Royal Target

by Susan Kearney

  A moment ago she was ready to thank him for saving their lives. Now she had to restrain herself from kicking sand into his arrogant grin for worrying her for no reason. That he could provoke such a violent reaction from her told her she was already in deeper emotionally than she would have liked. Although she didn’t want to see anyone die, she had done so many times during the course of her work. Yet never before had she reacted so unprofessionally to a man. That she could hide her response from him didn’t make her feel any better—because she could no longer hide her growing feelings for him from herself.

  “Mother,” Nikita demanded again, this time his voice closer to a wail.

  The baby continued to cry, and Nicholas stood and took him from the security guard. The volume of his cries immediately diminished but didn’t altogether cease. Down the beach, men collected the frightened horses and finally someone shut off the siren.

  Alexander raced up to them and picked up Dimitri in one arm, Nikita in the other. “Everyone okay?”

  “What happened?” Dimitri asked again.

  Ericka couldn’t help ruffling the five-year-old’s hair as she checked him over for injuries, but he seemed just fine. “You have the makings of a fine reporter.” She took in the burning boat that the palace guards were cordoning off like a crime scene. The sharp scent of cordite and smoke hung in the air and cast a pall over the sunny beach. “What did happen?”

  As if on cue, Ira drew Nicholas aside and whispered, “Your Majesty, there was no driver.”

  Ericka was close enough to overhear their conversation. However, with the security teams coming and going, and the reporters already starting to gather, she doubted the two men realized she was listening with all the chaos around them.

  “The boat was driven by remote control?” Nicholas asked.

  “I’m afraid so. Maybe we can trace some of the pieces, but I am not hopeful.”

  No body to trace through blood or fingerprints, Ericka thought, automatically snapping into reporter mode. Only tiny pieces of fiberglass and maybe a few engine parts seared by the explosion were not much to go on. Finding whoever had done this had just become much more difficult.

  Skirts flying, Sophia came running up to her children. Ira and Nicholas broke apart and Nicholas rejoined the others. Sophia, tears of terror streaming down her cheeks, hugged her children. Natalie, wisps of her white hair loose from her normally neat bun, hung back with Larissa, mother and daughter embracing. Ericka could hear Alexander reassure Sophia that her kids were fine just as Nicholas placed an arm over her shoulders and drew her aside.

  Nicholas led Ericka away from the happy reunion, no doubt so he couldn’t be overheard. She wished she had a camera and then chided herself for thinking like the reporter she was. But it would be difficult to convey with words how kingly he looked at that moment.

  He had a small trickle of blood running down his temple and sand plastered to the side of his brow and cheek. But his eyes were full of concern for his family and probably his country. The tight line of his mouth revealed much more than his words. “It was an accident.”

  She shrugged out from under his arm, the previous spurt of adrenaline sparking her fiery anger. “Don’t lie to me. I heard your conversation with Ira. That was no accident.” She kept her voice down for the children’s sake, but allowed her tone to carry her outrage. “I’d say that was an assassination attempt.” She arched her brow. “Unless I missed one while I was taking my bath, that was the second attempt on your life since I’ve arrived. Who wants you dead, Nicholas?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me?” she asked with enough bite to reveal her vast irritation at his attempt to deceive her.

  “If I knew, do you think I’d allow this to continue?” His voice cooled to a frigid whisper she hadn’t heard before. “Do you believe I’d jeopardize your life or the lives of my brothers?”

  “So why lie to me?”

  He faced her and placed one hand on each of her shoulders. “I don’t want to read about this in tomorrow’s newspaper.”

  Too bad. Reporting this story was her job, and she’d be crazy even to consider keeping it under wraps. “You ever hear of freedom of the press?”

  “In Vashmira, we don’t call such liberties freedom, but foolishness.”

  “Excuse me,” she drew herself up very straight and looked into his bleak expression, her anger boiling at his insult. How dare he call her work foolish? “Perhaps you should elaborate before I pack my bags and leave.”

  “You cannot leave.”

  “Watch me.” Furious, she spun around on her heel, giving him her back.

  Before she’d paced two steps, his hand clamped on her shoulder and turned her around. She glared at him.

  He scowled. “Let me rephrase that.” His face looked as though he’d eaten nails for breakfast, hard and uncompromising as any medieval warrior’s. “I will not permit you to leave my country.”

  She sensed that he’d meant every word, and she began to shake from fury. How dare he tell her what to write? How dare he assume she wouldn’t investigate an attempt on his life? Damn him. Only by exerting the utmost control did she refrain from slapping him across the face. He had not just threatened her, he’d laid down the law, and she reminded herself that he held the power to hold her in Vashmira indefinitely like some barbarian king.

  “You’d hold me a prisoner in your country to suppress a story?”

  “If by running that story you risk the lives of my brothers, then yes, I’ll hold you here.” He softened both his expression and his tone. “But I’m hoping you’ll be reasonable.”

  “Reasonable?” Her pulse skyrocketed. No doubt he was unaccustomed to being told no. In fact, she doubted he knew the meaning of the word. Well, he would soon discover she was not some Vashmiran subject to yield to his every whim. She took her career very seriously. “By reasonable, I suppose that means agreeing with every word you say, Your Majesty? Perhaps you’d like to write the story yourself, Your Majesty?”

