Prince's Pleasure
* * *
She had guts, he would give her that. Guts, and a little anger too at the moment, if that glint in those chocolate-brown eyes was anything to go by.
Not surprising, really. He wasn’t exactly giving her an easy time of it this evening. But then it wasn’t in his job description to make life easy for reporters. The fact that he normally did didn’t mean that he had to do so in the case of Tyler Wood.
He had no idea why she should be so different, and yet something about her made his hackles rise, his normally relaxed approach to the media deteriorating to this barbed exchange of barely concealed animosity.
He shrugged. ‘I’m meeting with a director for lunch tomorrow to discuss the start of filming next week—no, you cannot be present at the meeting,’ he added as he saw her eyes light up in anticipation.
A light that instantly went out as her gaze narrowed angrily. ‘My agreement with your brother was that I would be allowed complete access to you for a week—’ She broke off as he raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Not that sort of access, Mr Prince,’ she snapped.
‘I usually make my own choices when it comes to that sort of access,’ he gibed. ‘And your agreement was with my brother, not me.’ His voice had hardened. ‘So there will be no inclusion in my meeting tomorrow.’
She opened her mouth as if to argue the point, and then closed it again to stare across at him in total frustration.
Zak gave her a considering look. ‘Tell me again what sort of magazine this interview is for, Miss Wood?’
‘The usual sort of Sunday supplement,’ she answered abruptly.
Was it his imagination, or had those brown eyes become slightly guarded again? ‘The “usual” sort,’ he repeated softly, once again having the feeling that Tyler Wood was acting evasively. And she wasn’t very good at it.
Her chin rose challengingly. ‘I thought I was the one conducting the interview, Zak, not the other way round!’
‘I’m just curious to know a little more about the woman I’m expected to take around with me all week. After all,’ he added as she would have spoken, ‘most people are going to assume that you’re the latest woman in my life.’
‘The latest in a very long—’ She grimaced her dismay as she realized what she had just said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that—’
‘It’s the truth…?’ he jeered.
‘No! I mean—well, yes, it is the truth. But I still shouldn’t have said it.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ Zak acknowledged dryly. ‘But it’s probably the most honest thing you’ve said all evening!’
Her eyes widened. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Granted.’
Her mouth firmed. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr Prince. Are you implying I’ve been dishonest with you?’
Were her hands trembling slightly? He couldn’t be sure as she hastily clasped those hands together. ‘You aren’t the only one with connections, Tyler,’ he added, sure now that she had definitely gone paler. ‘And this afternoon I made a few phone calls in order to check up on you.’
The colour did drain completely from her cheeks now. ‘Oh, yes?’ she said airily. ‘And what did you learn?’
Zak looked at her with narrowed eyes, more convinced than ever that she was hiding something. ‘Not a lot, as it happens. The press, it seems, can be pretty close-mouthed when it comes to one of their own. However, I did learn that you’re considered a good reporter, if a little inclined to get too emotionally involved.’ He paused before making his next statement. ‘Also, that you had a blazing row with your editor a couple of weeks ago, which apparently culminated with him threatening to fire you…’
Her eyes were huge brown pools of melted chocolate as she met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘Well, he doesn’t seem to have carried out that threat, does he? Because I’m still employed,’ she retorted.
‘Apparently not,’ he conceded, his mouth tightening. ‘Out of interest, what did the two of you argue about?’
Tyler shook her head. ‘I really don’t think that is any of your business.’
He shrugged. ‘I just wondered if it might have had anything to do with the little agreement you came to with my brother?’
‘Of course not,’ she snapped. ‘Now if we could stop talking about me and concentrate on you…?’ she said pointedly.
He sat forward. ‘I’ll keep asking until I find out the truth about you, Tyler,’ he warned.
Tyler closed her notebook with a decisive snap before secreting it away in one of those many pockets on her combat trousers. ‘Until today, I really believed all the things written and said about you in the media: that you’re charming, not in the least difficult to work with, affable even!’ She gave a disbelieving snort of derision. ‘When in fact you’re really exceptionally rude, extremely difficult to work with, and not even the tiniest bit affable!’
