Maharaja's Mistress

‘You have a visitor, Mia.’

Mia’s heart stopped dead. Monsieur Michel had just entered the staffroom. A visitor? There could only be one visitor. Who else knew she was in Monte Carlo?

‘If you want I can send him away?’ Concern clouded Monsieur Michel’s face as he came close enough to see the shock on Mia’s face.

‘No—No, that’s fine,’ she said, licking the sugar off her fingers and rallying fast. ‘I’ll see him.’ Springing down from her perch, she rinsed her hands in the sink. She wasn’t going to turn this premature visit into a drama. Better to face Ram now and get it over with. She wasn’t a child to be overawed by him.

No, Mia mused, catching sight of herself in a full-length mirror as she left the room. She was hardly Miss Sugar ‘n’ Spice these days.

Chapter Three

‘I HAVE made my private sitting room available to you,’ Mia’s kindly old employer told her with obvious concern.

‘Thank you, Monsieur.’

‘And you only have to tug on the bell-pull if you need me.’

Monsieur’s concern was genuine and it touched her. ‘Thank you, Monsieur, but I’m happy to see him.’ On this occasion, a small white lie surely wouldn’t hurt.

Bold resolutions were one thing; acting them out was something else, Mia realised, glancing anxiously around as she crossed the salon full of mirrors. Everyone else was carrying on as normal, which seemed odd until she remembered that their world was still turning at the prescribed speed. But why should she worry about how she looked or what Ram thought of her? This was her life and Ram could accept it or not. But he was in for a shock—and not just because of the unconventional outfit. She’d always been alternative where fashion was concerned, but she hadn’t always been scarred. But she had wanted this. No one had forced her to make contact with Ram. She had wanted the challenge and the chance to prove herself on her own terms.

And it couldn’t be worse than Tom and Ram’s Leavers’ Ball. The event had been held in aid of charity and was the hottest ticket of the year. She’d been sixteen, so of course she didn’t have a date—she never had a date. She usually managed to frighten boys away with whatever outlandish new look she happened to be sporting.

On this occasion 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.’