Her Unforgettable Royal Lover

by Merline Lovelace

Natalie slumped against his chest and devoured the brief descriptions of the paintings removed from Lagy’s villa. Several she recognized immediately from Interpol’s database of lost or stolen art. Others she would need more detail on before she could be sure.

  “This,” she said, excitement still singing through her veins, “is going make a fantastic final chapter in Sarah’s book. Her editors will eat up the personal angle. A painting purchased for a young duchess, then lost for decades. The hunt by the duchess’s granddaughter for the missing masterpiece. The raid that recovered it, which just happened to include the current Grand Duke.”

  “Let’s not forget the part you played in the drama.”

  “I’m just the research assistant. You St. Sebastians are the star players.”

  “You’re not ‘just’ anything, Natushka.”

  To emphasize the point, he tugged on her hair and tilted her head back for a long, hard kiss. Neither of them held back, taking and giving in both a welcome release of tension and celebration.

  Natalie was riding high when Dom raised his head. “I can’t wait to tell Sarah about this. And the duchess! When do you think her painting will be returned to her?”

  “I have no idea. They’ll have to authenticate it first, then trace the provenance. If Lagy can prove he purchased it or any of these paintings in good faith from a gallery or another collector, the process could take weeks or months.”

  “Or longer,” she said, scrunching her nose. “Can’t you exert some royal influence and hurry the process along?”

  “Impatient little thing, aren’t you?”

  “And then some!” She scooted off his lap and onto the cushion next to him. “Let’s contact Sarah via FaceTime. I want to see her reaction when we tell her.”

  * * *

  They caught Sarah in midair aboard Dev’s private jet. The moment Dom made the connection, her employer fired an anxious query.

  “How’s Natalie? Has her memory returned?”

  “It has.”

  “Thank God! Where is she now?”

  “She’s here, with me. Hang on.”

  He angled the phone to capture Natalie’s eager face. “Hello, Sarah.”

  “Oh, Natalie, we’ve been so worried. Are you really okay?”

  “Better than okay. We’ve located the Canaletto!”

  “What?” Sarah whipped her head to one side. “Dev, you’re not going to believe this! Natalie’s tracked down Grandmama’s Canaletto.”

  “I didn’t do it alone,” Natalie protested, aiming a quick smile at Dom. “It was a team effort.”

  When she glanced back at the screen, Sarah’s brows had inched up. “Well,” she said after a small pause, “if I was going to team with anyone other than my husband, Dominic would certainly top my list.”

  A telltale heat rushed into Natalie’s cheeks but she didn’t respond to the curiosity simmering just below the surface of her employer’s reply. Mostly because she wasn’t really sure how to define her “teaming” with Dom, much less predict how long it would last. But she couldn’t hold back a cheek-to-cheek grin as she related the events of the past few days. Sarah’s eyes grew wider with the telling, and at the end of the recital she echoed Natalie’s earlier sentiments.

  “This is all so incredible. I can’t wait to tell Grandmama the Canaletto’s been recovered.”

  Dom leaned over Natalie’s shoulder to issue the same warning he had earlier. “They’ll have to assemble a team of experts to authenticate each painting and validate its provenance. That could take several months or more.”

  Dev’s face crowded next to his wife’s on the small screen. “We’ll see what we can do to expedite the process, at least as far as the Canaletto is concerned.”

  “And I’ll ask Gina to get Jack involved,” Sarah volunteered. “He can apply some subtle pressure through diplomatic channels.”

  “I also suggested to the Grand Duke here that he should exercise a little royal muscle,” Natalie put in.

  “Good for you. With all three of our guys weighing in, I’m sure we can shake Grandmama’s painting loose without too long a delay.”

  The reference to “our” guys deepened the heat in Natalie’s cheeks. She floundered for a moment, but before she could think of an appropriate response to the possessive pronoun, Sarah had already jumped ahead.

  “We need to update the chapter on the Canaletto, Nat. And if we put our noses to the grindstone, we ought to be able to finish the final draft of the book in two or three weeks. When can you fly back to L.A.?”

