“You really don’t want to rule Barajas alone,” he joked.
Antoine cursed him again.
Sebastian held up his palms to ward off the vulgar insults. “Don’t worry, getting killed is not part of my plan.”
A muscle twitched in Antoine’s cheek. “You can’t count on everything going according to plan.”
“No, I can’t.” The last time everything was supposed to go according to plan, he’d wound up in the dark waiting for a safe word that never came, and screams ringing in his ears. This plan could not go that wrong. But his brother was right to be concerned. Sebastian was certain that someone was going to end up dead.
Chapter Thirteen
“You cannot keep me here,” she said. “I am not one of your subjects. I am an American citizen, free to come and go as I please.”
He stared down at her, his blue gaze unsettlingly intent; his jaw clenched so tightly. “You are a fool to leave here, to leave my protection.”
Juggling the blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms, she pulled open the back door and snapped her sleeping child into the booster-style car seat. Then she quickly shut that door and jerked open the driver’s side.
“I don’t want your protection,” she said. “You’re no better than he is.”
“And you’re an even bigger fool than I suspected you were.”
She lifted her hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist.
“Your husband warned me that
I
actually needed protection from you,” he said. “Apparently I should have heeded his advice…because you refuse to heed mine.”
“You didn’t offer advice,” she said, tugging free of his grasp. “You issued orders. I’ve had enough of being bullied. No more. If you want to boss people around, I suggest you go back to your own damn country where they have to listen to you.”
“Perhaps I shall.”
She slid into the driver’s seat, and with shaking hands, grasped the steering wheel. “Have a safe trip home, then.”
Sebastian grabbed the door before she could shut it, as he had back at the courthouse just the day before. Had it been only a day since she’d met him? It felt like a lifetime ago.
Given how short her life might be, maybe it had been a lifetime.
“Don’t forget that I warned you,” he said before slamming the door shut for her.
She twisted the key in the ignition. As it had at the courthouse, the motor actually started on the first try. Her stomach clenched with regret and nerves.
This is crazy…
“Damn Antoine. He always has to have the last word,” Sebastian said; his deep voice vibrated behind the seats where he crouched on the floor.
“He seems to believe it might actually be the last word he speaks to you.” For even though Antoine, posing as his twin, had said the words to her, she knew he’d meant them for Sebastian. His brother was as skeptical of the plan as she was, probably partially because he had been enlisted to protect Samantha. Her little girl was not inside that bundle of blankets she’d buckled into the car seat. She was waiting inside the resort for her temporary guardian.
Prince Antoine Cavanaugh as a babysitter?
Jessica could not believe she had entrusted him with her sweet little girl. But Samantha had not been scared of him, probably because he looked almost exactly like Sebastian except for his eyes. Not only were they a lighter blue but they were also full of cynicism. Despite everything that Sebastian had been through, he was not a cynic. In fact he was more of an optimist than she could ever be because he actually believed his plan could work.
T
HIS IS NOT GOING TO WORK
…
Sebastian studied the ranch through the small circle of the scope he’d taken off his long rifle. Kate, the gun, was there, too—the Remington propped in the corner of the kitchen. Except for a rabbit and some birds, nothing moved outside. Not even the men Antoine had sent ahead to guard the perimeter of the ranch. Were Brenner and the others out there?
Antoine had sworn they were all trustworthy, after he’d interrogated them. If not for his twin vouching for Brenner and the other members of their Barajas security detail, Sebastian never would have allowed Jessica back on the ranch. It had been cleared as a crime scene, all the evidence collected and forwarded to the lab, thanks to Jane’s fast work as the forensics expert. The front door had been replaced, but the house still needed to be cleaned up.
“I still wish you would have let a cop pose as you,” he said. Jane had offered despite Prince Stefan’s protest.
His original plan had had Jessica and Samantha both safe with Antoine at the resort while he and Jane or a deputy, posing as Jessica, flushed out Evgeny.
Jessica sighed, and her breath whispered across the back of his arm as she stood beside him, staring out the window. “That wouldn’t have worked.”
“Why? You think Evgeny got to someone in the sheriff’s office?”
“You must think it’s possible or you would have brought Sheriff Wolf in on your little plan.”
