Her voice shook with fierceness. He knew her mother, Madeline Sanchez, one of the world’s greatest ‘mistresses’ in a time when such things had been scandalous, had overdosed more than a year ago in a Parisian apartment. Everybody knew all there was to know about Bella Sanchez.
‘This is a legitimate bar and dance floor,’ she added more calmly. ‘And I’m a responsible club owner.’
‘You’re young and inexperienced.’ He paused pointedly. ‘In managing a commercial enterprise, that is.’
Her eyes widened, for a split second she looked furious. But he watched the change as she controlled her emotions once more—the stiffening of that already ramrod-straight spine, her smile so different from the one earlier, the hint of calculation as she glanced at his casual attire.
He braced. She was sizing him up and about to fire her own shot. And oddly, he was looking forward to it.
She swept her arm across her body in a dramatic gesture, drawing his attention to her attributes once more. ‘Why don’t you come in and find out for yourself?’ she invited in a sultry tone. ‘Come inside and see if you can find anything wrong with my club.’
It was a blatant dare—she’d switched into ‘Bella Sanchez, Sex Symbol’ without skipping a beat.
But it wasn’t that challenge that did it for him. Not that coy smile of sophisticated amusement. It was the emotion lurking in the backs of her eyes. The anger she was trying hard to control—that slight tremor in her fingers before she curled them into a fist.
‘Yes.’
He said it because she didn’t expect him to.
She thought he’d politely and coldly refuse, smile distantly and retreat, like the conservative Crown Prince he was. She’d called his bluff.
So he’d called hers. Because at this moment, he damn well felt like doing the last thing anyone—least of all her—expected.
And she hadn’t expected it. Her shock flashed for one satisfying second.
He waited while she unbolted the heavy door, opened it and stepped aside for him to enter. He paused just inside the room, watching as she closed the door and marched around him to lead the way.
‘No suspicious smells, see,’ she said pointedly. ‘Nothing illegal.’
The ground-floor space was sleek and smelled clean, not yet permeated with the lingering, less than fragrant scent of five hundred sweaty clubbers dancing there night after night.
He glanced up—away from the back view of her never-ending legs—and saw the decadent wallpaper and the wrought-iron railings protecting patrons who wanted to party on the mezzanine floor. The chandeliers gleamed even this early in the morning. He hadn’t been in a nightclub in a decade. He’d been crowned in his early twenties, but had been aware of the restraints on his behaviour for years before that. He’d always been dutiful. He’d had to be.
Only now he felt the stirrings of a desire he’d buried deep all those years ago. When had he last danced?
‘You’ll want to see the liquor licence.’ She stalked over to the main bar. ‘And there it is, exactly where it should be. The emergency exits are well marked,’ she added, all officiousness. ‘It was formerly a fire station, you know.’
He did know. But there’d be no putting out the fire in her eyes.
‘The rest of the paperwork is upstairs,’ she said defiantly, turning to face him.
‘So lead the way,’ he answered bluntly. He was committed now.
For a split second her shock was visible again.
Yes, Crown Prince Antonio would never ordinarily go up into the back room of a notorious nightclub in the sole company of a supposedly scandalous siren...but he felt like doing it just to see that reaction again.
He suppressed a smile as he followed her to one of the winding staircases that were like pillars at each side of the room. But as he climbed behind her his amusement faded.
He hadn’t been so alone with a woman so barely attired in years. And it shouldn’t have been a problem now. Except her legs went on for ever. He tried to tear his attention from them. Failed. Was relieved when they reached the mezzanine and she darted ahead to open another window. She then headed to a small alcove that hid a door marked ‘Private’.