by Julie Miller
“Danya.” Ivan ground the order between clenched teeth. “Retreat.”
The bodyguard pushed to his feet. “He is not armed.”
Green eyes. Square jaw. Another Valentine. Great. He was scoring zero points in the public relations department with this family. But the young man didn’t seem to mind the rude greeting once his gaze landed on Galina. Instead of complaining about the welcome, he smiled. “Nice. Wish you’d have frisked me.”
“Jesse!” Carly chided. Including the young man and Danya in her glare, she slid between the two of them, motioning for Danya to back away. “This is my brother Jesse. If you try to frisk my brother Frank, he’ll punch you.”
She linked her arm with her brother’s in protective solidarity. Her smile tightened into a grim line as she went through the introductions. “His Royal Highness, Prince Ivan. The prince’s friend, Aleksandr Petrovic. His chief of staff, Galina Honchar. Chief of security Filip Milevski. And Danya... I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your last name.”
“Pavluk.”
“Have the Russians invaded?” Jesse asked.
Danya stepped forward, taking the joking remark as an insult. “We are not Russian. We are proud citizens of Lukinburg.”
“Oh, hell. It’s true. Hey, Frankie! You here? You owe me ten bucks.” The rhythmic pop of a nail gun that had underscored the entire conversation stopped as the young man extended his hand. “Nice to meet you, Ivan. What’s your business with my sister?”
Before he could answer the question, another Valentine entered through the kitchen. This one was bigger, blonder, but the family resemblance was the same. “What are you on about now, Jess?” He pulled a ball cap off his head to mop at the sweat on his brow and pointed the cap at Danya. “You’re that guy I saw lurking around the Fitzes’ yard. What are you doin’ in our house? With guns? The kids don’t need to see those.”
“It’s okay, Frank. My older brother.” Carly made the round of introductions again, and Ivan shook his hand. He didn’t like admitting the relief he felt to learn this was her brother, and not a potential rival for her time and attention.
Frank Valentine appeared to be about the same age as Ivan, in his early to midthirties. He crossed his brawny arms over his chest. “You really a prince?”
“Are you really her brother?”
Jesse, clearly the more outgoing of the two, laughed. “A wiseass, huh?”
Carly pinched his arm. “You don’t say things like that in front of—”
“It is fine.” Apparently, plain speaking was a Valentine family trait. Ivan could appreciate that. In fact, he envied their openness. He didn’t have to second-guess what they were thinking and if they were plotting against him. “Before I had to bow to royal protocol, I, too, had a penchant for sarcasm. It still slips out every now and then.”
“I’ll take this off your hands.” Galina plucked the fruit basket from Ivan’s grip and moved forward to take Frank Valentine’s arm. “It is time for us to leave the prince to the reason for his visit. Spending time with Miss Valentine. Filip, Danya—perhaps you should check with Eduard to see what information he has discovered?” After the security team exited onto the porch, Galina’s smile included an invitation for Jesse to join her and Frank. Both men seemed eager to oblige. “Teach me about this baseball.”
While the others settled in front of the television, Ivan followed Carly into the kitchen. “Does no one help you prepare the meals?”
“I like to cook. This is my therapy when I need to think.” After setting the flowers on the counter, Carly stirred beer into the pot bubbling on the stove. Then she opened the refrigerator and took out a tray of hamburger patties. She peeked into the living room, confirming that everyone was busy with the game or engrossed in conversation, then dropped her voice to a whisper and hurried to the back door. “Does that jacket come off?” she asked when he moved in beside her to hold the door open. “You might want to roll up your sleeves and loosen your tie. It’s hot out here.”
Sensing the urgency in this sudden shift in behavior, Ivan shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs before following her down the steps into the backyard. He joined her at the grill. “I need to speak with you privately.”
“I didn’t think you were here for a booty call.”
He folded the crisp white cuffs of his sleeves. “I do not understand.”
