THE PRINCESS AND THE P.I.

by Donna Sterling

  "Forget it. I've got another pair in the car." But not with a microcamera hidden in the frame. Whoever might find them wouldn't know the camera was there; wouldn't find the pictures he'd taken of her … he hoped.

  "No, really, I want to reimburse you."

  When she stepped toward him with the money, he saw her luggage in the doorway behind her, packed and stacked on its built-in luggage cart.

  Something moved uncomfortably in his chest. He asked, "Are we going somewhere?"

  She halted a short distance away from him, and the question hung in the air. "I'm sorry, Walker," she finally replied, her tone soft with regret. "You've been … wonderful." The last word sounded a little choked, and she looked away from him. "You helped me escape from the bad guys, and took great care of me. Now it's time for me to move on." She ended on a bleak whisper, "Alone."

  The discomfort in his chest turned into a definite pull. She meant to leave him. She handed him the money for the lost sunglasses. He ignored her outstretched hand. "It's too dangerous for you to travel alone."

  "I'll be careful."

  "Not good enough." He saw her mouth tighten and her chin raise, but he pressed on anyway. "Where will you go? What will you do?"

  "I'd rather not say."

  "Will you take a bus, or train, or … what?"

  "Train, probably. But right now I'm going to call a taxi." She shoved the handful of money against his chest. "Here, please take this."

  "I don't want the money, Claire." He wanted answers. Wanted to know where she was going, what she was doing. Wanted to hear the truth about her identity. "How long do you plan to keep running?"

  Her lips parted in alarm. He was pushing her further than she'd wanted to go with this conversation. The reply seemed to be dragged unwillingly out of her. "Until I find myself."

  "Care to explain that?" He searched her face, willing her to confide in him. He didn't stop to consider why he wanted her to, or what he'd do with the information.

  She closed her eyes. "There are things about me you don't understand."

  "So fill me in."

  "I can't!" Her anguished gaze clashed with his. "I'm sorry. I'm just … not the person you think I am."

  "Do you mean that in a figurative sense or … that you're not Claire Jones?"

  A little sound of distress escaped her and she reached for the phone. "I've got to call a taxi."

  He caught her wrist above the telephone. "You need me, Claire, no matter who you are."

  They stared at each other for an awkward moment. "I don't want to need you."

  And he didn't want to need her. But he couldn't let her leave like this. "Go with me to a gift shop," he said, playing for time. "You can buy me a pair of sunglasses. Then I'll take you to a train station."

  "You want me to buy you a pair of sunglasses now?"

  "Yes, now."

  She swallowed, her throat visibly working. "Okay. We'll go to a gift shop and buy your glasses … but then we'll say goodbye."

  Conscious of her racing pulse beneath his fingers, he slowly released her wrist. "It'll take me only a minute to get my things." Hoarsely he added, "Don't you dare leave without me." He returned in minutes with his overnight bag and briefcase. She stood near the sliding-glass doors, gazing out over the Gulf. "Do you have everything?" he asked her.

  She nodded, and he rolled their luggage out the door. As they stepped into the hallway, a young man in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts brushed rudely past them. Tyce frowned and watched him disappear around a corner. Something about the guy's movement struck him as odd. It was almost as if he'd been waiting outside their door…

  "Walker, look!" Claire called in surprise, pointing to a silver object on the hallway floor.

  His sunglasses. He bent and scooped them up.

  "I guess they must have fallen out of my bag," she said.

  As their gazes met, a deep blush climbed into her cheeks. A dull, throbbing warmth seeped into his blood. "Last night," he whispered.

  They both knew when. The memory flared to life between them, binding them in its heat: him pushing her up against the door with an urgent kiss, almost making love to her right there in the corridor. And he wanted to do it again.

  "You've got your sunglasses back now," she whispered unevenly, backing a step away from him. "No need to go to a gift shop. I … guess I'll call a taxi from the lobby."

  "Have breakfast with me."

