The Lost Princes: Darius, Cassius and Monte

She took in a gasping breath, steadying herself. Then she cleared her throat and went on.

“Now I’m trying to get her to where she belongs. I’m trying to find her father.” She looked up, surprised to find that she’d gone through it and was still coherent. “There. Now you know it all.”

He stared at her. Her eyes looked like dark bruises marring her pretty face. The tragedy in her voice was mirrored by her body language, the tilt of her head, the pain in her voice. He didn’t doubt for a minute that everything she’d just told him was absolutely true and it touched him in a way he hadn’t expected.

The urge was strong to put down the baby and take the woman in his arms. If anyone needed a bit of comfort, Ayme did. But he stopped himself from making that move. He knew it wouldn’t work out well. The last thing she wanted right now was compassion. The smallest hint of sympathy would very probably make her fall apart emotionally. He assumed that she didn’t want that any more than he did. At least he hoped so. He looked away and grimaced.

But—back to basics—he still didn’t understand why she’d come to him.

“Ayme, I’m not Cici’s father,” he said bluntly.

“Oh, I know. I know it’s not you.”

He shook his head, still at sea and searching for landfall. “Then why are you here?”

She shrugged. “You’re going to help me find him.” She gazed at him earnestly. “You just have to. And since you’re Ambrian…”

“I never said I was Ambrian,” he broke in quickly. He had to make that clear. As far as the rest of the world knew, he was a citizen of the Netherlands, born and bred Dutch. That was the way it had been for twenty-five years and that was the way it had to be.

“Well, you know a lot about Ambria, which not a lot of people do.”

Reluctantly, he admitted it. “True.”

Rising from the couch, she began to pace much the way he had a few minutes earlier. She was exhausted and her emotions were spent. But she had more work to do. Glancing over at David, she noticed that Cici’s downy head was tucked against his shoulder and the little eyes were closed. She was asleep. Ayme’s sigh was from the depths of her wounded soul.

“If only I’d had you along on the flight over the Atlantic,” she said.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” he said, turning to lay the baby down very carefully in her makeshift bed. “If you want my help, you’ve got to give me more. I can’t do anything unless I understand the parameters I’m dealing with.”

She nodded. He was right, of course. But what could she say to explain this crazy situation? She moved restlessly toward the doorway and leaned against the doorjamb. From there, she could see across the living room and out through the huge picture window surveying the city. The mass of city lights spread out below added a manic energy, despite the time of night.

That made her think—what if all those lights went out one night?

She nodded, realizing that the stars would take their place. And that would be a whole different dynamic. She wasn’t sure which she would prefer at the moment—manic energy or soothing starlight. But her preference didn’t mean a thing. She had to deal with what she had before her.

Throwing her head back, she began.

“Sam didn’t tell me much about Cici’s father. Actually, I hadn’t seen her for almost a year when she showed up with a baby in her arms. I had no idea…” She put a hand to her forehead as she remembered the shock of Sam’s return home. “Anyway, she didn’t tell me much, but she did tell me that Cici’s father was Ambrian. That she’d met him on a trip to London. And that she wanted nothing more in the world at that moment than to find him and show him his baby.”

Of course, there were other moments, even hours, when Sam acted as though she didn’t care at all—especially when she took off without her baby. But he didn’t have to know about that.

She turned and came back into the room, watching David tuck a blanket in around Cici. It was unusual to see such a strong, handsome man doing something like that. At least it seemed unusual to her. But who knew? Maybe she should get out more.

That sweet little baby was finally getting the sort of care she deserved. She thought of how careless Sam had seemed with Cici. Their mother had been appalled. But maybe that was because of her precarious circumstances. If she could have found Cici’s father and they could have formed a real family, maybe things would have been different.

“Now she’ll never get the chance,” she murmured softly, then caught herself and frowned. None of that. She couldn’t let herself drift off into that sort of sadness. They would never get anything done.

