by Alix Labelle
“His Majesty may not want to have sex with me,” Meri pointed out. “And even if he does, my cameras are all locked up in the palace media room.”
Holanna nodded and tucked a golden orchid behind Meri’s ear. “Take this bloom and place it anywhere within three feet of the prince’s bed. It has a micro recorder inside the petals.”
So she’d have to accidentally on purpose wreck the flower, Meri thought, and nodded. “All right, I’ll do my best.”
“Piscas will reward you handsomely for your efforts,” the maid said. “Only be sure that the sex is of the sort to cause a scandal for the prince.”
“You mean, kinky and twisted,” Meri said.
Holanna spread her hands. “When it comes to sex, Aslandians are very traditional, conservative people, Miss Madison. You need only encourage His Majesty to tie you up, perhaps administer some intimate discipline. That will serve our purpose very well.”
Since her quarters were in the guest wing, Meri had to walk across the sumptuous palace to Prince Jarek’s private dining room. Passing through the royal gallery made her glance at the portraits of every king since Jarek the Ruthless had spawned his dynasty. All of them were dark, blue-eyed men who projected such intensity and menace she felt as if her insides would curdle.
Why didn’t Jarek have the same effect on her?
“Because I’m hot for him,” she muttered as she stepped out of the gallery and stopped before the guards flanking the entrance to the royal wing. “Good evening,” she said politely. “Ms. Madison to have dinner with His Majesty.”
One of the guards handed off his ceremonial sword to the other and frisked her with an impersonal efficiency before searching her clutch. When he finished, he nodded to his partner, who opened the door for her.
“Thank you,” Meri said through her clenched teeth, and walked down another portrait-lined passage. At the end of it another guard glanced over her before admitting her to the king’s private chambers.
As she walked in, Meri had the sense of passing through a looking glass into another realm. The king’s private dining room had rarely been seen by outsiders and had never been photographed by anyone but the royal historians.
Dark blue-flocked walls, hung with incredibly intricate Aslandian tapestries and sporting marble medallions carved with the royal family’s crest, soared over her head to curve above three enormous crystal chandeliers. A polished mahogany table long enough to seat two hundred comfortably occupied the center of a tennis court-size hand-knotted carpet. Real candles, not electric lights, illuminated the splendid porcelain, crystal and silver table settings. Huge vases of fresh flowers and small objects d’art occupied every corner table, wall nook and pedestal.
At the far end of the table sat Prince Jarek, whose sapphire eyes followed her every move.
“This is breath-taking,” she said, remaining on the far side of the table. “The dusting alone must take days.”
“Weeks, I should think.” Jarek rose and came to her, his Savile Row suit as perfect as his hair and his smile. “This dress suits you very well. Much better than that dreadful blouse from this morning.”
“It does.” Meri would bet he was already thinking about taking it off her, too. “You have an eye for fashion, Your Majesty. Maybe I should have you do all my clothes shopping.”
“Ah, but I lack motivation.” Jarek reach out and caressed her cheek. “I’d rather have you naked.
Chapter Three
Dining with Prince Jarek proved as easy as flirting with him. He had the prerequisite meticulous table manners, of course, but he actually ate instead of politely picking. He also pointed out to her some traditional Aslandian dishes he enjoyed, and coaxed her into describing some of her childhood favorites.
“San Francisco sourdough bread is almost a cliché now,” she admitted. “But I still miss it – and steamed shrimp from Fisherman’s Wharf, too.”
Jarek nodded at a servant waiting to clear. “What is the most delicious thing you ever tasted as a girl?”
She thought for a moment. “In the fall we’d drive up to Napa Valley, where my parents would buy their annual stock of wine. All along the road there would be pickers selling crates of fresh-picked table grapes off the back of old trucks. My dad would buy a box for me and my sister. The color of good jade, straight off the vine, still warm from the sun – and so sweet they put candy to shame.”
