by JoAnn Ross
The other man uttered a sound of sheer disgust. "What do you think?"
"I think that I would like to trade places with O'Bannion, for just one night."
"Don't get any ideas. You are not being paid to spice up your sex life."
"So what's wrong with mixing a little pleasure with business? So long as I get the job done?"
"It's not in the plan."
"Hey, you're the boss," the bearded man said. "Forget I mentioned it." As he returned his attention to Chantal's darkened window, his teeth gleamed in the darkness. "Soon," he murmured under his breath.
"Soon," his companion agreed, flipping his cigarette out the window. The tip gleamed in a sparkling red arc for an instant before being doused in a puddle.
Caine was sifting through Chantal's file, searching for some clue he'd overlooked, when the strident ringing of the telephone shattered the predawn silence.
"O'Bannion."
"Caine," James Sebring said without preamble, "you and Chantal have company."
Instantly alert, Caine reached for the shoulder holster he'd put on the end table immediately upon entering the room. "What kind of company?"
"All we know is that a man called the State Department late this afternoon, asking for you."
"And?"
"The receptionist confirmed that you were on assignment."
"That satisfied him?"
"For now." There was a moment's hesitation. "Caine, be careful. I wouldn't want your mother receiving a posthumous medal for you in another rose garden ceremony."
"That makes two of us," Caine agreed. "Don't worry, sir. If it looks as if Drew and I can't handle this alone, I'll request additional help."
"You do that," the director answered promptly. Once he considered a problem taken care of, he was able to put it behind him and get on with other matters. For a man responsible for the safety of the president and vice president, their families, former presidents, their wives and children, major presidential and vice presidential candidates, not to mention visiting heads of state and distinguished foreign visitors, such an attitude was imperative. "By the way, how are you and Chantal getting along?"
"She's an interesting woman," Caine hedged.
" 'Interesting'." The director chortled. "That's one word for her, I suppose, although not the one I would have used. Has she thrown you any curveballs yet?"
"None that I can't handle, sir."
"Just hang in there and keep swinging," he advised.
"Yes, sir."
"You'll be certain to keep me informed about anything suspicious, won't you, Caine?"
"That goes without saying, sir."
"Good. Good. And meanwhile, Prince Eduard's men are working to uncover something in Montacroix, but so far, they keep running into dead ends. Damn, if we could just come up with a motive, we might know where to start looking."
"Have they spoken with her former husband?"
"Of course. He's currently in Africa, preparing for some Saharan road race. From what I'm told, the scoundrel is too busy romancing the ladies to worry about killing his ex-wife. What time do you leave for New York?"
"Ten-thirty."
"Call me when you land. We're still trying to trace that call to the State Department. Perhaps we'll have some luck."
Caine agreed, said goodbye, then hung up. Then he returned to the file, looking for the single clue that would ensure Chantal's safety.
During the next ten days, as the exhibit moved from Washington to New York, Chantal and Caine fell into an easy routine. She insisted on beginning each day with a morning run, so he always stopped by her hotel room door shortly before seven, prepared to accompany her through the nearby neighborhood.
Although Chantal steadfastly refused to believe her father and brother's assertion that she was in any danger, she couldn't deny that after her initial fright that first morning, she found Caine's company vaguely reassuring. Not to mention that the sight of his strong legs clad in a well-worn pair of white shorts, hard thigh muscles flexing with each stride, was more stimulating than a dozen cups of coffee.
Following the invigorating exercise, they'd go their separate ways again, meeting an hour later for their drive to the museum, where Chantal would spend yet another exhausting day holding court over the Montacroix exhibition. As he watched her standing hour after hour on those ridiculously high heels, ever smiling, Caine decided that being a princess might just be a tougher job than he'd first believed.
During those long days when he remained nearby, watching over her like a Praetorian guard, Caine attempted to unravel the mystery of Chantal's potential assassins. While he had not been at all surprised to learn that there actually was a Max Leutwiler working at Credit Suisse, neither had it come as any revelation that the good banker was still in Geneva, where he'd been every day for the past three months. Obviously, the car parked outside Chantal's hotel had been rented by an imposter.
But who was he? And where was he? And when was he going to make his move?
Those questions tormented Caine every hour of the day and into the night, when over dinner in some out-of-the-way place—Chantal, to his surprise, consistently eschewed all the "in" restaurants—he'd carefully pump her for information about her life in Montacroix, trying to find something that might provide a clue.
"I believe it's going well, all things considered, don't you think?" she asked on their last night in New York. After a somewhat heated discussion over whether Tex-Mex qualified as authentic Hispanic fare—Caine insisted it didn't, while Chantal's ubiquitous tour book recommended it highly—they'd settled on a cozy Mexican restaurant in the heart of the theater district.
"Better than well. If you pull in a third as many people in the rest of the cities, you can consider your tour a smashing success."
"Please," she murmured, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling, "let's not talk about the upcoming travels."
"You sound tired."
"I am, a bit."
"It's no wonder, considering the grueling hours you've been putting in. Personally I'm surprised that your lips haven't frozen into that royal smile."