He’d finished with the baby and he came to stand in front of her, looking down. “But she didn’t tell you this guy’s name?”

She hesitated. “She told me a name, but…”

“Who? You’ve got to tell me, Ayme. I don’t see how I can help you if you won’t tell me.”

She turned away again and he followed her out to the picture window. “Do you ever see the stars?” she asked.

“Not much,” he said impatiently. “Will you stick to the point?”

She drew in a deep breath and looked up at him as though this was a hard thing to do.

“Do you know anything about the lost royals of Ambria?” she asked him.

Chapter Three

FOR JUST a second, David thought he’d heard Ayme wrong. Then the implications of what she’d just said crashed in on him. He could hardly breathe.

“Uh, sure,” he said, managing not to sound as choked as he felt. “I’ve heard of them, anyway. What about them?”

She shrugged and sounded apologetic. “Well, Sam claimed Cici’s father was one of them.”

“Interesting.”

He coughed. He’d heard of sightings before. Mostly, they were nothing, led nowhere. But there had been one that had panned out, and when he’d followed up on it, he’d found his oldest brother, the crown prince. There might be more brothers out there. Could it happen again?

“Which one?” he asked, intrigued, emotionally touched, but not really expecting much.

She gazed up at him with those huge brown eyes. “She said he was the second born, and that his name was Darius.”

The room seemed to grow and then contract, as though he’d taken a hallucinogenic of some sort. It took all his strength to stay balanced without reaching for support. She was still talking, telling him something more about her sister, but he couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying.

Sam had named him…him…as the father of her baby. But that was impossible. Incredible. Wrong. Wasn’t it?

He did some quick calculations. Where had he been ten to twelve months ago? Whom had he dated? It was true that he’d spent some time over the years finding love in all the wrong places. There had been a period of his younger life when he’d made conquests first and asked questions later—if at all. He wasn’t proud of those times and he was sure he’d put them well behind him. But what had he been doing last year? Why was it that he couldn’t really remember?

He thought of Cici’s cute little face. Was there anything familiar in it? Had he felt a slight connection? Some magic sense of kinship? A tie? Anything?

He agonized for one long moment, searching his heart and soul for evidence. But he quickly decided there was none. No, he was sure there had been nothing like that. It was crazy to even think this way.

“Have you ever heard of him?” she was asking. “Do you know much about him? Any idea where we can even look to find him?”

“We”? He noted the question and realized what it meant. She really did think he was going to drop everything in his life and start helping her, didn’t she? The problem was, he would have to do just the opposite. He needed to melt away and very quickly. She didn’t realize how dangerous this could be for him. She was sort of like a grenade someone had pulled the pin on and rolled into his apartment. Things could explode at any moment. The smallest jolt could blow everything up.

“No,” he said shortly. “What gave you the idea I would know these things, anyway?”

“I told you, I was given your name as someone who might be able to help me.”

She was looking nervous. He hated to disappoint her. But this was serious and now it had his complete attention.

“Given my name?”

As the full implications of that began to come into focus, an icy finger made its way down his spine and all his instincts for survival began to stir.

“Who was this who gave you my name?”

“A man associated with my law firm. He deals with Ambrian things all the time and he knew who you were.”

He took that in and considered it carefully. But wait. His Ambrian roots weren’t known to more than three or four of his closest associates. To most of the world, he was Dutch. How in hell would someone in Texas know otherwise?

“His name?” he said quickly, staring at her intensely, as though he could draw the information out of her if he tried hard enough.

“Carl Heissman. Do you know him?”

Slowly, he shook his head. He’d never heard the name before, at least, not that he could remember.

She shrugged. “I really didn’t know him until…”

“How did you get in touch with him? Did you go to him and ask for his help?”

“No, it wasn’t like that.” She shook her head. “No, not really. I went to the office and asked for a leave and explained about Cici…”

“So how did he contact you?”

“He must have heard about what I was doing from my boss, so he gave me a call.”

His heart was thumping in his chest. “He told you my name over the phone?”

