THE PRINCESS AND THE P.I.

by Donna Sterling

  His stern expression dissolved into something that resembled surprise.

  She herself was somewhat surprised. As Valentina Richmond, she never would have shared these lines with a living soul. They might have found their way into a tabloid and embarrassed the heck out of her. But as Claire Jones, she didn't have to worry about things like that. Taking a deep breath, she announced, "I call this one, 'Stagnation.'"

  "Ah," he said. "A love poem."

  She flashed him an impish grin. "How did you guess?"

  "Let's hear it."

  Enjoying herself immensely, she proclaimed, "'I don't want to exist, I want to live.'" She paused, and he nodded his encouragement to continue. Heartened, she went on,

  "I don't want to take, I want to give.

  I don't want to talk, I want to yell.

  I don't want to say heck, I want to say hell!'"

  Her voice had risen, and she found herself saying the words with feeling; punctuating each line with her fist.

  "'Don't want to argue, I want to fight.

  Don't want to hold on, I want to squeeze tight.

  Don't want a dime, I want a buck!

  Don't want a hug, I want a—'"

  She paused, her fist still in the air, and met his glance. With a quirky smile, she finished, "'kiss for good luck.'"

  Abject silence followed.

  She lowered her fist to her lap.

  Her one-man audience didn't applaud. He didn't make a sound. He'd returned his gaze to the road and seemed to be poking his tongue against the inside of his cheek. Finally he lifted a brow. "That won you the Poet Laureate?"

  "No, I'm saving this literary gem for my next volume."

  And then he laughed—a short, surprised bark of masculine laughter that turned her heart over.

  "Want to hear it again?" she teased.

  "No, once is plenty. Every word will remain forever etched in my memory."

  "Good. You can say it with me, then."

  "No, really. Rock and roll might be good now. Real loud. With all the windows down."

  Feeling absurdly happy as their gazes connected, she turned on the radio and lowered the windows. "I know that poem was bad, Walker," she shouted above the roar of the wind. "But I want to be bad. I've been good for too darned long. For too damn long," she corrected with a self-satisfied grin.

  His smile wavered a bit, and he shouted, "What do you mean, you want to be 'bad'?"

  "Naughty. Wicked. Completely inappropriate."

  He looked uncomfortable with the confidence.

  She didn't care. She flung her arms wide, as if she were flying in the roaring wind, and went on with exuberance. "I'm going to sow my wild oats!"

  He didn't reply.

  "I might go to a bar tonight and dance like a maniac. And get drunk, if I feel like it. Who knows? I might meet someone. I might even … start smoking."

  "Smoking!"

  "Yes! Oh, yes," she decided, clasping her hands together. "It would be perfect. Pull over at the next convenience store, Walker. I want a pack of cigarettes."

  "Absolutely not."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "It's a hard habit to break. Don't start."

  "I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but it's really none of your business whether I—"

  "I'm supposed to protect you, right?"

  "Well, I suppose."

  "Smoking can kill you, just like a psychotic gunman can. You're not going to do it on my watch. Besides, I don't allow smoking in my car."

  "But I—"

  "I think we're being followed." His attention was snared by his rearview mirror, his expression suddenly grim.

  "Followed?" She frowned as he studied the traffic behind them through his mirrors.

  "That blue van back there. I saw it when we left Value Village, and now it's two cars behind us."

  She turned around in her seat and spotted the van in the traffic behind them. Her heart dropped. She'd thought they'd left the media back at the airport.

  "Hold on," instructed Walker. "We're going to lose 'em."

  As they pulled up even with an exit ramp, he cut the wheel sharply, crossed two lanes of honking traffic and drove over concrete ridges onto the ramp.

  And with an awful squeal of tires and blaring of horns, the blue van swerved in the exact same path, up the exit ramp, to follow them.

  * * *

  3

  « ^ »

  He shoved her down onto the bench seat, then grabbed the wheel with both hands, forcing it into a hard turn. The car leaped and lurched, slinging Claire halfway to the floor and dislodging the sunglasses from her face. She caught hold of Walker's leg, pulled herself up and clung to him. His iron-strong thigh muscles flexed beneath her hands as he worked the accelerator and brake. The chase was on.

