“Really, Eugenia! I should hope I’m not so lacking in generosity as to let two young and very charming relations stay in a hotel when we have plenty of room here.”
“But you don’t know anything about them.”
“That’s what Dominic said when I extended the invitation. He tried to refuse, but I insisted.”
“Did either of them tell you what they do for a living?”
“Dominic does some kind of security work. Anastazia just got her MD degree from Semmelweis University in Budapest.”
Gorgeous and smart and a doc. Another nasty little worm of jealousy poked its head up. Gina might have started feeling dumpy and fat again if Dominic hadn’t come back into the room.
“I’m yours for the afternoon, if you’re sure you wish to…”
He broke off and pivoted on the balls of his feet in the direction of the hall. Startled, Gina strained to hear in the sudden silence and picked up a faint buzz.
“Oh, that’s my phone. I left it in my purse on the hall table last night. Excuse me.”
The call had already gone to voice mail when she fished the phone out of her jam-packed bag. She saw the name on caller ID and stabbed the talk button just in time.
“Hello, Jack.”
“Hi, Gina. I just wanted to check and see how you’re feeling after your long odyssey last night.”
The sound of his voice stirred the usual welter of confused emotions. Despite her abrupt departure yesterday, she couldn’t believe how much she missed him. How much she ached for him.
“I’m good,” she said, “although I decided not to go in to work since I had the day off, anyway.”
“So you’re going to put your feet up and rest, right?”
“Pretty much. Although I did agree to take my cousins to the Met this afternoon.”
“Cousins?”
“Two of them. Dominic and his sister, Anastazia. Their parents came from Prádzec, which was once part of the Duchy of Karlenburgh.”
“And is now in Hungary.”
Trust an ambassador-at-large to know that. The phone to her ear, Gina wandered toward the end of the hall. Dom sat next to her grandmother’s chair and appeared to be amusing her with some anecdote.
“Did the duchess know they were coming?” Jack asked.
“They surprised her. Me, too! I thought Dom was a burglar when I came chest-to-chest with him last night.”
“They were there, in the apartment when you got home?”
“They’re staying here.”
That was met with a short silence.
“What did you say their names were again?”
“Dominic and Anastazia St. Sebastian. She’s just finished med school and he does something in security. Grandmama didn’t get the specifics.”
She caught a flash of sunlight as the terrace doors opened and Zia rejoined the group.
“Oh, there’s Anastazia. I’d better go, Jack.”
“Gina…”
“Yes?”
“About this weekend—”
“It was just me,” she interrupted quickly. She hadn’t had time to sort through everything that had happened during their days together. And the nights! Dear God, the nights.
“Chalk it up to hormones run amok. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
She blew out a breath and hit the end button, but some of the emotions Jack had stirred must have shown in her face when she walked into the sitting room. She couldn’t hide them from the duchess. Her faded blue eyes locked onto to Gina’s.
“Who was that, dearest?”
“Jack.”
“Hmm.”
The odd inflection in that murmur snared the interest of both guests. They were too polite to ask, however, and the duchess left it to Gina to elaborate.
“Jack Mason. He’s an ambassador-at-large with the U.S. State Department in Washington.”
Dominic’s expression of casual interest didn’t change but just for a second she thought she saw something flicker in his dark eyes. Like the duchess, he must have sensed there was more to the call than she wanted to reveal.
Oh, hell. Might as well let it all hang out.
“He’s the father of my baby.”
* * *
After Gina disconnected, Jack spent several long moments staring at the slice of the Mall viewable through his office windows. Their brief conversation ricocheted around in his mind.
Two of them. From Hungary. They surprised her. Chest-to-chest.
He wanted to believe it was his recent showdown with the Russian Mafia thugs who’d spilled across the borders of Eastern and Central Europe that prompted him to reach for the phone. Yet he couldn’t get that chest business out of his head.
His chief of staff answered the intercom. “What’s up, boss?”
“I need you to run a check on a pair from Hungary. They say they’re siblings and are going by the names Dominic and Anastazia St. Sebastian.”
Eleven
The next few days flew by. Gina got caught up at work. During her spare hours she showed Zia and Dominic the best of New York. She also delighted in the slow unfurling of her grandmother’s memories. Prompted by her guests’ presence and their gentle probing, the duchess shared some of her past.
She’d kept it locked inside her for so long that each anecdote was a revelation. Even now she would only share those memories that gave glimpses of a girl born into a wealthy, aristocratic family, one who’d grown up with all Europe as her playground. A fascinated Gina learned for the first time that her grandmother might have qualified as an Olympic equestrian at the age of fifteen had her family allowed her to compete. She’d retaliated for their adamant refusal by insisting she be allowed to study Greek and Roman history at Charles University in Prague.
“Prague is such a romantic city,” the duchess mused to her audience of three over a dinner of Hungarian dishes prepared by Zia and Dominic as a small thank-you to their hostess.
