J.J. squeezed Seina’s hand. “It’s all right. You don’t have to keep defending Diego. He’s not exactly my favorite person, but regardless of why he did it, his actions did save my life.”
“You are very generous,” Seina said, her eyes misty with tears.
“So, what is the meeting downstairs all about and why all the secrecy?”
Seina looked to Aunt Josephina, as if asking for permission to speak. But before the old woman could approve or disapprove, a female voice called out from the sitting room.
“Where is everyone?” Dolores Lopez came waddling into the bedroom, Lucie Evans directly behind her. “So here you all are.” Dolores came straight over to the bed, sat on the opposite side from Seina and leaned over enough so that she could wrap her arms around J.J. “You look well for a lady who was shot less than a week ago. How good it is to see you recovering so nicely.”
Surprised—no shocked—by Dolores’s conciliatory manner, J.J. hugged Miguel’s cousin and said, “It’s good to see you, too.”
Nailing Seina with her sharp gaze, Dolores said, “And you must be Miguel’s half-sister. I hear you are going to marry Juan. He is a good man. You are very lucky.”
“Yes, I know,” Seina said shyly.
“Thank God this nightmare is over and we can return to our normal lives.” Dolores waved her hand at Lucie, who rolled her eyes and came over to help Dolores to her feet. “Thank you. I am so fat I cannot get up out of a chair on my own these days.”
Lucie looked down at J.J. “How are you…really?”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“Perhaps we should all go into the sitting room and leave these old friends alone,” Dolores said. “Come, Aunt Josephina. You must tell me about the plans for Juan and Seina’s wedding.”
As soon as they were alone, Lucie sat on the side of the bed. “Sawyer is sending the Dundee jet to Nava tomorrow to pick us all up. When he called to tell me to bring Señora Lopez home today, he asked me to find out if you’ll need for him to send either a doctor or a nurse for you. I told him I’d call him back once I spoke to you.”
“I will not require a doctor or a nurse.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m very sure. You see, Lucie, I’m not going back to America with the rest of you.”
Lucie widened her eyes. “You’re not? Mind telling me why?”
“I’m going to stay in Mocorito with Miguel.”
Lucie frowned. “Has he asked you to stay?”
“No, not yet, but he will.”
“Oh, honey, he may not. I mean, after all, it’s not as if you were his real fiancée. You came here on an assignment and under a tropical moon, with a handsome Latin lover charming your pants off, you could easily have misinterpreted passion for love.”
“I didn’t misinterpret anything.” J.J. studied Lucie’s expression. “Spill the beans. What are you not telling me?”
“You don’t know that yesterday when Miguel and Diego Fernandez appeared on television together that Miguel confessed that you were not really his fiancée, that you came to Mocorito to work as his bodyguard. He said something to the effect that you had gone above and beyond your duty as his protector.”
J.J. couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. God, she could barely breathe. Finally she managed one word. “Oh.”
“Damn, J.J., I’m sorry.”
J.J. waved her hand in an it’s-all-right gesture. Tears lodged in her throat, threatening to choke her. Why would Miguel have confessed to everyone that their engagement wasn’t real if he planned to marry her?
He doesn’t plan to marry you, that pesky inner voice told her.
“Men can be such pigs,” Lucie said. “They screw you one night and the next morning, they can’t remember your name.”
“Miguel isn’t like that. He’s not.”
Lucie reached over and hugged J.J. “You’re really in love with the guy, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea,” J.J. said as she laid her head on Lucie’s shoulder and cried. Damn it, she didn’t cry. Not ever. Crying was for sissies. Well, hell, she was a woman, wasn’t she? Couldn’t a woman cry and not be seen as weak? Especially a woman with a broken heart.
“I better get downstairs and let the men know they can’t make all the decisions without me.” Lucie took hold of J.J.’s shoulders and helped her sit back against the pillows. “Dom and Vic and Will Pierce are helping Señor Ramirez and his people tie up all the loose ends. You know, cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s. When President Padilla and his cohorts go on trial, nobody wants them getting away with anything. Our country wants Padilla and his friends to spend the rest of their lives locked up.”
“So that’s what the big powwow is all about, huh?”
“That’s it.”
“Would you tell Aunt Josephina and Seina that I’m taking a nap and I do not wish to be disturbed.”
“Sure thing,” Lucie said as she headed for the door. “I’ll catch you later.”
J.J. hadn’t realized that she had actually fallen asleep until something woke her. What was that tickling her cheek? It felt like her hair was being blown against her face. She opened her eyes, but the room lay in semidarkness. How long had she been asleep? She rolled over from her uninjured side to her back and looked up into a pair of golden-brown eyes. Miguel! He was lying beside her, propped up on his elbow, gazing down at her and blowing softly against her ear.
“Miguel?”
“Yes, querida.”
How dare he call her querida! “What time is it?”
“It is past seven in the evening. You have missed dinner. I can have Ramona bring up a tray—”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I’m not hungry.”
“Are you thirsty?” he asked. “Would you like some water or tea or a cola or—”
“No, nothing, thank you.” She couldn’t bring herself to break eye contact, but damn it, looking at him was tearing her apart inside. “Are Lucie and the others still here?”
