Not letting herself overthink it, Trella had briefed a security team and slipped on one of her sister’s creations.
Where Trella loved powerful touches like strong shoulders and A-lines, along with eye-catching beadwork and bold colors, her sister’s style was gentler. The champagne gown had a waifish quality in the way the sleeves fell off her shoulders. The bodice and torso were fitted to her figure, but the ruched skirt across her hips created a sensual impression of gathered satin sheets around a nude form.
She added her sister’s earrings and a locket with a panic button, but kept the look simple, arranging her hair into a fall of dark locks and painting her lips a soft pink.
Now she was here, breathless and petrified, yet filled with more optimism than she’d experienced in years. She moved to speak to the aloof Russian host and his much warmer British wife, Aleksy and Clair Dmitriev.
“I’m so glad you came,” Clair said, drawing her aside in a confiding way that revealed Clair had no idea she was talking to Gili’s twin. “You’re not my only supporter who comes without a date, but you’re the only one who won’t be silly about my guest of honor. Don’t even ask how I got him here. I was hideously shameless, interrupting their trade talks and putting him on the spot in front of everyone. I talked him into auctioning himself for the first dance.”
Trella scanned for a glimpse of this exalted personality. Clair continued her confession as she wound them through the crowd.
“Aleksy said at least I use my power for good instead of evil, but I feel a little evil because the ravens surrounded him the minute he arrived. They’ll back off if you’re there, though. I know you’ll put him at ease. Everyone loves you. Do you mind?”
Trella could see how Clair got what she wanted, sounding sincere in her flattery as she took agreement for granted. Still, she was curious enough to murmur, “Bien sûr,” in her sister’s preferred French.
Clair beamed and gently pushed into the thicket of gowns.
The mystery man turned, revealing a red sash beneath his black tuxedo jacket. He was tall. Intimidatingly tall, with broad shoulders and an economy of movement, suggesting a huntsman’s physique lurked beneath his sophisticated attire. The blond glints in his light brown hair looked natural, given the hint of gold in his eyebrows.
Those eyes. They were such a piercing blue they struck like slabs off a glacier, peeling away to fall and rock the world. The rest of his features were precisely carved in sweeps of long cheeks under sharp cheekbones, a jaw hammered square and a mouth of two perfectly symmetrical peaks over a full but uncompromising bottom lip.
He was so compelling a force, so beyond her experience, the room faded from her consciousness. They became trapped in a noiseless, airless bubble as they took each other in.
Had she really longed to be seen as a woman? Because it was happening. He skimmed his gaze down in unabashed assessment. She saw the flash of interest in his gaze as it came back and locked with hers. He liked what he saw.
He saw Gili, though. Sweet Gili who was used to being in public, where men routinely sized her up as a potential conquest.
The strangest reaction slithered through Trella. She ought to have prickled with threat, or acted like Gili and let his male interest drift past her as if she didn’t notice or care.
Instead, she took issue with her sister being seen as a trophy. Protective instincts honed since birth pushed her confrontational personality to the forefront of the image she presented.
You’ll have to go through me, she projected, tucking Gili safely behind her.
His stare intensified. Burned. He saw her. Whatever shields she had walked in here holding—including her sister’s persona—were gone. She felt completely unprotected against his thorough exploration of her face, his gaze touching each curve and dip of her features.
It felt like a spill of magic, making her cheeks tingle. She had to disguise a rush of unprecedented sensual awareness. Men didn’t affect her, but the spell he cast sent invisible sensations from her throat to her nipples and her pelvis, into her thighs and terminated in a paralysis that nailed her feet to the floor. All the while, delicious stirrings swirled upward through her, making her feel drawn toward him.
“Your Highness,” she heard Clair say from what seemed like another universe. “Have you met Angelique Sauveterre?”
* * *
“Ms. Sauveterre, the Crown Prince of Elazar, Xavier Deunoro.”
Xavier had known exactly what he was doing when Clair Dmitriev had cornered him into making an appearance at her charity event. He was buying a future favor from her powerful husband, a man who was notoriously difficult to influence.
He had also known it would be an evening rife with what he had before him: Women in daring gowns, swishing their hips in enticement, sweeping lashes in false shyness while they twisted their hair in invitation.
As Europe’s most eligible bachelor, he was used to having his pick from such an array. He only needed to drop a claw and let it pick up one of the brightly colored toys before him. It didn’t matter which one fell into his hands. They were all the same, providing brief entertainment and something soft to embrace for a night, before forgetting them in the hotel room when he left the next morning.
Given the news he had received this morning, tonight’s plaything would be his last before his royal duty took precedence. It was another reason he had agreed to this ridiculousness. At least he had a decent selection for his final visit to the amusement park.
He was taking his time singling out his companion. They all had their charms. Was he in the mood for voluptuous or fair? Should he be practical and choose the one wearing enough gold not to covet his own? Or go with the one who promised some spark as she set her chin and glared at the rest?
Then his hostess presented a newcomer like a gift, one who made the rest of the women take sharp little breaths and step back.
She was taller than most, with divine features that matched her name. Her skin was soft and flushed, too warm to be called cream yet not dark enough to be olive. Golden as a sunrise glancing off a snowy peak.
A muse, clearly, since he felt poetic stirrings just by gazing at her. How could he not admire her? Her figure was goddess-perfect, her mouth sinful, her eyes fey and mysterious, colored somewhere between gray and green. If he pulled her from the cloud of perfume surrounding them, he bet she would smell like mossy forest and clean cold streams.
That was what she presented on the surface, at least. In a blink, she had shifted ever so slightly and it was as if she’d hit exactly the right angle to catch and reflect the sun. Something less tangible than external beauty seemed to concentrate and strike out in a sharp white light that pierced his eyes, like a star being born.
She was the diamond in a bowl of imitations, a woman of facets and contrasts, infinitely fascinating and priceless. If recognizing that caused him a stab of regret because he didn’t have time to fully explore her depths and contradictions, he ignored it. Such was his life. He took what he could, when he could.
Tonight, he would take her, grazie mille.
“Good evening.” He bowed over her hand, letting his breath warm her knuckles and feeling the tiny flex of her reaction. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
“A rare treat indeed.” The tilt of her lips suggested an inside joke. “The honor is mine.”
“I’ve seated you at the VIP table,” Clair said. “Please find your way when you’re ready. Has everyone seen the silent auction items?” Clair broke up the knot of disgruntled women, most of whom drifted off.
A few opportunists remained, one being the redhead with the determined chin. He sighed inwardly as the redhead flashed a too sweet smile before asking, “Angelique, how is your