Surely someone would have missed her by now. They would be searching the floor area, bathrooms. How long before they checked the stairwells?
She could smell the woman’s fear beginning to seep through her costume. Hopefully she would panic and make a mistake soon.
“My people took that one and had it examined. The beads and jewels were nothing but paste and tin.”
“Yes. So?” What did they expect?
The exit door creaked above them, from where they’d started, sounds from the casino wafting in. Kim’s hopes rose—her fears did, too, for whomever might unwittingly be stepping into harm’s way. Yet strangely, the gun didn’t waver from her side.
“Where is the real gown?” This question didn’t come in a raspy whisper at all, but from their newcomer and the last voice Kim had expected to hear.
The voice of her cousin.
Kim couldn’t stop herself from jerking against the gun as she spun to see what she could barely believe to be true…. Her cousin descended the last two steps to join them.
She peeled off her mask just as Kim did. Sure enough, it was like looking in a mirror, the only difference being the image staring back wore a blue costume instead of pink.
Her cousin glared. “I want my cut of the money and you had better turn it all over to us.” She stared past Kim. “Sun, what have you found out?”
Wow, her cousin gave up her cohorts mighty easily. It sure didn’t pay to do business with her.
A dirty cop explained so much. Scooter’s murder. How her route in the limo had been leaked that first day.
Sun’s panic radiated off her in waves as she pressed the gun back into Kim’s side. Damn. Not surprising, Sun had lied about her costume, too, as an extra cover.
The traitorous cop’s hand shook. “I’m still trying to sort through it all. She’s tricky, though. Why don’t you see what you can get out of her?”
Her cousin tossed aside her mask and leveled her gun at Kim. “Being a princess just doesn’t pay what it used to. I’ve had to join up with some—how shall we say?—less than savory sorts to make enough to keep myself in the manner to which I have become accustomed.”
Kim sorted through this bizarre turn of events…. Her cousin showing up here, now, in the middle of a search for illegal jewels. “You can’t mean this. How can you do this to our grandmother?”
She considered a reach for her gun or dodging to the side, but any way she looked at it, she was one person against two guns. If only she could take her cousin one on one and kick her butt seven ways to Sunday, like she’d done once when they were kids fighting over a schoolboy crush.
“Our grandmother actually believes we should scale back our lifestyle and stop making so many appearances. She thinks it is time to let the new democracy slide into place.” Her cousin shuddered. “I will not give up so easily.”
Kim wanted to cry to think of what she had let happen through her own selfish need to escape. What a time to realize how she had been running from more than just her role as princess, but from her true feelings for Marc. No longer could she run from life. And she figured it out right when she could well be seconds from death, judging by the cold ruthlessness in her cousin’s eyes.
No. She couldn’t let that happen. Not without telling Marc how much she loved him. To do that, she needed to figure out what the hell was going on here.
Searching for the real gown? The first gown. Realization dawned. The first vintage costume, the one she’d worn in the limo during the chase, when Marc had to tear apart the skirt. She’d left it at the police station and Pearson somehow found an emergency replacement. As far as she knew, the first dress was still in a box at her precinct.
Sun had been sent ahead to the casino on Friday morning before the brief so she wouldn’t have been at the station to notice the costume change. Now she had to get free to call the station and let Captain Pearson know he had a mint in jewels—and likely silver-and-gold studs—stored away in a cardboard box in his office.
If she died here, her cousin could take her place all too easily…. She wouldn’t put it past her if she would try something like this. And Sun might figure out the truth about the dress swap. The exit door swung open again. A flash of light sliced through the dim stairwell from above.
Her cousin’s gun swung toward the opening.
Toward…
“Marc!” Kim shouted in warning, wrenching out of the pirate’s grasp. Too late.
The gun fired.
Kim didn’t have time to reach for her own weapon. She launched at her cousin while Marc plowed toward the lady pirate, pinning the high-seas maiden to the floor. He was still moving, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been hit.
Kim chopped at her cousin’s gun arm and shoved the palm of her hand upward on the impostor’s nose. Blood spurted. Her cousin shrieked and clawed at the air. Kim downed her in a flurry of taffeta and screams.
From the corner of her eye, Kim could see Marc hammer the pirate’s gun hand against the floor. Again. Again. Finally, the weapon skittered away. He peeled Sun’s mask off, his movements appearing fluid. Easy. Blessedly unharmed.
Flipping her cousin to her stomach, Kim pinned her hands behind her back as the doors burst open and the undercover cop detail poured through. Better late than never.
