Page 9 of Incognito (Royally Reckless #1)

9

N atasha sipped her takeout mocha cappuccino and strode towards Telford Towers, pride lending a spring to her step. With the early morning sun tipping the sandstone turrets in pale gold, the cloudless blue sky framing the impressive facade, and the gleaming windows, the hotel looked incredible.

It looked like home.

The only home she’d ever known.

But for how much longer?

She took another gulp of coffee, knowing the bitter aftertaste had nothing to do with caffeine and everything to do with Clay and his treachery.

The sooner she made the final two payments and got her scumbag ex out of their lives for good, the sooner she could rest easy.

Seeing Clay yesterday had resurrected too many painful memories of how gullible and stupid she’d been to fall for his glib lines and good looks.

But her disquiet had more to do with how Dante looked at her, like she must be dense to have associated with a creep like Clay, than lousy memories. She didn’t like looking a fool. She wanted Dante to view her as cool, collected, and capable. Otherwise, he’d be disinclined to promote her hotel once this week was over, and then she’d be in real trouble.

She cursed fate when she learned the truth about Clay and their mock engagement, and it looked like fate still liked to grab hold of her leg and yank, hard. Pity she couldn’t laugh, even if the joke was on her.

Finishing off the last of the cappuccino, she tossed the mug in the trash and headed for the front of the hotel. She had five minutes before her shift started and wanted to have a quick chat with the night concierge about an ornery guest during handover.

“Can I have a word?” Dante stepped from the shadows of an ornate column near the hotel’s entrance and she had no option but to stop. Either that or alienate her last chance to save the hotel.

“Sure, but I don’t have long,” she said, fixing a polite smile on her face, hoping her surprise didn’t show.

For royalty, this guy had the casual thing down-pat. Dark denim, khaki T-shirt, sneakers. Throw in the mussed hair and designer stubble and he looked like he’d just strolled in from a dawn sail on the bay. Wind-ruffled, tousled, and sexy. Very, very sexy.

“This won’t take long.” He laid a hand in the small of her back and propelled her to a quiet spot behind a towering pot.

“If this is about last night, don’t worry about it. I’m not.”

Yeah, right. That’s why she’d guzzled a half carton of ice-cream, missed most of the best thriller to be released on a streaming service this year, and spent half the night tossing and turning, mulling over the way he kissed her.

“Actually, this has got something to do with last night.” He rubbed a hand over his face, a strangely weary gesture for a guy who had it all. “I was very impressed with how you handled the situation and I was wondering if you’d consider being my temporary PA for the next week?”

“What?”

She could’ve sworn his royal scruffiness had asked her to be his personal assistant.

“I know it sounds crazy, but the family business I need to take care of is a lot more complicated than I first thought,” he said. “I need help and that’s where you come in.”

He smiled, a beguiling, seductive grin that could’ve coerced an ice-cream addict to part with her last scoop. “If you’ll agree, that is.”

“So you do have family business?”

Oops, her first thought slipped out before she could stop it and she hoped he’d gloss over it. As if.

“Of course. That’s what I told you before.” A frown marred his brow before a spark of enlightenment flashed in his eyes. “You didn’t believe me.”

“No… yes… of course I did.” She sounded like a moron, a blush adding to her embarrassment.

What was it about this guy that tied her up in knots? She’d handled VIPs her entire life and never been this flustered, this out of control.

Then again, most of those guys had looked like the back end of a Melbourne tram, but that didn’t mean anything. Dante’s sexy looks didn’t have her flustered—well, not much anyway—but her befuddlement had more to do with the way he made her feel: valued, important, someone he could depend on.

“If you didn’t believe me when I said I had family business to take care of, why did you think I was going undercover for a week before my official duties commence?”

Natasha took a steadying breath. Ella often accused her of being brutally honest but now wouldn’t be one of those times.

“Well, I thought you might’ve had other friends to visit. Apart from family, that is.”

Not a bad save.

His knowing smirk alerted her to the fact she hadn’t made a bad save, she’d made a terrible one. “You thought I had a secret mistress hidden away somewhere?”

Of course he hadn’t believed her vague explanation for a second. She could add intelligence to his growing list of attributes. Couldn’t the perfect prince have some flaws?

When in doubt, she reverted to type and went on the offensive.

