Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3

by Jennifer Chance

  “It’s okay…it’s okay.” Nicki blew out a long breath, smoothing her hands over her head. Stefan hadn’t pursued the question, and all she needed to do was stay out of his way. She’d tell him about her fears—eventually. There was no need to yet. Not so soon after Cyril’s almost-bombshell.

  She had time.

  Squaring her shoulders, she walked over to the small workstation in her state room, and booted up her computer.

  They reached the tiny island off the coast of Turkey close to midnight, but a storm had blown up late in the day from the southern Aegean, and the sea was too rough to allow for diving. After she’d finished her blogs for the day, Nicki used the time to go over the gear. She’d need a wetsuit, even for snorkeling. It was only June, and the Aegean would be too cold for comfort if she and whoever tag-teamed with her stayed in the water for any length of time.

  Stefan remained tied up with Cyril for most of the night, as far as she could tell. Despite his dismissal of the idea, apparently he was a necessary component to the functioning of the Garronia government. Either way, the following morning Nicki marched resolutely up to the deck, carrying her underwater camera in its case. She wasn’t going to be underfoot, she wasn’t going to be in Stefan’s way. That was her promise, and she was sticking to it.

  Stefan had not, however, specifically forbidden her from exploring underwater yet. So at least this glorious morning wouldn’t be a total loss.

  After checking her own gear, Nicki rubbed her sternum absently as she once more studied the last and most important piece of equipment, the underwater camera. As Kristos had promised, it was state of the art, featuring all the bells and whistles for shooting high definition action. So if there were any really fast fish out there, she was ready.

  “Everything up to your standards?”

  Nicki jumped, though she’d been half expecting Stefan to check in before he and his team left the boat for the scavenger encampment. Now his presence filled the small deck as he strode toward her. He was dressed in loose pants and a microfiber shirt, as always cool and unflappable, while she could feel her skin begin to prickle beneath her swimsuit and water pants, heat flushing through her in waves.

  “It’s great!” she said, too loudly, then modified her tone. “It’s great. I thought you were gone already.”

  “I have two teams out already,” he said. “Depending on what they find, I’ll go—or we’ll go.” He eyed her. “Cyril contacted me again an hour ago, saying that the viewership of your videos was at a clip large enough to appear legitimate, and the more we could feed of every stop, the better, as long as we didn’t run into any problems.”

  He delivered this information neutrally, and Nicki frowned. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing, that the posts are working?”

  Stefan’s lips quirked up. “For your role as cover, I would say it’s a good thing.” He gestured to the equipment. “And for the moment, it affords us a few hours to try out all the toys Kristos sent along.”

  We? Nicki stared as Stefan slicked out of his shirt. She’d seen the man in swim trunks before, but he’d already been in the water at the time. For some reason, having him standing right in front of her, dry and half naked was kicking everything in her body up a few notches. He stopped, apparently concerned by her staring. “You didn’t think I’d let you go in alone, did you?”

  “What? No,” Nicki blurted. “I mean, thought you were gone, that one of the crewmembers would go with me.”

  He shrugged and she watched as the muscles rippled across his sun bronzed skin. She wouldn’t have expected his tan to be so deep, given his role within the royal family. She pictured him wearing tuxedos and sipping martinis, not diving off the side of boats. “You, um, dive a lot?”

  “Not diving, usually. But snorkeling, yes. It would be difficult to live someplace like Garronia and not take advantage of all the ocean had to offer.” He picked up a snorkeling mask and proffered it to her. “We won’t need the tanks, right?”

  “No—not for this first dive, and probably not at all. How deep is the water?”

  The conversation steered easily onto safer topics, and Nicki followed Stefan across the deck, inhaling and exhaling slowly and carefully as she watched his muscles stretch and work beneath his skin. Even his trousers seemed tailor-made to make her stare, the fabric stretching over the thick muscles of his legs. She’d seen the man practically naked already, but…

  “One thing,” Stefan turned to her, then waited with a smirk as she jerked her eyes up from his ass to meet his gaze. His smirk told her that he knew exactly what she’d been staring at. “Tamas, one of the men, will be going with us as well. It should appear as if it’s only the two of you down there. I should not be in any of the video feed. You should be in the water with a single subject, not surrounded by guards. And I shouldn’t be in the water at all, merely tapped for this assignment as a political representative of Garronia. You understand?”