She glanced over at Marc, who had not even a scratch on him, and smiled. She looked around at the scene, princesses, a Zorro, a lady pirate and an entourage of other costumes to make for the strangest bust ever. Marc winked. Her Joker, only hers.
And who said he didn’t have a sense of humor?
SAFELY BACK IN THE PENTHOUSE suite sitting area, Kim knotted the fluffy robe tie around her waist, glad to have cleared away the fairy-tale princess costume and all the crooks for one night. Her cousin and Sun were being processed down at the station now. Kim had placed a call to Captain Pearson to check on her first costume—and sure enough, the thing was loaded with at least ten million dollars’ worth of jewels and precious metals.
Her skin itched all over again.
She flopped on the sofa. No doubt, she would have a tiara painted on her locker when she got back to work. But then it was time for her to blend the two halves of herself. Hadn’t her grandmother been trying to teach her that all her life? Or at least until she’d ditched her true identity. It was past time to visit the older woman and make peace for the grief that the deception had nearly wrought on her home country.
Her cousin would go to jail and Kim would acknowledge her true lineage again—while keeping the name Kim. She could never call herself Ting, since she had embraced a life she’d worked hard to earn with her new name.
Hard work, something her spoiled cousin knew little about. The moment the police had showed up, her cousin had begun crying for special consideration and deals, looking woefully pathetic with her big fat tears and broken nose. She would turn over all the names of her higher-up connection in the jewel racketeering scheme. She would do anything for a lighter, softer sentence. Kim didn’t doubt her cousin would land on her feet and the case would be sewn up tight.
Only one problem remained.
What would Marc think of this final turn of events?
As if he heard her need for him, he filled the doorway from his room. He leaned against the door frame, making sweatpants and a T-shirt look mighty fine. “Now that we’ve finished with your buddies and the protective detail has cleared out, while you’re getting dressed, do you want me to hail you a cab for home or to the station?”
She toyed with the belt on her robe, suddenly in no real hurry to claim her prize in the bet with her two friends. “I should probably go to the station and process the paperwork. Two of my detective friends and I have this bet going as to who can crack their case first. Except now that I look at things through the whole life-and-death filter of tonight’s events, the bet feels—” she groped for the right word “—unimportant.”
“What was the prize?”
“Vacation days.”
“That’s prime.” Still, he didn’t move toward her, leaving the next move up to her.
“Honestly, what I’d like to do most is stay here in the suite, since we have it for the night, and talk to you.” She took a risk, because if she didn’t, she would regret it forever. “To be with you if you still want me, and I think you do.”
“You know I do.” His words came out in a tortured growl, but still he didn’t move closer. “First, I think we need to clear up a few things.”
Ah hell. When she’d taken the risk she’d been so hopeful, almost certain…. “Things like what?”
“This princess thing. You said you’ve never regretted it. You’re sure you meant that? Because I’ve got this pal who quotes Shakespeare a lot, and one of the sayings comes to mind right now. ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’”
“And you would be right.” When she saw what her cousin could have done to their country…“I can’t simply wish away who I am.” She could see how some men wouldn’t want any part of that. Would her decision cost her the man she loved?
“Now that the secret’s out, what does this mean for you?” His dark, soulful eyes that always stared straight at her, only her, never ceased to turn her inside out.
“There’s going to be a big to-do in the papers, given the world’s fascination with royals. I will probably do a preemptive interview with my preferred reporters. It’ll be rough going for a while, but eventually things will settle down. Then I won’t have to return to Cantou more often than once a year if I don’t wish.” She tried to be honest while making it something he could live with, because she so very much wanted him in her life. “There will just be more pageantry when I do. And I will probably get a lot of ribbing around the precinct.”
“We may have a problem here. I’m damn sure not prince material.”
Oh my. To be her prince someday, they had to be…She smiled and rose from the sofa. “I believe that’s all a matter of perspective.”
He strode toward her and looped his arms around her waist, her prince every bit as hunky in a sweat suit as he was in his formal uniform. “Does your perspective include dating me seriously, even if I’m not particularly princely material?”
“Wow, you certainly do cut right to the chase.” She grinned up at him, her heart galloping in her chest.
“I’m a serious man, always have been. It’s been two years and I haven’t gotten over you. Believe me, I tried. Obviously I didn’t do a good enough job convincing anyone, since my very smart ex-fiancée figured it out and ran. I think two years of failing to forget you speaks for itself, Kim. I’d like to get a transfer here so we can spend more time together and explore what we feel for each other.”
Two years of thinking about her? That did tweak at her already softened-up heart. She stroked his scarred jaw, a reminder of how precious every day of life was and how she shouldn’t waste a second more. “You’re a tough one to forget, too.”
