by Merry Farmer
“Right.” Johan sighed. The steamy hunk faded into the figure of the responsible prince. He nodded to his brother—who promptly left the two of them alone—then turned back to Tracy. “I guess I’ll have to take a rain-check on this.”
Tracy’s insides shivered over the thought of what ‘this’ meant. “I guess so.”
“Can I see you again?” he asked. “Are you free for dinner Monday?”
“I’d love—no, I can’t.” The tragedy of the situation hit her straight in the sternum. “We head back to America tomorrow morning, first thing.”
Johan looked downright stricken. He inched toward her and opened his mouth, but around the corner, his brother called, “Johan! Now!”
Johan rubbed a hand over his face and growled in frustration. “What’s your phone number?” he asked. “And do you mind if I call you or text.”
“Go right ahead,” Tracy said, smiling again.
He whipped out his phone and she gave him her number. As soon as he typed it in, he took a step back, glancing to the corner. “Thanks. I wish we had more time.”
“Me too,” she called as he took a few sideways steps, then burst into a jog as he disappeared around the corner. Tracy let out a breath. “Hell, that settles it. I’m definitely coming back to Aegiria.”
Present Day….
The royal yacht docked amidst fanfare and cheering. Even though marina security was out in full force, throngs of Aegirians lined the boundaries and the streets to wave and throw flowers at the queen and Dr. Hayes as they stepped off the boat and headed to the limousine waiting to take them to the palace. The royal princes, along with their girlfriends—or fiancée in Toni’s case—waved and played the part of happy sons perfectly as they climbed into their own limo.
Tracy was dreading the confrontation she knew she’d have with her producer. He’d demand to know all sorts of things about why the camera hadn’t worked and why he’d been cheated out of what was supposed to be ratings gold for him. She hated making up those sorts of stories and was terrified she’d let something slip and mess the whole thing up.
Just about the time she was thinking of diving into the bay and swimming away to avoid everything, Johan marched up beside her and took her hand.
“You’re coming with us,” he said, pulling her along to the princes’ limo. “I’ve had a word with your cameraman. He’s going to explain things to your boss.”
“Thank God,” Tracy sighed. That was what she loved about Johan. He was reliable, steady, he took charge, and he included her while doing it.
She followed Johan to the limo, and as soon as they were all inside and the door was closed, tension doubled back on her.
“If Marina is at the palace, it won’t take long to find her,” Alek said.
“I’ll keep an eye out at the reception,” Arne offered immediately. “If she tries to blend in like nothing happened, I’ll take her aside and get her version of the story.”
Tracy sent Arne a sideways glance. It was nice that someone was still defending Princess Marina, but so far she herself hadn’t seen anything defensible.
“Tracy and I will check Marina’s private quarters,” Johan said. “To see if she’s sulking there.”
“Good idea,” Kristoff nodded. “Cass and I can comb the rest of the palace.”
“She might be hiding somewhere she thinks people won’t look,” Cass said.
“Someone’s got to actually go to the reception,” Alek said. “People will know something is up if most of us aren’t there.”
“Good point,” Mack said. He glanced to Gloria. “How about we take turns searching and schmoozing? Once Johan and Tracy get back from searching Aunt Marina’s quarters, then Kristoff and Cass can head out to look elsewhere.”
“It’s not ideal,” Alek said with a frown, “but it’ll have to do.”
More crowds lined the streets between the marina and the palace, but the royal limos slipped through the gates and into a secluded courtyard to let everyone out. They all smiled and waved to the people on the other side of the gates, but as soon as they were inside the palace, all smiles dropped.
“This shouldn’t take long,” Johan said, gesturing for Tracy to head down one of the side halls that split off the entry hall. “Either Marina is there or she’s not.”
“I hope you find her,” the queen said, a look of deep worry etching her face. “I’d like a word with that sister of mine.”
“It will be all right, Mother,” Alek assured her as Johan and Tracy set off.
