Alec's Royal Assignment (Man On A Mission Book 3) (4 page)

“How did you come to the palace?” she asked him.

“Taxi.” He smiled at her. “One of those cute little Zakharian taxis that seem to be everywhere. I could have called for an embassy limo—the official dignity of the embassy’s RSO must be maintained, I’m told—but it seemed kind of stuffy. Or I could have walked. The taxi was a reasonable compromise.”

“I have my car here,” she said. “If you do not mind being driven by a woman.”

Alec grinned as if at a secret joke, and Angelina mentally chastised herself for the verbal slipup. She knew American men were not like Zakharian men. Most of them anyway. American men were used to American women doing—and doing well—just about everything a man could do. But all Alec said was, “You wouldn’t ask me that if you knew Princess Mara used to drive herself to and from the university where she worked. That meant I was always in the passenger seat.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later they were in the vaulted main chapel of Saint Anne’s Cathedral in Drago. After identifying herself and Alec to the custodian, they were allowed to wander at will.

Saint Anne’s Cathedral was laid out like a giant cross, with a side chapel on each side of the main area, or nave, as it was called, facing the apse and the altar, effectively doubling the seating capacity. Angelina was mentally calculating sight lines—envisioning where the royal parents would stand near the baptismal font, where the two sets of godparents would stand, and where the archbishop and the other members of the ecclesiastical team would stand—when Alec spoke.

“What’s up there?” he asked, pointing to the distant loft in the rear.

She glanced up, following the direction of his arm. “Choir loft,” she answered absently, and pulled a notebook from her pocket to jot down a couple of questions she wanted to ask Captain Zale.

“How do you get up there?”

“Staircase. Access from the foyer.”

“Will there be a choir present at the christening?”

“Of course. This is an incredibly important event for Zakhar,” she informed him a little stiffly. “It is not just the baptism of a child, you understand. It is a celebration of the future of our country. Something like your Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and New Year’s celebrations all rolled into one. A two-hundred-voice choir will be singing the ‘Te Deum.’ Just as they did at the king’s coronation. Just as they did at his wedding to the queen.”

Alec nodded his understanding, but all he said was, “Then it’s not likely an assassin would try to hide up there.”

“There will be men posted there nevertheless,” she assured him. “We are taking no chances.”

Alec had wandered past the altar while she spoke, and now he asked, “What’s behind these pipes?” indicating the organ pipes, some of which stretched from floor to ceiling, in a series of wooden cases. There were spaces between the pipes, some only an inch or two, some more.

“Nothing. Just space to allow the notes to resonate throughout the cathedral. No one could stand behind those pipes...not when the organ is playing,” Angelina explained. “And the organ will be playing during much of the service. The sound waves...you have to understand the sound waves would cause such pain no one would risk it. It could rupture the eardrums. You would be writhing on the floor.”

“Hmm.” He slipped behind the pipes. Between the pipes and the wall was a large recess with access from both sides.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, following him, curious.

“What’s to prevent an assassin from wearing high-tech noise-canceling headphones?”

Angelina opened her mouth to answer but closed it again, with her words unsaid, realizing he was right. She glanced at the notebook in her hand and quickly wrote Alec’s question down—another thing to mention to Captain Zale—noting at the same time how much light the spaces between the pipes allowed into the shadowed recess. Enough light to write. Which meant plenty enough space to shoot between.

You were right to bring Alec with you,
she told herself.
Perhaps someone else has thought of this, but perhaps not.
She turned and faced the apse, peering through one of the gaps, trying to think like an assassin. Despite the relatively narrow spaces between the pipes, up close she could clearly see everything in front of the altar.
A man could stand behind the organ pipes and take aim between them. It would not be difficult.

“It’s not that hard a shot to make,” Alec said softly as he came to stand next to Angelina.

“You are correct,” she told him. “Where they will be during the ceremony—the entire royal family—I could make that shot. In the pews. At the baptismal font. At the altar. I could make it easily.”

Her eyes met his. And just that quickly Angelina’s thoughts turned from the deadly serious business at hand, to remembering what it had felt like when this man had kissed her. Held her. Caressed her. The iron hardness of his body when he’d pulled her down and trapped her beneath him early this morning. The taste of him on her lips.

So long. It had been so long since she’d let herself even
think
of men as men. So long since she’d let herself remember she was a woman with a woman’s heart, a woman’s needs. So long since she’d let herself relax her guard enough to even consider the possibility of a sexual relationship with a man.