  “I, uh…”

  “Scratch that. Instead of going straight home, let’s rendezvous in New York. I’d like you to personally brief my editor. I know she’ll want to take advantage of the publicity all this is going to generate. We can fly to L.A. from there.”

  She could hardly say no. Sarah St. Sebastian Hunter had offered her the job of a lifetime. Not only did Natalie love the work, she appreciated the generous salary and fringe benefits that came with it. She owed her boss loyalty and total dedication until her book hit the shelves.

  “No problem. I can meet you in New York whenever it works for you.”

  “I’ll call my editor as soon as we hang up. I’ll try to arrange something on Thursday or Friday. Did you get a replacement passport? Great. You should probably fly home tomorrow, then. I’ll have a ticket waiting for you at the airport.”

  She disconnected with a promise to call back as soon as she’d nailed down the time and place of the meeting. Dominic tossed his phone on the coffee table and turned to Natalie.

  She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. She felt as though she’d just dropped down an elevator shaft. Mere moments ago she’d been riding a dizzying high. In a few short seconds, she’d plunged back into cold, hard reality. She had a job, responsibilities, a life back in the States, such as it was. And neither she nor Dom had discussed any alternative. Still, the prospect of leaving Hungary drilled a hole in her heart.

  “Sarah’s been so good to me,” she said, breaking the small silence. “I need to help put the final touches on her book.”

  “Of course you do. I, too, must go back to work. I’ve been away from it too long.”

  She plucked at the hem of her borrowed shirt. She should probably ask Dom to take her on a quick shopping run. She could hardly show up for a meeting with Sarah’s editor in jeans and a tank top, much less a man’s soccer shirt. Yet she hated to spend her last hours in Budapest cruising boutiques.

  She tried to hide her misery at the thought of leaving, but Dom had to see it when he curled a knuckle under her chin and tipped her face to his.

  “Perhaps this is for the best, drágám. You’ve had so much thrown at you in such a short time. The dive into the Danube. The memory loss. Me,” he said with a crooked grin. “You need to step back and take a breath.”

  “You’re probably right,” she mumbled.

  “I know I am. And when you’ve helped Sarah put her book to bed, you and I will decide where we go from there, yes?”

  She wanted to believe him. Ached all over with the need to throw herself into his arms and make him swear this wasn’t the end. Unfortunately, all she could think of was Kiss Kiss Arabella’s outrageously expensive panties and Lovely Lisel’s effusive greeting and Gina’s laughing comments about her studly cousin and…

  Dominic cut into those lowering thoughts by tugging her up and off the sofa with him. “So! Since this is your last night in Budapest for a while at least, we should make it one to remember.”

  For a while at least. Natalie clung to the promise of that small phrase as Dom scooped up his phone and stuffed it in his jeans pocket. Taking time only to pull on the red-and-black soccer shirt with its distinctive logo on the sleeve, he insisted she throw on the jacket she’d pretty much claimed as her own before hustling her to the door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My very favorite place in all the city.”

  * * *

  Since the city boasted spectacular
architecture, a world-class opera house, soaring cathedrals, palatial spas and a moonlit, romantic castle perched high on its own hill, Natalie couldn’t begin to guess which was Dom’s favorite spot. She certainly wouldn’t have picked the café/bar he ushered her into on the Pest side of the river. It was tiny, just one odd-shaped room, and noisy and crammed with men decked out in red-and-black-striped shirts. Most were around Dom’s age, although Natalie saw a sprinkling of both freckles and gray hair among the men. Many stood with arms looped over the shoulders or around the waists of laughing, chatting women.

  They were greeted with hearty welcomes and backslaps and more than one joking “His Grace” or “Grand Duke.” Dom made so many introductions Natalie didn’t even try to keep names and faces matched. As the beer flowed and his friends graciously switched to English to include her in the lively conversation, she learned she would have a ringside seat—via satellite and high-definition TV—at the World Cup European playoffs. Hungary’s team had been eliminated in the quarterfinals, much to the disgust of everyone in the bar, but they’d grudgingly shifted their allegiance to former rival Slovakia.

