Protected by the Prince

A hand reached for her and she jerked away.

‘Don’t touch me! Don’t…’ She drew an uneven breath. ‘I can’t bear it.’

To think she’d felt guilty, not telling him immediately about the test results, agonising over whether she could find something to prove or disprove the document once and for all. And all the time he’d known!

Her own small omission was nothing compared to his elaborate machinations!

‘Tamsin. Have you heard a word I’ve said?’

‘I don’t want to hear!’ She stumbled to the window, arms wrapped tight around her middle.

‘Bringing me here was a ploy, wasn’t it?’ She stared dry eyed across the snow as cold facts solidified in her shocked brain. ‘No wonder the pantry was well stocked. You planned to keep me here, out of harm’s way.’

Bitterness scalded her throat. He’d succeeded. For days she’d delighted in the mirage Alaric had created. She’d barely given a thought to her work.

He’d been so sure of her. Had it been a lark, or an unpalatable duty, seducing her?

Tamsin’s breath hissed as another piece of the picture slotted into place. The man at the sleigh, handing Alaric an envelope before they left. Alaric’s dismissal of her concerns about a change in weather.

‘You knew heavy snow was forecast.’ She didn’t turn. She couldn’t face him. Not when the knowledge of her naivety filled her and every breath lanced pain. ‘Didn’t you? You wanted me cut off here.’

‘I knew,’ he answered at last, his words dropping like stones into an endless icy pool.

No apology. No regret.

She squeezed her eyes shut. What they’d shared meant nothing. Nothing to him but expediency.

It must have galled him to go to such lengths. No wonder he’d been disappointed the first time in that big bed. She hadn’t even possessed the skills to please him.

Had he closed his eyes when they’d made love—no, when they’d had sex—and thought of another woman? Someone gorgeous and alluring?

How had she thought, even for one moment, that she’d snared the interest of Alaric, Prince of Ruvingia? Tamsin cringed inside but she kept her spine straight.

‘You’re an excellent actor.’ She ignored the tremor in her voice and stared at the gorgeous alpine vista. ‘You had me convinced. Congratulations.’

‘Tamsin, it wasn’t like that. Not all of it. To start with, yes, I wondered about you. About the way you hid behind that spinster look. About the odds of you finding such a document so conveniently.’

‘It wasn’t convenient!’ She’d spent long hours working in the archives. And all the time he’d thought she’d lied.

‘But later it wasn’t about the papers, Tamsin.’ His voice was nearer, as if he’d followed her to the window. ‘It was about how you made me feel. And how you felt.’

‘How I felt?’ Her fury boiled over and she swung round. ‘Are you saying I asked you to dupe me? That I invited you to make a fool of me?’ As she spoke the final, fragile shell of happiness round her heart crumbled.

She’d believed. She’d actually believed in him! How many times before she finally learned her lesson? Was she so imbued with romantic fantasy that she was doomed to fall again and again for men’s lies?

Even as she thought it she realised that wasn’t possible. She’d survived Patrick’s deception but this was far worse. She’d fallen in love with Alaric.

Now she hated him too.

‘I’ll tell you how this feels, Your Highness. It feels like hell! There was no excuse for what you did. None!’

‘Tamsin, you have to listen. That’s not really why I brought you here.’

She backed away from his outstretched hand as if it were poisoned.

‘Not really?’ Her voice dripped sarcasm. ‘So the phone tap wasn’t real? And the goons patrolling the grounds to make sure I didn’t meet anyone in secret?’ She flung an accusatory hand towards the papers on the floor. ‘And the investigator’s report—I suppose that was make-believe?’

Did she imagine he stiffened as each accusation lashed like a whip? Or that his face paled beneath its tan?

No! She could afford no sympathy for this man. Already it felt as if she bled from an unseen wound. The sort of injury that would never heal.

‘You know what hurts most?’ She stood rigidly straight. ‘That you discovered how Patrick used me and decided to try the same tactic yourself. And that I fell for it.’

His brow puckered in a marvellous show of apparent innocence. ‘I don’t follow you.’

‘Your report didn’t detail that juicy titbit?’ She’d skimmed the text, unable to take in every word. ‘I don’t believe you.’ She sucked air to her lungs.