By Order of the Prince Read online

  As she read the notes her eyes widened once again and when she finished she stared at first Antoine, then at Beth.

  “These need to go to Jake,” she said.

  “Eventually I’ll hand them over to him,” Antoine replied. “But let’s be serious here. The local law officials haven’t exactly proven themselves to be good, upstanding people. Even your own boss was proven to be untrustworthy.”

  Jane’s face flushed and she looked down at the notes she’d spread out on the table. Amos Andrews, Jane’s boss, had not only tried to screw up her investigation into the bombing of the limo, he’d also tried to kill Jane. When he’d been arrested he’d made it clear that he was just a bit player in a larger conspiracy against the visiting royals, hired by somebody he refused to name.

  “So, what exactly is it you want from me?” she asked with a weary sigh.

  “Just a little time,” Antoine replied.

  “How much time?” she asked.

  “Seventy-two hours,” he replied after a moment of hesitation.

  Jane said nothing. She opened the kit and withdrew several brushes and powder compounds in small bottles. As she began her work, Beth couldn’t help but gaze at Antoine again and again.

  He stood rigid and once again she felt the energy wafting from him. And why wouldn’t he be tense? The stakes couldn’t be higher. Somebody wanted him and the other participants in the COIN coalition dead.

  They didn’t know at this time if the people who were behind the conspiracy had already achieved the goal of killing one of them—Amir.

  Antoine slid a glance at her and offered her a small smile that shot a hint of warmth in his cool blue eyes. Beth had always believed the term bedroom eyes meant dark and smoky and slightly mysterious, but she now recognized that bedroom eyes could be the cool blue of a mountain lake.

  “I hope you find a useable fingerprint,” he said, his focus back on Jane. “When I know the identity of the person who wrote those notes, I will make certain he’s never a threat to anyone again.”

  His tone was light and easy, but with a chilling undertone. Yes, he might make a delicious lover, but she had a feeling he’d make an even more formidable enemy.

  IT WAS ALMOST NINE when they finally left the lab after being printed by Jane. She’d managed to pull another print that didn’t belong to either him or Beth and hoped that whoever had left it behind was in the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. If they were lucky she would have a name for them sometime the next day.

  “I’m too wound up to go back to the suite and sleep.” He turned to look at the woman driving the car. He’d been acutely aware of Beth even as he’d tried to focus on what Jane had been doing.

  He knew that to be successful in her position she had to be a strong taskmaster. The resort was known for impeccable guest services and housekeeping. And yet he sensed a softness in Beth that drew the darkness that resided inside him.

  And there was darkness.

  She cast him a quick glance and then returned her gaze to the road. “I’m a little wired myself,” she admitted.

  “Perhaps we could go back to your place, have a cup of coffee and talk about things.”

  He could tell he’d shocked her. “Prince Antoine, my home is small and simple. It’s not exactly fit for a prince,” she replied.

  “A comfortable chair, some hot coffee and a little company is all I’d like. And please, call me Antoine.”

  “Then you can call me Beth. Coffee sounds good and then I’ll be glad to take you back to the resort. My place is only ten minutes from there.”

  “Then it’s settled, coffee at your house.” He leaned back against the seat and stared out the side window into the darkness. You’re a cliché, he thought ruefully. He was a prince who was afraid to trust anyone, with an aching depth of loneliness inside him and the mantle of power weighing heavily, definitely a cliché.

  For the past three weeks Antoine had done nothing but worry and wonder about the attack, about what danger might come from what unexpected source.

  He’d had long dialogues with the other men in the COIN coalition. Prince Stefan Lutece, Sheik Efraim Aziz, Sheik Amir Khalid and Antoine and his brother had all come here in the hopes of trade agreements with the United States that would benefit their small countries and instead had found nothing but treachery, danger and betrayal.

  At the moment Antoine was sick of it all. The resort had become a place of intense stress, of people yammering at him and palpable tension that filled the air the moment he stepped out of his rooms. He was looking forward to a little more time away from the luxurious surroundings.

  Beth turned off the road they had been traveling and onto a narrower road with deep embankments and thick trees on either side. “You drive this every night after dark?” he asked.

  “It’s the only way for me to get home. It’s not too bad as long as you make sure you stay on the road.”

  A small laugh escaped him. “That would be an understatement. I’m sure it gets quite dangerous in the winter.”

  “I call this car my little engine that could.” She tapped the steering wheel with a long slender finger. “Although I have to admit more than once in the winters somebody from the hotel has had to come to get me because I don’t have four-wheel drive.”

  He could tell she was beginning to relax with each minute they spent together. He wanted that. For just a little while he wanted to be treated like an ordinary man and not like a prince.

  “This feels very isolated,” he said as the trees on either side of the road seemed to crawl closer.

  “It is. It’s a pretty big spread but most of it hasn’t been cleared or anything. My grandfather bought the land years ago, long before there was a resort. My father and mother chose to make it their home after my grandparents died and I’ve always lived here. I like the isolation, the beautiful nature that surrounds me when I step outside my front or back door. Is your country beautiful?”

