The Prince's Chambermaid(10)

Clutching onto the silken coverlet, she lifted her chin. 'Why on earth should I want to collude with Rupert?'

'To negotiate a better price?' he returned, golden eyes lancing into her.                       
       
           



       

For a moment the room seemed to sway and Cathy felt sick. 'To negotiate a  better price?' she echoed in disbelief. Surely-oh, please, no-surely he  wasn't implying that she was selling herself. She swallowed down the  acrid taste in her throat. 'A better price for what?'

'For the hotel, of course,' he snapped.

There was an odd, debilitating kind of silence. A moment when it seemed  to her that everything which was dark in the world had formed itself  into a horrible, tight little ball and been hurled, hard-at her stomach.  'For the hotel?' she whispered.

There was a pause. 'He hasn't told you?'

'Told … told me what?'

'That he's selling?' His eyes narrowed as he saw her face blanch. 'No, clearly he hasn't.'

'To … you?'

Xaviero gave a grim kind of smile. 'Of course to me.'

Through the series of befuddled impressions which began ricocheting  through her mind, Cathy's overriding thought was that she would have to  leave now. She would have to. Prince Xaviero as her boss? How could she  bear it? But then she met the cold, metallic gleam of his golden eyes  and wondered who on earth she thought she was kidding. As if a man who  had made his contempt for her so apparent would ever keep her on the  payroll.

But something didn't make sense to her. She knew that princes in modern  times had 'normal' careers-but this? She tried to imagine him doing a  stocktake of the cellar-or taking the chef to task when he had one of  his periodical tantrums.

'You mean … you're going to be a hotelier?' she questioned, mystified.

There was a moment of stunned silence before Xaviero gave an arrogant  laugh, knowing that he should have been outraged at her suggestion and  yet, in a way, didn't it make walking away from her not just easy-but  necessary? Because her ridiculous question had simply confirmed that he  could not have picked a more unsuitable lover if he had searched to the  ends of the earth to find one.

'You can see me-running a hotel such as this?' he mocked.

Now he came to mention it, no, she couldn't-but something in his  contemptuous attitude stabbed even harder at Cathy's heart. It might not  have been the most fashionable hotel in the country, but it was the  only real job she'd ever had-and she felt a certain kind of loyalty  towards it.

'Not really, no,' she said. Because some modicum of politeness and charm  were necessary if you wanted to make a place a real success-and, unless  he was actually trying to get a woman to kiss him, the arrogant Prince  Xaviero seemed badly lacking in both. 'So why are you buying it, then?'

'Because I want a retreat-a beautiful, English country home, which this  has the potential to be. Something with history which can be brought up  to date with a little care and money injected into it. Somewhere that's  close enough to London and the international airports-near enough to my  polo club but far away enough to escape from it. Somewhere big enough to  site a helicopter pad-and which will satisfy my security people. This  place seems to fulfil most of the criteria-though obviously it needs  extensive work before it can be made habitable.' He began to laugh  softly. 'Me? A hotelier? Can you imagine?'

Cathy stared at him. In a way, she had thought the worst thing that  could happen was the Prince taking over the hotel-but now she saw that  there was a far worse scenario. That soon there would be no hotel at  all-it would revert to being a private home and not just she but all the  other people who worked there would be out of a job. Dismissed as if  they were of no consequence by a spoilt and selfish prince who thought  of nobody but himself!

'No, now I come to think of it, I can't-it was a ri-ridiculous thing to  say,' she agreed, her voice shaking with rage and hurt. 'I don't think  you've got the people skills to run a hotel.'

There was a stunned silence, while he stared at her in a slow-burning disbelief. 'What did you just say?'

Don't let him intimidate you, thought Cathy fiercely-because now  indignation was taking over from the terrible hurt which seemed to have  turned her body into a block of ice. Had she done something awful in a  past life which meant that men felt they had a right to trample over her  feelings like a herd of cows in a meadow? He had just taken her  virginity and then turned on her as if she were nothing more than a  cheap con-artist.

