by Laurie Paige
“A courtship, as it were,” Max agreed. “Then we will be married at the end of the month.”
“If it works out.” She amended his statement to indicate it wasn’t a sure thing.
Max grinned at her. His earlier kiss had nearly driven any idea of a platonic relationship right out of her mind.
“You are dangerously close to arrogance,” she warned.
Chuck made a strangled sound, then laughed out loud. Max merely lifted his dark eyebrows in a definitely arrogant manner and finished his eggs and waffle.
“Anyway, I’ve thought about the listening devices.” She looked at Chuck, all playfulness aside. “Someone could have searched my place looking for the educational system plans, specifically the new router design. Maybe they thought they could find out more by listening in on my calls. It wouldn’t be the first time industrial espionage has been a factor in our company.”
She paused, recalling the bitterness of her father over an employee who had taken a breakthrough discovery from Crosby Systems to their enemy, Terrence Logan. That technology had been worth millions of dollars and had doubled the market share of the Logan Corporation.
Chuck nodded. “I’ve talked to the assistant security chief in Lantanya. All is quiet and under control. The head of the national guard has finished the interrogation of the palace security force. Nothing new. I’m sure we have all the conspirators, or else I would never have left the country.”
“Nor would I,” Max said. “Not even for the rose.”
When both men looked at Ivy, she became somewhat self-conscious. She assumed her code name was “the rose” with the security chief. Recalling the rose that Max had plucked for her and slipped into the bosom of her blouse, she couldn’t prevent the wave of heat that swept into her face.
“I understand national security must come before all else,” she told them. “I accept that.”
“Good,” Chuck declared with an approving nod. “I think we should discuss this with your brother. We may have to bring in the American FBI on the case.”
“And the CIA, if it’s determined to be an international affair,” Max murmured, his manner one of deep thought. He glanced at Ivy. “If so, you will have no privacy, either from the government or the news media.”
She nodded. At some point yesterday she had realized that in agreeing to a…a sort of trial engagement she had also agreed to all that went with being the fiancée of a prince.
Princess Ivy.
It sounded just too ridiculous! She pressed a hand to her throat, afraid of breaking into laughter at the ridiculous idea and not being able to stop.
Max touched her arm. “I will protect you as well as I can from those who will pester you for news and those who would harm you because of me.”
“I know,” she said softly, her heart swelling until it filled her with hope and eagerness and yearning. “I trust you.” She glanced at Chuck. “I trust you both. I’ll try to listen and follow your instructions about what is best, but I must be included in the planning and in the decision making.”
When Chuck got up to answer the telephone, Max said for her ears alone, “It would be best if you shared a bed with me.” He lifted her hand and kissed each knuckle, his smile teasing, his eyes daring her to deny it. “I will be assured of your safety that way.”
“Platonic,” she said firmly. “Sex complicates things.”
“So you indicated last night,” he said dryly, looking so grumpy she had to laugh.
She adopted a prim manner. “Putting off gratification is good for one’s character, Your Highness.”
“Or it may drive one to desperate acts,” he retorted, and looked her over as if thinking of seizing her and making off for parts unknown.
Even if the danger was real, she thought, it was worth it for these moments and the closeness she felt to this man. She suddenly wanted to say yes to the marriage and to making love and to anything else he had in mind.
Ivy had a voice mail from Trent when she arrived at her office. “See me” was the terse message. She put her purse and jacket away, picked up a notepad and went to the CEO’s office. The secretary waved her in as soon as she appeared.
In addition to her brother, Katie was there. Ivy was surprised. Was this a family meeting? Trent indicated she should close the door.
“Do you want coffee?” he asked after she’d greeted them and taken a seat in a leather chair next to Katie’s.
“Please.” She considered her tummy, which was acting up somewhat. Odd, but this week she’d felt more nauseated about an hour after breakfast than any other time. The only thing she was doing differently was taking a prenatal vitamin right after breakfast. “Do you have any crackers?” she asked. Those always made her feel better.
Trent gave her a sharp glance from shrewd brown eyes. Their father had trained him to take over the company, and her big brother had developed the necessary skills, including sizing up a situation on the spot.
“Are you pregnant?” he asked, getting right to the point of the meeting. He handed her a cup of coffee, then stood by the chair as if to mete out punishment.
She sighed. “Yes.” The aroma of the coffee added to the turmoil in her stomach. “Crackers,” she said.
Trent frowned, but went to his credenza. He opened a door and removed an acrylic canister filled with trail mix. He set it on the lamp table between her and Katie.
Ivy selected several pretzels and munched on those. “Ah,” she said, feeling better at once, then realized her brother and sister were staring at her. “Is my being pregnant the topic of this meeting?” she asked, trying for a light tone, which was a success, and a smile, which wasn’t.
“One of them,” Trent told her.
He thrust a hand through his hair as he resumed his seat. Ivy tried to remember who also used that gesture, but it was only a fleeting thought. She had other things to deal with. “What are the others?”
“What is Max Hughes to you?”
