Ways to Ruin a Royal Reputation
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Dani Collins
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11
CHAPTER ONE
“RUIN ME.”
Amy Miller blinked, certain she’d misheard Luca Albizzi, the king of Vallia.
She’d been reeling since she’d walked into this VIP suite in London’s toniest hotel and discovered who her potential client would be.
Her arrival here had been conducted under a cloak of mystery. A call had had her assistant frowning with perplexity as she relayed the request that Amy turn up for an immediate consultation, now or never.
Given the address, Amy had been confident it was worth pandering to the vague yet imperious invitation. It wasn’t unheard-of for managers of celebrities to conceal a client’s identity while they brought Amy and her team into a crisis situation.
Amy had snatched up her bag and hurried across the city, expecting to meet an outed MP’s son or an heiress being blackmailed with revenge porn.
The hotel manager had brought her to the Royal Suite, a title Amy had not taken seriously despite the pair of men guarding the door, both wearing dark suits and inscrutable expressions. One had searched through her satchel while the other inspected the jacket she had nervously removed in the lift.
When they opened the door for her, Amy had warily entered an empty lounge.
As she set her bag and jacket on a bar stool, the sound of the main door closing had brought a pensive man from one of the bedrooms.
He wore a bone-colored business shirt over dark gray trousers, no tie, and had such an air of authority, he nearly knocked her over with it. He was thirtyish, swarthy, his hair light brown, his blue eyes piercing enough to score lines into her.
Before she had fully recognized him, a hot, bright pull twisted within her. A sensual vine that wound through her limbs slithered to encase her, and yanked.
It was inexplicable and disconcerting—even more so when her brain caught up to realize exactly who was provoking this reaction.
The headlines had been screaming for weeks that the Golden Prince, recently crowned the king of Vallia, would be coming to London on a state visit. King Luca had always been notorious for the fact he was powerful, privileged and sinfully good-looking. Everything else about him was above reproach. According to reports, he’d dined at Buckingham Palace last night where the only misstep had been a smoky look of admiration from a married duchess that he had ignored.
“Call me Luca,” he said by way of introduction, and invited her to sit.
Gratefully, Amy had sunk onto the sofa, suffering the worst case of starstruck bedazzlement she’d ever experienced. She spoke to wealthy and elite people all the time and never lost her tongue. Or her hearing. Or her senses. She refused to let this man be anything different, but he was. He just was.
She saw his mouth move again. The words he’d just spoken were floating in her consciousness, but his gorgeously deep voice with that Italian accent evoked hot humid nights in narrow cobblestone alleys while romantic strains of a violin drifted from open windows. She could practically smell the fragrance of exotic blossoms weighting the air. He would draw her into a shadowed alcove and that full-lipped, hot mouth would smother—
“Will you?” he prodded.
Amy yanked herself back from the kind of fantasy that could, indeed, ruin him. And her. He was a potential client, for heaven’s sake!
A cold tightness arrived behind her breastbone as she made the connection that she was, once again, lusting for someone off-limits. Oh, God. She wouldn’t say the king of Vallia reminded her of him. That would be a hideous insult. Few men were as reprehensible as him, but a clammy blanket of apprehension settled on her as she realized she was suffering a particularly strong case of the butterflies for someone who potentially had power over her.
She forcibly cocooned those butterflies and reminded herself she was not without power of her own. She could turn down this man or this job. In fact, based on this off-the-rails attraction she was suffering, she should do both.
She would, once she politely heard him out. At the very least, she could recommend one of her colleagues.
Why did that thought make this weird ache in her diaphragm pang even harder?
She shook it off.
“I’m sorry,” she said, managing to dredge the words from her dry throat. “Did you say someone is trying to ruin you? London Connection can definitely help you defuse that.” There. She almost sounded like the savvy, confident, cofounder of a public relations firm that her business card said she was.
“I said I want you to ruin me.”
You. Her heart swerved. Did he know? Her ears grew so hot, she feared they’d set her hair on fire. He couldn’t know what had happened, she assured herself even as snakes of guilt and shame writhed in her stomach. Her parents and the school’s headmistress had scrubbed out that little mess with all the alacrity of a government cleanup team in a blockbuster movie. That’s how Amy had learned mistakes could be mitigated so well they disappeared from the collective consciousness, even if the stain remained on your conscience forever.
Nevertheless, her hands clenched in her lap as though she had to physically hang on to all she’d managed to gain after losing everything except the two best friends who remained her staunchest supporters to this day.
