Page 1 of Her Red Hot Secret Royal Fling

CHAPTER ONE

EVEN IF IT WEREN’T for the bitter, longstanding Santoro family feud with the Valentinos, and the fact the two groups were being pitted against one another for the chance to develop a lavish high-rise precinct in the stunning Mediterranean kingdom of Moricosia, Sofia would have been determined to win the contract.

Because no matter what happened with this deal, it would be the last bit of business she undertook for Santoros.

The last time she allowed herself to have her arm twisted to join the family business because they ‘needed her’. While she knew her work had merit, and she knew their appeals were genuine, she also knew she wasn’t a Santoro. They might be the only family she really had, but she’d taken advantage of their generosity for too long. It was time to be a big girl and stand on her own two feet.

She’d always love them, and she’d always want to see them—she couldn’t imagine a summer spent anywhere but at Gianni and Maria’s villa, trying the bizarre pizza combinations Gianni forced on them all, or listening as Maria sang to them by the piano. Lazy days spent under a pergola heavy with the weight of wisteria flowers and the hum of dozens of happy,sun-warmed bees droning just overhead. Or nights staring up at the impossibly inky black sky, stars sparkling like faraway diamonds. The Santoro men, who’d always treated her like their little sister, making her feel welcome when her own mother had done the exact opposite.

Determination fired her blood, her ice-blue eyes focused on the view beyond them. Moricosia was a country bounded on three sides by the sparkling Mediterranean, the glistening blue almost too perfect to believe it was real. In the distance, a whole fleet of sailboats bobbed merrily in the sun. It was winter now, and yet here, the weather was temperate and mild, the light brightly golden. It was little wonder the people she’d glimpsed through the window, as their limousine had snaked through ancient, winding roads from the airport to the palace, had seemed so happy. What was there to be unhappy about, when surrounded by such glorious light as this?

She let out a small sigh, not allowing her mind to wander to the dank, musty boarding school she’d been sent to after her father’s death. Nor to reflect on how moving there had fundamentally changed her mood and outlook on life. From running free across the Italian countryside, delighting in the flavours and fragrances of the Med, she’d been banished to a greyscape that had seemed to a nine-year-old Sofia, like a form of hell.

“Sofia?” Salvatore Santoro’s voice cut through her thoughts. “You look tense. Are you okay?”

She turned to face him, pulling her long, golden ponytail over one shoulder, her gaze fixed on Salvatore’s nose, with the slight bump in the centre courtesy of a fight when he was a boy. Salvatore was the most emotional of the brothers—and by that, she meant passionate. He was forever getting into scrapes back then, mostly because whatever he felt, he felt to the nth degree, and heaven help anyone who disagreed with him.

Those sharp edges of his personality had mostly been smoothed out by age, time, and continued professional accomplishment. It was hard to live with a chip on your shoulder when you succeeded as often as Salvatore did. Nonetheless, she knew he was treating this pitch as though it was the most important moment of his life.

“Fine,” she promised, forcing her shoulders to relax, and smiling at the same time. “I just want to get in there and knock his socks off.”

Salvatore lifted one brow, his lips quirking in a smile. “His royal socks.”

“Yes, his royal socks,” she agreed, flicking an imaginary piece of lint from her dress. There was never anything approaching lint on Sofia. It wouldn’t dare. Sofia had made perfection an art form, and she didn’t need the overpriced shrink Maria Santoro had sent her to many years ago to understand why.Maybe if I top the grade this year, my mother will love me. Maybe if I bring home the perfect boyfriend, my mother will love me. Maybe if I diet to the point of starvation and squeeze into a ridiculously tiny dress, my mother will love me. Maybe if I…eventually, she’d realised that nothing she did mattered. It wasn’t about her.

Dina Marona had made a choice on the day she’d been widowed, and that choice had been to cut her daughter from her life as well.

Never mind that a nine-year-old Sofia had been plunged into a state of deep trauma and grief —not only from losing her father but from actually watching it happen. She shuttered the thought, refusing to give it breathing room now. She had to focus on the meeting at hand, on winning over the King of this country.

