A grin spread over my face as the elevator slowed to stop on a different floor to pick up other passengers before lowering to the main floor level.
The door slid open, and I glanced at the new passenger.
My stomach fell to the floor.
“Hello, Sydney.”
“Jim? What are you doing here?”
“Just here to make sure you’re behaving yourself in Vegas.” His moustache curled up in the corners as he grinned the most evil smile I’d ever seen. “And you haven’t been, have you?”
Hadrian paced around his bedroom of the suite. He felt absolutely sick. Alicia didn’t elaborate on what was going on, merely that by royal command, he was going back to Koros.
Which meant one thing—someone was dead.
The last time he’d gone back because of a royal command, was because his dad had died in a car crash.
His uncle, the King of Koros rarely used his royal presence in America. He rarely used it anywhere, as a matter of fact. The only other times he could ever remember his uncle using such forces of power were in cases of national emergency, like when terrorists in Koros had fled to Italy or France.
Then he’d throw all his political weight around.
In the last fifteen years or so, Koros had lived a fairly quiet life because of the king’s determination to make sure that no one got away with terrorist activities in Koros. There were still resistance groups—people who didn’t agree with the ruling house. That always happened, it was a fact of life.
No one could make everyone happy all the time.
He didn’t envy his cousin Michel, the Crown Prince. As crown prince, Michel was the head of the Governor’s Board, a council kind of like the House of Representatives, but on a much smaller scale.
And his brother, Dante, worked in government too somehow, but Hadrian wasn’t sure exactly how. There were a lot of ins and outs in the Korosian government that he didn’t know the nuance to. He knew the basics, sure, and understood the workings of the monarchy, but he was out of practice. It had been a while since the Korosian tutors taught him government.
He was third in line to the crown, behind Michel and Dante. And Michel was married—when he had a son, Hadrian would be bumped even further behind them. And if Dante got married and had sons, well, that would bump Hadrian back even more.
It would take a Hell of a tragedy for Hadrian to get a shot at the crown of Koros. He just showed up when they needed him.
And now, evidently, they needed him.
He walked back into the living room of the suite and couldn’t help looking around at it. The room was too quiet, too empty without Sydney. She’d brought a blast of personality that burst into his large suite of rooms, making it feel more like a home than a hotel room.
He’d come to Vegas for peace and quiet, and some time away, he reminded himself. Yet the emptiness and lack of life the room held without Sydney there made his chest hurt.
He couldn’t stand it.
He fished out his cell phone from his pants pocket, pulling Sydney’s number off the call list.
A knock at the door cut him off before he’d been able to press the call button. He felt his stomach start to sink before he even got to the door. He didn’t want this now. He didn’t want to lose Sydney now that he’d found someone he could laugh with.
Someone who’d hit him in the gut. Both literally and figuratively.
Damn family tradition.
He ripped the door open without bothering to check through the peephole. His assistant stood there, as he expected, but what he didn’t expect was the four men in black suits, all roughly the size of refrigerators.
Which could only mean one thing.
“Hadrian,” Alicia said. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I had an emergency.”
“Obviously,” he muttered as the men in the suits came in the room, one going in the bedroom, another to the bathroom, meticulously checking every inch of the place as if an assassin sat waiting around the corner.
One came and stood near him—the one and only Robert, pronounced in French as “Ro-berr,” who had always been Hadrian’s protection whenever he was on Koros.
This really wasn’t looking good.
Alicia’s gaze roamed over him, and then through a quick assessment of the suite. She watched the security men for a moment, and the soft whisper of their conversation in secret private language of the royal guard sounded like static in the room.
Hadrian grimaced. He’d forgotten how intrusive the royal guard could be. The last time the refrigerator men intruded on his space had been when Michel came to LA for a visit.
And he’d about gone crazy then.
Robert glanced at Alicia and nodded.
“Thank you,” she said then returned her gaze to him.
The guards took up positions around the room, trying to blend into the background, but failing miserably.
Alicia looked like she could tell exactly what he’d been doing. She reached down and touched the ashtray by the couch, her eyebrow raised. “You have not been alone.”
“No, I’ve been having awesome sex,” Hadrian replied, glaring at her. “Which you and the guard here rudely interrupted.”
“I hope your hooker was worth it.” Alicia headed into the bedroom. Hadrian marched after her. “Please tell me you at least used a condom.”
Hadrian didn’t say anything. Not that it was her business.
She picked up his toiletries and glanced in the trashcan. “You didn’t?” She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “You didn’t use a condom with a hooker. Well, if she’s of any class, she’ll at least be smart enough to take some kind of birth control.”
She walked out of the room, still muttering. “More than likely, though, she’s probably sterile from the drugs.”
“I was not with a hooker.”
“You met someone and screwed them?”
“Yes, Alicia, I went down on the corner, grabbed some random woman off the street and screwed her.”
She pulled out her own Blackberry and started doing something with it. “Well, who was it?”
“None of your business.”
“How can I make sure she doesn’t sell the story to some tabloid if I don’t know who she was?” She tapped a few more things on her Blackberry.
