He leaned close enough to take in the lemony aroma of her freshly washed hair. “We suspect the assassination was accomplished from within the palace.”
“An inside job?” She stepped toward the fountain, putting a little distance between them. “I thought he was shot through a window, from a distance.”
He edged next to her again, but was careful not to touch her. “That’s the story my press secretary released.”
This time she held her ground, didn’t inch away. “I am the press.”
Hopefully not for too much longer. He had just a week to change her mind. “Our forensics people tell me the shooter was within five feet of my father, who was awake. Since he didn’t shout for his guards, he either knew the man…”
“Or never saw him,” she finished, her eyes large green pools of sympathy. “Does it bother you to speak about his death?”
He kept his tone low, using the murmur of the water to wash over his words and keep them private. “The pain is always in my heart. Whether I speak of him or not, the loss remains. My father was a wonderful man.”
She reached for his hand and squeezed, another gesture of compassion. “I was sorry to learn of his death.”
Her hand was warm, her flesh soft, causing his heartbeat to accelerate. From her voice he could tell that she spoke not from courtesy, but from her true feelings, and he knew he was reacting inappropriately. And she was so lovely when she looked at him with such genuine sympathy.
But apparently she didn’t avoid sad subjects anymore than she did difficult ones. “Taking over the reins of the country must have been hard for you during a time of grief and uncertainty.” She tugged to take her hand back, but he pretended not to notice, instead, lacing his fingers through hers.
“On the contrary, having so much work to keep me busy helped hold the grief at bay. Carrying on what my father started makes me feel closer to him.”
“I know what it’s like to lose a parent.”
He kept her hand in his. “King Zared told me your father was a courageous man.”
“I was thinking of my mother.” Her voice grew fierce. “She died from cancer the year after I graduated from college.”
She was all alone. He’d known that after reading her file but had forgotten. Now the details came back to him. She had no aunts or uncles, no siblings, no grandparents. He considered it helpful to his goal of keeping her in his country that she had no strong ties to leave behind.
“That’s when I decided I wanted to be independently wealthy,” she added with an urgency that surprised him.
Many people sought wealth, but most didn’t declare their intentions so boldly. Her statement took him aback a little, but her honesty had him wanting to find out more. There were intriguing depths to this woman that he wanted to discover, a reaction far from usual.
“I don’t understand.” He didn’t comprehend the connection between wealth and her mother’s cancer, but the sharp determination in her tone, not greed, and a combination of anger and sorrow heightened his curiosity.
“Her insurance wouldn’t cover a bone marrow transplant. They claimed the procedure was experimental. Accountants, not doctors, made the ultimate decision for my mother. It was cheaper for them to let her die.”
“I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, then gestured to a bench beside the fountain. “Such choices are always difficult. We’re trying to raise standards of medical care here, as well. Technology, equipment, medicine and doctors are expensive.”
“You have socialized medicine in Vashmira, don’t you?” She sat beside him, her demeanor thoughtful, as if she was accustomed to keeping her emotions separate from her questions. She still allowed him to keep her hand, so that they sat close, thighs almost touching.
“Those who can pay, do so. We have free clinics for those who cannot, but it’s an imperfect system. Those who are wealthy receive better health care than those who are poor. It’s a system I would like to correct, but educating our children must come first.”
“Why?” she asked, her tone nonconfrontational and curious, and he imagined her taking mental notes for her story. He supposed Alexander would be flirting boldly with her by now, but that was not Nicholas’ way.
“To pay for better health care, we need a stronger economy. And to make our economy stronger, we need educated workers.”
“It sounds so simple when you say it like that.” She swayed toward him, then as if she thought better of it, rigidly straightened her spine.
“My father was first a student of business, then a soldier, then a king. He always told me to look past the numbers and use common sense.”
“We could use more of that in my country,” she admitted and he couldn’t help respecting her for not holding the American government’s system up to him as the ideal one. She seemed to understand there were strengths and weaknesses in every kind of government.
He wondered what her weakness was. She seemed so strong, so sure of herself. So independent. She sat on the bench without fidgeting, her shoulders square, her eyes alert. She’d crossed one leg over the other and her foot bounced up and down, the only sign she might not be as relaxed as she appeared.
Many women clammed up on him because of his position. Others flirted outrageously or put on airs. It was clear to him that Ericka Allen knew who she was, what she wanted and how to achieve her goals. An impressive woman with walls so high that he might never be able to break them down—not unless she herself invited him through a door.
She opened her purse and plucked out a coin. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed it into the fountain. “For luck.”
He wanted to make her smile. “I believe you are a woman capable of making your own luck.”
She smiled but it faded much too quickly. Tires squealed, and her eyes opened wide with alarm as a dark sedan jumped the curb and veered toward the fountain. Mothers screamed for their children. Several Arabs fled, one losing a sandal. The old Russian women drifted on, seemingly oblivious to the danger.
