THE PRINCESS AND THE P.I.

by Donna Sterling

  "It'll make us both rich. Put us in the tabloid hall of fame."

  "I'm as rich as I need to be," he replied, somewhat amused, "and I didn't realize there was a tabloid hall of fame."

  "Maybe there ain't," she conceded. "But an extra two or three million wouldn't hurt either of us." Though the determined set of her jaw was nothing out of the ordinary and her pent-up energy always hummed, he sensed a sharper edge to her enthusiasm this morning.

  "Unless your tip has some direct bearing on one of my clients, I don't need to hear it. And since you have no way of knowing who my clients are—at least I hope you have no way of knowing who my clients are—"

  "It has something to do with American royalty," she imparted. "More in particular, our own little Perfume Princess."

  He'd gone perfectly still, as she'd probably known he would. He'd resigned from her tabloid over an assignment to watch Valentina Richmond.

  After a moment Tyce managed a crooked half smile. "Let's go get some coffee. And, uh, talk."

  They trudged out to his private parking deck in the early morning June breeze. That infamous assignment had been to cover Valentina's debutante ball—before, during and after. Hattie had been hoping for something spicy to liven up the dry society-page angle. She'd paired Tyce with one of her veteran reporters, Slick Sam Stephanovich, who thought nothing of bugging bedrooms, drilling holes through hotel room walls or climbing trees to use his telescopic lens.

  That was how Tyce had first seen the girl who'd been dubbed "the Perfume Princess"—through a telescopic lens. She'd been in a seaside villa, alone in an upper-story bedroom, wearing a sheer white nightgown that clearly silhouetted every curve and valley of her slender, tanned body. Her waist-length blond hair had shimmered like candlelight around her. She'd been gazing out of a floor-to-ceiling window at the sun setting over the ocean.

  Something about her had shaken Tyce to the core. He had no right to see her like this. Guilt burned through him, yet he couldn't bring himself to turn away. It wasn't until Sam tried to have a look that he was jolted to his senses. He broke the telescopic lens before handing it back to him. He didn't want anyone watching her unawares and shooting photos; didn't want to know who might be joining her in that private suite. She looked too innocent to sully. Too pure.

  He'd quit the tabloid business that night and reported the paparazzi's movements to the girl's uncle.

  Tyce almost laughed out loud at the memory. What a green kid he'd been, confusing a woman's wide-eyed, sensual appeal with innocence and vulnerability. He'd long since learned that the most beautiful ones, especially the wealthy and powerful, were usually hard on the inside, hiding the blackest of secrets.

  "I suppose you're aware that Valentina called off her wedding last Saturday to Preston Hanover the Third, aren't you?" Hattie asked as they neared his gleaming forest-green Jaguar.

  Tyce shrugged. He was aware of the canceled wedding, but only because Valentina's uncle had hired him last night to search for her. Hattie certainly didn't need to know that. "Seems I might have heard something about it."

  "Her publicist put out the word that she'd gotten sick." Hattie snorted. "She probably was sick—from seeing those photos of loverboy doing his thing with her bridesmaids."

  Tyce didn't comment as he helped Hattie into the passenger seat, then took his place behind the wheel. He supposed she was right. Then again, the ultra-wealthy were a different breed. Who knew how the hell they felt about anything?

  "There's been a new development in the drama," Hattie informed him. Leaning toward him as if she were about to let him in on a great secret, she divulged, "Valentina took off for parts unknown yesterday afternoon. Alone."

  He kept his face expressionless and started up the car's engine. Did Hattie know that Edgar Richmond had hired him to find her? He didn't think so. This juicy tidbit was simply the kind she loved to pursue. "Why would you think that news might interest me?"

  "Because I'm hiring you to find her."

  Tyce shot her a surprised glance. She'd badgered him for favors before, but never offered to buy his services.

  "This is my ticket to the big time, T.K. Everyone will want to know why she ran away, where she went, what she's doing and who she's doing it with."

  Tyce slanted her a mildly derisive glance. "You've been in the business too long, Hattie."

