The Formidable King Read online

  Lifting the fine, crystal Champagne flute to her lips, she welcomed the fizz of the liquid over her tongue and the coolness of it down her throat as she surveyed the crowded room. Waiters circled with silver trays of French Champagne and canapés. Men in tuxedos puffed on cigars. Women dressed in haute couture gowns and weighed down in diamonds and other precious jewels chatted above the music of the string quartet. It wasn’t a scene she could ever feel comfortable in.

  Her attention wandered to the spot where she’d seen the Ralvinian prince.

  He was gone.

  She shrugged inwardly as she drained the flute of the sparkling liquid. It was time to pack her things, make her way back to London and take the next available flight back to California.

  ‘May I take your glass, miss?’ a waiter asked.

  ‘Thank you.’ She placed the empty flute on the silver tray.

  ‘Buonasera, signorina. Allow me to get you a refill.’

  Even while it startled her, the smooth-as-dark-chocolate richness of the male voice beside her made her want to melt into a puddle. She watched in bemusement as a tanned, masculine hand brushed against hers, took a full glass of Champagne from the tray and held it out to her.

  The waiter gave a slight nod and continued on his way.

  Chloe reached for the glass instinctively even though she hadn’t intended to have another. Tilting her head, she met the eyes of the man who’d come to stand at her side.

  Oh! She was face to face with the object of her mother’s fantasies.

  ‘Marco Esposito.’ He gave a slight bow.

  Thrown way off balance, she blurted the first thought which entered her head. ‘Gosh, your eyes are incredibly green!’ Immediately afterward, the hot sweep of mortification travelled at a rapid rate of knots up from her chest to her cheekbones. Oh, Geez! She must be as scarlet as her dress.

  What a stupid thing to say!

  She suppressed an inward groan as a smile tugged at his full, sensuous lips.

  ‘And your eyes are as blue and inviting as the Mediterranean ocean on a hot day.’ He unleashed the sexiest smile she’d ever seen and her legs turned to mush. ‘Amazing colouring with your dark hair.’

  Whoa! He was the most insanely attractive man she’d ever encountered and she’d just blabbed the most ridiculous thing. If her adversaries in the court room could see her now, they’d taunt her mercilessly because she was never lost for words in her professional role and never blurted anything so inane.

  Please let the floor open up and suck me through to the cellar where I may spend the entire evening drowning this memory in alcohol.

  ‘That must’ve sounded incredibly gauche.’ The words tumbled out as the skin across her chest prickled in agitation. ‘I’ve just never seen...’

  Oh God, she was rambling. Just shut up already, Chloe! Could she vanish into the throng of guests and escape to her room?

  ‘Eyes so incredibly green?’ he supplied as he struggled to conceal his amusement. ‘I think we’ve established our respective eye colour.’

  ‘Excuse me while I go into a dark corner and die quietly of embarrassment.’

  When she would’ve walked away, she was stalled by one of his hands on her upper arm. The primitive response to his touch overrode all higher cognitive processes. A bolt of high voltage awareness shot across her shoulders, then blazed through her. It earthed deep at the juncture of her thighs and set off the most disturbing series of tremors. Although she’d never experienced such an acute jolt before, Chloe recognised her reaction for what it was. Potent sexual attraction. This man’s very touch seemed to imprint itself on her at cellular level and left her craving far more intimate contact.

  Way out of her depth, she looked up at him, wondering if he sensed her reaction and hoping like crazy that he didn’t. As their eyes met, the humour in his vanished, replaced by an intense intimacy which made every neuron shriek ‘Danger!’

  ‘There’s no need to be embarrassed, tesoro,’ he husked. ‘I find your honest reaction quite refreshing.’

  Hell! First she’d blabbed, now she was tongue-tied. What was it about this man that turned her from an articulate lawyer into an absolute scatterbrain? She wished she could think of some witty repartee—anything to prove she wasn’t usually as socially inept as she appeared.

  Nope.

  Not a thing came to mind as the seconds ticked by.

  ‘Let’s start again.’ His hand left her upper arm, removed the Champagne flute from her hand and set it down on a low table. Excited little shivers of awareness raced from her palm, through her wrist and up her arm as he took her hand in his. ‘I’m Marco Esposito, and I’m very pleased to meet you.’

  Twice, he’d introduced himself without referencing his royal title. Even as she registered her approval that he didn’t use it to impress, she realised this man didn’t need a title to be noticed. Everything about him screamed confidence and presence.

  She summoned a smile and tried desperately to steady her pulse and gather her wits so she didn’t leave him with the impression that she was a complete idiot. ‘Chloe Salvatore.’

  Although he took her hand, he didn’t shake it. Instead he urged her closer and didn’t let her go. ‘It would be a sin to let the most beautiful woman in the room leave when the party has hardly begun.’ Oh, he was smooth. She didn’t believe for a second she was the most beautiful woman present, but her mother had said she was the only single one. ‘Let me convince you to stay.’