  Claire's heart hammered with fear as her mind sprang from one possibility to the next. Paparazzi? Undercover law enforcement of some kind? Her crazy stalker? Would she be assaulted with cameras or arrest warrants or bullets?

  Anxious to see, she tried to raise her head. Walker pressed it back down, lodging her face against his lap. "Stay down," he ordered gruffly, lifting his hand from her hair where it had briefly lingered, "until I'm sure I've lost them."

  "Them? How many of them are there in the van?" she cried against the rough denim of his jeans, wishing he'd kept his hand on her head. She'd felt oddly safe with him touching her.

  "At least two."

  Then it probably wasn't the stalker. "Do they look like paparazzi?"

  "Can't tell."

  Anger diluted her fear. Damn them! Damn whoever was following her. She had the right to her privacy, her freedom. Men had died on battlefields for those rights.

  Walker eased off the accelerator, made a few turns and, after an eternity, pulled to a stop.

  Claire realized she was lying in his lap, facedown. Thank goodness, at least, that he couldn't see her face. Her sunglasses had fallen off. He might have recognized her. In that instant, she realized she didn't want to dodge these unknown pursuers alone. She needed Walker, at least for the time being. If he were to guess her real identity, though, she'd have to run from him, too. The media offered big bucks for stories about her. He could sell her out with one quick call.

  "You okay?" he asked in that sultry gruff voice of his.

  "I'm fine." Snatching her sunglasses from the floorboard, she sat up, turning to face him only when the large tortoiseshell frames were securely in place. She found him studying her with veiled eyes, his dark, rugged face unreadable. "How could anyone have found me?" she asked, dismayed at the slight tremor in her voice. "There weren't any cars following us from the airport."

  "Sometimes tails are hard to spot."

  "There was no one tailing us," she insisted.

  Her absolute certainty surprised Tyce. She'd been paying closer attention than he'd thought. No one had followed them from the airport.

  "How dare they?" she fumed. "This is my life they're trying so hard to ruin. I'll be damned if I'll let them." She reached into the back seat and grabbed a few packages of newly purchased items. "Drive to the far back corner of this parking lot," she ordered tersely, "over there between that Dumpster and those trees."

  Curious at her request and surprised by her anger when he'd been expecting only anxiety, Tyce silently guided the sedan across the vacant lot of a boarded-up grocery store. Was she angry at him? Had she realized that he'd hired the van to follow them? He didn't see how she could have known.

  He parked behind the oak-shaded Dumpster. She slung open her door and hopped out, her packages under her arm and her purse in her hand. Tyce sprang out from his side and bounded around to her, sure she intended to run.

  He stopped in bewilderment.

  She had deposited all of her belongings on the hood of his car and bent to unbuckle her sandals. As he watched, she stepped out of the strappy little shoes and pitched them into the Dumpster. Her slender, lightly tanned feet were now bare … and she was struggling to unc
lasp the gold bracelet from her wrist.

  "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

  "Bugs," she said with conviction, her bright curls falling across her sunglasses as she worked at the clasp of her bracelet. "Electronic bugs. There's probably one or two on me."

  "You think someone's trying to listen to us?"

  "Not the kind of bug that records voices—the tracking kind. There's no other way they could have known where I was. Someone must have stuck a tracking device on me … at one of the airports, maybe. Or in the plane itself. Or maybe even before I left home." The bracelet came loose from her wrist. Without a moment's hesitation, she threw the gleaming gold filigree over the top of the huge Dumpster.

  "Are you planning to throw away everything you brought with you?" he asked incredulously.

  "Everything except my cash. They wouldn't have bugged that, would they? I mean, I could have spent it anywhere. The device has to be on me somewhere. I have to get rid of it and hit the road before they circle back." Panic edged her voice and she glanced wildly around. "They'll be coming any minute, I'm sure." She reached up to remove the golden hoops from her ears.

  "Wait." He caught her hand to stop her from removing her earrings. He couldn't stand watching her throw away her things when the only one in hot pursuit had been Fred. "You don't have to throw everything away. I'd know an electronic tagging device if I found it. All I have to do is look."