The palace was bigger than any fancy hotel Tracy had ever been in, but the family quarters were just as grand. Everything was gilded and ancient, with that stately elegance that could only be found in the homes of European nobility. It filled Tracy with awe, but also made her feel as though she were walking through a movie set.
“This sure beats creeping into darkened electrical rooms, doesn’t it?” she said with a grin as she and Johan hurried down the hall and turned a corner.
Johan laughed. “I don’t think Aunt Marina’s quarters are going to be as easy to get into.”
“What, no one will have removed the doorknob for us in advance?” she joked.
“Nope,” he said. “But maybe this time we’ll get a chance to finish what we started.”
Tracy’s insides wobbled in all the best ways as they came to a stop in front of an unmarked door near the end of the hall. Johan arched one brow, looking at her lips. The heat of his look was a delicious distraction from the mission they were on, and it reminded her that, in spite of the fact that she’d been back in Aegiria for more than six weeks, longer even than Emma, they still hadn’t done more than make out a few times. She found herself wondering if there was a big, royal bed on the other side of the door where they stood, staring at each other.
Which was ridiculous. She shook herself, taking a breath to force herself to concentrate. “What do we do, knock?”
Johan shrugged, looking as though he was shaking himself into focus too.
“It’s worth a try,” he said, knocking. “I called Viggo on the way back to shore and he said he hadn’t seen her around the palace, but that could be because she’s holed up in here.”
But no reply came.
Johan knocked again, calling, “Aunt Marina,” but they were met with more silence.
“Should we find someone to unlock the door?” Tracy asked. “Or should we try to break it down.”
“We can’t go breaking down doors,” Johan said with a hint of scolding as Tracy reached for the doorknob. “Ivan would kill us over the damage.”
Before he could finish, Tracy had turned the doorknob. To her shock, it opened. “It’s not locked,” she said.
They exchanged a surprised look. Excitement zipped through her as she pushed the door all the way open. Why would someone of Princess Marina’s status leave the door to her private quarters unlocked? There was no telling what they’d find inside.
3
Johan’s stomach knotted with trepidation as Tracy rushed through the door and into Marina’s private quarters.
“Hold on.” He reached for her arm, stopping her from charging into potential danger.
Tracy twisted to face him with a look of excitement—and a touch of frustration—in her eyes. “What? It’s just some middle-aged woman’s apartment.”
Johan pressed his lips into a line, reaching for the light switch as he entered the apartment behind here. “I thought investigative journalists were supposed to be cautious.”
Tracy laughed, stepping deeper into the front room and looking around. “Definitely not. Inquisitive and restless is more like it.” She headed off to the kitchen on the left.
In spite of himself, Johan’s mouth twitched into a grin. “Well, be a little more cautious for me.”
“Okay,” she called back. He had the feeling she hadn’t really heard him. “Hey, look at this.”
There would be time later to lecture Tracy on being less reckless. Johan marched into the kitch
en, where he found Tracy standing next to an impeccably clean counter with a few state-of-the-art appliances in perfect order, holding a cell phone. He frowned as she handed it to him, the screen already lit, asking for a thumbprint ID to open.
“It’s Aunt Marina’s phone,” he said.
“It explains why no one could get in touch with her, but why would she leave it here?” Tracy asked. “What sane person in the twenty-first century goes anywhere without their cell phone?”
“Maybe she forgot it?” Johan asked, not believing it himself.
Tracy shifted her weight to one hip, planted her hands on her hips, and scanned the kitchen. “I don’t think she was kidnapped. There don’t seem to be any signs of struggle.”
“I think we’ve had enough of kidnapping to last a lifetime,” Johan drawled, setting the phone back on the counter. “There must be some other clue to where she’s gone, though.”
Tracy’s gaze met his. “Could she still be here?”
