by Julie Miller
While her skin heated with embarrassment, Ivan laughed. He cupped her warm cheek in his cool hand. “My sweet, honest Carly. You are good for me in so many ways. I am filled with regret that I cannot make that wish come true for you.”
Right. This relationship couldn’t go anywhere. No matter how right it felt, it simply couldn’t be. She dredged up a smile. “You are good for me in many ways, too, Your Highness.”
She was surprised to see the humor fade from his eyes at her response. A sternness crept into his tone, as if their language difference had created a misunderstanding. “I mean, I regret that I cannot make that wish come true for you at this time.”
At this time. Meaning, they were going to finish that kiss at some other time? A light of understanding dawned. She didn’t need any translation for what he’d just promised her. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. She pushed onto her toes and traded one sweet, perfunctory kiss. “I hope so.”
“I do not suppose we can simply not answer the door and she will go away.”
Carly laughed. “You have responsibilities.” She pulled the flash drive from her pocket and held it up. “So do I.”
He clasped her hand and walked her to the door. “Will you allow one of my men to drive you home?”
Um, bombs? Unknown traitor? Knowing his delegation wasn’t especially fond of her involvement with the prince? “Under the circumstances, I believe I’ll find my own ride. My brother Jesse won’t be at work yet. I’ll give him a call.”
“Was I right to admit the new threats to my entourage?”
“I think the bomb this afternoon kind of gave it away.” They stopped at the door, lowering their voices to a whisper, in case Galina or anyone else was eavesdropping from the other side. “It will certainly stir the pot. Your people will be working even harder to prove their loyalty to you and the crown. Either out of pride or because they want to cover up anything suspicious. That was clever, too, to divert suspicion from you about the stolen files. Aleks won’t tell anyone that it was you, will he?”
“He will not. That is why I wanted him to be the one investigating the security breach. He will keep my secret.”
“I’m sorry about Eduard. And for his family. He seemed like a nice man.”
“Let us hope he is not a martyr for a cause.”
She reached up to straighten his tie, but only seemed to be making it worse. Ivan stilled her hands against his chest, “What is it, dorogoy?”
“I feel like I’m leaving you alone with the enemy. I can go to the party if you want me to.”
He lifted each hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers before releasing them. “I need you to start going over those files. I am tired of people dying and not having any answers to explain who is responsible.”
Carly nodded. “I’ll get you your own cell phone, too. A disposable one the others don’t know about. You can use that one to call or text me. And no one can track you.”
“I think that would be a good idea. Thank you for looking out for me.”
She ignored the urge to answer his thanks the way she had over in the chair. Instead, she patted his arm. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
“It is not the only reason, dorogoy.” He drew his fingertip across her uninjured cheek in a familiar caress. “I will see you later?”
A firmer knock rattled the door and Filip’s harsh voice called to them. “Your Highness, we will be late. Miss Valentine? You must let him go.”
That was prophetic.
Carly ignored the big rock of reality that weighted her down again and reached for the doorknob. “I’ll be waiting for you. Be safe.”
Chapter Ten
Ivan saluted the trio of men in the Valentines’ living room with a forkful of cherry pie before stuffing the sweet, tart bite into his mouth and heading downstairs to Carly’s bedroom.
It was strange to see Aleks so enamored with American baseball, and making friends with Carly’s father and brother Frank, who was home from the hospital and staying with them for a few days while he recuperated from being poisoned. But then Aleks had always had a knack for socializing. He’d been an asset at the Mayweathers’ cocktail party tonight, showing the most charming side of Lukinburg, as well as being a knowledgeable representative to help Ivan discuss their new government policies and trade ambitions with the US. Aleks had covered for him earlier this evening at the hotel, too, allowing him to keep his secrets from Filip and the others. Aleks deserved a break. The three men were spread out across the sectional couch, fixated on the televised game. Filip was in the kitchen, eating a late dinner after trading places with Danya, who sat in the car parked out front and made routine checks around the exterior of the house. The two bodyguards would swap out four-hour shifts, sleeping in Jesse Valentine’s old room while the other kept watch. Galina was staying the night at the Lukinburg embassy, handling last-minute details for the ball.
They were all safe for now, the game was an exciting one, judging by their cheers and chatter, and they were all full of Carly’s delicious food. Ivan was looking forward to several hours of uninterrupted time with Carly. Maybe to finish that kiss she’d started in his hotel suite, possibly to tell her the truth about how quickly she’d come to mean something to him, certainly to discuss the background records she’d been poring over since dinner, and just to have a few hours where he didn’t have to be the prince. For a few hours tonight, he could just be the man who wanted to be with Carly Valentine.
Ivan turned on the lower landing to quietly open and close the door that led down to the finished basement that had been converted into Carly’s private space. She had a bedroom area, an office space with a big antique desk and bookshelves, her own bathroom and closet. The ceiling had been soundproofed to give her privacy from her father’s loud television and keep whatever noise she made down here from traveling to the upper levels of the house. The windows had been given the proper egress in case of an emergency, yet they were covered with shutters her brother Frank had made.