  Nicki nodded. “I’ll keep you out of the frames, or we’ll catch it in the editing pass before I push the videos live.” Inside, however, her spirits deflated a little. Stefan’s warnings reminded her that this was not the joy ride it was being touted as. More importantly, however, she’d thought she could capture some video of the man in the water. He truly had the most amazing body, and if she could have some souvenir video clips, it’d make all of this last a little while longer.

  Oh well.

  Within minutes, they were in the water, the sudden shock of it a balm to her senses and a needed distraction for both her body and mind. As promised, Tamas proved to be a willing subject, and they spent the morning coasting over an honest-to-God sunken ship that was clearly visible through the water, shallow caves filled with brilliantly colored fish, and rock formations that glinted and burned with the reflection of the sun.

  As expected, Stefan’s swimming abilities in the open sea were every bit as graceful as when he’d been in the palace lap pool, and she longed to capture him on video. With Herculean effort she resisted. For his part, Stefan swam out and around, circling them in a wide arc, and some of the equipment he carried on his own weight belt looked suspiciously lethal. Another reminder that despite all appearances, this wasn’t really a lazy afternoon in the Mediterranean.

  Nicki was legitimately tired by the time they pulled themselves out of the water, gratefully accepting Stefan’s help as he took her equipment and stacked it on the deck.

  “Stay here,” he said when she cleared the ladder. He was already stripping out of his wet suit, and she followed his lead. “There’s food, and we can see what you captured on film. It’ll save time.”

  She watched him as he took the camera and popped the drive, transferring it to a large-screened laptop that had been brought to a shaded alcove of the deck. She grabbed a handful of grapes and a towel, then flopped down on a teak bench to dry herself off as Stefan reviewed the footage.

  It was as spectacular as she’d hoped it would be when viewing it under water. The fish were large and exotic. The centuries-old boat—while no bastion of lost treasure—was charmingly authentic, and the Garronois guard Tamas was handsome and fit and truly at home in the water. There were shots of Nicki too, taken by Tamas to continue the illusion that they were the only two down there, as she glided over a thick coral bed, then pointed the camera toward the glittering, glinting surface of the rocks.

  Abruptly, Stefan’s hand shot out and froze the screen. “What is that?” he asked, the impassive calm of his voice at odds with the urgency of his fingers on the trackpad.

  Nicki stopped toweling her hair.

  “That’s great, isn’t it?” she asked. “Something bright stuck into the coral. I assumed it was debris, but the way it’s wedged in there is cool. It’s obsidian, maybe—or some sort of thick glass. Something cut with facets to reflect all that sunlight.” She pointed to two bright spots.

  “Tamas.” Stefan turned and spoke rapid Garronois to the other man, who stared from him to the screen, then stood and cros
sed the deck to scoop up his discarded snorkeling mask.

  Nicki frowned. “What?” she asked. “What do you see?”

  “The chunk of glass you’re pointing out could be simply glass, nothing more. Rock. Debris. But it is also could be glass that has been shattered into specific facets, such as the glass monitors of aircraft tracking equipment.”

  Her eyes widened. “You don’t think it’s part of Ari’s plane?”

  “I don’t.” he shook his head definitively. “It could be anything. If it is debris, it could be from any plane that has flown over this space and crashed in the last five years. It’s unreasonable that it belongs to Ari’s craft. But it’s at least evidence that planes have crashed here—recent planes, potentially. And that’s a start.”

  He stood abruptly. “Go get dressed. I want you to go with us ashore after Tamas recovers a chunk of that glass.”

  Stefan scowled as he faced into the wind, their small speedboat cutting across the water at a rapid clip, bisecting the azure waters as they approached the shoreline of the small island. His men had located the scavenger band’s leader, who’d been more than willing to talk to them. The previous night’s storm had yielded more gifts from the sea, and he had much to sell.

