“It was a man?”
She nodded. “Tall and thin with no curves. But I suppose it could have been a woman.” At all those fashion shows and movie premieres, she had met many tall, thin women. “But not Charlotte.”
“No,” he agreed, but tentatively, as if he debated taking her word for it.
“You don’t trust me?” she asked, wondering if she should be offended or amused. Certainly it wasn’t good to be thought a liar but that wasn’t the issue for her.
Most people didn’t consider her clever enough to be able to pull off any deception. The public believed she was an empty-headed heiress. They weren’t being cruel or unfair. Because she was naturally shy and introverted, nerves got the better of her during interviews, and she usually babbled incoherently—earning the nickname of Princess Gabby.
“I’m not even sure who you are,” he admitted, his dark eyes narrowing with suspicion as he studied
her face.
He really believed she might be Charlotte Green. Again she was flattered instead of offended. Most people might mistake the former U.S. Marshal for her—from a distance. Along with already having the same build and coloring, Charlotte had had plastic surgery so their faces looked alike, too. Except Charlotte had a beauty and wisdom that came with being six years older and so much more worldly than Gabriella. Her bodyguard was tough and independent while Gabby was anything but that.
Charlotte would not have been passed off tonight from one fiancé to another—publicly humiliated during the ball. What was worse was that the man who had traded Gabriella to the highest bidder like a brood mare at auction was her own father.
She expelled a ragged breath of frustration. “I wish I was Charlotte,” she admitted. “Then I wouldn’t be engaged to marry a stranger. I wouldn’t have had people trying to kidnap me since I was a baby just so they could get to my father. No one would even care who I am.”
“I would care,” he said, with a charm of which she had not thought him capable.
She had thought him tough and cynical and dangerous and ridiculously handsome and sexy. She’d thought entirely too much of Whitaker Howell since he had stepped inside the palace ten weeks ago. She had also talked about him, asking the men he’d served with in Afghanistan to tell her about him. And the more she’d learned, the more fascinated and attracted she had become.
Now he was lying on her bedroom floor with her straddling his hard, muscular body while she leaned over him. Her fingers were still in his hair. No longer probing the wound, she was just stroking the silky blond strands.
He must have become aware of their positions, too, because his hands clasped her waist—probably to lift her off. But before he could, she leaned closer. She had to know—and since he would probably never be this vulnerable again, she had only this chance—so she pressed her mouth to his to see how he would taste.
Like strong coffee and dark chocolate—like everything too rich and not good for her. Instead of pushing her away, his hands clutched her waist and pulled her closer. And he kissed her back.
No. He took over the kiss and devoured her—with his lips and his teeth and his tongue. He left her gasping for breath and begging for more. And instead of ignoring her, as he had earlier, he gave her more. He kissed her deeply, making love to her mouth—making her want him to make love to her body. She leaned closer, pushing her breasts against his chest.
He reached for the zipper at the back of her dress, his fingers fumbling with the tab before freezing on it. “We can’t do this,” he said, as if trying to convince himself. “I—I need to report the intruder—need to lock down the palace and grounds...”
She would have been offended that he thought of work instead of her...if she couldn’t feel exactly how much he wanted her.
“We have guests staying overnight,” she reminded him. “You can’t disrupt the whole palace looking for what was probably a member of the paparazzi who passed himself off as either a guest or part of the catering staff. He was probably snooping in my rooms or waiting with a camera to get some compromising photos.” And if he hadn’t given himself away, he might have gotten some good shots—of her and Whit.
“I still need to report the breach of security,” he insisted. “And I need to make sure you have protection. Where the hell is Charlotte?”
“I gave her the night off,” she said.
“And she took it?” he asked, his brow furrowing with skepticism of her claim.
“She thought I’d be safe.” Because Gabriella had sworn she wouldn’t leave her rooms.
His dark eyes flashed with anger. “She thought wrong.”
“I will be safe,” she said softly, her voice quavering with nerves that had her body trembling, as well. “If you stay with me...” She drew in a deep breath and gathered all of her courage to add, “...all night...”
