Dana Marton: Stranded with the Prince

A drop of wild honey still glistened on her lips.

Nobody was more surprised than he when he leaned in.

He barely brushed his lips across hers, but he felt the impact all the way to his toes.

For a moment so brief that he might have imagined it, she went with the flow. Then she was pushing against him. He pulled away, searching her stunned face, trying to gather his scattered thoughts.

And with the symbolic distance between them, whatever craziness had possessed him disappeared. He didn’t know where it had come from, but he did know one thing for sure: under no circumstances would he ever touch this woman again. She was nothing but trouble.

“We shouldn’t be doing this. You are—” She paused. “I am—” She made a soft noise of frustration. “We can’t do this again.”

His gaze strayed to those ruby lips that were pressed into a severe, angry line. Then, instead of agreeing, he flashed the woman his most wicked grin and said, “I think we’re definitely going to do this again.”

DANA MARTONis the author of more than a dozen fast-paced, action-adventure romantic suspense novels and a winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antiques shops and enjoys working in her sizable flower garden where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. Every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at DanaMarton@DanaMarton.com.

With many thanks to Allison Lyons

STRANDED

WITH THE PRINCE

DANA MARTON

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Sagro Prison island, Italy

Boots slapped on the concrete floor, keeping a regular rhythm. The night security lights were on, enough to see the guard who was texting on his phone as he strode out of sight, a sly grin on his pockmarked face. A minute went by, then another. The steel door opened then closed at the end of the cell block.

The 2:00 a.m. check was complete. Nobody would be by again until morning.

Roberto, fully dressed, slid out of bed, making no more noise than his shadow as it moved across the floor. He laid his pillow lengthwise on the bare mattress then draped the bed with his blanket, creating a bulky form.

His sheets had been ripped, twisted into rope and wrapped around his waist before he’d gone to bed. Now he bent and squatted one more time to make sure the cumbersome arrangement wouldn’t limit his movement. He adjusted a tight strip under his left armpit before he stole to the door and pressed the top part of the lock hard.

Click. The sound was so soft even he barely heard it.

José had fixed the locks. The oldest of the team, José had been a locksmith before a drive-by took out his family in the godforsaken backstreets of Bogotá. With nothing to live for, he’d signed up for the rival gang. José understood revenge.

So did Roberto. It pushed him forward as he stole down the hallway, moving fast in a crouch. He listened to the snoring of the other inmates. A bed creaked now and then as someone turned over in his sleep. He listened for any indication that someone noticed him, not trusting—despite substantial bribes and dire threats—that they wouldn’t betray him and sound the alarm.

José was waiting for him at the water block, along with Marco, the third member of the team.

“Any trouble?” Roberto kept his voice to a low whisper.

Marco shook his head. He was young and sullen, still not over the fact that they’d been imprisoned. That here, on the other side of the ocean, the boss couldn’t protect them. He was ready to go, but didn’t think it fair that they had to orchestrate the escape themselves. He’d griped and whined through the preparations. Which better stop right now, right here. Roberto flashed him a sharp look that warned him to be on his best behavior.

The young thugs coming out of the slums these days were too hotheaded, only after the glory, and rarely willing to put enough effort into a job to get it done right. They wanted the fastest car and the biggest gun, wanted to build reputations overnight, which led to too much senseless killing.

“All’s according to plan,” José was saying.

Exactly what Roberto wanted to hear. His sticker, a spoon handle sharpened into a knife, waited stashed inside a showerhead. He retrieved the makeshift tool then went to work on removing a wall panel.

A hundred years ago, Sagro Prison had been the hunting castle of some Italian king. When they’d rebuilt it into a prison in the fifties, they changed just about everything. Security had been upgraded several times since, but the prison’s waste and sewer system still connected to the old castle’s cistern.

All Roberto and his men had had to do over the endless months that they’d been locked up here was dig through the wall. The cistern’s ducts, carved from stone, were plenty wide to accommodate a man.

José squeezed in first, then Marco, Roberto going last, pulling the wall panel into place behind him. By morning they’d be free men. His to-do list was simple: get food, finish the boss’s business in Trieste, then get the hell out of Italy.

But he wouldn’t go back to Bogotá, not straightaway. He had personal business in the area which he meant to see handled. He was going to Valtria, the small kingdom to the north, to gain retribution for his brother’s death.

An eye for an eye, a life for a life. He might have been too old-school to condone all the senseless killing the new gangs did these days, but revenge was part of a man’s honor. And he did believe in that. He certainly did.

SHE WAS THE SCOURGE of his life, a relentless thorn under his royal skin. Prince Lazlo of Valtria watched Milda Milas bear down on him and knew what it felt like to be hunted.

A professional matchmaker from New York. He loved his mother as much as all his brothers did, but the Queen had gone too far this time. One of her ladies-in-waiting had a cousin in New York who’d been Milda’s client. Apparently, a recommendation had been made. He didn’t like the idea of his mother discussing his personal life with her ladies-in-waiting. Shouldn’t they have been talking about the royal gardens or copying antique tapestries and the like when they retired to the Queen’s private quarters?

Despite the calming, balmy breeze that streamed from the endless azure water, Lazlo’s sense of peace was fast disappearing. He’d been looking forward to spending the day away from the palace, away from Milda’s harping. He should have known she wouldn’t let a perfectly good day go by without doing her best to ruin it. A dull throb started up in the knee he’d once injured in a crash. Maybe his subconscious was beginning to associate her with pain.

“And there I was, thinking I could hide from you here,” he said when she reached him.