Page 128 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

Sex was a game to Rene, one he played well, but it could never be a game to her.

His rejection had hurt, but what had hurt far more was how thoroughly she had allowed herself to fall into the trap of thinking there was a complicated man behind the mask of the dissolute Prince. Especially as she had known, even as a girl of ten, that Rene Gaultiere had no hidden depths.

When someone told you who they were, you needed to believe them. After all, her father had taught her that lesson before she had ever met Rene.

She pushed the unsettling thoughts to one side. This was all ancient history, which Rene had deliberately yanked out into the open with his caveman routine tonight. Maybe he enjoyed getting the better of her. It wouldn’t be the first time, given their endless feud as kids, when he had taken great pleasure in teasing her and Isabelle. She had been the one to stand up to him because Isabelle had always been far too sweet. But he wasn’t her problem any more, especially once she got out of here.

She scanned the cavernous, dimly lit garage in earnest, searching for the vehicle she had arranged with Marco to have fuelled and waiting for her, the keys in the ignition—ready for her to pick up first thing in the morning.

She walked along the rows of expensive luxury cars, gleaming in the half-light, then spotted an all-terrain vehicle at the far end, near the exit ramp. The huge silver car, its wheel arches almost as high as the low-slung sports car beside it, looked ready for anything… And like a lot more vehicle than she had ever handled before.

She swallowed the bubble of apprehension. Just because she was more used to being chauffeur-driven these days didn’t mean she couldn’t handle the all-terrain monster.

She sighed with relief as the door opened with a satisfying click. The SUV was unlocked. Yup, this was definitely her ride. She slung her pack into the back seat, tugged off her ski jacket and clambered into the driver’s seat.

The keys, though, weren’t in the ignition. She frowned, then began to search for them, wondering where on earth Marco had left them instead.

‘Looking for these, Melody?’

Her gaze shot up, and her heartbeat hit her chest wall.

The Prince of Saltzaland was standing leaning against a concrete pillar not five feet in front of the car, wearing dark jeans, boots, a black polo-neck and a shearling jacket—to ward off the chill in the cavernous space—and a cynical smile, while dangling a set of car keys from his index finger.

My car keys.

She gulped down the panic and glared. ‘What areyoudoing here?’ she asked, trying for indignation, and failing miserably, because her body was already responding to him as if it had just been plugged into an electric socket.

He levered himself off the pillar and strolled towards her, throwing the keys up and catching them in his fist.

He reached the car and wrenched open the driver’s door.

‘Get out,’ he said, in the same he-who-shall-be-obeyed tone he’d used earlier, the cynical smile history.

‘I will not.’ She gripped the steering wheel. ‘Just give me the keys.’ She reached out to take them. ‘Something came up and I have to get back to Androvia tonight,’ she added nonchalantly. ‘I’ll have the car brought back first thing tomorrow, I swear.’

She hated to beg, hated even more that he had discovered her cowardly attempt to avoid him tomorrow morning, but the only option she had now was to lie her head off.

‘I think not,’ he said in the same forceful tone, which was starting to get on her last nerve. ‘As I recall, you gave me your word once already tonight, which we now know is completely worthless, so it seems we are going to have to do this the hard way.’

She flushed, his humourless tone and the grim expression almost as disturbing as the adrenaline charging through her system.

She’d always hated cynical, jaded, don’t-give-a-damn-about-anything Rene, but she was beginning to discover that cynical, jaded, scowling tyrant Rene was a whole lot worse. But where was this new Rene coming from? And why on earth was he suddenly so determined to rake over the coals of their one night together, four years after the damage had been done?

‘I did not give you my word,’ she replied, her grip tightening on the wheel.

‘Precisely, because you knew you were going to break it,’ he said, making her realise she had just waltzed into a trap of her own making. ‘Which brings us back to your latest lie, that something came up in the past hour, when we both know you arranged to have this vehicle ready to leave tonight hours ago. Nice touch, by the way, charming Marco into not telling his manager.’

Her astonishment that he knew the young garage mechanic’s first name had barely had a chance to register before he continued.

‘At this point, I’m not sure what’s more concerning, your tenuous relationship with the truth, how close you came to losing Marco his job—’ his voice lowered, his scowl becoming catastrophic ‘—or your asinine decision to take your life into your hands by driving five hours alone at night through the mountains, just to avoid an adult conversation with me.’

The unfairness of his diatribe—which had left her with a ton of unfounded accusations to unpick—left her speechless for about a nanosecond.

‘Don’t you dare sack Marco,’ she said, swallowing the trickle of guilt at the thought she had put Marco’s job in jeopardy because she had assumed Rene wouldn’t even notice she was gone, let alone care.

‘Don’t worry, I don’t intend to sack my best mechanic when you’re the one who…’

‘And I’m not scared of having an adult conversation with you, you egomaniac,’ she interrupted him as her temper kicked in. ‘I really do need to get back to Androvia.’

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