Maharaja's Mistress

‘You’re quite right—and I have the best idea for that.’

When things were going the way she thought she wanted them to she didn’t like it. So when things started going the way she definitely didn’t want them to she should like it even less—right?

Wrong, Mia discovered as Ram took her wrist in a firm grip and hurried her away from his attendants, pushing branches heavy with blossom aside as he took her deeper into the forest of concealing trees.

Predictably, she was instantly on fire for him. ‘No, Ram—no. I mean it,’ she protested. ‘I’m warning you—’

‘Would you refuse the attentions of your Lord and Master?’

‘You bet I would,’ she assured him as Ram backed her into an exquisitely ornamented garden room and shut the door.

Leaning back against it, he demanded, ‘Even if you knew those attentions were good for you?’

‘This is good for me?’ she said, pretending surprise as Ram quickly dispensed with her skirt and briefs.

‘This is the promised stress relief activity,’ he murmured, ‘though you’ll have to promise not to scream too loud. The ladies know to stay on the avenue, but they’re not deaf.’

‘And so what are we supposed to be doing in here?’

‘What maharajas and their ladies have been doing here for millennia.’

Heat exploded inside her as Ram backed her up against the wall. ‘I said no sex,’ she protested, scrambling up him.

‘That was last night—and this is purely for therapeutic reasons,’ Ram explained, thrusting his sword aside.

‘Ah—oh—yes—I think you may be right,’ Mia said, drowning in sensation as Ram secured her buttocks in his big, strong hands and took her deep. ‘So it doesn’t count,’ she confirmed shakily as he began to move.

‘Not at all. Feel free to enjoy it.’

‘And afterwards it will be as if it never happened?’

‘There’s only so much my ego can take. Now concentrate, will you? We don’t want you to be late for your appointment with the design committee.’

Concentrate? She was already there. I think I love you, she thought. Or did she scream that too?

Mia got together with Ram in his private office after her design meeting with his committee.

‘You haven’t got all the proper funding in place yet, Mia,’ Ram pointed out. ‘Or the experience to handle the interior design of both the house and the yacht.’

‘Okay, you win,’ she shouted, dropping her files on the top of his desk. ‘I give up—’

‘No, you don’t,’ Ram ground out, baiting her with a stare. ‘You never expected this to be easy—but that doesn’t mean you give up.’

‘All right, I don’t. But if I’m forced to work with several other design companies, then I’m going to insist I stay on here in Ramprakesh to be sure my ideas are handled properly.’

‘Oh, no.’ Ram had difficulty curbing his smile. ‘You can’t be serious about staying on? How will I survive it?’ He caught the tiny furled hand and brought it to his lips before Mia could waste any more of her energy pounding on him. ‘Don’t you know I want you here?’ he murmured, brushing his lips against her neck.

‘What? As your royal concubine—I don’t think so, Ram.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of a post that allowed for quite so much time off—I was thinking more…royal project manager?’

‘Isn’t that like a catch-all term for a gofer?’

‘Well, I can think of plenty of things you can go for—and come for, now I think about it.’

‘Will you stop that?’ Mia demanded, finding she couldn’t stop her smile either. Just the thought of being with Ram—working again at a job she loved—was enough to make her deliriously happy. ‘I realise this is the right decision for me to make from a professional point of view—I still have a lot to learn—and you can stop looking at me as if you want to say I told you so.’

‘Would I do that?’

‘Anyone who can wind me up with that play-act of a courtship is capable of anything.’

‘But I was being serious,’ he insisted.

‘Yeah, right. And you can stop trying to destress me too—we both know where that leads.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ve decided to stay. I think we’re on the brink of something really exciting in Ramprakesh.’

‘The birth of a new Golden Age?’

‘You can call it that.’

‘It could be if we make it so,’ Mia agreed thoughtfully. ‘Do you really think we can?’ She stared out across the terracotta rooftops over a magical kingdom of towering golden cupolas and slender ivory towers.

‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that,’ Ram said, turning serious. ‘And with your designs and my determination—’

‘With my determination, and your money—’

‘Gold-digger—’

‘Scrooge—’

‘Shameless hussy—’

‘I’ll settle for that—’

‘No, you won’t,’ Ram insisted, and, taking hold of her hands, he stared deep into Mia’s eyes. ‘You’re far too special to talk about yourself like that. And when I take a wife—’

Heaving a sigh, she cut across him. ‘Criteria?’ She didn’t want to go there—but she couldn’t escape the fact that one day Ram would take a wife.

‘Criteria?’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you gave me the post of royal project manager, so who else is going to sort out a wife for you?’

‘Good point,’ Ram agreed. ‘I’d better come up with a few pointers for you…Let’s start with a good homemaker—then, someone as wise as she is beautiful…someone strong enough to support and defend her family as well as my country…someone I can rub along with, naturally—’

‘But not in the garden room,’ Mia warned. ‘Naturally, or not, that’s our place, Ram.’

‘For clandestine meetings.’ His lips pressed down as he thought about it. ‘I like your thinking.’

‘You’re supposed to be taking this seriously.’

‘Believe me, I am. Now, would you like me to show you your new office?’

‘An office for me here at the palace?’ she exclaimed with surprise.

It was nice to catch Mia on the wrong foot occasionally. ‘Of course—until you’ve designed a new one for yourself at my new home.’

She’d need one there in order to supervise the design work, Mia reasoned. ‘Okay,’ she said, her curiosity thoroughly piqued by now. ‘You’d better lead the way…’

It was all packing cases and chaos inside her new office at the palace and Mia was amazed to discover that her brother had already sent over everything she had ever cared for that was connected to her passion for design—all the books, all the trade articles, the posters and magazines, all the newspaper clippings. ‘How did Tom know to do this?’

‘We spoke on the phone,’ Ram said, dipping his head to stare at her. ‘You can’t expect us to cease all communications just because I’ve been seeing you, Mia. Your brother and I have been close since we were boys and nothing’s going to change that. Plus we both love you—’

‘In your own very distinct ways,’ she agreed, making light of Ram’s careless choice of words. ‘Well, it’s fantastic and I’m thrilled—but who paid for all the rest of it?’ She was picking her way between some very impressive equipment as well as new furniture.

‘A friend of yours—’

‘You?’

‘Don’t look so scandalised. I expect you to pay me back when you become successful—which you will be.’

‘You’ve got a lot of confidence in me—I only hope it isn’t misplaced.’

‘That’s up to you, Mia. I’m not doing you any favours. You’ve earned the chance to do this and now you have to earn the right to stay.’

She turned an amused glance his way. ‘There’s nothing like lacing a challenge with a hefty dose of threat.’

‘Would you have it any other way? You never wanted things easy.

Hey, stop that,’ he said as she absent-mindedly traced her scars. ‘I don’t want to see you do that ever again. Do you understand me?’

His voice was so fierce she snatched her hand away.

And then Ram completely distracted her when he began to rifle through the tower of packages on her new and extremely impressive desk. ‘Why don’t you let the royal project manager find whatever it is you’re looking for?’

‘This is a job for an expert,’ he insisted, tossing stuff aside. ‘I feel a musical moment coming on.’

And a light went on in her brain. ‘If that wretched lute has found its way in here,’ she threatened, joining him in the sea of bubble wrap and cardboard, ‘it can go straight back home.’

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously as Ram pulled back. ‘Go, find, tiger,’ he murmured.

‘I knew it,’ Mia exclaimed, spotting a tell-tale slender wooden neck. ‘You know what I said—and I jolly well mean it. If you start twanging that thing in here I’ll beat you over the head with it. Give it to me,’ she warned as Ram held the instrument over her head.

But when she snatched it from him something jangled inside it. ‘Oh, no…Don’t tell me I’ve broken it.’ She might not want Ram to play the old lute, but it was a family heirloom, and she’d had it as a sort of lucky charm in her room growing up. And now she could see that highly decorated filigree rose carved by a craftsman into the wood was missing from the centre of the soundboard. ‘Did I do that?’

‘I don’t know—did you?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Mia examined the gaping hole again and groaned. ‘Surely I couldn’t have been so careless.’