When Hugh Konnor appeared in the doorframe again, his eyes were serious, sharp and staring right at me. I had the uncanny feeling that a shark was circling me.
“Who was it?” I rasped. I had to know.
“The groundskeeper. He saw the cars in the drive.”
“What did you say?”
Konnor shrugged a wide shoulder. “I showed him my palace badge. It seemed to be enough.”
My head spun. Wasn’t this what controlling men did? Wave off the neighbor who was checking to see what the banging and crashes were about? God, I was so sick of this patriarchy shit. And how did a normal woman fight back when she wasn’t a princess and couldn’t order the stubborn ass of a man around?
Natural instincts flipped on. I lifted the small can of mace and sprayed.
Nothing came out.
Konnor fixed me with a bland stare.
I screamed the F-word. In Driedish.
“I thought you didn’t want people to know where you were!” he shouted irritably.
“Don’t come any closer,” I warned him, but it sounded pathetic and weak. What was I going to do? Claw at him? Spit? My mixed-martial-arts training was non-existent. Shocking, I know.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Caroline. I’m here to protect you from making questionable decisions.”
“Protect me?” I scoffed. “From making questionable decisions? Since when is that your job?”
Konnor’s brows furrowed. “Since I was hired by the palace and I took an oath.”
I blinked. “You think you’re protecting me as my bodyguard right now?” I laughed. Oh, okay. “Then I release you. Go. Shoo. Go forth and guard someone else’s body, please. This body is perfectly, totally, one hundred percent fine without you.”
“Caroline.” There was no fumbling with “Your Highness” or “ma’am” or whatnot. No, he said my name with all his bodyguard authority, like he had that last day in the royal stables, when I was nineteen. The last day he’d been my bodyguard. “Do you know who you had in your apartment yesterday?”
I took a second to process his ferocity. There was something that was being miscommunicated. “Yes, I think I’d recognize the man who was going to marry my sister.”
He shook his head and smiled bitterly. “No. That was the man who was going to murder your sister.”
Chapter Eight
He was rifling through my mother’s cupboards, cursing in Driedish, instead of answering my question.
What the hell was he talking about? Christian was trying to kill my sister? I mean, yes, he left Thea at the altar, but it was a bit overdramatic to equate that with murder.
Finally, he pulled two bottles of wine out and mumbled, “This will have to do.”
“Are we having a party?” I asked.
He ignored me and plunged a pocket knife into the cork of one of the bottle’s. It was the most savage wine opening I had ever witnessed. I shivered and took a step back.
“It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning,” I said as he started drinking straight from the bottle.
When he finished guzzling, he wiped his mouth and gave me a look of disbelief. “You just tried to mace me. Now you preach proper comportment?”
It was an excellent point. I thought I had walked away from all the requirements and rules of my former royal life, but these things were deeply ingrained. Old habits revealed themselves in all sorts of inconsistent ways.
Like the way I was acting with Hugh Konnor right now. Staying here, talking to him, expecting that he might treat me like an equal and answer my questions like a reasonable person. What was that old saying? Something about being insane and expecting different results after people showed you who they were?
Hugh Konnor had shown me who he was nearly ten years ago. He did not respect me enough to speak to me like an adult. It was useless trying to reason with him, especially when he was a member of the royal security staff, who were the very people I wanted to avoid like an incurable STI.
“Are you going to tell me what you meant about Christian and Thea?” I asked again. “Because, if not, I’m leaving.”
Konnor’s eyes narrowed on me. “Why would you leave? You just got here.”
He had a point. I thought quickly. “I don’t like you. I want to be alone.”
“Where are you going?”
I pushed away from the wall and headed back the way I had entered this morning, intending to go to the bedroom I had slept in, collect my (Christian’s) bag and exit my mother’s villa like a civilized woman of the world.
Hugh Konnor couldn’t stop me. Except, of course, he could.
I made it as far as the bedroom. I had the bag in my hand. I turned. He was at the bedroom door, a hand on each side of the frame. “I’ll ask again. Where are you going?”
Standing like this, arms outstretched, he loomed huge. Threatening. His sleeves had pulled back more and the black ink on his forearms seemed sharply outlined.
And the look on his face…stern. His golden-brown eyes were deadly serious.
My heart started to pound. It was the struggle of my life. Obey. Or rebel. Listen to the authority of those trying to “protect” me, or…
Not.
Who are you? I asked myself the same question the day I decided to walk away from Stavros’s funeral. The answer had come back immediately, like it did just now.
“It’s one hundred percent not your business,” I told him, with my chin up, trying to invoke as much authority as possible. “Please stand aside.”
He stared at me for a moment and a shadow crossed his face. Then he changed his posture. He dropped his arms and stepped away from the bedroom door.
Wow. That really worked. Since I’d lost my title, I’d become even more fearsome. I was unstoppable. No one could argue with me now. I clutched the leather bag to my chest and half ran, half walked past Hugh and down the hall, through the living area and out of the front door while my Jedi mind trick was still working on the stubborn bodyguard behind me.
