It didn’t matter that they were dozens, sometimes even hundreds of yards apart. Veronica was his main link to the surveillance van. Hers was the voice Joe heard most often over his miniaturized earphone. He had to depend on her and trust her implicitly when she gave him information and instructions. Whether she knew it or not, their relationship had become an intimate one.
And Joe suspected that she knew it.
He was staring at her again, he realized. Her eyes were so blue and wide as she gazed back at him.
He looked away first. Who was he kidding? What was he trying to do? Weren’t two rejections enough? What did he want, three for three?
“It’s getting late,” he said gruffly, wanting her either in his arms or gone.
“Well,” she said, clearly flustered. “I’m sorry. I’m…” She shook her head and fished for a moment in her briefcase. “Here is tomorrow’s schedule,” she added, handing him a sheet of paper. “Good night, then.” She moved gracefully toward the door.
“Saint Mary’s,” Joe said aloud, his eyes catching the name halfway down the schedule.
Veronica stopped and turned back toward him. “Yes, that’s right,” she said. “I meant to ask you to wear something…special.”
“What? My giant chicken suit?”
She laughed. “Not exactly what I had in mind.”
“Then maybe you should be more specific.”
“Blue jacket, red sash, black pants,” Veronica instructed. “I think of it as Tedric’s Prince Charming outfit. Didn’t you get fitted for something like that?”
“I did and I’ll wear it tomorrow.” Joe bowed. “Your wish is my command.”
Chapter Thirteen
Veronica rode to Saint Mary’s in the limousine with Joe.
He was wearing the Prince Charming-like suit she’d asked him to wear, and he looked almost ridiculously handsome.
“This is going to be a difficult one,” she said, doing some last-minute work on her laptop computer.
“Are you kidding?” Joe said. “No media, no fanfare—how hard could it be?”
“I’m going in with you this time,” Veronica said, as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Oh, no, you’re not,” he countered. “I don’t want you within ten feet of me.”
She looked up from her computer screen. “There’s no danger,” she said. “Saint Mary’s wasn’t on the schedule we released to the press.”
“There’s always danger,” Joe insisted. “There’s always a possibility that we’re being followed.”
Veronica looked out the rear window. Three other limos, plus the surveillance van, were trailing behind them. “Goodness gracious,” she said in mock surprise. “You’re right! We’re being followed by three very suspicious-looking limousines and—”
“Knock off the comedy routine, St. John,” Joe muttered. “You’re not going in there, and that’s final.”
“You don’t want me to get hurt.” Veronica closed her computer and slid it back into its carrying case. “That’s so sweet.”
“That’s me,” Joe said. “Prince Sweetie-Pie.”
“But I need to go in.”
“Ronnie—”
“Saint Mary’s is a hospice, Joe,” Veronica said quietly. “For children with cancer.”
Joe was silent.
“There’s a little girl named Cindy Kaye who is staying at Saint Mary’s,” she continued, her voice low and even. “She wrote a letter to Tedric, asking him to stop and visit her during his tour of the United States. She’d like to meet a real prince before—well—before she dies.” She cleared her throat. “Cindy has an inoperable brain tumor. She’s been writing to Tedric for months—not that he bothers to read the letters. But I’ve read them. Every single one. She’s incredibly bright and charming. And she’s going to die in a matter of weeks.”
Joe made a low, pain-filled sound. He rubbed his forehead with one hand, shielding his eyes from her view.
“I spoke to her mother on the phone this morning,” Veronica said. “Apparently Cindy’s taken a turn for the worse. She’s been practicing her curtsy for months, but as of last night, she’s…” She cleared her throat again. “The tumor’s affecting more and more of her motor functions, and she’s now unable to get out of bed.”
Joe swore, long and loud, as the limo pulled up outside the hospice.
It was a clean, white building, with lots of windows, and beautiful flowers growing in the neatly tended gardens outside. There was a statue of the Madonna, also gleaming white, in among the flowers. It was lovely to look at, so peaceful and serene. But inside…Inside were children, all dying of cancer.