  Stefan had much to sell, too. And now so did Nicki, unwittingly. The information she had on her video cam, if proven to be a connection to Prince Ari’s airplane, was both good and bad news. Good, if Ari was found alive or dead, without foul play involved. Bad, if the king and queen had indisputable cause to do a full scale search in this area—area which was not Garronois territory, but Turkish. The nightmare of navigating the politics of those permissions, and the inherent insinuation that the Turkish government hadn’t done all they could to find Ari’s plane or the remains of the son of one of its neighbors and supposed allies, was not a possibility he relished.

  Worse, Nicki knew where that wreckage was. So if someone wanted that information buried, she’d be the first person in line to be buried as well.

  He grimaced. There were a lot of ifs in that statement, and he more than most knew the danger of getting too caught up in ifs. Part of what made him successful was his ability to focus only on what mattered to the job at hand.

  And what mattered at this moment was keeping Nicki out of access to anyone but him, until they returned her safely home to Garronia.

  Home. His lips twisted on the word. The palace wasn’t really his home, but it was the closest he’d probably get in this lifetime. His father had been a distant cousin to the king, but Stefan hadn’t known the royal family well until after the accident that had taken his parents’ lives. King Jasen had taken him in without question or conversation, welcoming him into the palace even though he’d been an idiot teen, angry at the world. The king and queen and had showered him with faith and understanding, and they’d asked for nothing in return but his unstinting service. He would give them that. He would always give them that.

  Beside him, Nicki was mute on the edge of her seat, clearly excited to be along for the op but trying hard not to show it. He tightened his jaw, thinking of what she’d heard in the conference room at the palace. He’d not been wrong. She shouldn’t have been asked to do this. But she wanted so badly to succeed…

  He frowned, a new thought striking him. What was behind Nicki’s urgency, exactly?

  Stefan knew enough not to imagine it was solely because she was swept up in her attraction for him. So why? By all accounts, she was successful at her work. She was strong and fierce, and her friends and family adored her. Arguably, he hadn’t read Nicki’s dossier as closely as Emmaline’s, after Prince Kristos had begun showering the girl with attention. Nicki had been a distant third in his concern behind the wide-eyed Emmaline and the shrewd-tongued Lauren. She was content to be in the background. Particularly if that background had a wall she could climb.

  Nicki must have sensed his attention, because she turned at that moment, catching his expression. She grinned widely then, letting some of her excitement leech out before grabbing at the edge of the speedboat as the driver abruptly banked. They’d arrived.

  Their trip had taken them around the southern tip of the island, facing out to sea. Stefan couldn’t see any of the mainland from this vantage point, though it was only a few miles distant, and instead his attention focused on a small collection of huts that peeked out of the thick vegetation, virtually undetectable unless you were looking for them.

  When they reached the sand, Stefan handed Nicki a broad scarf. “Hair and face,” he instructed, and she complied without comment. Much of Turkey embraced western ideas regarding a woman’s need to cover herself in public, but Stefan wasn’t taking any chances with these outliers. And Nicki didn’t bat an eye—again, she was following orders, and delighted to do so. Her bright eyes took in everything, and her mouth stayed firmly shut.

  They trooped up to the scavenger dealer and after quick orders delivered in Garronois, Stefan and one man continued on while Nicki, flanked by guards who were trying to act like anything other than her protectors, stopped at a lean-to bristling with junk. She and the guards would pretend to paw through the offerings while Stefan met with the dealer. Without another word, he and his lone guard moved on.

  The dealer sat outside his hut, beneath a large fabric shade. He was fat in the way once-strong men often were, layers of softness obscuring but not negating the tough core beneath. He nodded as Stefan walked up, then focused on his team.

  “Who is the woman?”

  “Guest. Didn’t trust her alone on the boat.”