  "Are you sure, Walker? Absolutely, positively, sure you wouldn't miss any? I could easily throw everything I'm wearing away and put on the clothes I just bought."

  "You're planning to throw your clothes away, too? Here and now?" He tried hard to ignore the mental image she'd conjured up.

  "Of course! My personal maid might have—I mean, anyone might have bugged my clothes the night before I left. I didn't think anyone knew what I'd be wearing, but I could have been wrong. I had set them aside the night before…"

  "Oh. Oh, yeah … I see what you mean." Her logic was getting the best of him. Or maybe it was the idea of conducting an intimate body search…

  "We have to check everything, Walker. Everything."

  His breathing had somehow gone shallow. "Better safe than sorry."

  She handed him her earrings, and he handed them back to her. "These are too small and fine to hide a tag," he said. "You'd spot it immediately."

  "Check my purse." She grabbed handfuls of her cash and tossed the bundles onto the front seat of the car, then held the comb, lipstick and other sundries in her cupped hands. Cautiously he ran his hands over the large, carpetbag-style handbag, both inside and out. She then gave him the rest of her purse's contents to inspect, which he did with great care. "No tags here."

  "It has to be in my clothes, then."

  He had to make at least one attempt to talk her out of it. "There are some new, highly sophisticated devices that could be hidden in clothing, but very few people have access to that type of … of…"

  To his amazement, she pulled her T-shirt over her head and handed it to him, standing there between his car, the Dumpster and the shady oaks with her arms crossed over her lacy white bra. He really hadn't thought she'd do it. "Hurry, Walker. That van will be coming back for us."

  Trying his best not to stare at her, he ran the cottony T-shirt through his fingers, conscious of her body warmth and delicate rose scent that clung to the yellow fabric … and of the woman dressed in only a bra, short cutoffs and sunglasses.

  "Do you feel anything?" she asked in an anxious whisper.

  Hell, yeah, he felt something. "No," he managed to say. "No tags."

  She took the T-shirt from him and held it closely in front of her, hiding the lush curves that rose above the white lace. "It has to be here somewhere, Walker. It has to be. There's no other way they could have found me."

  "Do you want me to … keep looking?"

  She nodded.

  He obliged. Who was he to say for positively sure that no one had tagged her before she left home? If they had, her life itself could be in danger. He had a duty to uphold. A duty. He turned her around, his hands momentarily savoring her silken bare shoulders and the bouncy curls brushing them. He proceeded to inspect the back clasp of her bra, running his fingers along the strap, sincerely trying to concentrate on his search for an electronic microtag rather than the warm, tender skin against the backs of his fingers. He hadn't imagined her skin to be quite this soft. He hadn't imagined that touching her would get to him quite this much…

  Why should it? She wasn't naked—she was wearing considerably more than most women would on a public beach. He wasn't an inexperienced kid—he'd had his share of beautiful women. But something about the sight and feel of this one turned his thoughts to rumpled beds and night-long lovemaking.

  She was a billionaire celebrity, damn it. One of the jet set. American royalty. He was a fool to even touch her.

  More brusquely than he intended, he turned her around to face him. She held the doffed T-shirt clasped to her chest. Her face, though half concealed by sunglasses, had flushed to a rosy red.

  "Think of me as a doctor," he suggested.

  She swallowed, nodded and lowered the T-shirt enough for him to continue his inspection.

  Clenching his back teeth, he ran his fingertips around the elastic lower edge of her bra, feeling nothing but womanly warmth and softness and the pounding of her heart. Before he could stop himself, he'd moved his hands across the full, warm, satiny cups. Rigid peaks rose up beneath his palms. His body hardened in tight, demanding response, and he fought the desire to rub those diamond-hard crests.

  "Find anything?" she breathed.

  "Uh-uh."

  "Keep searching." The moment he'd removed his hands from her breasts, she slipped back into her T-shirt. Her nipples were still visible, poking through the thin cotton. Heat coiled and writhed inside him like a snake about to strike.