  Claire felt her heart turn over beneath his compelling stare. She couldn't think straight, standing this close to him in the place where they'd incited each other to a frenzy. "I don't think I—"

  He laid a finger across her lips to stop the refusal from forming. Warm reaction sizzled through her. Gruffly he demanded, "Don't you think what we had last night warrants at least a breakfast?"

  It was unfair of him, and they both knew it. But the question was out there now. She couldn't ignore it. And she didn't want to lie. Not about this.

  What they'd had last night warranted much more than a breakfast.

  * * *

  6

  « ^ »

  They drove west, far beyond the city limits, leaving behind the crowded beaches, amusement parks and tourist shops. When at last the commercial strip gave way to moss-draped coastal forest, Walker stopped at an isolated but cheery roadside diner.

  They hadn't spoken much in the car. Claire's heart had grown heavy at the thought of saying goodbye to him again. He'd made it impossible at the condo. She'd have to be stronger than that when the time came to leave him after breakfast. She'd have to ignore anything he might say and stick to her plan of calling a taxi.

  At least she would have this last meal with him. It warmed her to think that he'd insisted on it. Truth be told, it warmed her just to be with him. How could she have allowed herself to become so … intense with someone she'd planned to leave from the very start?

  With his hands light and guiding at her waist, he ushered her past groups of chatting customers to a white-topped table for two. Beside them at a dining counter, construction workers sat on stools sipping coffee, eating breakfast and idly watching a small television perched above them in a corner.

  Claire hoped she would be far away by the time Walker learned of her deception. She didn't want to see how he'd take the news about her real identity … whether he'd be hurt that she'd lied, or amused at her ruse, or gratified that he'd have a juicy story to tell his friends. And if he ever profited from that juicy story, she didn't want to know about it.

  A plump waitress with tired-looking eyes took their order, yelled it out to the cook and poured them coffee.

  "So tell me," Walker said after the waitress had moved on to another table, "where can I get a volume of your poetry, and which one would you recommend I start with?"

  She gazed blankly at him. Poetry? She then remembered the role of prizewinning poet she'd assumed at the airport. Somehow it wasn't quite as easy lying to Walker about it now as it had been then. "I wouldn't recommend any of my poetry."

  He lifted a brow, and she sensed a seriousness in him that far outweighed the whimsical subject of poetry. "Why not?"

  She glanced away, feeling guilty for all the lies. If only she'd met him under different circumstances. If only she really were Claire Jones. She tried to inject a breeziness into her tone. "You hated the one I recited for you, remember?"

  No reminiscent smile lightened his gaze. "You are poetry, Claire. Don't let anyone make you forget that while you're … running around looking for yourself."

  Her throat tightened, and she felt like crying. Even though she'd sworn she didn't need his approval, she'd wanted to win it. Now he seemed to be giving it to her, all ten million megawatts of it. But she recognized the compliment for what it was: his way of saying goodbye.

  The waitress delivered steaming plates of omelettes, grits and toast. Though she wasn't hungry, Claire forced herself to eat. She needed a distraction from the emotions warring inside her. As she spread jelly on her toast, the television
caught her attention—a morning newscast.

  "For all you celebrity watchers, more news from the Richmond mansion…" announced a perky brunette anchorwoman with a humorous lilt. "The Perfume Princess gave her bodyguards the slip. We take you now to the Los Angeles department store where Valentina Richmond mysteriously vanished last Thursday."

  Claire dropped her knife to the table with a clatter, cringed at the glances thrown her way, and swung a panicked gaze to Walker. She had to get out of there, now. "Walker, I'm not feeling well. I want to leave."

  She started to rise, but he caught her hand and forced her to stay seated. His attention had been snagged by pictures on the television screen. With a sinking heart, Claire turned reluctant eyes to a video of herself, obviously taken by the department store security cameras as she walked past her unsuspecting bodyguards and headed for freedom. With her hair in strawberry-blond curls—as it was now—she wore her yellow T-shirt, denim shorts and tortoiseshell sunglasses. She had, of course, arrived at the airport looking exactly that way when Walker had met her.

