long fingers betrayed her heightened state of anxiety.

      ‘I don’t expect you to understand what I do here,’ she said waspishly and somewhat degradingly.

      Lucas allowed the insult to slide, since he understood perfectly what her job entailed. If she thought him beneath her level of intelligence he was not only unperturbed—for it would be a cold day in hell before he valued the opinion of one so selfish and irresponsible—but his apparent ignorance would only serve to work in his favour later on. While he understood her motivations, her priorities were clearly misaligned.

      ‘So,’ she said, tearing her spectacles off her face, flaying him with amber fire. ‘You can stop pacing like a caged animal, trying to figure out your next move. I’ve seen them all and I’m immune.’

      Lucas clenched his teeth to avoid his jaw dropping to the floor. Incredible! She fought as a warrior. He’d never seen anything like it. Or felt anything like it. Because his entire body seethed with the need to haul her into his arms and kiss her pert, insolent mouth.

      He scoured her face. Flawless apricot skin, huge distinctive amber eyes begging him for something he couldn’t place. Understanding? Or to be left in peace?

      Lucas could give her neither.

      Failure was not in his vocabulary. He’d built his life, its very foundations, on honour, duty and protection. Not even an act of providence would steer him off his chosen path. Nor the most beautiful self-centred woman he’d ever laid eyes on.

      Damage limitation was futile.

      It was time to change tactics and up the pressure.

      Because, come nightfall, Claudia would be returning to Arunthia.

      CHAPTER TWO

      IT MIGHT HAVE been nanny number four who’d told her not to play with fire, Claudia reflected as she took a tentative step back. But for the life of her she couldn’t remember the woman who had screamed the warning never to provoke animals. Such a shame she hadn’t listened and taken the same diligent approach to her safety as she had to her reading materials.

      Standing no more than five feet away, Lucas locked his fierce blue eyes on her. Blatant intent slashed colour on his high chiselled cheekbones and her heart thumped against her ribcage. Without a doubt he would throw her over his shoulder and haul her out of here given half the chance.

      Ignoring the ridiculous frisson of excitement that thought evoked, she focused on what was quickly becoming one of the most surreal days of her life.

      Lucas, this dark, devastating brute, was by moral nature a carbon copy of her parents. Only thinking of their beloved country, of duty and responsibility. Uncaring of Claudia’s desires or, more importantly, her needs.

      Why should she do anything for them? What had they ever done for her, apart from abandoning her in a foreign country? Twelve years old and so sick she could barely walk. So unsightly they’d secreted her away. The loss of everything and everyone she’d ever known had soaked her pillow at night. So frightened. So very alone.

      Throat swelling with the sting of past hurts, she swerved back to the workbench and fumbled with the paper disarray for fear he’d see too much.

      ‘I would like you to leave, Mr Garcia,’ she said, the sheet in her hand quivering as violently as her voice. Please just go.

      ‘You ask me the impossible, Your Royal Highness,’ he replied in that delicious tone that licked at her senses like a hungry cat. Which only made her hate him even more.

      She slapped the paper atop the stainless steel and braced her arms on the squared edge.

      Trust her parents to send in the big guns. Lucas Garcia was proving to be as immovable as Big Ben, and she could hear the tick, tick of the clock. Don’t be ridiculous. They’ve sent for you before. You can get rid of this guy just as easily.

      Their last threat had been the abolition of her living funds. ‘Go ahead,’ she’d told them, and promptly moved out of her swanky three-bedroom apartment on the banks of the River Thames. The bluff had backfired spectacularly, because the vast space lay empty to this day. But she loved her kitsch one-bed studio because it was hers alone, flying the flag of her hard-won independence.

      Stiffening her spine, she turned in time to see Lucas finger his over-long hair back from his forehead and her insides liquefied. Must be a chemical reaction linked to irate frustration.

      ‘And please don’t call me, Your Royal whatever. I know perfectly well what you’re doing. Your tactics won’t work with me.’

      ‘Regardless of your preference, that is your title,’ he said, his voice toughened like steel, brow etched with exasperation. ‘When will you acknowledge the fact and behave accordingly?’

      ‘Behave? I’ve always been the upstanding daughter, Mr Garcia. I work hard and, more importantly, I make no ripples that will reach Arunthian shores to embarrass or disgrace.’ An implausible feat for Claudia, but he didn’t need to know that.

      The dark glower he fired her way said he was far from impressed.

      ‘And I have two sisters,’ she said, suppressing any girlhood nostalgia and focusing instead on the little she’d gleaned of them by searching their names on the internet. Just to see if they were well…happy. If the thousands of glamorous photographs and articles were anything to go by they were more than well. They were true royalty in every way. ‘My parents don’t need me.’ Which was just as well because the mere notion of life at the palace, evermore in the public eye, made her skin crawl as if the venom of a scorpion pulsed through her veins.

      ‘Good grief, I’m as far away from being a princess as you are from being Prince Charming!’

      Lucas coughed around a closed fist, then uncurled his long fingers to stroke his jaw. ‘I’ve noticed,’ he said, searching her face as if looking for an answer to the question hovering in the air.

      Why? Let him come to his own conclusions, she mused. Claudia owed him nothing.

      In thinking mode his face almost softened, and for the first time she noticed beautiful long thick lashes surrounded eyes so dark, so intense, they glittered like sapphires.

      ‘Then how would you like to be addressed?’ he asked.

      Claudia frowned, blinking over and over, scrolling through the past few minutes of conversation, slightly disturbed by his silky intonation.

      ‘Just Claudia is fine,’ she said warily.

      ‘Very