“What am I supposed to say to a kid who’s dying?” Joe asked, his voice hoarse.
“I don’t know,” Veronica admitted. “I’ll come with you—”
“No way.” Joe shook his head.
“Joe—”
“I said, no. I’m not risking your life, goddammit!”
Veronica put her hand on his arm and waited until he looked up at her. “Some things are worth the risk.”
Cindy Kaye was tiny, so skinny and frail. She looked more like a malnourished six-year-old than the ten-year-old Veronica knew her to be. Her long brown hair was clean and she wore a pink ribbon in it. She was lying on top of her bedspread, wearing a frilly pink dress with lots of flounces and lace. Her legs, covered in white tights, looked like two slender sticks. She wore white ballet slippers on her narrow feet.
The little girl’s brown eyes filled with tears, tears that spilled down her cheeks, as Joe came into the room and gave her his most royal of bows.
“Milady,” he said in Tedric’s unmistakable accent. He approached Cindy and the vast array of tubes and IVs and medical equipment that surrounded her without the slightest hesitation. He sat on the edge of Cindy’s bed and lifted her skeletal hand to his lips. “It is a great honor to meet you at last. Your letters have brought great joy and sunshine to my life.”
“I wanted to curtsy for you,” Cindy said. Her voice was trembling, her speech slurred.
“When my sister, the Princess Wila, was twelve,” Joe said, leaning forward as if he were sharing a secret with her, “she injured her back and neck in a skiing accident, and was confined to her bed, much the way you are now. Our great-aunt, the Duchess of Milan, taught her the proper social etiquette for such a situation. The duchess taught her the ‘eyelid curtsy.’”
Cindy waited silently for him to continue.
“Close your eyes,” Joe commanded the little girl, “count to three, then open them.”
Cindy did just that.
“Excellent,” Joe said. “You must have royal blood in your veins to be able to do the eyelid curtsy so elegantly your very first time.”
Cindy shook her head, the corners of her mouth finally curving upward.
“No royal blood? I don’t believe it,” Joe said, smiling back at her. “Your dress is very beautiful, Cindy.”
“I picked it out just for you,” she said.
Joe had to lean close to understand. He looked up to meet the eyes of the woman seated beside the bed—Cindy’s mother. She gave him such a sweet, sorrowful, thankful smile, he had to look away. Her daughter, her precious, beautiful daughter, was dying. Joe had always believed he was a strong man, but he wasn’t sure he would have the strength to sit by the bedside of his own dying child, day after day, hiding all his frustration and helplessness and deep, burning anger, offering only comforting smiles and peaceful, quiet, reassuring love.
He felt some of that frustration and rage form a tornado inside him, making his stomach churn. Somehow, he kept smiling. “I’m honored,” he said to Cindy.
“Do you speak Ustanzian?” Cindy asked.
Joe shook his head. “In Ustanzia we speak French,” he said.
“Je parle un peu français,” Cindy said, her words almost unrecognizable.
Oh, God, thought Veronica. Now what?
“Très bien,” Joe said smoothly. “Very good.”
<
br /> Veronica relaxed. Joe knew a bit of French, too. Thank goodness. That might have been a real disaster. Imagine the child’s disappointment to find that her prince was an imposter…
“I would love to see your country,” Cindy said, in her stilted schoolgirl French.
Oh, dear. Veronica stood. “Cindy, I’m sure Prince Tedric would love for you to see his country, too, but he should really practice his English, now that he’s visiting America.”
Joe looked up at her. “It’s all right,” he murmured, then turned back to Cindy. “I know a way you can see my country,” Joe replied in perfect French. His accent was impeccable—he spoke like a native Parisian. “Close your eyes, and I will tell you all about my beautiful Ustanzia, and you will see it as if you are there.”
Veronica’s mouth was hanging open. Joe spoke French? Joe spoke French? She pulled her mouth shut and listened in silence as he described Ustanzia’s mountains and valleys and plains in almost poetic language—both in French and English, as he translated the too-difficult words for the little girl.