  With such a large crowd and such limited seating, Natalie watched the game, nestled on Dom’s lap. Hoots and boos and foot-stomping thundered after every contested call. Cheers and ear-splitting whistles exploded when Slovakia scored halfway through the first quarter. Or was it the first half? Third? Natalie had no clue.

  She was deafened by the noise, jammed knee to knee with strangers, breathing in the tang of beer and healthy male sweat, and she loved every minute of it! The noise, the excitement, the color, the casually possessive arm Dom hooked around her waist. She filed away every sensory impression, every scent and sound and vivid visual image, so she could retrieve them later. When she was back in New York or L.A. or wherever she landed after Sarah’s book hit the shelves.

  She refused to dwell on the uncertain future during the down-to-the-wire game. Nor while she and Dom took the hound for a romp through the park at the base of the castle. Not even when they returned to the loft and he hooked his arms around her waist as she stood in front of the wall of windows, drinking in her last sight of the Parliament’s floodlit dome and spires across the river.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she murmured.

  “Like you,” he said, nuzzling her ear.

  “Ha! Not hardly.”

  “You don’t see what I see.”

  He turned her, keeping her in the circle of his arms, and cradled her hips against his. His touch was featherlight as he stroked her cheek.

  “Your skin is so soft, so smooth. And your eyes reflect your inner self. So intelligent, so brave even when you were so frightened that you would never regain your memory.”

  “Terrified” was closer to the mark, but she wasn’t about to interrupt this interesting inventory.

  Smiling, he threaded his fingers through her hair.

  “I love how this goes golden-brown in the sunlight. Like thick, rich honey. It’s true, your chin hints at a bit of a stubborn streak but your lips… Ah, Natushka, your lips. Have you any idea what that little pout of yours does to me?”

  “Children pout,” she protested. “Sultry beauties with collagen lips pout. I merely express…”

  “Disapproval,” he interjected, nipping at her lower lip. “Disdain. Disgust. All of which I saw in your face the first time we met. I wondered then whether I could make these same lips quiver with delight and whisper my name.”

  The nipping kisses achieved the first of his stated goals. Pleasure rippled across the surface of Natalie’s skin even as Dom’s husky murmur sent up a warning flag. She’d represented a challenge. She’d sensed that from the beginning. She remembered, too, how his sister and cousins had teased him about his many conquests. But now? Was the slow heat he stirred in her belly, the aching need in her chest, merely the by-product of a skilled seduction? Had she tumbled into love with the wrong man again?

  She knew the answer before the question even half formed. Dominic St. Sebastian was most definitely the right man. The only man she wanted in her heart. In her life. She couldn’t tell him, though. Her one and only previous foray into this love business had left her with too much baggage. Too many doubts and insecurities. And she was leaving in the morning. That more than anything else blocked the words she ached to say.

  It didn’t keep her from cradling his face in her palms while she kissed him long and hard. Or undressing him slowly, savoring every taut muscle, every hollow and hard plane of his body. Or groaning his name when he drove them both to a shattering climax.

  Fourteen

  Natalie couldn’t classify the next five weeks as totally miserable.

  Her first priority when she landed in New York was refurbishing her wardrobe before the meeting with Sarah and her editors. After she’d checked into her hotel she made a quick foray to Macy’s. Sarah had smiled her approval at her assistant’s conservative but nicely tailored navy suit and buttercup-yellow blouse.

  Her smile had morphed to a wide grin when she and Natalie emerged from the meeting at Random House. Her editors were enthusiastic about how close the manuscript was to completion and anxious to get their hands on the final draft.

  After a second meeting to discuss advance promo with Sarah’s former boss at Beguile magazine, the two women flew back to California and hit the ground running. They spent most of their waking hours in Sarah’s spacious, glass-walled office on the second floor of the Pacific Palisades mansion she shared with Dev. The glorious ocean view provided no distraction as they revised and edited and polished and proofed.

  The final draft contained twenty-two chapters, each dedicated to a specific lost treasure. The Fabergé egg rated one chapter, the Bernini bronze another. The final chapter was devoted to the Canaletto, with space left for a photograph of the painting being restored to its rightful owner. If it was ever restored!

