Operation: Monarch

by Valerie Parv

  He didn't have to ask what. The upheaval in her gaze told him. "I enjoy confusing you. When I do, you change from a security officer to a Siren."

  "Remember what happened to the men in mythology who let themselves be lured by the Sirens?" she said, sounding shaky.

  He nodded. "They met their fate with a huge smile on their faces."

  "Greek Mythology 101 never mentioned that part."

  "Pity. It was the best part."

  Sparring with her was fun, he decided. He meant it when he said he enjoyed confusing her. She had no idea how beautiful she looked in that state. Or how tantalizing. He had never known a woman like her, tough enough to have graduated from the police academy with flying colors. Respected enough to be entrusted with the monarch's personal safety. Yet woman enough to blush scarlet at his innuendos. No wonder he couldn't resist provoking her.

  It was far from one-sided, he recognized. He had never felt desire like this in his life. So all consuming that he was hard-pressed to think of anything else when he was with her. And a lot of the time when he wasn't.

  He had thought making love to her would satisfy the needs she fired in him. Instead the experience had made him crave more. He was as hooked on her as the most pathetic addict. Nor was he convinced he was as heart whole as he'd assured her. The thought that he might already be in over his head scared the blazes out of him.

  So he did what any red-blooded man would do. He turned and ran, figuratively speaking. "As soon as we've locked up down here, we can start in my father's study."

  "I also want to see the lighthouse room," she said.

  He let out a deep breath. She would ask to see that room. It was the one with the sleigh bed.

  * * *

  Serena could swear her feet tingled where Garth had touched them. And did he have to mention how skilled he was at massage? Now her mind insisted on creating fantasies involving her and his magic fingers.

  It wasn't going to happen. She was already more attracted to him than was wise, and she had no intention of indulging his fantasy of sex without commitment. She might want to, but she wanted a lot of things that weren't good for her without giving in to them.

  His father's study was more of an alcove than a separate room. Garth's parents hadn't been too organized, she saw from the piles of paper almost hiding an old 486 computer on the desk and spilling onto a chair. A quick perusal revealed that most of the files related to normal family affairs, as well as the day-to-day operation of the Onalos.

  "I went through some of this looking for my parents' wills," Garth said, his voice gruff.

  She put a hand on his arm. "I can do the rest myself. It shouldn't take long."

  His gaze telegraphed appreciation of the thought, but he shook his head. "We'll work faster together. You're the ex-cop. What should we be looking for?"

  She tilted her head to one side, thinking. "Signs of unusual dealings, contact with people your parents wouldn't ordinarily associate with."

  "Criminals, you mean?" His tone hardened in denial.

  It had to be said. "Someone wanted them dead. We need to find out who and why."

  He closed his eyes then opened them again. "Let's get on with it."

  By unspoken agreement he tackled the computer. She found herself admiring the way his fingers skimmed across the keyboard as he coaxed information out of the old machine. Admiring him.

  Watching him wouldn't get the job done, she reminded herself crossly, and picked up an armful of papers. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she began to read. As she'd expected there was nothing untoward. All the same she set them aside for Matt Hayes and his team to sift through later in case anything had been missed.

  After an hour she stretched her arms over her head. "There's nothing here to find. Either your folks kept another set of records or they had no connection with their killer."

  "There's nothing useful on the hard drive or any of the disks I looked at."

  "But you did find something?"

  "I accessed a few Internet sites related to plastic explosives."

  Looking for information on the deadly toy, she assumed. "And?"

  "Nothing. I've e-mailed a couple of friends who may be more helpful, but I don't expect them to get back to me until the morning."

  She didn't ask what kind of friends would have those answers? "Did your parents keep a file of family stuff, marriage certificates, birth certificates, that kind of thing?" she asked.

  He handed her a plastic binder. "They're in here."

  He would have needed the documents for the funeral. She took the file, careful to avoid any contact with him. The heightened emotions involved in what they were doing meant her control was at a premium right now. She suspected his wasn't much better.

  Returning to her spot on the floor she opened the file. Minutes later she closed it, giving vent to a sigh of frustration. "No sign of your birth certificate."

  "If you're hoping it lists Prince Eduard and Princess Aimee under mother and father, sorry to disappoint you. The details match the public record." He pulled a faded piece of paper out of his wallet and handed it to her.

  She read the birth certificate and gave it back to him. "I didn't think it would be that easy."

  "Few things ever are."

  She stood up, pressing both hands against the small of her back. "We have to be missing something." The instincts honed during her years on the police force were fairly screaming at her. All she had to do was pay attention.

  "Unless there's nothing to miss. Maybe I'm exactly who I'm supposed to be. No mystery, no drama."

  "Except for the items we found in the package meant for the Hand."

  "Unless…"

  When he didn't continue she frowned. "Unless what?"

  "The Hand could have concocted this scheme to get you away from handling security for the presidential visit."

  "How could he be sure I'd be assigned to you?"

  Garth hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. "By his choice of candidate for monarch."

  "How would he know there was a connection between us?"

  "I told him."

  A chill feathered down her spine. Her earlier doubts about what side Garth was on came rushing back until she squashed them. "To do that you'd have to know his identity."