He turned the lock in the knob before heading down the last few steps. If Carly wasn’t already a brave, sexy woman who spoke to everything he truly was, he’d want to be a part of her life just for her cooking. The fancy hors d’oeuvres and champagne cocktails at the Mayweather reception had been tasty, but not filling. Even reheated, the leftover grilled burgers, potato salad and coleslaw Carly had pulled from the fridge had been delicious.
He spotted her over a partition of shoulder-high bookshelves, sitting cross-legged on her bed with the computer in her lap, a pen jammed between her lips, and a yellow legal pad on the quilt beside her. Pausing for a few precious seconds before she looked up from her work, he drank in the sight of her cutoff shorts and long bare legs. Her hair, damp from an earlier shower, hung loose and tumbled around her shoulders. She still wore his T-shirt from earlier, and tremors of a now familiar desire scuttled though him. The decadence of her cherry pie was forgotten as he savored the even sweeter knowledge that that was his shirt on her, and that he didn’t have to share himself with anybody but her right now.
The frown of concentration on her face vanished as she reacted to some sound he’d made. She pulled the pen from her mouth and started to shut the laptop.
“Don’t worry. I locked the door.” He strode around the bookshelves and resumed his place in the blue-striped chair near the foot of her bed where he’d draped his jacket and tie and kicked off his shoes earlier. “Your father, Frank and Aleks are watching the baseball game, Filip is in the kitchen, polishing off the last of your potato salad and Danya is patrolling outside. I warned my staff that unless the house came under attack, we were not to be disturbed. We are safe. We are alone.” But she was still frowning. “Is something wrong?”
She hesitated a moment too long before answering. “Maybe. I don’t know.” She clicked on a file and turned the laptop around to show him the screen. “This is Aleks’s f
ile. It’s still in Lukin. Except for his name, I can’t read any of it. But I think it’s been mislabeled.”
The dessert suddenly sat like a rock in his gut. “Like I said, I was interrupted before I had the chance to translate all of them. Let me look at it. Trade?” He handed her the pie before pulling the computer onto his lap. “This was the last piece. I noticed you did not eat any at dinner. Sorry, I could not resist taking one more bite. Your cooking reminds me of growing up at my aunt’s. Nothing was wasted, and everything was delicious.”
“That’s a nice compliment. Thanks.” She ate a bite of the pie, and he watched her lips close around the fork and slide off. His body reacted with a jolt of need. It felt intimate to do something so simple as sharing food. But Carly quickly reminded him of the job at hand. “Is there a translation program you use? You don’t have to read through it word for word and rewrite it in English yourself, do you?”
Mislabeled. A careless mistake for someone with his skills. He should tell her just what she’d find in the file. But she set the pie aside and picked up her legal pad and started going through the suspicious things she’d already found in Filip’s records.
“I was surprised to see that Galina served in the army. She seems more like the I-don’t-want-to-get-my-hands-dirty type.”
Ivan grinned at the surprisingly accurate assessment of the chief of staff and ruler of all things royal protocol. “Every able-bodied Lukin, man or woman, serves two years after schooling. Then they can continue in the army, as I did, or go to university or into the workforce.”
“I just don’t see her going through basic training. Unless the Lukin version of that isn’t as dirty or physical as our army?”
“I will put my training up against yours any day.”
“Okay, tough guy. That must explain why you’re in such good shape for a guy with a throne job.” This time, they laughed together. “I couldn’t find in there what she did, though. Medic? That could explain the poisoned apples. Admin?” Ivan pulled up her internet provider and logged into a Lukin public records site. “Please don’t tell me she worked with explosives.”
Ivan typed in his own access code, following a hunch. “Her fiancé did.”
“Her fiancé? I didn’t know Galina was engaged.”
The familiar weight of guilt settled around Ivan’s heart. “Late fiancé. He died in the bombing at St. Feodor.”
“Oh. I had no idea.” Carly exhaled a sigh. “Now I feel bad for not liking her. She’s always so perfect. And feminine. Perfume and high heels all the time? Makes me feel like a slacker. I guess that explains the black she wears.” She scooted closer to the foot of the bed. “Did you find what her job was?”
Nothing suspicious here. “Quartermaster’s office.”
“Supplies. Desk work. Hardly a red flag of suspicion. Manufacturing explosive devices isn’t standard training in your army, is it?”
“No.”
Carly put a check mark by Galina’s name and went on to the next item on her list. “It looks like Filip’s most recent search was on Ralph Decker, after he took that picture of us at the hospital. Decker grew up in Kansas City, but he’s been gone for years, working mostly with overseas press junkets, reporting for the wire services. He’s been embedded with military units all over the world, led a pretty exciting life. He’s only been back in KC for a couple of months. He has a job with the Journal, but it looks as though he’s only been doing fluff pieces.”
“Fluff?” Ivan looked up from the screen.
“Human interest stories. Social stuff. Nothing that’s hard news.”
He pulled up the Journal’s website and scrolled through some of Ralph Decker’s recent credits. An Honor Flight for veterans, a science fair winner, popular summer day trips around Kansas City, gave him a better understanding of the term Carly had used. “Maybe he is looking to be part of the action again, to break a big story.”
