Page 7 of Claimed By the Crown Prince

‘This is a rainforest,’ Prince Dax said, looking around at the lush vegetation and tall trees.

Laia was tempted to say something snarky, but she settled for, ‘Yes, it is.’

She had to admit that no other person on the planet made her feel so...so prickly and antagonistic. He had done from the moment he’d first registered on her consciousness as the younger brother of King Aristedes. She’d been just sixteen years old. That had been their first meeting.

But she couldn’t go there now. Not when those blue eyes—far more alert and incisive than she’d expected—swivelled back to her.

For a moment she couldn’t breathe.

Laia hated it that he had such an effect on her. She tried to assure herself she was being ridiculous. He was an undeniably gorgeous man and she was merely reacting as any red-blooded woman would. A bit galling to be as human as the next woman—or man, for that matter—but there was no accounting for hormones. It was also galling that he appeared to be the only man yet to engage her libido.

She was afraid that meeting him again face to face was only confirming something she’d feared since she’d seen him at that club. That he’d had a profound effect on her at a formative time in her life, at that very first meeting, when she’d been just sixteen—almost as if he’d imprinted on her, leaving an invisible marker on her hormones, in her blood, that had ruined her for all other men. Certainly no one she’d met since had come close to having the same effect on her.

Sending up a silent prayer that she was wrong and that those hormones would calm down, Laia turned and walked into the villa.

She said over her shoulder, ‘The kitchen is this way.’

Dax had no choice but to follow his hostess. He was still reeling a little from what had happened. The fact that he was here. And that his phone was somewhere at the bottom of the Straits of Malacca, being nibbled by fish.

All he could do now was accept his current situation, observe his surroundings, and wait for an opportunity to turn the tables on Princess Laia.

He followed her into a generous open-plan kitchen—lots of wood, from the floors to the ceilings. There was a massive island with a black marble countertop, and she’d put the bags on it. She took off the sunhat and her glossy hair hung long and wavy over her shoulders.

She was already taking the groceries out of the bags, basically behaving as if Dax wasn’t even there. As inconsequential as a boat boy who’d merely helped her with her shopping.

For someone who prided himself on not having much of an ego, Dax found his irritation levels spiking again. He couldn’t recall ever being so...ignored. Certainly not by someone who had gone to some lengths to bring him somewhere and incarcerate him. Albeit somewhere that seemed to be a luxury private island.

He put the shopping bags down. Princess Laia didn’t even look up. She was walking over to the fridge now, the delicate material of her wrap revealing more than disguising the tantalising glimpses of her body. Her legs were long and toned. She was a runner.

Dax lifted his gaze and said, as coolly as he could, ‘Well, Princess, now that you have me here, what do you intend to do with me?’

He noticed the slightest jolt in her body as she put something into the fridge. A reaction to his voice. So she wasn’t as unaffected as she looked. Perhaps he’d misinterpreted that look of fear back on the main island. Maybe it hadn’t been fear as much as apprehension at being alone with him.

Because she was as aware of him as he was of her?

Dax’s blood pulsed at that thought. And it shouldn’t. He had to control himself.

She turned around and came back to the island to pick up more groceries. She said, ‘I intend to make sure you don’t give away my location before I’m ready to return home.’

‘To Santanger...to your fiancé.’

She’d turned to go back to the fridge, avoiding his eye the whole time. ‘I am not his fiancée and I have a home of my own. Isla’Rosa.’

‘I think a signed marriage agreement between our fathers would attest to my brother and you being affianced.’

He saw the tension in her body—and then she turned around and looked at him. Another electric jolt went through his body. He ignored it.

She said tightly, ‘It’s not a law.’

‘It’s not nothing, either. What about the peace agreement? You’d jeopardise the peace between our kingdoms?’

Her eyes sparked. ‘Of course not—that’s the last thing I want. But from what I know of King Aristedes, he’s not so petty that he will undo years of peace-building just because I don’t want to marry him. I am confident we can build a lasting and enduring peace without a marriage of convenience.’

‘A royal dynastic marriage is a little more than a marriage of convenience.’

Princess Laia came back over to the island and put her hands on it. She really was extraordinarily beautiful.

‘I am aware of that. But as your brother has refused to even listen to my side of things I’ve had to take matters into my own hands.’