  The authentication and provenance process was taking longer than any of the St. Sebastians had hoped. Several big-time insurance companies were now involved, anxious to recoup the hundreds of thousands of dollars they’d paid out over the years.

  The Canaletto didn’t fall into that category. It had been insured, as had many of the valuable objects in Karlenburgh Castle, but the policy contained exclusions for loss due to war and/or acts of God. By categorizing the 1956 Uprising as war, the insurer had wiggled out of compensating the duchess for St. Sebastian heirlooms that had either disappeared or made their way into private collections. Still, with so many conflicting claims to sort out, the team charged with verifying authenticity and rightful ownership had its hands full.

  Dominic, Dev Hunter and Jack Harris had done what they could to speed the process. Dev offered to fund part of the effort. Jack helped facilitate coordination between international agencies asserting conflicting claims. Much to his disgust, Dom didn’t return to undercover work. Instead, his boss at Interpol detailed him to act as their liaison to the recovery team. He grumbled about that but provided the expertise to link Lagy to several black marketeers and less reputable galleries suspected of dealing in stolen art.

  He kept Sarah and Natalie apprised of the team’s progress by email and texts. The personal calls came in the evenings, after Natalie had dragged back to her rented one-room condo. They’d spoken every couple of nights when she’d first returned, less frequently as both she and Dom got caught up in their separate tasks. But just the sound of his voice could make her hurt with a combination of hunger and loneliness.

  The doubts crept in after she’d been home for several weeks. Dom seemed distracted when he called. After almost a month, it felt to Natalie as though he was struggling to keep any conversation going that didn’t deal directly with the authentication effort.

  Sarah seemed to sense her assistant’s growing unease. She didn’t pry, but she had a good idea what had happened between her cousin and Natalie during their time together in Budapest. She got a far clearer picture when she dropped what she thought was a casual
question one rainy afternoon.

  “Did Dom give you any glimmer of hope when the team might vet the Canaletto the last time he called?”

  Natalie didn’t look up from the dual-page layout on her computer screen. “No.”

  “Damn. We’re supposed to fly to New York for another meeting with Random House next week. I hate to keep putting them off. Maybe you can push Dom a little next time you talk to him.”

  “I’m…I’m not sure when that will be.”

  From the corner of her eye Natalie saw Sarah’s head come up. Swiveling her desk chair, she met her employer’s carefully neutral look.

  “Dom’s been busy… The time difference… It’s tough catching each other at home and…”

  The facade crumbled without a hint of warning. One minute she was faking a bright smile. Two seconds later she was gulping and swearing silently that she would not cry.

  “Oh, Natalie.” Sympathy flooded Sarah’s warm brown eyes. “I’m sure it’s just as you say. Dom’s busy, you’re busy, you’re continents apart…”

  “And the tabloids have glommed on to him again,” Natalie said with a wobbly smile.

  “I know,” Sarah said with a grimace. “One of these days I’ll learn not to trust Alexis.”

  Her former boss had sworn up and down she didn’t leak the story. Once it hit the press, though, Beguile followed almost immediately with a four-page color spread featuring Europe’s sexiest single royal and his role in the recovery of stolen art worth hundreds of millions. Although the story stopped short of revealing that Dom worked for Interpol, it hinted at a dark and dangerous side to the duke. It even mentioned the Agár and obliquely suggested the hound had been trained by an elite counterterrorist strike force to sniff out potential targets. Natalie might have chuckled at that if the accompanying photo of Dom and Duke running in the park below the castle hadn’t knifed right into her heart.

  * * *

  As a consequence, she was feeling anything but celebratory when she joined Sarah and Dev and Dev’s extraordinarily efficient chief of operations, Pat Donovan, at a dinner to celebrate the book’s completion. She mustered the requisite smiles and lifted her champagne flute for each toast. But she descended into a sputtering blob of incoherence when Sarah broached the possibility of a follow-on book specifically focused on Karlenburgh’s colorful, seven-hundred-year history.