by Avery Flynn
After a few minutes, she closed the folder and tossed it onto the coffee table. It landed half on top of her abandoned cup of tea but managed not to knock it over.
“Who are you really?” she asked, anger making her shed the formal accent she’d put on earlier. The hard-edged, lightly accented alto fit her better than the fake upper-crust thing she was using before.
“Exactly who you think.” He lied as easily as he breathed, a skill learned by necessity at too young an age. “Lucas Bendtsen, the newest Earl of Moad.”
She arched one eyebrow. “The rest of it now.”
Challenge made the tiny green flecks in her gray eyes brighten. She had some serious spirit, this one, and an excellent bullshit detector. Considering with whom she’d grown up, that wasn’t a surprise. Still, he was a little too pleased by the discovery.
“I’m head of Silver Knights.”
She flinched. It was small, imperceptible to most, but he’d seen the flash of apprehension at the name of Elskov’s version of the CIA, FBI, MI6, and Interpol all mixed together into one badass operation with only one goal: to protect Elskov and its queen, who’d been recently restored to the throne after a bloody coup that had nearly destroyed the country.
“Good to see you know of our reputation and now realize the seriousness of your situation—and that of your brother.”
Her cheeks flushed. “You’re a right bastard.”
“Literally and figuratively. I’ve learned to live with it, so should you,” he said, glad to finally have the upper hand. Usually, that wasn’t a problem. With Ruby? He had a feeling he was going to have to expect the unexpected. “We’re under a tight deadline and don’t have time for petty personality problems. Your stepfather is selling a large cache of weapons to a very bad man who wants to do horrible things. I will not let that sale go down, and you’re going to do whatever it takes to help me ensure it doesn’t.”
He wasn’t about to give her names—not until he had to—but she had to comprehend the seriousness of the situation.
She huffed out a frustrated breath. “And how am I supposed to do that?”
So glad she asked. It was about time they got down to it. “By providing access to your stepfather and helping to gain insight into the deal’s location.”
“One problem with your plan,” she said with a smirk. “I’m not involved in any of Rolf’s business. For the past year I’ve kept as much distance between us as possible. You’ll notice I’m here in Elskov, and he’s still holed up in his private fiefdom on Fare Island, surrounded by goons and sycophants.”
Oh he knew. He had satellite imagery of everything happening on that island. If Henriksen ever came anywhere near that island, he’d find his every twitch photographed, logged, and documented before he ended up in maximum security prison.
“Not to worry,” he said. “We have a plan. It’s time for a family reunion.”
She blanched. “You don’t understand. He trusts no one. Not me. Not Jasper. Not anyone.”
That didn’t matter; in fact, they were going to use that to their advantage. “We have a can’t-miss cover story.”
“I’m telling you,” she said, her low, sultry voice getting louder with each word. “There’s. No. Way. It. Will. Work.”
“There’s always a way.” If he didn’t believe that, then he’d still be living in a rented room above the Ensom Pub surviving on his wits and the scraps of information he could steal and sell to the highest bidder. Instead, here he was the literal lord of the manor charged with protecting Elskov. “There’s always a way, and if there’s not, I make one.”
She considered him for a moment, her gray eyes focused on him as if he were a safe she was cracking, then she sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t suppose I have a choice.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Then it looks like we have a deal.” She held out her hand.
He took it, shaking on the agreement. The feel of her small hand in his sent a jolt straight from his palm to his already half-hard dick. He couldn’t deny the woman’s sex appeal, but he couldn’t fall prey to it, either. The men who had were either broke, in jail, or dead. He’d managed to successfully avoid all three up to now and that wasn’t going to change.
“Of course,” she said, pulling her hand from his and looking down at her own hand in half wonder and half concern, as if she’d experienced that zap of attraction, too. “I do have two conditions.”
He almost laughed. She didn’t give up, a quality he couldn’t help but admire even if it meant she was going to be a real pain in his ass. “And those are?”