Candles flickered in tall silver holders. The remains of the meal had been cleared away but no one was in a hurry to leave the table. A Bohemian crystal decanter of pálinka sat within easy reach. Double-distilled and explosively potent, the apricot-flavored brandy had been a gift from Zia and Dom. The duchess and her guests sipped sparingly from balloon-shaped snifters. Gina was more than content with a goblet of diet cranberry juice and the dreamy expression on her grandmother’s face.
“That’s where I first met the duke,” the duchess related with smile. “In Prague. There’d been talk off and on about a possible liaison between our families but nothing had come of it at that point.”
“So what was he doing in Prague?” Gina asked.
“He’d evidently decided it was time to take a wife, and came to find out if I was scandalously modern as the rumors said.”
She took a sip of brandy and a faraway look came into her eyes.
“When he walked into the café where my friends and I were having dinner, I didn’t know who he was at first. All I saw was this tall, impossibly handsome man with jet-black hair and the swarthy skin of his Magyar ancestors. Even then, he had such a presence. Every head in the café turned when he walked over to my table,” she murmured. “Then he bowed, introduced himself, and I was lost.”
The duchess paused, drifting on her memories, and Gina’s gaze drifted to Dominic. His olive-toned skin and dark eyes indicted Magyar blood ran in his veins, too.
A nomadic, cattle-herding tribe that swept into Europe from the Steppes, the Magyars were often depicted in art and literature as the early Hungarian equivalent of America’s Wild West cowboys. Gina was back in the 8th or 9th century, picturing Dominic riding fast and low in the saddle, when the intercom sounded.
She returned to the present with a s
tart. The buzz brought the duchess out of her reverie, as well. A small frown of annoyance creased her forehead.
“I’ll get it,” Gina said.
She crossed to the intercom’s wall unit and saw the flashing light signaling a call from the lobby. “Yes?”
“It’s Jerome, Lady Eugenia. There’s a gentleman to see you. Mr. John Mason.”
Jack! Surprise and pure, undiluted delight flooded her veins.
“Send him up! Excuse me,” she said to the three interested parties at the table. “I need to get the door.”
She rushed to the entryway and out into the hall, wishing she’d spiffed up a little more for this evening at home. Oh, well, at least she still fit into her skinny jeans. And her crab-apple-green stretchy T-shirt did accent her almost-nursing-mother boobs.
When Jack stepped out of the elevator, Gina forgot all about her appearance and devoured his. Ohmanohmanohman! Hungarian cowboys had nothing on tall, tanned Virginians.
The sight of him erased last weekend’s awkward moments. Her hurt and indignation over learning that his father had hired a P.I. evaporated. Ditto the poisonous little barbs planted by his obnoxious chief of staff. Double ditto the ache in her heart when she’d spotted the pictures of Catherine at his home. Like the duchess had so many years ago, all Gina needed to do was look at this man and know she was lost.
“What are you doing here?”
“Two reasons. One, I didn’t like the way our weekend ended. I’m still kicking myself for letting you leave with little more than a peck on the cheek.”
“Oh. Well. I suppose we can correct that.”
“You suppose right.”
When he hooked her waist, she went into his arms eagerly, joyfully. He buried a hand in her hair and more than made up for any deficiencies in their parting.
Gina could have stayed there forever. The feel and the taste and the scent of him wrapped around her like warm silk. She felt his heart beating under her spread palms, breathed in the heady mix of aftershave and male.
When he raised his head, her heart was in her smile. “You said there were two reasons. What’s the second?”
The pause was brief, hardly more than half a breath, but still noticeable.
“I missed you.”
“Was it that hard to say?” she teased.
“You try it.”
“I missed you.” It came so easily she added a little embellishment. “Bunches.”
The murmur of voices inside the apartment snagged Jack’s attention. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No, we finished dinner a while ago and are just sitting around the table talking. Come meet my cousins.”
She led him to the dining room and had time to note widely varied reactions before she made the introductions. Zia’s first glimpse of the newcomer brought her elbows off the table and a look of instant interest to her face. As her eyes raked Jack over, a slow, feline smile curved her lips.
Gina couldn’t help herself. She was bristling like a barnyard cat when she noticed Dominic’s expression. It was as shuttered as his sister’s was open. The duchess’s, on the other hand, was warm and welcoming.
“Good evening, Ambassador. It’s good to see you again.”
The title sent Zia’s brows soaring. Her gaze whipped from Jack to Gina and back again, while Dominic slowly pushed his chair back from the table and stood.
“It’s good to see you, too, Duchess.” Jack crossed the dining room to take her hand. “I’m sorry to barge in like this.”
“No need to apologize. Allow me to introduce my guests. They’re visiting from Hungary.”
“So Gina told me.”
“Anastazia, may I present Ambassador Jack Mason.”
He was at his most urbane with the sultry brunette. A smile, a lift of her hand, a light kiss on the fingers.
“You must call me Zia,” she purred. “And I will call you Jack, yes?”
“Igen.”
“How wonderful! You speak our language.”
“Only enough to order a drink in a bar.”