“It sounds wonderful,” Cindy said with a sigh.
“It is,” Joe replied. He smiled again. “Do you know some people in my country also speak Russian?” He then repeated his question in flawless Russian.
Veronica had to sit down. Russian? What other languages did he speak? Or maybe she should wonder what languages didn’t he speak…
“Do you speak Russian?” Joe asked the little girl.
She shook her head.
“Say ‘da,’” Joe said.
“Da,” she said.
“That’s Russian for ‘yes,’” he told her, and smiled—a big, wide, warm Joe smile, not one of Tedric’s pinched smiles. “Now you speak Russian.”
“Da,” she said again, with a brilliant smile in return.
A FInCOM agent appeared in the doorway. When Joe looked up, the man touched his watch.
“I have to go now,” Joe said. “I’m sorry I can’t stay longer.”
“That’s okay,” Cindy said, but once again her eyes filled with tears.
Joe felt his heart clench. He’d been there, visiting Cindy, for only thirty minutes. When they’d set up the schedule for the tour, McKinley had wanted to allot only five minutes for Saint Mary’s, but Veronica had been adamant that they take a full half hour. But now, even a half hour didn’t seem long enough.
“I’m so glad I got to meet you,” Joe said, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead as he stood.
“Your Highness…?”
“Yes, milady?”
“I heard on the news that there are lots of kids hungry in Ustanzia right now,” Cindy said, laboring over the words.
Joe nodded seriously. “Yes,” he said. “That news report was right. My family is trying to fix that.”
“I don’t like it when kids are hungry,” she said.
“I don’t either,” Joe said, his voice husky. The tornado inside him was growing again. How could this child think of others’ troubles and pain, when her own pain was so great?
“Why don’t you share your food with them?” Cindy said.
“It’s not always that easy,” Joe said. But she already knew that. Surely she, of all people, knew that.
“It should be,” she said.
He nodded. “You’re right. It should be.”
She closed her eyes briefly—an eyelid curtsy.
Joe bowed. What could he say now? Stay well? That would be little more than a cruel joke. I’ll see you soon? An untruth. Both he and the child knew they would never meet again. His rage and frustration swelled up into his throat, making it difficult to speak. “Goodbye, Cindy,” he managed to say, then moved toward the door.
“I love you, Prince,” Cindy said.
Joe stopped, and turned back to her, fighting hard to smile. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll treasure this day, Cindy—always—and carry you forever in my heart.”
The little girl smiled, made happy by such a small thing, such a small pleasure.
Somehow Joe kept the smile on his face until he was outside the room. Somehow he managed to walk down the hall without putting his fist through a wall. Somehow he managed to keep walking—until the burning rage in his stomach and throat and behind his eyes grew too intense, and his feet wouldn’t carry him another step forward.
He turned toward the wall—the same wall he hadn’t put his fist through—and leaned his arms against it, burying his face in the crook of his elbow, hoping, praying that the pain that was burning him would soon let up.
But why should it? The pain Cindy was in wasn’t going to let up. She was going to die, probably in a matter of days. The injustice of it all was like a knee to his groin. Bile filled his mouth and he wanted to shake his fist at the sky and curse the God who could let this happen.
“Joe.”
Ronnie was there, then. Leading him down the hall, she pulled him into the semiprivacy of a tiny chapel. Warm and soft, she put her arms around him and held him tightly.
“Oh, God,” he said, fighting the hot rush of tears to his eyes. “Oh, God!”
“I know,” she said. “I know. But you were so good. You made her smile. You made her happy.”
Joe pulled back to look at Veronica. Light filtered in through the stained-glass windows, glowing red and blue and gold on the tile floor. “I’m not even a real prince,” he said harshly. “It was all just a lie.”
Veronica shook her head. “Tedric would’ve disappointed her horribly,” she said. “You’ve given her something good to dream about.”
