Читать онлайн книгу «Stranded with the Prince» автора Dana Marton
Stranded with the Prince
Dana Marton
Experience the thrill of life on the edge and set your adrenalin pumping! These gripping stories see heroic characters fight for survival and find love in the face of danger.One royal bachelor, one meddlesome matchmaker…can they survive the toughest night of their lives together?Prince Lazlo knew he’d been tricked when he got stranded on a remote island with a nosy “marriage consultant” who’d been hired to find him the perfect princess bride. And the worst part was, she was the one woman who’d ever refused him, claiming she never fell for a client.But the squabbling stopped once Lazlo realised they weren’t alone, and in order to elude the desperate killers stalking them, they’d have to work together. Lazlo also discovered that, out of her element, Milda lets her hair – and her guard – down. Now if only she’d break her number one matchmaking rule…
A drop of wild honey still glistened on her lips.
Nobody was more surprised than he when he leaned in.
He barely brushed his lips across hers, but he felt the impact all the way to his toes.
For a moment so brief that he might have imagined it, she went with the flow. Then she was pushing against him. He pulled away, searching her stunned face, trying to gather his scattered thoughts.
And with the symbolic distance between them, whatever craziness had possessed him disappeared. He didn’t know where it had come from, but he did know one thing for sure: under no circumstances would he ever touch this woman again. She was nothing but trouble.
“We shouldn’t be doing this. You are—” She paused. “I am—” She made a soft noise of frustration. “We can’t do this again.”
His gaze strayed to those ruby lips that were pressed into a severe, angry line. Then, instead of agreeing, he flashed the woman his most wicked grin and said, “I think we’re definitely going to do this again.”
About the Author
DANA MARTON is the author of more than a dozen fast-paced, action-adventure romantic suspense novels and a winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antiques shops and enjoys working in her sizable flower garden where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. Every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at DanaMarton@DanaMarton.com.
With many thanks to Allison Lyons
STRANDED
WITH THE PRINCE
DANA MARTON
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Chapter One
Sagro Prison island, Italy
Boots slapped on the concrete floor, keeping a regular rhythm. The night security lights were on, enough to see the guard who was texting on his phone as he strode out of sight, a sly grin on his pockmarked face. A minute went by, then another. The steel door opened then closed at the end of the cell block.
The 2:00 a.m. check was complete. Nobody would be by again until morning.
Roberto, fully dressed, slid out of bed, making no more noise than his shadow as it moved across the floor. He laid his pillow lengthwise on the bare mattress then draped the bed with his blanket, creating a bulky form.
His sheets had been ripped, twisted into rope and wrapped around his waist before he’d gone to bed. Now he bent and squatted one more time to make sure the cumbersome arrangement wouldn’t limit his movement. He adjusted a tight strip under his left armpit before he stole to the door and pressed the top part of the lock hard.
Click. The sound was so soft even he barely heard it.
José had fixed the locks. The oldest of the team, José had been a locksmith before a drive-by took out his family in the godforsaken backstreets of Bogotá. With nothing to live for, he’d signed up for the rival gang. José understood revenge.
So did Roberto. It pushed him forward as he stole down the hallway, moving fast in a crouch. He listened to the snoring of the other inmates. A bed creaked now and then as someone turned over in his sleep. He listened for any indication that someone noticed him, not trusting—despite substantial bribes and dire threats—that they wouldn’t betray him and sound the alarm.
José was waiting for him at the water block, along with Marco, the third member of the team.
“Any trouble?” Roberto kept his voice to a low whisper.
Marco shook his head. He was young and sullen, still not over the fact that they’d been imprisoned. That here, on the other side of the ocean, the boss couldn’t protect them. He was ready to go, but didn’t think it fair that they had to orchestrate the escape themselves. He’d griped and whined through the preparations. Which better stop right now, right here. Roberto flashed him a sharp look that warned him to be on his best behavior.
The young thugs coming out of the slums these days were too hotheaded, only after the glory, and rarely willing to put enough effort into a job to get it done right. They wanted the fastest car and the biggest gun, wanted to build reputations overnight, which led to too much senseless killing.
“All’s according to plan,” José was saying.
Exactly what Roberto wanted to hear. His sticker, a spoon handle sharpened into a knife, waited stashed inside a showerhead. He retrieved the makeshift tool then went to work on removing a wall panel.
A hundred years ago, Sagro Prison had been the hunting castle of some Italian king. When they’d rebuilt it into a prison in the fifties, they changed just about everything. Security had been upgraded several times since, but the prison’s waste and sewer system still connected to the old castle’s cistern.
All Roberto and his men had had to do over the endless months that they’d been locked up here was dig through the wall. The cistern’s ducts, carved from stone, were plenty wide to accommodate a man.
José squeezed in first, then Marco, Roberto going last, pulling the wall panel into place behind him. By morning they’d be free men. His to-do list was simple: get food, finish the boss’s business in Trieste, then get the hell out of Italy.
But he wouldn’t go back to Bogotá, not straightaway. He had personal business in the area which he meant to see handled. He was going to Valtria, the small kingdom to the north, to gain retribution for his brother’s death.
An eye for an eye, a life for a life. He might have been too old-school to condone all the senseless killing the new gangs did these days, but revenge was part of a man’s honor. And he did believe in that. He certainly did.
Island of Morka, Nature Preserve, Valtria
SHE WAS THE SCOURGE of his life, a relentless thorn under his royal skin. Prince Lazlo of Valtria watched Milda Milas bear down on him and knew what it felt like to be hunted.
A professional matchmaker from New York. He loved his mother as much as all his brothers did, but the Queen had gone too far this time. One of her ladies-in-waiting had a cousin in New York who’d been Milda’s client. Apparently, a recommendation had been made. He didn’t like the idea of his mother discussing his personal life with her ladies-in-waiting. Shouldn’t they have been talking about the royal gardens or copying antique tapestries and the like when they retired to the Queen’s private quarters?
Despite the calming, balmy breeze that streamed from the endless azure water, Lazlo’s sense of peace was fast disappearing. He’d been looking forward to spending the day away from the palace, away from Milda’s harping. He should have known she wouldn’t let a perfectly good day go by without doing her best to ruin it. A dull throb started up in the knee he’d once injured in a crash. Maybe his subconscious was beginning to associate her with pain.
“And there I was, thinking I could hide from you here,” he said when she reached him.
He liked the island of Morka, fifty miles off the Italian coast, an inhabited chunk of land in the Mediterranean Sea, owned by the Valtrian royal family and set up as a nature preserve. With its wild olive and orange groves, the place was a veritable paradise—but for Milda Milas’s unfortunate presence.
“Your Highness.” She stopped in front of him with that ra-ra-hurra look that hardly left her face whenever she dealt with him. She seemed to think that if she smiled wide enough and pretended that what she was doing to him was normal—wonderful, even—somehow he could be tricked into agreeing with her.
“I don’t know how you got here. Never mind that.” He reconsidered and cut to the point. “You should leave,” he told her firmly. “I’m not playing your games today. I’ve made other plans.”
Since the top of her head only came up to his shoulders, she usually rose to the tips of her toes when she wanted to browbeat him into yet another one of her crazy plans. She was stretching up so hard at the moment that she looked like a ballet dancer. The wind whipped her long, reddish-brown hair around her slim face. Her eyes, the exact dusky blue of his first race car, narrowed as she dropped the smile, recognizing smartly that it wasn’t going to work today.
“You should face your responsibilities, Your Highness. Don’t you think all this endless evasion is childish?”
She had his gander up in thirty seconds flat. A new record. She knew she was annoying him, but she didn’t care. She had the Queen’s protection. She’d been given free reign, God help him.
“I’m childish?” He drew up an eyebrow slowly, regally, and regarded her with a chilly expression he’d learned early on in life from his mother. “You torture me for money. What does that make you?”
She dropped back on her heels and stuck her chin out, her eyes and lips narrowing. “To be honest, I’d torture you for free. If that makes you feel better.”
He was taken aback for a moment. He was used to more respect as a prince. Although not from her, admittedly.
“You know what I think?” she asked with a smirk, losing the last of her polite veneer.
He allowed a subtle sneer. “A better question is, mademoiselle, do I care?”
“I think you’re afraid that you couldn’t hold an intelligent woman’s attention over the long term. That’s why you engage only in nightlong, scandalous affairs with those twits.” Her tone turned to lecturing. “Your conduct is embarrassing the monarchy and the Queen. You were caught on tape in a compromising situation, for love’s sake.” She rolled her dusky blue eyes in a way that told him exactly what she thought of that.
Not that until now he’d been forced to guess. She had expressed her opinion a number of times since the unfortunate incident.
He tried to put this latest scandal out of his mind. No chance of that with her around. She was going to lecture him on his duties as a prince? His blood pressure inched up. He drew a long, slow breath.
“You know what I think?” he asked, and kept going, without giving her a chance to pipe up. “I think American kamikaze nuptial consultants should stay in their own country.”
He was pleased with himself for resisting the urge to raise his voice. He was not going to lose control because of her. He was a prince. He was certainly up to the challenge of ignoring a troublesome matchmaker. “Where are my brothers?”
He was supposed to be on the island with them, and only them, on a day hike. Miklos’s idea. Since the failed rebel attacks of the past two years, the six royal brothers hardly got to spend time together anymore. If he didn’t like Miklos’s and Benedek’s wives so much, he would have blamed it on them, but Princess Judi and Princess Rayne were too lovely to fault for anything. He couldn’t truly blame his brothers for not wanting to leave home, even if he never understood what had possessed them to rush into marriage.
Single life suited him just fine. Being a prince, he already had more expectations and regulations, more rules governing his every move than he cared to think about. Marriage would have been just another prison.
Which Milda refused to understand.
“Your brothers aren’t coming.” Her slim fingers worried the colorful bead bracelet on her left wrist.
Why couldn’t they just call, instead of sending a message with her, of all people, when—Lazlo froze, a terrible premonition holding him speechless for a moment before he could ask, “This is another one of your traps, isn’t it?”
So help him God—
“You’ll be going hiking with the Lady Lidia, the Lady Szilvia and the Lady Adel.” Her “this will be fun, you’ll see” smile returned.
He swore in a way that should have been beneath him as a prince. “My brothers helped you set me up?” A new low. Incomprehensible, really. The sense of betrayal was overwhelming.
And her guilty look confirmed everything.
His brothers probably thought it was a grand joke. “I’m going to murder them,” he muttered.
History was full of princes who killed their own brothers to get closer to the throne. He didn’t care about the throne. But he might be driven to murder by Milda Milas yet. Except, then centuries from now historians would speculate that maybe he’d been secretly in love with her, and the act had been motivated by jealousy or some such nonsense. That would be intolerable. She was already messing up his life; he wasn’t going to let her sully his legacy.
“How dare you?” He stepped toward her, ready to take her to task, but caught sight of a sizable pile of duffel bags farther up the beach. He’d thought them a pile of rocks earlier, with the sun in his eyes, but now that a small cloud blocked some of the brilliant rays, he could see that he’d been mistaken. “What is that?”
They couldn’t have needed all that equipment for one day. His own guards were in the process of unloading his speedboat, removing the two boxes that contained the food and drink he and his brothers would have needed until they returned to the palace this evening.
“A two-week hike?” she squeaked, cleared her throat, went back up on her tiptoes then said again, in a deeper tone of self-confidence she must have practiced in the mirror, “A two-week hike with the ladies.” Her damned smile was in full bloom.
He glanced around but didn’t see any desperate women ready to drag him to the altar. Excellent. He had plenty of time to run for the boat. “Have you lost your mind?”
She drew her slim shoulders up, looking like some sort of exotic bird taking up defensive position. Or getting ready to attack. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was about to be pecked to death.
“The ladies went to see the Painted Rocks. They should be back shortly. You need to spend time with intelligent, self-sufficient women, and stay away from your empty-headed beauties for a few days,” she stated.
So she admitted that the three ladies in question weren’t beauties. Not that he could bring that up without proving himself to be shallow—of which she accused him endlessly.
The impatient growl that escaped him didn’t seem to alarm her in the least. “Once you calm down, Your Highness, you’ll see this was a good idea.” She didn’t back away. She never backed down from him, one of her many annoying qualities. “By tonight, I promise you’ll feel a lot better about all this.”
The only thing that would have made him feel better would have been tossing her into the sea. Sadly, being a prince, he’d been raised better than to threaten bodily harm to a woman. Not even a woman who was dead set on ruining his life.
She wasn’t going to quit until she saw him married. She was the type to see that the job got done. No matter what. In anyone else, he could have appreciated the drive. He could appreciate little in her. They’d been doing battle for months now.
A wave of weariness hit him. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Her gaze never wavered. “For one, as you pointed out, I get paid for it.”
“I could pay you more to go away.”
“I would never break my contract. You should be grateful. I’m here to help you. The Queen gave you six months to announce that you’ve chosen a bride. She wants to see you settled down. You must end the scandals.”
“I still have another month.” In fact, he’d been counting on that last month of freedom rather desperately.
“Exactly.”