He sighed now. “I would have, had you agreed to let a female deputy pose as you.”
“Evgeny wouldn’t have fallen for it,” she said. “I grew out my hair, straightened and dyed it, changed the way I walk and talk, and from just a glimpse of me on a news clip, he knew it was me. He would damn well know if it
wasn’t
me.”
“You sure he knows it’s you?” he asked, gesturing toward the stillness outside. “We’ve been here a couple of days, and he hasn’t made a move, not even to send his men ahead.” She’d been going out to feed the animals, making sure she’d be seen if anyone was watching the ranch.
“Patience isn’t your strong suit?”
He flashed back to all the waiting he’d done in the military, waiting for that perfect shot. It hadn’t bothered him then because he’d been waiting alone. It was waiting with someone that sent him back to his dark past, to the time he’d spent in the hiding place with Antoine.
But waiting with Jessica was even worse than the dark because there was nothing to distract him from his attraction to her. Every time she moved, every time she breathed he wanted her more. “Patience used to be one of my attributes.”
“It’s never been one of mine,” she admitted. “And this waiting is killing me. I’ve never been away from Samantha before.”
“Do you want to call her again?” he asked, pulling the untraceable cell phone from his pocket. He and Antoine were both using them, just in case Evgeny tried tapping their phone lines. His twin and the little girl were playing games and watching cartoons in Antoine’s suite, on which he’d placed a Do Not Disturb order so that the hotel staff would not see her.
“And interrupt her fun with
Uncle Antoine?
” she asked with a derisive snort.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said with not much sincerity. “But she needed something to call him.”
“I think your brother would have preferred Prince Antoine or maybe Your Highness.”
“And that’s precisely why I told her to call him uncle,” Sebastian admitted, chuckling as he remembered the annoyance that had crossed his brother’s face.
“Well, at least she’s having fun.”
“You’re not?” he teased.
“Waiting for someone to try to kill me? Yeah, it’s great fun.” All the color drained from her face, and her mouth fell open with a gasp. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was so insensitive…after what you told me about…”
“I shouldn’t have told you about that,” he said, wishing he could take back the confidence he’d shared with her. He’d told her too much; he could tell from the way she avoided looking at him the past couple of days that he’d made her uncomfortable.
“Have you ever told anyone?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“At least you have your brother.”
“Your brother is dead,” he remembered. “How did that happen?”
“He was murdered,” she said almost matter-of-factly. But from what she’d revealed about their lives, she hadn’t had an easy upbringing, either. “He was a bouncer at one of Evgeny’s father’s clubs. He got in a scuffle with someone, and they stabbed him.”
“Were they arrested?”
She shook her head. “No. Evgeny promised he’d find his killer. He also promised he’d take care of me. He said that, with his last breath, Sam had asked him to do that. He told me that Sam wanted the two of us to be together. That was when I accepted his marriage proposal.” She sighed. “I thought I loved him. Maybe I was just scared to be alone. The way we grew up—with our mom’s drug problems—Sam and I had only each other to count on. Losing him was…”
“Like losing your father, your mother and your brother.”
“So you’re lucky you have your brother.”
“Yes, I am.” It was good they’d stayed in the dark, even though it still haunted him that they might have been able to save their parents had they come out sooner. “Antoine and I have never talked about what happened,” he admitted. “But…”
“Talking about it means reliving it,” he explained.
“I never talk about…Evgeny, either,” she said. “But just because I haven’t talked about him doesn’t mean that I haven’t relived what happened with him—all the time inside my head.”
And that was why he had to control his desire for her. She’d been through too much to ever trust again.
“I’m sorry that I asked you to do this,” he replied. “Maybe you were right to run.”
“And you were right that I’ll never be able to stop running until Evgeny is stopped.”
“I will stop him,” Sebastian vowed. “I know that it’s hard for you to trust me. But I’m telling you the truth.”
“I know,” she assured him. “And I wouldn’t be here—I wouldn’t risk leaving my child without a mother if I didn’t trust you to protect me.”
He sucked in a breath of surprise. “I hadn’t realized that you did…” And now he had even more pressure to not let her down.