His eyelids drooped. “Do you live in California now?”
“My family still does. No, thank you,” she said to servant who offered her coffee. “I spend most of my time traveling, so I just keep a tiny apartment in New York City.”
Jarek made a dismissive gesture, and all of the servants bowed and retreated. “So you are a vagabond. That explains the yearning in your eyes.”
Meri blinked. “I have everything I want, Your Majesty. An exciting career that provides the chance to travel the globe, and meet very interesting people.”
“Exciting, but lonely.” He reached out and covered her hand with his. “You know the feeling, Meri.”
The warmth of his skin distracted her. “Sorry?”
“What you feel when you open your eyes it in that hour just before dawn,” he said softly. “When you wake in a strange, cold bed in some anonymous room. For a moment you can’t remember the name of the hotel, the city, or the reason you went there.” His gaze took on a faraway quality. “No one within a thousand miles to call friend. No happy tidings, no fond farewells. Only that cold, empty bed with its plastic-cased pillows, and sanitized sheets.”
For some reason her heart clenched in her chest. “Is that how you’ve been living all these years away, Jarek?”
That snapped him out of his trance. “You’re asking unsolicited personal questions again. I could have you dragged out of here in shackles.”
“To where?” she countered. “Prison, or your bed room?”
He tilted his head. “Would I need shackles for the latter?”
Suddenly Meri wanted to run out of the palace and jump on the first plane back to the states. “Now you’re asking unsolicited questions, Your Majesty.”
“In one week I will be king. Now I am not. Answer me.” He issued the command like an intimate caress.
This felt like the moment she would either love or hate for the rest of her life. “You wouldn’t need them.”
Jarek stood and held out his hand. “Then come with me, my Meri.”
#
As soon as the prince led her across the threshold of his bed chamber, Meri suspected she’d just made the best mistake of her life.
The room in which dozens of Aslandian kings had slept had been everywhere adored in the royal sapphire blue and gold. A bed so large it resembled a boxing ring without ropes lay waiting, a corner of the silken coverlet atop it turned back. On the opposite side of the room a sunken golden marble bath waited, wisps of steam dancing across the mirror-like surface of the water.
Jarek closed the door and came up behind Meri, his big hands gripping her waist. “I was conceived in this room.”
“Why did your parents ever leave it?” She turned around, smiling up at him. “Why do you?”
“The most beautiful things in the world are still only things.” He rubbed his knuckles down her cheek. “They’re not warm. They don’t laugh. They exist only to be admired.”
She rested one hand against his broad chest. “I thought that’s what you were, Your Majesty.”
He shook his head. “What you see is not what you will get, my Meri.”
The kiss happened so fast he swallowed her gasp, and then ravished her mouth. Dimly Meri felt him hoist her off her feet and carry her over to the royal bed, where he fell on top of her and pinned her with his weight. Jarek kept kissing her, taking her wrists in his hand and stretching them over her head.
“I did not like that lace blouse you wore this morning.” He cupped her mound with a big, sure hand. “It was smothering your breasts.” He pulled aside the dress to bare her nipple. �
�I am putting my mouth on you now.”
Meri tucked her chin in to watch him envelope her peak and begin suckling her. Every dormant snoozing nerve ending in her body promptly woke up screaming for more.
“Please.” Meri had to struggle to get her throat to work. “Let me, ah, get undressed.”
“I will do this.” Jarek rolled her onto her belly and unzipped the dress, baring her spine. He then kissed his way from her nape to the rise of her bottom, stopping to nibble here and there, and then retraced his path with one slow, luxurious lick on his tongue.
“Please, sir.” Meri groaned as he nipped her earlobe. “You’re not my maid.”
“I like it when you call me sir,” he muttered as he flipped her onto her back. “Do it again.”
“Yes, sir.” Meri felt the orchid in her hair slip, and reached up to remove it. Jarek’s fingers reached it first, and after untangling the stem, he tossed it away.