“You know, when a guy calls or drops by to...” Her cheeks blushed bright pink and she shoved the tray into his hands, asking him to hold it while she added the extra burgers to the grill and slipped ones that were already cooked to a warming bin.
“Carly, I need you to speak always so I understand you. What is booty call?”
“A quickie. Sex.” She patted her backside. “It’s slang for this. That guys want to... Women, too...” Her cheeks heated with another blush that he doubted could be attributed to the hot coals or humid summer weather, and she went back to flipping burgers. “That’s why your friends think you’re here, isn’t it? Why you want to see me? Only you and I know the truth.”
Ivan’s gaze had settled on the curve of her denim shorts the moment she’d touched herself there. What was wrong with him? Why did this earthy woman make him forget every bit of protocol that had been trained into him? Why did he care if she blushed adorably when he paid attention to her or feel a knife-hot urge to defend her when anyone said something demeaning or took advantage of her? But he remembered the photo, he remembered his duty to his country, he remembered the promise he’d made to her police captain, and politely raised his focus to her eyes. “I will remember this slang. Because you have a memorable booty.”
“Um... Thank you?” She took the empty tray and set it on the shelf beside the grill. “Tell me why you’re here. We weren’t supposed to meet until tomorrow, so something must have happened.”
Ivan nodded. His shoulder brushed against hers as he turned, keeping his back to the living room windows, in case there were curious eyes on them, and pulled out the mutilated photograph. “I did not know who else to trust with this.”
She closed the grill and took the photo from him. “It looks old.”
“I am afraid its meaning is new.” He pointed to the rectangular image, in shades of gray and black, centered in the picture. “It is the flag of Lukinburg, draped over a coffin. It is an historic picture. The last rightful king was assassinated shortly after the Second World War. A bomb went off at his summer house on Lake Feodor. He lay in state in the palace. A few months later, while the government was in transitional chaos, there was a coup. Our democratic government as we knew it was over.”
“Until you stepped in?” Carly tilted worried eyes up to his, keeping her arm flush against his so she could return the photograph without being seen. “It’s dated this upcoming Saturday.”
“It is the night of the embassy ball.” The message might be symbolic, but the meaning was clear. If he didn’t step down, he’d be the next head of state lying in a coffin. And his death would happen on Saturday. “It was left in my hotel suite. Anyone in my delegation could have put it there. We held a meeting there this afternoon.”
“Someone on the hotel staff, or pretending to be, could have left it.”
He shook his head as he folded the photo and stuffed it back into his pocket. “Filip has limited the staff who has access to my suite. He personally ran background checks on each of them and cleared them.”
“He could have cleared someone with ties to the Lukin Loyalist movement. You think he’s your mole?”
“I do not know.” The heat and humidity of the summer evening burned through Ivan’s skin, reminding him of the pressure building inside him since he’d agreed to take this job. If he had a clear enemy, he’d know how to handle this. But the mind games, the threats, the collateral damage that could result if he made a mistake—how was he supposed to fight that?
Carly bumped her shoulder against his, drawing him from the dark turn of his thoughts. “The obvious question is—can you cancel the ball?”
“No.”
“Right. Too important to you and your country.” She glanced behind her, then laced her fingers with his down between them. “How many messages like this have you gotten?”
Was her touch for comfort? Or for show? Was someone watching them? Ivan decided he didn’t care. He liked the sure grip of her hand in his as much as he liked everything else about her. He tightened his fingers around hers, absorbing some of that strength. “Two since I’ve touched down here in the US. Several more back in Lukinburg. I believe they are trying to scare the prince into abdicating the throne, letting someone more malleable lead the new government.”
“The prince?” She laughed softly. “You just referred to yourself in the third person.”
“Did I?” Perhaps jet lag was getting the better of him. Or stress. No wonder he couldn’t keep his thoughts straight. He needed to be on point every waking moment if he was going to accomplish all he’d set out to do. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t even afford to sleep without being on guard for his life.
