Romancing The Crown: Lorenzo and Anna: The Man Who Would Be King / The Princess And The Mercenary

“You always were suspicious of the Sebastianis, Butrus,” Sheik Ahmed said dryly. “It must be that legal mind of yours. You see a conspiracy around every corner.”

Not the least offended, he didn’t deny it. “They are too closely aligned with the West, sire. They do not think like us.”

“That, unfortunately, is too true,” he agreed. “In this particular instance, however, I don’t think King Marcus is deliberately conspiring to deny his daughter the throne. He’s just a grieving father who isn’t ready to acknowledge his son’s death. I can’t say I blame him. I would find that equally difficult.”

Standing nearby, overhearing the entire conversation, Princess Julia could have hugged her father-in-law for that. There was no question that her family did think differently from her husband’s family, but much of that had to do with the feud that had existed between their two countries for the past century. Trust was not something that came automatically just because peace had been declared.

When it came to family, however, there was very little difference between the Sebastianis and the Kamals. They believed, as she and her parents did, that nothing was more important in life than the love of family.

Reading her thoughts, her father-in-law looked right at her at that moment, his black eyes alight with sympathy and understanding, and it was all she could do not to cry. She missed her brother terribly and couldn’t blame her parents for wanting to believe Lucas was still alive. She did, too.

At her side, Rashid took her hand and twined his fingers with hers, his dark eyes smiling into hers when she looked up. He didn’t say a word—he didn’t have to. After everything they’d been through, they had a knowledge of each other that went soul deep.

“The king may be grieving, but he understands that it’s his duty to protect the monarchy at all costs,” Rashid told Butrus and his father. “He wouldn’t postpone naming a successor unless he truly believed Lucas was alive.”

“I agree,” Hassan said. “Whatever’s going on, it has nothing to do with some kind of secret plot to deny Julia and Rashid the throne. They never had much of a chance at it anyway. No offense,” he told his brother and sister-in-law with a quick grin. “It’s just a matter of common sense. If the Sebastiani monarchy is to continue, it has to be handed down through the male line.”

Julia agreed. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be a strong alliance between our two countries,” she said. “Now we are not only linked by marriage, but by blood, thanks to baby Omar. The friendship between Montebello and Tamir can only grow stronger.”

“I hope so,” Butrus said coolly. “I just don’t like this new development.”

He wasn’t the only one. Moving to join his brother, Desmond couldn’t imagine what new evidence the king was talking about, but he was absolutely livid. Lorenzo would be king, dammit! It was his right. Marcus had raised him like a son, and it was time he let go of this pipe dream that Lucas was still alive and give Lorenzo the position he deserved in the family. Then, when his dearly loved brother ascended to the throne, he, Desmond, would have the position he, too, deserved. He would be the next best thing to king! That was only just. After all, as the oldest son of the king’s deceased brother, Antonio, he was also the king’s nephew. It wasn’t his fault his mother had been a household maid, he thought bitterly. If he had been legitimate instead of his father’s bastard child, he would the one the king was now considering as his heir to the throne.

His resentment of that was, however, something he had kept well hidden over the years. So when his brother joined him again, he greeted him with a pretended look of pleased surprise. “This is wonderful news, Lorenzo! So what is this new evidence the king was talking about? Does he really have proof that Lucas is alive?”

“You know I’m not at liberty to say anything about the investigation,” he said. “All I can say is that there’s some new evidence.”

“Oh, come on,” Desmond chided him. “I’m your brother. You can trust me. I won’t say anything to anyone.”

“I didn’t say that you would,” he replied smoothly. “But the case has been reopened, and I don’t talk about active cases. Especially when the palace is virtually surrounded by reporters. The very walls have ears.”

Left with no choice, Desmond graciously accepted the fact that he would have to wait just like everyone else to find out what this new evidence was. But he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it all. Forcing a smile, he said, “You know best, little brother. I’m sure you’ll tell me when you can.”

From across the room, the Ramsey brothers silently gauged the guests’ reaction, and neither liked what they saw. “That one bothers me,” Kyle said quietly, flicking a look toward Desmond. “His eyes are cold as hell.”

