“Well, I only intend to have the one,” I said.
We hid the pickup behind a copse of trees on the back side of the estate and walked up the access road to the stable. The hole in my side stung. The sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving a sliver of moon to bathe the pastures and gardens in dim, gray light. One of the collies that roamed the estate slept outside the stable entrance. He growled as we approached. I called his name softly, snapping my fingers to silence him. He wagged his tail and lowered his muzzle to his paws, contented.
Although it was only a few hundred yards through the tunnel, I was sweating and out of breath in minutes. Using my access key card for entry, we entered through a service door and crept up one of the many employee staircases to my office. Rourke was next door, sleeping. My body thrummed at the knowledge of her nearness. Just a few more minutes and I could hold her in my arms again.
“You gotta rest,” Spitz said.
I ignored him and dialed Gerald’s direct line. He answered on the first ring. “Gerald, come to my study.” I gave him strict orders to keep our presence in the home a secret until further notice. “Don’t tell a soul. No one. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” He spoke softly without his usual stiff formality. “It’s good to hear from you. We were concerned.”
His appreciation warmed my heart. “It’s good to be here, Gerald.”
Within minutes, Gerald arrived wearing a housecoat and slippers. It was the first time I’d ever seen him in anything other than his livery. He shook my hand, his grip tight and reassuring. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Gerald, this is Spitz. He needs a room and a hot shower, preferably away from prying eyes. Is there anything suitable in the west wing?”
“Yes, I believe so. I’ll see to it right away.” The two men shook hands.
“Where is Mrs. Menshikov?” I asked. I intended to spend the night with my wife, if she’d have me, and sneak back to my study during daylight hours. “Is she in her room?”
“She’s in the west drawing room, sir. Would you like me to get her?”
“Is she alone?”
“Yes, sir. I believe the other guests have retired for the evening.”
“Perfect. I’ll go to her.” I thanked him for his discretion then made my way toward Rourke. The home had been built with secret passages to allow easy access to the servants and to keep them invisible from the lords and ladies of the manor. I silently thanked the architect as I opened a panel into the drawing room. I often used the passages to spy on my guests and had copied the design into Devil’s Playground NYC.
Rourke stood at the far end of the room. Her pale pink dress contrasted nicely with the dark green wallpaper and rich wood paneling. She looked like she belonged here, my princess. I took a second to admire her as she gazed out the window, a faraway expression on her face. Seeing her put a crack in my self-control.
“Rourke.”
When I said her name, she whirled to face me. The teacup in her hand fell to the floor and shattered into a dozen tiny pieces. “Roman?” She sprinted toward me, slipping momentarily on the spilled tea. I grunted as she threw her arms around my neck. “You’re here.” She kept repeating the same words over and over. I stroked her hair. Her violent trembling vibrated through me. I tightened my hold on her, ashamed I’d caused her so much distress. “I was so scared.”
“Easy, love.” I pressed a kiss to her temple and savored her smell, the one I’d been dreaming about for the past twenty-four hours. “You’re safe. I’m here.”
“Let me see you. Are you okay?” She pushed back to arm’s length and scrutinized every inch of my body, running her hands over my arms and chest. Her gaze locked on the red stain on my side. She lifted the edge of my shirt. When her fingertips grazed the dressing, I hissed at the needles of pain. “You’re bleeding. Jeez, Roman. Sit down. What happened?”
“Someone shot me, but I’m fine.” Despite my brave words, I sank gratefully into the nearest chair. The sight of my own blood made my knees weak. “Spitz is here too. He’s in one of the guest rooms.”
“Do you need a doctor?” She shifted from foot to foot, her hands fluttering through the air between us. “This doesn’t look good.”
“Rourke, breathe.” I trapped her hands between mine. “Look at me.”
“Someone really did try to kill you?” Her eyes, wide with panic and hazy from unshed tears, met mine. She jerked her hands free and pressed one to her chest. “It’s true, isn’t it? The war in Kitzeh—you’re involved.”