“One, you get Jasper out of jail and into protective custody.” She looked him dead in the eye without a flinch, her neutral poker face in perfect order. “My stepfather has many enemies, and while he may not trust my brother, he would see any harm done to Jasper as a personal affront. His enemies would be thrilled to exploit that vulnerability.”
Not a problem since they already had him squirreled away under twenty-four-hour guard with two of his most trusted agents. “Done. And the other?”
“Give me the space I need to get whatever information you need.” She held up a finger. “No wires.” She held up a second. “No cameras. I’ll bring you back the information you want, but I have to do it in my own way.”
“No.” Not even if hell froze over.
Her hand dropped like a lead weight into her lap. “No?”
“No.” He leaned forward, close enough that he could smell her exotic perfume and see the way the vein in her neck stood out as her pulse picked up from his nearness. “You see, I’m your cover story and the reason for your return trip to Fare Island. We’re officially engaged and about to invite your mother and stepfather to our wedding. As long as those weapons are out there, Ms. Macintosh, there won’t be any daylight between us.”
Chapter Two
She was in a puffy, pink nightmare.
Ruby looked around the guest room she’d been assigned, aka Barbie’s LSD nightmare. From the sheer blush of the walls to the Pepto-Bismol duvet cover on the bed, there was pink everywhere she looked. It was like karma coming back to haunt her for insisting on getting the magenta highlights along with the violet ones, despite Isla warning her she might want to dial it down a notch—or twenty.
She sat her heavy design travel kit down on the taffy-colored rug and did a three-sixty. Although they’d been colored to match the overbearing design scheme, she picked out two motion detectors, a trigger alarm on the door, and sensors around the windows. There was probably more, but she didn’t have the stomach to find out if the bathroom was done up in shades of watermelon or salmon, so checking in there would have to wait. Just the idea of a fifty-shades-of-pink bathroom made the designer in her throw up a little. Still, there had to be a way out of this room, and she’d find it. Lucas may think he had a winning scheme to get those guns, but she knew better.
Rolf Macintosh hadn’t become the most dangerous and successful gunrunner and profiteer in Northern Europe by being stupid. He’d taken over crime syndicates, banished rivals, and decimated his opposition by being willing to do what others wouldn’t and never trusting another living soul.
Not his wife.
Not his adopted stepchildren.
No one.
She had to find a way out of this pink prison and rescue her brother. Then they’d find a way to disappear for good. If she didn’t, they were both as good as dead.
Crossing to the door, she considered her options. She was up on the third floor, too far for a window ladder made out of sheets to work—even if the windows weren’t rigged. She turned the doorknob and peeked out. The testosterone twins from outside the sitting room had moved upstairs to take up position outside her door.
“Did you need something, ma’am?” one of them asked.
Mads? Gustav? No fucking clue.
“Where’s Lucas?” she asked.
“Major Bendtsen, I mean the earl, is in his study,” the first twin responde
d.
“Thank you.” Every tidbit of information had the potential to be useful.
Twin Two glared in her direction and crossed his massive arms across his expansive chest.
Yeah, I got it. Big, bad, bulky men stop weak, little woman. How her eyes managed to stay in her head after the massive eye roll she executed would remain a mystery.
She closed the door as she ran the manor’s layout through her head like a film reel. They’d passed the room that had to be Lucas’s study when he’d marched her up to her temporary puke-pink prison. She’d peeked through the door as he’d had a hushed discussion with another agent. A huge fireplace was at one end of the room and a pin-neat desk at the other. It was all mahogany, leather, and brass—not even a whisper of softness in the entire room.
The guard’s slip up about Lucas’s title was telling. Either her blackmailer was new to the aristocracy, or he was lying to her. She paced to the window and back again, over and over, considering the question and its implications.
Who exactly was Lucas Bendtsen?
Was he a major in the Elskov military?
Was he the Earl of Moad?
Was he head of the Silver Knights?