  ‘I’m not sure why everyone is gathered here,’ she said cautiously. ‘This seems to me to be an event where people have come to...er...network—’ social climb ‘—and I don’t have any networking to do. Besides, I’m far more comfortable at smaller gatherings with close friends.’

  ‘Is that generally how you usually spend your Saturday evenings?’

  Part of her wished she could respond with something to make herself sound interesting. She’d never felt so socially dull in her life. ‘Not recently.’

  Recently she’d been working almost around the clock, heading up a team of young lawyers who were preparing for trial in a case that was the culmination of two years of hard slog.

  ‘What would you be doing tonight were you at home?’ he asked.

  ‘My father’s recovering from a heart attack so I’ve been helping him at the resort and its restaurant any spare time I’ve had.’

  ‘Sundays?’

  Chloe was happy with her life, but just this once she found she wished she could respond with something more interesting than the truth. With a wry smile she said, ‘On an ideal Sunday...’ God, how long ago had she had an ideal Sunday? ‘I sleep in. Then I might read the paper over a leisurely breakfast, play chess with my father, do some study, and finish the day curled up with a good book.’ Or wading through legal cases. There it was. It might sound boring compared to the lifestyle he must lead, but he didn’t disengage himself from their conversation and he still held her hand in the heat of his own.

  ‘So you have brains as well as beauty.’ He didn’t sound bored, he sounded impressed. The admiration in his regard warmed her right down to her toes. ‘Do you work as a lawyer?’

  ‘Monday to Friday I work in a legal aid centre, it’s on the weekends I help out at the vineyard’s resort.’ Well, she did as much as she could whilst preparing for this high-profile case.

  ‘A busy lady. Is there no special man in your life with whom you spend your free time?’

  His interest made her feel as though the Champagne she drank was absorbed directly into her bloodstream because there were effervescent bubbles of awareness in her veins. ‘My father’s pretty special!’ She smiled. ‘He’s a scintillating conversationalist and a brilliant chess opponent.’

  ‘You’re far too exquisite to stay at home studying and playing chess with your father.’

  Heat suffused her neck and face. A very large part of her was tempted to try to flirt back with this man, but survival instincts warned her he was out of her league. He had a stunn
ing Mediterranean swarthiness, and the knockout combination of dark hair and vivid green eyes was guaranteed to increase any woman’s pulse rate.

  Even though her common sense told her to flee, Chloe found she wanted to stay here, getting just a little closer to the warmth of the fire that flamed between them.

  ‘You’re also far too beautiful and far too interesting for me to allow you to leave this party.’

  ‘Well...um...Thank you.’ The bodice on her dress must be shrinking for it became even more of an effort to breathe.

  Marco clearly listed mind-reading as one of his talents because his eyes skimmed to her chest and the intensity of his gaze grew hotter.

  ‘I find myself compelled to make love to you.’

  Chloe gulped. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Seriously,’ he repeated in his deep, bedroom voice.

  ‘I don’t...I don’t believe you just said that.’

  ‘Why are you so surprised?’

  Misgivings flooded through her. This man moved faster than the speed of light and was way too hot for her to handle. She needed to be honest with him before the situation spiralled as rapidly out of control as her galloping heartbeat. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t do that.’

  The disbelieving rumble of laughter working its way up from his chest drew her to him like some unseen magnetic force. ‘You don’t make love?’

  ‘No,’ she blurted. Oh Lord! For a split second, she saw the astonishment in his eyes, before a small furrow of contemplation appeared between his brows. ‘Well, I’ve had boyfriends but...’ Shit! What the hell was she doing explaining herself to him? Could she really make this any more awkward if she tried? But he regarded her as though she’d grown two heads and she felt she needed to justify herself. ‘I’ve had two steady boyfriends. I don’t do casual sex with someone I’ve just met.’

  ‘But I’m no boy, cara, and our lovemaking won’t be casual. It will be passionate, intense and utterly mind-blowing.’

  Thanks for reading The Formidable King. I hope you enjoyed it.

  If you’d like to know more about me, my books, or to connect with me online, you can visit my webpage www.alyssajmontgomery.com follow me on Twitter @Alyssaromance, or like my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AlyssaJMontgomery/

  You can also follow me through my publisher’s page here www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Reviews can help readers find books, and I am grateful for all honest reviews. Thank you for taking the time to let others know what you’ve read, and what you thought.

  You’ve just read the third book in my Royal Affairs series. The other books in this series so far are The Defiant Princess and The Irredeemable Prince. There will be a fourth story, The Irresistible Royal, in 2018.

  If you liked this book, you may also like my other books, Mistaken Identity, Echoes of the Heart and Roses for Sophie.

  This book was published by Escape Publishing. If you’d like to sample some more great books from my fellow Escape Artists, please turn the page.

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  ISBN: 9781489250452

  Title: The Formidable King

  Copyright © 2017 by Alyssa J. Montgomery

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, i
n any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Limited, Level 13/201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2000.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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