  “White beaches, blue seas, lush flowers…yes, Barajas is very beautiful, but I find Wyoming to be as beautiful, just different.”

  She turned off the road and onto a driveway that led to a small cottage. A light shone from the front porch, a welcome beacon in the darkness that had fallen. Colorful flowers spilled from boxes under the windows. It looked like something from a fairy tale, an enchanted cottage in the middle of the wilderness.

  “It’s not much,” she said with a touch of defensiveness. “But it’s all mine and I love it here.” This time her words held an obvious sense of pride.

  The sense of welcome that the porch light had emitted continued on into the house. As Antoine stepped inside the living room the earthy burnt orange and browns of the décor instantly put him at rest.

  “Please, have a seat.” She gestured him toward the overstuffed sofa. “I’m just going to get out of my uniform. I’ll be right back to start the coffee.”

  She disappeared down the hallway and Antoine sank into the comfortable couch cushion and gazed around the room. Like subtle facial features that could give away internal emotions and weaknesses, he knew a room could speak volumes about the person who lived in it.

  A bookcase stood against one wall, one of the shelves filled with framed photos of Beth with an older woman who appeared to be her mother. The television was small, as if watching it wasn’t a top priority. A paperback lay on the end of the coffee table, the couple’s clinch on the cover letting him know it was a romance novel. A wind chime tinkled a lovely melody from someplace outside the windows.

  A lonely romantic who loved nature, he thought. There was no sign of a man’s presence anywhere in the room. An old record player sat next to a stack of ancient LPs and it was easy for him to imagine her curled on the sofa with a book in hand while old, romantic music filled the house.

  He looked up as she returned to the room, clad in a pair of jeans that looked slightly worn and hugged her long slender legs to perfection. Her mint-green T-shirt fit a little big but not so much that he
didn’t notice the press of her full breasts against the material.

  He suddenly wished he was in a pair of jeans, on the back of a horse with her, her arms wrapped tightly around him as they rode carefree across a pasture. It was a vision that brought the first burst of pleasure he’d felt since arriving in Wyoming.

  “Let’s go into the kitchen and I’ll make the coffee,” she said.

  He followed after her, unable to avoid noticing the way her jeans cupped her shapely buttocks. Why was there no man in her life? A woman like her should have a man to thrill her with his lovemaking and then hold her tight through the darkness of the night.

  The kitchen was a surprise. Large and airy, with a breakfast nook that was surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows, it was obviously the heart of the house. Gourmet copper-bottomed pans hung from a rack above the stove and a variety of cooking-aid machines lined the counters.

  “You like to cook.” He stated the obvious.

  She flashed him a bright smile that warmed him in places he hadn’t realized were cold. “I love to cook. It’s my secret passion.” She pointed him to the round oak table in the nook. “Have a seat. The coffee will be ready in just a minute and I have some leftover red velvet cake to go with it.”

  He sat and enjoyed the view of her bustling to get the coffee brewing. It had been far too long since he’d enjoyed the pleasure of a woman. For weeks before the trip to the resort there had been meeting after meeting to decide what to offer and what they needed from the trade agreements they intended to make. There had been almost no time for any kind of a social life.

  “Hopefully Jane will have something for you tomorrow,” she said as she placed a creamer and sugar bowl on the table. Then went back to the counter and returned with a platter holding a cake that looked as if it had just come out of a bakery.

  “Hopefully,” he replied. “But I don’t want to talk about any of that tonight. Tonight I want to talk about ordinary things, things that don’t set off a burn of anger in my belly. I noticed that you have a lot of pictures of you and your mother in the living room.”

  “Yes. My dad died when I was six and when I was thirteen my mom developed a severe heart condition. Unfortunately she passed away three years ago.”

  “My parents died when I was young.” A long-remembered grief touched Antoine’s heart. He thought about the horrific night of his parents’ deaths often, recognized and never forgot the lesson he’d learned that night.

  “I’m so sorry.” She poured the coffee and carried the cups to the table, then sank down in the chair opposite his. “Was it some kind of an accident?”

  “Actually, they were murdered.” She gasped and he continued, “My father was initially my mother’s bodyguard. He was an American, an ex-mercenary and they fell in love and married. Unfortunately my father had made many enemies in his past and that night those enemies found him and my mother.”

  “So, who raised you and your brother?”

  “My mother’s father, King Omar Zubira.” A whisper of a smile curved his lips as he thought of the stern but loving man who had raised them. “He didn’t approve of my mother’s marriage and never really accepted my father, but he was a loving man to me and Sebastian, although I must admit we sometimes gave him a hard time.”

  “The twin thing?”

  He grinned. “But, of course. Being an identical twin can be quite amusing and Sebastian and I definitely used it to our advantage whenever possible. After grandfather died I was grateful to have Sebastian by my side to share the responsibility of ruling Barajas.”

  “It must be a huge responsibility, to run a nation,” she said as she sliced the cake and shoved a generous piece toward him.

  “Probably no bigger than running the housekeeping staff at a luxury resort,” he replied. “To be truthful Sebastian carries much of the weight. He’s a good man with a knack for politics and he’d do fine without me. But enough about me. What I really want to know is why you don’t have a man in your life. Surely you meet men during the course of your work.”

