Captured (Gowns & Crowns #2)

by Jennifer Chance

  So they’d all be better off if he kept his focus on the mission. Fortunately, she had made that easy enough.

  He’d found her phone, of course—Alexi’s phone, more accurately stated. And though his sister believed these phones were burners, they were all linked back to Dimitri. Once he’d had it in hand, he was able to cross-reference the right phone with the right account.

  The phones had been Cyril’s idea originally. Cyril, who also couldn’t quite accept that Ari could die without a trace, that his plane could disappear, with only the barest amount of wreckage to tell the tale of his final hours. There’d been nothing to tie the prince to the debris—not his clothes, not his gear, not the black box. Nothing. It was as if Ari had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Cyril had commissioned the phones to encourage chatter about the search for the plane’s wreckage, and chatter had definitely happened over the intervening months, but none of it worthwhile. The advisor had called off the distribution of phones months ago, but that hadn’t stopped Dimitri. He’d handed them out like candy, asking for a call if anything had been found—a scrap of metal, a twisted bit of electronics, anything.

  Now he weighed his options. He needed to deepen Lauren’s trust in him. That was paramount if he wanted to ensure her safety. He couldn’t ask her outright about the phone calls she’d made. He’d sent that information to Stefan to analyze, but he wouldn’t get those results tonight.

  He also couldn’t take the device away from her. At least he knew about this cell phone, could track it. If she got resourceful and stole someone else’s phone he couldn’t control, or God forbid a sat phone that she could use anywhere on the island, keeping tabs on her conversations would be that much more difficult.

  No, he had to keep Lauren close and engaged and at least reasonably trusting of him. Enough that she didn’t decide to run off on her own. She wasn’t his prisoner, she was his charge. He had to remember that.

  So whatever she wanted to do, he’d do. His body twitched despite himself. Anything. “We can go to the promontory tomorrow,” he said at length, watching her for her reaction. He had the advantage there. She’d shifted slightly ahead of him now, and was looking back, so he could see her full, lovely face in the lights from the party. “Though I haven’t been back to Miranos for a while. There hasn’t been much that’s turned up. It’s been a year, after all. But the boats come in tomorrow with the week’s haul as well, and that generally yields something. Not always something useful, but it’s a start.”

  “Enough to keep your hope alive?” Her question was asked without artifice, as if she truly wanted to know. She was as good at playing her role as he was, he realized. But was this a role for her now?

  There was no way for him to know, so he contented himself with a shrug. “Hope is not something that dies easily in Garronia. We are a small nation, dwarfed by those around us. We do not have the billions in our coffers that others do to fund our military or our defenses. We are ruled by a royal family who are very much human, who may sicken, weaken, or die. We should have been overrun a dozen times through the centuries, and yet we were not. There is much to hope for.”

  “I guess. I’m not much good at hope.”

  His gaze shifted to her face again. This part, at least, was no act. She could not know he saw so much. She had to believe she was hidden in shadows. Her expression was starkly forlorn as she looked out over the ocean, and her anxiety arrowed through him, harsh and full.

  He decided to press the small advantage.

  “Tell me, why don’t you report this man to the authorities? Why don’t your parents?”

  If she was startled by his change of subject, she didn’t betray it. Then again, he got the feeling that Henry Smithson was never far from Lauren’s mind. “Henry and my father…you have to understand. Their relationship was almost magical. My father finally had someone he could share all of his time and business acumen with in a way he simply could never see doing with me. And Henry respected him, revered him, and perhaps most importantly, learned from him. By the time he turned his attention to me, he’d been at my father’s side for years. I tried to tell my mother what was happening, but she knew how much it would crush my father, and I was a very dramatic child. It was easier to discount my concerns, especially when the very next gift would be something amazingly sweet. It was easy for me to forget too. At least at first.”

  She shook her head. “Then they had some sort of fight, and after that is when things really got more intense.”