“It’s probably easier to think the threats and attempts on your life are happening to someone else.”
“Perhaps.” The marks of the injuries peppering his neck and back burned with the enormity of the challenge he faced. “Yet I am the one with the scars. If they cannot frighten me from my duty, then they will kill me.”
“No pressure, hmm?” She released his hand to reach up and trace her fingertip against the scar that cut through his beard. Although it was meant to be a comforting gesture, every nerve ending seemed to rush to the spot, pulsing beneath her touch. The moment he thought the contact might mean something more to her, too, she pulled away and went back to work, opening the grill and flipping the hamburgers. The hiss and pop of the moisture hitting the coals masked her words as much as the steam and smoke hid their expressions from any curious onlookers. “All right. I’ll talk to Captain Hendricks, and we’ll try to get as many people undercover next Saturday to beef up security as we can. We can put SWAT teams on alert and lock the embassy down as tightly as possible without alerting your traitor. You and I will have an emergency evac plan in place that Milevski doesn’t know about. In case it’s him.”
“I will make sure you have an opportunity to tour the embassy this week.”
“In the meantime, I’ll do everything I can to identify whoever is behind the threats and get him out of the way before Saturday night.”
“We will do this. We will work together.”
“We’re a team. The prince and the commoner. The European and the American. The uptown leader of his own country and the downtown nobody.” She closed the grill before pulling the towel from her back pocket and wiping her hands. “Are you sure your people are buying this between you and me? A few kisses and holding hands are one thing, but somebody’s still going to have to teach me how to dance.”
“I would be honored to do this.” She thought of herself as a nobody? How could any man miss her vibrant energy and brave spirit? There were beautiful green eyes in that ordinary face. And, judging by the awareness still fizzing through his blood, he was extremely glad that he’d added the word booty to his English vocabulary. “It would not be a lie to say I find you attractive. Perhaps you are not the typical royal consort, but that part, I do not have to pretend. Thank you for helping me.”
“Nobody’s blowing up anyone in Kansas City on my watch.” She tilted a smile up to him. “And nobody’s blowing up our most honored guest.”
Answering that smile with one of his own, he turned her into his arms. “First lesson.” Her forearms flattened against his chest and she was suddenly stiff, as if bracing herself for something unpleasant. He placed her left hand on his shoulder and folded her right fingers into his palm before settling his hand at her waist. “A simple waltz is three steps. Right, left, right. Left, right, left. Your feet move the same direction as mine, like a reflection in a mirror.”
One boot came down on the toe of his polished oxford. “Sorry. Clearly, these aren’t the right shoes for this.”
“Again. Right, left, right. Left, right, left. Feel my hands pull you with me when we turn.”
“There’s a turn?” She froze. Stomp. Ivan gritted his teeth at the pain stabbing through his little toe. “Sorry.”
When she tried to push away, he tightened his hold on her waist. “Carly, do you practice any kind of martial arts or fight training?”
“Of course, I do. It’s required to maintain my badge. I run, kickbox, do yoga once a week to take a break from working out.”
“This is no different than learning an attack sequence or exercise routine. Memorize the pattern. Then feel your way through it.” He shifted her in his arms, pulling her hips against his. “Do you feel the rhythm when I move?” She nodded, still trying to peek over his arm down at the patio. “Look in my eyes, not at our feet. My arms and thighs will lead you in the direction you need to go.”
Those pretty green eyes fixed on to his. Ivan hummed a strain from Strauss, emphasizing each downbeat. Gradually, she relaxed against his arm at her waist and she eased the death grip on his shoulder. This time, she spun with him in a dramatic turn. “I’m doing this.”
There were only a few more stumbles of her boots knocking against his shoes before he swept her into a turn. She laughed until a snort made her pull up with embarrassment. He pressed a kiss to the bridge of her nose, enjoying the genuine sound of delight before pulling her into step again and waltzing across the patio with her.