“What’s he like, anyway?”

“Ares?”

“His Royal Highness, King Ares,” she corrected. “We’re here in a professional capacity.”

“Right, right.” Salvatore’s brow furrowed. “Sometimes it’s hard to think of him as a King; I’ve known the guy since I was this old.” He gestured to somewhere around the height of his knees. “Ares is a good guy. One of the best. Had way too much responsibility thrust on him, way too young. It kind of changed him, in some ways, but he’s still the same, deep down.”

“Changed him how?”

“Well, can you imagine the pressure of all this?” He gestured around the walls of the palace. It was a stunning building, as one would expect. Extra high ceilings, walls that were a mix of marble and gold, floors that were flanked in enormous tiles, and a corridor that led from a verdant garden on one end towards a view of the ocean on the other. Sofia, who’d always adored architecture, itched to explore it properly. “He was only fifteen when they died, and suddenly he was heir, crown regent, and the head of the family—which included looking after three younger siblings. Overnight, he had to put his own interests and needs aside so he could be what everyone else needed him to be.”

She bit into her lip. She knew a fair bit about that—but not on this scale. While she’d been able to soak into the background at boarding school and lick her wounds in private, for the most part, it would have been impossible for King Ares to do any such thing.

He’d been on the world’s stage. Expected to mourn in the way the world needed, to make their suffering easier; expected to act with dignity and grace, to be mature and magnanimous, and to uphold the centuries-old traditions of the Moricosian royal family, all whilst under the scrutiny of TV cameras and long-lens photojournalists.

“Excuse me,” a woman’s accented voice cut through her thoughts. “His Royal Highness will see you now.”

Sofia unfurrowed her brow and stood, once again wiping at her lavender skirt with neatly manicured nails. Salvatore held their briefing document—though at this stage, it was exactly that. Brief. It contained the bare minimum information about the company, and the structure—matters which she suspected His Highness was already familiar with. As to the project, barely any information had been sent through with the request to pitch.It is something I would prefer to explain in person.

Salvatore placed his hand in the middle of Sofia’s back as they walked towards the double-width doors a little way down the corridor. The woman smiled curtly and gestured with a white-gloved hand for them to precede her.

“Thank you,” Sofia made a point of saying as they crossed the threshold.

The room was not what she’d expected. Outside, it had been all incredible pomp and glamour, but in here, there was something more accessible. It was still in a grandiose proportion, with high ceilings and glossy walls and floors, but it looked…lived in, she realised. As though, despite the size of the palace and the rooms available to him, Ares had been nesting in here. Both his desk and one half of the conference table were covered in documents, there were several coffee cups littered across the room—some on his desk, some on the conference table, one on a side table next to a sumptuously upholstered sofa. King Ares had discarded his jacket at some point and hooked it over the back of his wide, timber desk chair. Anachronistically, a computer screen sat atop the ancient, carved timber desk, the cables discreetly trimmed into the back of the construction.

“Torre,” the King grinned as he crossed the room towards them, and Sofia was momentarily dumbstruck. Or starstruck. Or just plain struck.

She had seen his picture a million times, and footage of him too, but in person, the King of Moricosia was so muchmore.It was like he’d swallowed a ‘superhuman’ pill at birth, and it had blessed him with a slightly too handsome face, a frame that was not only well above average height but perfectly filled out—muscular without being grossly buff, slim without being skinny, athletic without looking vain. His teeth were white, his jaw strong, his eyes perfectly spaced, wide, and almond shaped. They were mostly a very dark brown, except close to the pupil, where flecks of amber looked to have been sprayed and almost seemed to shine. His lashes were as dark as his hair, and thick and glossy, just like his brows, which were the perfect counterpoint to the angular symmetry of his cheekbones. It was a frame that an artist might draw and then erase, because who would believe it? No, it was a face that AI would create. Yes, he was like some kind of AI creation, she thought, swallowing back a sudden desire to laugh. It was like he had a permanent screen of photoshop smoothness layered over his body.

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