  "Oh, come on, T.K. This is better than a prime-time soap. I'm going after the scoop, one way or another." With an understated emphasis that always signaled the dropping of a bomb, she casually let out, "But I'd rather not have to trust my reporters with the information I have about Valentina's flight."

  The bomb hit home. He needed that information. And the last thing he wanted was one of her reporters finding Valentina before he did. "What about her flight?"

  Hattie cracked a speculative smile, tapped a cigarette from her pack, stuck it between her teeth and leisurely flicked her lighter into a blaze. "You taking my case?"

  Tyce plucked the cigarette from her mouth and pitched it out the window. She knew he didn't allow smoking in his car. Her information had to be hot; she was getting power-happy. "I charge a hefty fee."

  "Charge away. I'm good for it. Now, about our runaway princess." She pulled out a cassette recorder. "She's always been closest to her cousin, John Peterson, so I had his phone tapped since the wedding fiasco. Wednesday I hit pay dirt. If I'd listened to the tape earlier, I could have had her followed from the start."

  Tyce shook his head. Leave it to Hattie to have key information only hours after the goodbye note had been found. "Let's hear the tape."

  "Only if I have your word that you'll find her before anyone else does. I want to know where she went, why she went there, and who she's with."

  The same information her uncle wanted, of course. His gaze locked with Hattie's. He didn't want to complicate matters by bringing her in on his search. Edgar Richmond expected absolute confidentiality—and offered payment that was far more valuable to Tyce than money. On the other hand, Hattie would go elsewhere with her information if he didn't cooperate.

  If he accepted her case, which would mean he'd be working for both Edgar Richmond and Hattie, he'd have to walk a thin line to keep their interests from conflicting. With careful timing, though, he could delay his report to Hattie until after he'd submitted his final report to Edgar.

  "I'll find Valentina for you," he slowly agreed, "and supply you with the information you want, if you promise to stay out of my way. Let me handle the investigation. If you interfere, the agreement's off."

  "Will you take pictures?"

  This, as she knew damn well, was stretching it. He wasn't a photographer. "A few."

  Hattie shrugged. "Okay, T.K., I'll stay out of your way. I'm too tied up with celebrity lawsuits right now to do much fieldwork anyway, and I wouldn't trust any of my reporters with a story this big. That is, unless I have to."

  With grave reluctance, Tyce shook on the deal. Hattie played the taped phone conversation.

  "It's about time you called. I'm late for an exam," came the young man's harried voice, to which his cousin uttered apologies. "I had some ID made for you—a driver's license and a passport—but you'll have to change your hair to red, cut it and curl it. The name is 'Claire Jones.' I thought it would be easier for you if we picked a first name you were used to."

  "Yes, Claire Jones will be fine."

  "Your flight's tomorrow evening. I couldn't get a direct flight, so you'll have a three-hour layover in Dallas. I've sent you the papers, tickets and plenty of cash, overnight express."

  "Thanks, Johnny, but I don't want you to get in trouble."

  "Don't worry, Claire, I won't. But I am concerned about you. I'm sending someone to meet you at the airport and drive you wherever you want to go."

  "No! Don't send anyone. I'm sick of guards and drivers. Besides, no one can be trusted."

  "You shouldn't wander around by yourself. What if that stalker finds you? I'll hire someone who can act as a driver and
a bodyguard, but I won't tell him who you really are."

  "No driver, no bodyguard! Uh-oh, someone's coming. I've got to go. Don't send anyone … and don't worry about me. I won't contact you again for at least a month. They'll probably tap your phone when they know I'm gone. I can't chance them tracing me. Thanks again, Johnny."

  Tyce took the tape from the recorder and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He'd have "Claire Jones's" travel route traced to her destination. She was obviously traveling east from Los Angeles, which would take quite a few hours, plus the layover her cousin had mentioned. Tyce realized that he himself might have an advantage from his central Chicago location.

  With any luck at all—and his corporate jet—he'd get to her destination airport before she did.