  Struggling to contain it, he bent his attention to her cutoffs, inspecting the pockets, the rivets and the waistband, inside and out. Her waist was so narrow, he discovered, and her abdomen so flat, that her skin barely touched the waistband at all. Plenty of room for a man to slip his hand inside. Sucking in a cooling draft of air through his nostrils, he withdrew from that temptation, only to confront the curvaceous exterior.

  He had a job to do—a tough job—and he'd see it through or die trying. Times like these tried men's souls…

  After checking her back pockets, he smoothed his hands over the pleasing mounds of her backside, going down on his knees to be thorough. Though his breathing had grown strained, he persevered, feeling his way around to her slender hips, which fit nicely between his hands. Hips made for a man to hold on to as he thrust himself inside her…

  "Anything yet?"

  "Not so far," he reported in a voice far too hoarse.

  "Maybe … the zipper?" Her whisper sounded just as husky as his.

  His hands shook, his blood rushed. He unzipped her shorts and felt his way along both edges of the jagged tracks.

  "Hurry, Walker, before they find us."

  He couldn't quite force the "Yes, ma'am" from his throat. She wore sheer white bikini panties—silky against the backs of his knuckles—and near the bottom of the open zipper glimmered golden-blond curls, barely visible beneath the fine lace.

  He expelled his breath in a hard, jittery rush and forced himself to zip her back up. He was too damn close to forgetting that they were in a public place, shielded only by his car, a grove of trees and a Dumpster. Too close to forgetting who she was and why they were there. He wanted to press his face against the lace, peel it off her, kiss his way to where he wanted to be. Make fast, hard love to her, heiress or not.

  He forced himself to his feet, hot and dizzy with wanting her. Had she been turned on, he wondered, or was he just imagining the sexuality radiating like heat waves between them? He realized then, as his gaze reached her face, that she was still wearing her sunglasses.

  "Your glasses," he rasped. "Give 'em to me."


  Her lips parted, her color deepened. "You … you think the tag might be on my glasses?"

  "Might be. I'd better check."

  She moved a step back from him. "Can't you just check while they're on me?"

  He could, of course. He'd just checked her bra and shorts while they were very much "on her." But he heard himself saying in a smooth, authoritative tone, "Glasses are different than clothes. Most electronic tags can be felt on fabric much easier than on metal or glass." It wasn't necessarily true, but she wouldn't know that.

  Dismay crossed her face. She wanted to refuse.

  He wanted to force the issue. He wanted to see her eyes. To read them. "If there is a tag on those sunglasses," he warned, "that blue van should be zeroing in on us any moment."

  With a little cry, she turned her slender back to him, whipped off her glasses and held them out. "My eyes are overly sensitive to the sun," she explained, pressing her free hand over the entire top half of her face. "From medication I'm taking."

  Tyce's lips tightened as he took the glasses. He felt as if she were teasing him, holding out on him, showing him just so much of her and no more. She'd allowed him to slip his hand in her shorts, but wouldn't let him see her eyes!

  He realized, of course, that she was afraid he'd recognize her. And if he were thinking straight, he'd be glad of her determination to stay shielded. She'd be easier to protect if no one recognized her. Problem was, he wasn't thinking straight. He wanted to see her eyes … up close and personal.

  Grudgingly he inspected the expensive sunglasses. He almost hoped there would be a tag on them, just to ease his conscience. Chances had been slim that she'd been tagged, and he'd known it before he'd started his body search. But why should he feel guilty? Any red-blooded man would have complied with her wishes. Maybe that's what bothered him. She was too naive to be out in the world alone. Too trusting of a man she didn't know.

  With a self-deprecating smirk, he grimaced. What was he flunking? She was a beautiful woman who'd grown up among the power players in a wickedly political world. She couldn't possibly be as naive as she seemed. He wasn't sure why she had run away, though he guessed she was angry over her fiancé's infidelity and was now determined to "sow her wild oats," as she'd put it. Sweet revenge. Or maybe she was involved in some political intrigue. Whatever the reason for her covert flight, this "princess" was no babe in the woods, no matter how trusting she seemed to be.