“Like who’s behind the assassination attempts on a European prince?” Carly wrote a question mark beside the reporter’s name. “You don’t think he’d create the problem, just so he’d have a story to cover, do you?”
“How would Decker have sent me the threat on the airplane?”
“For the right price, your inside man could have done it for him.” Carly dropped her feet off the end of the bed, sliding close enough that her knee brushed his. He really should feel guilty about all the nerve endings that jumped to life at even that casual touch. But he knew the only thing he’d ever regret with Carly was if she got hurt. He blinked away the distracting thoughts, set his glasses on the desk and leaned in to focus on the note she pointed out to him. “Filip’s records show Decker’s been to Lukinburg. And if he’s covered the military, he could have met one of your people then, just like you and I supposedly did.”
“Put a star next to his name on your paper. He wants a one-on-one interview. Perhaps he lost someone important in the St. Feodor bombing. I will have this conversation with him at the ball.”
“Only if I’m there with you. Saturday is when all hell is supposed to break loose, according to that picture and the date scrawled across it. The last thing you need is to be alone with anyone.”
“I am alone with you.” She blushed when he lifted his gaze to hers. She wasn’t immune to the distractions of working closely together, either. He’d never known a woman so responsive to his voice or touch. He’d never responded to a woman like this, either. It made him want to share many long conversations and put his hands all over her body to discover every place he could touch her and elicit that same rosy heat on her skin. That most male part of him stiffened at the possibilities. But they needed to use this private time wisely. He picked up the legal pad and flipped through the rest of the notes she had written. “What else have you found in Filip’s files?”
“A record of threats you’ve received, minus the two here in the US. Looks like Filip interviewed some of the Loyalist dissidents but didn’t reach any conclusions. I called Captain Hendricks and asked him to see if any of the dissident names were in the country now.” She wasn’t making any effort to put space between them, and neither was he. Ivan liked working with her like this, bouncing their thoughts off each other, sharing her vibrant energy, breathing in her unique scent. “Your appearance schedule is there, right down to parking in the Forty-Seventh Street garage. Changes that were made to coordinate with KCPD, running late, et cetera. Can you tell if anyone else accessed these files before you did?”
Ivan pulled up the data. “Filip, of course. Galina. Eduard.”
“Not Danya?”
“He is more of a blunt instrument when it comes to security. He has little faith in technology. But Filip would have shared everything with his team.”
“Unless he’s hiding something.” Carly shot to her feet and hurried around the bed to pick up two cell phones from the bedside table. “I forgot.” She opened a text on one phone and handed him the other. “Here’s the phone I got for you. I went ahead and programmed in my number and Captain Hendricks’s. It’s nothing fancy, but it works.”
“Thank you.”
Ivan set the laptop and new phone on the desk when Carly perched on the arm of the chair and showed him the text. “The captain sent me a copy of the preliminary report on the bomb that killed Eduard. Nothing official yet—it’ll take weeks to go through the crime lab. But it doesn’t match Filip’s report on the St. Feodor bombing. The hooded man, the crowd and the shouted threats are similar, but—”
“It’s not the same kind of bomb.” Ivan sat back in the chair, recalling what he could from Filip’s briefing on the St. Feodor attack. “The St. Feodor bomber used a handheld trigger.”
“Today’s bomb was detonated by a cell phone. All the bomber had to do was call the number. Either he was watching and knew when you’d be close by, or he called when he thought you’d be riding in the car—according to Filip’s schedule. We
were late going to lunch and trying to get through the crowd made us even later,” she pointed out. “If we were on time, you’d be dead.”
“So would you.”
“So would a lot of people.”
His jaw clenched with the possibility of so many senseless deaths. What if Carly and his team had been with him in the limo? If they’d been in traffic? Or stopped at an intersection with people in the crosswalk? Losing Eduard today wasn’t the first time he’d lost a friend. It appeared that whoever wanted to “End Ivan” was intent on destroying many lives before he got around to finally killing him.
“Danya Pavluk’s younger brother, Konrad, used to be part of the royal security team. He was killed that day.” She’d put a star by Danya’s name. He picked up Carly’s pen and, with a reluctant sigh, drew a star beside Galina’s name.
“What’s that for?” Carly asked.
“Galina was engaged to Konrad. Konrad died in her arms in St. Feodor Square.”
Carly was silent for a moment, perhaps contemplating Danya’s and Galina’s grief. “You think one of them wants revenge for Konrad Pavluk’s death?”
He’d considered the idea earlier but had dismissed it. The logic didn’t make sense. “Why come after me? The Loyalists set off that bomb.”
“You’re uniting the country. Welcoming the Loyalists into your new regime.” Her mouth twisted with an apologetic frown. “Maybe Danya feels like you’re rewarding them—instead of punishing them for killing his brother.”
“Possibly. Danya would have explosives experience. He has advanced weapons training. And he came from the same mining region that I did.”
“You know how to make a bomb?”
Ivan nodded. “A rudimentary one. It was part of working in the mines.”
An uncharacteristic hesitation shadowed her features before she spoke again. “The mines in Moravska? You mentioned it once before—the town where you lived with your aunt and uncle.”
“That is correct.”