  Dimitri eyed her. Stefan had mentioned this, but didn’t have any details, and Lauren’s half nod betrayed that she didn’t have much either. Her next words confirmed it. “I never knew what about. It sort of seemed that Dad was angry with Henry, distrustful almost. Which was a shock after so many years where Henry could do no wrong. I almost… well, I thought about telling him then, everything. The few things I’d told Mom, plus all the stuff I hadn’t told anyone. It seemed maybe he would listen.”

  She trailed off, and Dimitri prompted her. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Well, I got to thinking that, since Dad was already mad, maybe it would all go away, that I didn’t have to say anything.” Her smile was rueful. “That somehow, Henry had done the hard work for me, all on his own.” She sighed. “But a few months later, he was suddenly back at dinners, at public events, at golf…it was as if their falling out had never happened. And then he presented me with a stunning set of diamond earrings in front of my father and Dad looked so happy and relieved and…it started all over again. The rest is as I’ve told you. He’s untouchable, really and truly. Half of his business partners are afraid of him, and the other half should be. He has layers upon layers of legal protections, and that’s not counting the illegal ones. If I raised my concerns, I would earn his undying enmity, perhaps. But I wouldn’t stop him. Nothing will ever stop him, I’m convinced, except his own boredom.” Her expression flickered with something close to humor. “I’ve tried to be as boring as possible up to now.”

  Dimitri lifted a brow. “I don’t see how that would be possible.”

  Her smile showed that she accepted his compliment and disregarded it as quickly, the polite concession of a woman used to receiving empty admiration. “Unfortunately, I think this little stunt we’ve pulled may have piqued his interest too far. He’s not used to people fighting back.” She shook her head. “Maybe that’s where I’ve erred all this time. Instead of evading him without seeming to do so, maybe I should have capitulated, fawned all over him. Maybe if I had, this would all be over already.”

  Or maybe you would already be dead. He didn’t need to say the words out loud. He could see their truth reflected in Lauren’s eyes. Only, she didn’t seem upset by the concept. A certain measure of relief clouded her face instead, as if her sacrifice might be worth the greater good in the end.

  Rage seemed to knot up inside him in twisted fury. Rage and a surge of protectiveness he had no desire to deny. No. Lauren would not live her life in servitude to another man. She wouldn’t live in fear and confusion, wondering if or when Smithson was going to strike.

  “We will go to the promontory,” he said again, more firmly this time. “It’s not a far journey—nothing is on this rock—but we’ll leave early on, get there in time to cover every scrap of the place. By sunset, the men will be returning with their nets full of fishes, and we can help them unload.” He glanced at her. “I can help them, anyway. There is no need for you to be up to your elbows in dead or dying fish.”

  She laughed. “And yet you make it sound so appealing.”

  “It’s a gift.” He turned her back to the noise of the party, and she seemed relieved to have the bright lights and distraction to create that much separation between them. Yet she didn’t stray far from his side, despite the fact that his sister, his mother, and again his grandmother sought to spirit her off. After a few minutes, she always cycled back to him, which kept him from going after her to ensure her safety and protection.

  Right. That was
why he wanted her close.

  Now he watched her across the open space. Her laughter so bright and full, so practiced-sounding to his ears, her face arrested in rapt attention to whatever the young woman was saying, whom Dimitri didn’t know. A girlfriend of some cousin, he was sure.

  “It is good to see you smile.”

  He looked down, startled to see his grandmother at his elbow, her fists on her hips as she peered up at him, but her eyes sharp with approval. “Grief makes a man old and bent, and you should be tall and strong. She is good for you.” She turned to gesture to Lauren, and Dimitri’s mood soured.

  “She is not really my girlfriend, Grandmother. You know that. We are here because she is in danger.”