“No. Actually, he wanted to meet at a little wine bar downtown. We sat out on the patio.”

“Where he couldn’t be recorded,” he muttered to himself.

“What?” she asked.

She was beginning to wonder why all this was such a big deal to him. Either he could help her or he couldn’t. The man in Texas was a side issue as far as she was concerned. She frowned at him, just to let him know she thought he was going off down a blind alley and that wasn’t very helpful.

But he wasn’t paying any attention to that. He shook his head, his brow furled, obviously thinking things he wasn’t sharing with her.

“Go on.”

“Well, I thought he knew you from the way he talked. He gave me your name and address and then he even offered to pay for the trip.”

David’s eyes flared at that bit of information.

“Why would he do that?”

She shrugged. “I thought it was odd at the time, but I assumed it might have been the law firm that was offering to pay. I didn’t take anything from him, but…”

“But you don’t really know who he is or what his connection to your law firm is, do you? He just came at you out of the blue.”

She gave him an exaggerated glare for the interruption, but she plowed ahead.

“I have a number where I’m supposed to call him when I find Cici’s father.” She glanced around, looking for a phone. “Do you think I should give him a call?”

He held back the grunt of exasperation he was tempted to mete out. That was obviously the last thing he wanted her to do.

“You haven’t called him yet?”

“No.”

“Don’t.”

She blinked. “Why not?”

He hesitated, then shrugged. “You haven’t found Cici’s father, have you?”

“Maybe not.” She eyed him speculatively, her chin high.

He groaned, turning away. He knew he couldn’t let her call the number. That would pinpoint his exact location for sure. But how to convince her of that without giving away the entire background?

Whoever this Carl Heissman was, the man was playing games. Deadly games. He had to think fast and get back to basics and consider all possibilities.

He glanced at her again, studied her, tried to pick up on any details he might have missed so far. Why was she really here? Was this a ploy? A plot to coax him out of hiding?

Whatever. He had to get out of here right away and hope whoever was behind sending her here wasn’t already on his trail—or worse, here as well and just hadn’t revealed himself as yet. He heard a sound behind him and turned quickly, jumpy as a cat.

There was nothing there—this time. That wary buzz was back in full force. Ayme had invaded his space like the point guard of a small enemy army and he was going to have to be on alert every minute. He couldn’t afford to trust her or anything about her. His eyes narrowed as he looked her over and considered every angle.

And then the house phone rang.

They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment as it rang once, twice…

Then David took three steps and picked up the receiver, staring down into the identifying screen. Nothing was there. It was blank.

His face turned to stone and his heart beat so hard he could hardly breath. It was never blank. It always said Private Caller if nothing else. But this time, it was blank.

He couldn’t answer. That would give the caller absolute knowledge of where he was at this very moment. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that this person wasn’t calling in the middle of the night for a friendly chat. This was the danger he’d always known would come his way—and until he understood the exact threat better, it was something he had to avoid at all costs.

And more than that, he had to get out of here.

He turned to look at Ayme, wondering if she’d caught the connotations of this late night call, if she might even know who it was and why he was calling. But her face was open and innocent and her gaze was shining with curiosity. He couldn’t believe she could be an expert liar and con artist with eyes like that. No, she didn’t know any more than he did. He would have bet anything on that.

“Okay, you’ve been begging for sleep,” he told her, putting the phone back on its cradle. “Why don’t you take the spare bedroom around the corner from where you were? Get a few hours sleep. You’ll be better for it in the morning.”

“Lovely,” she said, pure gratitude shining from her eyes for a few seconds. She only hoped that Cici would have as much compassion and give her a chance to get in some real, sustained sleep. Small dozes had been the rule for days.

She glanced at David. His eyes were clouded with some problem he was obviously working through and his handsome face looked a bit tense. That made her all the more grateful.