“In Hungary,” she laughed, “that is more than enough. This is my brother, Dominic.”
Jack rounded the table and extended his hand. It was a simple courtesy, a universal gesture recognized the world over. Yet there was something about the look accompanying it that made Gina pause. The message was subtle. Almost too subtle. She caught a hint of it, though, or thought she did.
So did Dominic. His smile took on a sardonic edge, his eyes a sudden glint as he shook Jack’s hand.
“We’ve met before, Ambassador, although I doubt you’ll remember.”
“I remember. I also remember you were using another name at the time.”
The two men ignored the surprise that produced among the women. Their gazes locked, they seemed to be engaged in a private and very personal duel.
“I was, indeed,” Dominic drawled. “And you, as I recall, had not yet acquired your so very impressive diplomatic credentials.”
The duchess’s notions of propriety didn’t include what was fast assuming the air of an Old West showdown in her dining room. With a touch of irritation, she thumped her hand on the table to get the combatant’s attention.
“Do sit down, both of you. Jack, would you care to try this very excellent cognac? Or there’s coffee if you prefer.”
“Cognac, please.”
“Gina, if you’ll get another snifter perhaps Jack or Dominic will condescend to tell us where or when they met before.”
The acidic comment found its mark. While Gina retrieved a cut crystal snifter from the graceful Louis XV china cabinet that took up almost an entire wall, the tension between the two men eased by imperceptible degrees. She brought the snifter to the table and splashed in the aromatic brandy as Dom yielded the floor to Jack with upturned palms.
“It’s more your story than mine, Ambassador.”
Jack accepted the snifter with a murmured thanks and addressed himself to the duchess. “Dominic and I met a number of years ago in Malta. I was on a UN fact-finding mission investigating the transshipment of young women kidnapped from Eastern Europe and sold to wealthy purchasers in the Arab world.”
“Dear Lord!” The duchess shot her guest a sharp, questioning look, but he merely gestured for Jack to continue.
“While the UN team was in Malta, we heard rumors of a shipment coming in from Albania. We worked with Interpol and the Maltese authorities to intercept the trawler transporting the merchandise. There were six girls aboard, all between the ages of fifteen and twenty, all drugged to the gills.”
Jack lifted the balloon goblet and swirled its contents. His gaze shifted from the duchess to the man sitting across of him.
“The captain of the trawler was killed in the cross fire. That’s the word that was put out, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Gina demanded. “Was the captain killed or wasn’t he?”
She didn’t like where this was going. Had she and her grandmother been too trusting? Had they accepted too readily that Dom and Zia were who they said they were? With a sinking sensation, she remembered how dangerous Dom had seemed that first night, when she’d come home and surprised him in the kitchen.
“The captain went down,” Jack confirmed, “but not in a cross fire. Evidently he spotted the intercept boats on his radar and started dragging the girls to the rail. He was going to throw them overboard and get rid of the incriminating evidence before we closed in. That’s when he took a shot point-blank to the forehead.”
Dom lifted a shoulder. “The bastard had one of those kids shoved against the rail. There was no time to negotiate.”
“I don’t understand.” Gina frowned at her cousin. “Were you on one of the intercept boats?”
“I was on the trawler.”
<
br /> “What?”
He leaned forward, acknowledging her shock. “I was undercover, Gina. I’d been working to take down the head of that particular white slavery ring for months, but I couldn’t allow the captain to murder those girls.”
“Or blow your cover,” Jack murmured in the stunned silence that followed.
Dom’s glance slewed back to him. “Or blow my cover.”
“Funny thing about that.” Jack swirled his cognac again, his eyes never leaving Dom’s face. “Interpol put out the word that the second crewman on the trawler escaped after being taken into custody. Yet there was never any record made of the arrest. And the officer who supposedly took the man into custody disappeared two days later.”
Dom’s smile didn’t quite make it to his eyes. “The Albanians play rough.”
Gina couldn’t believe they were sitting in this elegant dining room, sipping brandy and cranberry juice from Baccarat crystal while calmly discussing kidnapped fifteen-year-olds and death on the high seas. She glanced at her grandmother and found the same incredulity on the duchess’s face. Even Zia looked stunned. Evidently her brother’s undercover persona was news to her, too.
“I’m curious,” Jack said. “Where did you go from Malta, St. Sebastian?”
“I had several assignments. As did you, Mason.”
“You’re no longer with Interpol.”
It was a statement, not a question, but Dominic responded with a quick, slashing grin. “Not anymore. I’m now what you might term an independent entrepreneur.”
And just like that, the ominous spell was broken. He was Gina’s cousin again. Handsome, charming, exotic and more intriguing than she’d ever imagined.
* * *
She made the fatal mistake of saying so when she walked Jack to the door an hour later.
“I had no idea my cousin was an undercover agent.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of ‘undercover’?”
The acerbic comment raised Gina’s brows.
“I suppose,” she replied. “But still, you have to admit it’s all pretty James Bondish.”
“If you say so. Are you tired?”
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