Zak reached across the tabletop and easily clasped her arm as she would have stood up, his fingers like steel bands. ‘Is that what you intend writing in your article?’ Despite the fact that he had set out to be as unpleasant as possible, he wasn’t used to people disliking him, and found that he didn’t particularly like the experience.
He also discovered that he liked the feel of Tyler’s skin against his fingers. It was soft and silky to the touch, making him wonder if the rest of her body felt as sensuous and warm.
‘Relax, Tyler,’ he told her gently. ‘We haven’t finished talking yet.’
She looked across at him coolly. ‘Do you want me to hang around just so that you can insult me some more?’
His mouth twisted into a smile. ‘I’m all out of insults at the moment—but if you give me a few minutes…! Besides, we’re drawing attention to ourselves.’ He looked pointedly around the lounge to where quite a lot of people, several men included now, were openly staring at them.
‘You’re the one drawing attention to us,’ she corrected him tautly, at the same time sitting back abruptly, releasing her arm from his grasp as she did so.
Zak watched as she ran the fingers of her other hand over the spot where he had held her. Both of her hands were completely bare of rings, and were long and slender, with delicately tapered fingers. He found himself wondering what it would feel like to have those fingers moving caressingly over his bare chest and back. And other parts of his body…
‘We were discussing the argument you had with your editor,’ he reminded her, angry with himself for having those thoughts about Tyler; she was a reporter, for goodness’ sake!
She shook her head, her spiky hair gleaming almost auburn in the overhead lighting. ‘You may have been, I don’t believe I was.’ She met his gaze boldly over the rim of her glass as she took a sip of the mineral water.
Zak suppressed his feelings of irritation with difficulty, finding that this woman pressed buttons in him that he normally kept well away from the public eye—and he didn’t mean physical ones! Although God knew she was attractive enough…
‘What shall we talk about, then?’ he mocked. ‘The fact that you and the handsome photographer Perry Morgan are apparently inseparable? Or shall we—? Going somewhere, Tyler?’ he asked as she put her glass down on the table with obvious force before moving to stand up.
Except she didn’t quite make it, all the colour draining from her face before she collapsed back into the chair, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow.
‘What the hell?’ Zak had been propelled forward as she fell, moving down on his haunches beside her chair now. ‘Tyler!’ He shook her shoulder slightly. ‘Tyler, speak to me, damn it!’ he ground out forcefully.
She seemed to find the strength to open one eye and glare at him. ‘Go away,’ she muttered weakly.
He ignored that, and straightened before bending down and easily sweeping her up into his arms.
She weighed next to nothing, he discovered as he began to stride purposefully across the lounge with her still in his arms, totally immune to the avid stares the two of them were receiving, his expression one of grim determination.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Tyler gasped, both eyes open now as she began to struggle in his arms.
‘I would have thought that was obvious!’ Zak didn’t even glance down at her as he stepped into the waiting lift.
‘It is, but—where are you taking me?’ She was struggling even harder to sit up in his arms.
‘My hotel suite,’ he informed her. ‘And stop struggling like that; you’ll only end up hurting yourself,’ he said as his arms tightened about her. He had no idea what was wrong with her yet, and until he did she wasn’t going anywhere!
‘You’re definitely making an exhibition of us now,’ Tyler protested as the two people waiting to get into the lift stared at them in shocked surprise as Zak stepped out with her still cradled in his arms.
‘Do I look as if I care?’ he dismissed impatiently as he used the key-card to get into his hotel suite, kicking the door shut behind him to stride over to the sofa and lay her down on it. ‘Don’t move,’ he instructed her before moving over to the mini-bar, all the time keeping one eye on her as he searched through the array of alcoholic drinks there.
Although she didn’t seem to be making too much of an effort to get up now, once again lying back with her eyes closed, her cheeks still deathly pale.
Either she really was ill, or this was some sort of elaborate ploy on her part to keep this interview alive. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a woman had tried something like this on him in order to get into his hotel room, although, he had to admit, it wasn’t usually with an interview in mind!
But if it should turn out that was what Tyler Wood was doing, then she was going to find out exactly how ‘exceptionally rude’ he could be!