Johan rolled his shoulders uneasily, then called, “Aunt Marina?” He headed out of the kitchen, Tracy following him, and crossed from the front room to the large living room with giant windows that looked out on a picturesque view of Solrighavn and the bay beyond. “Aunt Marina?”
“She doesn’t entertain much,” Tracy said behind him.
Johan made it to the back of a custom-designed, modern sofa before turning to her with a slight frown. “What makes you say that?”
Tracy nodded around the room. “It looks like a show home. Fancy furniture, books, art. But no coasters, nothing that would invite people to sit on the furniture. And everything is in precise places.”
“Huh.” Johan scanned the room with new eyes. “I think you might be right.” In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d visited Marina at home. He didn’t think any of his other brothers had either, except maybe Arne. They socialized as a family in other parts of the palace.
Tracy moved to one of the bookshelves to check out the titles, but the itch that was beginning to form between Johan’s shoulder blades kept him moving. He left the living room and headed down the hall. Marina’s apartment had three bedrooms, but one was set up as an office. He walked right past that to her bedroom. There was an outside chance his aunt was taking a nap.
But when he knocked on the half-open door, then pushed it all the way open, the bedroom was as empty and well-kept as the living room. The scent of Marina’s perfume lingered in the air, though, giving the bedroom a greater sense of being lived in than the other rooms. Through the open door to the en suite bathroom, he could see a towel draped over a rack, looking like it’d been recently used. But the bed was neatly made, and the items on the dresser were perfectly arranged.
Items on the dresser. Johan frowned and moved closer to investigate. Rather than keeping it in a jewelry box, the majority of Marina’s necklaces, bracelets, and rings were displayed on stands and hooks. He’d seen her wear most of it before, but since things like that had never interested him, it’d barely registered. Seeing it now, looking like highlights from a jewelry store, piqued his curiosity. His aunt liked gold, but it was more than that. Almost every piece was set with a precious stone of some sort. A few of the larger necklaces were the sort of thing women wore to galas, but even the stuff he’d seen her wear every day had rubies, sapphires, emeralds, or diamonds worked into them.
“Ooh, that’s pretty.” Tracy stepped up beside him, reaching for a necklace made of emeralds that were set to look like leaves. “This must have cost a fortune.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Johan said, sounding far grimmer than he’d intended.
Tracy sent him a curious look, letting go of the necklace. “Your family is royalty. Don’t you have a fortune?”
His frown deepened, and he turned to survey the rest of the room. “We’re not hurting for cash,” he began slowly. “But most of our toys actually belong to the state—the yacht, the palace, half the cars. We all have income from our jobs, but it’s not enough to splurge on a treasure trove like this.”
Understanding dawned in Tracy’s eyes. “So where do you think Marina got all this jewelry? Does her job pay that much?”
A small, framed photograph on the bedside table caught Johan’s eye. “I doubt it,” he said, crossing to the table to get a better look.
“Does she have a boyfriend or someone who would give all this to her?”
The question came at an oddly precise time. He was about to answer that no, Marina hadn’t dated anyone since breaking up with Earl Herman Lindqvist years ago, when he realized what the photograph was. He picked it up and stared at it to be sure. It was a casual, candid shot of Marina in a sleek bathing suit on a tropical beach, smiling, a sunset in the background, and she had her arms around none other than Herman Lindqvist—who should never have been caught on film wearing a banana hammock. But there he was.
“So she does have a boyfriend,” Tracy said, looking at the picture over his shoulder.
“No.” Johan ran his free hand through his hair. “Marina and Earl Lindqvist broke up years ago.”
“Uh, no they didn’t.” Tracy reached around his arm to point at something in the background of the photograph. In the distance, a row of boardwalk buildings displayed signs in French. A banner was hanging in front of one of them that announced a fête and included the year. The current year. “This picture was taken recently.”
The knot in Johan’s stomach tightened. He stared at the picture for a few seconds more before handing it to Tracy. His thoughts roiled, but the only one that made it through his lips was, “They’re still together?”