“Our firm is in the business of building reputations.” Muscle memory came to her rescue, allowing her voice to steady and strengthen. She said this sort of thing a million times a week. “Using various tools like media channels and online networking, we protect and enhance our clients’ profiles. When a brand or image has been impacted, we take control of the narrative. Build a story.” Blah, blah, blah.
She smiled while she spoke, hands now stacked palm up in her lap, ankles crossed. Her blood still sizzled because, seriously, he was positively magnetic even when he scowled with impatience. This was what a chiseled jaw looked like—as though a block of marble named “naked gold” or “autumn tan” had been chipped and worked and shaped to become this physical manifestation of strength and tenacity. Command.
“I know what you do. That’s why I called you.” Luca rose abruptly from the armchair he’d taken when she’d sat.
He paced across the spacious lounge. His restless movement ruffled the sheer drapes that were partially drawn over the wall of windows overlooking the Thames.
She’d barely taken in the decor of grays and silver-blue, the fine art pieces and the arrangements of fresh flowers. It all became a monochrome backdrop to a man who radiated a dynamic aura. He moved like an athlete with his smooth, deliberate motions. His beautifully tailored clothes only emphasized how well made he was.
He paused where the spring sun was streaming through the break in the curtains and shoved his hands into his pockets. The action strained his trousers across his firm behind.
Amy was not an ogler. Men of all shapes, sizes and levels of wealth paraded through her world every day. They were employees and clients and couriers. Nothing more. She hadn’t completely sworn off emotional entanglements, but she was exceptionally careful. Occasionally she dated, but even the very nice men who paid for dinner and asked politely before trying to kiss her had failed to move her.
Truthfully, she didn’t allow anyone to move her. She preferred to keep her focus on her career. She’d been taught by an actual, bona-fide teacher that following her heart, or her libido, or that needy thing inside her that yearned for someone to make her feel special, would only leave her open to being used and thrown away like last week’s rubbish.
But here she was acting like a sixth-former biting her fist because a particularly nice backside was in her line of sight. Luca wasn’t even coming on to her. He was just oozing sex appeal from his swarthy pores in a passive and oblivious way.
That was ninja-level seduction and it had to stop.
“I’m asking you to reverse the build,” Luca said. “Give me a scandal instead of making one go away.”
She dragged her attention up to find him looking over his shoulder at her.
He cocked his brow to let her know he had totally and completely caught her drooling over his butt.
She briefly considered claiming he had sat in chewing gum and gave her hair a flick, aware she was as red as an Amsterdam sex district light. She cleared her throat and suggested gamely, “You’re in the wrong part of London for cheap disgrace. Possibly hire a woman with a different profession?”
He didn’t crack a smile.
She bit the inside of her lip.
“A controlled scandal.” He turned to face her, hands still in his pockets. He braced his feet apart like a sailor on a yacht, and his all-seeing gaze flickered across her blushing features. “I’ve done my research. I came to you because you’re ideal for the job.”
Whatever color had risen to her cheeks must have drained out of her because she went absolutely ice cold.
“Why do you say that?” she asked tautly.
His brows tugged in faint puzzlement. “The way you countered the defamation of that woman who was suing the sports league. It was a difficult situation, given how they’d rallied their fans to attack her.”
Amy released a subtle breath. He wasn’t talking about her past.
“It was very challenging,” she agreed with a muted nod.
She and her colleagues-slash-best friends, Bea and Clare, had taken on the case for a single pound sterling. They’d all been horrified by the injustice of a woman being vilified because she’d called out some players who had accosted her in a club.
“I’m compelled to point out though—” she lifted a blithe expression to hide the riot going on inside her “—if you wish to be ruined, the firm we were up against in that case specializes in pillorying people.”
“Yet they failed with your client because of your efforts. How could I even trust them?” He swept a dismissive hand through the air. “They happily billed an obscene amount of money to injure a woman who’d already been harmed. Meanwhile, despite winning, your company lost money with her. Didn’t you?”
His piercing look felt like a barbed hook that dug deep into her middle.
Amy licked her lips and crossed her legs. It was another muscle memory move, one she trotted out with men in an almost reflexive way when she felt put on the spot and needed a brief moment of deflection.
It was a power move and it would have worked, buying her precious seconds to choose her words, if she hadn’t watched his gaze take note of the way the unbuttoned bottom of her skirt fell open to reveal her shin. His gaze slid down to her ankle and leisurely climbed its way back up, hovering briefly on the open collar of her maxi shirtdress, then arrived at her mouth with the sting of a bee.
As his gaze hit hers, his mouth pulled slightly to one side in a silent, Thank you for that, but let’s stay on task.