“Two weeks on this blasted island would waste half. Absolutely not. When that boat leaves in a few minutes, I’m leaving with it.”
“And the ladies? Common courtesy—”
“If you want to stay with the ladies, be my guest.
Have a pajama party.” He ignored the intriguing picture that flashed into his mind and focused on her clenched jaw instead.
But the next moment she was forcing a smile again. He hated how cheerful she always was while she tortured him.
“Two weeks in this beautiful place is exactly what you need.” She sounded like she actually believed it. “By the time we come back for you, you will have made your choice. The Queen and the country will be happy.”
“Dare I ask, what about me?”
“Try to give these women a chance. Maybe you’ll fall in love with one of them.” Her eyes brightened at the mention of the L word.
“In two weeks?” Was she for real? Sadly, she was. She had an unshakable, deep-seated belief in romance that annoyed the hell out of him. He gave her his most discouraging expression, the one he normally reserved for ambushing paparazzi.
But her eyebrows stayed up, the corners of her lips tugged into that fake encouraging smile, her gaze steady on him. “Stranger things have happened.”
A lot of strange things had happened to him lately, his mother hiring the pushiest woman in the world to force him to wed being one of them. But the chances of him falling in love were slim to none. For that to happen, he would have to believe in love to begin with.
There was no point in further bickering with her. They were too different. They’d never understand each other. He glanced at the boat, ready to go, and realized that the two guards had disappeared, leaving the boxes of food on the bluff above the tide line. “Where did Ben and Vince go? ”
She worried her bead bracelet again for a brief, unguarded moment before she responded. “They’ll guard the island’s perimeter. They’ll be in radio contact with each other, but not with you. I can’t risk you bullying them with some fake emergency into coming to pick you up.”
The woman boggled his mind. She was beyond all belief. “Good plan.” He couldn’t help a sneer. “And what would have happened if there’d been an emergency?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” she said, apparently still thinking that she could make him stay.
He glanced toward his jacket, draped over the side of the boat, his cell phone in the pocket. He needed to pay closer attention to her. She wasn’t to be underestimated. With some luck, she could have stranded him. The thought was disturbing.
He needed to make her see reason and quit this sordid business. “You really expected me to spend two weeks in the bush with a bunch of wilting lilies? I’m a racer, not a camper. And I bet your ladies haven’t seen more nature than what can be found at the palace gardens. What, exactly, did you think we would be doing out here? ”
She put that pert nose of hers into the air and flashed him a smug look. “Lady Lidia is an herbalist, Lady Szilvia is a survival specialist and Lady Adel is a doctor at your favorite ski resort.”
He sure didn’t remember her. Which must have meant she wasn’t a looker. Then again, he preferred to sustain his injuries at the racetrack, so maybe he hadn’t been visited by the resort’s doctor in the past.
“I’m to attend a race tomorrow evening.” It was to be the first time one of his cars was running with a modified engine, a major invention he needed to see in action. He needed to make manufacturing decisions based on tomorrow’s race. She was interfering with his business.
“Prince Lazlo—”
“Enough.” He was out of patience with her and her meddling. She’d been relentlessly after him for the past five months, since the Queen and Chancellor Egon had sicced her on him. “So you decided to parade the country cows.” He practically growled the words. “You need to understand, Milda, that I’m not some prize bull you can lead into the pasture for breeding.”
“Prince Laz—”
“No.” He raised a hand, palm out. “I don’t care what these women want from me—title, money or their children in the line of succession. They need to find another way of getting it. So you collected a homely bunch of ambitious—” he swallowed the word that a prince wouldn’t utter “—ladies. Read my lips. I don’t want any of them.” He pushed by her to stride toward the boat.
“Prince Lazlo!”
“Goodbye, Milda.”
But something in her voice as she called his name again stopped him. He turned to give her a piece of his mind, in case she still harbored some doubts regarding how he felt about the evil job she’d been hired to do.
And he saw the three ladies.
They had come out of the wild olive grove. From the look on their faces, they’d been standing within hearing range when he’d made that country cow comment. Blast it, he thought.
By God, he was tired of this. He liked the chase between the sexes, another sport to him. But, call him old-fashioned, he liked to be the one to do the chasing. He inclined his head, his jaw so tight he could barely push out the single word. “Ladies.”
They looked vaguely familiar—and were pretty, to be fair—but he couldn’t place them. No big surprise there. He’d run into a lot of women over the years.
“Your Highness.” They curtsied, but if looks could kill …
Which was surprising. The women he regularly saw at court were more of the simpering kind—lots of eyelash batting and that sort of thing. He hated simpering. But maybe these three were different. Maybe Milda had done her homework.
He still didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be forced into marriage.
What a crazy, absolutely insane idea this has been—him on a deserted island with three proper young ladies. Ridiculous, really. For two weeks!
He gave them an apologetic smile he had to force. They’d been inconvenienced as much as he had. “I’m sorry you’ve been misled. Why don’t you wait in the boat? I’ll take you back to the mainland in a minute.”
The boat could only seat four. Which meant Milda and the two bodyguards would have to wait until someone returned for them. Now there was a happy thought. With some luck, the pickup would take a long time. For a moment, he even toyed with the thought of not sending his boat back. Two weeks of freedom without her hounding him …The idea held considerable merit.
“See what you’ve done?” he asked, once the ladies were out of earshot, as they marched toward the boat. Obedient they were, he couldn’t help noticing. After dealing with Milda for the past five challenging months, he was beginning to appreciate obedience more and more in a woman. “You managed to further damage my reputation. You should quit and go home to New York. You’re a PR liability.”
No evidence of her infamous smile now. Her face was turning red. Her delicate nostrils flared. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke coming out of her dainty ears.
“I damaged your reputation?” She put her hands on her slim hips. The movement stretched her shirt over her breasts. They were one of her very best features, made the endless hours she spent lecturing him bearable. “I damaged your reputation?” She was sputtering.
“You can think of ways to make it up to me while you wait for someone to come for you.” He smirked as he stepped away from her, ready to saunter across the beach.
“I’m fighting for my business,” she warned him. “My livelihood and my heritage. I will not give up. I will not give in.”
“And I’m fighting for my freedom. Something I most cherish,” he told her …and heard the motor start.
He spun around in time to see the boat pull away, steered by Lady Adel.
“Wait!” Sand flew up around him as he broke into a sprint. His busted knee slowed him. And the boat was too far, pulling away rapidly.
They couldn’t leave him, dammit. Not here, not with Milda. “Wait!” He dashed into the surf after them to no avail. But he refused to give up. He swam like he never swam before. Like his life depended on it.
One of the ladies gave him a smug little wave.
The distance between them was growing.
And growing.
His lungs burned from the effort he put into propelling his body through the water. Then he stopped completely, at last accepting the unacceptable. He swore an unprincely streak and let himself sink for a moment, let the waves wash over his head before he pushed up to the surface again. He treaded water for another few seconds, too stunned to think. Then, as outrage took over, he turned to swim for the shore.
He strode back onto dry land, fuming and dripping. “You!” He bore down on the woman of his nightmares. “Get on your cell phone and get another boat out here.”
Her stricken look stopped him. They were practically nose to nose anyway, only inches separating them from each other. Her big blue eyes went impossibly wide. She smelled like spring, the perfume the Queen’s own parfumerie had created for her, a scent that lately haunted him, even in his sleep.
“I want another boat. Pronto. As in yesterday.” He barked the words at her.
She was very quiet all of a sudden.
He didn’t have the patience for this. “Speak.”
“My organizer fell into the water on the way here with the ladies.” She winced. “I’m a bad swimmer. I always get nervous around water. I should have—”
“I don’t care about your organizer.” The damn thing was her ever-present companion. Her nefarious plans for his life were no doubt in it. He’d been so disconcerted by her sudden appearance on the island that he hadn’t even noticed it was missing. “Good riddance.”
“My cell phone was tucked in the front.”
He walked away from her before he said something he regretted. But called back, after a moment, “Will the guards be checking on us?”
“No.” Her voice was small. A first. “They’re supposed to avoid contact at all costs. They’re to stay out of sight at all times. They won’t be following you or anything. We, um, wanted to give you and the ladies privacy. The guards are only here to prevent the paparazzi from getting on the island if they get wind of your trip. For all intents and purposes, we’re alone on an uninhabited island. That’s the feel I was going for to foster a certain sense of …”
He glared, daring her to say the word “romance.” That and true love were her favorite things. He’d tried to tell her in vain that there came a time when a grown woman should stop believing in fairy tales.
She closed her mouth without finishing the sentence, but she didn’t fool him. She was hopeless. He turned from her again, to survey the shore. There had to be a way off…. He thought of something suddenly. She was very methodical about ruining his life. She was definitely the type to plan for contingencies.
He turned back to her. “What was the emergency plan? If I broke an arm, how would I have called for help?” He was a royal person. There was always a backup plan for unforeseen contingencies.
She was studying her feet, her sandals half sunk into the soft sand. “The Lady Adel had an emergency radio in her medical bag,” she muttered.
“The red bag on her shoulder?” He distinctly remembered the bag. It was the one the doctor walked to the boat with.
Milda nodded weakly. “They’ll send someone back for us as soon as they land.” She looked after them, biting her bottom lip. The women and his speedboat were a dot over endless blue waves. “We’ll be back at the palace before nightfall, I’m sure.”
He wouldn’t bet on it. “So basically, we could be stranded here for two whole weeks.”
She still avoided his gaze. “I wanted to give you sufficient time to get comfortable with each other. I wanted to give the ladies enough time for their true colors to start showing. I only meant the best for you. For everybody.”
A minute or so passed in uncomfortable silence, as they both contemplated the absurdity of the situation.
Then she finally looked him in the eye. “Have you camped before?”
He shook his head. “You?”
Her face looked pinched. “I have a demanding business that I run all by myself. I don’t usually leave the city.”
ROBERTO PUT ONE HAND above the other as he climbed the guard tower soundlessly. Below him, Sagro Prison was clouded in darkness, the island quiet. He gripped his sole weapon, the sharpened handle of a spoon, between his teeth. When he reached the top, he vaulted over and cut the guard’s throat before the man could raise the alarm.
Had to be done.
There was no way around it. He lowered the body to the wooden boards, wiped the warm blood off his fingers and took the rifle, waited.
No siren sounded. He hadn’t been detected. The small Italian prison island was well guarded, but it was no high-security facility.
He lowered himself to the ground where José and Marco crouched in the shadows. He was the boss of the small team, though they were all hired hands, working for a new Colombian drug lord who was trying to break into the European market via Italy, among other places. Except that they’d been caught on this trip.
But he wouldn’t rot in a dank cell, he thought as they crawled their way to the fence where the hole they’d painstakingly prepared and covered awaited. He wouldn’t end up like his brother, Miguel, trapped in a Valtrian prison, then knifed by some local hotshot, dead two weeks before his release.
The drug lord they both worked for was trying to wiggle his way into the European market at multiple points of entry. Roberto had a cousin with a small team in Romania. He wondered how the bastard was faring. Hopefully better than this.
He was the first to reach the unfinished tunnel and head into the darkness. What little they’d left for tonight could be done in an hour. He dug with the flat rock they’d used to get this far, sweated, swore, but never stopped working. When at long last he’d reached the opening, only just clearing the fence, he tossed the stone aside then brushed the dirt from his eyes.
“Hurry,” he said, speaking for the first time. This far out, nobody should be able to hear them.
He came up into a crouch, suddenly dizzy from hunger. All three of them were starving. Over the past few weeks, they’d had to bribe too many inmates with food to get what they needed for the escape. They could have just as easily beaten the bastards into obedience, but fights drew the guards’ attention, and their small team needed to fly below the radar. They had to remain invisible. Then and now.
“Keep low to the ground,” he said as they crossed the narrow slice of flat plateau. Then they unraveled their makeshift ropes, tied them together and lowered themselves down the rock face.
Roberto reached the beach first. When they were all down, they gathered as much driftwood as they could find, then they used the ropes to tie a raft together. Marco was the fastest with the knots, the son of a fisherman, pulling his weight for the first time. They swam out beyond the breakers before climbing on, then paddled with their shoes as best they could—which wasn’t easy at all, as the waves were getting angry.
Real paddles would have helped, but they’d had no place to steal them from and no time to make them. Using their shoes required too much effort for too little result. The three were weak and exhausted, but they would work until their last breath.
They’d all sworn not to go back behind bars. They would either escape today or die trying.
“Get your ass moving.” Roberto snarled at Marco when he slowed. The other apparently thought that having worked on the raft, he was now entitled to a break.
José shook his head and spit into the waves.
Marco got back to the paddling sullenly.
More trouble than he was worth. But they weren’t out of danger yet. Roberto still needed him.
They needed to take the current to the mainland, land in an out-of-the-way spot and disappear deep into the country by morning, when their breakout would be discovered and law enforcement would start their coastal search.
But a storm was coming in and the waves didn’t cooperate. The current seemed to be changing, taking them in another direction entirely.
Chapter Two
In hindsight, they shouldn’t have wasted so much of the daylight on fighting.
