Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena: The Disenchanted Duke

Cara’s laugh was short and without any accompanying humor. “From me, maybe.”

She could feel him propping himself up on his elbow by the movement of the mattress. There were going to be more questions. As she had done most of her life, going from one school system to another more times than she wanted to ever remember, Cara headed him off at the pass. It was always easier fighting on her own terms than waiting for the first jab to be thrown.

Refusing to turn around, to see pity in his eyes, she addressed the dingy mirror over the bureau.

“You’re sharing your bed, so to speak, with a bona fide orphan. I spent the first seventeen and a half years of my life in foster homes. Sad music accompanying credits. End of story. Now go to sleep.”

Her answer only raised another question. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the system until you’re eighteen years old?”

She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck rising. He was prying. Served her right for saying anything at all.

“Yeah.”

“But you only stayed seventeen and a half—” He left the sentence open-ended, waiting for her to fill in the blank.

Annoyed, she finally turned around to look at him. Ryker seemed much too close for either their own goods. She pretended not to notice.

“I ran away for the last six months. When I was eighteen, the system was through with me.” And so would life have been, if it hadn’t been for Bridgette Applegate. Cara believed that from the bottom of her soul. “Now shut up and let me get some sleep before I really do shoot you.”

He’d opened up old wounds. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that. Part of him wanted to ask why she’d run away, but he knew how dear privacy was, how precious it was especially when you were denied it. He’d been there. Had seen its effects on his mother when the press wanted to know how she felt about her husband’s flagrant indiscretions.

It was in his mother’s memory that he backed off. If Rivers wanted him to know the reason she ran away, she’d tell him on her own. If not, well there were a lot of questions in life that went unanswered.

Such as why someone as good and kind as his mother had remained with the likes of his father. And why his father had felt the need to indulge in cheap affairs when there was someone waiting for him at home who could love him unconditionally. Someone, according to what his aunt Gwendolyn, the queen, had once told him that the duke had loved in return. But he just couldn’t conquer the lust that governed him.

Since both his parents were now gone, “why” was a puzzle he wasn’t destined to ever solve. And one, heaven willing, he wouldn’t be destined to repeat in his own life. For apples did not fall far from their trees and children were often doomed to repeat the sins of the fathers. He knew that he would rather remain unmarried all of his life than to bring the kind of grief to a woman that he had seen in his own mother’s eyes.

Max laid down again, staring at the ceiling. “Good night, Rivers.”

“Good night, Ryker,” she growled into her pillow.

For some reason, her response made him smile. Max closed his eyes. They had to get an early start in the morning if they were going to catch up to Weber. Lying here, wondering about the woman beside him wasn’t going to help him do that.

He thought about her anyway. Eventually he managed to drift off to sleep.

* * *

The early-morning sun was just beginning to feed its way through the spaces in the curtains where the weave had thinned when Max opened his eyes again.

It felt as if he’d just closed them and he gradually became aware of his body. It ached as if he’d spent the night sleeping on a pile of stones. He supposed that getting up was actually a relief.

Stretching, Max sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to get his mind focused and into gear.

It was then that he realized the place beside him was empty.

Instantly alert, he looked to the bathroom. The door was closed. She was probably just in there, he told himself, but still, he was taking no chances. He knew better when it came to Rivers.

On his feet, he crossed to the paint-scarred door and rapped on it.

“Rivers, you in there?”

There was no response.

He put his ear to the door and heard nothing. No running water, no movement of any sort. An uneasy feeling got more than a toehold on him.

“Rivers?” he called again, more urgently this time. When there was still no response, he tried the knob and found it locked. Was she inside and playing games just to get to him? He had no idea how her mind worked, only that she was perverse.

“Look, if you’re in there, open the damn door. Now.” Still nothing. “Okay, I’m coming in. If you’re in there naked, that’s your problem.”

Throwing his shoulder against the door, he nearly took it completely off its rusted hinges.

Cara wasn’t in there naked. She wasn’t in there at all.

Max cursed roundly. This definitely did not look good.