'I think you heard me.'

'How dare you?' he bit out dangerously.

'Why?' She didn't flinch under his accusing stare. 'Does the truth make you angry, Your Highness?'                       
       
           



       

Xaviero's eyes narrowed as her impudence almost took his breath away. 'This is completely unacceptable!' he hissed.

Didn't what they had just been doing give her at least some rights?  Clearly not. Clutching the silken coverlet even tighter, Cathy thought  that if someone had spoken to him like that more often in the past, then  he might not be so overbearingly arrogant. 'Well, if you'll let me  leave-then I won't need to bother you any more, will I?'

Still reeling from her insubordination, he paused to study her flushed  face and the aquamarine eyes which were unexpectedly sparking blue fire  at him. And even while her sudden defiance began to turn him on he  remembered something else, too. Something which might account for her  spiky rebelliousness.

'I'm not stopping you from leaving,' he said softly.

She stared at him-as a hungry mouse might stare at a piece of cheese  while wondering what the glint of metal behind it could possibly be.  'You … you aren't?'

'Of course not.' He smiled, feeling himself grow exquisitely hard beneath his robe. 'Go. Go on, if that's what you want.'

Cathy swallowed, knowing that she could not move an inch while those  eyes were melting into her like molten gold. 'Then … then would you mind  turning your back?'

His lips curved into a mocking smile. 'Yes, I would, actually.' He  reached out and hooked his finger inside the silk-satin rim of the  coverlet which concealed the trembling rise and fall of her breasts.  'Isn't it a little late in the day for modesty?'

Her breathing was coming in short little bursts. 'N-no. I don't th-think it is.'

The finger slipped a little further down and sank into the cushioned flesh. 'Sure?'

'Q-quite sure,' she breathed, wanting-no, praying that he wouldn't stop  touching her even while part of her despised herself for letting him.  Push him away, she told herself. Push him away and he will let you go.  Because despite the dark look of predatory intent which had made his  features grow tense, some deep-rooted instinct told her that he would  stop immediately if she wanted him to.

'You see, what just happened was not the best initiation into sex you  could have had, mia cara,' he murmured as his finger dipped down and  began to tease at one tightly aroused nipple.

Cathy's grip on the coverlet loosened. 'It … wasn't?'

'No.' His palm now captured the entire heavy mound of her breast and he  felt the coverlet slither down uselessly to her waist. Leaning over, he  bent his lips to one rosy tip, feeling a convulsive shudder rack her  tiny frame as he flicked his tongue against it. 'If I had known … ' If he  had known, he would have run a million miles away from her blue-eyed  enchantment. But perhaps this wasn't the best time in the world to say  so. 'Then I should have taken things more … slowly.'

Cathy's eyes fluttered to a close as she felt his tongue now slide its  way down towards her belly, and an unbearable flame of desire shot  through her. 'Oh,' she breathed as he slid a slow, moist trail over her  skin and her fingers drifted automatically to tangle themselves in the  dark silk of his hair. Sweet sensation sucked her towards an unknown  vortex as she struggled to hold onto reality. She wanted to ask him what  he thought he was doing-but it felt so good that she didn't want to  risk him stopping by answering.

'Is that good?' he murmured as his mouth lingered against her navel-his tongue circling the neat little hollow.

Good? 'Yes,' she breathed.

Parting her legs with gentle fingers, he put his face between her  thighs, his first slow lick producing a squirm of pleasure and a  disbelieving intake of breath.

'Oh!' she gasped as his tongue began to move against her heated flesh.  Cathy was on fire-as the growing hunger of her body demanded to be fed.  And in a way, this felt even more intimate than what had happened  before. The Prince kissing her there … there … how was that possible? But  then she forgot that he was a prince, forgot the angry words and the  accusations which had preceded this, forgot everything except the  sensations which began to build and build, promising her some  tantalising conclusion so perfect that she didn't dare dream that it  might really exist.