‘You’re only eighteen, Carrie, with your whole life and its opportunities ahead of you,’ he had told her. ‘Whilst Luc already knows what his future and its responsibilities will entail.’
Her father, Carrie remembered, had felt that the task that lay ahead of Luc was an extremely daunting one.
‘His grandfather ruled S’Antander as though it was still a medieval state,’ he had once told Carrie. ‘And it will be Luc’s task to broker a way of bringing S’Antander into the twenty-first century. I certainly don’t envy him!’
He had admired him, though; Carrie knew that…
‘Luc, you’re back! How did it go in Brussels?’
Carrie tensed as the salon door was suddenly thrown open, her breath catching in her throat as she stared in shock at the man who had walked in. His physical resemblance to Luc was so extraordinarily marked that it was obvious that they had to share the same blood—indeed, could have been brothers, if not twins!
Carrie didn’t recognise him, though, and she frowned slightly, detecting an American accent.
‘Oh!’ As he saw Carrie he stopped speaking and looked enquiringly at Luc. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that you weren’t alone!’
‘It’s all right, Jay. In fact you can be the first to hear our news and to congratulate me. Allow me to introduce you to my bride-to-be—Catherine Broadbent.’
His eyes were a different colour from Luc’s, Carrie recognised as he focused on her. A bright warm blue instead of that cold steely grey, and she guessed that he was probably a couple of years younger in age—maybe a thousand years younger in terms of personality and self-will.
‘Your bride-to-be? But I thought that Maria…’ Jay stopped, looking uncomfortable.
‘A common misconception,’ Luc told him calmly. ‘But, as it happens, Catherine and I go back a long way. Circumstances beyond our control led to us parting, but happily we have now rediscovered one another.’
‘Well, I guess the old brigade don’t mind too much who you marry, just so long as you do! They were beginning to get real twitchy that you might decide to step down and turn the country over to self-rule because of all the hassle you’ve been getting. I suppose as an American citizen I ought to claim that is what you should do, but I confess that I kinda like being able to boast that I’m related to a real-life ruling prince—even if it is on the wrong side of the blanket. I guess that tracing my family tree has to be one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.’
‘You’re a billionaire, Jay, and you’ve earned that success by your own efforts. I should have thought that was something to be far more proud of than any merit bestowed by a mere act of birth.’
‘Careful, Luc, otherwise I might begin to believe that you think I got the best out of our shared gene pool. Remember, I know for a fact that you could have done exactly what I’ve done. You’ve got one of the best financial brains going, and don’t forget I had the advantage of being handed my first million by my old man. All you inherited was a load of problems and a set of state regalia!’
Carrie’s eyes rounded as she listened to the two of them subtly teasing one another. This was quite definitely a side to Luc she had never seen before.
‘By the way, do I get to be the first to kiss the bride-to-be?’
Carrie smiled as he came towards her, but to her bemusement, just as he reached her, Luc put his hand on her arm and drew her to his side, keeping his own body between them.
‘Catherine, allow me to introduce you to my second cousin—Jay Fitz Kleinburg. As you will probably have gathered, Jay and I have only recently discovered our shared relationship.’
‘Yup, that’s true. Luc’s granddaddy was also mine! Only thing was he kinda neglected to put his name on my father’s birth certificate! It’s my grandmother I’ve got to thank for the “Fitz” in my name. Seems she’d read that in olden days in England royal bastards were given the prefix “Fitz” to their names, so she decided to do the same for my dad, and he passed it on to me!
‘She only told us what had happened when she knew she was dying. Up until then she pretended that she’d married during the war and lost her husband! But I’m boring the pants off you. I guess what you both really want right now is to be on your own…’
Being on her own with Luc was the very last thing she wanted, Carrie acknowledged, but before she could say anything Jay was turning to Luc.
‘I guess we can talk later about Brussels. You ought to know, though, Luc, that there’s one hell of a lot of speculation going on amongst the tax exiles. Seems like most of them fear that you might be forced to make a change of policy, and give in to those young hotheads who are causing you so much trouble.’
‘There’s no question of that.’ Luc’s voice was terse. ‘For one thing this country is almost wholly dependent on the income it derives from its tax exile inhabitants, although…’ He started to frown. ‘There are certain issues to do with the way things were conducted here during my grandfather’s time which are going to have to be addressed.’
‘Well, at least the news of your coming marriage will put a stop to the gossip going round that you intend to sell out to the money men wanting to take over the country and step down as ruler.’
As an economist herself Carrie was well versed in the financial status of S’Antander, but she had not realised that there was internal pressure on Luc regarding the way the country was run.
‘Nice to meet you, Catherine.’ Jay was smiling. ‘You’ll both have to come down to the yacht and have dinner with me—although I guess you’ll both be pretty busy with formal engagements from now until the wedding. When is it to be, by the way?’
‘At the end of the month. We shall be getting married on the same day as we celebrate our country’s National Day. As you know, it is five hundred years this year since my family were given the country by the Pope. It seems fitting to celebrate my marriage at the same time.’
‘As a symbol of your intention to see that the family continues to rule for another five hundred years?’ Jay suggested.
Carrie was too shocked to speak. When Luc had told her that she must marry him she had had no idea he intended that marriage to take place so speedily! Maria had implied that her marriage to Luc was something that was to take place at some unspecified date well into the future.
Luc’s cousin was leaving. Shaking herself free of the disbelief immobilising her, Carrie waited until the door had closed behind him before pulling away from Luc and telling him fiercely, ‘This has gone far enough. We can’t do this, Luc. It’s crazy. No one is going to believe this marriage is anything other than a pathetic sham! We don’t have the slightest thing in common!’
‘No? What about this?’
Before she could say a word, Luc’s hands had clamped on her upper arms and she was being jerked towards him. His head bent over hers, his body language predatory and dangerous.
It had been eight years since she had last felt his mouth against hers, since she had last tasted the sweet savagery of his kiss, since she had last felt the shocking pleasure of the hardness of his body, all lean muscle and bone, against her own, and in those eight years she had, she had believed, taught herself to forget the pleasure her foolish, immature self had felt at his touch, and to remember instead the corrosive pain of her disillusionment and humiliation.
And