She was lucky he was taking her presence with such equanimity. Most people would have kicked her out by now, or at least edged her toward the door. But he was ready to let her stay. Thank God. She wasn’t sure she could think clearly enough right now to get herself a room in a hotel on her own, especially carrying a baby around. It was great of him to invite her in. She could hardly wait to throw herself on the bed and let sleep take over.

Then she had second thoughts. He hadn’t said anything about getting sleep himself, had he?

“What are you going to do?” she asked suspiciously.

He shrugged rather absently, as though his mind were miles away. “I’ve got some business to wrap up.”

She knew it was an excuse, but she didn’t push it. She was just too tired to challenge him. The thought of sheets and a real pillow were totally seductive for the moment. So she followed him to the spare bedroom and waited while he carried Cici in, setting her little bed right beside the real bed without waking her at all. He seemed to have the magic touch.

She smiled, watching him tuck Cici in. So precious.

“I’ll see you later,” he said gruffly, and she nodded, waiting just until he closed the door before slipping out of her skirt and sweater, leaving only her underclothes on, and sliding between the sheets. She dropped into sleep instantly, but for some reason, she began to dream right away, and her dreams were full of tall, dark-haired men who looked very much like David.

Meanwhile, David was moving fast, preparing to vacate the premises. He’d been planning for this day from the time he could think through the consequences of being found by the vicious Granvilli family who had taken over his country. He knew they wanted all remnants of the Royal House of Ambria wiped out, wherever they might be hiding. They wanted no lingering threats to their ugly reign of terror over the ancient island people.

And he and his older brother Monte were a threat, whether the Granvilli bunch knew it yet or not. At any rate, they were determined to be one. He was already committed to being in Italy by the end of the week to meet with other Ambrians and begin planning in earnest for a return to power. He might as well leave now. There was nothing keeping him here. He’d already made his office aware of the time off he planned to take. He could begin his journey a little early and make his way to Italy in a more careful trajectory. There was no telling what other obstacles he would find along the way.

“Nothing really worth having is easy.” Someone had said that once, and right now it made perfect sense to him. The struggle to get his country back was going to be a rough one and he was ready to get started.

And he had to go on his own, he told himself. There was no way to take Ayme along, no reason to do it. Why should he feel this tug of responsibility toward her? He tried to brush it away. She would be okay here. He hadn’t even known she existed two hours ago. Why should he feel he owed her anything?

He didn’t. But he did owe the people of Ambria everything. Time to begin paying them back.

He had preparations that had to be dealt with, paperwork that had to be destroyed so that the wrong people wouldn’t see things they shouldn’t see. It took some time to do all that and he had an ear cocked toward the phone in case the interested party from a half hour before might try again. But the night moved relentlessly forward without any more interruptions. The sky was barely beginning to turn pink as he wrapped up his arrangements.

Completely focused, he pulled on a dark blue turtleneck cashmere sweater and finished dressing at warp speed, then glanced around his bedroom. He hesitated for half a second. Did he have time to grab some things and shove them into an overnight bag? What the hell—he had to have something with him, and he’d taken all this time already. Why not? It was all right there and it took no time at all.

He slid into his soft leather jacket as he headed for the door. Despite all the rationalizing he’d been doing, he felt pretty rotten about leaving Ayme behind this way. She was so all alone in the city. She didn’t know anyone but him.

That gave him a quick, bitter laugh. She didn’t really know him, did she? Which was what was so ridiculous about all this. Still, he hesitated in the open doorway. Maybe he would call the doorman from his car and ask that he look after her. Sure. He could do that. She would be okay.

Right. He took one more step and then stopped, head hanging forward, and uttered an ugly oath. He knew he couldn’t leave her.

There was no telling who that had been on the phone There was no telling who was after him—except that he was rock-bottom sure it was an agent for the Granvillis. What if the assassin came into his apartment after he left? Who would protect her? Not the doorman. That was pure fantasy.

No, he couldn’t leave her—even if she was the one who had brought all this down on him. He was almost certain that she didn’t know anything about it herself. She was an innocent victim. He couldn’t leave her behind.