  He shoved aside a pile of papers and settled his hip on a corner of the desk, folding his arms. "I haven't had the pleasure yet. It's more likely that I tipped him off indirectly. When I joined Carramer First I had to list people I was close to who might be useful to the organization. I gave them your name as coming from a well-to-do family."

  "So the Hand only had to check the group's membership files to learn that you and I go back a long way?"

  "I may have created the impression that we were…more than friends."

  She felt her face heat and willed the color away. "You told the group we were lovers?"

  "It was wishful thinking, damn it. After we kissed, you stayed in my thoughts for a long time."

  So it hadn't been entirely one-sided. She dragged her thoughts onto a more productive track. "What would the Hand gain from having me replaced?"

  "Maybe he's hoping Jarvis Reid can be bought."

  Flattered that Garth was so sure Serena couldn't, she said, "I hope you're wrong. I don't like Reid, but it doesn't make him a traitor to the crown."

  "But you will check to make sure he hasn't come into any sudden fortunes?"

  She reached for her cell phone. "I'll contact Matt."

  * * *

  Watching her talk to her former partner, Garth's mind was busy. He knew why he had bragged about her to Carramer First, and it hadn't been to give him status within the group, although he'd let her think so. He had lied about being her lover because he'd wanted it to be true.

  He still wanted it. Making love to her was supposed to get her out of his system once and for all. Instead it had only banked the flames higher. Knowing how perfectly they fitted together, he wanted more. He wanted her to b
elong to him in mind, body and spirit.

  The longer this went on, the more convinced he became that he wasn't a lost prince of Carramer, so there was no point in waiting until he had a crown to offer her. If he wanted her—hell, there was no "if" about it—he would have to make sure he was worthy of her.

  That meant going back to the navy and hounding them until he convinced them to investigate the defective equipment that had led to his dishonorable discharge. Enough of this lone-wolf stuff. He would even use Prince Lorne's influence to get a new hearing, if that's what it took. Garth knew that Serena meant more to him than his stubborn pride.

  He didn't like admitting how much power she held over him, even to himself. But the truth was there in the way he reacted simply to watching her make a phone call. She sat cross-legged on the floor, the off-the-shoulder top revealing an expanse of creamy skin that made him want to press his lips to it.

  When she stretched her legs out, her scent drifted up to him, sinful and sexy and uniquely hers. She must have reapplied it after the dive. It deserved to be named Aphrodisiac.

  She pushed a hand through her hair, tousling it. Then she looked up and caught him watching her, and he was amused to hear a stammer come into her voice. He enjoyed seeing his effect on her. For his own amusement he dropped his hands to her shoulders and began to knead.

  "Oh, God." She collected herself hastily. "Sorry, Matt, I was distracted."

  Her back arched and her eyes starred with pleasure as his thumbs found the sensitive points on her shoulders. A shuddering breath forced its way past her lips. With her free hand she batted at Garth's. "Matt, I have to go. Something just came up."

  Garth almost choked. It was true that touching her had had a startlingly physical outcome, but he didn't think she'd noticed yet. "How did you guess?" he asked when she snapped the phone closed.

  "Merely a figure of speech." Her voice shook.

  "A graphic one, considering your effect on me."

  He could have toasted marshmallows on the fire in her cheeks. "Your own fault. You shouldn't have started massaging me while I was on the phone."

  "Couldn't resist."

  "Next time, try harder." Garth was pleased to hear her sounding more baffled than angry.

  "What did Matt say?"

  "He's going to look into Jarvis Reid's finances." She took a breath. "There's also no evidence that your folks were involved in anything underhanded, at least not recently."

  Desire fled, replaced by rising anger. "Explain that."

  She scrambled to her feet. "It seems your mother had an unorthodox pregnancy. No recorded visits to her doctor, no attendance at prenatal classes and no postnatal follow-ups."

  He felt his gut clench. "So she was healthy and independent."

  "Or else she was never pregnant."

  "So where the hell did I come from?" He spread his hands. "And don't give me that 'lost prince' malarkey."

  "All right, I won't. But you must agree there's something unusual about your arrival into the world."

  "Of course there is. My father delivered me himself out at sea. The ambulance people talked him through it by radio telephone."

  "He could have staged the emergency to cover up an illegal adoption."

  Slowly he unclenched his fists. None of this was Serena's fault. If anything, his parents were to blame for withholding the truth—whatever it was—from him. "If it's true," his icy tone emphasized the if, "I'll find out one way or another."

  She matched him for coldness. "The police will find out. They don't need a vigilante getting in their way."

  "You expect me to sit and wait to find out who the hell I am?"

  "That's exactly what I expect. Or you could give me the guided tour you promised."

  Serena couldn't care less about seeing the rest of the house, but she had to do something to head off the rage she saw building in Garth. Not that she could blame him. She would be furious too if everything she'd ever been told about her life had turned out to be a lie.

  She saw the moment he won the battle with himself, for now at least. "There isn't much. You saw most of it on the way in." His flat tone belied the tension in every line of his body. "But I'll show you what there is if it's what you want."