Milda wrestled with the tent she’d dragged into the olive grove. She could see Prince Lazlo’s outline a few hundred yards from her. She hadn’t gone too far—was kind of scared of the darkness of the grove, the trees throwing shadows in the moonlight. The island was a nature preserve. Which meant wild animals for sure. She didn’t want to think about that.
“I don’t think that’s how it goes,” the prince called across the distance that separated them. He hadn’t bothered bringing the second tent up from the beach.
“I got it,” she answered over her shoulder. Don’t come over. Please, don’t come over.
If he helped her set up her tent, he would probably expect to sleep in it. With her. She couldn’t handle that.
She glanced toward him. He rested—probably thinking dark, murderous thoughts about her—sitting up, his back against a tree, his shoulders outlined in the dim light. His body was lithe and powerful. He wasn’t her favorite person in the world, but even she had to admit that he was incredibly handsome, with that debonair, devil-may-care attitude.
And beyond his good looks, he was intelligent as well. And a prince. At first, she’d been foolish enough to think that marrying him off would be easy. He’d certainly taught her better since.
She couldn’t pin the man down, not for a second. Like seawater through a fishnet, he ran through her fingers over and over again. He could have made it all work. He had incredible focus when he chose. He owned one of the best speed car factories in Europe, built it himself from nothing but a dream. When he wanted something, he applied himself to the task until he achieved his goal. He could have made her job easy. Instead, he was doing the opposite. He didn’t want anything to do with the Queen’s plans, so he resisted Milda at every step.
Like the damn tent was doing at the moment.
She was going to figure this out. She gathered her last reserves and fitted the poles together at last. And felt triumphant.
Until she tried to get the structure in through the tent’s door. She struggled for at least five minutes before she figured out it wasn’t going to work this way. The poles were probably supposed to be snapped into place inside the tent. She stifled a groan and took it all apart.
“Need help?”
“Almost done. I’ll be ready in a minute.” She looked up to make sure he wasn’t coming over.
But he was still sitting by the tree, his aristocratic profile outlined by the last of the light—a strong chin, straight nose and lips that looked as if they were carved from granite. Aside from the occasional debauchery—or even with that—he could have been one of those heroes of ancient Rome. She could definitely see him at the chariot races. She’d seen him at a modern racetrack, behind the wheel.
He was mesmerizing, had charisma in spades. No wonder women fell at his feet left and right. He certainly spent more time with them than pondering the duties of royalty. To the point that the media had taken to calling him The Rebel Prince. She filled her lungs with the salty sea air and turned away from him, giving the impertinent tent her full attention once again.
“I can’t believe the women didn’t send the boat back,” she said after another five minutes of struggle.
“You know, the blonde looked familiar. I think I might have dated her in the past.”
“You dated all three of them. With time being so tight, I wanted to go for certainty. A shortcut, you know? If you were attracted to them once, you could be attracted to them again.”
Silence was the only answer.
“Right?” she asked, then immediately hated that she was second-guessing herself because of him. He was terrible for her self-confidence.
“'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.'” He quoted William Congreve. “Better settle in for the full two weeks.”
“They couldn’t have been that mad at you. They agreed to another try.”
“Could be they planned to kill me in the wilderness,” he remarked dryly.
“What on earth have you done to them? No, never mind.” The fact that he didn’t even remember that he’d dated them gave her a clue. Plus his tirade on the beach that the ladies had overheard. She’d never dated him, and even she was about ready to strangle him and leave him in the wilderness for the vultures or whatever.
So maybe the ladies were somewhat justified in their fury. But leaving her stranded here with the prince was completely uncalled for. What harm had she done to anyone? She was doing the best she could, with everyone’s best interests at heart. She was beginning to feel decidedly underappreciated. The least of her problems, all considered, when her whole world was threatening to come right down around her ears.
She was the last link in a long line of matchmakers. And the business hadn’t been doing well for the past couple of years. If she failed, the family tradition would end with her. Her grandmother was probably rolling in her grave.
Poles miraculously snapping into place and holding the tent up from the inside at last distracted her from any further thoughts on what a disappointment she was turning out to be, compared to her more talented ancestors. The tent was standing. So there. That was something. She pulled herself straight proudly, grinning into the darkness. But then she tripped over the blanket she’d already tossed into the tent, not wanting it to get dirty or bugs to crawl inside, and fell with her full weight against one of the poles and the whole thing came apart all over again.
She could have howled with frustration. She didn’t. She’d be damned if she’d lose control within hearing distance of the prince.
“Everything okay in there?” His voice dripped with mockery.
She climbed out on her hands and knees, the definition of undignified, stood and brushed herself off. “I decided to take it down. The air is too stifling in there.”
The breeze coming off the ocean was balmy. She simply adjusted the waterproof material on the ground so the collapsed poles wouldn’t be sticking her in the ribs, then lay down at last. There. She was perfectly content. Who needed the tent?
She was blissfully comfortable for five full minutes. Except maybe her neck. She adjusted a wadded-up blanket under her head just as a fat raindrop fell on her face. Wind ruffled her hair. Another raindrop followed.
She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment. She was not going to be defeated. She got up and tried to unfold the tent, to get in the middle somehow, sandwiched between protective layers. But the rain picked up long before she finished. And by the time she was settled horizontally again, she realized she was lying in mud. She cursed the prince under her breath.
She was so not supposed to be here.
He was supposed to be snug in his tent, with three intelligent, great women, each with the pedigree and temperament to become a fantastic princess. Why couldn’t he have just gone with that plan? What did he have to complain about?
“It’s raining,” he said from a few feet away, his rich baritone startling her.
She hadn’t noticed him coming closer. “Cry me a river,” she muttered through clenched teeth. Or not. They seemed to have more than enough water already. She pulled her head into her cocoon. She’d been about to get out of the mud, but she would pretend that everything was well if it killed her.
“The water running down the hillside will be heading this way,” he observed with perfect aristocratic nonchalance.
Maybe it would wash him away. That could be another solution to the problem. He couldn’t very well embarrass the monarchy any more if he disappeared, could he?
But the water would wash her away, too, if she stayed like this. She crawled out and was soaked to the skin the next second. “You know how to set this thing up?” She gestured toward the tent. If they had it anchored to the ground, maybe the water would run around them. The canvas was waterproof.
“Forget it.” He grabbed the muddy, dripping tent, tossed it over his shoulder and headed inland. His slight limp did nothing to detract from his powerful appearance.
She reluctantly followed him, carrying her soggy blanket. With the cloud cover thick now, and the rain coming down hard, she could see little, even with the flashlight. Once she thought she caught a moving shadow up ahead, but by the time she looked closer, it disappeared. Maybe one of the guards. Their gear and supplies had been dropped off on the other side of the island earlier. They’d probably gotten their tents up around the perimeter in time for the rain. Lucky them.
“Hello!” she called out. “We need help. We’re here.”
She waited, but no response came. Maybe they couldn’t hear her. Or she’d only seen a bush moving in the wind.
Should have looked for the men this afternoon, instead of waiting for a boat by the beach and fighting, she thought as she pushed ahead, mud squishing in the front of her sandals and leaking out the back.
An hour of miserable marching got them to a rocky cliff wall. The famous Painted Rocks, not that she could make out any of the images in the rain and the dark. Soon blind luck brought them to an overhang that shielded them from most of the rain—if they sat far back in the rock’s crevice and very close to each other.
He positioned the rolled-up tent in front of them to block as much rain from that side as was possible. “You might want to take a minute and ponder where meddling gets you.” His tone was lecturing. “I hope you’re happy.”
She would have been happy if she’d never heard of Prince Lazlo of Valtria. “I’m wet.”
Her side was plastered to his. He was a full head taller than her, long limbs, muscles in all the right places. According to her research, he was an avid sportsman. Highly competitive, highly seductive, highly annoying. And, unfortunately, he was her cross to bear.
He relaxed his shoulders against the rock. His masculine scent of leather and motor oil reached her even through the rain. He’d probably spent his morning at the racetrack as usual.
She needed to think about something other than him, or she’d never relax enough to fall asleep. She gave that a valiant try for as long as she could. With her clothes soaked, she was cold to the bone, but she resisted moving even closer to him.
“First thing in the morning,” she said when she could stay silent no longer, “we’ll set up the tent and find our breakfast in the bags. I had the royal cook pack plenty of food for you and the women. If the rain stops, we can make a fire and signal for help.”
He didn’t say anything.
She thought of her small walk-up in Brooklyn, New York, that was mortgaged to the hilt. She couldn’t fail here. If she pulled this off, she’d have enough money to throw some serious advertising out there and save her business.
The matchmakers’ second rule was: Win each client’s goodwill. Only then can you work productively together.
And she badly needed to keep this client.
Having to apologize, when she’d done nothing wrong, just about killed her, but she was willing to make that sacrifice. She had a month left to claim the exorbitant fee the Queen had promised her if she succeeded. She needed to gain Lazlo’s cooperation and goodwill.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t how I planned this.”
Once again, he didn’t respond.
But she did hear a sound, so she turned and saw his head resting on his shoulder, at what looked like an uncomfortable angle. He softly snored into her face.
And then he began leaning and sliding against her. She tried to move away, but somehow ended up on the ground, practically pinned under him.
“Your Highness!” She shoved him toward the edge of their shelter.
“Mmmm,” he said without opening his eyes as he rolled onto his side.
Wedged between him and the rock, she had no room to pull away. She was practically spooning him. She had to get out of there. Except, the spot was comfortable. And his body heat was slowly drying her. And it was dark and scary out in the open.
She decided to stay put. For comfort’s sake. She did her best to ignore that they were touching. Still, sleep didn’t come easily.
Every noise the rain didn’t drown out startled her. At one point, she could have sworn something big moved through the woods nearby. She could hear branches cracking, but as she waited with her breath held, nobody materialized from the darkness.
When she did sleep, her dreams were strange. She was with the prince on the beach, entangled, naked, waves licking their feet. He was kissing the sensitive skin of her neck, sending spirals of need through her body. In her dream, he wasn’t the least annoying. The hands that at times molded metal at his auto factory, now caressed her breasts. She arched to press them into his palms as her nipples pebbled and begged for more. She tried to shift closer to him, but hit her head on rock.
What rock? They were making love in the surf on the beach. The sand was soft …except it wasn’t. She was lying on rock. She slowly came awake.
The wetness on her feet was rain, not playful waves. She’d stuck them out of their shelter while she slept. Prince Lazlo had turned in the night, one arm under her head, his other hand cupping one of her breasts gently.
Heat rushed to her face. “Your Highness!” She squeaked the words as she tried to wiggle away from him, but the rock provided no space.
Firmly, she pushed the hand away. “Prince Lazlo, this is not—” She glanced up into his face.
His eyes were closed, his aristocratic mouth lax. He was still fast asleep.
ROBERTO SPIT SAND as he crawled out of the water, too exhausted to stand. The waves had broken their raft, taken their weapons—the makeshift knife as well as the guard’s rifle—and separated the small team from each other.
He scanned the beach where he landed. Nothing but darkness and rain. He couldn’t even tell if he’d reached the mainland or only another island. He rolled to his side and puked up some of the saltwater he’d swallowed. Then he flopped onto his back, letting the rain beat his face, unable to move another inch.
Endless hours passed. Each time the waves came up to lick his feet, he crawled a little higher. Then the rain stopped, the clouds cleared out and he could see two dark forms on the beach—either his men, driftwood or clumps of seaweed. He stood from the wet sand and staggered toward them, squinting his eyes to see.
He came across Marco first, shook him, pounded his back. When the man coughed up water at last, Roberto moved on to José. Then the three of them dragged themselves into the low brush that edged the narrow, rocky shoreline.
And for a while, they rested.
“Where the hell are we?” José spoke first, sounding hoarse. Their throats were raw from swallowing too much seawater and vomiting.
“Close to a house, I hope.” Marco shook wet sand from his curly black hair, looking the most chipper among the three. “A house full of food and women.”
But instead of a house, the first thing they spotted once they got going was a tent, about a hundred meters or so inland.
Roberto signaled to the others, then picked up the largest stone within reach. They spread out and circled their target, caught the man inside the tent unawares. The guy had a weapon, but no time to use it before they smashed his skull in.
They stood over the body, breathing hard, adrenaline pumping, the scent of blood in their nostrils. They waited, listening. When they were sure that the man had been alone and nobody was coming, Roberto lit a lamp. He grinned as he looked around. His friends didn’t call him a lucky bastard for nothing. “We have food, shelter and a gun again.” Not a bad start to the day.
Marco was stuffing his face already. Crumbs rolled down his cleft chin as he made an animal-like sound.
“Give me that.” Roberto snatched the rucksack away from him. He went through the contents, then tossed José a neatly packed sandwich, laying claim to the rest. He was the boss; he would hand out the food when and where it pleased him.
He took the largest sandwich for himself and bit into it with only slightly more restraint than Marco. They were safe for the moment, out of the weather and soon their bellies would be full. Nobody knew they were here. Probably nobody knew the man they’d killed was here, either. Surveying his gear, he looked like a lone hiker out camping.