She had no proof of either identity or proof that he wasn’t someone else entirely.
The longer she considered the unanswered questions, the more her stomach roiled as her apprehension built. Then it hit her, stopping her in her tracks right in front of her powder-puff-colored door. A slimy, toxic dread slithered through her.
It would be just like him.
Her stepfather loved his games—the more elaborate, the better. If he’d decided to test her loyalty, test the promise she’d made before she’d finally escaped Fare Island, this was how he’d do it. He’d set her up, fuck with her head, and see if she broke so he could finally do what he’d always threatened and force her to marry Joey. For years she’d lived in fear of his evil plots, but those days were over. Powered by righteous indignation and adrenaline, she flung the door open and marched out into the hall.
“Ma’am,” one of the twins said. “You’re not supposed to go anywhere.”
She spun around to face him, the contempt on her face daring him to do something about it. He wouldn’t. Her stepfather always liked to dole out the punishments himself.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
Twin One opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Exactly what she expected. “Then stay the fuck out of my way.”
She stormed down the stairs to the main floor and made a beeline for Lucas’s study. The door was closed. She twisted the knob. Locked. Eyeballing the doorknob as she fished around in her pocket for one of the spare bobby pins she kept there out of habit, she grinned and gave the lock a second look. She could have popped it when she was eight.
Ten seconds later, she flung open the door and stalked inside Lucas’s private domain. “I don’t know who you are, you son of a—”
The last word died on her lips as she stood facing Elskov’s beautiful, twenty-something queen, or at least a huge image of her projected onto the video screen above the fireplace. She wasn’t wearing a tiara or anything, but there was no mistaking the woman who’d survived an attempted assassination and married a hunk of a man who, rumor had it, kidnapped her to save her from the men who would have gladly killed her.
“Oh, I see you’re making friends, Lucas. I knew you had it in you,” the queen said in her half-Elskovian, half-American accent. “You’ve completely confirmed my decision to make you head of the Silver Knights.”
Out of her peripheral vision, Ruby spotted Lucas glowering at her in that whole dangerous badass way he had, which, it turned out, he’d totally earned. She pressed one clammy palm to her stomach.
The Silver Knights were a thing of legend in Elskov. No one knew exactly who was in the Silver Knights and especially not who lead them. They’d taken down terrorists, well-connected assassins, and anyone else threatening Elskov. Even her father, a despotic braggart, talked about them in hushed tones. The Silver Knights were the boogeymen to anyone in Northern Europe’s criminal underworld who gave even a hint that they might disturb the kingdom’s peace.
“Don’t let that nasty look on Lucas’s face fool you. He’s only two-thirds asshole. I promise,” the queen said. “You must be the infamous Ruby Macintosh I’ve heard so much about.”
She dropped into a jittery, poor excuse of a curtsey. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Please do get up. I’m an Americanized Elskovian, I just can’t get used to all of that.”
“You’re not supposed to say that.” A muscular, blond man strode into view. There was no mistaking Dominick Rasmussen, Elskov’s king. “What will our little prince say?”
“That Daddy has a big mouth.” The queen grinned, obviously too ecstatically happy to put any heat in the insult.
“It’s just Bendtsen.” He looked away from the queen for the first time since appearing on screen. His gaze locked with hers and in a split second he went from the doting husband to a man well used to people always following his orders. “And…someone who is sworn to secrecy or we open up the castle’s dungeons again.”
“Stop teasing her.” The queen rolled her eyes. “We’re trying to get her on our side.”
Ruby straightened and kept her attention focused on the queen and her king even as she felt Lucas prowl closer to her, setting off her fight-or-flight response.
The queen smiled. “Lucas tells me you’re hesitant about our plan.”
Her ultimate plan had been to somehow grab Jasper and run, but discovering exactly who she was up against meant escape wasn’t an option—at least not now. Not that she was going to go all sweet and agreeable on her blackmailer.
