Victoria Parker: Princess In The Iron Mask

‘Good grief, I’m as far away from being a princess as you are from being Prince Charming!’

Lucas coughed around a closed fist, then uncurled his long fingers to stroke his jaw. ‘I’ve noticed,’ he said, searching her face as if looking for an answer to the question hovering in the air.

Why? Let him come to his own conclusions, she mused. Claudia owed him nothing.

In thinking mode his face almost softened, and for the first time she noticed beautiful long thick lashes surrounded eyes so dark, so intense, they glittered like sapphires.

‘Then how would you like to be addressed?’ he asked.

Claudia frowned, blinking over and over, scrolling through the past few minutes of conversation, slightly disturbed by his silky intonation.

‘Just Claudia is fine,’ she said warily.

‘Very well, Just Claudia.’

Oh. My. Giddy. Aunt. Something hot and sultry splashed through her midsection. His accent thickened when he said her name. His full mouth formed a perfect O as if he’d kissed it past his lips: Cllowtia .

Kissed it past his lips?

She gave her head a quick shake. Twenty minutes in his company and she’d lost hundreds of brain cells, waxing poetical. This was what happened when a romance novel thrust itself into her hands during a spontaneous visit to the charity bookshop at St Andrews.

Claudia preferred to base her life on facts and scientific evidence.

And the fact was Lucas Garcia wouldn’t give her a second glance if he passed her in the street. The idea of mutual attraction was laughable. She wasn’t only socially inept but also the strangest-looking creature on earth. They were quite literally worlds apart. Or they would be as soon as she got rid of him.

From the way his long blunt fingers trailed down the lapel of his charcoal single-breasted jacket and deftly unpopped the button, it didn’t look as if he felt the need to go any time soon.

Mid-exasperated sigh, the air locked in her throat as he rolled his broad shoulders, revealing a wide panel of crisp white shirt stretched taut over his rock-solid physique, and strolled over to where her qualifications hung on the wall, filling the white expanse.

‘I understand you are a biochemist?’

Claudia’s eyes narrowed on his fluid gait, lithe for a man of his stature, and her traitorous mind imagined all kinds. ‘Mmm-hmm.’ Oh, lovely—she couldn’t even speak, her mouth was so dry.

‘What exactly does your work involve?’

Was he really that interested? She gave a little huff. Of course he was interested. It was his job to be interested.

‘At the moment I’m studying a childhood auto-immune disease and developing drugs to reduce the side-effects—along with a cure, of course.’ Claudia just had to think of a child suffering from the same condition and her life made a strange kind of sense. She was here for a purpose. One that didn’t include sitting around looking impossibly pretty, cutting ribbons at galas and chatting to foreign dignitaries.

Lucas paused before the largest frame. Her second Masters. ‘You feel strongly about your work.’ Reaching up, he straightened the gilt-framed plaque with tensile fingers and ran the tip of his index finger across the black lettering of her name.

The gesture was so unexpected, so intimate, it felt like a physical touch.

Without conscious thought she reached up and brushed her lips in a continuous circular motion, wondering what his too-large hands would feel like against her skin—rough and purposeful or seductively thrilling?

‘The strength of my dedication is unimaginable, Mr Garcia,’ she said softly, her hand plunging to her side.

Because suddenly, like the instant flare of a Bunsen, it occurred to her that he couldn’t possibly understand her avoidance of going home. Your selfishness is astounding . In his opinion she was being awkward and highly unreasonable. Having no idea why the notion weighed so heavy on her heart, she wanted to explain. Would she see pity in his beautifully fierce gaze or scorn because she’d yet to overcome the lingering effects?

‘That is quite understandable in the circumstances,’ he said, with a cool sincerity that snuffed out her burning desire to elucidate.

Was he saying he already knew?

‘This condition that you study?’ he went on. ‘JDMS?’

‘Juvenile Dermatomyosytis. I’m surprised you’ve heard of it. It’s not a particularly common affliction.’ Hence it was a constant fight to keep money rolling her way. Fingers of suspicion stroked her throat, curling like a noose around her neck. ‘Did my parents tell you?’

‘No.’

One word—sharp as a scalpel and just as ominous.

Claudia frowned. Was he deliberately being evasive?

Having reached the far corner, Lucas unclasped his hands and began to swivel on his heels. Before he made the full turn she braced her weight against the edge of the desk, clenched her fists, determined not to fidget and calling upon years of practice in the art of facial indifference.

Despite all her efforts her eyes still flared at the indomitable calculating expression on his face.

‘Like you, I take my position seriously, Claudia. I would not be doing my job correctly if I stumbled into a situation without all the relevant facts to hand.’

Meaning he’d pulled her files. Not full medical—he wouldn’t have had the authority—so his information would be brief. ‘So you understand my reasons?’

‘I understand perfectly,’ he said, his voice weighted with dark power.

A sinking sensation tugged at her limbs and she pushed her spine into the blunt edge of the bench.

‘What I cannot comprehend is your reluctance to travel home. As far as I can tell, you are using your job as a convenient excuse. Luckily I had been forewarned of any possible obstacles.’

Panic pounded at her heart and Claudia bit her inner cheek to prevent an untimely sniping retort.

‘With that in mind,’ he continued, ‘my first port of call this morning was with your manager. A Mr Ryan Tate.’

Her stomach lurched so violently her wheat-bran flakes threatened to reappear. But that didn’t stop her brain firing synapses faster than the speed of light.

‘That’s how you gained access to this floor,’ she whispered.

‘Correct.’

‘How dare you …?’ Her voice cracked, failing her miserably. ‘How dare you intrude on my life this way? What was discussed at this meeting?’

Lucas flexed his neck, his unease a palpable thing, but Claudia was far too busy stemming hysteria to take comfort from the sight.

‘I enquired if you were free to take annual leave,’ he said. ‘The answer was yes.’

Oh …

‘I asked him if there was anything standing in the way of your returning home immediately. The answer was yes. You have five days to secure additional funding before the work on your project is terminated.’

My …

‘I questioned if there was anything I could do to relieve the time pressure and pave the way for your return home. The answer was yes.’

God .

She’d underestimated him. Badly.

Directing her voice to match the cool detachment in his face, she said, ‘When you arrived I asked if you were here in connection with the budget meeting. While you didn’t lie outright, you deliberately withheld facts which would have a profound effect on me. Why?’

‘I had hoped we would come to an understanding without the need for—’

‘Blackmail? Coercion?’ she cried, her entire body trembling with panic and frustration.

Forget cool detachment. He was icily cruel—from his glacial blue stare to the hard line of his mouth.

‘This is not personal, Claudia.’

‘You’ve just made it personal, Lucas!’ God, she had to control herself. Tears stung like tiny daggers but she swallowed every one even as they sliced at her throat. She refused to cry in front of this man.