by Rebecca York
“Yeah.”
“I should thank you for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome,” he said stiffly.
“I thought you were an upstart American,” she added. “I was wrong about you. You’re one of the most accomplished men I’ve ever met.”
“You’re going to give me a swelled head.”
“Don’t act modest. You know you’re good in an emergency situation.”
And are you going to tell me I’m good at kissing? he wondered, but didn’t voice the thought.
They kept walking. He wanted to stop her and turn her to him. He wanted to find out what would happen if he pulled her into his arms again.
Would their passion flare up the way it had earlier? Or would she stiffen in his arms? He felt his stomach clench and kept putting one foot in front of the other.
She was a princess. As a kid, he’d scraped for everything he’d gotten. And some nights he’d gone to bed with a powdered juice drink for dinner because they’d run out of food.
He slid Ariana a sideways glance. Because he couldn’t stand the idea of losing her, he searched around for a way to keep her talking. It was a long way down from the top floor. That gave him the opportunity to find out a lot about her.
“Tell me about Beau Pays,” he said.
“It’s beautiful.” She laughed. “Of course, that’s what the name means. Beautiful country.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess it was a nice place to grow up.”
Her voice took on a glow. “Yes. Our largest city has a population of only three hundred thousand. So people can get around without cars a lot of the time. That cuts down on pollution. But at the same time, we’re very cosmopolitan. Tourism is one of our chief industries. So we have wonderful restaurants, a theater festival every summer, great resorts with summer hiking and winter skiing.”
“And the architecture looks like an Alpine village?”
“Not in the city. It’s very old European. Like Paris or maybe Vienna. With lots of ornamentation on the buildings.”
“Where did you live?”
She hesitated for a moment. “We have a house in town and one out in the country.”
“Are you embarrassed to call it a palace?”
She shrugged. “I guess you could call it that. But it’s not on the scale of Versailles or Windsor. You’d probably just think of them as nice country houses.”
Yeah, sure, he thought. A nice little mansion. With a reception room, grand ballroom, opulent bedrooms and servants’ quarters. But he didn’t contradict her.
“We didn’t need anything like a fortress because the mountains would have made an invasion difficult.”
She gave him a quick glance, then looked away. “Did you see The Sound of Music?”
“Yes.”
“You know that first shot, where Julie Andrews is up on the mountain in the sunshine? My childhood surroundings looked a lot like that.”
“And everybody in your country is a fantastic singer?”
She started to answer, then got the joke and laughed. “I can’t carry a tune, actually.”
“Despite the best efforts of your tutors?”
“I did have a lot of lessons. Fencing. Dancing. Art. I’m pretty good at watercolors.”
“I’d like to see some,” he said before he realized that was highly unlikely.
She didn’t speak, and he was sorry he’d brought up their seeing each other again.
“Is it hard being a princess?” he finally asked.
“My early life was kind of a balancing act. On the one hand, my father wanted us to have a normal upbringing, so we went to school with other children, then to top boarding schools. Our summers were busy, too. My father had me and my brother going to state functions when we were still in grade school.”
“Your brother?”
He heard her swallow and knew he’d stepped into another subject he should have realized was a bad idea.
“He died four years ago. In a skiing accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a terrible blow to my father. And it meant that I became the heir to the throne.”
“That shifted a lot of responsibility to you.”
“Yes.”
He tried to imagine what her life would have been like—and what it would be like in the future. He lived in a society that admired the rich and famous, which was why he’d always kept a low profile himself. She’d put a good face on being her royal highness, but he figured it must have been like living in a gilded cage.
They reached the ground floor and crossed the large lobby, then exited through one of the revolving doors and stepped outside.
Both of them stopped short, taking deep breaths of the night air as they stood under the long curved porch that sheltered the entrance to the building.
When he’d come in, he’d admired the mounds of impatiens and hostas in the raised planter boxes that bordered the plaza in front of the building. Now he saw the five-foot-high polished granite planters with new eyes. Of course, they were barriers designed to protect the courtyard.
Earlier in the evening, there had been a few policemen and Secret Service agents in the plaza. Since the blackout, a small army had gathered at the base of the building. National Guard troops, Secret Service men and police filled the space. In the street beyond he caught glimpses of emergency vehicles—police cars, ambulances, fire engines—and also some of the limousines that had been waiting for the partygoers upstairs.
Trucks from television stations were also part of the mix, although the police were keeping the media well away from the entrance. When a security detail approached, Ariana waved them away.
“Are we on television?” she asked, glaring at the media.
“Probably.”
“So much for privacy,” she said as she bent down and put her shoes back on, then straightened to pat at her hair. It had been carefully coiffed into an elegant upsweep for the reception. The past few hours had loosened the coiffure, creating a charming disorder of misplaced strands that caressed her neck and cheeks.