  “You keep telling yourself that,” the old woman said, reaching forward to pat his arm. “But you are here because you are meant to be here. Sooner or later, even you will realize it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The exhaustion and adrenaline of the last few days had finally caught up with Lauren by the time she made it back to Dimitri the last time, and despite her best intentions, she closed her eyes almost before she’d buckled herself into the rover. She came to groggily when the noise shut off again and she realized they’d returned to Dimitri’s villa. The night sky was an impossibly thick canopy of stars, and as Dimitri came around to her side, she struggled with the urge to pretend she was still asleep, if only to feel his arms around her once again.

  She needn’t have worried. “The footing is treacherous,” he murmured as he unbuckled her. “Better for me to carry you.”

  “It’s sand.” She didn’t protest as he scooped her into his arms, however, lifting her easily out of the beach rover and swinging her away.

  “It’s very deceptive sand. One wrong move and you could slip and fall into it, and that would be very dangerous for you.”

  “Oh?” She snaked her arms up around his head, turning him toward her. As he bent, she reached up and drifted her lips against his. “And how could all this soft sand be dangerous?”

  He didn’t need more of an invitation. He pressed his lips against hers gently at first, then with greater urgency, as if the intervening hours since their sunset lovemaking had been more like days or weeks. He braced her without effort, absorbing all her weight, and desire stirred in her veins, clearing away the confusion of the tsipouro she’d consumed at the party but leaving all its liquid courage behind. “I think if I had a blanket to break my fall, the sand would not be so dangerous,” she murmured against his lips.

  Dimitri barely shifted, reaching into the back of the rover. A moment later, the thick weight of a blanket bumped against her shoulder. “I think you’re very wrong. But some lessons must be fully experienced to be learned.” He sighed as if he was shouldering a great burden. “I will endeavor to go easy on you this one time. But you must be made to understand.”

  The thrill of possibility combined with a rush of sheer, unexpected joy, taking Lauren by surprised. She batted against his body. “Let me go, you big ox.” She laughed.

  “Your wish is my command, princess.” And he did let her go, but their hands naturally found each other’s anyway as she tugged him across the sand. The breeze off the water was deliciously cool as they made their way toward the mysterious Aegean. There were villas high in the cliffs down the beach, but along this idyll, it seemed like they were the only people alive. That it was truly an island paradise shared only by the two of them.

  Lauren allowed herself to indulge in the fantasy of being someone—anyone else. Not a well-known face from a tabloid-friendly family, but a girl who found herself alone on the beach with a big, strapping hunk of a man who seemed to want nothing more than to be dragged along behind her to a strip of water that surely was as familiar to him as the back of his own hand.

  She stopped as they reached the small ridge that marked the tide line, the break between the deep, thick white sand and the damper, hard-packed sand that ran down to the water’s edge. “How cold is the water?”

  “Too cold for swimming at night, I can tell you,” Dimitri rumbled. He dropped the blanket on the sand and kicked off his sandals. “Not too cold for dipping your feet in to feel in touch with its energy.”

  She looked at him in surprise as she kicked off her own sandals. “That’s pretty poetic for a captain of the GNSF.”

  “We are a surprising military in many ways.” He reached for her hand again, and she slipped her fingers into his. She wasn’t shy, she wasn’t cautious. No one could see them here in this perfect hidden spot. No one needed her—couldn’t reach her if they wanted to. Her purse was all the way up in the rover, and she didn’t feel strange not being connected to her phone…because it wasn’t her phone. Her sister, Maddie, was the only one with access to it, and she also knew it wasn’t Lauren’s own phone. She wouldn’t call it unless something truly important happened. For the first time in longer than Lauren could remember, she was completely cut off. Isolated. It felt deliciously wicked.

  Then again, she was cut off, isolated, and unconnected…while walking along the beach with the hottest guy she’d ever seen naked in her entire life. So there was that.

  “Do I want to know what you’re thinking?” the hottest guy she’d ever seen naked asked beside her.