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“And neither would Jude Law’s nanny.” She tucked the phone in her pocket and didn’t care he was irritated. She started going through his things to pack everything up.
He glanced over his shoulder. Robert stood behind him, at parade ready stance. “Why is the royal guard here, Alicia?”
She pivoted on her heel, her hands on her hips. “By royal command, you must return to Koros immediately. There’s been an attack.”
His head started to spin. “Fuck…” This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t possibly be real. This was a nightmare and he was about to wake up any second, back in bed with Sydney and all would be right.
Had to be.
He staggered over to the bathroom, grabbing onto the cabinet to keep himself steady.
“How bad, Alicia? How bad is it?”
“Hadrian, you are the new crown prince.”
He vomited in the sink.
“No, Jim, you get your ass out of here,” I snapped at my ex-husband.
Jim came closer, crowding me in the back of the elevator. I kept my suitcases in front of me, the only barrier I had.
“Well, someone needs to make sure you behave. You haven’t been have you? Spending time with strangers, dying your hair blue, running around eating like a pig…”
I gritted my teeth.
I was not married to him anymore. He was not my husband, and he was not in control of me.
With every ounce of strength I had, I stood, back straight and glared right back at him. “Yes I have, and what are you going to do about it?”
He lunged at me, and I cowered.
Thank God the elevator stopped when it did.
> Using my suitcases as a shield, I shoved them toward Jim, forcing him to back off so I could run out of the elevator. Frankly, I probably should have left the suitcases and run for the nearest security officer, but I didn’t want Jim to have my stuff.
It was mine, damn it. So much was left behind when I left him, I wasn’t about to let him have any access to the few things I’d managed to scavenge.
The people waiting to get on parted for us like the Red Sea, sensing trouble, I imagined.
Unfortunately, Jim wasn’t deterred by my abrupt leaving. “Here, honey, let me get that for you.” He grabbed at my shoulder bag.
“Let go,” I growled, jerking the bag away from him.
He grabbed my elbow, pulling me against him. “You don’t get it, do you? There’s nowhere you can go that I can’t find you. There’s no where you can be that I can’t follow.”
He jerked me against him, pulling me through the casino.
“I’m gonna scream, and it’ll bring down all the security in this place,” I told him.
“You won’t.”
“Give me one reason.”
Jim held up his camera. On it was a picture of me kissing Hadrian. “Don’t think your little celebrity boyfriend would like it very much if, oh, pictures came out in the tabloids about him hanging around with some party girl with blue hair.”
I felt sick. “You’re a bastard Jim. You always were a bastard.” There was no way I was letting Hadrian be hurt because my ex was a friggin’ asshole. For a moment, I wished I knew all of Hadrian’s foreign curse words.
I would have loved calling him a goat’s nut sack without him knowing it.
“You married me.”
I tried pulling my arm away from him, but he had a tight grip on it. “I was dumb enough to think you actually gave a shit about something that wasn’t you.”
“But I do give a shit about you. I care that you’re out here, partying like a slut, when you should be home, washing that blue shit out of your hair and being a good little wife.”
I jerked away from him. “I am not your wife.” I started to walk as fast as I could without causing a scene.
A scene would be bad. So very bad. Jim’s temper was never something I underestimated. And if he’d been here since I got here, following me around…
The sensation of being watched. He’d been watching me all weekend, I knew he had been. I should have realized things weren’t nearly as happy in Vegas as I had thought they were.
Tears were welling up in my eyes, and I forced them back. I wasn’t going to cry over this jerk.
Just get over to the hair show. The security there will keep him away at least for the day. They didn’t let anyone in without a badge, and considering how strict they were yesterday, surely they’d keep me safe.
I could do it, I could walk, balls to the wall, through the casino over to the show… I’d have to put up with him until I got safely into the conference area, but I’d make it. It was an awfully long walk over there though. I started scanning around for security, some way I could signal for help without being too obvious to Jim.
Jim managed to catch me, grabbing my arm. “Oh, so you run away.”
I tried to pull out of his grip, not that it worked.
“And look,” he put a hand on my jaw, shoving my head around to look off to my right. “There’s your little celebrity bed buddy. Maybe you should wave goodbye to him.” He held up my arm, forcing me to wave.
Hadrian was there, surrounded on all four corners by enormous men dressed in black. A woman with Shirley Temple blonde ringlets walked with him in the center of the parade.
“What the matter, don’t want to say goodbye?” He held up his camera. “I’ll take a goodbye picture for you to always remember your celebrity running away with his staff.”
The flash of the camera must have alerted Hadrian.
At least that’s the only thing I can figure.
Hadrian turned his head directly to me. Our eyes met. He must have seen Jim holding my arm.
“Help,” I mouthed to him.
Darkness swirled around him, and he turned so sharply that his entourage almost missed it. He nearly walked into one of the huge bodyguard men, and came toward me, full speed, almost running across the lobby area.
Jim either didn’t see or didn’t care that Hadrian was on his way over, and started to laugh. He yanked me away from Hadrian’s intercept course, and I kicked him in the shin.
