Chapter 4

Dimitri had never been so close to losing control since he’d been a hotheaded teenager roaming O?ros’s Royal Beach for the first time. But now, holding Lauren’s hand against his chest, his body levered over hers, it was about all he could do not to drown himself in the woman right there. Which probably wouldn’t look too good on his next report.

Keeping her hand clasped in his, he used his other to unsheathe the knife at his belt. With a quick flick, her ankle was cut free of its zip tie, the handmade noose falling limp.

He stood in one clean movement as Lauren quickly massaged her foot then scrambled up as well. He didn’t miss the way she swayed, then caught herself, ratcheting her body down with every bit of ruthlessness that he was using, though for an entirely different reason.

“How much tsipouro do you have in you?” he asked, pitching his voice deliberately rude. A blush marred her cheeks, the bane of her pale coloring. “You gonna vomit before I get you back to the castle, or can you hold it together?”

“I don’t need your help,” she retorted, though as her gaze raked him, he was glad the evidence of his arousal was all but erased. God love O?ros National Security Force training. As well as parents, who were as keen-eyed as they were not stupid. The number of women he’d nearly been caught with would make the American’s toes curl.

Not that she wouldn’t be a pleasure to be caught with. He surveyed her as she took another second to get her mad on. Lauren Grant was the most perfect woman he’d ever seen—flawless in the cold sterile way of a classical painting or piece of sculpture, and spellbinding in the way her haughty eyes had grown hazy with need and her lips had parted, her breath coming fitfully as she’d stroked him. She’d had no way of knowing he could see her every movement in the overhead convex mirror above the screen. She’d also had no way of knowing he’d been looking at anything other than Cyril pontificating on the screen.

But when he wasn’t making eye contact with Cyril like the exceptional soldier that he was, he’d been watching her. And damn if thinking about her face now as she’d touched him wasn’t getting him hard again.

“You ready?” he said, the words a slap. “I can carry you if you’re sloppy drunk.”

“I said, I don’t need your help. You tied me to a couch. You’re lucky I didn’t wake up screaming during your little one-on-one with Cyril.”

“Couldn’t be helped.” He shrugged, savoring the emotions playing across her face. She was affected by him, there was no two ways about it. “If I’d gagged you, you could have woken up vomiting and died before I could cut you loose.”

That stiffened her spine. “I do not vomit from alcohol.”

“You might have with tsipouro.” He pointed. “Your purse and shoes are next to the water bottle. Probably good to drink something nonalcoholic if you can. Bathroom through that door.”

She lifted a brow, but the panicked relief on her face was unmistakable. He barely avoided smirking as she squinted back at him. “How do you know I won’t try to escape from there?”

Then he did smirk. “No windows.”

She was back out into the main room faster than he would have expected, somehow looking fresher, smoother. As if she’d come out of a spa instead of a utilitarian washroom. Their brief separation had done little to improve her mood, however. “I should have you reported for restraining me. You had no right.”

“Your safety is my primary concern this evening, after my duty to my country, and your safety required me to haul you along while I reported in to Cyril. Besides, I figured if you did wake up and realized where you were, you’d have tried to get away without anyone noticing, especially if you thought I was on a command phone call. Which I was. Couldn’t take the risk.”

“I could have screamed.”

“Nope. Not and look like the drunk, spoiled little rich girl that you are. That wouldn’t exactly fit with the whole haughty-bitch thing you’ve got going on, would it?”

Anger flashed between them so hot, he was surprised his eyebrows weren’t singed. “How dare you,” she seethed.

“There’s pretty much nothing I wouldn’t dare, princess.” He held the door for her, and she stomped out in front of him. They entered the courtyard again, and she looked around, clearly trying to get her bearings.

“This is the military compound attached to the palace.”

“Yup.” He pointed. “We go that way.”

She hesitated for a second, then fell into step with him. “We’ve been through this area before, and there’s a corridor to the main building. Why take me around to the front?”

He flashed her a smile. It was easy to bait her when she stepped so easily into the trap every time. “Cameras line that corridor and feed directly into the royal residence. Who knows if they’re being monitored, but they’re definitely recording. You really want to be seen sneaking into the main castle with a captain of the ONSF? That’s a sure way to get some talk started.”