* * *
S
HE
AWOKE
ALONE
in the morning—her bed empty but for the note she found crumpled under her pillow. She had obviously slept on it.
Her fingers trembled as she unfolded the paper and silently read the ominous warning: “You will die before you will ever marry the prince...”
Whitaker Howell had not left her that note. So the intruder must have. He or she hadn’t been just an opportunistic guest looking for a souvenir or a member of the paparazzi looking for a story. The intruder had broken into her rooms with the intent of leaving the threat. Or of carrying it out...with Gabriella’s death.
Chapter Two
Present day...
For six months Princess Gabriella St. Pierre had been missing—vanished from a hotel suite in Paris. A hotel suite that had become a gruesome crime scene where someone had died. For six months Whit Howell had been convinced
she
had been that someone. He had believed she was dead.
Just recently he’d learned that Gabby was alive and in hiding. Her life had been threatened. And instead of coming to him for protection, she had left the country. She hadn’t trusted him or anyone else. But then maybe that had been the smart thing to do. Her doppelgänger bodyguard had been kidnapped in her place and held hostage for the past six months.
If Gabriella hadn’t gone into hiding...
He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened to her. But then he shuddered at the thought of what still could have happened to her since no one had heard from her for six months.
Could someone have fulfilled the prophesy of that note? The man, who had accidentally abducted the bodyguard in Gabby’s place, claimed that he hadn’t written it. Given all the other crimes to which he’d confessed, it made no sense that he would deny writing a note. But if not him, then who? And had that person followed through on his threat?
Whit had to find Gabby. Now. He had to make sure she was safe. He knew where she’d gone after leaving the palace. Her destination was on the piece of paper he clutched so tightly in his hand that it had grown damp and fragile.
“Sir, are you all right?” a stewardess asked as she paused in the aisle and leaned over his seat.
He nodded, dismissing her concern.
She leaned closer and adjusted the air vent over him. “You look awfully warm, sir. We’ll be landing soon, but it may take a while to get to the gate.”
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. Because he would be closer to Gabriella—or at least closer to where she had been last. But after the woman moved down the aisle, he reached up to brush away the sweat beading on his forehead. And he grimaced over moving his injured shoulder.
He had been shot—a through-and-through, so the bullet had damaged no arteries or muscles. But now he was beginning to worry that the wound could be getting infected. And where he was going, there was unlikely to be any medical assistance.
He didn’t care about his own discomfort though. He cared only about finding Gabriella and making damn sure she was alive and safe. And if he found her, he had to be strong and healthy enough to keep her safe.
Because it was probable that whoever had threatened her was still out there. Like everyone else, her stalker had probably thought her dead these past six months. But once they learned she was alive, they would be more determined than ever to carry out their threat.
* * *
“S
HE
’
S
ALIVE
.”
Gabriella St. Pierre expelled a breath of relief at the news Lydia Green shared the moment the older woman had burst through the door. For six months Gabby had been holding her breath, waiting for a message from her bodyguard. Actually she’d been waiting for the woman to come for her.
Especially in the beginning. She hadn’t realized how pampered her life had been until she’d stayed here. The floor beneath her feet was dirt, the roof over her head thatch. A bird that had made it through her screenless window fluttered in a corner of the one room that had been her home for the past six months.
Once she had stopped waiting for Charlotte to come for her, she had gotten used to the primitive conditions. She had actually been happy here and relaxed in a way that she had never been at the palace. And it wasn’t just because she had been out of the public eye but because she had been out from under her father’s watchful eye, as well.
And beyond his control.
She had also been something she had never been before: useful. For the past six months she had been teaching children at the orphanage/school Lydia Green had built in a third-world country so remote and poor that no other charity or government had yet acknowledged it. But she had learned far more than she’d taught. She realized now that there was much more to being charitable than writing checks.
Lydia Green had given her life and her youth to helping those less fortunate. She’d grown up as a missionary, like her parents, traveling from third-world country to third-world country. After her parents had died, she could have chosen another life. She could have married and had a family. But Lydia had put aside whatever wants and needs she might have had and focused instead on others. She had become a missionary, too, and the only family she had left was a niece.