  “You most definitely do not—oh…it’s warm.” They’d reached the water’s edge, and Lauren sighed with rich appreciation as the lapping tide skimmed over her toes. Her sundress barely brushed her knees, so she waded out farther, pulling Dimitri with her. He paused long enough to remove his pants, and she ogled at him. He was wearing boxers, yes but…still.

  He laughed at the expression on her face. “There is no one on the beach but us, Lauren. If you would care to walk around in your underwear as well, the fish and birds will not mind. And I definitely will not mind.”

  “I’m good.” She admired his legs as he splashed into the water next to her. They were corded with muscle, yet he moved with the grace and assurance of someone who had been born to the sea. Once again, she thought about how different he was from anyone she’d ever met. Even the guys she knew who were total gym rats, whose musculature rivaled that of Dimitri’s, were infinitely different—their bodies too tight and blocky. No way could they move with Dimitri’s speed and agility, able to react and redirect at a second’s notice.

  “You like what you see?” Confidence dripped from Dimitri’s words, but not in a self-mocking way. He knew she was staring, though she turned her gaze forward again quickly enough. Knew it and accepted it as his due. How many other women did he have pining after him, she wondered. His grandmother acted as if he was some kind of monk, but that was his grandmother. It wasn’t as if Dimitri would share his exploits with an old woman.

  She wanted to know those exploits, though. After all, none of this was real. She could discover whatever she wanted, and it wouldn’t affect anything. “I suppose I should have asked this already, but do you have any sort of girlfriend or anything?” She tried to sound arch, but knew she came out sounding a little breathless instead. She didn’t care. Once again, none of this mattered.

  Dimitri’s laugh soothed her nerves. “No, princess. No sort of girlfriend or anything. I would be a pretty poor excuse for a man if I had a girlfriend and yet managed to make love with you on my living room floor this afternoon, and once again beneath the stars tonight.”

  “You seem very confident of how this evening is going to play out.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I am well known for my strategic predictive abilities. You watch and see if it happens, and let me know how I do.”

  “Well, your chivalry is noted. I can give you a list as long as my arm of guys I know who would have sex in a heartbeat regardless of their relationship status, if they found themselves on a deserted island with someone who practically threw herself at them.”

  “Miranos is not so deserted as that,” Dimitri said lightly. “But tell me about this throwing of yourself at me. It sounds like something I should be prepared
for.” He stopped their walk and drew her close to him. “Like now, for instance. Show me now.”

  Lauren couldn’t help herself. She allowed a giggle to escape as she pushed Dimitri away. “Well, to throw myself at you, I’ll need a running start. Don’t you know how this works at all?”

  “My training is sadly lacking.”

  She burst out with another laugh as she launched herself at him, splashing through the water and then jumping up, planning to push him over into the surf. Instead, he caught her easily, swinging her around in the water and locking her to his body, all heat and strength and laughter as he gathered her close.

  “I approve of this American practice of throwing. We shall have to adopt it here in Garronia.”

  “Well, you should be careful. You’ll never know what Americans might come flying out of the water at you when you least expect it.”

  “I should enjoy that very much.”

  Lauren’s breath caught as Dimitri leaned toward her, nuzzling her mouth until she opened her lips to him. The salt from the ocean water tasted uniquely perfect, and she sighed as he deepened the kiss, softening her hold on him until he cradled her in his arms.

  Dimitri’s heart thudded almost painfully, but not from the paltry effort it took to hold Lauren above the water. She was not a small woman, but perfectly proportioned to his body, as if she had been carved from the very essence of the earth and sea for him personally. Her laughter thrilled through him, light and free, and it only seemed more relaxed with each passing hour. It was as if the farther she strayed from the glittering perfection of her life, the happier she was. He knew why, of course. That it wasn’t him, it was the idea of him, the idea of being safe, unfettered by consequences, but also unhindered by danger. That the very concept of relaxing in someone’s arms without being watched or judged, without being photographed or recorded, was so unusual that she was building it up into some sort of fantasy vacation in her mind, some time out of time.