N
OT ONLY DID SHE TRUST HIM
—but she was also beginning to fall in love with him. But maybe neither of those was a burden he wanted. He already had a country depending on him; the last thing he needed was more responsibility.
“Maybe we should just give this up,” she said as she hastily stepped back from him.
“Do you think Evgeny will give up?”
“No.”
“Then neither will we,” he said.
No matter how much responsibility he had, he was willing to take on more. To take on hers. “I can’t thank you enough…for risking your life for me.”
But she wanted to try to thank him. So she turned back around and slid her palms up his chest, and she stretched up his body and pressed her lips to his. He lowered his head and kissed her back, his mouth hungrily devouring hers. His tongue slid through her lips and tangled with hers.
Her skin heated and tingled as passion overwhelmed her. She trembled from the force of it.
With a deep groan, he pulled back. “I’m sorry…”
Now the heat of embarrassment rushed to her face. She had been so careful to avoid looking at him the past couple of days so that he would not notice how much she wanted him. But he was so damn handsome and chivalrous. “No. I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re here to protect. I know that’s the only reason.”
She forced a self-depreciating laugh. “I’m hardly your type.” She glanced down at herself. The faded jeans and T-shirt had been washed so many times the seams were worn out.
Instead of the hot denial her ego needed, he hesitated a moment before chuckling. “I will admit that I have never dated anyone like you before.”
“Who do you usually date?”
“Princesses. Heiresses,” he replied.
She remembered that he’d told her his grandfather would have only approved of royalty. He would have hated her probably almost as much as he’d hated Sebastian’s father. “I’m no heiress or princess.”
“That’s not what Samantha thinks,” he reminded her of her daughter’s sleepy proclamation the night she’d awakened to catch them kissing.
“She believes in fairy tales. I know better,” Jessica said as disappointment clutched her heart. “In the real world, Cinderella would never get the prince.”
“So you see yourself as Cinderella?”
She gestured down at her clothes. “Don’t you?”
“You know what I see when I look at you?” he asked, fixing her with that implacable stare of his. “Not your clothes or your hair color. I see your spirit.”
“What spirit?” she asked. Evgeny had beaten it out of her years ago, if she’d ever had much to begin with. She’d never been strong and brave like Sam. She’d preferred to bury herself in a book and try to hide from the reality of their hand-to-mouth existence.
“The spirit that had you nearly dragging me behind your SUV when we first met,” he reminded her with a grin of admiration. “Then had you shoving a shotgun in my face.”
She had actually done that to a prince. She laughed, then sobered when she remembered why she’d done those things. “I was scared and desperate.”
“Your spirit is what brought you here,” he said. “You’re scared but you wouldn’t let a female deputy fill in for you. I’ve never dated anyone like you because I’ve never dated anyone as strong and brave and so damn sexy that every time I get close to you I struggle for control.”
Her heart shifted, kicking against her ribs in reaction to his sweet words. No one had ever said such wonderful things to her. She launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck.
“It’s that loss of control that I apologized for,” he said, his muscular body full of tension. “After what you’ve been through, you need gentleness—tenderness—and I want you too much to be gentle.”
She stretched up his body and bit his bottom lip. “I don’t want gentleness. I just want you.”
When he reached for her, she didn’t flinch or cower. Instead she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his lean waist as he carried her up the stairs. His shoulders banged against the door and then the jamb as he entered her room. With its pale gray walls and lavender curtains and bedding, it had always been a stress-free oasis for her—more so because a man had never stepped inside it than because of its feminine decor. After the violence of her relationship with Evgeny, she had never wanted another man.
Until now.
With passion pumping hot and heavy in her blood, she clawed at Sebastian’s shirt, tearing open its buttons to bare his muscular chest. Golden brown hair dusted golden skin. She skimmed her palms over his chest and abs to the buckle of his belt.
He rasped out a breath. “Slow down,” he cautioned her, unwrapping her legs from around his waist so that she slid down his body. His erection strained against the fly of his jeans.
He wanted her, too. Feminine power filled her, but she stepped back from him. And instead of reaching for him again, she opened her blouse, fumbling every button free of the hole until the cotton parted and she could shrug off the shirt. Her bra was lace, so old and thin that her nipples shone through.