Giving out a suppressed growl of rage, he turned and went back, opening the door to the spare bedroom and looking in.

“Ayme?” he said tersely. “I’m sorry to wake you, but I’ve got to go and I don’t want to leave you here.”

“Huh?” She stared up at him, startled, her eyes bleary. She’d had less than an hour of sleep—not nearly enough. “What?”

“Sorry, kiddo,” he bit out. “You’re going with me.” He glanced around the room. “Do you have any other clothes?”

She blinked, trying to get her fuzzy mind to make sense of the question. “I left my bag in the corner.” She nodded her head in its general direction.

He stuck out his hand to her. “Come on.”

She took his hand in hers and stared at it as though it were a foreign object. “Where are we going?”

He gave her a little tug and she didn’t resist, rising halfway out of bed.

“Away from here.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He looked into her eyes, alert for any hint of guile. “Because it’s too dangerous to stay.”

“Oh.”

That seemed to convince her. She tumbled out of bed like a sleepy child, pulled the sheet around herself and began to look for where she’d tossed her clothes. He’d started to turn away in order to leave her to it, but something about the picture she made with the fabric twisted around her torso, leaving one shoulder bare and most of both long, golden legs exposed, had him rooted to the spot. There was a fluid, graceful beauty to her that took his breath away and reminded him of something. What was it? Some picture from history, some long forgotten fable…

Ambria. The legend of the lake. It was the familiar story of loss and earned redemption. He could remember sitting in his mother’s lap as she turned the pages of the picture book and read the story to him.

“Look, Darius. Isn’t she beautiful?”

The lady sat on a large rock overlooking the lake, weeping into her cupped hands, and the flowing garment she wore was very like Ayme’s sheet. Funny. He hadn’t thought of that scene in years and yet it came back to him so clearly as he watched Ayme leaning over to retrieve her clothes. He’d felt the same tug of compassion as a boy as he felt now.

Well, not the same, exactly. He wasn’t a boy anymore and the pang of sympathy was mixed with something else, something that had to do with how creamy her bare skin looked in the lamplight, especially where the sheet pulled low, exposing the soft curve of her breast just beneath a lacy strapless bra.

For some odd reason his heart was beating hard again, and this time it had nothing to do with a phone call.

Ayme looked up and caught the look. She gave him one of her own, but hers was cool and questioning.

“Where did you say we were going?”

“I didn’t. Let it be a surprise.”

She frowned, not sure she liked where this seemed to be headed. “I don’t like surprises.” She bit her lip, then tried another idea. “I could just stay here with Cici until you get back.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back. If ever.”

That startled her. “Oh.”

“And we don’t know who might be coming for a visit. So you’d better come along with me.”

“I see.” The seriousness in the tone of his voice finally got through to her. “In that case, can you excuse me for a moment?” she asked, politely but firmly pointing out that she needed to drop the sheet and she darn well wasn’t going to do it until he was out of the room.

He had the grace to look just a bit sheepish.

“Of course,” he said as he began to walk out into the living area.

But then he stopped and looked at her again. What was he thinking? Too much about what she did to his libido and not enough about what she could do to the preservation of his life and limbs.

“Wait a minute,” he said, turning on his heel and walking back. “Listen Ayme, I’ve got to know, and I’ve got to know right now. Are you wearing a wire or any kind of tracking device?”

That stunned her. She clutched the sheet against her chest. What was this, spy versus spy? In her groggy state of mind, it seemed very bizarre and she couldn’t make heads nor tails of it.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I’m serious. I’m going to have to check.”

She backed away, her eyes huge as she realized what he was saying and what it actually meant. She held tightly to her fabric.

“Oh, no you’re not.”

“Hold on,” he said gruffly. “I have to do this. I’m sorry. If you’ve got anything on you, we’ve got to get rid of it.”

She shook her head firmly. “I swear I don’t.”

“That’s not good enough.” He gestured for her to come closer. “Come here.”