“Bitch,” Jim yelled. His hand went back to strike me. I ducked down to avoid the contact.
Jim’s hand was stopped mid swing. A set of arms enveloped me and pulled me against a warm chest.
“I would not do that if I were you,” a man said with a thick Mediterranean accent. He’d been one of the men surrounding Hadrian before.
I looked up.
Yep, Hadrian was holding me to his chest. “Syd, what’s going on?” He stroked my hair.
“Ex-husband.”
The man who’d been holding Jim pinned his arms behind his back, while another one of the men frisked him, fishing the camera out of Jim’s pocket.
He held it up to Hadrian, and Hadrian nodded.
“We don’t have time for this. You can’t play hero to some blue-haired—” came a female voice behind Hadrian.
“Stop right there, Alicia.” Hadrian held up a finger in the blonde’s face.
My eyes about fell out of my head, glaring at the Shirley Temple gal. “And who in the Hell are you?” Already I wasn’t very thrilled with this lady. My instinct was to drop kick her across the lobby.
She crossed her arms over her chest, staring down at me like I was a bug desperately needing to be squashed. “I’m Alicia, Hadrian’s assistant. I own him.”
“You don’t own me. I employ you,” Hadrian snapped, though Alicia didn’t seem phased at Hadrian’s words.
“Son of a bitch!” Jim’s yell broke the glaring contest between me and Alicia.
I turned to see Jim’s camera on the ground, the man holding the camera’s memory card, and snapping the slim card into pieces. Then he crushed the camera into a thousand tiny pieces.
“That’s a five hundred dollar camera,” Jim yelled.
“Hardly,” I said. “I bought that for you two years ago. Cost me fifty bucks.”
“And it took shitty pictures,” Jim bit back. Then he turned to the men in the black. “You can’t destroy someone’s camera.”
Another one of the men came over to Hadrian. “She stay or go?” he asked, nodding to me.
“She goes,” Hadrian said.
“You can’t bring her. She’s a commoner. She’s not a member of the royal family.”
Hadrian glared at Alicia. “She comes with me.” And with that, he held me close and started escorting me out of the hotel.
Though I couldn’t help hearing her constant rambles about what kind of trash I must be, clinging to him, probably a gold digger, and all that jazz.
Took every bit of my strength not to spin around and slug her. My mind rambled a thousand miles a minute. “Hadrian, Hadrian, wait,” I said. “What about my hotel bill? I have classes…” I was turning to look back toward the front desk.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” Hadrian snapped his head to Alicia. “Go take care of her hotel bill.”
The woman opened her mouth, as if to snap off something, but thought better of it. “Name? Room?”
Hadrian gave her what she needed, and she pivoted on her heel and was at the front desk, immediately talking to one of the clerks. I saw heads nodding, and the flash of a credit card being handed to the clerk.
Hadrian kept me tucked against his side. “He didn’t hurt you did he?”
I denied it, but my hands shook. “I’m fine.”
He kissed me on the brow. “I would believe that if you weren’t shaking.”
Damn hands. I struggled to look back again, and I saw Alicia double-timing it to catch Hadrian again, a generally pissed off look on her face.
>
“Did you pay for my hotel room?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hadrian said. “Call it a thank you for the last great weekend I’m going to have in quite some time.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but was cut off by casino security showing up. Albeit a few seconds too late, the security spoke with the men in black. Some badges were flashed, and there was pointing at Jim.
“We need to go Your Royal Highness.” One of the men in black came up beside Hadrian.
Hadrian nodded. “Come on.” He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me tight against him and suddenly the party included me. One of the men in black took my rolling bag, leaving me to carry my other stuff on my free side.
Casino security had Jim. I could hear his bellows about the damn camera, and one of Hadrian’s men handed him a business card as we headed for the door. We were suddenly flanked by the entire black guard squad. Jim left yelling and cursing.
“You’re damn right I’m calling. I’m complaining to your boss and your boss’s boss. You bastards destroyed my camera.”
“What’s he babbling about?” I asked Hadrian.
“They gave him an ESAD card.”
“An ESAD card?”
Hadrian grinned. “An Eat-Shit-and-Die card. It’s got a phone number on it to call.”
“I hope it charges him a thousand dollars to call.”
One of the guards repressed a snort. “Maybe we should recommend that to the head of the royal guard.”
Alicia had made it back to the group, not happy, and still glared at me like I was evil incarnate. Hadrian was ignoring her. So I was going to ignore her. The procession led me out into the morning sunshine. It gleamed off the street, but under the casino’s canopy, a long stretched limo sat.
“Where are we going?”
The door had been opened, and Alicia climbed in, and Hadrian stood at the door, like he was about to get in. “Koros.”
“Surely you’re not thinking about bringing her to Koros? The king would have a fit.” Alicia stuck her head out the door, glaring at Hadrian. “Take her to the airport, and she can go back to whatever rock she crawled out from under. The king will not allow her to reside at the Palace.”
“I will handle the king,” Hadrian said to her, and slammed the door shut in her face.
The Reluctant Prince Page 11
