But another thought pushed that disappointment aside. She hadn’t let it fully sink in yet, but she was dancing with the crown prince of Nabotavia! Despite the circumstances, this was a dream come true. Her concentration in her art history studies was in Eastern European Art of the Twentieth Century, with an emphasis on Nabotavia. For the last two years she’d read everything she could get her hands on about the plucky little country, studying its history, immersing herself in its art work. She’d tried to keep current on the fight to oust the radicals, though there hadn’t been much in the local press. And now here she was with the prince.
Her heart gave a little leap, but she stilled it. She had to remain calm. After all, a princess of the next-door country wouldn’t think this was any big deal, now would she?
Stay calm. Stay natural. Think of something to say.
“Have you changed your opinion of dancing?” she asked as they swayed to a rhythmic arrangement of a classical tune.
“No,” he told her. “But I am in the process of revising my opinion of you.”
Something in his tone, something in the way he was looking down at her, sent a riff of sensation cascading down her spine and she almost gasped aloud.
Wow. Where had that come from?
But she already knew the answer. The music was creating a sumptuous background to the night, along with the shimmering lights and the richly dressed crowd. That helped. The scent of candles and gardenias filled the air, creating a scene for magic, a backdrop for fairy tales. A girl could lose her head in a setting like this.
But even more important was the spectacularly handsome man who held her. At first she’d been impressed with his looks and his royal bearing. But now something else was throwing her off her stride. Suddenly she was conscious of the flesh-and-blood man beneath the regalia, and that sense of awareness flooded her with a feeling a little too intense for the circumstances.
Blinking, she swallowed hard and stared at his tux lapel. This prince was also a man, a very muscular man, with wide shoulders and a masculine scent that was suddenly filling her head. His hand on her skin seemed to sizzle. His warm breath tickled her ear. His hard thigh grazed the inside of her leg as they made a turn and an aching longing seemed to curl like smoke up through her body.
She bit down hard on the inside of her lip. If she didn’t stop this impossible swoon, she was going to melt into a puddle of ridiculous eroticism right here on the dance floor. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself back into sanity, hardening her resistance, coming up for air.
You will not fall for this man, she told herself fiercely. Now stick with the program and fend off all feelings of fatal attraction.
There. She sighed with relief. She’d done it. And though it seemed like forever since she’d swooned, he was looking at her as though he were still waiting for an answer to his statement, so it couldn’t have lasted as long as she’d thought.
Now, what had he said? Oh yes.
I am in the process of revising my opinion of you.
It was certainly a statement that needed a response of some kind.
Chapter Two
“So you arrived tonight with a skeptical opinion of me?” Shannon asked, her firm tone masking her wobbly confidence. “And just where did you form it? We haven’t seen each other for ten years.” Or so she’d been told in the short lecture on facts Greta had given her just hours before.
“Over ten years,” Marco agreed. “The last time I saw you I believe was the night we danced at your debutante ball when you were sixteen.”
“Really?” Oh-oh. Now she’d done it. This was her worst fear, that he would bring up the past, a past she knew absolutely nothing about.
“You don’t remember?”
She shook her head quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve got amnesia for anything that happened before I turned twenty-one.” Hah! A master stroke, if she did say so herself.
“Oh really?” His dark eyebrow rose in surprise. He made no effort to pretend to believe her. “Damned convenient, isn’t it?”
She gave him a superior look. That was her story and she was sticking to it. But she felt a prickly sense of irritation that he seemed so ready to think the worst of her. She wanted to react to his dry tone with a sharp retort, but she stopped herself in time. She had to remember what was going on here. This was not a real relationship with a real man. This was playacting.
And she wasn’t supposed to be involved in it, darn it all! She had to watch what she said and hope to get out of this without being unmasked. Looking into his eyes, she searched for evidence that he had suspicions about her. But all she saw were shadows hiding any emotion he might be feeling. If he did feel anything at all. Which she was beginning to doubt.
The trouble was, she did feel things. Sometimes she seemed to be a fountain of feeling, spilling out all over the place. Instinct told her she was already beginning to feel a very inappropriate list of things about this man. And wouldn’t that just land her in a pickle if she didn’t watch it? Not only was he a prince, while she was a phony, paid by the hour, but his hard jaw and ice-cold gaze told her he wouldn’t melt for a mere woman. Not on a bet.
“Amnesia runs in my family,” she told him airily, deciding nonsense was better than trying to stick to facts. “We all get it sooner or later.”
He nodded, looking slightly bored. “I understand,” he said. “The truth is often difficult to face.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked up at him. Was he baiting her? “And you think you know the truth about me?” she asked slowly.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I seem to know more of it than you do. You have amnesia. Remember?”
She bit her lip. Score one for the arrogant prince. Now she was really annoyed, but that was certainly less dangerous than swooning.
“What I remember most about our last meeting was, actually, the dancing,” he went on. “You dance much better now than you did then. As I recall, your spike heels gouged holes in my feet that didn’t heal for weeks.”
“I’m so sorry,” she told him unconvincingly. And then she couldn’t resist a quick follow-up. “But I think you’d have to admit, at least a part of the credit goes to now having a partner who has finally learned how to lead.”
He gazed at her questioningly. “I thought you didn’t remember anything from the past.”
She waved a hand in the air. “I don’t. I’m just extrapolating from current evidence.”
“Oh, I see.” His face finally registered the fact that she was purposely trying to get his goat. “So you find my dancing just barely adequate at this point?”
She smiled, glad to know he was feeling her jabs at last but still not sure if he was taking them with humor or annoyance. “I didn’t say that at all.”
His blue eyes glittered. “No, but you certainly implied it.”
“Assumptions are risky things.”
“I guess I lead a dangerous life, then.” His eyebrow quirked. “Speaking of which…”
She could tell by his tone that he was leading into something she wasn’t going to like and she steeled herself.
“I hear you’ve been leading quite an interesting life since I saw you last. Perhaps you might find time at some future date to fill me in on the particulars of anything I might need to know.”
She saw right through him. What was he angling for, an abject apology from the princess that she’d been around the block a few times? Despite the gossip she’d heard about Iliana, and the things she knew about her as well,