“So you’ve been thinking about me?”
“Yes. More than I could even admit to myself until I saw you again. Then when the guns all started coming out down there tonight and I thought I could lose you…” Her head fell to rest on his chest and she allowed herself a moment to let all the fear seep through her, because even as she cherished every second, the thought of losing him did scare her so.
“Uh, you’re not going to walk, are you?” By the gruffness in his voice, the prospect of losing her bothered him every bit as much.
“I’ll admit that for a second there, my heart squeezed so tight. I had this flash moment of what it would be like to close up shop on loving anyone ever again.” She caressed along his scarred jaw again. “That moment turned very, very dark and I found no safety in hiding in that darkness anymore. You’ve taught me how to be the princess and the cop and the woman who loves you so very, very much.”
His arms tightened around her as his smile dug trenches into his face. “I like the sound of that.”
“Risking love is scary for me and I imagine it’s scary for you, too, not that men seem to be as comfortable admitting to being scared as women are.” She winked. “But I’m willing to take this risk with you. We’re worth the payoff. So, yes, I love you and I would very much like it if you moved to Las Vegas.”
He tipped her face up toward his, brushing a kiss over her lips once, twice, and no doubt soon to be many more times. “You won’t be sorry, Princess. I’m certain. Because with a love this strong, you’re gambling on a sure thing.”
THE WILDCARD
Joanne Rock
To Catherine Mann and Debra Webb—
thank you for being so much fun to work with!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
“OH MY GOD. YOU’RE DRUNK on the job.”
Sergeant Dorian Byrne of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department rested her aching head in her hands at her friend’s bald statement of the facts. Leave it to fellow detective Kim Wong to get straight to the point.
Thanks to the wonders of three-way calling, Dorian had contacted the officers she was closest to on the force for advice on her current predicament. She wobbled unsteadily on her high heels at a pay-phone booth while using her cell phone’s headset. Although her friends had joined her in a bet about who would close their case first this weekend in a city-wide sting operation to clean up the casinos, Dorian knew Kim Wong and Clarissa Rivers would never want her to lose because she was under the influence.
“Let me get this straight,” Clarissa chimed in from her operation across town at the Free Throw Casino where she was working on an illegal gambling ring. “You think someone’s been spiking your water and you didn’t even notice it tasted alcoholic?”
Dorian fought the urge to pound her slightly spinning head against the pay-phone booth wall in the lobby of the Pompeii Hotel and Casino. She was scheduled to pull a final stint of undercover work at the Pompeii to ensure an all-encompassing set of arrests on a local crime network, members of which were abducting area prostitutes to sell as sex slaves abroad.
She had to pull herself together if she was going to accomplish her goals.
“You know how awful the water can be in this town. I didn’t order bottled because I think it’s a frivolous expense for the department.” She couldn’t help a financial conservative streak that came from growing up poor. “So I loaded up my water with lemons from the bar to make it more palatable. I probably drank four glasses this morning while getting acquainted with the layout of the casino.”
“And you think there was alcohol in all of those glasses?” Kim’s accent came through a little more pronounced since her cover at the Great Wall Casino had her playing into her Asian heritage while she investigated diamond smuggling.
“If there was a little alcohol in each it makes sense I’d be tipsy by now and explains why I didn’t notice at first, right? After the first drink, I thought I felt funny because I didn’t get enough sleep last night, but by my fourth glass, the effects were too obvious to deny.” She tried not to panic at the thought that someone in the hotel already knew her identity and drugged her because she was a cop. Could her cover already be blown?
“You don’t think you could have been drugged with anything besides alcohol, do you?” Clarissa sounded worried. “Should you get to the lab and have them draw your blood?”
An oath slipped out of Dorian’s mouth, her reactions slower and less professional.
“I never thought of a drug. Damn. I can’t get a complete chemical analysis of my blood three hours before I have to meet my partner for this operation.” Her head swam as dread grew at the thought. If only she didn’t have to be working with Simon Ramsey this weekend.
The trouble he’d once caused her made being drunk on the job seem like a picnic.
“Don’t panic.” Kim lowered her voice. “Save the tainted water by bringing the last glass up to your hotel room, and you can send it to the lab after you make your arrests. You don’t have time to track down a nut screwing with your drink right before the biggest arrests of your career. Captain Pearson needs these kidnappers caught.” Kim’s bottom-line assessment made sense. “Besides, Special Agent Ramsey will be there backing you up to make sure you don’t make any poor judgment calls.”
Oh God. Dorian refused to admit that Simon himself had a detrimental effect on her judgment.
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