When it plopped in water Meri went still. A tiny pop and hiss followed as the electronics embedded in the artificial flower shorted out.
Jarek slowly lifted his head and peered toward the bath, and then down at her. “How are you with a rock hammer?”
Before she could answer him, Jarek pushed himself off the bed and went to the bath, pulling up his sleeve as he reached in and retrieved the orchid. He tugged at one of the petals, and then stripped them away from the tiny camera concealed within the bloom.
Meri watched the sodden petals drop to the floor around his feet. In her head she heard the child’s daisy-plucking chant of He loves me, he loves me not . . . .
Jarek ended with not.
“I was not aware that World Times Magazine had become a tabloid.” He held up the device. “Or is this some private endeavor, Ms. Madison?”
“I’m working undercover,” she said quickly, clambering off the bed but keeping it between her and Jarek. “I’ve been investigating a terrorist cartel operating within Aslandia. One of their chiefs, a casino manager named Piscas, believes I work for him. I was to use that to record our, ah, activities. I did so only to maintain his trust in me, you understand.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” A muscle on Jarek’s jaw ticked. “One should always make a sex tape with a crown prince in order to maintain cover. It is in all the spy manuals.” He strode over to the wall and pressed a button. “Send two guards to attend me.”
“Please don’t throw me in a mine,” Meri found herself begging. “I can give you all my notes, photographs, lists – some of these thugs are running your government, Your Majesty. I can help you free Aslandia from the claws of graft and corruption.”
“I do not want you in my mines,” Jarek said without any emotion in his deep voice. “I do not want you in my country. If I could get you off the planet, I would do so, gladly.”
“There’s that mission to Mars thing,” she told him. “But I don’t think they’re going to swing the crowd-funding.”
For a split second his lips twitched, and then he turned his back on her.
“I know you’re angry, but I couldn’t dump the bug.” She dared to take a couple of steps toward him. “I thought you were involved. So it was really a kind of litmus test. And you passed, Your Majesty.”
His shoulders stiffened.
“Please let me help Aslandia. I have enough information to shut down every cartel operation inside your borders.” She hesitated before she added, “Please let me give this to you, please. I know you’re a good man now, and that you want to do the right thing for your people. This is like the first step.”
As the guards knocked and stepped inside, Jarek gestured toward Meri without looking at her. “Take her to the airport and turn her over to the deportation officials. I want her on a plane and out of my country before sunset. Do it now.”
Chapter Four
Thirty minutes after blowing her own cover, Meri sat in the almost-empty deportation holding area at Aslandia International. The only other occupant, a Frenchwoman who strongly resembled a Siamese cat, came to sit beside her.
The Chanel the other woman wore barely penetrated Meri’s gloom. She stored everything she had on the cartel on the encrypted laptop in her quarters at the palace. Which was where it would stay until someone cracked it or junked it. Cracked it, she’d wager. Whatever else he was, Prince Jarek was not a fool.
But oh, the man was so hot and sexy Meri still throbbed between her thighs.
After five minutes of respecting her silence, Cat Woman offered Meri a pink cigarette. “They are flavored with cherry. Real, not electronic.”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t smoke.”
“You are American.” She said it with the same intonation as a doctor informing a patient of a terminal cancer. “I slept with one of your men once. He had a very small penis, and a very large mouth. What did you do to get expelled?”
Might as well tell the truth. “I tried to make a sex tape with Prince Jarek.”
Cat Woman ahhhed in three syllables. “This is very ambitious, no? And you a blonde, but not Madonna. But do not blame yourself for your failure, cherie. I think he is gay.”
“He’s not.” Meri stood up as a squad of armed police entered the room. If she could somehow play the diplomatic relations card to her advantage, she might not have to leave Aslandia until she was ready. “I would like to lodge a complaint with the American embassy—”
“Sit down and be quiet,” the largest officer said. He pointed to Cat Woman. “You may use the facilities now.”