Spinning on his heel, he ran outside into the courtyard to where he’d parked his car. He knew that she could have just gotten up and was out, getting breakfast at the small café they’d passed on their way here, but somehow, he didn’t think his luck was particularly running that way.

He was right.

The car wasn’t where he’d left it. She’d taken it. Suppressing another curse, Max immediately checked for his keys. Shoving his hand into his pocket, he found them exactly where he’d put them.

How the hell had she managed to steal the car without the keys?

This woman appeared to have more hidden talents than a con game had angles.

Max looked around, hoping that he was wrong, that he’d somehow just forgotten where he’d parked the vehicle in the dark.

But there weren’t that many places to look. He hadn’t forgotten where he’d parked the car. It was gone and she had taken it.

Storming into the small office, he saw the office manager dozing in a corner, his head forward, small drool marks forging a trail down his faded shirt. The picture on his small television set was rolling so that it appeared the woman’s waist was on her head as she pitched a set of knives guaranteed to cut through steel and the hardest man’s heart with ridiculous ease.

Fisting his hand, Max rapped on the desk hard and the man jumped up, bumping his shins against a chair as he scrambled forward. Focusing on Max, the man blinked, then sank back into his semistupor state.

“What?”

Max knew it was useless to ask, but he did anyway. “The woman who was with me last night when I checked in, did you see her leave?”

The man stared at him slack-jawed. He scratched the stubble on his face.

“You mean she’s gone?”

Well that answered that. Blowing out an angry breath, calling himself several kinds of a fool for not handcuffing her to the bedpost the way instinct had told him to, Max strode out the door.

“Does this mean you’ll be checking out?” the man called after him, leaning as far over his desk as he could manage. “There’s a half day charge after six in the morning, you know.”

Max ignored him.

Trying to think, he walked into the courtyard again. He scanned the area, looking out onto the street, hoping against hope.

Hope died a quick, harsh death.

Rivers was nowhere in sight. Somehow, she’d managed to start up his car and make good her escape. The woman had too many hidden talents.

Hurrying back to their room Max took a fast inventory of what was there. Her things, including the laptop she’d brought in with her, were gone.

Rivers had played him for a fool.

Again.

Chapter 7

Stupid Americans.

Toying with his bourbon and soda, Jalil Salim looked up and studied his own face in the mirror that lined the back of the hotel bar. He watched his mouth curve in a self-satisfied smirk. It had been almost too easy. He would have enjoyed more of a challenge, wanted more of an adrenaline rush than what he’d sustained.

Did they really think they were going to catch me?

The thought seemed ludicrous. Salim raised the two fingers of amber liquid in his glass to his lips and drank deeply. He closed his dark eyes for a moment, savoring the bourbon’s hot, raw burn as it made its way down his throat into his stomach.

Except for the bullet that had grazed his shoulder, the Americans had proven to be unworthy adversaries. A great deal like the fools in Montebello.

Salim set the glass down, wrapping both hands around it and hunching the thin, wiry body beneath the light gray suit, as if he meant to surround his glass. Idly he looked in the mirror and watched the people in the hotel bar come and go without really taking note of them. He was too busy congratulating himself on eluding capture.

The whole thing was rather stupid on his part, he supposed. He shouldn’t have tried breaking into the Chambers ranch. It was beneath him. He should have left it to someone else. The brotherhood could have sent him someone to handle that. He had enough on his mind without looking over his shoulder, trying to elude being captured again by some would-be American law enforcement dolts. If he hadn’t gotten out on bail because of a technicality, he might be rotting in jail right now.

Bail, what a foolish, foolish concept. That was why his country was so superior. It didn’t have such things as bail. If you were believed to be guilty, justice was swift. It did not mince around.

Lucky for him the authorities here in the United States could be easily circumvented. Here people took you at your word and believed in an honor system.

As if they were on the same plain as he, Salim sneered into his drink. Why else would they have released him, believing that he would be back when the time for trial came.

Idiots.