  "Could this mystery gal really be our Perfume Princess?" quipped the on-scene reporter. A photo flashed beside it of Claire in a formal ballgown with diamonds in her pale-blond upsweep.

  Walker's hand, she noticed, had tightened on hers, but he hadn't torn his gaze from the screen.

  "Rumors have been confirmed that heiress Valentina Richmond vanished from this upscale department store Thursday, slipping away from her bodyguards as they waited for her outside a rest room. They found only her beige satin slip, which she'd left hanging on a hook."

  Choking back a hysterical giggle, Claire anchored the elbow of her free arm on the table and pressed a trembling fist to her mouth. She hadn't realized she'd left her slip.

  Across the photos flashed the headline Valentina Gives Guards The Slip. Who, she wondered, came up with headlines like that? Did they graduate from headline-writing school with an A in punmanship?

  With her face hot and her pulse a dull roar in her ears, she prayed that the newscast would finish quickly with her, but the story dragged on. Although they acknowledged the existence of the note she'd left for her uncle, which had merely stated her need to get away by herself, they ruminated on the possibility of a kidnapping. The photos then switched to various locales, showing the Beverly Hills mansion her mother had designed, the New York town house where her grandfather had lived, the villa in the south of France where she'd entertained her so-called friends, the yacht her father had loved, and quick flashes of the other vacation cottages around the globe that she'd inherited. Although she knew she owned them all, she felt as if they belonged to someone else.

  "She hasn't been seen," the anchorwoman finished, "at any of her usual hangouts. If you have a tip about Valentina's disappearance, call our news hotline."

  Claire bent her head and concentrated on keeping her face averted from as many people as possible. She couldn't, however, hide from Walker. She braced herself for the inevitable glint of surprise she'd see on his face … possibly even shock … and whatever other emotions had been stirred by the discovery that he'd been intimate with the world-famous Valentina Richmond.

  An ache formed near her heart. She didn't think she could take it, if his interest suddenly intensified, or if dollar signs flashed in his eyes. Big, fast bucks and the glare of media lights awaited him, if he wished.

  When she slowly forced her gaze to meet his, she found that his expression hadn't changed much. He regarded her with the same solemn intensity that had underscored his question about her poetry. But the knowledge certainly glimmered in his stare—the truth and the lies.

  "Hey!" cried the waitress, balancing a tray of dirty dishes beside their table and peering closely at Claire. "You look just like her. No kidding, you really do!"

  The men at the dining counter swiveled around to gape, and families at surrounding tables craned their necks to see her. She heard a few murmurs, "Yeah, she does… Just like her."

  "You're even wearing sunglasses like she was," noted the waitress, "and carrying the same purse."

  Claire stiffened with alarm. A false smile settled on her lips as she frantically searched for a reply. Her hand, already held by Walker, now gripped his in a painful squeeze.

  She heard him laugh—a booming, jovial laugh that she knew to be as false as her own smile, though he pulled it off remarkably well. "How about that, honey? They think you look like that Perfume Princess on the news!" In the same loud, husbandly tone he'd used at the airport, he addressed the room at large. "I hope this doesn't go to her head. Yesterday someone told her she sounded like Barbra Streisand, and I had to listen to her belting out 'People Who Need People' all night. Who knows what she'll be doing now?"

  Chuckles sounded from around the room. The cook behind the counter muttered something about his wife thinking she was Gladys Knight and wanting him to be her Pip. The waitress shook her head with a smile, but continued to scrutinize Claire.

  Though her tongue felt heavy and her body disjointed, Claire drew on her many years of training in the public eye. "Oh, go on, Jim. You liked my singing just as well as Barbra's. And maybe I never mentioned it during our twelve years of marriage, but I am that Perfume Princess." Widening her smile, Claire cocked her head toward Walker and said to the waitress, "Take this peasant to the dungeon, will ya, hon?"

  The group around them broke into laughter and hooted.

