by JoAnn Ross
"You should have kicked the bastard out on the spot."
"I'd just taken my marriage vows three days earlier."
He took her icy hand in his, his thumb brushing lightly across her knuckles. "So had he," Caine reminded her, choking back a very strong urge to curse the man Chantal had married. "Don't they have women's liberation in Montacroix?"
"Of course, but when you grow up with parents who love each other the way mine do, you develop some very strong ideas about what a marriage should be. And one of those ideas is that you shouldn't run away the first time things get a little rough."
"Another rule of thumb is that you don't screw around on your spouse."
"I know." She gave a long sigh that rippled through her. "But in a way, you see, it was my fault."
"I find that difficult to believe."
"Not only couldn't I cook, but I wasn't very good at the physical part of marriage, either," she admitted with a low, strained voice he had to struggle to hear. There, she'd said it. Hearing the words out loud didn't make them less painful, she discovered.
Caine stared disbelievingly. "You are kidding."
"Not at all." She could feel the color rising in her cheeks. "I was a virgin when I married Greg."
"Did he know that?"
"Of course. Oh, I'd dated other men before him, although not nearly as many as those horrible tabloid newspapers alleged. I'd even been engaged briefly once, and during my teens I'd had a wild crush on Burke's cousin, Stephan Devouassoux. But I had been taught that lovemaking was something special, to be shared with that one person you wanted to spend your life with, and although such a belief always seemed natural to me, my virginity did tend to scare more than one man away."
"Their loss."
Chantal smiled. "Thank you."
He shrugged. "It's the truth. But Greg was different?"
"He said he admired the fact that I had such high standards, that I had, as he put it, saved myself for marriage. You've no idea how happy those words made me. I thought, finally, after all those years, I'd found someone who shared my feelings."
A slight frown crossed her face. "Burke tried to talk me out of the wedding. He said that Greg was the kind of man who would view an untouched bride as the ultimate challenge. That once I was no longer a virgin, his passions would cool and he'd be back to his hedonistic life-style."
"Sounds as if your brother hit the nail on the head."
"Greg did have other women. But only because I couldn't please him."
Caine felt a blaze of anger. "Yeah," he said, kissing her furrowed brow, then her temple, "you're a real bust in the sack, Princess. That's why I can hardly move."
"It was good, wasn't it?" she murmured wonderingly.
"We were good," he corrected, trailing a lazy finger down her face. "You and I. Together."
She sighed as his lips skimmed over the trail his finger had blazed. "Together." It was happening again, she thought wonderingly as she felt her bones melting.
Need. Hunger. Want. Her body seemed to respond into his, warming at the touch of his hands, softening at the feel of his lips.
Forever, Caine mused as fresh desire rippled through him. He could make love to this woman forever. He was prepared to do precisely that when the phone began to ring.
"Ignore it," she murmured, her hands combing through his dark hair.
"I can't. It might be important." With a low oath, he reached over and picked up the receiver. "O'Bannion... Yes, sir. She's right here." He handed the phone to Chantal. "It's your father."
"Hello, Papa," she said, exchanging a look of regret with Caine. "Of course I can be ready in half an hour…Yes, I'll tell him… Papa, don't you dare do any such thing… Papa, I'm warning you…Damn," she muttered. "He hung up."
"Problem?"
"I'm afraid so." Her expression was gravely apologetic. "Papa insists that you join us for dinner."
"I'd like that," he surprised her by saying.
"Really?"
"Really. Perhaps before this evening is over, between the two of us we can convince you to cancel this damn tour."
"You know I can't do that. The children are depending on me."
"The children don't expect you to set yourself up as a target," Caine shot back. "What I should do is simply refuse to let you leave this room until we catch the guy who's trying to kill you."
Chantal tossed her head. "You'd have to tie me down first. And you'd never do that."
"Want to bet? I've got a set of handcuffs in my room that are probably just your size."
"You're a bully, Caine O'Bannion."
"That's one way of looking at it. Personally, I prefer to think of it as doing my job, but I suppose you're entitled to your own opinion."
"I know you. You aren't serious about those handcuffs."
"We could put it to the test, if you'd like."
She studied him for a full ten seconds. Finally, a slight smile began to tease the corners of her lips. "Did anyone ever tell you that you are incredibly sexy when you start throwing your weight around?"
"All the time," he lied deftly. "How about you? Did anyone ever tell you that you're enough to drive the average man to drink?"
Her gaze met his in a softly challenging way. "But you're not the average man, are you Caine?"
He took a moment to answer, struggling against the sensual invitation he read in her dark eyes. "I like to think I'm not," he agreed, his casual tone taking a Herculean effort. "Now, if you think you can manage to stay out of trouble for five minutes, I want to change into a suit before dinner."
As he reached the doorway of the bedroom, Caine turned. "Whatever you do, don't open this door to anyone," he instructed, trying to conceal how desperate he was to keep her safe.
As he quickly changed out of his jeans into a charcoal-gray business suit, Caine wished once again that he could take a more active part in the investigation surrounding the fire that had come so close to taking Chantal's life.