Jalil laughed to himself. If those poor fools only knew what his true mission here was, they would be stunned and horrified. As well they should be. He liked the idea of striking fear into people’s hearts. Fear was a way of controlling people, of wielding power. The more fear you struck, the more powerful you were.

And he belonged to a very powerful organization. He’d been sent to this country to find a way to build up the depleted coffers of the Brothers of Darkness, the terrorist group he had pledged his allegiance to when he was just a boy. The organization was his mother, his father, his god and he would gladly die for it.

But not yet.

He sighed, frustrated. He needed to be in Austin by the end of the week. His contact would be there, the man who could put him in touch with others who thought the way he did, who believed in their cause. But it was moving far too slowly for his tastes. Finding a way to rebuild resources, to make connections that would allow a way for money to begin flowing back to his organization, took too much time.

And once that was started, he would go on to an even bigger mission. Killing the son of the king of Montebello. This time, for good. According to the intelligence network, Prince Lucas had escaped the jaws of death despite the plane crash.

But not for long.

Right now, though, Salim was getting bored, restless. From where he was sitting, he could see into a booth that was to his left. A man occupying it was there with a woman who was obviously not his wife. The man was running his hand up her skirt.

Salim shifted on the stool. He needed diversion. He needed a woman.

Being on the run this way hadn’t left him much time for the simpler, necessary pleasures of life. A man needed to feel like a man once in a while and though these western women were inferior to the women in his country and far too stubborn for his tastes, with their big breasts and tempting hips, they had their uses.

A slight movement in the mirror caused him to look to his right, toward the bar’s entrance. A dark-haired woman wearing a clingy white dress walked in. The wide folds of the short dress caressed her body with every step she took. She made his mouth water.

She seemed to smile right at him, though his back was to her. Their eyes met in the mirror.

A working woman, by his estimation.

He could smell them. High-class from the looks of her. A woman who knew how to work a room, who knew how to say the things a man wanted to hear. Do the things a man wanted done. Obviously a whore, but still infinitely superior to the ones he saw frequenting selected corners and streets, offering instant gratification in the time it took to pull down a zipper.

There was a time and a place for instant gratification, but not from a common slut ripe with diseases.

He liked quality, even in his whores. Salim was willing to pay if it meant that his needs would be pleasured, that the woman was clean and attractive, not used-looking or cheap.

The very word turned his stomach. He’d had enough of “cheap” hiding in those run-down motels, staying ahead of that bounty hunter who had been after him. But now the hunter was behind him, most likely gone for good. He was through running, through with the game. The next encounter, if there was to be one, would be deadly. And he intended to be the one walking away.

The stool beside him was empty. The woman in white had crossed to him, standing behind it.

“Is this seat taken?” she purred in a voice that seemed to have been dipped in honey.

He could feel his arousal beginning. This one he would have, first quickly, then slowly, until he was tired of her.

“If you sit down, it will be.”

She took it as an invitation. Smiling, she sat down beside him, adjusting her skirt so that he could see her long legs, her bare, silky skin. As she turned toward him, the neckline of her dress dipped down. The firm cleavage that was exposed to his hot gaze rose and felt seductively with each breath she took.

Salim was fairly salivating.

“Would you like a drink?” he offered.

She lowered her eyes to the one on the counter. “I’ll take a sip of yours,” she murmured, her voice low, husky. She took the glass from his hand. Slowly she ran the tip of her fingernail along one edge of the rim. “Is this where your lips touched the glass?”

He felt his throat and his loins tightening. “Yes.”

As Salim watched, the woman pressed her own lips to the spot and took a long sip. Her eyes never left his. He found that his breath caught in his throat.

The drink was a particularly strong one. He expected to see her eyes water. Instead she merely smiled as she placed the glass on the counter.

“Smooth,” she whispered. The word seemed to graze his very skin.

His arousal increased. He inclined his head toward hers. “Perhaps you would like to leave here for a little while?”

“Perhaps,” the woman echoed. Her blue-gray eyes danced as they teased his. “Just what did you have in mind?”