But before they could settle in comfortably, a radio he hadn’t noticed before came on, startling José into jumping.
The small device was hanging on a peg in a dark corner of the tent. “Station two, come in.”
MORNING COULDN’T COME soon enough. Every inch of Milda’s body ached. The only comfort she’d had over the long night was the heat radiating off the prince. Since their sole blanket was wet and muddy, she hadn’t been able to use that for anything.
She looked around, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Lazlo was gone.
Thank God.
She ran her fingers through her hair. She wasn’t one of those women who woke with perfect style and grace. At least she would have a little time to get herself together before she had to face him. A drowned rat had to look better than she did.
She ran her fingertips under her eyes to take off any smudged mascara. Not that she wanted to look attractive for the prince, but looking put together gave her self-confidence, and she had a feeling she would need all the self-confidence she could get when dealing with this client on this particular morning.
She crawled out from under the overhang, smoothed down her soiled, ruined clothes. Then the pictures that covered the rock wall caught her attention, the paintings that had been nothing but darker smudges in the dark night when they’d arrived here.
She’d heard of them when she’d been asking around for information on the island, trying to figure out whether it would be right for this project, but she’d had no idea what they depicted. She’d expected horses and buffalos like other nonhomicidal cavemen left all over Europe. She blanched now as she looked at scenes of wholesale murder. Blood splashed everywhere, necks cut, bellies opened. Shocked, she snatched her gaze away.
Good thing she hadn’t seen the paintings the night before. They would have given her nightmares.
She stumbled away from the images, heading for the beach. The gear she’d put together, with professional help, included a number of toothbrushes and plenty of toothpaste. And breakfast. Most importantly, coffee. She’d have her first cup here, then another cup when they were back in the palace. They made the most amazing cappuccinos there, the frothy milk dusted with cinnamon.
She was one hundred percent certain that the boat would come for them today. The ladies had been angry. They’d made their point. The rescue team had to be on their way, if not already here.
But when she came out of the grove, she found the beach empty. No boat. No prince. And more alarmingly, no gear.
She swirled around. Maybe the boat had come and gone already. Was Lazlo mad enough at her to leave her like this?
“Your Highness?”
No response came, save the slapping of the waves.
“Your Highness?” she shouted more loudly as a twinge of panic squeezed her chest.
He couldn’t just leave her. He wouldn’t, she thought, openmouthed with shock, still scanning the empty beach. He was a gentleman.
In most situations.
But he did seem to have developed some sort of unreasonable dislike for her. Crazy, really, when one considered that she was here to help him. She was instrumental for his future happiness. That he wouldn’t see that was most frustrating.
She was close to making him see reason, though. She was pretty sure. The two weeks with those ladies on this island would have done it. Once she got back to the palace, she needed to come up with another plan, and quickly.
She looked toward the mainland. The sunrise over the endless blue of the ocean filled the sky with pink. The scene was beautiful enough to take her breath away, but after a few moments her instincts prickled. Something didn’t feel right. There was something …sinister in the air.
She shook her head. She thought that just because the prince was missing. Or maybe because she’d seen those dreadful pictures.
She ignored her prickling senses, although she’d always been proud of her keen intuition, a must in her line of work, a strong family trait. Having excellent intuition was essential in matching up couples.
Except, she’d never felt that sense of rightness when she’d considered a candidate for the prince. Not even with the three women she’d invited to the island, if she were to be honest, and the present moment seemed like the perfect time to face certain truths. She didn’t feel that certain zing. Didn’t see that image of the young couple leaving the church and rice flying. Didn’t hear the proverbial wedding bells ring. Maybe that had been the problem to begin with.
Every time she’d looked at a woman and thought of her with the prince, the image brought only one thought to her mind: wrong. And she didn’t have all that much time to keep looking.
She picked up a chunk of driftwood by her feet, walked to get another. Even a couple of larger pieces had washed onto the shore overnight. She could use smoke to signal for help. Not that she had any matches. Those were in the gear, which was presumably with the prince. Still, there was that Boy Scout thing of making a bow with a string and rubbing things against each other. She’d seen that once on TV. But before she could bring up in her mind’s eye exactly how that was done, she saw a man bobbing in the water a few hundred feet from shore. He hadn’t been there a moment before.
Then he was close enough for her to recognize Prince Lazlo. Relief flooded her. He was swimming for shore, pulling something with him. A green bag, dripping with water, she realized, when he was close enough to stand up and start walking.
Naked!
Her dreams rushed back. Her eyes went wide. Her throat constricted. Her heart put on a drum festival in the middle of her chest, the beat growing faster and faster, not slowing until he was out of the water enough so she could see that he was still wearing his underwear. Phew. Royal-blue boxer briefs.
Thank God for small mercies.
Not that the rest of his nakedness wasn’t distracting enough. His upper torso was all lean muscles, drops of seawater running down his tanned skin. The rising sun was behind him, outlining his perfect shape.
Then her gaze dropped to the scars on his left leg.
She bit her lip. The skin was pulled together and a shade darker than the rest, white stripes going through the angry red here and there. He’d gotten trapped in a wreck at a racetrack crash and had been burned a few years back, an accident he so downplayed that, before now, she hadn’t even been aware of the extent of his injuries. From what she was seeing now, he must have suffered horribly. That he was even walking had to be a miracle.
His stunning scars didn’t detract anything from his absolute masculine beauty. If anything, they gave him an edge that she imagined drew women even more. His physique drew her, for love’s sake, and he was the last man on earth she would have ever been seriously interested in.
The first rule of matchmaking was: Do not get involved with a client under any circumstances.
He pulled his left hand through his dark hair to get it out of his eyes, shaking the bag with his other hand to dislodge a long strand of seaweed. His breathing was labored, as if he’d been swimming for a long time.
“What are you doing?” Had he tried to swim off the island with some of their supplies? That made no sense whatsoever.
“Saving the remains of our gear.”
Her feet rooted to the spot. For a second, she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She couldn’t really understand. “But—”
“The storm last night whipped up the waves. They ran farther up the beach than usual.” He came over and lowered the bag to the ground at his feet.
“It’s all gone?” She stared at him, still barely comprehending.
He nodded.
Disaster. Absolute disaster was all she could think.
“Can you go back for the rest?” She wasn’t the best of swimmers.
He dropped to the sand, panting, stretching his muscular legs in front of him. “I’ve been at it for the last two hours. Everything else must have been carried far out to sea.”
Her legs wouldn’t hold her up. She sank down across the bag from him.
He opened the bag and pulled out ten jars of caviar—five red, five black—a dozen scented candles and a half-dozen bottles of champagne carefully wrapped in bubble bags.
She waited for more, then could have cried as he tossed the empty bag aside. She pulled it to herself and went through it again. And in one of the front pockets she found waterproof matches, one box of the two dozen she’d ordered from a camping supply store.
“Breakfast?” He held out a jar of caviar, the top already twisted off.
“No thanks.” Her stomach was in a knot. No way could she put anything into it.
He shrugged and scooped some tiny, shiny, pearl-like beluga roe into his mouth. When he finished off the jar, he washed the food down with champagne. Then he lay back on the sand, his face to the sky, suddenly grinning while she did her best not to hyperventilate.
“How can you be happy at a moment like this?” she snapped at him.
He came up on one elbow—biceps bulging all over the place—and pinned her with those wicked dark eyes of his. “I have two weeks without you being able to do anything to get me married.”
He was insufferable.
“You’re missing your race,” she pointed out, just to needle him.
He shrugged. “A little freedom might just be worth it.”
She didn’t say anything for a while, then, “We should light a fire and send smoke signals.”
He looked over the meager pile of driftwood she’d collected. “If the guards are on the other side of the island, they won’t see it. Better we save the wood for tonight to keep warm. It has to dry before we can light it anyway.”
She couldn’t bear the thought of another night. Under those rocks. With the prince. “The boat will come.”
“Maybe. But we need a plan B.”
“We should find another shelter. And we should go and find fresh water before the day gets too hot.” They were in the Mediterranean. There was plenty of heat; his shorts were half-dry already. And they needed to do something. Sprawled on the sand, he looked like he was on vacation. He gestured toward the champagne bottles.
“That won’t prevent dehydration. In fact, alcohol speeds it.” Lady Szilvia, the survival expert, had told her that when she’d given advice about what to bring. And Milda had made sure to pack plenty of water. Except, those plastic bottles were now bobbing somewhere in the sea. “We need fresh water.”
“We have nothing to put it in until we drink the champagne.”
She hated that he had a point. “We could pour the champagne out.”
He seemed to consider that, but then he said, “On the off chance that we might be here awhile without much food, we could need those calories.”
She grabbed the bottle from him.
The bubbles tickled down her throat deliciously. After the ninth or tenth sip, she felt some of the tension leaving her body. “There.” She took another gulp, then tossed the empty bottle onto the sand in front of him.
He picked it up with an amused look, stood and held out his hand.
She ignored him.
He walked to the bushes and came back with his clothes, a bundle she hadn’t seen there in her frenetic search for him. He dressed, then slipped the waterproof matches into his pocket, packed everything else back into the bag before slinging it over his shoulder. “Let’s stash this under the overhang before we go for a stroll. Wouldn’t want to lose it again.”
She walked after him, trying not to look at him too much. The only man she’d ever known who managed to swagger with a limp. Who did he think he was, John Wayne?
They crossed the wild olive grove, the tangy scent of the trees heavy in the air. That odd feeling returned to her again, a premonition she couldn’t put her finger on, a sense of unease. Probably because they were going back to those gruesome rocks.
“So, what are those paintings about? I didn’t realize Valtria’s past was that bloodthirsty.”
“It’s not. The island was used by Etruscan priests back in the day, for their human sacrifices. Valtrians came here much later.”
A shiver ran down her spine as she thought how many men and women must have died on the island over the centuries. Which would explain the bad vibes she’d been getting. By being here, they were probably disturbing some ancient burial grounds.
She tried not to look at the rock paintings as they emptied the bag and secured their meager supplies. Then they were finally heading for higher ground. The hillside wasn’t too steep, solid rock in places, brittle shale in others where she had to watch her step in order not to slip. Here and there, thick woods appeared, especially close to the top, but on the bottom, the wild groves were sparse with plenty of open areas between them.
“Is there fresh water here, do you know?” She did her best to keep up with him. He was pretty fast, even with the limp.
She was wearing sandals. Only two-inch heels, but still …She hadn’t planned on staying on the island beyond explaining the camping trip to Lazlo and introducing him to the ladies. She’d planned on being back at the palace by dinner, at the latest. At least she’d had the good sense to wear summer slacks, and brought a sweater in case the wind was too much on the boat ride over.
“There’s a stream.”
“Do you know where?”
“No idea. I was only here once, when I was a kid.” The higher they went, the denser the vegetation became.
“Wild animals?” She remembered last night’s worry.
“Rabbits and foxes.”
At least that was reassuring.
They walked until noon but found nothing. “We should switch tactics and walk the perimeter of the island,” Lazlo recommended. “Even if the guards keep out of our way, we should be able to find one of their tents. We’d be set for supplies at least.”
Exactly. Why didn’t she think of that earlier? Had to be the champagne.
Downhill was a lot easier than up. She did slip a couple of times, but he always caught her easily. She didn’t like when they were touching. He was the type of man a woman couldn’t help but be aware of physically.
Several hours passed as they walked, keeping as much as possible to the shade of the trees. Her stomach growled.
“Should have brought some food and champagne,” Lazlo said. “Sorry.”
“We didn’t know it would take this long.”
It had to be midafternoon by the time he spotted the tent under a clump of trees and pointed it out to her.
She was so tired she could barely walk, but she broke into a run.
“Hello, we need help.” She pushed through the open flap, relieved that the nightmare was over.
Then reeled back, was caught against Lazlo’s wide chest. He swore softly, put his arms around her, tried to pull her back. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t take her eyes off the sight in front of her.
Inside the tent was the dead body of one of the guards. Lying in a pool of blood, stripped naked. A sight that eerily echoed the rock paintings.
Chapter Three
Lazlo searched for a weapon, but Ben’s gun was gone. So was his radio.
“For love’s sake.” The mumbled words came through as Milda cupped her hands in front of her mouth. Tears filled her eyes, which were round with shock.
He looked outside. The woods seemed empty, the birds trilling in the air, no sign that anyone might be lurking in the bushes. He waited anyway, watching for any movement, listening for any sound that didn’t belong. When he was certain that they were alone, he pulled the tent flap closed behind them.
“We’ll be fine. I think we’re alone for now. As soon as I take care of Ben, we should grab whatever we can use, then get out of here.”
The young guard had only been working at the palace for a little over a year. He was a fine polo player and an antique car enthusiast. They’d had some conversations. Yesterday wasn’t the first time the man had been assigned to Lazlo’s personal detail.
He wrapped the man in his sleeping bag, then carried him outside, to a spot they’d passed on their way to the tent. A storm had uprooted an ancient olive tree, leaving a giant hole in the ground. He laid Ben in the hole, then went back for the short camping shovel he’d seen in the tent’s corner.
