“I’m trying to help you,” he said, his voice low and raspy—either from her attack or because he didn’t want to be overheard.
“Then get me the hell out of here!”
“That’s the plan.”
Her breath shuddered out in a gasp of surprise. “It is?”
“It’s why I’m here, Charlotte.”
“Why—why do you think I’m Charlotte?” The question slipped out, unbidden. And now she silently cursed herself. If Charlotte was the woman he’d intended to free, then she should have let him believe she was Charlotte.
Hell, maybe she was.
His eyes, that eerily familiar pale blue, widened in surprise. “You’re not?”
God, now he wasn’t sure, either.
She should have kept her mouth shut, but maybe she had done that as long as she had physically been able. Her voice was raspy, as if she hadn’t used it much lately. Or maybe someone had tried choking the life out of her, too.
She needed to get the hell out of this place. But should she leave with a stranger? Maybe he posed a bigger threat than the man with the Glock.
He studied her face, his gaze narrowing with the scrutiny. “Princess Gabriella?”
“Pr-princess?” she sputtered with a near-hysterical giggle. “You think I’m a princess?” Maybe it wasn’t that ridiculous a thought, though. It was almost as if she had stumbled into some morbid fairy tale where the princess had been poisoned or cursed to an endless slumber.
Except she wasn’t sleeping anymore.
“I don’t know what the hell to think,” the man admitted, shaking his head as if trying to sort through his confusion.
Maybe it wasn’t the blow to her head that had knocked out her sense since he couldn’t understand what was going on, either.
“Please,” she urged him, “get me out of here.” She glanced toward the window in the door, where the burly Mr. Centerenian usually stood guard. “Now.”
“I need to know,” he said. “Who are you? Gabby or Charlotte?”
Gabby? The name evoked the same familiar chord within her that Charlotte and his eyes had struck. It must have been a name she’d used. “Does it matter?” she asked. “Would you take one of us but leave the other?”
And why couldn’t he tell the difference between the women? Was she a twin? Was there someone else, exactly like her, out there? Hurt? In danger? As freaking confused as she was?
He shook his head. “No, damn it, I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t leave either of you here.”
Either of you…
Where was the other woman? Locked in another room in this hellhole? Jane’s breath caught with fear and concern for a person she didn’t even know. But then she didn’t even know herself.
“But why won’t you be honest with me?” the man asked, and hurt flashed in his pale blue eyes. “Don’t you trust me?”
It was probably a mistake. But the admission slipped out like her earlier question. “I don’t even know who you are.”
“Damn it, you have every right to be pissed, but it was the king’s decision to make that announcement at the ball. He wouldn’t listen to me…” he said then trailed off, and those pretty eyes narrowed again. “You’re not talking about that. You’re not just mad at me.”
Maybe she was.
He definitely stirred up emotion inside her. Her pulse raced and her heart pounded hard and fast. Her mind didn’t recognize him, but her body did as even her skin tingled in reaction to having touched his. An image flicked through her mind, of her hands sliding over his skin—all of his skin, his broad shoulders bare, his muscular chest covered only with dark, soft hair.
Then her fingers trailed down over washboard abs to…
Her head pounded as she tried to remember, but the tantalizing image slipped away as a ragged breath slipped between her lips. Despite the pounding, she shook her head and then flinched with pain and frustration. “No. I really don’t know who you are.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, as if her words had hurt him even more than her hands wrapped tightly around his throat had.
“Don’t feel bad,” she said with a snort of derision. “I don’t know who I am, either.”
“You don’t?” His dark brows knitted together, furrowing his forehead. “You have amnesia?”
She jerked her head in a sharp nod, which caused her to wince in pain again. “I don’t know who I am or why I’m here. But I know I’m in danger. I have to get the hell out of here.”
Even if leaving with him might put her in more danger…
The door rattled. And she gasped. “You waited too long!”
While this man was probably stronger than the one who usually guarded her, this man was unarmed. He would be no more a match for the Glock than she had been.
The door creaked as it swung open. The man spun around, putting his body between hers and the intruder—as if using himself as a human shield.
“Timmer, we gotta go,” a male voice whispered. “He’s coming back.”
A curse slipped from Timmer’s lips. “We have to bring her with us.”
“There’s no time.”
Anger flashed in those pale blue eyes. “We can’t leave her here!”
“If we try to take her out, none of us will be able to leave.”
The man—Timmer—nodded.
She grabbed him again, clutching at his arm. “Don’t leave me!” she implored him.
“I’ll be back,” he promised.
“Hurry!” urged the other man, who hovered yet outside the room. “He’s coming!”
Timmer turned back toward her, and taking her hand from his grasp, he quickly slipped her wrists back into the restraints and bound her to the bed.
He obviously hadn’t intended to help her at all. Maybe it had all been a trick. Some silly game to amuse a bored guard…
As her brief flash of hope died, tears stung her eyes. But even in her physically weak state, she was too strong and too damned proud to give in to tears. She wouldn’t cry. And she damn well wouldn’t beg.
“I will come back,” he said again, so sincerely that she was tempted to believe him.