  “Yelling at the king is not what I call being reasonable,” he teased.

  She was way too angry to fall for his attempt at charm. “You are hoping that I will be reasonable.” She sputtered the words as fury rose up to choke her. What manner of man was this to save her life one moment then try to intimidate her the next? Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to count to ten. However much she wanted to yell at him, she sensed logic would work better. “How could writing my story possibly increase the danger to your brothers?”

  “There are many people in this country who don’t agree with the way I rule,” he started to explain.

  “And do you threaten all of them, too?” She asked the question with a scathing disregard for his power over her and enjoyed seeing him flinch at her accusation.

  He kept his tone measured and calm but she heard the inflexible steel beneath. “Your story could encourage certain factions to plot rebellion.”

  His calm annoyed her all the more. “Maybe you need a rebellion. The next king might allow freedom of the press.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, woman. Think. The people’s need to know is not the highest priority in the land.”

  “Not in your land,” she countered hotly.

  “Look, remember Columbine High School?”

  The sudden change of topic threw her. That he could have been so knowledgeable about two unstable teenagers in Colorado who had shot and killed their classmates and planned to blow up their school had nothing to do with freedom of the press.

  She glared at him. “And what is your point?”

  “If the press hadn’t reported the incident, glorified the deaths, maybe other teenagers wouldn’t have copied the act. Lives could have been saved, but you Americans act as if the right to know is more important than keeping your own children safe in their schools.”

  “That’s unfair.”

  “Is it?” he demanded.

  Alexander, minus th
e children, had joined them during their argument. Ericka was too angry to care that their words must have carried down the beach. So what if he knew that Nicholas intended to keep her here and prevent her from filing this story? As far as she was concerned, the more people who knew about their disagreement, the better the chances of the cover-up leaking back to the United States.

  Alexander placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I couldn’t help hearing the argument.”

  “We weren’t arguing,” Nicholas told his brother.

  “Really,” Ericka cocked her head to the side, planted her fists on her hips and scowled at Nicholas. “What would you call it when the king issues commands that I refuse to accept?”

  Alexander looked from Ericka to Nicholas, his flashing eyes revealing amusement. “Sounds like an argument to me.”

  “Go away,” Nicholas told his brother, not once taking his gaze off Ericka.

  She saw a banked fire in Nicholas’ eyes that should have sent alarms ringing in her head, but she was simply too angry with the man to restrain her temper. “Don’t you have laws in this country?”

  “Our law says you are to become my wife.” He shot the information at her with the speed and force of a bullet. “Since you have such a high regard for the law, are you going to adhere to that one?”

  Alexander frowned at his brother. “Way to go, brother. That had to be the most romantic proposal of all time.”

  “Didn’t I tell you to go away?”

  So Nicholas hadn’t forgotten about the marriage contract. Damn. Damn. Double damn. Ericka glared at Nicholas, the tension so palpable between them a stranger would have backed away. She should have listened to her first instinct to run from this country. But no, she had to have this story, had to cover the coronation, had allowed her curiosity to put her into danger and an impossible situation.

  “Why don’t you just kiss her and get it over with?” Alexander suggested with a grin.

  “Alexander, if you don’t leave, I’ll arrange for you to serve as ambassador to Siberia,” Nicholas told him, his voice stern, but an undertone of amusement in his tone spiked her anger. They were acting as if this was some huge game, not as if lives were at stake.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who had the most to gain if the bomb had killed Nicholas. That would be the next man in line for the throne—namely Alexander. Nicholas’ brother had been on the beach during the attack, far enough away for him to have used a remote control device, yet close enough to watch the action. And he had motive—for if Nicholas died, he would become king.

  Yet, Ericka had trouble believing that the good-natured Alexander, who was interested in women and parties, would be plotting to take over the throne. Perhaps his easygoing demeanor was simply a ruse—but if so, he’d missed his calling as an actor.

  Alexander shrugged. “Fine, Nicholas, I’ll leave your future in your oh-so-incapable hands. Just remember that the woman you are failing to intimidate just risked her life to save our brothers. You’ve repaid her by refusing to let her do her job and threatening to marry her.” He rolled his eyes toward the heavens. “I just can’t imagine why she’s upset with you.”

  Alexander must have seen Nicholas’ expression narrow to a fierce scowl because he lifted his hands into the air. “Okay, okay. I know when I’m not wanted. I was just leaving.”

  “So am I.” Ericka started to walk away, knowing she needed to give her boiling temper time to cool, knowing she had a lot to think about. She knew from experience that a close call with death heightened all the emotions.

  “Please, don’t go,” Nicholas requested stiffly.

  She intended to ignore him and keep walking, but Ira Hanuck, looking decidedly uncomfortable, joined them. Her womanly instincts warned her to escape while she could, but her reporter’s training told her that additional facts were about to be revealed.

  “Your Majesty,” Ira stood stiff and straight. “We need to talk, again.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Ira looked warily at her. “This isn’t for the press.”

