Maharaja's Mistress. Susan Stephens

Ram had teased her into making up a foursome with her brother Tom and his girlfriend, when Ram’s date had gone down last minute with flu. He’d even told her she looked lovely when they both knew that was a lie—she had cut her black hair aggressively short that year and had dyed some of the spikes pillar-box red—but the chance for the ugly duckling to turn up with a hot, eighteen-year-old prince and shock all those pretty girls had proved irresistible. Not that she had improved any on the fashion stakes. She could never compete with the pretty girls and so she didn’t try. Her dress was a hand-me-down some well-meaning aunt had passed on to her mother. ‘It’s vintage,’ she remembered telling Ram defiantly, pretending the ankle-length, sludge-green chiffon with its smattering of sequins was what she wanted to wear. Tall, hard-muscled Ram, acting like the prince he was, had shrugged and offered her his arm. Looking back, Mia guessed it must have been a charity event for him in all senses of the word.

      But she was a very different person now—she could cope with anything Ram threw at her.

       Which was why her heart was going crazy?

      Opening the door onto Monsieur Michel’s private quarters, Mia shut the bustle of the salon out. She needed a moment to clear her head and leaned back on the door. She and Ram hadn’t parted on the best of terms. The last time they met had been at Tom’s engagement party when Ram’s behaviour had confused her. She had been so desperate for him to see her as a woman and had really taken trouble to look nice for once. They were both adults, Ram had told her when she had tried to engage him in conversation, and his life was moving in a different direction. He might have acted coolly, but he’d bought her a goodbye present—and there was even a moment when she’d thought he was going to kiss her, but nothing came of it. Why did he have to humiliate her like that? The dress was a parting gift, she’d realised later—a rich boy’s pay-off for a childhood friend he would no longer have any time for.

      She wasn’t pretty enough or interesting enough to hold Ram’s attention—she could see that now, but back then she’d been young and so very vulnerable. Ram leaving had been like a licence to run wild. The endless and ultimately unsuccessful search to put something in his place transformed her from daring tomboy to adrenaline junkie—treading the thin line between thrill and disaster became her only purpose, until the accident and an enforced stay in a burns unit brought her into contact with people far worse off than she was, by which time she was sick of her empty life and Ram was long gone.

       And now he was back.

      Courage. That was what the doctors had told her she would need after the accident when she had to face the possibility of losing her sight.

      Courage. Did she have it? Did she have enough?

      With Ram Varindha just a few feet away, it was time to find out.

      And still she hesitated outside the panelled door. She had only visited Monsieur Michel’s private sanctum on one previous occasion and that was for her interview. She remembered the room beyond the door being cool and pleasantly shaded. It overlooked a pretty courtyard that had walls coated in lush green vines and vivid purple bougainvillea. The décor inside the room could best be described as shabby chic, but its overriding theme was cosy. A couple of sofas faced each other across a well-worn rug, while gilt-framed mirrors dulled by time hung on expensively papered walls and an ancient grand piano rested silent in the shade.

      Well, she couldn’t stand here all day. Tilting her chin at a defiant angle, she seized the handle and entered the room only to discover that with Ram in the room Monsieur’s cosy sitting room was anything but cosy.

      Closing the door behind her, she remained in the shadows with her back pressed against the wall. How she wished she could turn the clock back—wished she could be someone else altogether—someone perfect and appealing.

      Ram had no such inhibitions and had taken up the position of power in the centre of the room. Her spirit soared and rushed to greet him, and immediately drew back, sensing his aloofness.

      ‘Mia?’

      There was shock in his voice.

      ‘You approve of my outfit?’ She knew it wasn’t about that. She knew the question in Ram’s voice related to her eyepatch. And the rest. She lifted her chin, dying a little inside when she saw the expression in his eyes.

      Quicksilver fast, Ram switched to his customary urbane manner. ‘You never fail to surprise me, Mia. How long have you been hoisting the Jolly Roger?’

      As they locked gazes, she realised that with perfect irony Ram’s eyes were obscenely beautiful. Even more beautiful than she remembered, just as he was infinitely more compelling. How could she have forgotten how attractive he was—how brazenly masculine?

      ‘I’m surprised to find you working here, Mia.’

      ‘Oh?’ She planted a hand on one hip. She refused to apologise or explain to this stranger, with his beautiful, mocking, all-seeing eyes, why she had chosen Monsieur Michel’s salon as her sanctuary.

      ‘I thought you hated all things flash?’

      ‘Flash? I prefer to think of this as theatre.’ She raised a brow as her old adversary’s gaze swept slowly over her and did some assessing of her own. In jeans and a form-fitting top, with his bronzed feet naked in simple sandals, the aura of erotic possibility Ram threw off was alarming. He was every bit as tall and powerful as she remembered, and every part of him was lithe, toned and ultra-fit, but there was something cold in his eyes, and that was new. It was as if Ram had left the fun years behind—much as she had herself. She felt instinctively that this was not the hard-living playboy the gossip-mongers thought they knew so well, but a man who had experienced most things. It seemed the fantasy sweetheart of her childhood had turned into a tough, uncompromising man—and one who didn’t even pretend not to stare at her injuries.

      ‘I had no idea, Mia—’

      ‘How could you?’ She braced herself to walk deeper into the room…closer to Ram. Let him stare. ‘I asked my family not to broadcast the news. And before you ask, I can do anything anyone else can do and probably twice as fast—providing I don’t blink at the wrong time.’

      She would wait a long time for any sign of the old humour, Mia realised. Ram just continued to stare at her, his brow furrowed as if he were reading everything she didn’t want him to know.

      Seconds ticked by. Her breathing sounded loud in the silence. Suddenly she was eight years old again and mesmerised by Ram. Or, maybe thirteen and feeling gawky with braces on her teeth. Or worse—sixteen, when she had wanted nothing more than the touch of his hands—

      Apart from the braces, she was all of those things, Mia concluded as Ram eased onto one hip. ‘I like the outfit,’ he said. And finally his lips tugged in a grin.

      ‘Your approval means everything to me,’ she countered dryly.

      She had laughed with relief when Monsieur Michel had personally orchestrated her costume at one of the more outlandish costumiers in the principality, but now she felt awkward and exposed, exactly as she had at Tom’s engagement party. Why did Ram have to make those remarks—look at her that way—when he clearly wasn’t interested? Who was he to come here to her place of work and judge her? So her outfit was brazen. What was that to him?

      ‘Whatever happened to my girl, Mia?’

      ‘She grew up.’

      He had expected to feel many things when he saw Mia again, but he had not expected this—or the fierce desire to protect her that came with the discovery that his perfect imp had been so cruelly injured. Mia had always been defiant—always vulnerable—but her fighting spirit had always carried her through. Not this time, he suspected. She didn’t fool him—she never had been able to do that. She had come to Monte Carlo like a beaten dog to defiantly lick her wounds—choosing the most glamorous place on earth to punish herself and ride the guilt. He had lived wildly too, but he had got away with it.

      Why hadn’t Tom told him? Why hadn’t he picked up on this?

      There