But then he hurried from the room. Before the door swung completely shut behind him, she heard a shout. Voices raised in anger. Maybe even a shot.
She flinched at the noise, as if the bullet had struck her. As if they had sharp talons, fear and panic clutched at her heart. She was scared, and not just because if he were dead, he wouldn’t come back and help her.
She was scared because she cared that he might be hurt, or even worse, that he might be dying. She’d had only a faint glint of recognition for him—for his unusually light eyes and for his skin…if that had been his body in that image that had flashed through her mind. However, she didn’t remember his name or exactly how she’d known him.
She had known him very well; she was aware of that fact. Her stomach shifted as the baby inside her womb stirred restlessly, as if feeling her mother’s fear and panic.
Or her father’s pain?
*
AARON HAD STEPPED into it—right into the line of fire. The burly guard had caught him coming out of the room. The door hadn’t even closed behind him yet, so he couldn’t deny where he’d been—where he had been ordered never to go. Only a few employees were allowed into the room of the mysterious patient. Room 00.
Since he probably couldn’t talk his way out of the situation, especially with the guy already reaching inside his suit jacket for his gun, Aaron tried getting the hell out of the situation. He ran away from the guard, in the direction that Trigger Herrema had already disappeared.
Some help the U.S. Marshal had proven to be…
With that guy as her partner, it was no wonder that Charlotte had left the U.S. Marshals and become a private bodyguard.
Was she now, despite her adamant resolve not to, about to become a mother? Or was that pregnant woman actually Princess Gabby?
He needed to know. But even more than that, he needed to
get her the hell out of this place. He couldn’t do either if he were dead.
Shouting echoed off the walls, erupting from the guard along with labored pants for breath. But he was either too far away, or the guy’s accent too thick, for Aaron to make out any specific words. But he didn’t need to know what the man said to figure out that it was a threat.
He skidded around corners of the hospital’s winding corridors, staying just ahead of the lumbering guard. With a short breath of relief, he headed through the foyer to the glass doors of the exit. He would have to slow down to swipe his name badge through the card reader in order to get those doors to open.
But he never made it that far. Shots rang out. That was a threat he understood. He dropped to the ground. But he might have already been too late. Blood trickled down his face and dropped onto the white tiled floor beneath him.
He’d been hit.
Chapter Three
“You could have killed him,” the woman chastised the guard, her voice a hiss of anger. “You could have killed other employees or patients. You were not supposed to use that gun. Again.”
Through the crack the door had been left open, Aaron spied on the argument. Despite the man’s superior height and burly build, he backed down from the woman. She was tall, too, with ash-blond hair pulled back into a tight bun. The plaque on her desk, which Aaron sat in front of, identified her as Dr. Mona Platt, the hospital administrator.
“That man is not an employee,” the guard replied, his accent thick.
Aaron tried to place it. Greek? St. Pierre Island was close to Greece.
“He’s a new hire,” she replied, “who passed all the security clearances.”
She had checked. She’d used her computer to pull up all of his fake information. He needed to know what other information was on her system, like the identity of the woman in Room 00. Or if not her identity, at least the identity of the person who had committed her to Serenity House.
Keeping an eye on the outer office where the two of them argued, Aaron moved around her desk and reached for her keyboard. He needed to pull up the financials. A place like this didn’t accept patients for free. Someone had to be footing the bills.
Dr. Platt hadn’t signed off her computer before leaving the room. And not enough time had passed since she’d left her desk that the screen had locked. He was able to access the employee records at which she’d been looking. But he needed patient records. However, he didn’t know the patient’s name. And if she was telling the truth, neither did the patient.
“He’s not a nurse aide,” the guard argued. “He could be a reporter.”
“Not with those credentials,” the administrator argued. “They’re real. He passed our very stringent background check.”
“Then he’s not a reporter,” the man agreed with a sigh of relief.
“That isn’t necessarily a good thing,” she warned him. “Since he had a legitimate reason for being here, he’s more likely to go to the sheriff’s office to report your shooting at him.”
Aaron couldn’t involve the authorities—couldn’t draw any media or legal attention to the woman in Room 00. No matter who she was, it was likely to put her in more danger if her whereabouts became widely known.
“He can’t go to the police if he can’t leave,” the man pointed out.
Aaron suppressed a shudder. Maybe instead of looking for information, he should have been looking for an escape. There was a window behind the desk, but like every other window in the place, it had bars behind the glass.
“We can’t hold him here,” she said. “Someone could report him missing, and we don’t want the state police coming here asking questions. Or worse yet, with a search warrant.”
“It is too dangerous to let him go,” the man warned. “He could still go to the police.”
“Yes, because you shot at him,” she admonished him. “That was dangerous—for so many reasons!”
“I couldn’t let him get away!” the man replied. “He was in her room.”
“And she couldn’t have told him anything,” the administrator assured him. “She doesn’t know anything to tell.”
“But he must have recognized her…”
Aaron had but he still wasn’t certain which woman she was. Her trying to strangle him had convinced him she was Charlotte. But part of Charlotte going above and beyond, besides plastic surgery, to protect the princess had been teaching the royal heiress how to protect herself. And Princess Gabby had never needed more protection than she did now.