"You mean they haven't?" Chantal asked with mock surprise.
"Not yet. You know, I really am impressed."
"Oh?"
"You're not at all what I expected," Caine admitted.
"Ah, yes. That pleasure-seeking princess of the tabloids."
Although Caine would never consider himself guilty of stereotyping, he couldn't deny that he always felt more comfortable when he could categorize people. In a way, his work encouraged such a habit; on more than one occasion, he'd utilized the FBI's assassin profile to uncover some potentially dangerous crackpot.
"I knew they were probably exaggerating," he said on a half shrug, "yet—"
"Where there's smoke, surely there must be fire," Chantal finished for him.
Caine was uncomfortable, which was a distracting feeling for him. He was accustomed to being in control of both mind and body. Yet lately, his mind—both waking and sleeping—had been filled with thoughts of Chantal. And if that wasn't bad enough, he thought as her tongue gathered in a few of the salt crystals garnishing the rim of her glass, desire kept slamming into him.
"Tell me about your marriage," he said, struggling to turn the conversation back to his mission.
He'd already determined that the male ascendancy rule kept her from being a threat to anyone not wanting a Giraudeau on the throne. And his confidential report gathered by intelligence sources in Montacroix had stated that although a few old-timers resented her mother's affair with the prince, everyone in the country appeared genuinely fond of their headstrong, glamorous princess.
It was then Caine had thought of her race car driving husband. What if he was the dangerous type who refused to let go?
His reference to her ill-fated marriage coming as a complete surprise, Chantal paused in the act of tugging a cheese-covered chip from a mountain of nachos. "Why on earth would you want to know about that?"
<
br /> "You're the one who doesn't want me to think you're the princess in the papers," he pointed out. "I'm just attempting to separate fact from fiction."
"My marriage was a mistake."
"So are fifty percent of the ones in this country. But they don't receive nearly so many headlines."
"Why do I have the feeling that there's more to your question than mere curiosity?"
"Beats me."
She'd managed to extricate the chip and took a bite, eyeing Caine thoughtfully as she chewed. "All right, among other things, Greg Masterson was a pathological liar. In the beginning, I was too infatuated with him to notice the warning signs. Later, I developed sort of a built-in radar, like those—what do they call them—those instruments that sense earthquakes."
"Seismographs."
Chantal nodded. "That's it. I possess a very accurate internal seismograph, Caine. And at this moment its needle is going off the chart."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it?"
"All right," Caine hedged, wondering exactly how to squirm out of this one. "It's more of a half-truth. Sort of a white lie."
During his childhood years, first his father, then later the nuns at Saint Gregory's Catholic School, had punished him severely every time he'd attempted to tell a lie. Being a bright kid who caught on fast, Caine had decided that it was easier and a great deal less painful to stick to the truth. The outcome of such youthful lessons was that Caine was a lousy liar. Yet in the past ten days, he'd probably been forced to tell more falsehoods than he had in his entire thirty-three years.
" 'A white lie,'" Chantal repeated, her tone inviting elaboration.
"I was just trying to figure out what kind of damn fool would let you get away," he said, surprised to discover as he heard the words leave his lips that there was more truth to the quickly thought up explanation than he had intended.
His tone, gruff with the desire he'd been trying to conceal, gave the proper veracity to his words. As she stared across the table at him, Chantal felt that same draining weakness she'd experienced too many times to count.
"That's a very nice thing to say," she managed, her own voice husky as she struggled to clear it.
"It's the truth."
Chantal would have found his words far more encouraging if he hadn't looked so angry. "So you are attracted to me. I'd wondered."
Caine knew it would be futile to lie. "What man wouldn't be?" he returned with forced casualness. "You're beautiful, intelligent, albeit a bit stubborn—"
"I prefer tenacious," Chantal murmured.
"Stubborn," Caine insisted. "Hardheaded. Like a Missouri mule."
"A Missouri mule?" she inquired, allowing herself to be sidetracked by a reference she didn't understand. "This is a new American expression to me. Why not a Washington mule? A Kansas mule? Or even a Montacroix mule?"
"Hey, it's just a saying, okay? I don't have any idea where it came from."
"Perhaps they raise a great many mules in the state of Missouri," Chantal suggested helpfully.
"Perhaps that's it. The point I was making, before I was interrupted—" Caine was cut off by the arrival of the waiter with their main course.
"You were saying?" Chantal asked once they were alone again.
"I was just attempting to explain that any man would be attracted to a woman like you," he said gruffly.
"But some men would not be happy about it. You are not happy about it."
He put down his fork to meet her strangely vulnerable gaze. "Look, Chantal, it's nothing personal."
"It's not?"
Damn, she definitely wasn't making this easy for him. "Of course it's not. Whatever I feel for you—"
"And I for you," she interjected quietly.
"Whatever we feel, the fact remains that we live in two different worlds. You're a princess, for crying out loud, and I'm just a, uh, deputy under secretary of state."
Her dark eyes displayed hurt. "I did not realize that Americans believed in class distinctions."
"We don't, but—"
"Yet," she continued gravely, her eyes not leaving his, "you are willing to turn your back on whatever is happening between us because of artificial barriers."