From the moment she'd been deliberately lured into the secret passage and struck, there'd no longer been any question that someone was willing to go to extraordinary lengths in order to arrange her death. But who? And why?
Caine could only hope that they found the answers before her would-be killer struck again.
The dark-haired man swore at the television screen as he watched Chantal give a brief statement to the throng of avid reporters gathered in the porte cochere of her hotel. That the authorities were calling the fire an unfortunate accident was not surprising; an act of attempted murder would create an international incident, something the governments of both Montacroix and the United States would want to avoid at all cost. The investigation would be done surreptitiously.
As he watched the princess and studied the grim-faced man in the gray suit standing beside her, the man cursed himself for not realizing from the beginning that her escort was a great deal more than a mere lower-echelon diplomatic drone.
Pointing the remote control toward the television, the man vowed that after Chantal, Caine O'Bannion would be the next to die.
12
"Alone at last," Chantal said with a sigh of relief as she and Caine returned to her suite later that evening. "I truly love my family, but it was becoming quite exhausting having them hover over me like a clutch of anxious mother ducks."
"Hens."
"Whatever. I thought I'd die when Papa announced that he was joining us for the remainder of the tour. Thank goodness you were able to change his mind and convince him to return to Montacroix."
"I only pointed out that his presence would make my job more difficult."
"It was the way you did it." Chantal looked at him with undisguised admiration. "For a moment there, I was almost able to believe you were the diplomat you originally professed to be. Papa is not the easiest of men."
"It's obvious that he and the rest of your family love you. It's also obvious that they're worried sick about you continuing this tour."
She kicked off h
er high heels and sank down onto the couch. "Please don't start in on that again."
"In on what? Would you like a drink?"
"Brandy would be nice," she agreed. "And you know very well what you're doing. You're trying to make me feel guilty about causing them concern."
As he poured brandy into a pair of balloon glasses on the bar, Caine glanced over at her curiously. "Would it work?"
"No."
"I didn't think so," he said, crossing the room and handing her one of the glasses. "But it was worth a shot." He sat down beside her, sipping the brandy, enjoying one of the few peaceful moments they'd managed to share during the past fourteen days. "I like your family. They're not what I would have figured them to be."
"And how had you thought of them? As a group of pompous, autocratic, self-important, wealthy snobs?"
Caine shrugged. The description hit too close to home for comfort. "I haven't had much of an opportunity to mingle with royalty."
"We're people, just like everyone else."
"Now that's where you're wrong, sweetheart," he murmured, running a hand down her hair, remembering how the long, dark strands had felt draped across his chest. "Because you are not like anyone else."
His eyes, as they settled on her face, were as intense and dark gray as a storm-tossed sea. Chantal took a deep breath and exhaled quickly. "I'm afraid," she whispered through lips that had gone uncomfortably dry.
"You should be. Someone's been trying to kill you."
She shook her head. "Not of him. Of us."
Caine managed a grim smile. "You're not alone there, Princess."
"Caine." It was only his name, but it spoke volumes. "What's going to happen? To us?"
What indeed? Caine wondered. In the beginning, he'd tried to tell himself that his attraction to Chantal was purely physical. And although he'd wanted to keep their relationship strictly professional, he had assumed that if the opportunity ever arose to act on what was obviously a mutual attraction, his desire would be satisfied, his hunger satiated. It had been a logical assumption, based on past experiences. And Caine was nothing if not a logical man.
But something had gone wrong. Because instead of easing his need for her, their lovemaking had only served to make him more greedy. Somehow, when he wasn't looking, he'd crossed the line between want and need.
"Now you sound like your father."
His feigned humor didn't fool her for a moment. He was as disconcerted by all this as she was, Chantal realized. And why not? That he hadn't wanted this assignment in the first place was obvious; that he hadn't wanted to become emotionally involved with her, even more so.
Patience had never been Chantal's strong suit, yet every instinct she possessed told her that nothing would be settled by forcing the issue. They both needed time to think, to reassess the changes in their relationship. She only wished they could do so without the additional stress of the tour, and of that man, whoever he was, wherever he was, trying so hard to kill her.
"Actually, you were quite fortunate," she said. "Every time Papa opened his mouth to interrogate you, the others came riding to the rescue like the heroes in all your American Westerns."
"Noel makes a rather interesting Clint Eastwood."
"Wasn't she amazing?" Chantal asked, warming to the subject of her sister. "I had no idea she could be so forceful. Imagine her interrupting Papa like that! Again and again. She had him so frustrated, I worried that he'd explode before we finished dessert."
"Still waters…" he murmured. "I got the distinct impression that you two are more alike than you seem at first glance."
Chantal looked up at him with renewed interest. "Really? Most people don't see any resemblance at all."
"You don't look anything alike," he conceded, "although you're both stunningly beautiful. But I was talking about what's inside—those iron-strong wills you both share."
His perception pleased her. She'd made the mistake of falling in love with a shallow man once before; she was glad that Caine was a man who took nothing at face value. "In her own calm way, Noel can wear away a stone."
