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CHAPTER FIVE

‘SO, THIS IS your idea of low-profile?’ Elsie asked as she manoeuvred herself into the black SUV that drew up, sandwiched between two similar vehicles with blacked-out windows.

His thin-lipped smile was ironic. ‘Your address is a park?’ he countered smoothly.

‘I think I take low-profile more seriously than you do? Also, I’m quite sure you, or whoever you delegate the boring details to, knows exactly where I was staying.’

‘The spare room in your friend’s flat… Sammi—?’

She gave a tight nod.

‘So does this Sammi…does he know of this…situation?’

‘No, she doesn’t know,’ Elsie replied, childishly pleased that his information-gathering was not totally flawless.

Leandro’s expression did not change. ‘I stand corrected. So does this Sammi drive a doggy bus too?’

‘You know about that?’

‘The boring details I delegate.’

‘She volunteers too. Occasionally, we work together.’

‘You collect rescue dogs from around Europe and deliver them to Britain.’

‘Mostly. Sometimes Holland or Germany and, of course, home.’

‘And your parents have no issue with this?’

‘Why would they?’

‘You have a very unusual upbringing for a princess.’

Before she could react to this, a loud crackle made her start. Then the line cleared and a disembodied voice speaking in what she assumed was Portuguese filled the cab, though it could have been any one of the five languages her deep dive online research had revealed the King of Santagostino spoke fluently. This information was not readily available but she supposed being a polyglot was not part of his public persona.

‘Sim, obrigado.’

The vehicle pulled away from the kerb.

‘It’s a thirty-minute drive to the airport, so relax, Princess.’

‘Do not call me that.’

‘It is factually correct.’

She threw him an irritated look. ‘And I am relaxed.’

He raised a sardonic brow. ‘Tell that to the stick you have up—’

Her burst of unexpected laughter cut him off. He fought off the impulse to smile in response to the husky, tactile quality of her laugh.

So, she could laugh at herself.

He added the discovery to his mental file; he was trying to flesh out the information he had on her. Thinking flesh, his eyes skimmed the angle of her firm jaw and the downy softness of her smooth cheek; her skin had an almost pearlescent sheen.

‘Fair enough.’ She smiled, rotating her shoulders to loosen some of the knots.

He responded to her smile with a flat look and returned his attention to the laptop balanced on his knee.