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Dana Marton
Experience the thrill of life on the edge and set your adrenalin pumping! These gripping stories see heroic characters fight for survival and find love in the face of danger.One royal bachelor, one meddlesome matchmaker…can they survive the toughest night of their lives together?Prince Lazlo knew he’d been tricked when he got stranded on a remote island with a nosy “marriage consultant” who’d been hired to find him the perfect princess bride. And the worst part was, she was the one woman who’d ever refused him, claiming she never fell for a client.But the squabbling stopped once Lazlo realised they weren’t alone, and in order to elude the desperate killers stalking them, they’d have to work together. Lazlo also discovered that, out of her element, Milda lets her hair – and her guard – down. Now if only she’d break her number one matchmaking rule…
A drop of wild honey still glistened on her lips.
Nobody was more surprised than he when he leaned in.
He barely brushed his lips across hers, but he felt the impact all the way to his toes.
For a moment so brief that he might have imagined it, she went with the flow. Then she was pushing against him. He pulled away, searching her stunned face, trying to gather his scattered thoughts.
And with the symbolic distance between them, whatever craziness had possessed him disappeared. He didn’t know where it had come from, but he did know one thing for sure: under no circumstances would he ever touch this woman again. She was nothing but trouble.
“We shouldn’t be doing this. You are—” She paused. “I am—” She made a soft noise of frustration. “We can’t do this again.”
His gaze strayed to those ruby lips that were pressed into a severe, angry line. Then, instead of agreeing, he flashed the woman his most wicked grin and said, “I think we’re definitely going to do this again.”
About the Author
DANA MARTON is the author of more than a dozen fast-paced, action-adventure romantic suspense novels and a winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antiques shops and enjoys working in her sizable flower garden where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. Every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at DanaMarton@DanaMarton.com.
With many thanks to Allison Lyons
STRANDED
WITH THE PRINCE
DANA MARTON
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Chapter One
Sagro Prison island, Italy
Boots slapped on the concrete floor, keeping a regular rhythm. The night security lights were on, enough to see the guard who was texting on his phone as he strode out of sight, a sly grin on his pockmarked face. A minute went by, then another. The steel door opened then closed at the end of the cell block.
The 2:00 a.m. check was complete. Nobody would be by again until morning.
Roberto, fully dressed, slid out of bed, making no more noise than his shadow as it moved across the floor. He laid his pillow lengthwise on the bare mattress then draped the bed with his blanket, creating a bulky form.
His sheets had been ripped, twisted into rope and wrapped around his waist before he’d gone to bed. Now he bent and squatted one more time to make sure the cumbersome arrangement wouldn’t limit his movement. He adjusted a tight strip under his left armpit before he stole to the door and pressed the top part of the lock hard.
Click. The sound was so soft even he barely heard it.
José had fixed the locks. The oldest of the team, José had been a locksmith before a drive-by took out his family in the godforsaken backstreets of Bogotá. With nothing to live for, he’d signed up for the rival gang. José understood revenge.
So did Roberto. It pushed him forward as he stole down the hallway, moving fast in a crouch. He listened to the snoring of the other inmates. A bed creaked now and then as someone turned over in his sleep. He listened for any indication that someone noticed him, not trusting—despite substantial bribes and dire threats—that they wouldn’t betray him and sound the alarm.
José was waiting for him at the water block, along with Marco, the third member of the team.
“Any trouble?” Roberto kept his voice to a low whisper.
Marco shook his head. He was young and sullen, still not over the fact that they’d been imprisoned. That here, on the other side of the ocean, the boss couldn’t protect them. He was ready to go, but didn’t think it fair that they had to orchestrate the escape themselves. He’d griped and whined through the preparations. Which better stop right now, right here. Roberto flashed him a sharp look that warned him to be on his best behavior.
The young thugs coming out of the slums these days were too hotheaded, only after the glory, and rarely willing to put enough effort into a job to get it done right. They wanted the fastest car and the biggest gun, wanted to build reputations overnight, which led to too much senseless killing.
“All’s according to plan,” José was saying.
Exactly what Roberto wanted to hear. His sticker, a spoon handle sharpened into a knife, waited stashed inside a showerhead. He retrieved the makeshift tool then went to work on removing a wall panel.
A hundred years ago, Sagro Prison had been the hunting castle of some Italian king. When they’d rebuilt it into a prison in the fifties, they changed just about everything. Security had been upgraded several times since, but the prison’s waste and sewer system still connected to the old castle’s cistern.
All Roberto and his men had had to do over the endless months that they’d been locked up here was dig through the wall. The cistern’s ducts, carved from stone, were plenty wide to accommodate a man.
José squeezed in first, then Marco, Roberto going last, pulling the wall panel into place behind him. By morning they’d be free men. His to-do list was simple: get food, finish the boss’s business in Trieste, then get the hell out of Italy.
But he wouldn’t go back to Bogotá, not straightaway. He had personal business in the area which he meant to see handled. He was going to Valtria, the small kingdom to the north, to gain retribution for his brother’s death.
An eye for an eye, a life for a life. He might have been too old-school to condone all the senseless killing the new gangs did these days, but revenge was part of a man’s honor. And he did believe in that. He certainly did.
Island of Morka, Nature Preserve, Valtria
SHE WAS THE SCOURGE of his life, a relentless thorn under his royal skin. Prince Lazlo of Valtria watched Milda Milas bear down on him and knew what it felt like to be hunted.
A professional matchmaker from New York. He loved his mother as much as all his brothers did, but the Queen had gone too far this time. One of her ladies-in-waiting had a cousin in New York who’d been Milda’s client. Apparently, a recommendation had been made. He didn’t like the idea of his mother discussing his personal life with her ladies-in-waiting. Shouldn’t they have been talking about the royal gardens or copying antique tapestries and the like when they retired to the Queen’s private quarters?
Despite the calming, balmy breeze that streamed from the endless azure water, Lazlo’s sense of peace was fast disappearing. He’d been looking forward to spending the day away from the palace, away from Milda’s harping. He should have known she wouldn’t let a perfectly good day go by without doing her best to ruin it. A dull throb started up in the knee he’d once injured in a crash. Maybe his subconscious was beginning to associate her with pain.
“And there I was, thinking I could hide from you here,” he said when she reached him.
He liked the island of Morka, fifty miles off the Italian coast, an inhabited chunk of land in the Mediterranean Sea, owned by the Valtrian royal family and set up as a nature preserve. With its wild olive and orange groves, the place was a veritable paradise—but for Milda Milas’s unfortunate presence.
“Your Highness.” She stopped in front of him with that ra-ra-hurra look that hardly left her face whenever she dealt with him. She seemed to think that if she smiled wide enough and pretended that what she was doing to him was normal—wonderful, even—somehow he could be tricked into agreeing with her.
“I don’t know how you got here. Never mind that.” He reconsidered and cut to the point. “You should leave,” he told her firmly. “I’m not playing your games today. I’ve made other plans.”
Since the top of her head only came up to his shoulders, she usually rose to the tips of her toes when she wanted to browbeat him into yet another one of her crazy plans. She was stretching up so hard at the moment that she looked like a ballet dancer. The wind whipped her long, reddish-brown hair around her slim face. Her eyes, the exact dusky blue of his first race car, narrowed as she dropped the smile, recognizing smartly that it wasn’t going to work today.
“You should face your responsibilities, Your Highness. Don’t you think all this endless evasion is childish?”
She had his gander up in thirty seconds flat. A new record. She knew she was annoying him, but she didn’t care. She had the Queen’s protection. She’d been given free reign, God help him.
“I’m childish?” He drew up an eyebrow slowly, regally, and regarded her with a chilly expression he’d learned early on in life from his mother. “You torture me for money. What does that make you?”
She dropped back on her heels and stuck her chin out, her eyes and lips narrowing. “To be honest, I’d torture you for free. If that makes you feel better.”
He was taken aback for a moment. He was used to more respect as a prince. Although not from her, admittedly.
“You know what I think?” she asked with a smirk, losing the last of her polite veneer.
He allowed a subtle sneer. “A better question is, mademoiselle, do I care?”
“I think you’re afraid that you couldn’t hold an intelligent woman’s attention over the long term. That’s why you engage only in nightlong, scandalous affairs with those twits.” Her tone turned to lecturing. “Your conduct is embarrassing the monarchy and the Queen. You were caught on tape in a compromising situation, for love’s sake.” She rolled her dusky blue eyes in a way that told him exactly what she thought of that.
Not that until now he’d been forced to guess. She had expressed her opinion a number of times since the unfortunate incident.
He tried to put this latest scandal out of his mind. No chance of that with her around. She was going to lecture him on his duties as a prince? His blood pressure inched up. He drew a long, slow breath.
“You know what I think?” he asked, and kept going, without giving her a chance to pipe up. “I think American kamikaze nuptial consultants should stay in their own country.”
He was pleased with himself for resisting the urge to raise his voice. He was not going to lose control because of her. He was a prince. He was certainly up to the challenge of ignoring a troublesome matchmaker. “Where are my brothers?”
He was supposed to be on the island with them, and only them, on a day hike. Miklos’s idea. Since the failed rebel attacks of the past two years, the six royal brothers hardly got to spend time together anymore. If he didn’t like Miklos’s and Benedek’s wives so much, he would have blamed it on them, but Princess Judi and Princess Rayne were too lovely to fault for anything. He couldn’t truly blame his brothers for not wanting to leave home, even if he never understood what had possessed them to rush into marriage.
Single life suited him just fine. Being a prince, he already had more expectations and regulations, more rules governing his every move than he cared to think about. Marriage would have been just another prison.
Which Milda refused to understand.
“Your brothers aren’t coming.” Her slim fingers worried the colorful bead bracelet on her left wrist.
Why couldn’t they just call, instead of sending a message with her, of all people, when—Lazlo froze, a terrible premonition holding him speechless for a moment before he could ask, “This is another one of your traps, isn’t it?”
So help him God—
“You’ll be going hiking with the Lady Lidia, the Lady Szilvia and the Lady Adel.” Her “this will be fun, you’ll see” smile returned.
He swore in a way that should have been beneath him as a prince. “My brothers helped you set me up?” A new low. Incomprehensible, really. The sense of betrayal was overwhelming.
And her guilty look confirmed everything.
His brothers probably thought it was a grand joke. “I’m going to murder them,” he muttered.
History was full of princes who killed their own brothers to get closer to the throne. He didn’t care about the throne. But he might be driven to murder by Milda Milas yet. Except, then centuries from now historians would speculate that maybe he’d been secretly in love with her, and the act had been motivated by jealousy or some such nonsense. That would be intolerable. She was already messing up his life; he wasn’t going to let her sully his legacy.
“How dare you?” He stepped toward her, ready to take her to task, but caught sight of a sizable pile of duffel bags farther up the beach. He’d thought them a pile of rocks earlier, with the sun in his eyes, but now that a small cloud blocked some of the brilliant rays, he could see that he’d been mistaken. “What is that?”
They couldn’t have needed all that equipment for one day. His own guards were in the process of unloading his speedboat, removing the two boxes that contained the food and drink he and his brothers would have needed until they returned to the palace this evening.
“A two-week hike?” she squeaked, cleared her throat, went back up on her tiptoes then said again, in a deeper tone of self-confidence she must have practiced in the mirror, “A two-week hike with the ladies.” Her damned smile was in full bloom.
He glanced around but didn’t see any desperate women ready to drag him to the altar. Excellent. He had plenty of time to run for the boat. “Have you lost your mind?”
She drew her slim shoulders up, looking like some sort of exotic bird taking up defensive position. Or getting ready to attack. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was about to be pecked to death.
“The ladies went to see the Painted Rocks. They should be back shortly. You need to spend time with intelligent, self-sufficient women, and stay away from your empty-headed beauties for a few days,” she stated.
So she admitted that the three ladies in question weren’t beauties. Not that he could bring that up without proving himself to be shallow—of which she accused him endlessly.
The impatient growl that escaped him didn’t seem to alarm her in the least. “Once you calm down, Your Highness, you’ll see this was a good idea.” She didn’t back away. She never backed down from him, one of her many annoying qualities. “By tonight, I promise you’ll feel a lot better about all this.”
The only thing that would have made him feel better would have been tossing her into the sea. Sadly, being a prince, he’d been raised better than to threaten bodily harm to a woman. Not even a woman who was dead set on ruining his life.
She wasn’t going to quit until she saw him married. She was the type to see that the job got done. No matter what. In anyone else, he could have appreciated the drive. He could appreciate little in her. They’d been doing battle for months now.
A wave of weariness hit him. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Her gaze never wavered. “For one, as you pointed out, I get paid for it.”
“I could pay you more to go away.”
“I would never break my contract. You should be grateful. I’m here to help you. The Queen gave you six months to announce that you’ve chosen a bride. She wants to see you settled down. You must end the scandals.”
“I still have another month.” In fact, he’d been counting on that last month of freedom rather desperately.
“Exactly.”
“Two weeks on this blasted island would waste half. Absolutely not. When that boat leaves in a few minutes, I’m leaving with it.”