She might have blushed, he couldn’t tell. But her words, when they came, were frostbitten. “I assure you, I couldn’t care less about what you people think of me.”

“Most of us, no,” he said, enjoying himself far too much, but he didn’t care. A beautiful clear night in O?ros, and he escorted a stunningly gorgeous woman back to her bed. There were worse ways to spend the evening. “But you do seem to admire the queen. It’d be a pity if her opinion of you changed, and for what reason? We’re doing nothing wrong.”

She opened her mouth to issue a retort, then shut it again. After a few moments of stony silence, they exited a small, automated gate with the help of Dimitri’s pass card and stepped out onto the wide paved sidewalk. From here it was a five-minute walk to the front gates of the palace. Not yet midnight, and the American’s wits were coming back to her with every deep breath of the sweet night air.

Her wits and her sharp tongue. “Who put you up to this?” she asked. “Who assigned you to me?”

This, he would need to dance around. “No one,” he lied. “When the evening ended and you weren’t with your friends, I got suspicious. They said you’d gone to bed early, but there was no record of that on the cameras.”

“You’re watching me?”

“We watch everyone, princess.” He didn’t try to tamp down the amusement in his voice. “What the cameras did show was you out in the front terraced gardens, wandering through the flowers—until you weren’t.” Kristos had fed him this information, and what Lauren didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him.

“You have cameras in the gardens too?” She sounded dubious, but he let her stew in those thoughts on her own. There were cameras in the gardens, of course. But he wasn’t actually in charge of palace security. He wasn’t even usually in charge of the blonde’s security. She’d become his pet project at Kristos’s behest, and mostly because she was the least predictable of the four girls who were now official guests of the royal house of O?ros. In his work, Dimitri didn’t appreciate unpredictable. Unpredictable caused problems. And this time, above all others, should be a period of calm and contentment for the royal family. They’d had enough problems to last a lifetime. Even one as long as his.

“It was Emmaline, wasn’t it?”

He blinked at her. “What?”

“Emmaline. That’s who asked you to track me. She worries too much about everyone but herself.”

They were coming around the final corner now, with the palace walls before them, the gates open, guards stationed every few feet. They nodded easily to Dimitri, their eyes sweeping over Lauren with no judgment. He glanced at her and could see why. She didn’t look like she’d been passed-out drunk a bare half hour before. She looked cool, clean, unmussed.

Perfect.

They cleared the gates and followed the lit walkway up to the main palace. He didn’t want to ruin the moment with more talk. He already suspected their time was short, circumscribed by their stations and temperaments. But the American had asked a question, and he was bound to respond. “Not Emmaline. Standard procedure only, princess. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Hmm.” They took the last few steps to reach the front doors of the castle, doors that were opened promptly by smartly dressed staff who ushered them into the grand foyer. Lauren didn’t get more than ten feet inside when she turned to Dimitri. “I can find the rest of the way myself. Thank you so much for your escort. It was a lovely walk.”

He gave her a short bow, but he could feel the moment when her gaze left his body, like a blanket slipping away so that he must face the morning chill. As he straightened, however, he could also immediately identify the stiffness in her body, the way she held herself completely statue-like, as if she was about to break. Only this time, she wasn’t looking at him.

“What,” she asked very quietly, “is that?”

Her eyes were fixed on the antechamber beyond him, a shallow, cream-colored room with a long table and ornate shelving, used as a staging area for the endless flow of petitions, gifts, and written correspondence that flooded through the palace gates.

Dimitri turned instinctively, his gaze sweeping the space. There were packages, stacks of flyers, letters. “What?”

“That.” She lifted a hand that had only now begun to tremble, pointing an elegant finger to single out a small, richly wrapped package in black and white. Her face looked stricken, her eyes filled with both a panic and desperation that Dimitri would never have thought possible in someone with as much power and influence as he knew she had back in her glittering ivory towers. “Get it out of here.”

“But what?—”

“Please!” She grabbed his arm and stared into his face for a panicked moment. Then her control crashed down again, her expression lightening, her mouth curving gently into a smile.

But there was no denying the haunted look in her eyes. “Please, if it’s what I think it is, it should be removed from the palace.” Her fingers tightened. “Immediately.”