  * * *

  2

  « ^ »

  She'd made her escape during a Thursday afternoon shopping trip to an upscale mall—a touch below her usual Paris boutiques and Rodeo Drive

  shops, but not enough to raise eyebrows. Stopping to use a rest room, she'd hurriedly changed into her "disguise," then strode out past her bodyguards and into the real world.

  The ensuing journey had proven to be a challenge. She'd had to hail a cab on a busy Los Angeles street

  where crowds had fought for every car. She'd waited in long lines at the airport, agonizing over the possibility of getting caught with false identification. She'd suffered wolf whistles from a rowdy bunch of young soldiers and tolerated hours of ceaseless chatter from the woman next to her on the plane.

  It had been, in its own way, exhilarating.

  Valentina the Perfume Princess wouldn't have been exposed to any of that. She would have traveled on her private jet with her own servants to wait on her. For that very reason, Claire gleaned perverse satisfaction from her night-long ordeal. She'd made it, at least this far, on her own.

  As the plane landed at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, her heart drummed. She could be caught at this end of the flight and exposed as a fraud—a terrifying thought. She could have been followed by that psychotic stalker or accosted by the media. All of those possibilities left her feeling wary and vulnerable.

  She bolstered her courage with one thought: if she made it through this airport unimpeded, she'd be free.

  She shuffled through the jetway with large tortoiseshell sunglasses concealing half her face. In the place of her usual long, pale blond tresses were now loose, strawberry-blond curls that barely grazed her shoulders—a color and style that she'd actually managed to achieve by herself last night. She hoped her new hair, denim cutoffs, yellow T-shirt and sunglasses would be enough to disguise her.

  As she turned the corner and approached the exit gate, she slowed to a standstill. A man with a video camera and a woman with a microphone stood eagerly examining the faces of the departing passengers.

  Taking a few involuntary steps backward, Claire watched in dry-mouthed dismay as the duo closed in on a young woman a few paces ahead of her, murmuring questions that Claire couldn't quite hear.

  Alarm constricted her chest. They'd found her! Reporters from a television station had somehow discovered she'd taken this flight, and in a moment they'd pounce, ripping away her disguise for all the world to see. Grappling to hide her distress, she glanced around for another way out of the gate.

  "Suzanne! Over here!" The deep, masculine yell resounded from somewhere beyond the gate. Out of her side view, Claire caught sight of a dark-haired man who towered head and shoulders above the crowd, moving with an easy gait in her general direction. "Suzanne, honey!"

  As she turned toward the hoarse greeting out of sheer reflex, strong hands caught at her arms. "I missed you." And before she could do more than gape at the green-eyed stranger who gazed at her with jubilant welcome, he lifted her from the ground, whirled her around and crushed her against his muscled, T-shirted chest in a bear hug.

  Nothing could have stunned Claire more. Except maybe a kiss, which he pressed against her temple. "John Peterson sent me," he whispered into her ear. "Claire Jones, right?"

  She'd barely managed to nod at her assumed name when he set her back on her feet, hooked his arm around her shoulders and swept her forward, his body shielding her from the camera crew like a defensive linebacker protecting a quarterback.

  "I don't think I'm going to let you go to any more of those seminars, honey," he declared in a booming jovial tone as he tugged her steadily away from the gate. "The boys missed you, too. Davey's barely eaten since you left. Must be my cooking."

  He kept up a steady drone of nonsensical talk as he hustled her along in the crook of his arm, forcing her into a half run to keep up with his long strides. She felt as if she'd been caught in an undertow and swept out to sea. Except this "undertow" surrounded her with warm, muscled brawn and the scent of a woodsy aftershave.

  An irrelevant question flashed through her stunned female psyche. Had she ever been held this close by a man she didn't know? And had her blood ever hummed with such keen awareness of any man's touch? He was a stranger, a dark, virile stranger who held her as if she belonged to him…

  Shaking herself out of a stupor, she realized she should ask for identification, although he had used her assumed name, which only Johnny had known. Still, she could take no chances. From the side of her mouth, she whispered, "Can I see some ID?"

  "Pictures of the baby? Got 'em back just today." Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, he pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. "Turned out great, didn't they?"

