Authors: Nora Roberts
“Loubet has just left,” Armand said without preliminary. “You’ve seen the paper?”
“Yes.” Reeve accepted the coffee but didn’t sit, as the prince remained standing. He knew when to reject
protocol and when to bow to it. “It appears there’s relief that Her Highness is back safely and a lot of speculation on the kidnapping itself. It’s to be expected.”
“And a great deal of criticism of Cordina’s police department,” Armand added, then shrugged. “That, too, is to be expected. I feel so myself, but, then, they have next to nothing to go on.”
Reeve inclined his head, coolly. “Don’t they?”
Their look held, each measuring the other. “The police have their duty, I mine and you yours. You’ve been with Gabriella this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Sit.” With an impatient gesture he motioned toward a chair. Protocol be damned, he wasn’t ready to sit himself. “How is she?”
Reeve took a seat and watched the prince walk around the room with the same nervous grace his daughter had. “Physically, I’d say she’s bouncing back fast. Emotionally, she’s holding on because she’s determined to. Her secretary’s briefing her on names and faces at the moment. She intends to keep her schedule, starting today.”
Armand drank half his coffee, then set the cup down. He’d already had too much that morning. “And you’ll go with her?”
Reeve sipped his coffee. It was dark and rich and hot. “I’ll go with her.”
“It’s difficult—” Armand broke off, struggling with some emotion. Anger, sorrow, frustration? Reeve couldn’t be quite sure. “It’s difficult,” he repeated, but with perfect calm, “to stand back and do little, give little. You came at my request. You stayed at my request. And now I find myself jealous that you have my daughter’s trust.”
“‘Trust’ might be a bit premature. She considers me useful at the moment.” He heard the annoyance in his voice and carefully smoothed it over. “I can give her information about herself without drawing on her emotions.”
“Like her mother, she has many of them. When she loves, she loves completely. That in itself is a treasure.”
Armand let his coffee cool as he walked around to sit at his desk. It was an official move, of that Reeve was
certain. Imperceptibly he came to attention. “Last evening Bennett pointed out to me that I may have put you in an awkward position.”
Reeve sipped his coffee, outwardly relaxed, inwardly waiting. “In what way?”
“You’ll be at Gabriella’s side, privately and publicly. Being who she is, Brie is photographed often. Her life is a subject for discussion.” The prince picked up a smooth white rock that sat on his desk. It just fitted in the palm of his hand; it was a rock his wife had found years before on a rocky beach. “With my thoughts centered around Gabriella’s safety and her recovery, I hadn’t considered the implications of your presence.”
“As to my … place in Gabriella’s life?”
Armand’s lips curved. “It’s a relief not to have to explain everything with delicacy. Bennett’s young, and his own affairs are lovingly described in the international press.” There seemed to be a mixture of pride and annoyance. A parent’s fate, Reeve thought with some amusement. He’d seen it in his father often enough. “Perhaps that’s why this occurred to him first.”
“I’m here for Her Highness’s security,” Reeve commented. “It seems simple enough.”
“For the ruler of Cordina to have asked a former policeman, an American policeman, to guard his daughter, is not simple. It would, perhaps rightly, be considered an insult. We’re a small country, Reeve, but pride is no small thing.”
Reeve sat silently a moment, weighing, considering. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
Relief. It shouldn’t be what he was feeling, certainly not so intensely. But his hand on the cup relaxed. “I can’t change my nationality, Armand.”
“No.” His answer was just as brief. He passed the rock into his other hand. “It would be possible, however, to change your position in such a way that would allow you to remain close to Gabriella without causing the wrong kind of speculation.”
This time it was Reeve who smiled. “As a suitor?”
“Again you make it easy for me.” Armand sat back, studying the son of his friend. Under less complicated
circumstances, he might have approved of a match between Reeve and his daughter. He couldn’t deny he had hoped Brie would marry before this, and that he’d purposely tossed her together with members of British royalty and gentry, eligible men of the French aristocracy. Still, the MacGees had an impressive lineage and a flawless reputation. He wouldn’t have been displeased if what he was now proposing hypothetically were fact.