“It’s true.” I reached for her again, but she took two steps in reverse, bumping the small table behind her in her haste to escape me.
“Don’t touch me.” The chill in her eyes frightened me more than death.
15
Rourke
The ache in my chest escalated to a new extreme. A dozen conflicting emotions warred within me—relief, irritation, anger, and frustration. I wanted to hug him and slap him and make love to him within the space of a minute. He eased into the leather club chair, his movements slow and choppy. In the time I’d known him, he’d never been less than a prime example of health. He was pale. Shadows of exhaustion smudged beneath his eyes. Seeing him in this weakened state made me a little crazy.
“You’re going to tell me everything.” I crossed my arms over my chest. As much as I wanted clarification about the past few days, his health came first. “But first, we’re going to change that bandage. Let me call someone to help.”
“No.” He started to move and winced. “No one can know I’m here. Only Gerald.”
“Come to the bathroom. Let’s get you cleaned up.” I took Roman’s hand and led him into the adjoining powder room. The tiny room held a sink, toilet, and small dressing table with a stool. He eased onto the seat and stared at me with haunted, dark eyes. This uncertainty in his gaze was new for him and scared me. My husband had feared nothing, but this man carried more than physical pain deep inside him.
“It’s worse than it looks,” he said. I tugged his shirt over his head, baring the smooth, muscular chest of my dreams, then paled at the sight of the blood-stained bandage. His breath caught as I teased the edges of the gauze away from the wound.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“What do you think?” His voice was thin and tense.
“Good,” I replied but smiled at him to ease the tension between us.
He chuckled then groaned at the movement of his ribs. “I was lucky. It’s just a flesh wound. The bullet went in one side, out the other, and didn’t hit anything vital.” The edges of the round, flat holes were red and swollen. The sweet, putrid odor of infection seeped from the wounds. A wave of nausea threatened the contents of my stomach. I rested both hands on the rim of the sink and tried to breathe through my mouth.
“You don’t look so good,” Roman said.
“I’m fine.” After a few splashes of cold water to my face and wrists, I regained my composure. I’d never been squeamish before, but the blood had never belonged to my husband. “Explain to me what’s going on.” I wanted to distract him from the pain of cleaning the wound, as well as get to the truth.
In slow, halting words, he proceeded to tell me the story. “Since my parents were executed, my country—Kitzeh—has been ruled by a murderous regime. I’ve used my connections and power to funnel arms to their enemies. A few days ago, I called in enough favors to breach their borders.” I kept quiet, biting the inside of my cheek to hold back questions. His voice wavered and thinned when I poured the antiseptic into the wounds, but he kept talking. “I was supposed to meet with one of our allies in Zurich, but all I got was this bullet.” Once I’d changed the bandage, we moved into the study. He sat on the loveseat, and I sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of him. “In retaliation for my interference, they’re going to execute one person every day until I turn myself over to them. I never knew the situation would escalate to this point.”
I studied his face, the high cheekbon
es, square jaw, and the fullness of his lips—lips that had touched every part of my body over the past six months. This man was a stranger to me. “How can you say you didn’t know? Safe houses, escape routes, body doubles.” I wanted to believe him, but the evidence contradicted his words. “You’ve been preparing for this day for a long time.”
“Ivan insisted on the contingency plans. I was too arrogant to believe anything might go wrong.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I should have listened to him. Maybe I could have done something more—something to save him and the others.”
A cold finger of dread stabbed my chest. I closed my eyes. “Where is Ivan?” He said nothing. I opened my eyes to find him staring at the wool rug beneath his boots. “Roman? Why isn’t Ivan here?”
Grief etched lines around his mouth. The proud line of his shoulders drooped. In an instant, I knew the answer. Tears streamed down Roman’s cheeks. “He’s gone.”
