CAITLIN CREWS - In Defiance of Duty

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” she said matter-of-factly, though it cost her to keep so calm.

“And it isn’t a tantrum to say so. Pretending that this is a childish display of temper so you don’t have to deal with what I’m saying, however, very well might be.”

“When you met me I was the Crown Prince of Khatan,” Azrin said, the chill back in his voice, that terrible steel in his eyes. “This is, in fact, exactly what you signed up for.” He laughed slightly, though there was no humor in it. “Sooner than we planned, perhaps, but that’s life. Plans change. Sometimes you simply have to do your duty.”

“You’re talking about your life,” she said through the constriction in her chest which she was deathly afraid were the tears she refused to cry. But not in front of him. Not when it was so important that he take her seriously. That he listen . “ Your duty. What about mine?”

“What about it?” he asked, every inch of him so arrogant. So incredulous. “This is your life, Kiara. Whatever games we’ve played over the past five years, this is reality. The sooner you accept it, the happier you’ll be.”

CAITLIN CREWSdiscovered her first romance novel at the age of twelve. It involved swashbuckling pirates, grand adventures, a heroine with rustling skirts and a mind of her own, and a seriously mouthwatering and masterful hero. The book (the title of which remains lost in the mists of time) made a serious impression. Caitlin was immediately smitten with romances and romance heroes, to the detriment of her middle school social life. And so began her life-long love affair with romance novels, many of which she insists on keeping near her at all times.

Caitlin has made her home in places as far-flung as York, England, and Atlanta, Georgia. She was raised near New York City, and fell in love with London on her first visit when she was a teenager. She has backpacked in Zimbabwe, been on safari in Botswana, and visited tiny villages in Namibia. She has, while visiting the place in question, declared her intention to live in Prague, Dublin, Paris, Athens, Nice, the Greek Islands, Rome, Venice, and/or any of the Hawaiian islands. Writing about exotic places seems like the next best thing to moving there.

She currently lives in California, with her animator/comic book artist husband and their menagerie of ridiculous animals.

Recent titles by the same author:

HEIRESS BEHIND THE HEADLINES

PRINCESS FROM THE PAST

KATRAKIS’S LAST MISTRESS

MAJESTY, MISTRESS, MISSING HEIR …

PURE PRINCESS, BARTERED BRIDE

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

In Defiance

Of Duty

Caitlin Crews

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all the fantastic writers at the 2011 Romantic Writers of Australia Conference who were so lovely and welcoming to me, despite my crippling jetlag. It was such a treat (and an honor) to get to spend time with you—and I hope I did justice to your beautiful country!

And to my favorite Los Angeles-based Australian, Kate Rogers, who told me the truth about magpies.

“LOVELY view.”

Kiara didn’t turn toward the deep, commanding voice, even as it washed over her and somehow into her blood, her bones, making her very nearly shiver. She’d sensed his approach before he’d helped himself to the chair next to hers—there had been a certain expectant stillness in the air around her, a kind of palpable, electrically charged quiet, as if all of Sydney fell silent before him. She’d pictured that easy, confident walk of his, the way his dark, powerful masculinity turned heads wherever he went, the way he’d no doubt been watching her with that intense, consuming focus as he drew near.

But then, she’d been expecting him.

“That’s a terrible pickup line,” she pointed out, a shade too close to flippant. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. She decided she wouldn’t look at him unless he earned it. She would pretend to be enchanted by the water of the harbor, the coming sunset. Not by a man like him, no matter how tall, dark and dangerous he might be, even in her peripheral vision. “Especially here. This particular view is famous, I think you’ll find. Renowned the world over.”

“That should make it all the more lovely, then,” he replied, a thread of amusement beneath the steel-and-velvet seduction of his voice. She felt it like heat, pressing into her skin. “Or are you the dreary sort who finds a view is spoiled forever if too many others look upon it?”

Kiara sat at a small outdoor table tucked in on the lower concourse beneath Sydney’s glorious, soaring Opera House and the sky above, with full and unfettered access to the famous and beautiful arch of the Harbor Bridge opposite. The setting sun above had just settled into rich and tempting golds, sending the mellow light dancing over the sparkling water of the harbor itself, as if taunting the jutting skyscrapers of the city—as if daring them to look away from the spectacular evening show.

She certainly knew the feeling. And she wasn’t even looking at the man who lounged next to her as if he owned the table, the chair, and her, too, though she was aware of him in every possible way. In every part of her skin and blood and bones.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” she said mildly, as if wholly unaffected by him and the great tractor beam of power and charisma that seemed to emanate from him. He was lethal. So compelling it almost hurt not to turn and let herself look at him, drink him in. “You’re the one who trotted out a tired old line. I only pointed it out. I don’t think that makes me dreary.”