  He held out a photo identification card that proclaimed him to be a licensed private investigator from Walker Investigative & Security Services. She nodded, and he slipped the wallet back into his pocket.

  She hadn't caught his name.

  Veering her away from the stream of travelers, he swept her down a quiet side corridor. He'd quit talking, but hadn't slowed his pace.

  She was glad that Johnny had sent him, even though she'd told him not to. He'd rescued her from the media. At least, he had so far…

  They reached an elevator and he punched the Down button. His silence somehow revived her earlier tension and she pulled away from him, striving to find her voice. "What is your—?"

  He laid a finger across her lips. Warmth washed through her from the brief contact. He shot a cautious glance both ways down the corridor. Though no one was in sight, his eyes returned to her with a stern warning to stay silent.

  Anxiously she wondered if the reporters were following them or searching the airport with their cameras ready. How on earth had they discovered which flight she'd taken? And if the media had known about her flight, what about the authorities? Would they be searching for the woman who'd used identification with the name "Claire Jones" printed on it?

  The steel doors slid open and her rescuer ushered her onto the empty elevator. She wrapped a nervous hand around the handrail for support as the doors closed. Her reflection in the stainless-steel walls startled her. The pale woman with tousled strawberry-blond curls, huge round sunglasses, cutoffs and a yellow T-shirt looked as much a stranger to her as the man standing beside her.

  "What's your name?" she asked. "I didn't quite catch it from your ID."

  He turned the full power of his gaze on her, and her pulse quickened. She didn't understand her reaction to him. Without his earlier smile, his face held no beauty—only a stark, rugged appeal comprised of lean angles, a strong jaw, a sun-bronzed complexion and eyes the color of a summer forest. A thin scar slanted across one high cheekbone, adding to the impression of streetwise toughness. His best claim to classic good looks was his raven hair, gleaming in careless waves that invited a woman's fingers to delve through their springy thickness…

  "The name's Walker, ma'am." The low, whiskey-smooth reply could only be called deferential. Gone was the jubilant, husbandly tone. And gone was the warm welcome his gaze had held. He now regarded her with courteous, professional detachment. "I have a car waiting in a staff parking lot. We shouldn't have any trouble re
aching it. I'll drive around for your luggage."

  "I have no luggage."

  He nodded curtly, betraying not a flicker of surprise.

  She recognized him, then, with his readied stance, his tautly muscled physique, his impersonal gaze and protective air. She'd have known him anywhere. A bodyguard.

  Only a bodyguard.

  The old, stifling sense of solitude gripped her, more jarring than ever. It didn't matter who he was, how he looked, what he said … or how she had responded to his touch. He was a shadow, with no substance or meaning beyond his hired function. She'd lived with his kind long enough to know that.

  She was, for all intents and purposes, alone. And as long as he was with her, she would remain alone, no matter how many people she might meet. He was a barrier, a human shield, between her and any potential enemy … or friend. She'd traveled across the country only to find herself once again in his isolating shadow.

  Her anger stirred. She'd told Johnny not to send anyone. She'd warned him that no one could be trusted. This shadow-man who had spirited her away from the cameras could expose her just as easily. Johnny! Oh, Johnny. Why didn't you listen to me?

  "What did John Peterson tell you about me?" She hadn't meant to ask the question; it had somehow slipped out before she could censor it.

  He slanted her a glance. "You're a prize-winning poet who needs protection … right?"

  She blinked. A poet? She remembered John swearing to keep her identity a secret, even to the man he hired to protect her. He'd obviously told him she was a poet. How creative!

  "I've never met a poet laureate before," Walker remarked in a soft, admiring drawl. "I'm honored to serve you, ma'am. And I'll try my best to protect you from whatever crackpot is stalking you … and to keep the media off your back, as Mr. Peterson instructed."

  She allowed herself a tentative smile. "I'm grateful to you for rescuing me back there."

  "My pleasure." Something in his gaze set her blood to rushing.

  Claire looked away and scolded herself. He'd uttered a common banality and her body had reacted as if he'd whispered an erotic suggestion. Perhaps the scent of freedom was acting as an aphrodisiac, turning her thoughts to the sensual.