  “Ms. Allen won’t be filing a story on this incident,” he told the security chief with the supreme confidence of a man used to having his every order obeyed.

  Ericka seethed and kept her mouth shut. She hadn’t agreed to kill the story, and if in his arrogance he believed she would, so much the better. She had established ways of smuggling a story out of a country.

  “Why didn’t your shots stop the boat?” Nicholas asked the most important question.

  “Because the remote control device had special protective armor around it. We’ve already traced the boat’s registration. It was stolen last week. I doubt we’ll find fingerprints. This was a professional job.”

  Ericka wondered from what distance the remote had been operated. Was the person at the controls still on the beach gawking at the smoking hull with the other tourists? Or had he disappeared across the water in a pleasure craft?

  “What else?” Nicholas asked, while Ericka bit her tongue. She had a hundred questions but she remained determined not to interfere.

  Instead she watched how Nicholas handled the investigation. So far, he’d refrained from giving orders or casting blame and had instead concentrated on gathering information. Intelligent and practical, exactly as she would have guessed—until he’d made those threats against her. Okay, not exactly threats, but enough to remind her she was very far from home and this man’s word was the law around here. And that law had promised them to one another since they were children. She shoved the thought from her mind. Now was no time to dwell on her feelings when an assassination attempt had just almost wiped out a good portion of the royal family.

  Ira rubbed the bridge of his nose with a weariness that revealed his frustration. “A security camera picked up the entire attack. A playback reveals that either the remote controlled device was faulty, or you and your brothers weren’t the target.”

  “Who was?” Ericka asked, forgetting her intention to remain quiet.

  Ira hesitated.

  “I assure you, she won’t leak this story,” Nicholas guaranteed with a confidence that had her struggling to keep her control of herself.

  She had no intention of following his orders. She’d been sent here to do a job, and she intended to do it to the best of her ability. She wanted to know who had driven the car through the park and who had controlled the boat. However, even if Nicholas did know she intended to investigate and complete her assignment, he couldn’t stop her—not if she came up with a good cover story first.

  “We believe the target might have been Miss Allen.”

  “YEAH, RIGHT.” ERICKA’S face clearly revealed to Nicholas that she believed his security chief had concocted this plot to keep her from filing a story about a royal assassination attempt. Another woman would have been frightened by the suggestion that someone was trying to kill her, but not Ericka. She had a strong mind and a brave heart. Nicholas would never forget her ignoring her own safety while she raced into mortal danger to help him save the children. She’d remained calm and clearheaded—unlike Larissa, who had sought only to save her own skin. If not for Ericka’s heroics, he would have been forced to keep his mount to a walk, and surely the boat’s blast would have annihilated all of them.

  So why had he not thanked her, maybe even kissed her as Alexander had suggested? Lord knew, he ached to take her into his arms. Instead they’d ended up shouting at one another, and he still didn’t know how the conversation had gotten so out of hand. Normally he could handle the most sensitive diplomatic matters without resorting to threats. What was it about her that made him keep forgetting her career? Or the reason he’d brought her to Vashmira in the first place.

  Yes, she was attractive, but Vashmira boasted many attractive women. Sure, she was smart, but if she was so intelligent, why didn’t she believe his security chief?

  While Ira Hanuck could be devious, Nicholas saw no reason for him to have lied. He watched Ericka’s reporter
’s eyes carefully, fully realizing that she had never agreed to suppress her story. He would have preferred that she’d simply seen the wisdom of his request, but he wasn’t concerned about her refusal. Without his permission, her phone wouldn’t work, her mail wouldn’t go through and her confiscated passport wouldn’t be returned, which would prevent her from passing through customs.

  Nicholas realized that the actions he was willing to take to keep Ericka in his country were somewhat extreme but, he rationalized, he couldn’t afford the bad publicity. He didn’t want his people to worry over Vashmira’s stability. He didn’t want to scare away tourists and foreign investment.

  Although the local press and paparazzi were already snapping photos, Nicholas could stop their publication—as a matter of state security. While tourists had witnessed the incident and rumors would fly, without press, the stories would be only that—stories, rumors, which would eventually die down for lack of evidence to back them up.

  Nicholas had no doubt that Ira was correct in his assessment that Vashmira’s enemies would do anything to undermine his rule or embarrass him before the coronation—and that included killing off his intended bride. Yet he kept his deductions to himself, knowing Ericka wouldn’t accept them. But why didn’t she believe Ira?

  “Why are you so skeptical?” Nicholas asked her.

  “I don’t know anyone in this country. Who would want me dead besides you?”

  “Me?” Her accusation rocked him onto his heels. She thought he’d planned her murder when all he wanted to do was have a civilized courtship that ended in a marriage between them? Was he so off base in his thinking that a bona fide magnetism existed between them? Surely she had to feel the on-the-edge tension, recognize the lingering glances, note the subtle responses that signalled male-female interest? But if she did, then why had she just suggested he was capable of her murder? She was being irrational, possibly overreacting because of the close call on the beach. She owed him an apology, yet he could easily overlook her insult after she’d just saved the lives of his brothers. Insulted, yet almost amused by her accusation, he leashed his temper, unwilling to let her draw him into another undignified shouting match.