She knew intuitively that his particular brand of dark male beauty—so fierce and breathtaking, laced through with all that dizzying masculine power—would be equally dazzling if she dared turn her head and look at it. She could feel it. In the way her stomach clenched and, below, ached around a deep, feminine pulse. The way the fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood at attention, almost making her shiver. The way the whole world seemed to shrink to just this table, this chair.

Him.

Instead, she fiddled with the coffee cup she’d drunk dry a while ago, even toyed with the ends of the wavy light brown hair she’d swept back into a high ponytail, her hands betraying her even as she sat there with such studied carelessness, pretending she was unaware of the great strength of him next to her. The imposing fact of him—ink-black hair against oddly light eyes, the stamp of his Arab ancestry in his fierce features, and that mouthwatering fantasy of a body—that she could grasp even with only the briefest glance from the corner of her eye. The impact on not only her, but the whole of the Opera House Bar around them.

She could see the group of older women at the next table—the way they turned to look at him, then widened their eyes at each other before dissolving into besotted giggles better suited to the girls Kiara imagined they’d been some thirty years before.

“Tell me how to play this game,” he said after a moment that seemed overripe with the gold sinking against the water, the murmur of the crowd of tourists all around them, his own dark magnetism spread over them like an umbrella. “Will I woo you with my wit? My appreciation of the local beauty? Perhaps I will tell you a series of pretty lies and convince you to come back to my hotel with me. Just for the night. Anonymous and furtive. Do you think that would work?”

“You won’t know until you try,” she said, biting back a grin, even as carnal images chased through her head—none of them either anonymous or furtive. All of them spellbinding. Wild with passion. “Though I hardly think laying out your options like that, so coldblooded and matter-of-fact, will do you any favors. You should think in terms of seduction, not spreadsheets.” She found she was grinning despite herself then, but still kept from looking at him, staring resolutely ahead at the delicate arch of the bridge as if unable to tear herself away. “If you don’t mind a word of advice.”

“I relish it, of course.” His low voice was cool, ironic, and still managed to kick up fires all along her skin. And deeper. She shifted in her seat, crossing and then recrossing her legs, wishing he did not take up quite so much space. He did not seem to move at all, and yet, somehow, she was even more aware of him.

“So far,” she continued, her own voice confiding, pitched for his ears alone, “I must tell you that I’m completely unimpressed.”

“With the view?” Now his amusement wasn’t hidden at all. It moved through his voice even as it moved through her, teasing her with hints of something else beneath his crisp British public school vowels, something that indicated English was only one of his languages. The faintest suggestion that he was nothing simple or easily categorized. “I hope you’re not one of those terminally bored socialite types, so shallow and endlessly fatigued by everything the world has to offer.”

“And if I am?”

“That would be a great disappointment.”

“Luckily,” she said drily, “you can hardly have been too invested in something that could only have ended in lies and a furtive hotel visit, could you? I imagine the disappointment will be minor.”

“But I am captivated,” he protested in an insultingly mild way that made her laugh despite herself.

“By my profile?” She smiled at the bridge, imagined the man, and shook her head. “It’s all you’ve seen of me.”

“Perhaps it is your profile superimposed on such a famous view,” he suggested. “I’m as awestruck as any run-of-the-mill tourist. If only I’d remembered my camera.”

She forgot she didn’t mean to look at him and turned her head.

It was looking into the sun. Searing. Dizzying.

He was beautiful—there was no other word for it—but there was nothing in the least bit pretty about him. He was a study in controlled ferocity. He was all sleek muscle and hard, strong lines. His rich black hair, his dark skin, the gleam in his unusual, near-blue eyes. The merciless thrust of his cheekbones, his belligerent jaw. He lounged beside her with seeming nonchalance, but she wasn’t fooled.

He was all focus and menace, his rangy, athletic body showcased to perfection in a dark suit and a snow-white shirt that he wore open against his neck, as if he was attempting a casual gesture when everything else about him shouted out the formidable force he wore the way another man might wear a jacket. He looked as if there was nothing at all he couldn’t do with his disconcertingly elegant hands—and nothing he hadn’t already done with them. She could think of several possibilities, and had to swallow against the shocking surge of heat that swept through her then, wild and out of control.

She was sure he could feel the very same flames.

“Hello,” he said quietly as their eyes met. Held. His sensual mouth curved into a knowing smile. “I like this view, too.”

Kiara forced a jaded sigh. “You really aren’t very good at this, are you?”

“Apparently not.” His impossible eyes, somewhere between blue and green, or possibly gray, gleamed. “By all means, teach me. I live to serve.”