“He’s close to the king,” Tyler reminded him.

Unimpressed, Kyle shrugged. “That’s only one more reason to watch him…along with everyone else. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s not the only one who’s less than happy with the king’s announcement.”

Tyler had noticed, all right, and he didn’t mind admitting he was worried. Some of the Kamals had been openly speculative, and where there was speculation, there was still distrust. “Peace with Tamir is still fragile. Anyone who wanted to shatter the Kamals’ relationship with Montebello could find a way to use this to their advantage.”

His expression grim, Kyle had already thought of that. “It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.” It went without saying that they had their work cut out for them.

* * *

Cooling her heels at the airport, Eliza could just imagine the scene at the palace when the king announced that his son was alive. The place was probably in an uproar. Simon was going to hate that she missed that, but she hadn’t wanted to push her luck by asking to be present when the king gave his friends and allies the news. Not when she’d been granted an exclusive in the search for Prince Lucas! That alone was going to be worth a small fortune in headlines.

And the only fly in the ointment was that she had to work with Duke Lorenzo.

Irritating man, she thought, grimacing. She didn’t know how he’d developed a reputation as a flirt with the ladies. Granted, he had the Sebastiani looks—her heart had shifted in her breast just at the sight of him. Then he’d opened his mouth and ruined all her expectations.

That didn’t, however, mean that she wouldn’t be able to work with him. He had an attitude, but she’d dealt with worse. He might be a duke and come from a long line of royalty, but she was confident she could handle him. For the kind of headlines this story was going to generate, she could handle the devil himself.

“Speak of the devil,” she muttered to herself as she spied Lorenzo making his way toward her through the crowded airport. Carrying a small suitcase in his hand, he looked like he owned the place, she thought, then had to grin ruefully. He was a Sebastiani. Maybe he did!

His green eyes narrowing at the sight of her, she wasn’t surprised when he appeared to be less than pleased to see her. The only reason he was even associating with her at all was because the king had ordered him to. Lovely, she sighed. This was going to be just lovely. This was going to be worse than working with Deborah.

“Your Grace,” she said by way of a greeting. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Let’s go, then,” he said curtly, and motioned for her to follow him.

So much for common courtesy, she thought with a grimace as he led the way to the boarding gate the royal jet had been brought into. It was going to be a long flight. Hopefully, though, once they were on the plane, she wouldn’t have to deal with him until they got to Denver. She’d been too excited to sleep during the flight over, and exhaustion was quickly catching up with her. Lorenzo would, in his search for the prince, no doubt hit the ground running when they reached Denver, so she was going to need all the rest she could get. Hopefully, the jet had a sleep cabin in the back she could take advantage of. She wouldn’t mind using it—mainly to put more distance between herself and the duke.

“I hope you don’t mind if I sit in the back and catch a few winks,” she said as she followed him on to the lavishly appointed plane, trying not to gawk too much at the expensive furnishings.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he retorted. “I can’t talk to you when you’re at the back of the plane. You’ll sit with me.”

“Your wish is my command,” Eliza muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes. So this was what it was like to be royalty. No wonder so many of the children grew up to lead wild lives. They were spoiled rotten!

Lorenzo, to his credit, didn’t take advantage of the flight attendant’s offer to bring him food or drink immediately. “No, thank you,” he told her with a charming smile he’d never once directed at Eliza. “We have a great deal of business to discuss right now. We’ll have some wine later.”

“As you wish, Your Grace,” she said and disappeared behind a curtain at the back of the plane, leaving them seated comfortably in the expensive leather seats in the first cabin.

And just that easily, Eliza found herself flying in a private jet, seated next to one of the best-looking men in Europe. Any other woman might have let it go to her head, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think that the duke had requested she fly in the same cabin because he wanted her with him. They were together for one reason and one reason only—business. It was his job to find Prince Lucas and hers to write about it. She’d be wise to remember that.