She was being coy. It was part of the game. “I think you know.”

Leaning her elbow on the bar, she rested her chin on her hand. Her eyes smiled up into his. “Why don’t you tell me, anyway?”

He skimmed her bare arm with his fingers, envisioning his hands on her breasts instead. “We could go back to my room and I could appreciate you the way a woman such as you should be appreciated.”

She exhaled a long, sensuous breath, as if she could read his mind, feel his touch. His excitement mounted. “Sounds good to me.” Slipping from her stool, she watched him toss a couple of twenties onto the bar before he got off his stool. She nodded at the money. “Pretty free with your money. Are there any more like that?”

His smile broadened. He’d been right. A working woman. Well, he was going to make her work.

“A great many.” He placed one proprietary hand on her shoulder, steering her toward the entrance. “In my hotel room.”

Her smile was inviting, seductive. “Then show me your hotel room.”

Slipping his hand from her shoulder, he took her arm. “That is not all I will show you.”

She leaned into him, laughing, filling his space with the perfume she’d put on only half an hour ago. “I’m counting on it.”

* * *

Damn it, she was here. Intent on finding his quarry, Max had almost missed her. As if a body like that could be overlooked.

What the hell did she think she was doing?

Didn’t she have any idea how dangerous the man was and what could happen to her?

Obviously not, Max thought in disgust.

The woman was a myopic fool.

Making his way out of the bar again, he followed them, keeping a discrete distance behind.

As they walked out of the bar and toward the elevator, Cara planned how and when to make her move. Weber’s room was both the best place and the riskiest. Best because there was no one to get in her way, no one he could use as a shield to make his getaway. And, since the room was on the sixth floor, there was only one way out for Weber. He certainly wasn’t going to leap out the window and suddenly sprout wings. This time, there would be no Dumpster to catch him.

But it was the riskiest place because there would be no witnesses, no one for him to fear if he suddenly turned on her or tried to overpower her.

The operative word here was “tried.”

Which was why she had her gun very strategically planted beneath the slinky white skirt of her dress. She could easily draw it out when the time came.

Cara stole a glance at the man at her side as he jabbed again for the elevator. She’d known what he looked like, had carried around his likeness to hold up in front of people and help jar their memories, but she hadn’t realized just how unnerving he was in person. There was an aura around him. Though it seemed foolish, it felt as if she was in the presence of pure evil.

It wasn’t often that her imagination ran away with her.

The elevator opened. She felt his hand at the small of her back, pushing her forward. They were the only two occupants.

Cara could feel her nerves jumping. As before, she’d managed to track Weber down by the activity on his charge card. When she saw that he’d checked into the Excelsior Hotel in Dallas, she’d felt as if she’d hit pay dirt. Different than the hotels he’d stayed in previously, the Excelsior catered to a whole different breed of people. The man was moving up. Her guess was that Weber had to be feeling pretty cocky about his getaway. Maybe he actually thought he’d lost them.

Pride went before a fall, she thought smugly. Which meant that she couldn’t get too confident or she would be sharing his fate.

Turning toward her, he nuzzled her neck. “How do you like to do it?”

Cara was struggling not to have her skin crawl off her body. “Slowly. All night.”

He ran his hands up and down her bare arms, his breathing becoming audible, heavy. “And what will this night of ecstasy cost me?”

Steady, just a little while longer, she counseled herself. For Weber’s benefit, she smiled seductively. “We’ll talk terms in your room,” she promised.

“Why wait until we’re in my room to get started?” Grabbing her roughly, he pulled her to him, his hand going up her skirt.

Quickly Cara pulled away. When he protested, his temper flaring, she pointed to the small camera mounted in the corner.

“Security cameras,” she told him. “You don’t want some underpaid, pimply-faced adolescent getting his rocks off by watching us, do you?”

He grunted something completely unintelligible under his breath as he fisted his hands at his sides and glared at the camera.

The woman with him was hot and he wanted to take her now, while his loins throbbed.

“Americans,” Weber jeered. “Always watching everything. A nation of voyeurs.”