She was humming The Tales of the Vienna Woods with him when the back door burst open and her brother Jesse ran out onto the deck. “Carly! Get in here. Something’s wrong with Frank.”
Her smile vanished. The music stopped. The grill was forgotten. She charged up the stairs. “Frank?” Ivan ran into the living room behind her. He paused in the archway, taking in the convulsions of the big man writhing on the floor. “Frank!” Carly dropped to her knees beside her brother, grabbing at his stiff arm. “He’s having a seizure. What happened?”
“Is he epileptic?” Ivan asked.
“No.”
He spotted the cellophane ripped off the fruit basket. Galina was picking up fruit that had spilled out and rolled across the carpet. Frank crushed the remains of an apple core in his fist. This was familiar somehow. But how did he help?
Carl Valentine was on the phone to 9-1-1. “My son—”
“Tell dispatch I’m with KCPD,” Carly shouted, giving her badge number. “Get a bus here now.” Carly turned Frank onto his side as her father continued the call. Ivan knelt beside her, helping her position the big man as his back arched and he became harder to control. “Don’t let him hit the fireplace.”
Jesse knelt opposite her, the three of them fighting to keep Frank in a position where he could still breathe and not knock into any furniture. “He said he couldn’t wait until dinner. First, I thought he was choking. I tried to give him the Heimlich. Then he started doing this.”
Carly slipped a pillow beneath her brother’s head and held it in place. “He’s burning up.”
Ivan had never witnessed a fit like this himself, but he’d seen pictures, training films when his unit had been briefed on nerve gases and other toxins that had been hidden and forgotten in eroding bunkers and old army bases from World War II. One of his earliest assignments had been with a team sent in to destroy any weapons that could leech into the environment or be accidentally triggered by an innocent explorer who happened upon them.
Aleks tiptoed past him and squeezed his shoulder. “We need to get you out of here. This is not the kind of publicity—”
“No!” Ivan shrugged off his touch. “I know this. It was a torture from the old days. Strychnine.” He pried the smushed apple from Frank’s hand a
nd sniffed the bitter chemical smell of the pulp. Galina was reaching for an orange that had rolled over by the brick hearth. “Do not touch that!” The startled woman snatched her hand back. “He has been poisoned. We must get him to a hospital right away.”
“Ambulance is on its way,” Carl reported, kneeling beside Jesse. “They said he only has a couple of hours before the internal damage becomes irreversible. Son?”
But Frank couldn’t respond.
Ivan didn’t bother stating the obvious, not when another man’s life hung in the balance. Not when Carly could lose her brother.
That fruit had been a gift to him.
He was the one who should be dying.
Chapter Five
Ivan stood the moment the door to Frank Valentine’s room opened. Saint Luke’s Hospital was quiet, yet surprisingly busy for this time of night. His eyes burned with fatigue after being up for over twenty-four hours, but he didn’t intend to sleep until he knew for certain that he hadn’t gotten Carly’s brother killed, and that there wouldn’t be lasting effects from the poison.
So many lives were impacted by every choice he made. But he didn’t intend for his desperation, his utter isolation from people he could trust, to ruin the life of the woman he was foolishly learning to care for in a very short time. Carly Valentine felt like salvation to him, like something real despite the charade of their relationship. She was the touch of humanity he’d been missing from the pomp and circumstance of his life as the crown prince.
The doctor came out first, chatting with Joe Hendricks, who’d been called in to take the official report for the police department. Carly followed next, with her father and Jesse right behind her.
Still in her tank top, cutoffs and boots, Carly now wore her gun holstered on her belt and her badge hanging around her neck. Despite the tough facade, there was something vulnerable about the way she ran her hands up and down her bare arms and hugged herself. There were small divots of shadow beneath her eyes now, indicating fatigue and stress, even as she hung on to every word exchanged between the doctor, the captain and her father.