Ivy glanced at Katie, who smiled solemnly but reassuringly at her. So Katie hadn’t told all. That left it up to her. She hesitated, not sure where to begin.
With the night of grand passion nearly two months ago? No, that wasn’t something she was prepared to discuss with her brother. She tried to think of a tactful beginning.
“Is he the father?” Trent demanded, sparing her the necessity.
“Yes.”
“My God,” her brother said in fatalistic tones.
Katie and Ivy glanced at each other uneasily. Ivy took a breath and prepared to tell him exactly who Max was.
Trent leaned forward. “Do you know who he is?”
“Who?” Ivy said, afraid he was going to announce that Max was an ax murderer or something equally awful.
“The king of Lantanya. Or he will be when he’s officially crowned in November, I understand.”
“Oh, well, yes, I know that.”
“You went over there on business. For this company,” Trent stated grimly. “And you slept with the king?”
“I didn’t know that at the time.”
“He told her he was Max Hughes, there on business the same as she was,” Katie said, coming to her defense.
“How did you know about…the baby?” Ivy asked.
Rising, Trent paced to the window and turned, his dark blond hair backlighted by the sun into a halo effect. His face was grim. “Apparently everyone in the Western world knows. It’s in all the tabloids that the royal prince is searching for his Cinderella, who ran off and left him with a broken heart.”
“Oh” was all Ivy could say. The uncertainty of the past two months swept over her in a wave. She pressed a hand to her stomach and desperately reached into the snack jar with the other.
Trent came to her and dropped to his haunches. “I’m sorry,” he said in a softer manner. “I didn’t mean to browbeat you. It’s just that…” He made a helpless gesture, as if words failed him.
Ivy could identify with that. “It’s complicated,” she finis
hed his thought.
“Do tell.” Trent gave her an ironic, albeit sympathetic, smile and returned to his seat. “So, little sis, what’s next on your agenda?”
Katie spoke while Ivy tried to come up with an answer. “Max wants to marry her.”
“And what do you want?” he asked Ivy.
She shrugged and ate another pretzel. “I don’t know. He says we must marry. For the child. It’s his heir and everyone in Lantanya knows, so… But I never thought…I mean, royalty and all that—”
“Princess Ivy,” Katie broke in. “No! Queen Ivy! Oh, my gosh!”
Ivy nodded in despair. “I know. It makes no sense.”
The intercom buzzed. With a glare at the interruption, Trent answered. “Yes?” Then, “Send him in,” he said to his secretary. His eyes settled on Ivy. “Max is here.”
Ivy had little time to prepare before Max was in the room, the door shut behind him. “Has Ivy told you her apartment was bugged?” he asked Trent.
Her brother looked thunderous as he muttered an expletive. “What else is going on that I don’t know about?”
“That’s what Chuck and I are trying to discover. Is this about me and Ivy? Or about Crosby Systems?”
“Or something entirely different that we haven’t thought of,” Katie added.
They all looked at her.
She held up her hands. “I don’t know of anything, but we had better consider all the angles.”
Max pulled up a chair and joined the group. Trent poured a cup of coffee and handed it across the desk. “Well, there was an attempt on my life in July. When Ivy was in my country,” he added, his dark, exciting gaze on her.
“I heard about that.” Trent gave the other man a hard stare. “Your uncle and a minister were arrested.”
“And sentenced to life in prison.”
Although Max spoke calmly, Ivy couldn’t be so sanguine. “How dare they try to hurt you,” she said, fierce and protective on his behalf.
He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “The rose shows her thorns,” he declared softly, then released her.
“Is it safe for you to be out of the country?” Trent asked Max.
“Yes. In addition to the half brother, who is an acknowledged illegitimate son of my grandfather, my father had a younger brother. My uncle, Jean Claude Maxwell von Husden, is the minister of finance. He is a bulldog when it comes to the welfare of the kingdom.”
“You can trust him?” Ivy demanded.
Max smiled gently at her. “Yes. He is the one who alerted me to possible trouble. Chuck already had his doubts about my half uncle’s loyalty.”
Ivy huffed in fury that his relative had wanted Max dead. Catching Katie’s and Trent’s eyes on her, she felt her cheeks grow warm while her heart knocked around her rib cage like a bumper car gone wacko.
Her brother steepled his fingers together as he thought. “There was another problem around the same time, maybe a little earlier,” he said.
“Here at your company?” Max asked.
With a quick shake of his head, Trent explained. “It was something to do with that clinic where Ivy does volunteer work.”
She drew back in surprise. “Children’s Connection?”
“Yes,” Trent said. “That case involved a foreign country, too. Russia. Someone tried to steal a baby from the adoptive mother, but the State Department intervened.”
“How do you know this?” Max asked.
“From a friend. Miles Remington is on the board of the adoption agency. He was telling me about it recently.”
“The agency handles adoptions from Russia?” Max obviously found this a bit odd.
“The government has clamped down on abortion as a means of birth control, I understand, so I imagine there are more babies available there now.” Trent gestured to indicate he didn’t know more.
“I can’t see how that involves us.” Max ran his gaze over Ivy. “Unless they’re planning on stealing this baby when it comes…and that is a thing I won’t allow.”