“What do you mean—gone?” Although my heart recognized the truth in his words, my brain couldn’t accept it. I curled my fingers into fists, my nails biting into the flesh of my palms.
“They were waiting for us when we stepped off the plane. I heard the gunfire. He was dead before he hit the ground. I—I—I couldn’t do anything to save him.”
A sob wracked my body. I buried my face in my hands as grief bowled over me. Ivan was gone. Flashes of his snapping black eyes and dry wit peppered my memories. Julie was going to be devastated. Roman tried to put an arm around my shoulders, but I shoved him away. “Don’t touch me.” Two days ago, I would have sought his comfort, but anger and resentment blossomed inside me.
“Rourke.” The broken anguish in his voice resonated through my heart.
“You promised to stop hiding things from me. And now this? This is big, Roman. How could you bring me into something like this without warning me?”
“If I had told you, would you have still married me?” He reached out to touch my hand, but I withdrew it to a safe distance. If he touched me, I might cave in to the physical chemistry between us, and I was too angry and betrayed now.
“No. I don’t know. Maybe.” With the back of my hand, I swiped away the moisture on my cheeks. “But at least I could have made the decision for myself.”
With a sigh, he let his hand drop to his thigh. “If you think wars fund themselves, then you’re naïve. It takes a lot of time and money to defend a country. War is big business. I work in conjunction with various governments to subdue rebel factions in countries too poor or too small to defend themselves. Every time you hear about a small army overthrowing its oppressors, you can bet I had a hand in it somewhere. This conflict just happens to be with my native country.”
“I get that you want to help, even if your methods are unsavory. What I don’t understand is how you let me sit here, worried out of my mind. You could have left a note or a text or sent a smoke signal.” The more I thought about it, the more agitated I became. I jumped to my feet and stomped back and forth across the floor in front of the hearth. Our voices had risen to shouting level.
“We had to be sure no one was tracking your phones or following you.” His hands fisted, turning his knuckles white. We’d never had an argument like this before. Usually, we found common ground, but this time was different. Every word put distance between us. “This was the most secure location for you. I did what I had to do to keep you safe. Don’t you get that?”
“When can I go home?” I stopped next to the window and stared down at the fountain in the circle drive. Colored lights glistened on the spray of water. Floodlights illuminated the front of the house. Darkness stretched beyond the edges of the driveway. I shivered at the sensation of seclusion, so different from the chaos and cramped closeness of Manhattan. My feelings of isolation centered more around the distance between my husband and me than the location of the estate.
“You don’t like it here?”
“I love this place. It’s you I’m not so fond of at the moment. I can’t even look at you.” Fat raindrops slapped the windows. I wrapped my arms around my waist, trying to find relief from the tension in the room. I needed time to process what he’d told me, to come to terms with who he was. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m heading to bed.”
He followed me to the door. Every fiber in my body yearned to hold him close, but I couldn’t get past the betrayal. Why hadn’t he confided in me? The thought of lying next to him in a marital bed of lies made my stomach churn. Maybe Gerald could find a spare room for me. He’d said there were twenty. Surely one of them could accommodate me.
A vision of Aunt May intruded on my thoughts. She’d been married to Uncle Tim for forty-plus years. When I’d asked her the secret to a long and happy marriage, she’d said they’d argued a lot but always set aside their differences before going to bed. I’d been married less than two weeks and already had doubts about my husband.
I pushed a hand through my hair, too tired to care about the way I looked. “I really, really don’t like you right now.”
“I get it.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” I faced him, keeping an arm’s length between us. “But we’re both tired and need rest. Let’s get some sleep. We can talk in the morning.”
Roman touched a sconce in the hallway. A panel of the wall popped open to a dark, narrow corridor barely the width of my shoulders. Creepy shadows and cobwebs sent shivers up my back. After a series of twists and turns, we emerged behind a bookcase. It swung into our bedroom on silent hinges.