Charlotte. The women looked eerily similar. Lydia had the same caramel-brown eyes, but her hair was white rather than brown even though she was still in her fifties.
“Charlotte called?” The first day Gabriella had arrived, somewhere between the airport and the orphanage, she had lost the untraceable cell phone her bodyguard had given her. But it probably wouldn’t have come in as far into the jungle as the orphanage was.
Lydia expelled her own breath of relief over finally hearing from her niece and nodded. “The connection was very bad, so I couldn’t understand much of what Charlotte was saying...”
The orphanage landline wasn’t much better than the cell phone. There was rarely a dial tone—the lines either damaged by falling trees, the oppressive humidity or rebel fighting.
“Did she tell you where she’s been and why she hasn’t contacted us?” Not knowing had driven Gabriella nearly crazy so that she had begun to suspect the worst—that Charlotte was dead. Or almost as bad, that Charlotte had betrayed her.
Lydia closed her eyes, as if trying to remember or perhaps to forget, and her brow furrowed. “I—I think she said she’d been kidnapped...”
“Kidnapped?” Gabby gasped the word as fear clutched at her. That would explain why they hadn’t heard from the former U.S. Marshal. “Where? When?”
“It happened in Paris.”
Gabriella’s breath caught with a gasp. “Paris?”
She was the one who was supposed to have gone to Paris; that was what anyone who’d seen them would have believed. Whoever had abducted Charlotte had really meant to kidnap Gabby. She shuddered in reaction and in remembrance of all the kidnapping attempts she had escaped during her twenty-four years of life. If not for the bodyguards her father had hired to protect her, she probably would not have survived her childhood.
“Is she all right?”
“Yes, yes,” Lydia replied anxiously, “and she said that the kidnapper has been caught.”
“So I can leave...” Gabby should have been relieved; months ago she would have been ecstatic. But since then she had learned so much about herself. So much she had yet to deal with...
“She said for you to wait.”
“She’s coming here?” Nerves fluttered in Gabby’s stomach. She was relieved Charlotte was all right, but she wasn’t ready to see her.
Or anyone else...
“She’s sending someone to get you,” Lydia replied, with obvious disappointment that she would not see her niece.
Gabriella was to be picked up and delivered like a package—not a person. Until she’d met Lydia and the children at the orphanage, no one had ever treated Gabriella like a person. Pride stung, she shook her head and said, “That won’t be necessary.”
“You’re going to stay?” Lydia asked hopefully.
“I would love to,” she answered honestly. Here she was needed not for
what
she was but
who
she was. She loved teaching the children. “But I can’t...”
She had no idea who was coming for her, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Given her luck, it would probably be Whit, and he was the very last person she wanted to see. Now. And maybe ever again...
Lydia nodded, but that disappointment was back on her face, tugging her lips into a slight frown. “I understand that you have a life you need to get back to...”
Her existence in St. Pierre had never been her life; it had never been
her
choice. But that was only part of the reason she didn’t plan on going back.
“But I would love to have you here,” Lydia said, her voice trembling slightly, “with me...”
They had only begun to get to know each other. If they had met sooner, Gabriella’s life would have been so different—so much better.
Tears burning her eyes, Gabriella moved across the small room to embrace the older woman. “Thank you...”
Lydia Green was the first person in her life who had ever been completely honest with her.
“Thank you,” she said, clutching Gabriella close. “You are amazing with the kids. They all love you so much.” She eased back and reached between them to touch Gabby’s protruding belly. “You’re going to make a wonderful mother.”
The baby fluttered inside Gabriella, as if in agreement or maybe argument with the older woman’s words. Was she going to make a wonderful mother? She hadn’t had an example of one to emulate. Her throat choked now with tears, she could barely murmur another, “Thank you...”
She didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t stay. “Can I get a ride to the bus stop in town?”
She needed a Jeep to take her to a bus and the bus to take her to a plane. It wasn’t a fast trip to get anywhere in this country while the person coming for her would probably be using the royal jet and private ground transportation. She needed to move quickly.