As if she had followed his thoughts, she touched her hair. “How do I look?” she asked.
“Beautiful.” Then he realized that he’d probably given too much away. “Nobody is going to expect you to look like you stepped out of a diplomatic reception,” he added quickly.
“Didn’t I?”
They shared a sharp laugh, then both went very still, staring at each other in a little bubble of space that isolated them from the rest of the world. They were standing a few feet apart, but it might as well have been a thousand miles.
The sound of a helicopter landing shattered the air above them and the protective bubble.
Beyond the immediate vicinity of the building, he could hear cars honking and people shouting at each other. The chaos was punctuated by the distant sound of breaking glass, and he pictured someone smashing a shop window across the square on Boylston Street.
In the distance he heard gunshots. And he knew that as soon as they stepped out into the plaza, they would enter a no-man’s-land.
A uniformed cop came up to them and checked Shane’s I.D.
“I don’t have I.D.,” Ariana said.
“I was told you were coming down, Your Highness. This way. We’ll be taking off from Copley Square.”
Shane looked toward the square and saw uniforms stationed every few yards along the route they would be taking.
“We’d better go.”
Shane ushered Ariana around the side of the building and into St. James Avenue, the short street that separated the Hancock Tower from the open square.
In a war zone, it always struck him how thin the veneer of civilization was. As they stepped into the street, it felt like staid old Boston had disintegrated to that level.
Footsteps made them both whirl. A Secret Service agent came up to them and addressed Ariana. “A chopper will be landing shortly. It will be leaving from the center of the grassy area ov
er there, just as soon as some of the others make it to the first floor.” He looked at Shane. “Will you escort her over?”
“Of course.”
“Appreciate it,” the agent answered, and Shane knew the man had his hands full.
Before the agent could trot off, Ariana asked, “What about the injured?”
“They’re being taken to local hospitals with emergency power.”
“How many dead?” Shane asked, then was sorry he’d brought up the subject in front of Ariana.
“Eight.”
He winced.
“Including Manfred,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where is the helicopter going?” Ariana asked.
“Otis Air Force Base.”
The finality of the answer tore at Shane. They’d had a horrible night in Boston, yet now that it was almost over, he didn’t want it to end.
ARIANA SAW THE GRIM set of his features. She wondered if her face looked as tight and set.
“This way,” he said, his voice sounding as stiff as his features. She’d like to know what he was thinking, but she couldn’t ask him. Because what would she do with the answer when he gave it to her?
Did he wish he could keep up the relationship with her?
What relationship?
Under normal circumstances, it would be laughable to even think in those terms. She’d known the man less than two hours, but it felt as if they’d spent half a lifetime with each other, because almost every moment of their time together had taken place inside a pressure cooker. From their first dance to the wild kiss in the hallway.
As she contemplated that kiss, she wondered if she could ask him to visit her in Beau Pays. But where would that lead? She was engaged to be married to someone else. She could hardly spend a lot of time with Shane Peters. Even if she did, it would only be postponing the break with him. And was she really thinking that they could go off alone somewhere together?
They had no past together beyond this blazingly intense night. And no future. She knew that as well as she knew her duty to her country.
She was all about duty and self-sacrifice, just like her father and her mother, two people who had a comfortable, polite marriage but nothing like the fairy-tale love matches she had read about in books. And where did love get you if you got tangled up with a royal? Princess Diana had thought she was marrying into a fairy-tale existence, and look how she had ended up.
Automatically, Ariana followed along beside Shane, not really looking where they were going.
As they started across the street, he suddenly grabbed her arm, and she gasped.
“What?”
He pulled her back against his body as a car careened past them, weaving among the emergency vehicles.
With his hand firmly against her back, he moved her to the sidewalk, then into the shadows of a black van that was parked at the curb.
Still holding her close, he asked, “Are you all right?”
She swallowed, then laid her head against his broad shoulder. “No,” she whispered.
“Are you hurt?” he asked anxiously, his hands moving up and down her back.
“No.”
“Then what?”
All her past experience and training urged her to simply turn away and go to the helicopter landing area. Instead, she heard herself say, “If you can’t figure it out, then forget it.”
Shane’s hands tightened around her, gathering her closer. “I think I can figure it out.”
They stood close, and she nestled against him as he stroked up and down her back. If she turned her face up, she knew their lips would meet. She wanted that so much. Wanted to taste him, feel his mouth moving against hers with the urgency of that explosive moment in the hall.
Then she remembered they were out on the street, with a dozen TV cameras somewhere nearby.
She didn’t give a damn if somebody spotted her with Shane Peters. But she knew her father would care. Very much. He’d set standards for the heir to the throne of Beau Pays, and she had always honored those standards. Until tonight.
“We can’t stay here,” she said.
“Yeah.”
