Page 37 of Revelations of A Secret Princess

Then he scrolled lower and his breath caught.

This photo was different. Candid. He doubted she knew it had been taken. She wore casual clothes, her hair in a ponytail and she was in a crowd with other young people. At a party, by the look of it. She was half turned away, looking over her shoulder, but there was no mistaking the warmth in her expression as she smiled at someone beyond the camera. Her eyes, a remarkable deep violet, glowed.Sheglowed. Jake felt the impact of her joy judder through him.

He swallowed, mesmerised by those eyes. They were so like Ariane’s that for a moment everything, his pulse and his breathing, seemed to stop. He’d always thought the colour rare. Maybe not so on St Ancilla.

He touched the screen, enlarged the photo and then his breath really did stop.

There, on the back of her shoulder next to the strap of her top, was a small birthmark shaped like a comma.

Jake had seen that mark three nights ago.

It had peeked out beneath the strap of a grey camisole when he’d held Caro in his arms.

By midnight the scowl on Jake’s face threatened to take up permanent residence. His emotions veered between shock—he who’d believed nothing had the power to surprise him any more—fury and grim determination.

There was pain too, a sliver of hurt that he’d allowed her to play him as she had, but he buried that deep.

There was no time for such luxuries. With every hour came a new revelation. That was what happened when you could afford the best investigators.

No wonder the initial check of her application hadn’t found any criminal record for Caro Rivage. She didn’t exist, except technically, for Rivage was the family’s name though royalty traditionally didn’t use it.

Caro was royal. Daughter of a king. Her full name and titles took up four lines on the report filling his computer screen.

Jake stared at it and felt the blood jump in his arteries as if seeking a way out. His body was screwed so tight even an hour with a punching bag had done nothing to relieve it.

Once they knew which direction to pursue, the investigators hadn’t taken long to prove Princess Carolina and Caro Rivage were the same person.

Some of what she’d said was even true. She had worked in a preschool. The references had checked out because she’d actually worked as a nanny for a couple of families. In between swanning off in couture clothes to charity events and royal parties. That in itself was curious. From socialite royal to nanny wasn’t a normal progression. But she was definitely royal.

There was a photo of her taken six months ago at a ball, wearing a tiara and a complacent smile that made him grind his teeth. A tall guy with medals across his chest and a hungry expression was at her side, holding her as if he didn’t want to let her out of his sight.

Jake swore and shoved his chair back, stalking the length of the room. He understood the feeling. The woman couldn’t be trusted an inch.

Yet still he registered that hum of expectation deep inside. The expectation of what would happen when he held her in his arms again. Even her bald-faced deceit hadn’t destroyed his desire for her.

He ploughed his fingers through his hair and spun on his heel, pacing again.

She’d lied from the first. Not only about her identity. About everything.

That scene by the spa? Had she waited for him, knowing he often worked out at night? She’d sucked him in with her passion and counterfeit distress. First reel him in by giving him a taste of what he wanted, a taste of mind-blowing sex, then play on his protective instincts to stop things going further. She’d teased and distracted him.

Ego told him shehadbeen attracted to him. He’d seen the evidence almost from the first.

His brain said it was all a lie. Or if it wasn’t, even if she had wanted him, she’d wanted something more, to lure him into feeling sorry for her. She’d wanted him in the palm of her soft little hands.

That sob story about needing to go to her family? The implication, unspoken but there in every throbbing silence, that some terrible tragedy had occurred? All lies.

She’d gone to aparty!

Was the tall guy with the possessive look there with her? Or had she moved on to some other gullible bloke?

Jake frowned as pain radiated up his arm. He looked down and saw he’d pounded his fist against the stone wall beside the bookshelves. Gingerly he unfurled his fingers, feeling pain slice through his hand and seeing a graze of blood.

The woman had got under his skin in ways he could barely believe.

Even Fiona hadn’t made him so furious. Because he’d begun to see her true colours despite her efforts to paper over the cracks of her innately selfish personality.

With Caro... Carolina, he’d been completely taken in. Except for that tingle of premonition that she wasn’t what she’d seemed. He’d been distracted by his need to find a way to connect with his niece, and his attraction for a charlatan.

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