“I cannot go alone,” Cat Woman said, clasping Meri’s hand in a death grip. “I am taking anti-depressants, and I am having suicidal thoughts. Truly. I just considered smoking myself to death.”
The big man folded his arms. “You are a Parisian hussy who convinced five very rich men to marry you over the last month. If anything about you is smoking, it is south of your navel.”
“And this is why I am depressed,” Cat Woman said. “I have not had sex for at least four hours. I may break out in hives, too.”
The officer gestured at Meri. “Go with her, but if she attempts to kill herself? Let her.”
Cat Woman conducted herself with royal haughtiness down a back passage to a small, shabby restroom. “This is enough to finish me off,” she muttered to Meri as she bolted the door and took out her cigarettes. “You sure you do not want one?”
“I really don’t smoke.” Meri went still as the Frenchwoman removed the paper wrapper from the pack and balled it up. She then attached a short fuse to the crumpled paper. “Madam?”
“You cannot be a non-smoking femme fatale,” Cat Woman chided as she carefully placed the ball at the base of the rest room door, and ignited the fuse. She then dragged Meri into the corner stall, at which point she dropped the French accent. “Meredith, darling, no time to explain,” she said, sounding as British as Jarek. “After it pops I’ll deal with the secret police. Walk, don’t run, to the nearest exit. Look for a pink cab. Take it back to the palace, get your laptop, and go to the American embassy. Get inside, stay away from the windows and file your story with World Times.”
“Are you with one of your British papers?” she had to ask.
Cat Woman grinned. “I’m only half British, American mother. Makes celebrating the fourth or July a bit dodgy. Here we go.”
The explosion nearly tore the stall doors from its hinges, and in the smoke and screeching alarms Meri ran out and followed the hall to the check-in desks for the various airlines. She slowed her step as she passed through several now unmanned security check points and sailed straight out the lobby doors. She glanced down the long row of cars at the curb before she saw the pink taxi and hurried over to it.
Quickly she climbed in and shut the door, sinking down. “Thank you for helping me, sir.”
The heavyset driver glanced back over the seat at her, his smile cold in his doughy face as he engaged the door locks.
“Anything for a friend of ours, Ms. Madison,” Piscas said. “You are still our frien
d, are you not?”
#
“Why do Americans bother to encrypt anything?” Geoff wondered as he hacked into Meri Madison’s laptop. “They use the same five security software companies, all of which are controlled or operated by the global intelligence alliance. Bloody hell. I think my cousin Derek actually wrote this one.”
“Put away the toys,” Chalen said as he peered at the display of his smart phone, which showed a group of men approaching the prince’s bed chamber. “You’ve visitors, me lad.”
Geoff closed the laptop and slid it under the mattress before he switched off the signal damper. Resuming his princely performance, he rose and let Chalen drape a velvet-collared silk robe over his shoulders. “Who are they?”
“Ugly men with badly-concealed guns. Pretty blonde with her wrists cuffed. That American you were trying to deport, I believe.” Chalen gave him the once over before answering the door. “Have you an appointment?”
“Get out of the way.” The cartel chief that Geoff recognized as Piscas came in dragging Meri along with him. “Your Majesty, a gift.” He threw Meri down onto her knees. “We found her trying to escape deportation. She has not been raped.”
Geoff came to stand over the American, who looked up at him with tired, angry eyes. “I should hope not. We are trying to avoid U.S. economic sanctions until after the coronation. Why do you bring her to me? Another attempt at a sex tape?”
“No. My organization wishes to apologize for the misunderstanding.” Piscas gestured at Meri. “This woman deceived us, and we plan to be rid of her tomorrow. For tonight, however, she can be your plaything. Beat her, rape her, whatever you prefer. I will send one of my men to collect her in the morning.” Piscas performed a fawning bow before he withdrew.
Chalen came over to survey Meri, shook his head at Geoff, and then withdrew.