Nicola Marsh - Princess Australia

Natasha prided herself on her logic. She was a thinker, weighing up options carefully, always doing the right thing.

Then what on earth was she doing responding to the prince’s passion, the heat crackling between them turning to bone-melting sizzle, enjoying this kiss more than she could’ve dreamed possible?

Someone moaned—to her endless embarrassment, she had a sneaking suspicion it was her—and she clung to him, belatedly realising that his rock-hard chest felt as good beneath her splayed palms as it looked.

Her senses reeled as he deepened the kiss to the point where she could’ve forgotten who she was, where she was and all the reasons she shouldn’t be doing this, if it wasn’t for one small intrusion.

‘Natasha?’

Her head snapped back and her shocked gaze swung between Dante, the prince who’d just lost his mind and kissed her senseless, and Clay, the man she’d once loved and now despised.

‘WHAT are you doing here?’

Natasha glared at Clay, hating the perfection of his smooth blond hair gelled within an inch of its life, the supercilious sneer, the cocky squared shoulders ready for battle.

She loathed him.

She despised him.

Yet she’d once loved him with all her heart.

Thank goodness she’d had a wake-up call before she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. Being engaged to the pompous ass had ruined her family as it was. She shuddered to think what would’ve happened if she’d gone all the way.

But then, she already knew.

The scumbag had told her in great detail when she’d broken off their engagement after learning the truth about why a suave entrepreneur was really interested in marrying a hotel jill of all trades.

‘Guess there’s no need to ask you,’ Clay said, sending her a look that could kill. ‘It’s pretty obvious you’ve taken up sport since we parted. Tonsil hockey.’

‘Leave the lady alone,’ Dante said, his voice low with menace, a protective arm still wrapped around her waist, and Natasha instinctively snuggled deeper before realising what she was doing. By then, she didn’t want to move. Having his arm holding her, supporting her, felt way too good in the face of Clay’s derision.

Clay’s withering gaze turned on Dante. ‘And I must’ve been mistaken about you. I thought you were the Prince of Calida back there, but guess I was wrong.’

‘You got that right,’ Dante said, his hand tightening on her waist.

Natasha stiffened, knowing how much Dante’s privacy meant, and what a louse like Clay would do with the information if he found out. Guys like Clay did everything for a reason, which usually involved getting ahead in the world and looking out for number one.

‘Instead, you’re Natasha’s new boyfriend. How sweet.’

There was nothing remotely sweet about the false saccharine dripping from Clay’s every word or the nasty leer he turned on her. ‘I should’ve known. There’s no way a prince would be remotely interested in someone like you.’

Natasha flinched despite the shield she’d built around her ego after ending the relationship with Clay.

Damn him, for still having the power to hurt her.

Damn him, for being here and potentially ruining her plan to use the prince to salvage something from the mess he’d lumbered her family with.

‘Apologise to the lady. Now.’

Dante’s arm slipped from her waist as he took a step forward and, crazily, she missed its solid warmth.

Clay’s sneer turned sinister, the same expression she’d seen eighteen months ago when she’d told him what he could do with his two-carat baguette diamond.

‘And who are you to give me orders?’ Clay matched Dante’s step forward till the two were almost toe to toe.

Natasha laid a steadying hand on Dante’s arm, shocked that she noticed how hot his bare skin felt under her palm and how much she liked it.

‘He’s someone you’ll never be,’ she said, wishing she’d had the guts to inject this much scorn into her voice the last time they’d spoken, when he’d threatened her family yet again. ‘Now get lost.’

Clay’s eyes narrowed to slits, reminding her of a snake she’d once seen at Australia’s biggest reptile park: dangerous, slimy, lethal.

‘You’ll be sorry,’ he said, so softly she could’ve imagined it.

However, Dante’s bunched forearm muscles under her hand told her she hadn’t. He was wound tighter than a spring, and looked ready to defend her honour whether she needed it or not.

As much as she liked his chivalry, she didn’t need an international incident on her hotel’s doorstep. Besides, Clay wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth anything as far as she was concerned.

Not any more.

‘First you don’t apologise, now you’re threatening the lady? Who the hell do you think you are?’

Dante had shrugged off her restraining hand and now stood in Clay’s face, while Natasha struggled between leaping on Dante’s back to distract him and slugging Clay herself.

‘I was the fool who was going to marry her,’ Clay said, casting one last malevolent glare her way before turning on his heel and walking off.

Clay’s cowardice shouldn’t have surprised her. Nothing about him surprised her, considering what he’d put her through, what he’d put her whole family through.

Dante turned to face her, incredulity lending his handsome face a comical look. ‘You were engaged to that slime?’

‘Don’t remind me.’

She held up her hand as if trying to ward off any further talk of Clay. Needless to say, a smart guy like Dante didn’t buy it for a second.

‘You can do so much better than him.’

Dante spoke softly, his blue eyes warm, a tentative smile flirting around his mouth as he reached out and captured both her hands.

Natasha had expected him to interrogate her, to question her lousy judgement, to do any number of things apart from what he was doing now—holding her hands with a gentle tenderness that brought a lump to her throat.

She stared at their linked hands, enjoying the solid warmth they provided, a comfort which she’d never got from the few times Clay would deign to be touched in public.

Reality check—the guy is a prince. A prince you need to save your business. A prince who needs his identity protected, yet here you are getting all mushy with him out the front of your hotel.

Disengaging her hands from his, she folded her arms over her chest. ‘So what was the urgent business?’ And what on earth was all that amazing kissing about?

Though she wisely kept that question to herself for now. She needed to reassemble her wits before she tackled him over his lip-lock, considering her resistance was at an all-time low following his whole knight-in-shining-armour impersonation.

‘That idiot was following me. He called out “prince” several times but I ignored him. I wanted you to meet me out the front so you could pretend to be my girlfriend and throw him off the track.’

He had the grace to look sheepish. ‘I didn’t know he was your ex. I’m sorry about that.’

Okay, so that explained his over-zealous welcome when he’d first seen her outside the hotel. But darn it, his kisses had seemed so real…

Giving herself a mental shake, Natasha tilted her chin up and glared at Dante. ‘Pretty stupid plan.’

He shrugged, looking more adorable than guilty or apologetic with that sexy smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘It was all I could think of on the spur of the moment. I can’t let anyone know who I am. You know that, it’s too important to me.’

Natasha stifled a snort. Too important to his floozy, more like.

‘When I gave you my number for emergencies, I didn’t expect…’ She trailed off, not wanting to bring up the sizzling kisses, knowing it couldn’t be ignored. ‘This,’ she finished lamely, waving a hand between the two of them.