“I would, however, take it one step closer than a suitor. If you have no objections, I’d like to announce your engagement to Gabriella.” He waited for some sign, some gesture or expression. Reeve gave him nothing more than what seemed to be polite interest. Armand rubbed a thumb over the rock. He could respect a man who could keep his thoughts to himself.
“As her fiancé,” he continued, “you can be by her side without raising any questions.”
“The question might arise as to how I became Her Highness’s fiancé after being in Cordina only a few days.”
Armand nodded, liking the clean, emotionless response. “My long association with your father makes this more than plausible. Brie was in your country only last year. It could be said that you developed your relationship then.”
Reeve drew out a cigarette. He found he needed one. “Engagements have a habit of leading to marriage.”
“Proper ones, yes.” Armand set the stone back on his desk and folded his hands. “This, of course, is only one for our convenience. When the need is over, we’ll announce that you and Gabriella have had a change of heart. The engagement will be broken and you’ll each go your own way. The press will enjoy the melodrama and no harm will be done.”
The princess and the farmer, Reeve thought, and grinned. It might be an interesting game at that. Before it was over, there might be a few moments to remember. “Even if I agree, there’s another player involved.”
“Gabriella will do what’s best for herself and her country.” He spoke simply, as a man who knows his own power. “The choice is yours, not hers.”
A lack of choice. Hadn’t she said that was what she resented most? There was more to being royal than the pretty silver crown and glass slipper. Reeve blew out a stream of smoke. He might sympathize, but it wouldn’t
stop him from making this choice for her. “I can understand your reasons. We’ll play it your way, Armand.”
The prince rose. “I’ll speak to Gabriella.”
Reeve hadn’t thought she’d be pleased. When it came down to it, he didn’t want her to be. It was easier on him when she was a bit prickly, a little icy. It was the lost, vulnerable look that undid him.
When Brie swept out of the palace a few minutes before one, he wasn’t disappointed. She’d thrown on a jacket, the same dark, rich suede as her skirt. Her hair fell free down the back and caught every color of the sun. Her eyes, when she tossed her head back and aimed them at him, were gold, glorious and molten. A creature of the light, he thought as he lounged against the car. She didn’t belong behind castle walls, but under the sky.
Reeve gave her a small bow as he opened the door for her. Brie sent him one long smoldering look. “You stabbed me in the back.” She dropped into the front seat and stared straight ahead.
Reeve jingled the keys in his pocket as he crossed over to the driver’s side. He could handle it delicately … or he could handle it as he chose. “Something wrong, darling?” he asked her when he settled beside her.
“You’re joking?” She looked at him again, hard and full. “You dare?”
He took her hand, holding it though she gave it a good, hard jerk. “Gabriella, some things are best taken lightly.”
“This farce. This deceit!” Abruptly, and with finesse, she went off in a stream of rapid, indignant French he could only partially follow. The tone, however, was crystal clear. “First I have to accept you as a bodyguard,” she continued, reverting to English without a pause. “So that whenever I turn you’ll be there, hovering. Now this pretense that we’re to be married. And for what?” she demanded. “So that it won’t be known that my father has engaged a bodyguard who isn’t Cordinian or French. So that I may be seen constantly with a man without damaging my reputation. Hah!” In a bad-tempered and undeniably regal gesture, she flung out a hand. “It’s
my
reputation.”
“There’s always mine,” he said coolly.
With that she turned to him, giving him a haughty stare, first down, then up. “I believe it’s safe to say you have one already. And it doesn’t concern me,” she added before he could speak.
“As my fiancée, it certainly should.” Reeve started the engine and began the leisurely drive down.
“It’s a ridiculous charade.”
“Agreed.”
That stopped her. She had opened her mouth to continue to rage, then closed it again with a nearly audible snap. “You find it ridiculous to be engaged to me?”
“Absolutely.”
She discovered something else about herself. She had a healthy supply of vanity. “Why?”
“I generally don’t get engaged to women I barely know. Then, too, I’d think twice about hooking up with someone who was willful, selfish and bad tempered.”
Her chin came up. From out of her bag she grabbed a pair of tinted glasses and stuck them on her nose. “Then you’re fortunate it’s only a pretense, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
She snapped her bag closed. “And of short duration.”