Nicholas’ guards fired several shots at the car but failed to halt its progress as it continued to aim straight for the bench where they rested. There was no time to run far. No place to hide.
His security guards’ bullets failed to stop the wildly careening car. Dark tinted windows prevented him from seeing the driver. However, from the speed and angle, he suspected a professional behind the wheel.
With only seconds to act, he found himself on his feet, Ericka’s hand still firmly in his. As if of one mind, one thought, together they jumped into the fountain.
Chapter Three
Hand in hand, Nicholas and Ericka scrambled through the thigh-high fountain water toward the relative safety of the statue’s massive base, putting several hundred tons of rock between the out-of-control car and the fragile skin and bone of their bodies. Together they rushed for cover behind the stone, and every time his guards fired a shot, Nicholas felt her hand flinch in his, but no sound passed her lips.
Soaked, weighed down by their clothes, they stumbled together, slipping and sliding. He steadied her once. A few steps later, he lost his footing, and with surprising strength, she yanked him up and toward the relative safety of the sculpture’s base.
His guards fired relentlessly, shots pinged off the oncoming car. People in the park raced in panic for safety, many screaming. Animals sensed the danger, dogs barking and tugging on their leashes, and birds springing aloft in sudden flight. In the distance, a siren wailed. And on the streets surrounding the park, onlookers gawked, almost frozen in shock.
Just as fast as the danger began, it suddenly ended with the car veering from the fountain and out of the park to drive with reckless abandon down a side street. Bystanders rushed to get out of the way. The Russian women’s cart overturned, their wares scattering, and they shouted Russian obscenities at the dark sedan as it smashed into trash cans and flew around a corner to vanish from sight. One of security’s dark sedans followed.
Ericka’s soaking
clothes stuck to her like a swimsuit, outlining her lean curves, accentuating her long legs, but this was no time to admire her slender body, Nicholas thought. She stood shivering from the frigid water, paying no heed to her condition, but surveying the action around her.
Another woman might have been trembling in fright, quaking at the close call with death or flinging herself into his arms to be soothed and comforted. He almost wished she’d chosen the latter. Instead, ever vigilant, Ericka courageously peeked between the horse’s marble legs, calmly evaluating her surroundings. Her proficiency in assessing danger without showing her emotions must come in handy in her career. That particular trait was also indispensable for a soldier.
Or a queen.
His guards plunged through the fountain, taking positions around them, shielding their bodies like the Secret Service did the U.S. president. Their dramatics were for nothing. The car was long gone.
“What if your guards lose sight of him?” she asked.
He still stayed close to her, just in case trouble returned and they had to dash around the fountain. “They have radioed to alert the police.”
“By the time the police join the chase, that driver will have ditched the car, which is probably stolen, and they’ll have wiped clean the prints.”
That her mind worked so logically and coolly under pressure both fascinated and amazed him. “You sound like a police officer.”
“I once covered the paper’s police beat,” she explained with a bit of impatience.
How could she remain so professional while she stood so close to him that he could feel her every shiver? Didn’t she want a hug, some human contact after almost losing her life? However, if she could remain so detached, he was not about to act otherwise. “That driver may not be working alone.”
His suggestion had her pausing, thinking, her head cocking at an angle. “You think it’s a conspiracy?”
“I didn’t say that. My guards’ first priority is not to catch the driver, but to protect us.”
“Like they could stop a speeding vehicle with those little guns?”
“Would you feel better if my men carried bigger guns?” he asked, somewhat amused by her attitude now that he was relatively sure the danger had passed and that no one had been hurt.
“I’d feel better if you caught the guy who just tried to make roadkill out of us.”
“Roadkill?”
“Sorry, it’s an American idiom. Your English is so good I forget it’s not your native language.”
“Four years at Princeton didn’t familiarize me with the term ‘roadkill.’”
“It means ‘dead meat.’”
He couldn’t believe they were having this semantics discussion in the middle of a fountain while she stood there shivering. Her lips were a dark blue, but he’d wager they could turn purple and she still wouldn’t come close enough to him to share body heat. Just what he needed, another challenge. But after all, he had nothing else to do. The investigation into his father’s murder and his meetings with his finance minister and secretary of state would just have to be put on hold while he convinced this woman she wanted to marry him, he thought sarcastically. He immediately realized that she was already affecting the way he thought—he was rarely sarcastic.
“Your Highness.” Ira Hanuck, his chief security guard came up beside them, ignoring the slosh of water. Gangly, raw-boned and Slavic, Ira’s wolflike expression looked fierce enough to stop an enemy in his tracks. “I’ve ordered a guard to bring up your car. We should return to the safety of the palace.”
“I’d say a change of clothes is in order,” Nicholas agreed. Throughout the entire exchange, he’d kept hold of Ericka’s hand. At least she’d allowed him that much, although she probably couldn’t think of a polite way to extract it. To him, touching her seemed natural and easy as they splashed back the way they’d come toward his car. Although he told himself not to make too much of her acceptance of his hand, he couldn’t help but feel pleased that she didn’t attempt to pull away now that the danger had passed.