"Yet she couldn't change your mind."
She heard the aggravation in his tone and knew that his grievance was shared by her family. "I'm not going to let him win," she said in a firm, quiet voice. "I'm not going to begin living in fear just because some crazy person out there doesn't like me."
Her fingers curved around his upper arm, and her expression was intense as she tried to make him understand. "Don't you see? Like it or not, I'm a public person, and if I allow this man to send me scurrying back to the safety of Montacroix, I'll never be free of him. I'll have to spend the rest of my life hiding out in the palace, surrounded by by armed guards."
Fear for her safety, plus something that was beginning to feel more and more like love with each passing day, made his words rash. "Not the rest of your life, dammit. Just until we catch the guy."
"And when you do, then what?"
"Then you can resume your tour."
"But what if I receive yet another threat? What would you have me do then?"
Even as he knew where this conversation was leading, that in her own single-minded way, she made sense, he still didn't like the idea of her setting herself up as a target for some madman.
"Don't you understand? I care about you."
The turbulent emotions she saw swirling in his eyes nearly took her breath away. "Don't worry about me. I'm under the protection of the president's personal bodyguard."
"A fat lot of good that did you the other night," he said grumpily. He'd known all along that he wasn't going to change her mind, but he never would have forgiven himself for not trying.
"Please, let's not think about that tonight," she coaxed prettily, her eyes amber pools of need as she took his empty glass and placed it on the table in front of them along with her own. "Or tomorrow." She reached up, freeing him from his red silk tie. "Let's pretend there's only now. Only this one perfect night together."
There were plans he'd intended to discuss with her, cautionary changes in her itinerary that would help ensure her safety, but as she manipulated the buttons of his white dress shirt, releasing one after another until she was able to press her hands against his bare chest, Caine lost the ability to concentrate.
"Tonight you're mine," he said in a low, deep voice rough with emotion.
"Yours." She gasped in surprise as he pulled her down onto the plush carpeting, but then she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung, eager to go anywhere he wanted to take her. "All yours."
Caine woke first, which allowed him the pleasure of watching Chantal sleep. Her lips were curved in a softly satisfied smile, which made him wonder if she was dreaming of the love-filled night they'd shared. A shaft of morning sunlight streamed into the room through a slit in the heavy draperies, illuminating the exquisite planes and hollows of her face.
Although his body was sated, his mind was not. How was it, Caine asked himself, that each time he made love to Chantal only made him want her more? What had begun as normal male desire was rapidly escalating to something that more and more resembled obsession.
Murmuring low, inarticulate sounds of pleasure, she turned toward him, her blissful sigh unmistakable as she pressed her body against his. Imbued with an uncharacteristic feeling of tenderness, Caine touched his lips to her sleek, dark head, content to lie quietly with her in his arms.
"What time is it?" Chantal murmured groggily into his shoulder. She tightened her arms around him, fitting her slender frame even more closely to his.
"Time to get up." He lifted her hair and pressed a kiss against her neck.
"Mmmph." She burrowed deeper, reminding him of a fox settling into its den. "I'd rather stay here. All day. With you."
"We have a plane to catch, remember?" In no real hurry to move himself, Caine idly played with her hair, sifting the dark strands through his fingers like grains of sand.
"We can always make a later one."
"We're du
e in Milwaukee at noon."
Unwilling to return to the real world quite yet, Chantal rolled over and straddled him, moving in such a way that the friction between their bodies seemed to create sparks in the early-morning light.
"How much time do we have, exactly?"
Caine's fingers dug into her hips as he lifted her up and settled her over him. "Enough," he said as their bodies merged and their minds entangled.
The phone call came as they shared a hurried breakfast in the suite. They were due at the airport in a little more than an hour.
"That was Drew," Caine said as he returned to the room service table.
"Oh?" Chantal looked up from buttering her sweet roll. "Please tell me that our flight's been canceled. That we have nothing to do but spend the rest of the day in bed, where I can have my wicked way with you."
Caine shook his head with good-natured disbelief as he sipped his coffee. "Lord, lady, you are insatiable. Don't you ever get enough?"
"Of you?" She gathered the scattered crumbs from the roll into her palms. "Never. I'm afraid you've ruined me for any other man, Caine," she said cheerfully as she brushed the crumbs onto her gold-rimmed plate. "Years from now, when I'm a little old silver-haired lady, sitting in my rocking chair in some retirement home for aged royalty, I'll still be lusting after your magnificent body."
Caine felt a stab of guilt at Chantal's reference to the future. He had always been forthright with the women he'd become involved with; his romantic relationships were based solely on shared interests and mutual physical pleasure. Then Chantal had come into his life, and he'd started contemplating a future with her even when he knew one could never exist.
"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but he was calling about business. He has a line on your assailant."
"Really? Who is it? Does he know?"
He put his napkin down and leaned back in the chair. "Unfortunately not. What the FBI guys did uncover was how he managed to get into the house in the first place."
"How?"
"As one of the waiters."
"But I thought you told me you and Drew had checked out the caterers before we arrived in Philadelphia."