  What she wanted was to soothe him with her touch, but she forced herself to stillness, trying to calm the hammering of her heart. Who he was mattered to her far less than what he was—a man she cared about more than she wanted to admit. It was crazy. They had nothing in common except sizzling passion, and that wasn't enough to build a future together.

  He was a rebel. She was a conformist. He was a drifter. She was a homebody. He took life as it came. She had plans for hers. Oil and water would blend more successfully than the two of them. She had to make herself remember it.

  Her resolve held until she saw the bed.

  It was the centerpiece of what she thought of as the lighthouse room. It was reached by a spiral staircase from the inside, as well as the wrought-iron one she'd seen from the outside on arrival. The outside stairs opened onto a narrow widow's walk all the way around. Inside, the walls of the ten-foot-square room were almost entirely uncurtained glass, set so high above the surroundings that privacy wasn't an issue.

  By night the room seemed to float on a sea of stars. She couldn't see the breakers far below, only hear them rolling endlessly onto the rocks. Flashes of phosphorescence out to sea made it look as if wraiths with lanterns patrolled the bay.

  The floor rugs looked to be handmade, the quilt as if it was an heirloom. It was spread over the most impressive piece of furniture she'd ever seen. "The timber looks ancient. Where did it come from?" she asked, instinctively lowering her voice.

  "Salvaged from an eighteenth-century sailing ship that was wrecked off Nuee. When my grandparents built this house, they brought the timber with them. Grandpa said he was waiting for it to tell him exactly what he should make with it."

  She stroked the curved teak bed end, imagining Garth's grandfather sitting beside the timber, waiting for inspiration. It hadn't failed him. The massive bedhead swept back in imitation of an ocean wave, with a slightly lower foot to match. The mattress, as wide as it was long, came up to her thigh, making her think of Goldilocks confronted by the largest of the three bears' beds.

  "How on earth did he move it up here?" she asked.

  "By making it in sections, then assembling it in this room. It was never intended to leave."

  "He did good work."

  "My parents didn't agree. That's how I got to have this room for my own. They never slept here. Said it would be like sleeping in a fishbowl."

  "A fishbowl filled with stars."

  "Grandpa would have approved of you." He touched her cheek. "He said this bed was meant for making babies."

  She managed a shaky smile. "He must have been some man."

  "He was, but he was thinking of the future generations he hoped would sleep in the bed."

  Her legs felt unable to hold her suddenly, and she sat on the only available support, the bed itself. Bad idea she thought as Garth leaned over her. She was still thinking "bad idea" when his mouth found hers, and suddenly it seemed like the best idea in the world.

  She wasn't sure how she ended up stretched out full length, but somehow she was lying in his arms. There was plenty of room, but she didn't feel inclined to use any more of it for the moment.

  He tugged a pillow under her head, then propped himself up on one elbow beside her. His finger traced a line from her forehead down her nose until she captured the tip in her mouth and suckled, hearing his breath catch.

  Her own throat felt tight. This wasn't supposed to happen, and yet she didn't want it to stop. He slid his hand around the curve of her jaw and tilted her face up. She closed her eyes as he found her mouth again, and sensation speared all the way to her core.

  "Open your eyes," he urged softly. "I want you to look at me when we make love."

  She did and almost closed them again as the heat from his gaze
ignited her internal temperature nearly to flashpoint. "We aren't going to make love," she said without any real conviction.

  His mouth moved over hers, robbing her of breath. "Of course not. What we're going to do will be so astonishing we'll have to find a new way to describe it."

  Chapter 15

  The blood roared in her head. "This is a mistake," she said but couldn't make herself roll away from him.

  He nibbled her earlobe. "Everybody's entitled to one."

  "Then we've had our quota."

  He twined a lock of her hair around his finger. "That wasn't a mistake. That was an experiment. Any scientist knows your results aren't valid unless you can repeat them."

  "We aren't scientists."

  "Speak for yourself." He began to kiss her bare shoulder, anointing each spot with his tongue. "Right now I'm collecting data on the taste of the human female."

  Each time his tongue made contact, fire tore through her. Her voice came out as a strangled whisper. "Isn't this experiment a bit one-sided."

  He continued licking and kissing a trail along her collarbone until he encountered the sleeve of her top. He tugged at the garment. "You'll get your turn. Does this thing have any fastenings."

  "It pulls on," she said tremulously, wondering why she was helping him instead of fighting him. The drumming of her pulse made it hard to think straight.

  "What pulls on can pull off, right?" He was already easing the stretchy fabric down over her shoulder, lifting her unresisting arm and peeling the single sleeve off until the top fell to her waist, exposing her lacy strapless bra. He pushed that down as well and began to kiss her breasts in turn. Sheet lightning speared through her.

  She threw her head back, panting for air. "This experiment of yours is killing me. I can't…"

  "Tell me you want me," he said.

  His teeth nipped and teased. Drawing a whole breath became a memory. "You know I do."

  "I want to hear you say it."

  "Yes, yes." If he left her now she didn't know what she would do. Still, sanity struggled to surface. "We shouldn't. I shouldn't…"

  His fingers skimmed heated flesh, shaping her to his desire. "Shouldn't stop?" he asked, faking innocence.