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT are you doing!’ Tyler gasped, eyes wide as Zak raised her head and tipped some liquid into her mouth. Fiery liquid that burned as it went down her throat. ‘No!’ she protested, desperately trying to push his hand away, and not succeeding as he forced another mouthful of the foul-tasting liquid down her throat. ‘What was that?’ she groaned as he placed her head back on the sofa.
‘Brandy,’ he told her with satisfaction. ‘Guaranteed to—’
‘Make me ill,’ she finished heavily. ‘Even more so on an empty stomach.’ A very empty stomach. In fact, it was because she hadn’t eaten anything, since a hurried slice of toast for breakfast this morning, that she had collapsed in the first place.
She had been dismayed when she had first moved to London at how high the cost of living was here, her reporting job not exactly earning her big bucks. So, in order to survive on those wages, as she had sworn she would when she’d walked out of her sumptuous home in New York with claims to her family that she could make it on her own, she had had to economize on things. Like eating.
Bread, milk and cereals were cheap, as well as being quite nourishing, which was just as well, because it was what Tyler had mainly been living on for the last six months, with the odd hamburger thrown in here and there as a treat.
‘Why do you have an empty stomach?’ Zak probed, shrewdly attacking the relevant part of her statement. ‘It’s nine o’clock at night, so why haven’t you eaten dinner yet?’
Because dinner was a luxury she could rarely afford. Lunch, either, for that matter. Although having eaten either wouldn’t have lessened the effect the brandy was going to have on her any second now.
‘I have an allergy.’ She ignored his questions, trying to sit up. ‘And if you don’t get me to the bathroom in the next ten seconds I’m going to be ill all over this expensive carpet!’
‘An allergy?’ Zak Prince repeated with a dark scowl, making no effort to step forward and help her. ‘What sort of allergy—damn it, Tyler…!’ he rasped in disbelief as she put her head over the side of the sofa and was indeed ill all over the carpet.
As predicted.
It had been the surprise of her life to discover, on entering college, and the round of parties that had followed, that alcohol of any kind caused this reaction in her.
‘What—how—what sort of allergy?’ Zak Prince queried as he came back from the bathroom with a couple of towels, handing one to Tyler and throwing the other one over the mess on the carpet.
‘To alcohol,’ she had time to answer him before she was ill once again.
Not that this could last for too long; there was really nothing in her stomach for her to be ill with except that slice of toast and liquid!
Although it was unpleasant enough while it lasted, Tyler acknowledged half an hour later, equally exhausted and devastated that she had been sick in front of Zak Prince of all people. The fact that he was the one responsible for giving her the alcohol in the first place didn’t lessen that feeling in the slightest!
‘Damn it, you only had a couple of sips of the stuff!’ he protested as he helped her to the bathroom to wash her face and clean her teeth, before easing her back onto the sofa.
‘The amount doesn’t seem to matter,’ she explained. She was already feeling the start of the headache that usually followed one of these bouts. Not that there were any now that she simply avoided drinking alcohol.
Unless it was literally forced down her throat!
Sleep was the best thing for her now, although there wasn’t too much chance of that until she had got herself back to her apartment…
* * *
It was dark when she woke up. Very dark. And very silent. Apart from the sound of steady breathing.
Tyler held her breath.
The sound of breathing continued.
Where was she?
More to the point, who was that breathing beside her?
She sat up with a start, groaning as she felt the pounding pain in her head.
‘Are you okay?’
There was a movement beside her, and Tyler quickly closed her eyes as a light was switched on, its brightness only increasing the pounding in her head. As did the easy recognition of that voice!
‘Tyler?’ Zak repeated with concern.
What was she doing lying in bed beside Zak Prince? How had she got here? More to the point, what was she still doing here?
The last thing she remembered was being violently ill, knowing she had to sleep, and then—nothing.
‘Tyler, open your eyes and talk to me,’ Zak Prince instructed forcefully, at the same time grasping her arms and shaking her slightly.
‘If you don’t stop doing that my head is going to fall off!’ She gently lowered herself back onto the pillow.
Zak instantly stopped shaking her. ‘Sounds like you have a hangover to me.’ He sounded amused. ‘Are you sure you hadn’t been drinking before you met me last night?’