Joe laughed, but it came out sounding more like a sob. He stared up at the crucifix on the wall behind the altar. “Yeah, but for how long?”
“For as long as she needs good dreams,” Veronica said quietly.
Joe felt his eyes fill with tears again. He tried to blink them back, but one or two escaped, rolling down his face. He was crying. God, he hadn’t cried since he was fifteen years old. Embarrassed, he wiped at his face with the back of one hand. “This is why you insisted that Saint Mary’s stay on the schedule,” he said gruffly. “You’re really the one responsible for making that little girl happy.”
“I think it was teamwork,” Veronica said, smiling at him through her own tears.
He’d never seen her look more beautiful. Nearly everything she’d done up to this point, he realized, she’d done for the sake of one little dying girl. Sure, she wanted to help catch the terrorists. And she wanted to help her friend, the princess of Ustanzia. But what really had driven her to make sure Joe could pass as Prince Tedric, was the little sick kid back in that bed.
He knew that as sure as he knew his heart was beating.
The noose around Joe’s chest drew so tight, for one heart-stopping moment he was sure he’d never be able to breathe again. But then something snapped—not the noose, but something in his head—and a little voice said, “You’re in love with this woman, you flaming idiot,” and he knew it was true.
She was wonderful. And he was crazy in love with her.
Her smile faded and there was only warmth in her eyes, warmth and that ever-present flame of desire. She moved back into his arms, and lifted her mouth to his and…
God, he was kissing her. He was actually kissing her.
He took her lips hungrily, pulling her lithe body closer to him. He wanted to inhale her, devour her, become one with her. He kissed her again and again, his tongue sweeping fiercely past any pretense of civility, as he savagely claimed her mouth.
He could feel her arms around his neck, feel her pressing herself even tighter against him as she kissed him with equal abandon.
It was so right. It was so utterly, perfectly right. This woman, his arms around her, their two hearts beating—pounding—in unison. Two souls intertwined. Two minds so different, yet alike.
Joe knew with sudden frightening clarity what he’d been fighting and denying to himself for days now.
He wanted.
Ronnie St. John.
&
nbsp; Permanently.
As in “till death do us part.”
He wanted to make love to her, to possess her, to own her heart as completely as she owned his. He wanted to see her eyes widen in pleasure, hear her cry his name as he filled her, totally, absolutely, in a perfect act of total and binding love.
For the first time in his life, Joe understood the concept of happily ever after. It was a promise he’d never allowed himself before, an impossible rank he’d never thought to achieve.
But it was right there, staring him in the face whenever Veronica walked into the room. It was in the way she stood, the way she tilted her head very slightly as she listened to him talk, the way she tried so ineffectually to tuck her wild curls back up into her bun, the way her blue eyes danced as she laughed. And it was in the way she was kissing him, as if she, too, wanted to wrap her gorgeous mile-long legs around his waist and feel him inside her forever and ever and ever and ever.
But then, as suddenly as the kiss had started, it stopped.
Veronica pulled away, as if she suddenly realized that they were standing in the middle of the hospice chapel, surrounded by stained glass and soothing dark wood and candles, with a FInCOM agent watching them from the doorway. A nun knelt quietly before the altar. They’d been standing there, kissing, in front of a nun, for crying out loud…
Veronica’s cheeks flushed pink as Joe looked into her eyes, trying to see what she was thinking. Was this just another “mistake”? Or was this simply a more emotional thank-you? Or was it more than that? Please, God, he wanted it to be more. He wanted it to mean she was feeling all of the things that he felt. But they weren’t alone, and he couldn’t ask. He couldn’t even speak. All he could do was hope.
She looked away from him, the expression in her eyes unreadable as she murmured an apology.
An apology. Mistakes and accidents required apologies.
Joe’s heart sank as the FInCOM agents quickly led them both back to the waiting limos. And when Kevin Laughton hustled Veronica into a different limousine and she didn’t even glance in Joe’s direction before getting inside, his heart shattered.
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