LITMIR.BIZ

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my privacy and found out things you have absolutely no right to know. You’ve taken the information gleaned by your spies and used it to pressure a man who doesn’t love me—a man I don’t love—into marrying me. Evidently, all the awful things my mother ever hinted at about you are true. You’re an impossible chauvinistic manipulator of other people’s lives.’’

      There was a rather grisly silence. Liv knew she had gone too far, but she couldn’t make herself feel sorry that she’d done it.

      At last, her father said, too quietly, ‘‘You would do well to guard that tongue of yours, daughter. No matter what you may think of me, I am king here.’’

      ‘‘Yes, you are,’’ Liv readily agreed. ‘‘And that’s why I’m going back to my country. Today. I am not—’’

      ‘‘Stop!’’ Osrik cut her off with a booming shout and then instantly lowered his voice to an ominous growl. ‘‘You will go nowhere. No daughter of mine will bear a bastard. It’s a crime against humanity and I won’t have it.’’

      ‘‘You?’’ Liv went nose to nose with him. ‘‘You won’t have it? You don’t have a thing to say about. No horse in this race. No dog in this show. If, by chance—and believe me, I don’t think it’s so—I do turn out to be pregnant, I’ll be the one deciding what to do about it. And one thing I can tell you right now, I won’t be marrying Finn Danelaw and I’m going home today—and all right, that’s two things, and I’m doing both of them.’’

      ‘‘You will stay!’’ Her father shouted. ‘‘You will marry!’’

      ‘‘No, I won’t!’’

      ‘‘Don’t you dare to disobey me!’’

      ‘‘Disobey you? How could I possibly disobey you? I am not one of your subjects, nor am I a—’’ Liv broke off with a cry of surprise. Finn had stepped up and snared her hand. She rounded on him. ‘‘Let me go, you—’’ Something in his eyes stopped her, just cut her off cold.

      She glared at him, fuming, as he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. It was smoothly done— lightly, with what seemed like no effort at all.

      His grip, however, wasn’t light in the least. It was warm steel.

      He leaned too close and whispered silkily, ‘‘Come with me, my darling. We’ll talk.’’

      A shiver went through her, purely sexual, at the sound of that whisper, at the feel of his breath against her cheek. Her own response stunned her. How could she even think about sex at this moment, let alone shiver over it?

      She opened her mouth to announce that she was not, by any stretch of a wild imagination, his darling, and he’d better let go of her or she’d break his damned arm—but then she noticed that her father had stepped back.

      Apparently, Osrik was willing to let Finn handle this.

      Ha. Finn Danelaw was not the one who’d be doing the handling here. The man was a player, after all. Not the marrying kind, as they say. If she got him alone, it should be easy to make him admit he was only doing this because he felt he had to. Once she made it clear to him that he didn’t have to, they could come to an understanding—one in which he could go his way and she would go hers.

      ‘‘All right,’’ she said loftily. ‘‘We’ll go to my rooms.’’

      Her head high, she allowed Finn to lead her out.

       Chapter Five

      When they reached the pair of expressionless soldiers at the doors to her suite, Liv commanded, ‘‘Out of here. Both of you. Now.’’

      She got no response aside from the usual twin fist-to-heart salutes.

      ‘‘You two, you guards. I mean it.’’ Her too-loud voice echoed in the wide hallway. ‘‘Get lost.’’

      They didn’t move.

      Beside her, Finn said quite calmly, ‘‘By the king’s command, you are both dismissed. Go to your quarters. Await further orders.’’

      In unison, the soldiers barked, ‘‘Yes, Your Highness.’’ They pivoted on their black boot-heels and marched off down the hall.

      Liv couldn’t believe it. ‘‘That’s what you say to them, by the king’s command, and they do what you tell them to?’’

      Prince Finn sketched the most elegant of shrugs. ‘‘Plausibility was on my side.’’

      She frowned. ‘‘Meaning it’s not on mine?’’

      ‘‘Liv,’’ he said tenderly, ‘‘you are such a pugnacious creature.’’

      ‘‘Creature? I’m a creature?’’

      ‘‘No need to screech.’’

      ‘‘I’d say I have a right to do a little screeching at this point. Answer my question.’’

      He gave her a patient look. ‘‘Since I’d assume they were stationed here to guard you, it’s unlikely they’d believe you were authorized to send them away.’’

      This whole situation irritated her no end. ‘‘Guard me? Oh, please. They weren’t here to guard me. They were here to make note of the comings and goings of Their Royal Highnesses and report what they saw back to my father.’’

      Finn chose, probably wisely, not to reply to that one. Instead, he reached for one of the door handles. ‘‘Shall we go in?’’ He ushered her over the threshold, pulling the door shut behind them. They proceeded, Liv in the lead, to the formal drawing room.

      She threw out a hand in the direction of a chair. ‘‘Take a seat. I’ll be right back. I want to make certain we have this discussion alone.’’ She headed for the hallway that led to the kitchen.

      She caught the maid just beyond the open doorway-lurking as usual. ‘‘All right. I want you out of here.’’

      ‘‘But, Your Highness—’’

      ‘‘Out. I mean it. Go.’’

      The maid backed up and Liv advanced. Finally, with a cry, the maid turned and fled.

      Liv chased her into the suite’s small kitchen, where she found the cook playing solitaire at the table. ‘‘Okay. You, too. Out. Now.’’ She made broad shooing motions.

      The cook, looking terrified, shoved back her chair. Liv herded her toward the maid and then urged them both toward the door to the back stairs. ‘‘Go on. Out.’’ Finally the maid flung the door wide and fled, the cook close on her heels. ‘‘And stay out!’’ Liv slammed the door behind them.

      She stalked back down the hall and into the drawing room.

      Finn had taken the seat she’d offered him. He stood when she came toward him, still wearing that exasperating expression of aloof good humor. His eyes met hers. Her pulse quickened—why, she could hear her heart beating.

      Oh, this was way, way disturbing. She not only had to be disappointed in herself for her actions of two nights ago. She also displayed all the indications of an ongoing attraction to this patently unsuitable man.

      How was that possible? Hadn’t being attracted to him gotten her into enough of a mess already?

      ‘‘Look, Finn, I—’’

      He shushed her with a finger to his fine, sensual mouth—and reached for her hand. Scowling, she let him drag her toward the hall where she’d found the spying maid. How, she wondered as he led her along, could the mere clasp of his hand around hers send a thrill racing through her? Stuff like that didn’t happen in real life—or at least, not in Liv Thorson’s life.

      He paused before the open door to the suite’s informal sitting area

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