Her eyes shot open as she ignored the pain in her head to glare at him indignantly. ‘I told you, I’m allergic to alcohol! One mouthful and I’m violently ill.’
‘You sure are!’ He grinned, leaning on his elbow to look down at her. ‘In fact, I’ve never seen anyone as ill as you were last night. Before you blacked out, of course,’ he added.
‘I fell asleep,’ she defended, and then winced at the loudness of her own voice. ‘I fell asleep,’ she repeated huskily, suddenly very aware of where they were, and of how close Zak Prince actually was. ‘What time is it?’ She turned her head slightly, having trouble trying to focus on the luminous clock on the bedside table.
The bedside table! She really was lying in bed with Zak. Both of them were fully dressed, she was relieved to see, but it was still a huge double bed the two of them lay in.
Zak peered past her at the clock. ‘A few minutes after eleven o’clock,’ he supplied.
‘Oh, that’s not so bad!’ She sighed her relief. ‘I’ve only been asleep for an hour or so—’
‘A few minutes after eleven o’clock in the morning,’ Zak enlightened her with a teasing smile.
‘It can’t be!’ she protested, half struggling to sit up, and then falling back down again as she realized how close she was to Zak. ‘If it’s morning, then why is it still so dark?’
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I always stay in this particular suite when I’m in London. If I’m working I never know when I’m going to get to bed and the curtains in here are so thick they cut out all the daylight.’
Tyler stared up at him now, her mouth open, her eyes wide with shock. Eleven o’clock in the morning! Did that mean she had been here all night?
Zak chuckled softly. ‘Well, this isn’t the usual reaction I get from a woman after we’ve spent a night in bed together!’
Tyler felt her face pale even more, her lips feeling slightly numb too. ‘We—we haven’t spent a night in bed together,’ she finally managed to stutter.
‘No?’ He looked pointedly at their surroundings.
There was no denying that they were in a bedroom, nor that the two of them shared the same bed, but they certainly hadn’t—they hadn’t—had they…?
Her eyes were wide with anxiety as she looked up into Zak’s face for some sign of exactly what had happened here last night, but his expression was unreadable as he looked at her beneath mockingly raised brows.
‘You know, Tyler—’ Zak reached up and pushed the short hair back from her brow, his fingers leaving a trail of fire where they touched ‘—I actually consider it extremely insulting that you could imagine I might take advantage of a woman who had just been violently ill all over my hotel suite!’ His blue eyes looked as hard and gleaming as sapphires.
It did sound a little insulting, Tyler realized. In fact, a lot insulting. Although, considering his much-publicized reputation with women—No, she had better not even go there. Not if the now-dangerous glint in his eyes was anything to go by!
‘Although the same certainly can’t be said about twelve hours later!’ he rasped just before his head swooped down and his lips claimed hers.
Tyler melted. Just melted. Her lips softened and clung to his, and her body responded avidly as he half lay across her, her hands moving up to thread her fingers in the silky softness of his corn-coloured hair.
Zak’s mouth gentled, sipping, tasting, tenderly biting, causing first her lips to tingle, before the sensation spread to the rest of her body.
Then she felt as if she had been engulfed in flames as he suddenly deepened the kiss, her mouth opening wider to allow the hot, passionate intrusion of his tongue.
Her breasts, the nipples firm and inviting, pressed against the muscled hardness of his chest, a chest she longed to touch. Her hands thrust eagerly under his tee shirt, first stroking then lightly dragging her nails down—
‘Housekeeping!’ A sharp rap on the door accompanied the bright announcement.
Zak, whose fingers had just started to caress Tyler’s generous, unfettered breasts beneath her top, shot away from her as if he had been stung. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ he muttered. ‘I forgot to put the “Do Not Disturb” notice on the door last night before we went to bed!’ He was scowling darkly as he swung his long legs off the bed and got up to walk over to the door.
Tyler lay back on the bed in total shock. Zak Prince, the golden boy of the big screen, had just very thoroughly kissed her. She had always wondered what was meant by that phrase, and now she knew. She had just been so ‘thoroughly’ kissed she still tingled all over and her legs felt shaky!