He walked back to the dresser, scanning the jewelry before pulling open the top drawer and rifling through the underwear. A deep unease filled him, and with it, his suspicions rose. He wasn’t simply searching for clues to where his aunt had gone anymore. Something else was going on, and he needed to figure out what it was. There had to be more connecting Marina to Lindqvist, and he needed to find it.
“I think you’d look good in one of these,” Tracy said, an incongruous note of teasing in her voice.
“In what?” He glanced distractedly over his shoulder to her.
“One of those Speedos.” She put the photo down and swayed across the room to him. Her eyes flashed with mischief. Johan barely had time to turn around and face her before she had him pinned to the dresser, her hands brushing his lapels, then traveling lower.
Investigation? What investigation? He stretched into a lazy grin, resting his arms around her waist. “I’ll put on a suit like that, but I’m not going out in public with it.”
“Oh, I don’t need you in public.” She flickered her eyebrow.
“Yeah, the public has never really helped things between us,” he flirted right back.
“We do much better on our own.” She giggled—not a girlish sound, but a low, deep vibration that hinted at much more—and pressed in to kiss him….
Six weeks earlier….
Johan paced the airport lounge with quick, impatient steps. How long did it take a plane to land, taxi, and connect at the gate anyhow? He hadn’t received a text or phone call from Tracy in more than eight hours, and he was going into withdrawal.
“Calm down, will you?” Viggo laughed at him from the leather chair that faced out to the runway, flipping through a magazine. “You’re not going to speed the process along by wearing a hole in the carpet.”
“Spoken like a man who has never been in love,” Johan shot back to him. A second later, he caught the odd, pinched expression on Viggo’s face. “Sorry. That was stupid. Of course you’ve been in love.” Viggo’s relationship with Rebecca might have been a childish fling, even though they had a son together, but his brother had to have had some sort of feelings for the other women he’d dated, however briefly.
Rather than getting his nose out of joint, Viggo grinned. “I’m more surprised that you’re saying you’re in love.” He tossed his magazine aside and stood. “Didn’t you just meet
this woman once?”
Johan could feel the flush coming to his cheeks and hated it. His twin would never let him live down losing his head over a girl, especially one who had been an ocean and a continent away for the past two weeks.
“We’ve kept in touch,” he said. “Texts, Skype, you know.”
“Skype, eh?” Viggo’s smirked. “You two, uh, do anything, you know, digitally.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
The heat rushing to Johan’s face was like fire. The same sort of fire that’d kept him up for most of the night after his last video chat with Tracy before her return. Because yeah, things had gotten a little…interesting in their Skype session.
He was spared having to confess to webcam shenanigans when the door that led from the skywalk to the VIP lounge slid open. Suddenly, everything was forgotten. There she was, looking disheveled, bleary-eyed, jet-lagged, and even more beautiful than she’d looked backstage at the concert weeks before. Johan instantly ignored Viggo and rushed to pull her into his arms.
It didn’t matter that they’d only spent less than an hour physically in each other’s presence. He felt as though he’d known her his entire life. They’d been in each other’s pockets—literally, if you counted cell phones, and virtually—for more than two weeks now. Holding her at last was magical.
“Hello to you too,” she laughed, hugging him back.
The way she rested her weight against him hinted at how tired she was, but that only made Johan want her more. She was here now. He could look out for her. He could help her start the new life she’d been talking about, a new life that might just include him. He didn’t care who else was in the lounge, without hesitation, he kissed her deeply and thoroughly, molding her body against his and sighing with relief as their tongues twined.
It was the sound of a camera clicking that brought him back to his senses. They weren’t alone after all. A pack of American businessmen had poured through the sliding door behind Tracy, and even more travelers were watching them from the other side of the glass wall separating the lounge from the skywalk. And there he was, his arms wrapped around Tracy, their lips locked, and her leg hiked up over his hip…although when that had happened he couldn’t quite remember.