So as not to draw their attention back to him, he lightly tapped the computer keyboard. But he wasn’t certain what to enter. To pull up patient records, he needed the patient’s name.
“All our employees sign a confidentiality agreement,” the administrator reminded the guard. “He can’t share what he saw with anyone without risking a lawsuit from Serenity House. Shooting at him was totally unnecessary.”
“I still need to talk to him.”
“You will only make the situation worse,” she said. “If he does go to the authorities, I will be informed.”
So she had a contact within the sheriff’s office.
“Will you have enough warning for us to get her to a more secure location?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were paid handsomely to keep this location secure,” the man said, his already gruff voice low with fury. “And since you have failed, I will handle this, and him, in my own way.”
The guard wasn’t going away. Instead of punching keys in the computer, Aaron needed to figure a way out of Serenity House—first for him and then for the patient in Room 00.
Room 00. He typed it in and the screen changed, an hourglass displaying while the computer pulled up records. He was almost in…
“What the hell are you doing?” the woman demanded to know as she slammed open the office door with such force it bounced off the wall and nearly struck her.
Aaron hit the exit key as he leaned across the keyboard, reaching for the box of tissues. He pulled one out and pressed it to his head. “I’m bleeding. That crazy son of a bitch was shooting at me.”
He glanced behind her but the man was gone. Somehow she’d gotten rid of the goon—apparently with just a look as he’d overheard no words of dismissal. Maybe Aaron would have been in less danger if he’d gone with the guard because there was something kind of eerie about this steely-eyed woman.
“Yes, that was bad judgment on his part,” she said, sounding nearly unconcerned about the shots now. “But maybe it wasn’t uncalled for.”
“Dr. Platt, I’ve done nothing to warrant an execution.” He edged around her desk, toward the door. She blocked it, but as a trained bodyguard, he could easily overpower her—physically. Mentally, he didn’t trust her—given the doctorate of psychology degree on her wall and her overall soulless demeanor.
“You entered a room that every employee,” she said, “newly hired and long-term—has been warned is strictly off-limits.”
He hadn’t actually attended an orientation. But the guard posted at her door had certainly implied Room 00 was off-limits. “I thought I heard a yell for help. I was concerned—”
“Then you should have summoned the guard or the nurse who are authorized to enter that room. That is protocol,” she stated, her voice cold with an icy anger. “By going inside yourself, you violated protocol.”
“I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “I just reacted.”
“You reacted incorrectly,” she said. “And because of that, you can no longer be on staff at Serenity House.” She held out her hand.
He moved to shake it, but she lifted her hand and ripped the ID badge from the lanyard around his neck. “You’re fired, Mr. Ottenwess,” she said, addressing him by the name on that ID badge.
“I would appreciate another chance,” he said. “Now that I’m fully aware of the rules, I promise not to violate them again.”
She shook her head. “That’s a risk I can’t take. And frankly, Mr
. Ottenwess, staying here is a risk you can’t take. I talked the private security guard out of interrogating you. But if he sees you again, I’m not sure what he might do to you.”
Shoot at him again. And maybe the next time he wouldn’t miss. The only thing that had nicked Aaron’s cheek had been a shard of a porcelain vase that the guard had shot instead of him.
The burly guy had disappeared, but Aaron suspected he hadn’t gone far. How could he get past him again to access Room 00?
“That’s why I’m having my own guards escort you off the premises.” As silently as she’d dismissed the private guard, she must have summoned her own because two men stood in the doorway.
“This isn’t necessary,” Aaron said. “I can show myself out.”
“Actually you can’t,” she reminded him, “without your badge you can’t open any of the facility doors—not to patients’ rooms and not to exits. They will show you out.” She barely lifted an ash-blond brow, but she had the two men rushing forward. Each guy grabbed one of his arms and dragged him from her office.
Aaron could have fought them off. They weren’t armed. But he didn’t want to beat them. He wanted to outsmart them. Or he had no hope of helping the woman in Room 00.
*
JANE HAD JUST resigned herself to the fact that the man, that the voice in the hall had addressed as Timmer, wasn’t coming back…when the lock clicked and the door opened. She fought to keep her eyes closed and her breathing even, feigning sleep as she had when he’d entered the first time. Or at least the first time that she remembered.
“Is she really out?” the gruff-voiced guard asked someone.
Soft hands touched her face and gently forced open one of Jane’s eyes. She stared up at the gray-haired nurse who dropped her lid and stepped back before replying, “She’s unconscious.”
“Did he hurt her?” Mr. Centerenian demanded to know.
“Who?” the nurse asked, her voice squeaking with anxiety. Over Jane or over lying to the guard?
“Someone was in her room,” the man explained.
“He wouldn’t have been able to talk her,” Nurse Sandy easily lied again. She obviously hadn’t been anxious about lying to him. “I gave her a sedative earlier, like you requested. She’s completely out and oblivious to her surroundings.”
Protecting the Pregnant Princess Page 3