A shiver of dread chased down Ivy’s spine at his ominous tone. He was like a lion, the leader of his pack and its defender. He would be as fierce in battle as he was gentle in making love.
Clenching her teeth together, she frantically directed her mind to concentrate on the possible danger, not the all-too-definite passion.
Max directed his attention to Trent. “I want permission for my security chief to work directly with the head of Crosby Systems security. Chuck is sure we nipped the conspiracy in my country in the bud, as it were. I trust his judgment on this. Then probably company espionage accounts for the bug in Ivy’s apartment.”
“The new router software,” Trent immediately said. “Ivy’s team wrote a program that makes it the fastest networking system on the market now. There are other companies who’d like to get their hands on it.”
“There was a sweep of your company over the weekend, Chuck says.”
Trent nodded. “Company policy. We regularly check all electronic lines and equipment. Plus, all computers with top-secret info are locked out of Internet connections where they can be hacked into.”
Max glanced at Ivy. She nodded to indicate this was true. “Good,” he said, rising. “I would like to speak to you,” he said directly to her. “If your meeting is finished?” he added politely to her other family members.
“Yes,” Trent said.
His smile surprised Ivy. There was a hint of amusement in it, as if he found the situation between her and Max humorous to some extent. But then his expression went stern as he directed a glare toward Max.
“We will need to discuss other things soon, I think,” he said to Max. “Such as my expected nephew or niece.”
Max stood when her brother did. “Ivy and I have agreed to an engagement,” he informed the others coolly. “We shall marry by the end of the month.”
Before she could do more than splutter indignantly, he ushered her from the room, down the hall and into her own office. There he backed her against the wall, crowding her with his much larger, stronger body.
“This is a trial engagement,” she reminded him hotly, pressing her hands against his chest to hold him off.
“But it is an engagement.” His eyes dared her to contradict him.
“While we get to know each other. While we see if this…if a relationship can work.”
“It can,” he assured her. “I think we know each other quite well, princess.”
His grin stung her dignity. While that magical night had seemed right, even destined, now she was filled with doubts and indecision. She didn’t understand how she, quiet, studious Ivy, could have behaved so recklessly.
“I want my child to be born here,” she said stubbornly.
“That can be arranged. Chuck tells me the birthing facilities at Portland General are excellent.”
His big hands glided up her arms, sending spirals of heat down into the inner core of her body. He leaned in close, so close she was surrounded by his aura.
“Don’t,” she whispered, aware that the office door was open, but more aware of his powerful nearness, the sheer masculinity of his presence and the hunger he incited in her.
“Don’t touch you? Tell me not to breathe.”
His breath of laughter stirred the hair at her temple. She felt his lips settle there and plant a gentle kiss, then another and another. Her mind went hazy. Thinking was soon going to become impossible.
“Max, this isn’t… We shouldn’t…”
When his hands closed over her waist, she stopped trying to speak. It was impossible anyway. Her lungs had stopped working.
“Ah, princess,” he murmured, cupping his body into hers and pressing her lightly to the wall.
He was very definitely aroused, she found, as he shifted closer, ever closer. With a quick tug, he moved her hands from between them and up to his shoulders. Then his hands were on her again, one caressing her side while the other took possession of her breast.
With a g
asp, she felt the beading of her nipple as a sharp contraction, a pang of excitement that shot all through her, making every nerve ending tingle.
“My sweet rose,” he whispered, nibbling at her earlobe, then moving toward her mouth. “I’ve missed your taste, the sweet aroma of your body, the silk of your skin.”
Suddenly he was no longer the mysterious prince, but Max, the man who had won her so completely one soft balmy night in summer when he’d romantically climbed a trellis and presented her with the most beautiful rose of all those growing there.
“Max,” she said, not in protest nor denial, but need, hot and urgent and demanding. A tremor shook her all over.
His embrace tightened. She shifted, instinctively opening her legs a fraction. He slipped a foot between hers and caressed her with his whole body, keeping the delicious thrust of his passion light, teasing, driving her insane with hunger.
She heard laughter in the hall. “Max,” she whispered in panic. “The door. Somebody—”
With a kiss, he cut off the frantic words. Reaching out, he shut the door and clicked the lock into place.
She clung to him, knowing this was madness but unable to refuse the wild rapture he stirred in her. The kiss, the caress went on and on. Their harsh, excited breathing was the only sound for long, long minutes.
At last he drew back. “You are a perfect lover,” he told her after taking a deep breath. “You will also be a charming queen. And a wonderful mother to our children.”
He left after promising to come by for her at quitting time. She sank into her desk chair, tired and disoriented and oddly deflated.
What about love? she wanted to ask. Didn’t even a royal prince want love as well as desire?
Nine
Max drove Ivy to work on Wednesday morning. He asked permission to use her car while she was at her office.
“Of course,” she replied, opening the car door.
“I’ll be back for you at noon.”
“Don’t bother. I’m going to the hospital to rock the babies in the nursery. Katie can drop me off.”
“What about lunch?”