Squaring her shoulders, she tucked her hair behind one ear, raised her chin, and looked the queen straight in the eye. “I don’t think it will work.”
“It is risky, I agree.” The queen nodded. “However, Lucas has quite convinced me, otherwise I wouldn’t have authorized such…extreme measures.”
“That’s what you call this?” she asked, frustration making her voice shake.
Lucas moved closer to her, the dark, censorious look on his face warning her against any more outbursts. It took everything she had not to signal her response with a one-fingered salute.
“Don’t worry, he’s helped kidnap me before, too,” the queen said with a light chuckle. “That ended up working out well for everyone involved. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you can trust Lucas and his plan. It will work. I wouldn’t trust the fate of Elskov to just anyone. I know he’ll do whatever it takes to keep the country safe. On behalf of all Elskovians, please accept my gratitude for agreeing to play a part in this operation—not that I had any doubt in Lucas’s ability to get you to see the light.”
Ruby slid her gaze over to the man in question. He was holding the black folder he’d shown her earlier with Jasper’s arrest report in it. The taste of rotten milk coated her tongue as dread wound around her throat. The message couldn’t be clearer: cooperate or Jasper pays the price. Knowing exactly who Lucas was, she didn’t have a single doubt that he’d follow through with his threat. For the first time in her life, she wished it had been her stepfather playing his sick head games.
“Now,” the queen continued, “if we don’t have anything else, Lucas?”
“No, Your Majesty,” he said.
“I’d wish you good luck, but you won’t need it. We’ll talk again soon.” The image on the video screen swapped from the queen and king to the Elskovian State Seal.
Mind whirling around the ever shrinking possibilities of getting out of this situation alive and with the odds running even on whether her stepfather or Lucas would finish off her and Jasper first, she turned toward the door. The need to get out of here before the walls closed in on her had her so focused on escape, she missed Lucas’s quick movements until he stood between her and the open doorway.
Never taking his attention off her, Lucas closed the door behi
nd him. His spacious study suddenly shrank in size, and her pulse quickened. He didn’t say anything—he just stared with those all-knowing blue-green eyes that unsettled her.
Desire heated her skin as if there was a blaze burning in the huge fireplace across the room. It made her lungs tight and her breasts heavy as warmth pooled low in her stomach. Her reaction to being close to him had to be a side effect from running on adrenaline since she’d realized Jasper was missing last night. Or maybe it was because she’d gotten a little too used to boyfriends who were battery powered. It wasn’t—couldn’t be—because of him. She wouldn’t let it.
His gaze dropped to her mouth and then to the peaked tips of her nipples pressing against the white knit jersey of her dress, the thin material disguising nothing. Embarrassed at her body’s obvious response to him that she couldn’t hide, she brushed past him and reached for the door.
His hand covered hers on the doorknob before she even had a chance to twist her wrist to open the door. Looking back over her shoulder, she noted he stood directly behind her with only a few inches separating their bodies.
“The queen is right, you know,” he said, his warm breath brushing against the exposed column of her neck and setting off a shiver of lust. “I will do whatever it takes and make any sacrifices necessary to safeguard my country. Consider that before you try anything that might sabotage this operation.” He paused as her heart hammered against her ribs. “The queen is also wrong. I’m a complete asshole used to always having my way. You’d better remember that before you go bursting into any more rooms without an invitation.”
Blood rushing in her ears and desire slowing her thinking, it took a second to realize that he’d released her hand and stepped away. Once she did, her survival instinct kicked in, and she flew out the door, hurrying up the staircase to her room where she could regroup and come up with a plan not to sabotage herself by falling into bed with her blackmailer.
Chapter Three
Rainbow on the move.
Sitting at the dining room table, Lucas read the text message from Gustav and then glanced back down at the schematics of Rolf Macintosh’s stronghold disguised as a sprawling country house spread out before him. Though he looked at the architectural plan, he couldn’t help but picture the rainbow-haired woman who’d stormed into his office spitting mad this afternoon.