He moved stiffly to the bed and began undressing. His shoulders drooped. Exhaustion lined his face. My heart broke for him—for us. Two days ago, we’d been on top of the world. Today, we seemed to be heading in opposite directions. I needed to find a way to move past his betrayal. No matter how angry I was, he was still my husband, and beneath my frustrations, I still loved him.
“You need a shower,” I said gently. Empathy triumphed over my anger. I might be furious, but I wasn’t a monster.
“I can’t get the bandage wet.”
“I’ll help you.” With my fingers threaded through his, I directed him to the bathroom. While he finished undressing, I turned on the water and stripped out of my clothes. Together, we climbed under the spray. Using the shower nozzle and a bath sponge, I gently washed his body, careful to avoid his dressing. With dark, hooded eyes, he watched my hands trail the sponge over his legs and arms. Neither of us spoke. The intimacy of the act stirred an ache between my legs. How could I be physically attracted to him and angry at the same time? I didn’t understand my conflicting feelings. Once he was clean, I dried him off and led him back to the bed.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice rough and cracked. He sank into the soft mattress with a groan of relief.
“You’re welcome.” I turned on my side to face him and smoothed his damp hair away from his forehead. “Just so you know, you’re not forgiven.”
He was silent for a long time. “I understand. No matter how angry you are, you can’t be as angry as I am with myself.”
I studied his noble profile, his long, straight nose, strong chin, and intelligent forehead. He looked at home in the giant bed, surrounded by velvet and silk. No matter how hard I tried, I could never understand what he’d been through—the loss of a kingdom, the assassination of his parents, the constant threats of harm to himself and his family.
“I’m sorry about Ivan.” At my words, tears welled again in my eyes. Roman swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. I curled into his good side and held him close. When I smoothed a hand along the side of his face, his cheek was wet. “He was a good man.”
“Yes.” His single word carried a truckload of pain. The span of his chest lifted and fell with a long exhale. “I need to tell Julie.”
“We will. First thing in the morning.” It was almost two o’clock. I didn’t want to wake her in the middle of the night.
“Please don’t leave me.” Roman’s whispered words revealed a vulnerability I’d never seen in him
before. His fingers threaded through mine. He pulled our clasped hands to his chest. Beneath my palm, his heart beat strong and steady.
“Get some rest.” I ignored his request and nuzzled my nose into the curve of his neck. Even though I was furious with him, he needed me. There was plenty of time to be angry tomorrow or the next day, but for now, I was grateful to have him alive and close to me. Tonight, I chose to love him for better or worse.
16
Rourke
At dawn, I woke to damp sheets and an uneasy feeling. I threw aside the covers and blinked at the streaks of pink and gray through the sky outside our windows. Under other circumstances, I would have opened the French doors and stood on the balcony to enjoy nature’s show, but not today. Today was for grieving and recovery and finding a way out of the disaster we’d landed in. I stretched and glanced over at Roman. He had one arm thrown over his head. Damp strands of hair clung to his flushed forehead. I pressed the back of my hand to his cheek. His skin burned against mine.
“Roman? Wake up.” I gave his shoulder a gentle shake.
He blinked but seemed unable to open his eyes, like his eyelids were too heavy. “What?”
“You’re on fire. I think you have a fever.”
“No, I gave that up years ago,” he murmured. I sat up. His glassy gaze met mine.
“Roman, you’re not making sense.” Panic knotted in my chest. The house phone rested on the bedside table. I dialed Gerald’s number. He answered right away, sounding as if he’d been awake for hours. “Mr. Menshikov is very ill. We need a doctor. Right away. And bring up as much ice as you can find.”
A few minutes later, Spitz knocked on the door. “Gerald called me.” We’d met twice before at the penthouse. Both times he’d been clean-shaven and silent, ghosting in Ivan’s footsteps. He ran a self-conscious hand over the new beard on his jaw. “What’s wrong?”
The Exiled Prince Trilogy Page 31