The Tuscan sun that had seemed so gently reaffirming this morning now glared into my eyes. I felt exposed, as if spotlights had flipped on to track my escape from prison. Of course, I resented the fact that I hadn’t had a chance to think up the best ways to hunt down Christian but maybe Hugh was doing me a favor. I was taking a leap of faith. I’d go to Rome, see where the trail led, without being burdened with this stone monolith with a misplaced sense of duty.
Two cars were in the gravel drive. So Hugh had followed me by car. He could do the same right now, I supposed, but I threw the thought away. I didn’t have time for strategy. I would figure it out as soon as my foot was on a gas pedal.
I threw my bag in the front seat, followed it and reached into the dash, where I had left the keys the night before.
They weren’t there.
I ducked down, searched the floor, between the seats, and tried to ignore the hollow panic that was growing inside my gut.
I knew where the keys were even before I turned and looked.
Hugh Konnor stood in the drive. He opened his palm and my keys dangled from a finger. But he wasn’t taunting me with them. The look on his face was sympathetic. Bordering on pity. “Come inside. Please.”
The kind word was not what I wanted. None of this was.
“I can’t let you leave,” he repeated. What was this—the third time he’d said it? If I knew anything about Hugh Konnor, I knew that he was a man of his word. He always meant what he said. I should have believed him the first time.
Hugh Konnor was not letting me go.
I swore loudly and got out of the car. In a sort of rebellion, I left my bag in the front seat. If he wanted to treat me like a princess that he could order around, then he could fetch it for me.
My mother must pay her groundskeeper handsomely, because as soon as he realized that there
were visitors at her villa, he arrived with baskets of provisions: fresh eggs, cured meats, a still-warm loaf of bread and a carton of winter vegetables.
Hugh set about making breakfast. I sat at the table in the kitchen and watched him. If a man was holding me captive, I wanted to see everything he was doing. If he reached for a cell phone, a knife, a bottle of wine, I wanted to know.
This is Hugh Konnor, the voice inside my head reminded me. You know him.
I did. And I didn’t. Ten years ago, I thought I knew him. Then I learned I didn’t. Our relationship had been short and confusing and, in the end, humiliating.
And now this. He was still confusing me, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Cooking Breakfast. My stomach rumbled at the smell of toasting bread.
My next steps were plain, then. Eat a much-needed breakfast, discover what it was that Hugh Konnor needed from me, convince him to let me leave without alerting anyone who cared about my location. And then I’d be on my way, tracking down Christian and/or finding a secret spot to live again. Which reminded me, I needed to send a message to Elena and Signore Rossi, whenever I could access the wi-fi and I didn’t have the Bear Man looming over me.
I didn’t offer to help—with the coffee or setting the table. Another small, bratty rebellion. He prepared the food and brought me a plate and a cup of coffee—black, as I liked it. Because we have no cream, I reminded myself. Not because he gives a shit about your coffee preferences.
He sat at the table with me and, for the shortest of moments, I was disconcerted. Konnor was a bodyguard, and a member of the palace staff did not sit with the royal family. Ever.
I shook my head at myself. Officially, I wasn’t a royal at all. I had not been since my elopement and since my beloved, punitive grandmother had stripped me of my royal titles. But somehow, that reality had been different when I lived with Stavros, then during the last few months in Varenna. I had been living a fantasy life—someone else lived with a handsome, moody race car driver—not Princess Caroline of Drieden. Then it had been Lina DiLorenzo living a quiet, reclusive life in Varenna, not the woman who had once been fourth in line to the throne of one of the oldest monarchies in Europe.
Now, sitting at a table with someone—a flesh-and-blood, brooding someone—from my past, the loss of my identity—or perhaps my identity regardless, was once again a startling reality.
I was no longer a Driedish princess. And Hugh Konnor could sit anywhere he wanted. He could do anything he wanted to…including keeping me hostage.
What would the repercussions be, really? If I called and reported this behavior, would anyone care, back at the palace? And why was he doing this, anyway? He was clearly only making up these tales about Christian. Probably just wanted to control me, like the rest of the palace staff—
“You’re not eating.”
Hugh’s voice startled me from my thoughts. “Oh.” I blinked and refocused on my plate. He was right, of course. I hadn’t even picked up a fork.
“It’s not like you not to eat.” Hugh’s gruff observance reminded me of our history. And my usually healthy appetite. My cheeks warmed as I realized it looked like I was either a food snob or trying for some sort of hunger strike, neither of which was like me, truth be told.
“I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I’m a bit distracted, since I’m being held against my will.”
Hugh’s brows drew together, as if he was confused. I decided I had to clarify. “You know. When someone doesn’t let you have the keys to your car, it’s generally considered kidnapping.”
His brows rose, an expression of understanding now. “Oh, I see. So for the first twenty-seven years of your life you were actually being kidnapped? All that time with the chauffeurs and the limousines? Right under our noses?”
“I…” My mouth snapped open then shut. “You’re deliberately twisting what I’m saying.”
“No. I’m accurately interpreting what you said, Your Highness.”
My gut tightened at that honorific. “I’m not—” I restarted. “I mean, don’t call me that.”