“And the ladies? Common courtesy—”
“If you want to stay with the ladies, be my guest.
Have a pajama party.” He ignored the intriguing picture that flashed into his mind and focused on her clenched jaw instead.
But the next moment she was forcing a smile again. He hated how cheerful she always was while she tortured him.
“Two weeks in this beautiful place is exactly what you need.” She sounded like she actually believed it. “By the time we come back for you, you will have made your choice. The Queen and the country will be happy.”
“Dare I ask, what about me?”
“Try to give these women a chance. Maybe you’ll fall in love with one of them.” Her eyes brightened at the mention of the L word.
“In two weeks?” Was she for real? Sadly, she was. She had an unshakable, deep-seated belief in romance that annoyed the hell out of him. He gave her his most discouraging expression, the one he normally reserved for ambushing paparazzi.
But her eyebrows stayed up, the corners of her lips tugged into that fake encouraging smile, her gaze steady on him. “Stranger things have happened.”
A lot of strange things had happened to him lately, his mother hiring the pushiest woman in the world to force him to wed being one of them. But the chances of him falling in love were slim to none. For that to happen, he would have to believe in love to begin with.
There was no point in further bickering with her. They were too different. They’d never understand each other. He glanced at the boat, ready to go, and realized that the two guards had disappeared, leaving the boxes of food on the bluff above the tide line. “Where did Ben and Vince go? ”
She worried her bead bracelet again for a brief, unguarded moment before she responded. “They’ll guard the island’s perimeter. They’ll be in radio contact with each other, but not with you. I can’t risk you bullying them with some fake emergency into coming to pick you up.”
The woman boggled his mind. She was beyond all belief. “Good plan.” He couldn’t help a sneer. “And what would have happened if there’d been an emergency?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” she said, apparently still thinking that she could make him stay.
He glanced toward his jacket, draped over the side of the boat, his cell phone in the pocket. He needed to pay closer attention to her. She wasn’t to be underestimated. With some luck, she could have stranded him. The thought was disturbing.
He needed to make her see reason and quit this sordid business. “You really expected me to spend two weeks in the bush with a bunch of wilting lilies? I’m a racer, not a camper. And I bet your ladies haven’t seen more nature than what can be found at the palace gardens. What, exactly, did you think we would be doing out here? ”
She put that pert nose of hers into the air and flashed him a smug look. “Lady Lidia is an herbalist, Lady Szilvia is a survival specialist and Lady Adel is a doctor at your favorite ski resort.”
He sure didn’t remember her. Which must have meant she wasn’t a looker. Then again, he preferred to sustain his injuries at the racetrack, so maybe he hadn’t been visited by the resort’s doctor in the past.
“I’m to attend a race tomorrow evening.” It was to be the first time one of his cars was running with a modified engine, a major invention he needed to see in action. He needed to make manufacturing decisions based on tomorrow’s race. She was interfering with his business.
“Prince Lazlo—”
“Enough.” He was out of patience with her and her meddling. She’d been relentlessly after him for the past five months, since the Queen and Chancellor Egon had sicced her on him. “So you decided to parade the country cows.” He practically growled the words. “You need to understand, Milda, that I’m not some prize bull you can lead into the pasture for breeding.”
“Prince Laz—”
“No.” He raised a hand, palm out. “I don’t care what these women want from me—title, money or their children in the line of succession. They need to find another way of getting it. So you collected a homely bunch of ambitious—” he swallowed the word that a prince wouldn’t utter “—ladies. Read my lips. I don’t want any of them.” He pushed by her to stride toward the boat.
“Prince Lazlo!”
“Goodbye, Milda.”
But something in her voice as she called his name again stopped him. He turned to give her a piece of his mind, in case she still harbored some doubts regarding how he felt about the evil job she’d been hired to do.
And he saw the three ladies.
They had come out of the wild olive grove. From the look on their faces, they’d been standing within hearing range when he’d made that country cow comment. Blast it, he thought.
By God, he was tired of this. He liked the chase between the sexes, another sport to him. But, call him old-fashioned, he liked to be the one to do the chasing. He inclined his head, his jaw so tight he could barely push out the single word. “Ladies.”
They looked vaguely familiar—and were pretty, to be fair—but he couldn’t place them. No big surprise there. He’d run into a lot of women over the years.
“Your Highness.” They curtsied, but if looks could kill …
Which was surprising. The women he regularly saw at court were more of the simpering kind—lots of eyelash batting and that sort of thing. He hated simpering. But maybe these three were different. Maybe Milda had done her homework.
He still didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be forced into marriage.
What a crazy, absolutely insane idea this has been—him on a deserted island with three proper young ladies. Ridiculous, really. For two weeks!
He gave them an apologetic smile he had to force. They’d been inconvenienced as much as he had. “I’m sorry you’ve been misled. Why don’t you wait in the boat? I’ll take you back to the mainland in a minute.”
The boat could only seat four. Which meant Milda and the two bodyguards would have to wait until someone returned for them. Now there was a happy thought. With some luck, the pickup would take a long time. For a moment, he even toyed with the thought of not sending his boat back. Two weeks of freedom without her hounding him …The idea held considerable merit.
“See what you’ve done?” he asked, once the ladies were out of earshot, as they marched toward the boat. Obedient they were, he couldn’t help noticing. After dealing with Milda for the past five challenging months, he was beginning to appreciate obedience more and more in a woman. “You managed to further damage my reputation. You should quit and go home to New York. You’re a PR liability.”
No evidence of her infamous smile now. Her face was turning red. Her delicate nostrils flared. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke coming out of her dainty ears.
“I damaged your reputation?” She put her hands on her slim hips. The movement stretched her shirt over her breasts. They were one of her very best features, made the endless hours she spent lecturing him bearable. “I damaged your reputation?” She was sputtering.
“You can think of ways to make it up to me while you wait for someone to come for you.” He smirked as he stepped away from her, ready to saunter across the beach.
“I’m fighting for my business,” she warned him. “My livelihood and my heritage. I will not give up. I will not give in.”
“And I’m fighting for my freedom. Something I most cherish,” he told her …and heard the motor start.
He spun around in time to see the boat pull away, steered by Lady Adel.
“Wait!” Sand flew up around him as he broke into a sprint. His busted knee slowed him. And the boat was too far, pulling away rapidly.
They couldn’t leave him, dammit. Not here, not with Milda. “Wait!” He dashed into the surf after them to no avail. But he refused to give up. He swam like he never swam before. Like his life depended on it.
One of the ladies gave him a smug little wave.
The distance between them was growing.
And growing.
His lungs burned from the effort he put into propelling his body through the water. Then he stopped completely, at last accepting the unacceptable. He swore an unprincely streak and let himself sink for a moment, let the waves wash over his head before he pushed up to the surface again. He treaded water for another few seconds, too stunned to think. Then, as outrage took over, he turned to swim for the shore.
He strode back onto dry land, fuming and dripping. “You!” He bore down on the woman of his nightmares. “Get on your cell phone and get another boat out here.”
Her stricken look stopped him. They were practically nose to nose anyway, only inches separating them from each other. Her big blue eyes went impossibly wide. She smelled like spring, the perfume the Queen’s own parfumerie had created for her, a scent that lately haunted him, even in his sleep.
“I want another boat. Pronto. As in yesterday.” He barked the words at her.
She was very quiet all of a sudden.
He didn’t have the patience for this. “Speak.”
“My organizer fell into the water on the way here with the ladies.” She winced. “I’m a bad swimmer. I always get nervous around water. I should have—”
“I don’t care about your organizer.” The damn thing was her ever-present companion. Her nefarious plans for his life were no doubt in it. He’d been so disconcerted by her sudden appearance on the island that he hadn’t even noticed it was missing. “Good riddance.”
“My cell phone was tucked in the front.”
He walked away from her before he said something he regretted. But called back, after a moment, “Will the guards be checking on us?”
“No.” Her voice was small. A first. “They’re supposed to avoid contact at all costs. They’re to stay out of sight at all times. They won’t be following you or anything. We, um, wanted to give you and the ladies privacy. The guards are only here to prevent the paparazzi from getting on the island if they get wind of your trip. For all intents and purposes, we’re alone on an uninhabited island. That’s the feel I was going for to foster a certain sense of …”
He glared, daring her to say the word “romance.” That and true love were her favorite things. He’d tried to tell her in vain that there came a time when a grown woman should stop believing in fairy tales.
She closed her mouth without finishing the sentence, but she didn’t fool him. She was hopeless. He turned from her again, to survey the shore. There had to be a way off…. He thought of something suddenly. She was very methodical about ruining his life. She was definitely the type to plan for contingencies.
He turned back to her. “What was the emergency plan? If I broke an arm, how would I have called for help?” He was a royal person. There was always a backup plan for unforeseen contingencies.
She was studying her feet, her sandals half sunk into the soft sand. “The Lady Adel had an emergency radio in her medical bag,” she muttered.
“The red bag on her shoulder?” He distinctly remembered the bag. It was the one the doctor walked to the boat with.
Milda nodded weakly. “They’ll send someone back for us as soon as they land.” She looked after them, biting her bottom lip. The women and his speedboat were a dot over endless blue waves. “We’ll be back at the palace before nightfall, I’m sure.”
He wouldn’t bet on it. “So basically, we could be stranded here for two whole weeks.”
She still avoided his gaze. “I wanted to give you sufficient time to get comfortable with each other. I wanted to give the ladies enough time for their true colors to start showing. I only meant the best for you. For everybody.”
A minute or so passed in uncomfortable silence, as they both contemplated the absurdity of the situation.
Then she finally looked him in the eye. “Have you camped before?”
He shook his head. “You?”
Her face looked pinched. “I have a demanding business that I run all by myself. I don’t usually leave the city.”
ROBERTO PUT ONE HAND above the other as he climbed the guard tower soundlessly. Below him, Sagro Prison was clouded in darkness, the island quiet. He gripped his sole weapon, the sharpened handle of a spoon, between his teeth. When he reached the top, he vaulted over and cut the guard’s throat before the man could raise the alarm.
Had to be done.
There was no way around it. He lowered the body to the wooden boards, wiped the warm blood off his fingers and took the rifle, waited.
No siren sounded. He hadn’t been detected. The small Italian prison island was well guarded, but it was no high-security facility.
He lowered himself to the ground where José and Marco crouched in the shadows. He was the boss of the small team, though they were all hired hands, working for a new Colombian drug lord who was trying to break into the European market via Italy, among other places. Except that they’d been caught on this trip.
But he wouldn’t rot in a dank cell, he thought as they crawled their way to the fence where the hole they’d painstakingly prepared and covered awaited. He wouldn’t end up like his brother, Miguel, trapped in a Valtrian prison, then knifed by some local hotshot, dead two weeks before his release.
The drug lord they both worked for was trying to wiggle his way into the European market at multiple points of entry. Roberto had a cousin with a small team in Romania. He wondered how the bastard was faring. Hopefully better than this.
He was the first to reach the unfinished tunnel and head into the darkness. What little they’d left for tonight could be done in an hour. He dug with the flat rock they’d used to get this far, sweated, swore, but never stopped working. When at long last he’d reached the opening, only just clearing the fence, he tossed the stone aside then brushed the dirt from his eyes.
“Hurry,” he said, speaking for the first time. This far out, nobody should be able to hear them.
He came up into a crouch, suddenly dizzy from hunger. All three of them were starving. Over the past few weeks, they’d had to bribe too many inmates with food to get what they needed for the escape. They could have just as easily beaten the bastards into obedience, but fights drew the guards’ attention, and their small team needed to fly below the radar. They had to remain invisible. Then and now.
“Keep low to the ground,” he said as they crossed the narrow slice of flat plateau. Then they unraveled their makeshift ropes, tied them together and lowered themselves down the rock face.
Roberto reached the beach first. When they were all down, they gathered as much driftwood as they could find, then they used the ropes to tie a raft together. Marco was the fastest with the knots, the son of a fisherman, pulling his weight for the first time. They swam out beyond the breakers before climbing on, then paddled with their shoes as best they could—which wasn’t easy at all, as the waves were getting angry.
Real paddles would have helped, but they’d had no place to steal them from and no time to make them. Using their shoes required too much effort for too little result. The three were weak and exhausted, but they would work until their last breath.
They’d all sworn not to go back behind bars. They would either escape today or die trying.
“Get your ass moving.” Roberto snarled at Marco when he slowed. The other apparently thought that having worked on the raft, he was now entitled to a break.
José shook his head and spit into the waves.
Marco got back to the paddling sullenly.
More trouble than he was worth. But they weren’t out of danger yet. Roberto still needed him.
They needed to take the current to the mainland, land in an out-of-the-way spot and disappear deep into the country by morning, when their breakout would be discovered and law enforcement would start their coastal search.
But a storm was coming in and the waves didn’t cooperate. The current seemed to be changing, taking them in another direction entirely.
Chapter Two
In hindsight, they shouldn’t have wasted so much of the daylight on fighting.