“You really should wait for whoever Charlotte is sending for you,” Lydia gently insisted. “This is a dangerous country.”
Sadness clutched at her and she nodded. That was why they had so many orphans living in the dorms. The compound consisted of classroom huts and living quarters. If disease hadn’t taken their parents, violence had.
“I’ve been safe here,” she reminded Lydia.
“At the school,” the woman agreed, “because the people here respect and appreciate that we’re helping the children. But once you leave here...”
“I’ll be fine,” she assured her although she wasn’t entirely certain she believed that herself.
“You have a bodyguard for a reason. Because of who you are, you’re always in danger.” Lydia was too busy and the country too remote for her to be up on current affairs, so Charlotte must have told her all about Gabby’s life.
Gabriella glanced down at her swollen belly. Her bare feet peeped out beneath it, her toes stained with dirt from the floor. “No one will recognize me.”
Not if they saw her now. She bore only a faint resemblance to the pampered princess who’d walked runways and red carpets.
But she wasn’t only physically different.
She didn’t need anyone to protect her anymore—especially since she really couldn’t trust anyone but herself.
She
had to protect her life and the life she was carrying inside her.
* * *
A
WALL
OF
HEAT
hit Whit when he stepped from the airport. Calling the cement block building with the metal roof an airport seemed a gross exaggeration, though. He stood on the dirt road outside, choking on the dust and the exhaust fumes from the passing vehicles. Cars. Jeeps. Motorbikes. A bus pulled up near the building, and people disembarked.
A pregnant woman caught his attention. She wore a floppy straw hat and big sunglasses, looking more Hollywood than third world. But her jeans were dirt-stained as was the worn blouse she wore with the buttons stretched taut over her swollen belly.
It couldn’t be Gabby.
Hell, she was
pregnant;
it couldn’t be Gabby...
His cell vibrated in his pocket, drawing his attention from the woman. He grabbed it up with a gruff, “Howell here.”
“Are you there?” Charlotte Green asked, her voice cracking with anxiety. “Have you found her yet?”
“The plane just landed,” he replied.
He had only glanced at his phone when he’d turned it back on, but he suspected all the calls he’d missed and the voice mails he had yet to retrieve had been from the princess’s very worried bodyguard.
“But Whit—”
“Give me a few minutes,” he told her. “You’re not even sure she’s still here.”
Wherever the hell
here
was; from his years as a U.S. Marine, he was well traveled but Whit had never even heard of this country before. Calling it a country was like calling that primitive building an airport—a gross exaggeration.
“I finally reached my aunt Lydia this morning,” Charlotte said. “She confirmed that Gabby is still at the orphanage.”
He exhaled a breath of relief. She was alive. And not lost. “That’s good.”
Nobody had kidnapped the princess as they had her bodyguard. Gabby was right where Charlotte had sent her six months ago. Why hadn’t she answered the woman’s previous calls then?
“She’s all right?”
“No.” Static crackled in the line, distorting whatever else Charlotte might have said.
He stopped walking, so that he didn’t lose the call entirely. Reception was probably best closest to the airport, so he took a few steps back into the throng of people.
“What’s wrong?” Whit asked, the anxiety all his now. “Has she been hurt?”
“Yeah...”
And he realized it wasn’t static in the line but Charlotte Green’s voice breaking with sobs. He had never heard the tough former U.S. Marshal cry before—not even when armed gunmen had been trying to kill them all. His heart slammed into his ribs as panic rushed through him. “Oh, my God...”
It had to be bad.
Not Gabriella...
She was the sweetest, most innocent person he’d ever met. Or at least she had been...
“Charlotte!” He needed her to pull it together and tell him what the hell had happened to the princess. In a country as primitive as this, it could have been anything. Disease. A rebel forces attack. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s my fault,” she murmured, sobs choking her voice. “It’s all my fault. I should have told her. I should have prepared her...”
“What?” he fired the question at her. “What should you have told her? What should you have prepared her for?”
The phone clanged and then a male voice spoke in his ear, “Whit, are you there?”