“Old habits, Your Highness.”
“Just call me Caroline,” I said through clenched teeth.
His head dropped, but I could see his jaw tightening, like he was trying to keep himself from heaving up his breakfast.
“That’s right,” I drawled. “I forgot how much you can’t stand me. So much so that you won’t even use my name.”
He raised his eyes and they met mine. “It wasn’t right then and it’s not right now.”
The reminder of what I had done ten years ago wasn’t necessary. To be honest, the past was a thick, heavy thing sitting on the table between us. Maybe that was why I didn’t lift my fork or drain my coffee cup, as I normally would. We had other things to deal with, Hugh Konnor and I.
I decided to be the adult in the room. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He picked up his coffee and drank heavily. Apparently, I was the only one whose appetite was affected by our shared history, which seemed about right. Then he said, “Yes. We need to talk.”
Suddenly, my mature aspirations were a very, very bad idea indeed. Ugh. Why did adulting have to be so hard?
“Fine.” I said, wincing at the incoming awkwardness.
“Christian Fraser-Campbell. What do you know about him?”
My eyes flew open. “Really? You want to talk about my sister’s ex-fiancé and not the reason why you hate me?”
Now he was the one looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I don’t—”
I cut him off. “You do hate me. Otherwise, you would have taken my virginity when I asked you to.”
Chapter Nine
Konnor lifted one very serious brow at me. “Really.” So much was contained in that one, flat word. Really? This is what you have obsessed over for the past ten years? Your schoolgirl crush? You’re still not over me—this prime piece of sexy manhood?
Now would be a good time for the floor to swallow me up. Seriously.
Not to worry, he moved on as if what I had said wasn’t a big deal at all. Which made me feel as small as a snail. “Tell me, have you looked at a newspaper or turned on a television in the last year?”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“Then you are aware that your sister’s fiancé was reported to be dead by suicide last summer?”
“Yes,” I said, avoiding his eyes. The shame of not calling my sister Thea when the shocking news hit was matched only by the shame that, at the time, I was hiding in darkened rental houses because my marriage was a failure and my husband wanted to forget he had ever married me.
Two months later, when Stavros died, I needed space. Anonymity. Time to focus on righting the injustice that had caused his death. I put my needs before my elder sister’s and didn’t reach out then, either.
“But he’s not really dead,” I said defensively. As if that made me a better sister.
Konnor blinked, crossed his arms in front of him and, once again, I tried to ignore the lean, corded muscle and the black tattoos along each bone. A line of numbers on one arm, scrolling words on the other. Then something hit me in his patient silence.
“You knew he wasn’t dead,” I said with a little gasp. Then the rest of it struck me. “Did everyone in the palace know? Did Thea?” And if my sister Thea, second in line to the throne, knew her fiancé had faked his suicide after he had abandoned her on their wedding day…
“What the hell has been going on at the palace?” I asked. This was a kind of insanity that my grandmother had never allowed when I was there. She ruled the palace, the family, the entire monarchy with an iron fist. That was, I suppose, the job of a queen, but still. If one person stepped out of line, acted against her expectations, like say, eloping with a Formula One race car driver, that brought the velvet guillotine down.
The palace covering up that Christian hadn’t killed himself was out of cha
racter, to say the least.
Konnor seemed as if he was carefully weighing his words before he spoke again. “Christian Fraser-Campbell is a threat to Drieden. Last summer it was discovered that he was involved in a plot to bring down the monarchy.”
I blinked several times. It was a lot to take in. Of course, I knew my family was also the capital-R Royal family of Drieden. But in all the usual family squabbles, sibling rivalries and testy divorces, sometimes it was easy to forget that Big Gran was also the Big Monarch. And that our family portrait gallery represented the people who filled the nation’s history books.
So to hear that the man who was going to marry my sister was a threat to our country? Our whole way of life? My brain had to adjust to that idea.
“And so my grandmother came up with this suicide story?” I guessed, still trying to process all of the craziness.
Konnor shook his head. “Christian released the fake photographs of his body as a way to get your…your sister’s security off his trail.”
“Thea knows all about this?” And now I felt like the worst sister in the world again. That Thea had had to deal with the abandonment of her almost-husband but also his betrayal to her country? No one was more patriotic than Princess Theodora. She was the one who always had all the history facts and figures memorized.
Me? I’m the sibling who just tried to keep the peace. And look where that got me.
Konnor hesitated before he answered me. “Yes. Your sister has been very involved in the search for Christian. For obvious reasons.”
“Yes, of course,” I murmured.
“No. You don’t understand. Christian drugged me and locked me away. Then he did the same to your sister. He conspired with her bodyguard to sell state secrets to the people who would have your grandmother and your entire family exiled to Bolivia.”
Shock silenced me. Utterly. This was far more than some bad feelings about an uneaten wedding cake.
“And this is what brought me to Italy. We’ve been searching for Christian since late last summer. I had a lead and caught up with him in Milan, followed him to Varenna.” He paused. “To your house.”
The Royal Bodyguard Page 5