  The man smiled, displaying cracked teeth. “Always good idea, that. Not worth being wrong.” He spoke Turkish, and he gave his full attention to Stefan. “Big man, big boat. Your men clearly thought I had something of value to offer you. What do you need?” He didn’t offer specifics, but Stefan suspected everything was on the table—guns, ammo, jewelry, drugs.

  “Information.” He pulled out a printed photo of Ari’s wristwatch adorning the wrist of the fisherman. They’d staged the photo to have the watch in close proximity to the man’s face. “Six months ago you sold this watch to that man,” he said, stabbing his finger at the photo. “Do you remember?”

  The older man squinted at the photo and appeared to consider his options. “I sell a great many things.”

  “And you sold this honorably,” Stefan said. “The man said you’d received it in exchange for several items from a man. This man?”

  He held out a picture of Ari and waited. The photo was of Ari working on his plane, dressed in what amounted to rags for him. But he was clean and healthy, obviously the son of a rich man. With luck the dealer didn’t realize exactly who he was, but—

  The man shook his head. “That man? No. That is not who sold it to me. He was a small man, not Greek. Maybe Egyptian. Crazy in the head.” He touched his temple. “That man in the photo would not have traded the watch for a leaky boat and food. He is too smart for that, eh? Too smart to sell a watch at all, I’m thinking. There would be a story there.”

  Stefan pocketed the photo. “The Egyptian man, you ever see him again?”

  The scavenger shrugged. “No, but didn’t expect to. He was drunk—gave me his flask too.” He grinned. “Idiot. Didn’t know what he had, either the booze or the watch. Maybe he got it from your friend, eh?”

  Stefan smiled right along with him, but his heart knifed sideways. “Flask—you have it?”

  “Not for sale.” The man gestured to the table, his shrewd eyes missing nothing as Stefan turned. He didn’t have to search hard. The flask had primacy of place on the man’s side table, sticking out from the trash like a rose among thorns. It was six inches tall and three inches wide, a mixture of metal and waterproof leather.

  And, in the bottom right corner, there was a defect. A part of the leather had been burned away…where the flask had once been stamped with the symbol of Garronia.

  Stefan’s next move wasn’t so much planned as instinctual. Rationally, he knew the man could be
telling the truth. There could have been a mysterious Egyptian man, drunk from Ari’s own flask. That man could have killed Ari, taken his valuables and pawned them off. It was all totally reasonable.

  He launched himself at the big man anyway.

  The man saw it coming. He barked an order as Stefan’s guards turned, three men coming out of the next lean to with semi-automatic rifles. They were too late, and Stefan was already on the dealer, knocking him back off his chair with a roundhouse punch and divesting the dealer of his own gun. He pushed the weapon up against the man’s temple before the dealer finished bouncing off the woven mat.

  “First, call off your men,” Stefan snapped. “Then, tell me the truth. I have money, friend. Money and nothing but goodwill for you. I kill you, and your men won’t mourn, they’ll take all your money and goods and set up their own shop. I don’t want that and neither do you. But I am going to need the truth.”

  Chapter Six

  Nicki stood frozen in the lean-to, the guards on either side of her aiming their pistols out at men who were now aiming back at them. Both sets of guns looked powerful enough to cause a lot of damage, but no one fired.

  The big man in the hut—she assumed it was him—yelled something and all of the men eased up slightly. Then the hut’s guards stepped back and lowered their guns, backing away.

  “What’s going on?” she asked between her teeth.

  “Let’s get into the sightline of Ambassador Mihal. He’ll want to see you are unharmed.” Tamas’s words were low and quiet. “Don’t worry. This means the negotiation is going well.”

  She stared at him but did as he directed, moving into the doorway of the hut but no further. She was still protected by the flimsy frame of the hut and the less flimsy frames of her bodyguards. Stefan flicked his gaze toward her and then turned back to face the big man. They both stood close together. On the table between them sat a black neoprene bag—which contained money, she was nearly certain. The big man started gesticulating wildly and Stefan regarded him steadily, calm as always. She couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying, and Tamas remained silent. She didn’t need to know, she reminded herself. She only needed to do what was required.