The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

under his breath at the effect Lily’s brief touch on his thigh had had on him. Because he hadn’t been expecting it, that was all. There was nothing special about her touch that could have caused that almost violent surge of unstoppable desire from stabbing up his thigh and into his groin. He had been so involved in his business affairs that he hadn’t realised until now just how long he had been celibate. Too long. That was what had made him vulnerable to her. Nothing else. His intellect and his emotions were appalled by the very idea that he could find her physically desirable, given what he knew about her. She was a woman whose way of life he had very good reason to abhor—a woman he had already discovered to be involved in the same kind of world that had destroyed Olivia.

       Olivia.

       Lured away by promises of the fame her beauty could bring her as a top model, Olivia had been seduced by the thought of excitement and adventure far from the safety and security of her sheltered life with her parents.

       It had taken him several weeks to discover that she had moved to London. He had pleaded with her to come home but she’d refused. She had told him that she had been taken on by a modelling agency and had been sharing a flat with other young models.

       He had gone to see the owner of the model agency and appealed to her for help. She had seemed so sympathetic and understanding, so concerned for Olivia, that he had made the mistake of believing her when she had assured him that he had her personal guarantee that Olivia would be safe in her care, and that she would quickly tire of her new life and decide to return home.

       At eighteen, he had been a gullible fool. How that knowledge still burned like acid within him. He’d had no idea that the woman was little more than a procuress, and that far from protecting the girls in her charge she was selling them into a life of drugs and prostitution. That life had led ultimately to Olivia dying from an overdose, alone in a New York hotel room.

       He had buried his shame, his gullibility, his guilt deep within himself, making a vow to himself that his days of trusting others were over and that in future he would rely on logic and not emotion to direct the course of his life.

       Until now—until Dr Lillian Wrightington, with her lies and her connection with all that he loathed—he had had no difficulty whatsoever in keeping that vow. But now, in the short time that he had known her, she had not only undermined that resolution she had also found a fault line in his defences that was causing all his long-buried vulnerabilities to rise like ghosts to mock and taunt him.

       What went on inside the head of a woman like her to enable her to live a double life without guilt, to tell her lies with such passionate conviction?

       Against his will Marco found that his gaze was drawn to Lily’s averted profile, as though by studying it he might somehow find the answer. Very quickly he realised his mistake. His brain might only seek to study and analyse the facts, but his body was reacting to her on a very different and very dangerous level indeed. And was that reaction outside his control? Of course not, he denied. But he still had to move discreetly in his seat, in order to ease the pressure of his unwanted arousal. And whilst he did so his gaze insisted on remaining fixed on her.

       Why? He tried to look away, but a few small wisps had escaped from the soft knot of her hair, catching his attention and sending his senses down a dangerous course at such high speed that to stop them was impossible.

       She was looking downwards, that he could see the dark fan of her lashes and the shadows they threw across her face. The downbent angle of her neck revealed the vulnerability of its exposed nape. She had a small beauty spot just to one side of the top bone of her spine, just where a lover would be unable to resist the temptation to kiss it and then work his way along her slender throat to her ear, and then back down again to her collarbone. Her skin would smell and taste of the scent that surrounded her, which reminded him vaguely of roses and lavender. Her bare arms were slender and toned, and lightly tanned. Her wristwatch was slightly loose on her wrist. Her dress might not cling to her body, but he had watched her earlier at the reception as she mingled with the other guests. She must know that the way it subtly hinted at the swell of her breasts and the curves of her waist and hips was far, far more sensually alluring than something tight would have been.

       Marco tried to control his wayward thoughts, but doing so was like trying to swim a river at full tide—every effort he made to reach the safety of logic only resulted in him being swept further into the dangerous current of his senses.

       The very fact that her dress obscured rather than revealed her body aroused the hunter him, made him want to confirm for himself that the secrets of her body were every bit as pleasurable to his gaze and his touch as he suspected. She was temptation in a dozen different ways. Deliberate temptation, Marco warned himself, remembering the manner in which she walked, her posture upright, her head held proudly on the slender stem of her neck, whilst at the same time being so careful not to sway her hips, not to attract attention to her femininity. It only served to build a man’s appetite to know more of her. The ache in his body intensified. He needed to think of something else, of someone else, but somehow he couldn’t. He couldn’t think of anything other than her.

       And it wasn’t just his own sex she had won over at the reception. The women there had liked her as well. She had seen the approving looks they had given her, and the way in which even the most regal of them had unbent whilst talking with her. The Duchess’s invitation was proof of that.

       No, he couldn’t deny that she was well versed in her subject, and also able to share her own obvious love for it with others, so that they too became enthused.

       If he hadn’t known about her other life, her other self, Marco suspected that he too might have become an admirer of her familiarity with her subject. And an admirer of her too?

       No!

       He had never believed in mixing work with pleasure, Marco reminded himself. It always led to complications and problems. But his role within this project was a voluntary one, taken on because of his own pleasure and pride in his own heritage.

       No! His answer to his own question was still the same.

       He did not want her. He could not want her. But neither could he deny the fact that his body found something physically compelling about her. It was an awkward reality he could well have done without.

       Marco forced his thoughts back into the channels where they belonged. They had reached the airport, and the driver was turning off for the private part of the airfield, where expensive-looking executive jets awaited their passengers and owners. He checked his watch. They were running slightly late, but he had e-mailed ahead to warn the helicopter pilot to alter their departure slot. He could see the chopper up ahead of them on the runway, the pilot already on board. The driver brought the limousine to a smooth halt a mere handful of yards away from the helicopter and then got out to open the rear passenger door for Lily, whilst one of the waiting attendants removed their cases from the boot.

       After a few words with the waiting concierge whilst she stood to one side, Marco indicated that she should board the helicopter. When she hesitated, Marco frowned. He could see her hand was gripping the handrail to the steps, her bones showing through her delicate skin. Her face had lost some of its colour, and she looked like someone screwing up every last bit of her courage to make herself do something that terrified her. Her fear had somehow stripped her features of their maturity, so that instead of a grown woman Marco felt he was looking at a terrified child. A terrified child who was staring blindly into space as though locked away—trapped—in a world of dreadful fear.

       Reluctantly, trying to check himself but unable to do so, and against all the urgings of his brain, as though some deep-rooted recognition was overriding his logic, he felt the most extraordinary and unexpected feeling of concern and compassion for that child fill him.

       ‘You don’t like flying?’ he guessed. ‘There is nothing to worry about if you haven’t flown in a helicopter before. Come…’ Why was he behaving like this? Treating her as though… Before he could stop himself, Marco was holding out his hand to her.

       Without thinking Lily placed her own hand within Marco’s. She felt slightly sick and light-headed, and the warmth of his