"They're not artificial," he insisted.
How could she not see that they came from different worlds? Different universes. His days consisted of long, often boring work, and although traveling with the president of the United States had its moments, his life was far removed from the glitter and wealthy circles a princess moved in. He lived in a comfortable, two-bedroom apartment in one of the city's more eclectic neighborhoods; she resided in a palace. He made a decent living; her jewels alone were worth more than the entire treasuries of most Third World nations.
"Your food's getting cold," he pointed out, looking at her untouched plate of enchiladas, tacos, rice and refried beans.
"I'm suddenly no longer hungry."
"Now that's a first."
"As you so succinctly pointed out," Chantal said, "I'm full of surprises." Rising from the table, she marched out of the restaurant, leaving Caine to follow.
The ride back to the hotel was a silent one. A short, intermittent rain had begun during their dinner, and the only sound in the limousine was the swish-swish of the wipers as they brushed the water off the windshield.
"Aren't you at all curious?" she asked finally.
"Curious?"
They'd stopped at a red light. Chantal's head was turned away, her gaze directed toward the rain-washed sidewalk where a man and woman were kissing under the protection of a wide black umbrella. As she watched the tender lovers so oblivious to the outside world, Chantal felt a sharp stab of envy like nothing she'd ever known.
"I've been wondering for days what it would be like to kiss you," she said. Her soft voice was little more than a whisper but easily heard in the intimate confines of the limousine.
"I suppose it's a natural enough curiosity."
"Then you have also wondered?"
Caine shrugged. "Of course. You're a remarkably enticing woman. Princess. Any man would be tempted to kiss you."
"Yet you're not a man to easily succumb to temptation, are you, Caine?"
"No. I'm not."
He was an absolute paragon of restraint. Chantal found herself admiring Caine even though his rigid self-control was driving her crazy. She sighed softly. "Then I'm afraid we have a slight problem."
"What's that?"
"Unlike you, I've always believed in following my instincts. And to tell the truth, I'm not certain I can get through another night without knowing."
As the light turned green and the car started through the intersection, she leaned toward Caine, her eyes gleaming with sensual intent.
5
Muttering a soft oath, Caine succumbed to the inevitable as Chantal brushed her lips lightly against his, tasting, testing.
She had thought she'd known what Caine's kiss would be like, but as he drew her closer, she realized that even her most vivid fantasy paled in the face of reality.
It wasn't that his mouth was harsh or impatient. To her surprise, he made no attempt to rush them into quick intimacy. When the tip of his tongue circled her parted lips, she sighed. When his teeth nibbled enticingly at her lower lip, she trembled. And when he slipped his tongue between her lips to touch hers, she sighed again and shuddered.
Chantal had grown up in the lap of wealth and privilege. Never had she known need. Until now. As every tingling nerve ending in her body became focused on her mouth, on the sheer glory Caine was capable of bringing to a mere kiss, Chantal, for the first time in her life, experienced true hunger.
"Well? Is your curiosity satisfied?" he asked, nibbling gently on her earlobe.
"Oh, not yet." Her hands went to either side of his face, drawing his lips back to hers. "More."
"Anything you say, Your Highness," he said against her mouth. He'd tried to resist her and failed. Now the only thing to do was to accept this for what it was—an except
ional, once-in-a-lifetime experience—then get on with his life.
A longing slowly built up inside Chantal as Caine kissed her with a patience that made her bones melt. His lips plucked at hers, tenderly, teasingly, before skimming up her face, leaving sparks on every inch of heated skin: the crest of her cheekbones, her eyelids, her temples, her chin. When his treacherous mouth loitered at the base of her throat, she heard a slow, drugged moan of pleasure and realized that it had escaped her own tingling lips.
Clouds covered her mind as he murmured to her, quiet, enticing words that thrilled her as she felt them being formed against her mouth. Degree by glorious degree he deepened the kiss until what had once been soft and gentle grew more demanding.
It was torture. Ecstasy. It was torment. Bliss. The rainy world outside the limousine tilted, then slowly slipped away as Chantal's attention centered solely on Caine's sinfully talented lips. It was as if he meant to kiss her endlessly, and as her avid mouth clung to his, Chantal prayed he'd never stop.
He'd thought he was safe. What harm could there be in a simple kiss? All right, Caine allowed, so it wasn't a simple kiss, but hadn't he realized that would be the case? There hadn't been anything simple about the Princess Chantal yet, so why should he have expected this to be any different? As he felt her skin heating to his touch, felt her warm, soft lips move hungrily, almost desperately against his, he felt himself slowly, inexorably sinking into quicksand.
He'd kissed other women before. More than he could count. But as he kissed Chantal, all those other faces and names blurred into an indistinct, distant memory. He'd wanted other women before, but as an outrageous need to strip off her clothing and taste every fragrant inch of warm, satiny skin—to absorb her—raced through him, Caine knew that no other woman had ever made him burn this way. No other woman had ever made him weak.
Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the princess was like no woman he'd ever met. And that, Caine acknowledged grimly, was precisely what made her so dangerous.