The Illegitimate King (Castaldini Crown 3)

Her feet gathered momentum as he zeroed in on Luciana and Stella. Would he ask them about her?

Then she was close enough to see the glazed look entering the women’s eyes at being under his immediate influence, to hear the rumble of his deep voice, the predatory flirtation in it.

Something shriveled inside her, like a paper curling up as flames ate it to ashes. Her feet changed course again, quickened, until she was almost running as she exited the ballroom to the verandah. She breathed hard, snatching air into constricted lungs.

Stop it. You fool.

She’d imagined it all. The attraction and the antipathy. He’d been looking at Luciana all along. Or perhaps he looked at every woman the way she’d thought he’d looked at her.

Get ahold of yourself.

She slipped into the shadows, trying to do just that, to suppress tears she’d long thought had run dry.

She was a lousy excuse for a princess, but her father had asked her to take an active role in the court and in the kingdom, at his side, in her mother’s place. It had been the first thing he’d asked of her in…ever. She was damned if she’d run out on him. Again.

She straightened her aching back, started to move—and walked into a wall of hot, hard muscle and maleness. Him.

She stumbled back, started to apologize, to sidestep him, air shearing into her lungs, chaos invading her synapses.

He blocked her escape route. He didn’t touch her—he didn’t need to. His very presence reached out and snared her in an inescapable embrace. And that was before her gaze streaked up to his, to find him looking down at her with that trance-inducing intensity.

The effect was the same as it had been during that first flash flood of recognition.

Her consciousness wavered. The world swirled around her as his eyes ate her up. Then his lips moved and she heard his voice, unobscured by the din of background chatter and music. Rich and fathomless, sweeping over her like a binding spell.

“I’m leaving. And you’re not enjoying this reception any more than I am. Come with me.”

She stared up at him. No one should be endowed with all that. He was too…everything. He towered about ten inches above her five foot eight, his physique that of an Olympian, his face that of an avenging angel, planes and hollows and slashes of power and perfection, a being of bronze and gold and steel, who took her breath away and held it just out of reach.

Dangerous. And if he could do this to her with a look, he was beyond that. Lethal. But that wasn’t just a look in his eyes. That was…unadulterated coveting. Pure possession.

It was what she’d imagined she’d seen before. But she hadn’t imagined the cold way he’d looked at her afterward, or the way he’d gone straight to the other women who’d caught his eye.

What was he playing at? He must expect all women to lose their mental faculties at the sight of him, and fall to their knees at his approach. And after he’d conquered Luci and that scorpion Stella—who couldn’t have been immune to him—he’d come after her. Why?

He took a tight step closer, practically vibrating with something vast and overwhelming. She could have sworn it was hunger, barely checked. And it would be unleashed at the slightest provocation—a gasp, a tremor.

She was incapable of any physical reaction, caught in stasis, waiting for his next words to reanimate her.

Suddenly, the spectacular wings of his eyebrows drew together. “You’re uncertain whether you can trust me? Don’t you know that you can?”

He was talking as if they knew each other. She would have found it the most natural thing in the world if this encounter had taken place immediately after that first glance. She had felt as if she’d known him, then.

When she remained staring up at him, mute, he exhaled. “I thought we didn’t need formalities, that we could revel in this…” he made an eloquent gesture, from his heart to hers “…connection, without outside interference. Maybe I’m asking too much.” He exhaled again. “Let’s go inside. We’ll find your father on the way out. He can vouch for me.”

He knew who she was.

That was why he was out here rather than with the women who’d interested him for real. He wasn’t here for her. He was here for Princess Clarissa D’Agostino, the king’s daughter. Just like every other man who’d ever found out she was royalty.

Stella had said he wanted to add some blue-blooded legitimacy to his image. She might or might not be right. But Clarissa knew one thing. He didn’t want her. And why should he?

Nobody had ever wanted her.

The hurt and humiliation finally forced an answer from her spastic lips. “That won’t be necessary, Signore Selvaggio.”

The heat and assurance in his gaze wavered. “You know me?”

“I know of you. Ferruccio Selvaggio, shipping magnate and potential investor in Castaldini.”

His lips tugged, not into a smile, tension entering his gaze. “Right now I’m only the man who wants the pleasure of your company for the rest of the evening. Join me for dinner.”

Not a request. A demand. One she would have stumbled over herself to accept if he hadn’t bypassed her for her glamorous friend and relative, only to pursue her when he realized she better served whatever purpose he had in mind.

She tilted her face, as princesses were supposed to do to end unsavory situations, striving to project detached authority and nonnegotiable dismissal, for the first time managing to implement the teachings of two dozen etiquette instructors who’d begged to be relieved of the impossible duty of teaching her to act her part. “Thank you for the invitation, Signore Selvaggio. But my…situation doesn’t allow me to…be with you. I’m sure you’ll find someone else who can.”

His whole body tensed and his nostrils flared as if he had braced himself against the force of a resounding slap. He understood. She wasn’t talking about her situation tonight. She was giving him a taste of his own medicine. If he wanted her for who she was in society, she was letting him know she didn’t want him for the same reason.

Heat seeped from his eyes, something almost scary flooding to fill the vacuum it left behind.

He finally shrugged. “Pity. But there may come a time when your…situation might not leave you any option but to…be with me.” With a nod of his awesome head, he pivoted, took a couple of relaxed steps away before he tossed a glance over his daunting shoulder. Then he murmured softly, menacingly, “Until then.”