She told herself that wouldn’t be difficult. He didn’t like her—he was only tolerating her presence because he had to. And the feeling was mutual. That wasn’t going to change, she assured herself, just because he fairly oozed charm when he smiled. Let him charm someone else. That wasn’t what she was here for.

Still, once he settled next to her, buckled in, then turned the full force of his beautiful green eyes on her, her heart started to sputter and she wasn’t nearly as indifferent as she would have liked.

“Tell me more about Willy,” he commanded coolly as he pulled a small notebook out of the inside pocket of his suitcoat. “I need to know everything there is to know about the man. Do you think he really found the scarf? Or did he steal it? Is he capable of harming the prince? You said he fought in the Vietnam War. Does he suffer from flashbacks? Just how dangerous is he?”

He threw questions at her like she was some kind of underling, not even giving her a chance to answer one before he tossed another one at her. And that, on top of the heated words they’d exchanged at the palace, was too much, as far as Eliza was concerned. Settling into a more comfortable position, she leaned back in her seat and surveyed him with a jaundiced look in her eyes that he would have been wise to be wary of.

“Since we’re going to be working together, Your Grace,” she said silkily, “I think it’s important that we begin as we mean to continue. I know you’re the head of Montebello Intelligence, and I understand you’re used to grilling people, but in the future, I would appreciate it if you didn’t treat me as if I was some sort of suspect. For the record, I don’t take orders well and I appreciate the word please when I’m asked to do something. I’m also reasonably intelligent. If you’ll remember that, we’ll get along just fine.”

Just that easily, she put him in his place and made him feel like a jackass, all without breaking a sweat. He was the one with royal blood, but she was the one acting like a damn princess. And Lorenzo couldn’t help but admire her for that. She’d had every right to tell him off—he’d acted like a jerk, and he didn’t know why. There was just something about this tall, skinny American that really set his teeth on edge.

She was a reporter, he reasoned, and he’d yet to meet one that he liked. They were all a bunch of leeches. There wasn’t a royal in the world who could make a move, however innocent, without a reporter somewhere jumping on the story and making money off of it. And he hated that. Other people were allowed their privacy and the right to occasionally do something stupid in public without it making headlines, but not a royal. Because of reporters like Eliza.

All right, so maybe he couldn’t hold her responsible for what her cohorts did. He was still stuck with her, like it or not. He had to tolerate her, but that was it. He didn’t have to like her ingenuity, didn’t want to admire her tenacity, and sternly ordered himself not to find her Katharine Hepburn-type looks attractive in any way. He couldn’t allow himself to forget that anything he said or did while he was with her could be splashed all over the front page. He hated that, but there was nothing he could do about it—the king had ordered him to accompany her back to Colorado. His objective was to find Lucas, hopefully alive, and he couldn’t do that without Eliza.

And that meant he had to find a way to work with her. “Look,” he sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you and it certainly wasn’t my intention to treat you like a suspect. I’m not happy with the king’s orders, but I had no right to take that out on you. I won’t do it again.”

As far as apologies, it was much more than she’d expected. Pleasantly surprised, she said, “Thank you. I appreciate that.” Now that peace was established, she was more than willing to cooperate. “I don’t know what else I can tell you about Willy other than what I already have. He doesn’t deliberately lie—he’s just so suspicious that he’s paranoid sometimes.”

“But you believe him? You think he really found the scarf where he said he did?”

“Yes, I do.”

“But you just said that he’s paranoid sometimes. How do you know that he didn’t find the scarf at the crash site and just imagine it was somewhere else? He doesn’t sound very stable, if you ask me.”

Eliza couldn’t argue with that. There were times when Willy wasn’t very stable. But she believed him, and she couldn’t even say why. “I don’t know how to explain him to you. After he found the scarf, he must have called me a dozen times at work. He was truly concerned that the king was going to accept the fact that the prince was dead and name a new successor to the throne.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if he had,” Lorenzo replied. “Everyone knows that if Lucas showed up alive, even if it was years from now, that he would be the king’s heir. He’s his son. No one else could ever take his place.”

