I know you heard us fighting. I know you and half the palace must know the truth. She isn’t Emmeline d’Arcy. She’s an American impostor.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Krek.”
The butler bowed. “Will you be going out, sir?” Zale glowered at him. “Yes.” “Very good, sir.”
Zale was annoyed that he’d be showing up at the unassuming Divok Hotel with full escort, but he couldn’t very well go alone. He was a king. There was protocol. And safety was always an issue, even in his own country.
Zale waited in his armored car as his security guard checked out the hotel, securing the front and back entrances before allowing him inside.
The front desk clerk’s welcome was effusive. Beaming and bowing, she showed him and four of his bodyguards up to the top floor, which was where she’d given Hannah Smith a room. “It’s one of our best rooms,” she said, “and every day I make sure she has fresh flowers.”
Zale thanked the clerk for the kindness she’d shown Hannah Smith, and knocked on Hannah’s door.
He waited a moment, gut tensing, and then knocked again. Finally she opened the door a crack and peered out, her long hair messy, her face pale with deep shadows beneath her eyes. The interior of her room was dark with the blinds still drawn although it was almost noon.
She blinked at him, obviously stunned but sleepy. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” he answered grimly before gesturing to her room. “May I? The hallway isn’t the most private place for us to talk.”
She nodded, tucked her hair back behind her ears and opened the door wider. “Come in.” While his security detail waited in the hall, Hannah turned on the lights and opened her blinds and smoothed the covers of her rumpled bed.
He glanced around the small, Spartan room with the bouquet of violets in a little glass vase next to the bed. “Why are you still here?”
She winced at his sharp tone. “Because I can’t afford to leave.”
“You should have told me.”
“And what would you have done? Laughed in my face? Or thrown me in prison?”
He shrugged. “I was angry. I still am.”
She sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed and tilted her chin up at him. “My father has sent me a credit card and my passport by express mail. It should arrive this afternoon. I’ll be leaving soon.”
“Not if I arrest you.”
“Is that why you brought so many of your palace guard? Expecting me to put up quite a fight, aren’t you?”
“You don’t sound remorseful at all.”
“What can I say that I haven’t already said? I’ve apologized again and again, and I meant every word—”
“So say it again.”
A tiny frisson of sensation raced down her back. Something in his voice hinted at danger. Or perhaps it was the expression in his eyes. But suddenly the room felt sexually charged. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s it? That’s your most sincere, heartfelt apology?”
“I gave you my sincere, heartfelt apology two nights ago and you threw it back in my face.”
“So? I want to hear it again. I want to feel your sincerity. I want you to prove your sincerity.”
“How?”
His hot amber gaze raked her from head to toe. “I’m sure you can think of something.”
A shiver raced through her—nerves, anger, as well as anticipation. “You can’t kick me out of your palace and then expect me to invite you into my bed.” “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to sleep with you,” she retorted fiercely.
“Good, because I can assure you we won’t be sleeping.” “It’s not going to happen. You were horrible. Mean. Cruel.” “Yes, yes, I was all of the above. So how will you pleasure me?”
“I won’t.”
“You will.” He closed the distance between them, stopping in front of the bed, his thighs inches from her knees. He was standing so close that Hannah’s skin prickled and the fine hair at her nape lifted. Unfortunately there was nowhere to run. Not on the third floor with four security guards outside the door.
“And why would I?” she whispered, licking her dry lips.
“Because I remember what you said, the night of the ball. You said you fell hard for me. You fell in love at first sight. Or did you just make that up along with everything else?”
She stared up into his eyes, feeling his tension. He was hanging on to control by a thread, barely mastering his emotions. “No,” she whispered. “I did fall for you, right from the beginning. I knew it was wrong to continue to pretend to be