“No, they have all gone to their hotel.”
“Even Dom?”
“Yes, even Dom.”
“Lucie told me that Sawyer McNamara is sending the Dundee jet in the morning to pick everyone up,” she said.
“Yes, I know.”
“He offered to send along a doctor or a nurse for me.”
“That was very kind of him.”
J.J. nodded.
“But of course you told Señorita Evans to tell Señor McNamara that you did not require the services of either a doctor or a nurse, did you not?”
“Yes, I did, but—”
“Juan tells me that you should be fully recovered by election day,” Miguel said.
And where would she be on election day, the day Miguel became the president of Mocorito? In her apartment in Atlanta? Visiting her mother in Mobile?
“You are very quiet, querida. Are you all right?”
“Stop calling me querida.”
He looked at her questioningly. “Jennifer…J.J., what is wrong? You seem upset. If someone has said or done anything to upset you, please tell me and I will deal with them.”
“Stop pretending with me,” J.J. told him. “I know. Do you hear me—I know. Lucie told me.”
“Señorita Evans told you what?”
“That when you and Diego made your eventful TV appearance yesterday, you confessed to the people of Mocorito that I am not really your fiancée, that I’m nothing but your bodyguard.”
Miguel laughed. Damn him, he laughed.
“Yes, I told the people the truth. There was no longer any reason to keep up the pretense, no reason to continue living a lie.”
“Of course not.”
“Querida, I want—”
J.J. shoved on his chest trying to push him away from her. “Stop calling me querida. I’m not your darling. I’m not anything to you.”
He grasped her shoulders and held her gently but forcefully. “Jennifer Joy Blair, you are my darling, my querida. You are
everything to me. How could you not know this? I love you. I love you more than anything, even more than Mocorito.”
J.J. didn’t know if she was more stunned by Miguel’s confession or by her own stupidity. “I am an idiot, aren’t I?”
“No, you are the woman I love, the woman I want to be my wife, the mother of my children, the first lady of Mocorito.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out her engagement ring. “They had to take off all your jewelry when you were in the hospital. If you would prefer to choose a different ring, I will understand.”
She grabbed the ring and put it on the third finger of her left hand. “This ring is perfect. And this time it really is my engagement ring.” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, then kissed him on both cheeks, on his forehead and finally his mouth. “You confessed the truth to your people because you didn’t want to start our marriage with a lie.”
“You know me so well.”
He kissed her and within minutes passion flared between them. When she accidentally grazed her bandaged side against his belt, she whimpered. Miguel pulled away from her.
“I hurt you. Forgive me. I should go now and—”
She grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “You aren’t going anywhere. Take off your clothes and get in bed with me right now.”
“Jennifer, you are still recovering from being shot. I will sleep in another bedroom.”
“I don’t want you sleeping in another bedroom. I want you to sleep here with me and hold me in your arms all night.”
“You wish to torture me?”
She laughed. “Well, actually, I want you to make love to me.”
“No, querida, you are not well enough for lovemaking.”
“I’m not strong enough for anything vigorous, but if you do all the work and I just lie here and enjoy it…”
He pressed her gently back against the pillows, then leaned over her, bracing himself with his elbows on either side of her. “You are a wicked, wicked woman tempting me this way.”
“For goodness sakes, shut up, and kiss me again, will you?”
He did as she requested. He kissed her. And kissed her again. And soon there was not one inch of body that he had not kissed—except the small, thick square of gauze covering her healing wound, which he circled lovingly with his fingertip.
She lay there, naked and aroused, allowing him to worship her body, to touch and kiss and lick and soothe until she was half out of her mind with desire. He spread her legs and ran his tongue up and down and then back up each inner thigh. He nuzzled her mound, then separated her intimate lips and made love to her with his mouth. When she came, she cried out his name, telling him how much she loved him.
As the aftershocks of her release rippled through her, he moved up beside her, kissed her lips and eased her gently over onto her good side.
“Yes?” he asked, as he pressed his erection against her buttocks. “I will be very careful not to hurt you.”
“Yes,” she told him. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Yes to his lovemaking, to the sweet joining of their bodies. And yes to the love he offered her and she returned to him with equal passion and devotion. Yes to a future together as man and wife. And yes to all the joys and sorrows, all the triumphs and disappointments, to every moment, every hour, every day, every year they would share for the rest of their lives.
Epilogue
Today the Ramirez family gathered their friends together at the presidential palace for a double celebration. Miguel had just been elected to his third term as el presidente. And he and J.J. had been married for eight years. They had married on election day, in the church in the Aguilar barrio where Miguel had been christened, with only a handful of their loved ones there. Several months later, after the inauguration, J.J.’s mother and stepfather had flown in from Mobile and hosted a lavish reception at the palace.
Dolores waddled toward J.J., a wide smile on her full face. She was expecting her third child, another boy the doctors had told her, which made Emilio exceedingly happy.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Dolores asked. “Four more years of this insanity. I do not know how you do it, Jennifer. Being Miguel’s constant helpmate, serving on a hundred different committees, hosting endless social events and somehow managing to win Mother of the Year awards.”