“You and I know that, but Willy isn’t always playing with a full deck. In his eyes, once the king named a successor, Prince Lucas would lose his place in line forever, and he couldn’t let that happen.”

Still skeptical, he could only shake his head in wonder. “And this is the man who’s going to lead us to the prince. God help us all.”

Eliza couldn’t argue with that. Prince Lucas had been missing for a year, and what clues there were that might lead to his whereabouts had probably long since dried up and blown away. Every major law enforcement agency in the country had already looked for him, without success. If they were going to find him, they were going to need all the help they could get.

Lorenzo had never met anyone who could fall asleep so easily. After Eliza told him everything she could about Willy Cranshaw, she pulled her notebook computer from her satchel, busily typed her notes, then tucked it away again. Just seconds after that, she leaned back in her seat and was out like a light almost immediately. Not knowing her intentions until she dosed off, he felt guilty for not offering her a bed in the lounge at the back. Then, as he found himself studying her in spite of his best efforts not to, he was glad he hadn’t.

Why did she have to be so pretty?

The thought slipped into his head uninvited, irritating him no end. He would have sworn he didn’t care much for redheads, but there was something about her corkscrew curls that he found incredibly feminine and appealing—especially when they were piled on top of her head as they were now. He wanted to touch them to see if they were as soft as they looked—but he didn’t dare.

Glancing away, he sternly ordered himself to ignore her. He might as well have told himself not to breathe. She’d forgotten to take off the small, hornrimmed glasses she wore when she worked, and they’d slipped down on her pert nose. He should have left them alone, but before he could stop himself, he found himself reaching for them.

Too late, he realized his mistake. When he gently lifted the glasses from her nose, she sighed in her sleep and turned slightly toward him, snuggling too close for comfort. The faint scent of her perfume drifted to his nose, teasing him. Swearing soundlessly, he clenched his teeth on an oath and carefully laid her glasses on the tray in front of her, then quickly turned his attention to a news magazine he retrieved from his briefcase. The words blurred before his eyes, but he didn’t look at his companion again. It was just safer that way. And though he realized it might be even safer for him to move to another seat in the otherwise empty cabin, he couldn’t bring himself to leave her presence. It was as if she held him there, by her side.

“Your Grace, we will be landing in Denver in approximately ten minutes,” the flight attendant said.

Jerked awake by the softly spoken words, Eliza sat up with a start, only to frown when her gaze fell on the tray in front of her…and her glasses. She had no memory of taking them off, let alone laying them on the tray.

Suddenly suspicious, she glanced at her companion, but he never raised his eyes from his magazine. Had he taken them off for her? she wondered, only to dismiss the idea with a soundless snort. Not likely. He might have apologized for his curt behavior, but he’d admitted he wasn’t happy about working with her. He would tolerate her, but she didn’t expect him to be considerate. She’d probably removed her glasses herself and just forgotten about it.

And that was for the best, she assured herself. She didn’t want any favors from him, didn’t want any reason to like him. They didn’t have to be friends for her to do her job—they just had to be civil. Then when they each returned to their very different worlds, they could part company without any regrets.

So she tucked her glasses back into her purse and didn’t say a word, and neither did he. For the next ten minutes, the silence between them was deafening—until they landed and passed through customs. Then suddenly they realized there was a lot to do, and they hadn’t discussed any of it.

“We need a rental car…”

“I need to call my boss…”

“I’ll make sure the luggage is brought to the rental office…”

“I should have called Simon from Montebello. The paper might pay for the rental…”

“The king authorized me to pay for all expenses—”

Both speaking at the same time, they froze abruptly and only just then realized what the other had said. Frowning, Lorenzo said stiffly, “There’s no reason to call your boss. I’m paying for everything.”

His tone dared her to argue with him, and for a moment, Eliza had to struggle not to smile. If he thought Simon was going to object to him using his American Express card, he was in for a rude awakening. “I’m sure Simon will appreciate that, but I still need to call the office and check in. It won’t take long.”

“Then I’ll collect the luggage while you’re doing that and meet you at the rental car office.”