His guard drove the car over the park’s sidewalks, directly toward them. The crowds had long ago scattered, and only a few curious onlookers had returned. His vigilant men surrounded them, but when one of them opened the rear door for her, Ericka halted, hesitating to enter the vehicle.
He wondered if she feared being with him or a car bomb or something else he hadn’t thought of. She had no way of knowing that his men never left his car unguarded on a city street, or that it was bulletproof—an expensive but necessary precaution after his father’s death.
With her hair damp, spikes of water on her lashes and her wet clothes, she should have looked like a vulnerable, half-drowned cat, but she was fresh, clean and appealing. She tried and failed to pluck her wet blouse and jacket from her skin, but the weight of the water in the fabric plastered the material against her. “Our wet clothes will ruin your beautiful leather seats.”
He marvelled that she worried over his car, not her own safety. “Ira, isn’t there a blanket in the trunk?”
Within moments his men had retrieved the blanket. Ericka’s teeth chattered, and her lips were almost as blue as her ruined suit. Even her ankles looked blue. Nicholas wrapped the blanket around her, helped her into the car, and took the seat beside her, then ordered the driver. “Turn the heat on full.”
When Ericka’s teeth continued to chatter, he lifted her onto his lap, unable to resist taking her into his arms.
“I-I’m f-f-fine,” she protested.
“No, you are not. I am accustomed to swimming in cold water but you are almost frozen.”
Hoping to warm her with his own body heat, he nonetheless expected her to protest again, but it was a measure of how thoroughly cold she really was that she said nothing.
“Better?” he asked.
Even through the thick blanket, he could feel her shivering. “Much better. That water was cold. And you are…” she almost, but not quite fluttered her eyelashes, “very warm.”
He was warm all right and with her sitting so close, he was about to get much warmer. But he said nothing about the direction his thoughts kept taking. He should be concerned with her security, her safety, not the lush curve of her bottom against his thighs or the heat of her minty breath against his neck.
The driver headed out of the park. Security teams escorted them, front and back. “Sir, we shouldn’t take the most direct route back to the palace.”
“I’m well aware of procedure.” The trip would take longer than usual, but Nicholas didn’t mind. Considering the pleasant bundle in his arms, he didn’t mind at all. “Do the best you can.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
During the danger, Ericka had kept a cool head, even helping him after he’d slipped on the slick bottom of the fountain. She hadn’t once screamed, hadn’t complained afterward that he’d failed to protect her. She’d really remained surprisingly calm, and while he marvelled at her composure in perilous circumstances, he wondered how many other dangerous situations she’d been in and what she’d written about them. Was she the kind of woman to save her complaints for her story?
He looked down into a face that appeared innocent of that kind of duplicity and had to remind himself she had a mind as sharp as his secretary of state’s. From the tilt of her head and the concentration on her face, he suspected she was working out details for her story.
“Could the driver of that car have been drunk?” she asked him.
He almost smiled at her question. Only Ericka Allen could talk business while she sat on his lap. “Anything’s possible. Why?” He hoped she didn’t intend to write a story about the incident, play it up and make it seem more dangerous that it had been. He could minimize the coverage here, and normally no foreign countries picked up Vashmira’s national news. His country simply wasn’t important enough to warrant that kind of worldwide interest.
“Well, at first I thought the driver was aiming at us…”
He’d though
t so too. His guards had cleared people away from the bench and fountain to give him a measure of privacy and protection. He and Ericka had been the only people directly in the car’s path. “But?”
“At the last minute, the driver spun the wheel and shot away. If he intended to run us over, why not drive right into the fountain after us?”
“Because if he drove in, he couldn’t have driven out?” Nicholas suggested, thinking he could hold her like this for hours, enjoying the fresh scent of her damp hair, gazing into her lovely green eyes, which were focusing on him with concentration.
She leaned her head back against his shoulder, showing him the arch of a delectable-looking neck. “You think he didn’t want to get caught?”
“Would you?”
“Maybe he wasn’t after you. Maybe it was an accident. A drunk driver lost control of the car, then fear scared him sober enough to yank on the wheel, avoid us and the fountain.”
“It’s possible,” he murmured, his breath close enough to mix with hers.
“But you don’t think so?”
He considered lying to her so she wouldn’t write about this incident, but instinct stopped him. “The driver looked like a professional to me, but I’d prefer you didn’t write that in your story.”
“If he was a pro, would he have missed?” she asked, totally ignoring his request.
For the first time he realized the danger he faced—not only from a potential assassin but from the sexy bundle in his arms who’d already told him everything was on the record. She had a casual manner of questioning him that made him think of her as a friend, as a woman, not a respected correspondent who had the power to cause trouble within Vashmira’s borders if she wrote an unfavorable story.
“No one could have predicted we’d stop in that park,” she muttered, thinking it through. “Maybe we were followed from the airport.”
Royal Target Page 4