J.J. slipped her arm around Miguel’s waist and hugged him to her. “I can do all this because I have such a good husband. He somehow not only manages to run this country, but he finds the time to be a loving, attentive husband and a hands-on father.”
Ramona brought the children in to say good-night to their parents. Dolores and Emilio’s two strapping boys, young Emilio, the image of his mother, would soon turn eight and four year-old Dario, the little mischief maker, resembled his father. Behind the two Lopez boys came three adorable little girls. Six-year-old Carlotta Josephina Esteban ran straight to her proud papa’s arms. The spoiled only child was not only lovely but had a winning personality.
Not allowing their young cousin to outdo them, seven-year-old twins, Luz and Lenore, named for their grandmothers, rushed straight to their father. He gathered them up in his arms and placed one on each hip. They looked a great deal like J.J., both petite and raved-haired, but they had inherited their father’s golden eyes. Then last but not least three-year-old Cesar escaped from Ramona and ran to his father, grabbing Miguel around the leg. Curly-haired and chubby, his blue-violet eyes gazed up adoringly at his papa.
“We are richly blessed,” Aunt Josephina said. “Three happy marriages, six perfect children—” she eyed Dolores’s protruding belly “—soon to be seven. And a democratic nation in which to raise the next generation.”
J.J. walked over to Seina’s side and put her arm around her sister-in-law, then gave her a hug. She understood the momentary sadness in Seina’s eyes, a sadness that soon vanished. Carlotta Fernandez had never forgiven her daughter for marrying Juan and befriending her half-brother. And although she occasionally saw Diego and his wife, their relationship had never quite recovered. So the people gathered here this evening had become Seina’s new family, as they had become J.J.’s.
Her father had died last spring. A heart attack at the age of sixty-six. Miguel had gone with her to his funeral to pay her last respects to a man who had never loved or respected her. And he had held her in his arms while she wept that night and many nights afterward. But in the end, the most precious solace he had given her had been the joy of watching him with his own two daughters, whom he not only loved as dearly as he did his son, but of whom he was every bit as proud.
Tears misted J.J.’s eyes as she laughed when Miguel tumbled onto the floor and took all three of their children with him. He tickled them, then hugged them and kissed them good-night before turning them back over to Ramona.
“Your mother and I will come upstairs in a few minutes to tuck each of you in,” Miguel promised them and they knew, even at their tender ages that their father never made promises he did not keep.
After Ramona had ushered the band of wild little heathens out of the room, Miguel came over and slipped his arm around J.J.’s waist. “Family and friends, feel free to stay up as late as you wish, continue the party until dawn. But my wife and I are going up to say good-night to our children and then we are turning in for the evening.”
He then urged J.J. into movement and led her into the hallway. As soon as they were alone for half a minute, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
“And after we say good-night to our children, Señora Ramirez, the president would like to see you alone in his bedroom. I believe he intends to make love to you. Does his request meet with your approval?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe and rubbed herself against him seductively. “Sí, sí, el presidente. Sí, sí.”
HER ROYAL BODYGUARD
BY
JOYCE SULLIVAN
Like most little girls, Joyce Sullivan entertained a secret desire to be a princess. Prince
sses, she was sure, did not have freckles. She grew up in lakeside, California, and often visited la Jolla, where this story is set.
A former private investigator, Joyce has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. She credits her lawyer mother with instilling in her a love of reading and solving mysteries. The lakeside library was their favourite destination.
Joyce currently resides with her own French prince and two teenagers in a Georgian home with an english garden and a secret garden in Quebec, Canada. you can write to her and visit her website at www.joycesullivan.com
To Julie, Lauren, Elise, Christine, Aubree, Isabelle, Lysanne, Sophie and Gabrielle. The princesses in my life.
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks to my editor Stacy Boyd, and to the following generous people who came to the rescue with this book: ottomar adamitz, Claire Fried Huffaker, Teresa eckford, dr Stephen W Maclean, Jake Gravelle, Jeannie danyiel, T lorraine vassalo, rickey r Mallory and Judy Mcanerin.
Prologue
Sophia Kenilworth couldn’t put off the inevitable for too much longer. She’d lied to her daughter, Charlotte Aurora, about her birth, about her father and about her heritage. She’d have to tell Rory the truth soon, before her twenty-third birthday when that despicable marriage treaty would come into effect.
Her source in Estaire had informed Sophia that her former stepson, Prince Olivier, and his wife, Princess Penelope, were still childless after three years of marriage. Despite rumors that they’d been consulting with fertility specialists, there had been no announcement of a pregnancy that might save Rory from an arranged marriage to a crown prince.
Sophia was no fool. She knew Prince Olivier was as much a martinet as his father, Prince August, had been—always placing the principality and what was best for Estaire above the needs of his own child’s happiness. Sophia’s deceased ex-husband had viewed the treaty as a brilliant political and economic move that would settle a three-hundred-year-old feud with the neighboring country of Ducharme and ensure that Estaire had a suitable heir apparent in the event that his son Prince Olivier was unable to provide one.
Determined to Protect, Forbidden to Love Page 23