“I’ve just looked through the documents sent by Herr Brunhart’s office.” Angus shuffled a stack of papers on his desk, aligning and putting them in an envelope and handing them to Ewan.

“The ones pertaining to the block of residential buildings near the Romani village?”

“Yes. Deeds, mortgages, contractor’s agreements, and so forth.” He gave Ewan a dark glance. “But there’s not one piece of paper in that entire file that bears the owner’s name. Brunhart should know better than to expect me to buy property without knowing who’s selling it.”

Ewan frowned. “I would have thought it was legally required for the owner’s name to be listed.”

“There are ways around it.” Angus nodded toward the file in his aide-de-camp’s hands. “The mortgage wasn’t financed by a bank, but through a loan from an off-shore company. According to the deed, the property is owned by a private investment company. I’d bet it’s being held in trust for an unnamed party.”

“Why would someone go to such trouble instead of buying it in his own name?”

“For many reasons. For one, to keep the asking price from going down. And I have business adversaries who would enjoy putting me in my place now and then, by denying me something I want by asking through-the-roof prices. Likely, this man’s reasons are similar. I want his name because I am buying that land and I will be reforming it to integrate it to the Romani Village. They need a new school, a library…a family clinic there would also be convenient.”

“Wouldn’t Herr Brunhart be willing to tell you, if you asked him directly?”

Angus shook his head. “He would have told me already. I suspect he knows it would ruin the deal if I found out.”

“Shall I give this information to the same PI we hired to research Ms. Faulkner's past?”

Angus was startled at that. He had forgotten he had asked Ewan to investigate Siobhan’s past. “Yes, he’ll do.”

As Ewan left his office, his thoughts turned to Siobhan.

Each night he and Siobhan indulged their lusts. He’d experienced more pleasure at her inexperienced hands than he had in the decade before.

He could get used to that—if he wasn’t careful.

Every time he touched her, he would take more. He exercised his control to a whole new level, keeping her on the brink until she was screaming and begging, craving the sensation of being filled by him. He trained her body to hunger for his.

Conditioning.

If the situation had been reversed, this would have been the way to make him want more. He knew he was playing for more now, though he didn’t understand precisely what he wanted from her.

And after making love, he attempted to get her to sleep against him instead of balled up in that way that made his chest feel uncomfortable.

If someone had told him a month ago that he’d be fighting to make a woman cling to him in sleep, he’d have laughed.

Yet she remained unfaltering in her resolution of not marrying him for material reasons.

And they talked.

He would have been content to hear only about her, but she’d been surprisingly curious about his past. He found himself revealing things he never had to anyone, yet feeling unburdened from it.

He’d told her of his father and how proud he was; and about his mother sending him to a boarding school and not allowing him to come back, but for his father’s funeral and his own crowning, just to dispatch him once she was deemed the reigning sovereign until he reached the age of eighteen.

Siobhan’s eyes watered as he spoke of the gut-wrenching decision to let him be raised by strangers in a faraway land, in an atmosphere absent of love and family, where no one was tucked in by loving hands, or had a bedtime story read to them. Children educated and trained to be leaders, while never being taught the most valuable trait a good leader needed: compassion.

It’s no great mystery he has issues when it comes to love.

And again, a month ago, Angus would have laughed at the notion of marriage, of settling down. Now it was all he could think of. No, I will win her.

There was no other option.

But with every passing day, a disquieting thought grew: did he want Siobhan if she did not want him? Was it enough to win her loyalty if he did not win her heart as well?

Odd thoughts for a man who had never considered a woman’s heart before. A man who’d always enjoyed the pleasures of a woman’s body but never appreciated her soul or her spirit. A man who knew only the value of the prize and never the worth of the quest.

And Siobhan and the child she carried were a prize beyond measure.

As if his thoughts conjured her, Siobhan appeared in the doorway.

“I hope I’m not interrupting…”

“No, come on in. I have finished the paperwork and I need to do some outside visits today.”

As she drew closer, he could see the paleness of her features. The shadows under her eyes. She even looked as though she’d lost weight when she should be putting it on.

With sudden guilt, he realized the past several days had been far more stressful for her than they had been for him. She could probably use a break from the palace.