Thank God for small blessings, she thought. He’d almost slipped his hand over her weapon.

Once they were in his room, Cara knew she was going to have to act fast. There would be no time for slipups and what she had going for her was the element of surprise. The man was thinking so hard with his organ that he hadn’t recognized her. She’d gone through a lot of trouble not to look like herself, but a real professional would have noticed the similarities between the pro he was bringing to his room and the woman who had pounded on his door a short while ago.

Lucky for her, she thought.

Now all she needed was for her luck to hang on a little longer. There were handcuffs in her purse. It might have been safer for her to have placed her weapon in there, too, but she’d wanted to feel the reassuring press of metal against her flesh and had opted to strap her gun to the inside of her leg.

Her quarry brought her to his door, unlocking it. Anticipation rushed through his veins.

“I want you to strip for me.” He locked the door behind her. “Slowly.”

Cara turned around, stepping back coyly out of his reach. “We still haven’t talked terms.”

Pulling out his wallet, he yanked out several large bills, tossing them on the floor between them. “There. Terms. Now do your part.”

It was now or never, she thought. Even if she began to go through the motions to distract him further, dropping her dress would leave her wearing matching bra and panties and a gun that didn’t match either.

As his eyes bored into her, Cara began to slowly hike her skirt up, swishing the material along her legs, knowing that she was going to have to be fast to get the drop on him. She hadn’t gotten to where she was by underestimating the people she was up against.

Her eyes never leaving him, Cara slipped her hand beneath her skirt, her fingers securing the hilt of her gun. She froze when she heard the knock on the door. The sound vibrated in her chest, blending with the hammering of her heart.

Distracted, angry at being interrupted, Weber growled, “Yes?”

“Room service,” a Southern voice twanged.

“Go away. You have the wrong room,” Weber barked. “I did not order anything.”

“No, sir, this is the right room,” the voice insisted. “Compliments of the house. Champagne and a basket of fruit.”

Weber took a step toward the woman whose obedience he’d just bought. “Leave it in the hall.”

“Can’t, sir. I need you to sign that you got it. Otherwise, they’ll think I took it and I’ll lose my job. I’ve got a family to support—”

“Enough!” Weber shouted. Swearing, he swung around and unlocked the door again. He looked at the table that was before the bellman. There was nothing on it. Incensed, he looked up at the tall bellman. “Where is my champagne?”

“Right here.”

The next moment, the table was being shoved into Weber. Caught off guard, Weber stumbled backward and fell.

Cara’s mouth dropped open in surprise. She’d been so busy not underestimating Weber that she’d wound up underestimating his pursuer.

Ryker.

It took her less than a split second to come to. Cara pulled out her weapon, training it on Weber, who was sprawled out on the floor.

“Don’t move a muscle,” she ordered. “Kevin Weber, you’re under arrest by order of the sheriff’s department of the town of Shady Rock, Colorado.”

Max was shrugging out of his bellman’s jacket. There was a gun in one hand and she saw the handcuffs at the back of his belt. “He’s my prisoner, Rivers,” he informed her as he tossed the jacket aside.

She smiled at him serenely, shaking her head. “Uh-uh. I had him first. And possession, Ryker, is still nine-tenths of the law.”

On the floor, Weber looked angrily from the call girl to the bellman. “Who the hell are you people?”

Cara smiled broadly. She really enjoyed saying this line. “Your worst nightmare, Weber.” Gun trained on the man on the floor, her eyes pinning him in place, she asked, “What are you doing here, Ryker?”

He didn’t want her to get away with it, but right now wasn’t the time to challenge her. If they started arguing, Weber or whoever he really was might get away.

“Trying to get back my car and my prisoner,” Max told her.

She could afford to be magnanimous. Up to a point. “The car’s downstairs. Valet parking. Just let me get my stuff out of it and you can have it back.” She spared Ryker one quick glance. She knew her answer wasn’t going to sit well with him. Too bad. She had no intention of giving up custody. “But the prisoner’s mine.”