* * *
Not the best move he had ever made in his life, Zak rebuked himself even as he dealt with the cleaning lady standing out in the hallway. First and foremost, Tyler was a reporter, and reporters, in his experience, were after only one thing: a story.
Something he had just given her in spades!
Somehow, and he wasn’t quite sure how, he was going to have to take a step backwards—no, several steps backwards. He groaned inwardly as he remembered the softness of Tyler’s breasts beneath that little tee shirt. She had felt so good, her skin like velvet to the touch, her lips soft and responsive beneath his.
But of course she had been responsive, he acknowledged with self-disgust. Claiming that he had seduced her during this week’s interview would be the icing on the cake as far as any female reporter was concerned!
‘If you’re hoping for a repeat performance I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed!’ he gritted out as he turned from closing the door and found Tyler still luxuriating in the bed. ‘I have that lunch appointment I told you about in—just over an hour,’ he announced after glancing at his watch. ‘But maybe we can pick this up again later?’ he added with a deliberately insulting raise of an eyebrow.
The colour flooded Tyler’s cheeks as she scrambled to sit up, turning away from him as she did so. ‘Where are my shoes?’ she asked as she looked around dazedly.
‘Your boots are in the other room,’ Zak said. He still remembered his amazement the night before, when he had gone to remove her footwear before putting her into bed and found she’d been wearing a pair of yellow desert boots. ‘Tell me, Tyler, do you wear military clothes to make up for your lack of height and stature?’
She stood up abruptly and frowned. ‘And do you take lessons in rudeness along with acting, or does it just come naturally?’
‘I’ve never really thought about it.’ Rudeness wasn’t usually a part of his character; only Tyler Wood, it seemed, brought out that side of his nature. ‘Er—I think maybe you should take a shower or something before you leave,’ he advised as she turned to march determinedly through to the adjoining sitting-room.
‘No, thank you,’ she answered tightly, sitting down to pull on one of her boots, wrinkling her nose delicately because he hadn’t quite managed to erase the smell from the carpet the night before.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Zak dismissed. ‘I’ll call Housekeeping back and get them to shampoo the carpet while I’m out.’
‘You know…’ she paused to glare up at him, obviously not happy at being reminded of her illness the evening before ‘…if you had anything of the gentleman about you then you wouldn’t have slept in the same bed as me last night!’
‘There’s only the one bed,’ Zak protested, leaning against the doorjamb between the two rooms as he watched her, his arms folded across his chest.
‘Then you should have slept on the sofa in here!’ she snapped, pulling her second boot on and tying it so tightly Zak was sure it must be cutting off the blood circulating to her foot.
‘It happens to be my bed,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes, but—I would have been happier if you had left me on the sofa,’ she insisted, standing up.
‘Oh, I couldn’t have done that,’ he assured her mockingly. ‘What if you had been sick again? You might have choked on your own—’
‘Please don’t talk about that any more!’ Tyler practically shrieked, picking up from the table all the articles Zak had emptied from her pockets the night before.
‘I really think you should take advantage of the bathroom facilities before you leave, Tyler,’ Zak reiterated as he once again took in her appearance.
Her eyes flashed as she looked up. ‘I don’t—oh, no!’ she groaned as she caught sight of herself in a mirror, reaching up a hand to her hair as it stood up in the best likeness to an annoyed porcupine Zak had ever seen. ‘You could have told me!’ she growled as she marched past him into the adjoining bathroom.
‘I thought I just did,’ he called out over the sound of water running, grinning unabashedly as she came back from the bathroom, her hair now wet and spiky. ‘Not much of an improvement, really,’ he teased.
‘You—’ Tyler broke off, drawing in a controlling breath before speaking again. ‘I didn’t notice my appearance putting you off a few minutes ago!’
‘No. Well, a woman in your bed is worth two that aren’t,’ he deliberately misquoted.
Her eyes flashed deeply brown. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were that desperate!’
Zak’s smile widened at her attempts to insult him, easily guessing the reasons behind it—embarrassment, mainly—but having no intention of helping her out. The fact that she didn’t appear in a very good light either should be enough to discourage her from writing about it. Should be…