It was completely unnerving and made her stomach wobble. She swallowed, mentally screaming at herself to get her head in the game.
“I would never discuss another client’s financial situation.” She would, however, send a note to Bea advising her they had some confidentiality holes to plug. “Can you tell me how you came by that impression, though?”
“Your client was quoted in an interview saying that winning in the court of public opinion doesn’t pay the way a win in a real court would have done, but thanks to Amy at London Connection, she remains hopeful she’ll be awarded a settlement that will allow her to pay you what you deserve.”
Every nerve ending in Amy’s body sparked as he approached. He still seemed edgy beneath his air of restraint. He dropped a slip of paper onto the coffee table in front of her.
“I want to cover her costs as well as my own. Will that amount do?”
The number on the slip nearly had her doing a spit take with the air in her lungs. Whether it was in pounds sterling, euros, or Russian rubles didn’t matter. A sum with that many zeroes would have Bea and Clare sending her for a cranial MRI if she turned it down.
“It’s...very generous. But what you’re asking us to do is the complete opposite of London Connection’s mission statement. I’ll have to discuss this with my colleagues before accepting.” Why did Clare have to be overseas right now? Starting London Connection had been her idea. She’d brought Amy on board to get it off the ground, and they usually made big decisions together. Their latest had been to pry Bea from slow suffocation at a law firm to work for them. Bea might have specific legal concerns about a campaign of this nature.
“I don’t want your colleagues,” Luca said. “The fewer people who know what I’m asking, the better. I want you.”
His words and the intensity of his blue eyes were charging into her like a shock of electricity, leaving her trying to catch her breath without revealing he’d knocked it out of her.
“I don’t understand.” It was common knowledge that the new king of Vallia was nothing like the previous one. Luca’s father had been... Well, he’d been dubbed “the Kinky King” by the tabloids, so that said it all.
Amy’s distant assumption when she had recognized Luca was that she would be tasked with finessing some remnant of Luca’s father’s libidinous reputation. Or perhaps shore up the cracks in the new king’s image since there were rumors he was struggling under the weight of his new position.
Even so... “To the best of my knowledge, your image is spotless. Why would you want a scandal?”
“Have I hired you?” Luca demanded, pointing at the slip of paper. “Am I fully protected under client confidentiality agreements?”
She opened her mouth, struggling to articulate a response as her mind leaped to her five-year plan. If she accepted this assignment, she could reject the trust fund that was supposed to come to her when she turned thirty in eighteen months. Childish, perhaps, but her parents had very ruthlessly withheld it twice in the past. Having learned so harshly that she must rely only on herself, Amy would love to tell them she had no use for the remnants of the family fortune they constantly held out like a carrot on a stick.
Bea and Clare would love a similar guarantee of security. They all wanted London Connection to thrive so they could help people. They most definitely didn’t want to tear people down the way some of their competitors did. Amy had no doubt Bea and Clare would have the same reservations she did with Luca’s request, but something told her this wasn’t a playboy’s silly whim. He looked far too grim and resolute.
Coiled through all of this contemplation was an infernal curiosity. Luca intrigued her. If he became a client... Well, if he became a client, he was absolutely forbidden! There was a strange comfort in that. Rules were rules, and Amy would hide behind them if she had to.
“I’ll have to tell my partners something,” she warned, her gaze landing again on the exorbitant sum he was offering.
“Say you’re raising the profile of my charity foundation. It’s a legitimate organization that funds mental health programs. We have a gala in a week. I’ve already used it as an excuse when I asked my staff to arrange this meeting.”
“Goodness, if you’re that adept at lying, why do you need me?”
Still no glint of amusement.
“It’s not a lie. The woman who has been running it since my mother’s time fell and broke her hip. The entire organization needs new blood and a boost into this century. You’ll meet with the team, double-check the final arrangements and suggest new fundraising programs. The full scope of work I’m asking of you will remain confidential, between the two of us.”
His offer was an obscene amount for a few press releases, but Amy could come up with a better explanation for her friends later. Right now, the decision was hers alone as to whether to take the job, and there was no way she could turn down this kind of money.
She licked her dry lips and nodded.
“Very well. If you wish to hire me to promote your charity and fabricate a scandal, I would be happy to be of assistance.” She stood to offer her hand for a shake.
His warm, strong hand closed over hers in a firm clasp and gave it a strong pump. The satisfaction that flared in his expression made all sorts of things in her shiver. He was so gorgeous and perfect and unscathed. Regal.
“Now tell me why on earth you would ask me to ruin you,” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
“It’s the only way I can give the crown to my sister.”