Milda wrestled with the tent she’d dragged into the olive grove. She could see Prince Lazlo’s outline a few hundred yards from her. She hadn’t gone too far—was kind of scared of the darkness of the grove, the trees throwing shadows in the moonlight. The island was a nature preserve. Which meant wild animals for sure. She didn’t want to think about that.
“I don’t think that’s how it goes,” the prince called across the distance that separated them. He hadn’t bothered bringing the second tent up from the beach.
“I got it,” she answered over her shoulder. Don’t come over. Please, don’t come over.
If he helped her set up her tent, he would probably expect to sleep in it. With her. She couldn’t handle that.
She glanced toward him. He rested—probably thinking dark, murderous thoughts about her—sitting up, his back against a tree, his shoulders outlined in the dim light. His body was lithe and powerful. He wasn’t her favorite person in the world, but even she had to admit that he was incredibly handsome, with that debonair, devil-may-care attitude.
And beyond his good looks, he was intelligent as well. And a prince. At first, she’d been foolish enough to think that marrying him off would be easy. He’d certainly taught her better since.
She couldn’t pin the man down, not for a second. Like seawater through a fishnet, he ran through her fingers over and over again. He could have made it all work. He had incredible focus when he chose. He owned one of the best speed car factories in Europe, built it himself from nothing but a dream. When he wanted something, he applied himself to the task until he achieved his goal. He could have made her job easy. Instead, he was doing the opposite. He didn’t want anything to do with the Queen’s plans, so he resisted Milda at every step.
Like the damn tent was doing at the moment.
She was going to figure this out. She gathered her last reserves and fitted the poles together at last. And felt triumphant.
Until she tried to get the structure in through the tent’s door. She struggled for at least five minutes before she figured out it wasn’t going to work this way. The poles were probably supposed to be snapped into place inside the tent. She stifled a groan and took it all apart.
“Need help?”
“Almost done. I’ll be ready in a minute.” She looked up to make sure he wasn’t coming over.
But he was still sitting by the tree, his aristocratic profile outlined by the last of the light—a strong chin, straight nose and lips that looked as if they were carved from granite. Aside from the occasional debauchery—or even with that—he could have been one of those heroes of ancient Rome. She could definitely see him at the chariot races. She’d seen him at a modern racetrack, behind the wheel.
He was mesmerizing, had charisma in spades. No wonder women fell at his feet left and right. He certainly spent more time with them than pondering the duties of royalty. To the point that the media had taken to calling him The Rebel Prince. She filled her lungs with the salty sea air and turned away from him, giving the impertinent tent her full attention once again.
“I can’t believe the women didn’t send the boat back,” she said after another five minutes of struggle.
“You know, the blonde looked familiar. I think I might have dated her in the past.”
“You dated all three of them. With time being so tight, I wanted to go for certainty. A shortcut, you know? If you were attracted to them once, you could be attracted to them again.”
Silence was the only answer.
“Right?” she asked, then immediately hated that she was second-guessing herself because of him. He was terrible for her self-confidence.
“'Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.'” He quoted William Congreve. “Better settle in for the full two weeks.”
“They couldn’t have been that mad at you. They agreed to another try.”
“Could be they planned to kill me in the wilderness,” he remarked dryly.
“What on earth have you done to them? No, never mind.” The fact that he didn’t even remember that he’d dated them gave her a clue. Plus his tirade on the beach that the ladies had overheard. She’d never dated him, and even she was about ready to strangle him and leave him in the wilderness for the vultures or whatever.
So maybe the ladies were somewhat justified in their fury. But leaving her stranded here with the prince was completely uncalled for. What harm had she done to anyone? She was doing the best she could, with everyone’s best interests at heart. She was beginning to feel decidedly underappreciated. The least of her problems, all considered, when her whole world was threatening to come right down around her ears.
She was the last link in a long line of matchmakers. And the business hadn’t been doing well for the past couple of years. If she failed, the family tradition would end with her. Her grandmother was probably rolling in her grave.
Poles miraculously snapping into place and holding the tent up from the inside at last distracted her from any further thoughts on what a disappointment she was turning out to be, compared to her more talented ancestors. The tent was standing. So there. That was something. She pulled herself straight proudly, grinning into the darkness. But then she tripped over the blanket she’d already tossed into the tent, not wanting it to get dirty or bugs to crawl inside, and fell with her full weight against one of the poles and the whole thing came apart all over again.
She could have howled with frustration. She didn’t. She’d be damned if she’d lose control within hearing distance of the prince.
“Everything okay in there?” His voice dripped with mockery.
She climbed out on her hands and knees, the definition of undignified, stood and brushed herself off. “I decided to take it down. The air is too stifling in there.”
The breeze coming off the ocean was balmy. She simply adjusted the waterproof material on the ground so the collapsed poles wouldn’t be sticking her in the ribs, then lay down at last. There. She was perfectly content. Who needed the tent?
She was blissfully comfortable for five full minutes. Except maybe her neck. She adjusted a wadded-up blanket under her head just as a fat raindrop fell on her face. Wind ruffled her hair. Another raindrop followed.
She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment. She was not going to be defeated. She got up and tried to unfold the tent, to get in the middle somehow, sandwiched between protective layers. But the rain picked up long before she finished. And by the time she was settled horizontally again, she realized she was lying in mud. She cursed the prince under her breath.
She was so not supposed to be here.
He was supposed to be snug in his tent, with three intelligent, great women, each with the pedigree and temperament to become a fantastic princess. Why couldn’t he have just gone with that plan? What did he have to complain about?
“It’s raining,” he said from a few feet away, his rich baritone startling her.
She hadn’t noticed him coming closer. “Cry me a river,” she muttered through clenched teeth. Or not. They seemed to have more than enough water already. She pulled her head into her cocoon. She’d been about to get out of the mud, but she would pretend that everything was well if it killed her.
“The water running down the hillside will be heading this way,” he observed with perfect aristocratic nonchalance.
Maybe it would wash him away. That could be another solution to the problem. He couldn’t very well embarrass the monarchy any more if he disappeared, could he?
But the water would wash her away, too, if she stayed like this. She crawled out and was soaked to the skin the next second. “You know how to set this thing up?” She gestured toward the tent. If they had it anchored to the ground, maybe the water would run around them. The canvas was waterproof.
“Forget it.” He grabbed the muddy, dripping tent, tossed it over his shoulder and headed inland. His slight limp did nothing to detract from his powerful appearance.
She reluctantly followed him, carrying her soggy blanket. With the cloud cover thick now, and the rain coming down hard, she could see little, even with the flashlight. Once she thought she caught a moving shadow up ahead, but by the time she looked closer, it disappeared. Maybe one of the guards. Their gear and supplies had been dropped off on the other side of the island earlier. They’d probably gotten their tents up around the perimeter in time for the rain. Lucky them.
“Hello!” she called out. “We need help. We’re here.”
She waited, but no response came. Maybe they couldn’t hear her. Or she’d only seen a bush moving in the wind.
Should have looked for the men this afternoon, instead of waiting for a boat by the beach and fighting, she thought as she pushed ahead, mud squishing in the front of her sandals and leaking out the back.
An hour of miserable marching got them to a rocky cliff wall. The famous Painted Rocks, not that she could make out any of the images in the rain and the dark. Soon blind luck brought them to an overhang that shielded them from most of the rain—if they sat far back in the rock’s crevice and very close to each other.
He positioned the rolled-up tent in front of them to block as much rain from that side as was possible. “You might want to take a minute and ponder where meddling gets you.” His tone was lecturing. “I hope you’re happy.”
She would have been happy if she’d never heard of Prince Lazlo of Valtria. “I’m wet.”
Her side was plastered to his. He was a full head taller than her, long limbs, muscles in all the right places. According to her research, he was an avid sportsman. Highly competitive, highly seductive, highly annoying. And, unfortunately, he was her cross to bear.
He relaxed his shoulders against the rock. His masculine scent of leather and motor oil reached her even through the rain. He’d probably spent his morning at the racetrack as usual.
She needed to think about something other than him, or she’d never relax enough to fall asleep. She gave that a valiant try for as long as she could. With her clothes soaked, she was cold to the bone, but she resisted moving even closer to him.
“First thing in the morning,” she said when she could stay silent no longer, “we’ll set up the tent and find our breakfast in the bags. I had the royal cook pack plenty of food for you and the women. If the rain stops, we can make a fire and signal for help.”
He didn’t say anything.
She thought of her small walk-up in Brooklyn, New York, that was mortgaged to the hilt. She couldn’t fail here. If she pulled this off, she’d have enough money to throw some serious advertising out there and save her business.
The matchmakers’ second rule was: Win each client’s goodwill. Only then can you work productively together.
And she badly needed to keep this client.
Having to apologize, when she’d done nothing wrong, just about killed her, but she was willing to make that sacrifice. She had a month left to claim the exorbitant fee the Queen had promised her if she succeeded. She needed to gain Lazlo’s cooperation and goodwill.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t how I planned this.”
Once again, he didn’t respond.
But she did hear a sound, so she turned and saw his head resting on his shoulder, at what looked like an uncomfortable angle. He softly snored into her face.
And then he began leaning and sliding against her. She tried to move away, but somehow ended up on the ground, practically pinned under him.
“Your Highness!” She shoved him toward the edge of their shelter.
“Mmmm,” he said without opening his eyes as he rolled onto his side.
Wedged between him and the rock, she had no room to pull away. She was practically spooning him. She had to get out of there. Except, the spot was comfortable. And his body heat was slowly drying her. And it was dark and scary out in the open.
She decided to stay put. For comfort’s sake. She did her best to ignore that they were touching. Still, sleep didn’t come easily.
Every noise the rain didn’t drown out startled her. At one point, she could have sworn something big moved through the woods nearby. She could hear branches cracking, but as she waited with her breath held, nobody materialized from the darkness.
When she did sleep, her dreams were strange. She was with the prince on the beach, entangled, naked, waves licking their feet. He was kissing the sensitive skin of her neck, sending spirals of need through her body. In her dream, he wasn’t the least annoying. The hands that at times molded metal at his auto factory, now caressed her breasts. She arched to press them into his palms as her nipples pebbled and begged for more. She tried to shift closer to him, but hit her head on rock.
What rock? They were making love in the surf on the beach. The sand was soft …except it wasn’t. She was lying on rock. She slowly came awake.
The wetness on her feet was rain, not playful waves. She’d stuck them out of their shelter while she slept. Prince Lazlo had turned in the night, one arm under her head, his other hand cupping one of her breasts gently.
Heat rushed to her face. “Your Highness!” She squeaked the words as she tried to wiggle away from him, but the rock provided no space.
Firmly, she pushed the hand away. “Prince Lazlo, this is not—” She glanced up into his face.
His eyes were closed, his aristocratic mouth lax. He was still fast asleep.
ROBERTO SPIT SAND as he crawled out of the water, too exhausted to stand. The waves had broken their raft, taken their weapons—the makeshift knife as well as the guard’s rifle—and separated the small team from each other.
He scanned the beach where he landed. Nothing but darkness and rain. He couldn’t even tell if he’d reached the mainland or only another island. He rolled to his side and puked up some of the saltwater he’d swallowed. Then he flopped onto his back, letting the rain beat his face, unable to move another inch.
Endless hours passed. Each time the waves came up to lick his feet, he crawled a little higher. Then the rain stopped, the clouds cleared out and he could see two dark forms on the beach—either his men, driftwood or clumps of seaweed. He stood from the wet sand and staggered toward them, squinting his eyes to see.
He came across Marco first, shook him, pounded his back. When the man coughed up water at last, Roberto moved on to José. Then the three of them dragged themselves into the low brush that edged the narrow, rocky shoreline.
And for a while, they rested.
“Where the hell are we?” José spoke first, sounding hoarse. Their throats were raw from swallowing too much seawater and vomiting.
“Close to a house, I hope.” Marco shook wet sand from his curly black hair, looking the most chipper among the three. “A house full of food and women.”
But instead of a house, the first thing they spotted once they got going was a tent, about a hundred meters or so inland.
Roberto signaled to the others, then picked up the largest stone within reach. They spread out and circled their target, caught the man inside the tent unawares. The guy had a weapon, but no time to use it before they smashed his skull in.
They stood over the body, breathing hard, adrenaline pumping, the scent of blood in their nostrils. They waited, listening. When they were sure that the man had been alone and nobody was coming, Roberto lit a lamp. He grinned as he looked around. His friends didn’t call him a lucky bastard for nothing. “We have food, shelter and a gun again.” Not a bad start to the day.
Marco was stuffing his face already. Crumbs rolled down his cleft chin as he made an animal-like sound.
“Give me that.” Roberto snatched the rucksack away from him. He went through the contents, then tossed José a neatly packed sandwich, laying claim to the rest. He was the boss; he would hand out the food when and where it pleased him.
He took the largest sandwich for himself and bit into it with only slightly more restraint than Marco. They were safe for the moment, out of the weather and soon their bellies would be full. Nobody knew they were here. Probably nobody knew the man they’d killed was here, either. Surveying his gear, he looked like a lone hiker out camping.