  He picked up his fork and took a bite of the cake and noticed that her features tightened slightly and a whisper of hurt filled her eyes. It was there only a moment and then gone, but it let him know that at some time in the not so distant past a man had hurt her…hurt her badly.

  “I don’t date hotel guests and besides, I stay busy with my work and I’m not particularly interested in a relationship right now.”

  It was a lie, he could see the deception in her features. “That’s a shame, because you have lips meant for kissing.”

  Her cheeks flushed with a becoming color. “And you’re rather impertinent for a prince.”

  He grinned, enchanted by her. “The last woman who called me impertinent was my mother. I was seven at the time. Now, tell me about your mother.”

  As Beth related moments from her past with her mother, Antoine recognized that Beth was not only beautiful, but loyal to those she loved.

  She told him about having to forgo college to help support herself and her mother, but there was no complaint in her voice, merely a stating of facts.

  He liked that about her. He had no patience for whiners. He and Sebastian hadn’t been allowed to whine after the murder of his parents.

  “So, what did you do before you became one of the rulers of Barajas?” she asked.

  “I was a military man.” He raised his coffee cup to take a drink, hoping a sip of coffee would wash away the sour taste that always sprang to his mouth when he thought of the things he’d done for the sake of his country.

  “And you? When you were young did you dream of being a ballerina? Or perhaps a princess?” he asked.

  She laughed. It was a pleasant sound that wrapped around his heart and momentarily held him captive. “Not at all. I have two left feet and I always wanted to raise horses so I dreamed of wearing chaps and a vest rather than a princess’s tiara.”

  He had a sudden vision of her naked except for her long legs encased in a pair of leather chaps and her full breasts spilling out of a tiny vest. Hot blood welled in the pit of his stomach, spreading warmth directly to his groin.

  He shifted uncomfortably against the wooden chair and reminded himself that he was here with her because he wanted to use her knowledge of the locals to further his investigation, not because he wanted to take her to bed and teach her everything he knew about sexual pleasure.

  “You know horses?” he asked.

  “I started riding at the resort stables when I was little and worked the stables until I got the job in housekeeping,” she explained.

  “You have enough land to raise horses. Why haven’t you already done it?”

  “It took me until six months ago to pay off the last of the medical bills that my mother had accrued. I’m hoping to realize my horse dream in about five years. It’s almost midnight,” she said with a glance at the clock on the wall. “I should get you back to the resort. I have to be back at work around six-thirty in the morning.”

  He leaned back in the chair and smiled. “I’ve already made up my mind. I’ll stay here with you for the night.”

  Chapter Three

  Beth stared at him in horror. The idea of this man, this prince, sleeping beneath her roof horrified her. As it was, the whole afternoon and evening had taken on the surreal aspect of some kind of weird dream.

  “I don’t want you traveling back and forth from the resort this late at night alone,” he said. “The road that leads here is too narrow, too dangerous to drive in the darkness.”

  A nerve throbbed in the side of her neck, a nerve that always acted up when she felt anxious. “But the spare bedroom doesn’t even have a bed in it. I’ve been using it as a home office.”

  “The sofa looked nice and comfortable. All I need is a pillow and blanket and I’ll be fine. I’ll call Sheik Efraim and let him know I’m with you in case a problem arises.” He pushed back his chair and stood as if the matter had been decided.

  It was
a half an hour later when Beth closed the door to her bedroom and sat on the edge of her bed. What a night. She still couldn’t believe that a prince was now on her sofa sleeping beneath one of the patchwork quilts her mother had made years ago.

  She changed into her nightshirt and went into the adjoining bathroom to wash her face before going to bed. Initially when the royals had first arrived at the hotel all she’d been focused on was the extra work their presence might make for her staff. She hadn’t really thought about them as being men, just ordinary men with the weight of power on their shoulders.

  And now she couldn’t stop thinking about Antoine being a man—a very hot, take-your-breath-away kind of man. But even though he looked at her with a bit of hunger in his eyes, she wasn’t about to fall prey to ridiculous fantasies about life with Antoine or any other man.

  She certainly wasn’t about to become an American dalliance for him. She could just see the headlines—The Prince and the Chambermaid. She couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped her at the very idea.

  Her feet were firmly planted in reality, had been since she’d been young. With her mother’s illness there had been little time for fantasies.

  There had only been one time when she’d allowed herself to fall into a romantic fantasy and the result had been an ugly mess.

  There was no way she intended to fall into Antoine’s bedroom eyes. He was here only until he solved the mystery of his friend Amir’s disappearance from the bomb site. Once he’d accomplished his goals here he’d be gone.

  She got into bed and as always fought against a well of loneliness that had been with her for the past year. She was twenty-nine years old, longed for love and a family, but the next time around she intended to be smart, to be wary. She’d make sure the man she gave her heart to deserved the gift.

  She’d expected to have trouble falling asleep, but the moment her head touched the pillow sleep claimed her. She was instantly plunged into an erotic dream.