His head high and his bearing regal, he strode off, and watching him, Eliza could well understand why King Marcus had considered Lorenzo as his successor. Confident and proud, he looked like he could take on the world with one hand tied behind his back.

Not, she reminded herself, that he was ever likely to be king. Not now that there was a good chance that Prince Lucas was alive. Was that a disappointment to him? she wondered. She’d have to ask him and include that in her story.

Her mind already working on the opening paragraph, she stepped over to the bank of phones against the wall and quickly punched in Simon’s number. “Hey, LaGree,” she teasingly greeted him when he answered with a rough hello. “I’m back and you’re never going to guess what happened.”

“It better be good, Red,” he growled, “because you’ve got a column to file and a four o’clock deadline. Or did you forget that while you were having tea with the king and queen?”

“We never got around to tea,” she chuckled, “but you don’t have to worry about the column. Thanks to an exclusive the king granted me, I’m going to have enough material to fill the entire front page section.”

“Get out of here! You got an exclusive?”

“Oh, I got more than that,” she replied, grinning. “Duke Lorenzo flew back with me to talk to Willy and investigate where he found the scarf, and I’m going to be working with him during the search. Of course, this means I’ll be out of the office for a while. I hope that’s not going to be a problem.”

“Are you kidding?! Damn it all, Red, I underestimated you! Listen, you follow this to the end, you hear me? Keep good notes and check in every couple of days so I’ll know what’s going on, okay? This is going to get you a Pulitzer, Red. And if you pull this off and help find Prince Lucas, you deserve it.”

It wasn’t often that he called her by her first name, and just that easily, he touched her heart. “Thanks, Simon,” she said huskily. “Knowing you believe in me means a lot.”

“You better believe I believe in you,” he retorted. “Why do you think I didn’t let Little Miss Priss steal this story right out from under you? She wouldn’t know what to do with it if you handed it to her on a platter. And don’t you worry about her while you’re gone,” he added. “She’s happy in La-la land, and I plan on keeping her there as long as possible.”

Her smile rueful, Eliza appreciated that, but they both knew Deborah would be a threat to her as long as her daddy owned the paper and she wanted to play Brenda Starr. “Maybe Brad Pitt’ll fall for her and she’ll never come back.”

“We can only pray we get that lucky,” he said dryly.

Grinning, she said, “I’d better go—I’ve got to meet the duke at the rental car office. Thanks again, Simon. I’ll be in touch.”

“Hey, who’s paying for this?” he said quickly before she could hang up. “You didn’t commit the paper to anything, did you?”

He suddenly sounded so worried that she couldn’t resist stringing him along a little. “What do you think? I know how badly you want this story.”

“Dammit, Red, don’t do this to me!”

Laughing, she hung up.

She was still smiling when she reached the rental car office and found Lorenzo loading their luggage into the back of the Tahoe SUV he’d rented. “I thought we might need something rugged since we’re going up into the mountains,” he told her. “Were you able to talk to your boss?”

Grinning, she nodded. “He told me to take all the time I need.”

“Good. Then let’s go.” Always the gentleman, he opened the passenger door for her, then stepped around the vehicle and slid behind the wheel. Starting the motor, he put it in gear, then arched a brow at her. “Willy lives north of here, correct? In Boulder?”

“That’s right,” she said as he pulled away from the curb. “Turn right at the signal light.”

Without a word, he followed her directions, and within moments, they were on their way to Boulder. It seemed like she’d been traveling for a week, but as far as Eliza was concerned, they couldn’t get there fast enough. There was, however, little point in hurrying. It was already late in the day. They’d have to wait until tomorrow to see Willy.

“When we get to Boulder, we might as well go ahead and get a motel for the night,” she said as they left the city behind. “Willy doesn’t like visitors after three, so I’ll call him in the morning and set up a meeting for tomorrow.”

“But it’s early yet,” Lorenzo replied with a scowl. “Surely he can see us today. I wanted to head up into the mountains tomorrow to the campsite where he found the scarf.”