But before they could settle in comfortably, a radio he hadn’t noticed before came on, startling José into jumping.
The small device was hanging on a peg in a dark corner of the tent. “Station two, come in.”
MORNING COULDN’T COME soon enough. Every inch of Milda’s body ached. The only comfort she’d had over the long night was the heat radiating off the prince. Since their sole blanket was wet and muddy, she hadn’t been able to use that for anything.
She looked around, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Lazlo was gone.
Thank God.
She ran her fingers through her hair. She wasn’t one of those women who woke with perfect style and grace. At least she would have a little time to get herself together before she had to face him. A drowned rat had to look better than she did.
She ran her fingertips under her eyes to take off any smudged mascara. Not that she wanted to look attractive for the prince, but looking put together gave her self-confidence, and she had a feeling she would need all the self-confidence she could get when dealing with this client on this particular morning.
She crawled out from under the overhang, smoothed down her soiled, ruined clothes. Then the pictures that covered the rock wall caught her attention, the paintings that had been nothing but darker smudges in the dark night when they’d arrived here.
She’d heard of them when she’d been asking around for information on the island, trying to figure out whether it would be right for this project, but she’d had no idea what they depicted. She’d expected horses and buffalos like other nonhomicidal cavemen left all over Europe. She blanched now as she looked at scenes of wholesale murder. Blood splashed everywhere, necks cut, bellies opened. Shocked, she snatched her gaze away.
Good thing she hadn’t seen the paintings the night before. They would have given her nightmares.
She stumbled away from the images, heading for the beach. The gear she’d put together, with professional help, included a number of toothbrushes and plenty of toothpaste. And breakfast. Most importantly, coffee. She’d have her first cup here, then another cup when they were back in the palace. They made the most amazing cappuccinos there, the frothy milk dusted with cinnamon.
She was one hundred percent certain that the boat would come for them today. The ladies had been angry. They’d made their point. The rescue team had to be on their way, if not already here.
But when she came out of the grove, she found the beach empty. No boat. No prince. And more alarmingly, no gear.
She swirled around. Maybe the boat had come and gone already. Was Lazlo mad enough at her to leave her like this?
“Your Highness?”
No response came, save the slapping of the waves.
“Your Highness?” she shouted more loudly as a twinge of panic squeezed her chest.
He couldn’t just leave her. He wouldn’t, she thought, openmouthed with shock, still scanning the empty beach. He was a gentleman.
In most situations.
But he did seem to have developed some sort of unreasonable dislike for her. Crazy, really, when one considered that she was here to help him. She was instrumental for his future happiness. That he wouldn’t see that was most frustrating.
She was close to making him see reason, though. She was pretty sure. The two weeks with those ladies on this island would have done it. Once she got back to the palace, she needed to come up with another plan, and quickly.
She looked toward the mainland. The sunrise over the endless blue of the ocean filled the sky with pink. The scene was beautiful enough to take her breath away, but after a few moments her instincts prickled. Something didn’t feel right. There was something …sinister in the air.
She shook her head. She thought that just because the prince was missing. Or maybe because she’d seen those dreadful pictures.
She ignored her prickling senses, although she’d always been proud of her keen intuition, a must in her line of work, a strong family trait. Having excellent intuition was essential in matching up couples.
Except, she’d never felt that sense of rightness when she’d considered a candidate for the prince. Not even with the three women she’d invited to the island, if she were to be honest, and the present moment seemed like the perfect time to face certain truths. She didn’t feel that certain zing. Didn’t see that image of the young couple leaving the church and rice flying. Didn’t hear the proverbial wedding bells ring. Maybe that had been the problem to begin with.
Every time she’d looked at a woman and thought of her with the prince, the image brought only one thought to her mind: wrong. And she didn’t have all that much time to keep looking.
She picked up a chunk of driftwood by her feet, walked to get another. Even a couple of larger pieces had washed onto the shore overnight. She could use smoke to signal for help. Not that she had any matches. Those were in the gear, which was presumably with the prince. Still, there was that Boy Scout thing of making a bow with a string and rubbing things against each other. She’d seen that once on TV. But before she could bring up in her mind’s eye exactly how that was done, she saw a man bobbing in the water a few hundred feet from shore. He hadn’t been there a moment before.
Then he was close enough for her to recognize Prince Lazlo. Relief flooded her. He was swimming for shore, pulling something with him. A green bag, dripping with water, she realized, when he was close enough to stand up and start walking.
Naked!
Her dreams rushed back. Her eyes went wide. Her throat constricted. Her heart put on a drum festival in the middle of her chest, the beat growing faster and faster, not slowing until he was out of the water enough so she could see that he was still wearing his underwear. Phew. Royal-blue boxer briefs.
Thank God for small mercies.
Not that the rest of his nakedness wasn’t distracting enough. His upper torso was all lean muscles, drops of seawater running down his tanned skin. The rising sun was behind him, outlining his perfect shape.
Then her gaze dropped to the scars on his left leg.
She bit her lip. The skin was pulled together and a shade darker than the rest, white stripes going through the angry red here and there. He’d gotten trapped in a wreck at a racetrack crash and had been burned a few years back, an accident he so downplayed that, before now, she hadn’t even been aware of the extent of his injuries. From what she was seeing now, he must have suffered horribly. That he was even walking had to be a miracle.
His stunning scars didn’t detract anything from his absolute masculine beauty. If anything, they gave him an edge that she imagined drew women even more. His physique drew her, for love’s sake, and he was the last man on earth she would have ever been seriously interested in.
The first rule of matchmaking was: Do not get involved with a client under any circumstances.
He pulled his left hand through his dark hair to get it out of his eyes, shaking the bag with his other hand to dislodge a long strand of seaweed. His breathing was labored, as if he’d been swimming for a long time.
“What are you doing?” Had he tried to swim off the island with some of their supplies? That made no sense whatsoever.
“Saving the remains of our gear.”
Her feet rooted to the spot. For a second, she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She couldn’t really understand. “But—”
“The storm last night whipped up the waves. They ran farther up the beach than usual.” He came over and lowered the bag to the ground at his feet.
“It’s all gone?” She stared at him, still barely comprehending.
He nodded.
Disaster. Absolute disaster was all she could think.
“Can you go back for the rest?” She wasn’t the best of swimmers.
He dropped to the sand, panting, stretching his muscular legs in front of him. “I’ve been at it for the last two hours. Everything else must have been carried far out to sea.”
Her legs wouldn’t hold her up. She sank down across the bag from him.
He opened the bag and pulled out ten jars of caviar—five red, five black—a dozen scented candles and a half-dozen bottles of champagne carefully wrapped in bubble bags.
She waited for more, then could have cried as he tossed the empty bag aside. She pulled it to herself and went through it again. And in one of the front pockets she found waterproof matches, one box of the two dozen she’d ordered from a camping supply store.
“Breakfast?” He held out a jar of caviar, the top already twisted off.
“No thanks.” Her stomach was in a knot. No way could she put anything into it.
He shrugged and scooped some tiny, shiny, pearl-like beluga roe into his mouth. When he finished off the jar, he washed the food down with champagne. Then he lay back on the sand, his face to the sky, suddenly grinning while she did her best not to hyperventilate.
“How can you be happy at a moment like this?” she snapped at him.
He came up on one elbow—biceps bulging all over the place—and pinned her with those wicked dark eyes of his. “I have two weeks without you being able to do anything to get me married.”
He was insufferable.
“You’re missing your race,” she pointed out, just to needle him.
He shrugged. “A little freedom might just be worth it.”
She didn’t say anything for a while, then, “We should light a fire and send smoke signals.”
He looked over the meager pile of driftwood she’d collected. “If the guards are on the other side of the island, they won’t see it. Better we save the wood for tonight to keep warm. It has to dry before we can light it anyway.”
She couldn’t bear the thought of another night. Under those rocks. With the prince. “The boat will come.”
“Maybe. But we need a plan B.”
“We should find another shelter. And we should go and find fresh water before the day gets too hot.” They were in the Mediterranean. There was plenty of heat; his shorts were half-dry already. And they needed to do something. Sprawled on the sand, he looked like he was on vacation. He gestured toward the champagne bottles.
“That won’t prevent dehydration. In fact, alcohol speeds it.” Lady Szilvia, the survival expert, had told her that when she’d given advice about what to bring. And Milda had made sure to pack plenty of water. Except, those plastic bottles were now bobbing somewhere in the sea. “We need fresh water.”
“We have nothing to put it in until we drink the champagne.”
She hated that he had a point. “We could pour the champagne out.”
He seemed to consider that, but then he said, “On the off chance that we might be here awhile without much food, we could need those calories.”
She grabbed the bottle from him.
The bubbles tickled down her throat deliciously. After the ninth or tenth sip, she felt some of the tension leaving her body. “There.” She took another gulp, then tossed the empty bottle onto the sand in front of him.
He picked it up with an amused look, stood and held out his hand.
She ignored him.
He walked to the bushes and came back with his clothes, a bundle she hadn’t seen there in her frenetic search for him. He dressed, then slipped the waterproof matches into his pocket, packed everything else back into the bag before slinging it over his shoulder. “Let’s stash this under the overhang before we go for a stroll. Wouldn’t want to lose it again.”
She walked after him, trying not to look at him too much. The only man she’d ever known who managed to swagger with a limp. Who did he think he was, John Wayne?
They crossed the wild olive grove, the tangy scent of the trees heavy in the air. That odd feeling returned to her again, a premonition she couldn’t put her finger on, a sense of unease. Probably because they were going back to those gruesome rocks.
“So, what are those paintings about? I didn’t realize Valtria’s past was that bloodthirsty.”
“It’s not. The island was used by Etruscan priests back in the day, for their human sacrifices. Valtrians came here much later.”
A shiver ran down her spine as she thought how many men and women must have died on the island over the centuries. Which would explain the bad vibes she’d been getting. By being here, they were probably disturbing some ancient burial grounds.
She tried not to look at the rock paintings as they emptied the bag and secured their meager supplies. Then they were finally heading for higher ground. The hillside wasn’t too steep, solid rock in places, brittle shale in others where she had to watch her step in order not to slip. Here and there, thick woods appeared, especially close to the top, but on the bottom, the wild groves were sparse with plenty of open areas between them.
“Is there fresh water here, do you know?” She did her best to keep up with him. He was pretty fast, even with the limp.
She was wearing sandals. Only two-inch heels, but still …She hadn’t planned on staying on the island beyond explaining the camping trip to Lazlo and introducing him to the ladies. She’d planned on being back at the palace by dinner, at the latest. At least she’d had the good sense to wear summer slacks, and brought a sweater in case the wind was too much on the boat ride over.
“There’s a stream.”
“Do you know where?”
“No idea. I was only here once, when I was a kid.” The higher they went, the denser the vegetation became.
“Wild animals?” She remembered last night’s worry.
“Rabbits and foxes.”
At least that was reassuring.
They walked until noon but found nothing. “We should switch tactics and walk the perimeter of the island,” Lazlo recommended. “Even if the guards keep out of our way, we should be able to find one of their tents. We’d be set for supplies at least.”
Exactly. Why didn’t she think of that earlier? Had to be the champagne.
Downhill was a lot easier than up. She did slip a couple of times, but he always caught her easily. She didn’t like when they were touching. He was the type of man a woman couldn’t help but be aware of physically.
Several hours passed as they walked, keeping as much as possible to the shade of the trees. Her stomach growled.
“Should have brought some food and champagne,” Lazlo said. “Sorry.”
“We didn’t know it would take this long.”
It had to be midafternoon by the time he spotted the tent under a clump of trees and pointed it out to her.
She was so tired she could barely walk, but she broke into a run.
“Hello, we need help.” She pushed through the open flap, relieved that the nightmare was over.
Then reeled back, was caught against Lazlo’s wide chest. He swore softly, put his arms around her, tried to pull her back. But she couldn’t move, couldn’t take her eyes off the sight in front of her.
Inside the tent was the dead body of one of the guards. Lying in a pool of blood, stripped naked. A sight that eerily echoed the rock paintings.
Chapter Three
Lazlo searched for a weapon, but Ben’s gun was gone. So was his radio.
“For love’s sake.” The mumbled words came through as Milda cupped her hands in front of her mouth. Tears filled her eyes, which were round with shock.
He looked outside. The woods seemed empty, the birds trilling in the air, no sign that anyone might be lurking in the bushes. He waited anyway, watching for any movement, listening for any sound that didn’t belong. When he was certain that they were alone, he pulled the tent flap closed behind them.
“We’ll be fine. I think we’re alone for now. As soon as I take care of Ben, we should grab whatever we can use, then get out of here.”
The young guard had only been working at the palace for a little over a year. He was a fine polo player and an antique car enthusiast. They’d had some conversations. Yesterday wasn’t the first time the man had been assigned to Lazlo’s personal detail.
He wrapped the man in his sleeping bag, then carried him outside, to a spot they’d passed on their way to the tent. A storm had uprooted an ancient olive tree, leaving a giant hole in the ground. He laid Ben in the hole, then went back for the short camping shovel he’d seen in the tent’s corner.
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