“Mistress? You sound like you’ve stepped out of the seventeenth century. I didn’t think you royal types would use terminology like that anymore.”

She glanced at her watch, implying she had more important things to do, like start work rather than stand here and feel like a fool.

She’d embarrassed herself, making assumptions about a guy she didn’t know and solely based on his royal status and incredible looks.

“You don’t think much of me, do you?” His clear blue eyes narrowed, watching, assessing, judging her as she’d judged him.

She stiffened, hating that her plan to smooth things over after last night’s fiasco had gone horribly awry.

“I don’t know you.”

He paused, his expression inscrutable, before the corners of his mouth twitched. “We’ll have to remedy that, won’t we? And what better way than have you help me as my personal assistant for the next week?”

“You’re crazy. I have a job, remember? And speaking of which…” She tapped her watch face and sent a pointed glance over his shoulder. “The concierge will be late if you don’t let me go.”

“I’d only need a few hours of your time each day. Maybe after your shifts end? I promise it won’t be difficult. I just need someone with local knowledge of Melbourne and I think you’d be perfect. From what I’ve seen, you can handle anything.”

His lips curved into a knowing smile, the type of smile that implied he knew exactly how he’d affected her last night with those scintillating kisses, whether they were part of a mock charade or not.

“You will be handsomely reimbursed,” he added.

Natasha refrained from snorting. ‘ Handsomely reimbursed’ . Despite his scruffy appearance, he really sounded like an arrogant, pompous… prince .

“I don’t need your money.”

As soon as she uttered the retort, she heard the lie. The hotel did need the money, though no amount of remuneration Dante could offer would come close to clearing her debt.

In that moment, inspiration struck. She didn’t need his money, but she needed what his reputation could bring to the hotel. The prestige, the raised profile, the infamy, would send bookings through the roof and she intended on approaching him for help at the end of this week.

But what about now? The way she saw it, this could be the perfect exchange: her help with his mysterious ‘family business’ in exchange for his princely profile once he came out of the royal closet at the end of the week.

She couldn’t lose.

“I won’t take your money, but I think we can come to some other sort of arrangement,” she said, hoping he’d go for her idea.

Rather than looking surprised, his eyes glittered with intrigue as he leaned towards her, enveloping her in a sensual cloud of fresh air, citrus soap the hotel favoured, and pure Dante. Intoxicating, heady, and totally addictive.

“What sort of arrangement did you have in mind?”

His low, husky voice rippled over her like a caress, making her feel more desired than she ever had in all the clinches with Clay.

“Not that sort of arrangement.” She stepped back and held her hands up as if trying to ward him off. This guy was seriously dangerous to her peace of mind. She should be telling him what to do with his PA offer and running a hundred miles in the opposite direction.

However, she didn’t have an option. She’d run out of options around the time she landed her family in this mess in the first place.

Dante was the answer to her problems. All she had to do was get her overactive imagination under control and she’d be okay. Telford Towers would be fine. Her family wouldn’t lose the business that meant everything to them, and her friends and employees wouldn’t be homeless and jobless.

She could do this.

She had to.

“The hotel needs to raise its profile and I was hoping that after your week of going incognito is over you wouldn’t mind me advertising your presence here. Perhaps you could take part in some promotions?”

The sensual glitter vanished, his eyes turning a cold, hard, Arctic blue. “Fine.”

Though he didn’t look fine. In fact, he looked like she’d just insulted him.

“Look, if you’re not comfortable—”

“I said it’s fine. Your help in exchange for mine. Now, what time do you finish?”

“Three.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby at three-thirty.” His brief, dismissive nod made her feel insignificant, probably the same as his army of servants must feel back in his homeland.

“Okey-dokey,” she muttered, casting a confused glance his way before making her way inside.

However, she barely made it past him when he stopped her with a hand on her arm. She stared at his hand—the long, elegant fingers, the clean, blunt fingernails, and the smooth tanned skin—a hand that had never done a day’s manual labour in its lifetime, a hand used to the best manicures and people fawning over it, a hand she should scorn but couldn’t considering its barest touch sent her pulse tripping.

“Thank you,” he said, so softly she had to lean forward to hear it, giving her another whopping dose of his heady scent.

“No worries.”

She managed a tight smile before slipping out of his grasp and heading into the hotel.

No worries indeed.