He didn’t grin. A man only takes a certain number of risks in one day. “The shorter the better.”
“I’ll do my best to accommodate you.” She took the rest of the journey in simmering silence.
It was a short one, but she wasn’t grateful for it. Having something, someone, specific to direct her anger at helped ease the fear of facing people who were only names to her. She would have liked more time to prepare.
The building that housed the headquarters for the Aid to Handicapped Children Organization was old and distinguished. It had once been the home of her great-grandmother, the thin, efficient Janet Smithers had told her.
Brie stepped from the car with practiced ease. Her stomach muscles were jumping. As she walked to the entrance, she went over the floor plan in her mind. She wouldn’t have reached for Reeve’s hand, but when his closed over hers, she didn’t pull away. Sometimes it was necessary, even preferable, to hold hands with the devil.
She stepped inside, into a cool white hall. Immediately a woman who sat at a desk just beyond the entrance
rose and curtsied. “Your Highness. It’s so good to see you safe.”
“Thank you, Claudia.” The hesitation on the name was so brief Reeve hardly noticed it himself.
“We didn’t expect you, Your Highness. After what—what happened.” Her voice faltered. Her eyes filled.
Compassion moved Brie, before instinct, before politics. She held out both hands. “I’m fine, Claudia. Anxious to get to work.” There was a warmth here, a bond she hadn’t felt with her personal secretary. Still, there could be no pursuing it until she understood it. “This is Mr. MacGee. He’s … staying with us. Claudia’s been with AHC for nearly ten years, Reeve.” Brie gave him the information he’d given her only that morning. “I believe she could run the organization single-handed. Tell me, Claudia, have you left anything for me to do?”
“There’s the ball, Your Highness. As usual, there are complications.”
The Annual Charity Ball, Brie recited to herself. A tradition in Cordina and the biggest fund-raiser for the AHC. She, as president, would organize. As princess she would hostess. It drew the rich, the famous and the important to Cordina every spring. “It wouldn’t be the ball without complications. I’ll get to work, then. Come on, Reeve, we’ll see how useful you can be.”
Past the first hurdle, she went up the stairs, down the hall and into the second room on the right.
“Well done,” Reeve told her as she closed the door.
“I keep hoping …” With a shrug, she let the thought go. She kept hoping that someone would trigger something, would trip the first lock on her memory so that remembrances would come through. Briskly she moved over and drew the curtains.
The room wasn’t as elegant as her personal office. There was a row of file cabinets along one wall, metal and businesslike. Though the desk was ornate, made of beautiful cherry, it was covered with files and notes and papers. Going over, she sat down and picked one up. It was a note concerning a donation to the pediatric ward of the hospital in her handwriting.
Odd to see it, she mused. Earlier she’d tested herself by simply picking up a pen and writing out her name, just to see her signature. The writing was big, looping, just bordering on the undisciplined, and very distinctive. Brie set down the note and wondered where to begin.
“I’ll see about some coffee,” Reeve suggested.
“And some cakes or cookies,” Brie said absently as she began to sort through the papers on her desk. “I missed lunch.” Looking up, she lifted a brow. “I was too angry to eat, but it appears I’m going to need something before this is done.”
“Hamburger?”
“Cheeseburger, no onions.” Then she grinned because it had come out so naturally. “I like them well done.” She could almost, almost picture herself sitting at that desk with a harried, impromptu lunch while she made calls and signed papers. With a burst of enthusiasm, she began to organize.
She was good at it. It was thrilling to discover she had a talent. Within two hours she’d assessed the situation in her office and had begun, slowly, systematically to cope with details, problems and decisions. It came naturally, as dressing, eating, walking came. She had only to think of the angles, consider them and work her way through. At the end of her two hours, her confidence was strong and her mood high. When she left the office her desk was still cluttered. But it was her clutter now—she understood it.
“It felt good,” she said to Reeve when she settled in the car again. “So good. You’ll think I’m foolish.”
“Not at all.” He sat beside her but didn’t reach for the key just yet. “You accomplished a hell of a lot in a couple of hours, Brie. As a cop, I know just how frustrating and boring paperwork can be.”