  Walker stood with an exaggerated grimace and dropped a few bills on the table. "I better get her out of here before she starts thinking about buying one of those yachts. C'mon, Suzanne."

  "That's 'Your Highness' to you," she corrected with exaggerated arrogance. More laughs rang out. She rose on shaky legs, grateful for the supporting arm he wrapped around her.

  Teasing comments followed them to the door.

  "Make him bow, Suzanne!"

  "Make him buy you one of them chateaus in the south of France!"

  "Then throw him in the dungeon!"

  The door closed on the crowd's lively hilarity.

  Claire wasn't sure her legs would hold out all the way to the car. He half carried her the last few steps, then smoothly deposited her into the passenger seat. Taking his place behind the wheel, he started up the car and threw her a staid glance. "Breathe."

  She did as he said—sucked a huge gulp of breath into her lungs, and then exhaled it. "Again," he instructed.

  She struggled through the process again. Amazingly enough, her lungs gradually geared into automatic, and sensation trickled back into her arms, fingers and toes. The trembling, though, had moved from her legs to the rest of her body.

  What if Walker hadn't been there? What if she'd been dependent on a taxi driver to make her getaway? The driver himself might have recognized her. She would have been trapped, embarrassed, thrown to the media wolves. Walker had acted quickly and effectively. Even if the worst had occurred and the crowd had identified her beyond a doubt, she felt sure Walker would have physically swept her up and bundled her out of there before the media could have reached them.

  He was a very good man to have in her corner. But was he really in her corner now?

  He drove in silence, just as he had earlier this morning. An odd reaction to discovering such shocking news. She wondered what thoughts his unreadable expression concealed. Was he trying to decide on the most profitable course of action? She didn't want to think that; didn't even want to suspect it. But she'd been betrayed by friends, servants, even family members who had sold stories and pictures of her to the media. She couldn't allow herself to expect better from anyone.

  Somehow this doubt about Walker hurt more than the other betrayals themselves had.

  He surprised her by turning down a sandy road toward the beach. Windswept dunes swelled around them—rolling hills of malt-colored sand and waving sea oats, driftwood and dried seashells. The sound of the surf grew louder, and when the sparkling Gulf came into view, Walker parked the car and got out.

  She waited unti
l she was sure her legs would carry her, then followed his footsteps in the sand. Had he gone to make a call on his cell phone? Would the media be descending on them in droves, and the tabloids waving five- or six-figure checks in his direction? No, she couldn't make herself believe he'd be like so many others in her life.

  She stopped beside him as he stood on the crest of a sandy mound and gazed out to sea, his hands in his pockets, his ebony hair riffling in the gusty breeze. After a prolonged silence, he said, "You weren't going to tell me, were you?"

  Her voice emerged as a rusty whisper. "No."

  "You were just going to grab a taxi and let me find out who you were later."

  "Yes."

  The wind dusted them with hot gusts of sand and bright white heat radiated from the surrounding dunes. Gulls circled and squawked overhead. The sun glared from the east, the smell of the sea misted the air and the sky shifted in pretty patterns of blue and fluffy white.

  He seemed to be angry. She hadn't expected that.

  She pushed her sunglasses back on her head, wanting to face him one last time without the shaded barrier between them. "Walker, I'm sorry. When I lied about my identity, well … it was nothing personal."

  "Nothing personal? Ah. I see." He shifted his gaze to her. "Are you saying you don't consider the things we did together personal?"

  "No, of course not. I only meant—"

  "Is it considered sport in your exalted circles to masquerade as someone else … in bed?"

  She stared at him, mortified. He deserved a sound slap for the insult. But oddly enough, the sharp words didn't bother her nearly as much as they should have. Another man might have been gloating to think he'd bedded a celebrity, or eager to win her favor. Walker was simply and honestly pissed off. Not that she intended to allow the insult to go unanswered.

  "Oh, yes, bed masquerades are all the rage," she answered coolly. "We heiresses slip out at night to dupe the locals. It's always so much fun to read about it in the tabloids whenever we're caught."

  They faced off in tense silence.