Angus knew just the place for a local getaway. He had to pay more attention to how she was doing, and remember this was a huge adjustment for her, going from a small house in a Londoner quiet suburb with one other person and a cat, to this enormous palace and all of its staff and visitors. She could not only get lost inside it, but might also feel invisible at times; insignificant, despite being his fiancée. He needed to tend to her as much as he did to the country’s businesses and his banking, if he was to ever get her to change her mind about marriage.

“I want to show you something, Siobhan,” he said softly, pushing his chair back and standing. “Will you come with me?”

Siobhan eyed him with some surprise. He was asking her to come with him? He was asking her to do something? In the daytime, with their clothes on? Because apart from the times he was seducing her into his bed—not that he had to work himself much—typically, he told her what he wanted her to do, rather than ask, like living here or seeing his doctor.

Siobhan was intrigued. “I will.”

He gave her a grin, holding out his hand to her. Siobhan took it, feeling the strength in his grip all the way to her heart.

“Are we going somewhere…outside the palace?” Lenox Palace was as lovely as she’d ever imagined on to be, when she’d snuggled under a tent of blankets as a child, in bed with a pilfered flashlight, reading fairy tales long after lights out.

The rooms were spacious and airy, with brightly woven tapestries hung on the thick stone walls supposedly to smother any chill drafts that might seep through the cracks, although Siobhan hadn’t been able to find so much as one crack in a wall—she’d peeped behind a few tapestries, just to see if there were any, or perhaps a hidden door leading to a secret passage. Historical curiosity.

Not that she was hunting for imperfections in either the palace or the palace’s King.

The sunrays streamed through hundreds of beautiful mullioned windows. Obviously, the people who inhabited it couldn’t bear to be cooped up inside when there was so much lush landscape to be enjoyed outdoors in the mountains and vales. A woman can easily fall in love in a place like this.

Yet, as beautiful and majestic as everything was, Siobhan found she felt much better outside and away from it.

“Yes, and just the two of us.” Angus flashed a grin as he led her outdoors. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting fresh air daily?”

She pursed her lips. He knew she walked every day in the palace gardens, with one of their bodyguards in tow just in case she had any further issues with her blood pressure.

It was nice to get out, but not like this was going to be.

They left the grounds and entered the garage, where Siobhan’s lavender Beetle was humbly parked in the middle of hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of powerful driving machines. She liked the fact Angus had gone through all the trouble of bringing Jaxon’s gift here to Lekten, when he could simply have had sold her car and bought another much more expensive one, yet he had respected her desire to keep it.

Angus pulled a key fob from his pocket, pressed a button, and a DB11 Aston Martin winked its lights at them.

“Are we going all alone?” she asked, surprised, as he helped her into the passenger seat. “No bodyguards? No driver?”

He squeezed her hand lightly, helping her with her seat belt. “I drive fairly well you know.”

She laughed, unable to help it. “I will be the judge of that, Sir.”

Angus gave her a wink and shut the door, Siobhan let out a heartfelt sigh of happiness. Maybe this is the turning point.

When he got into the driver’s seat, she noticed him checking out her legs. From his expressive gaze, she could tell he was feeling desire—and battling it.

Because she was doing the same. “Would it be scandalous if I rode topless, Your Majesty?”

“Yes, but even worse, we’d be in a terrible crash. Possibly before we could even get out of the garage.

Siobhan laughed and put a hand on his leg.

They drove out of the city, in the direction of his mountain home, and passed the time in comfortable silence, Angus handling the car expertly.

They stopped by his house and Esmeralda was already at the door, waiting with a large wicker hamper in her hands and a smile on her face, Jumani carrying a blanket and pillows.

“That is perfect,” Angus said, taking the hamper she provided, and placing them in the back seat, and then doing the same with the pillows and blanket from Jumani. “Thank you.”

“Are we going on a picnic?” Siobhan asked. She had never been on a picnic before.

“Yes.” He smiled at her as he maneuvered the car back onto the road. “I want to show you my special place.”

“I like special places.” She snuggled into the seat, yawned and sighed, contented. Especially if they are linked with you.