He looked out into the street. This time it seemed clear, and he led her across and into the shadows of a green striped awning set up along the side of Copley Square.
More awnings stood on either side of it.
“What are these for?” she asked.
“There’s a street market here.”
“Very charming,” she answered, then immediately thought how inane that must sound.
At the end of the square, the Secret Service or the police had set up generator-powered floodlights. Presumably, the police had closed the square, because it was now empty. She saw yellow tape at the far side.
Shane led her toward the lit area as a helicopter took off.
“I guess the president is safely out of here,” she whispered. “Dieu merci.”
“Agreed.”
She looked up and down the square. A large stone church was at one end and a massive public structure was across the street at the other end.
“What’s that building?” she asked, not because she really needed to know, but because she wanted to keep hearing Shane’s voice.
“The Boston Public Library,” he answered.
“It’s big.”
“I guess it’s a city of readers.”
As the chopper disappeared into the darkness, she heard the sound of another one arriving. Gracefully it set down in the pool of lights.
“Your ride’s here,” he said. “It’s a Sikorsky Seahorse. A good little machine.”
“Uh-huh.” Apparently he was up on his helicopters, or he was doing the same thing as she was—manufacturing conversation.
The helicopter came down low, hardly touching the ground.
“It’s maintaining upward lift power,” he said. “Ready for a dust off.”
“Which is?”
“A quick takeoff. Better hurry or it will leave without you. It only holds twelve, including the crew.”
As he spoke, she realized that this was the last time she was going to see him. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”
She heard him swallow in the darkness, felt the touch of his hand on her bare arm. “I’d ask you to stay, if I thought it would do either one of us any good.”
Her heart squeezed painfully. Because tears stung her eyes, and she didn’t want him to see them, she turned away and started toward the center of the square, toward the temporary landing pad.
But she wasn’t the only one who was trying to get out of Boston as quickly as possible after hours of terror up at the reception. As she hurried toward the lit area, other elegantly dressed people emerged from the shadows, and she recognized them from the reception.
She felt the wind coming off the blades as they approached the machine, and fought the universal impulse to duck.
Shane waited until the door swung open. Two people rushed past and scrambled inside.
“Why didn’t they send a bigger helicopter?” the woman shouted above the noise of the rotors.
“Luck of the draw,” Shane answered, although it looked as if he might as well have saved his breath as the woman pushed past him.
Ariana still didn’t climb aboard. She wondered if she’d miss the flight if she held back.
“I’ll help you up,” Shane said, climbing into the doorway.
“Help the older people in,” she said.
He offered his hand to an elderly man, then a woman who looked as if she’d lived through a world war. And finally it was Ariana’s turn, if she wanted to get out of here.
She had thought she did. Now she was so torn.
As Shane leaned over to give her his hand, something solid and heavy tumbled out from under the sleeve of his jacket and clattered to the ground.
When she looked down, she gasped.
In the illumination from the floodlights, she saw what had fallen. It was the Beau Pays sapphire.
Chapter Nine
Stunned, Ariana stared at the gem glittering in the floodlights. In one smooth motion, she jumped down from the helicopter and scooped up the priceless sapphire. Holding it in her fist, she raised her eyes to Shane’s.
Before either one of them could speak, a woman dashed out of the shadows and made for the chopper. Pushing past Ariana, she scrambled through the open doorway.
“I have a full load. You’ll have to wait for the next chopper,” the pilot called above the noise of the rotor.
The blades set up a whirlwind around Ariana as Shane pulled her away from the machine lifting off. As it disappeared into the blackness, they were left standing at the edge of the lit area staring at each other.
“Where did you get this?” she gasped, holding up the gem and waving it in his face.
“I…”
“Answer me!” she spat out. “And don’t tell me that in the middle of that madhouse up there, you decided to rescue my family’s most prized possession. If you’d done that, you would have mentioned it to me before now.”
“I took it before the shooting started.” Before she could make an appropriate comment, he went on quickly. “To prove your security was a joke.”
She could barely contain her anger enough to speak coherently. But she managed to say, “Let’s get the time frame straight. Did you steal it before we danced?” she inquired, her voice dangerously calm.
“Yes.”
“You expect me to believe that you had my family’s best interests at heart—my best interests at heart?”
“It’s the truth.”
The enormity of his betrayal hit her like a cannonball striking her chest. “I let you kiss me,” she choked out. “You must have been laughing the whole time.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I was…blown away by that kiss.”
“Don’t make it worse.” She couldn’t stand the sight of this man who had taken advantage of her as though she were some naive little debutante who didn’t know any better. He was a smug opportunist who had manipulated her emotions, and if she stayed near him another moment, she would throw up.
Too bad she’d lost her place on the helicopter.
She didn’t know when another one was coming, and she was hardly capable of rational thought at the moment.