But she was thinking of it now. Because
he
was making her think of it. Because he’d kissed her this morning as if it was a perfectly normal and natural thing—which it was—but not for her.

She shuddered and caught her breath as a wave of longing swept through her, longing for something she knew she could never have. She started to turn away, but he stopped her, his hand warm and firm on her arm. And that intensified the ache.

His lips captured hers—or was it the other way around? Angelina didn’t know who had moved first, but just like this morning, they were both aroused, both fighting for control, both trembling in the grip of a need that possessed them to the exclusion of all other thought.

“Angel,” he whispered between incendiary kisses that set off sparks throughout her body. Holding her so tightly she knew she couldn’t escape. Even if she’d wanted to escape...which she didn’t. “Oh God, Angel.”

No one had ever called her Angel. Not her parents, not her cousin, not her friends. No one. She didn’t know why, but somehow, when Alec called her Angel, it made her feel special. Cherished. Unique. A name for him alone.

He pressed her against the organ pipes, then grasped one of her thighs and pulled it up, up, until he was holding her bent knee, stroking it through the slacks she wore. But she might as well not have been wearing anything for all the protection they afforded her. Because, with her knee raised and clasping his hip, the crux of her thighs was open to him. Vulnerable. And he pressed his erection against her mound until she moaned. Moaned, and melted.

She couldn’t think. She tried, but thought was impossible. Her entire world had condensed into this moment in time, into desire that left her shaking and desperate. The only thing that let Angelina hold on to her sanity was the knowledge that Alec was as desperate as she was. That he was shaking, too. That she wasn’t the only one vulnerable.

A sound impinged on her consciousness, the sound of footsteps echoing in the cathedral, then of someone calling her name in Zakharan. “Lieutenant Mateja?”

Angelina tore herself away from Alec, just as she had this morning. But this time she didn’t try to pretend she hadn’t wanted him as much as he’d wanted her. This time she didn’t wipe the taste of him away.

“We cannot do this,” she whispered to Alec. “
I
cannot do this.” Putting on a calm face, she quickly moved out from behind the organ pipes. “I am here,” she told the custodian in Zakharan, thankful she didn’t wear lipstick that would now be smudged. She hoped the wizened little man wouldn’t think to look behind the pipes, wouldn’t ask where Alec was, or he’d wonder what the hell they were doing in that recessed space and put two and two together.

“You said you only needed a half hour,” the custodian reminded her. “It has been almost twice that. It is nearly noon, and I must lock up so I can go to lunch. Are you finished here?”

“Five more minutes,” she promised him. “I will be quick. I only have one more thing to check.”

As soon as the custodian walked away, Alec came out from behind the pipes. She sensed his stare, but refused to meet his eyes, ashamed of what had taken place between them. Any kind of romantic entanglement was incompatible with the life she’d chosen. Every man she’d dated—and there hadn’t been all that many since she’d joined the queen’s security detail—automatically expected that once their relationship grew serious, Angelina would quit her dangerous job.

And that was
not
going to happen...until Angelina herself determined she could no longer do her job to her own satisfaction. As long as she stayed in peak physical condition, as long as her reaction time meant no one was better than she was at protecting the queen, her choice was clear.

She couldn’t be soft and yielding, not for any man. She couldn’t be anything other than what she was—tough and uncompromising. She couldn’t even pretend...as other women she knew pretended. And that meant the life most Zakharian women took for granted was out of the realm of possibility for her.

Even if she didn’t get involved romantically, even if this was only sex—
only sex
? she asked herself, remembering how things had exploded between Alec and her—she wasn’t willing to risk her reputation. Things were difficult enough for a woman in the Zakharian National Forces. When sex reared its ugly head, men tended to look at women differently.
As if they didn’t already.

This was twice now she had surrendered to her body’s insistent demands. Twice she had let Alec inside her defenses. Twice she had let herself forget who and what she was. And that was two times too many.

Chapter 4

L
east said, soonest mended.
Alec could hear the words in his head as clearly as if his mother were standing next to him reciting that old maxim. And he knew the wisest course of action was to say nothing to the outgoing RSO. What did you say to a man who was being bounced out of a coveted job to make room for you? Ostensibly because of political favoritism, but really because he was suspected of fraud and corruption?

No, it was better to say nothing at all, not even to commiserate with the guy over being displaced. So he listened politely as the outgoing RSO—a man he’d crossed paths with before—went through his calendar and case roster with Alec.

He noted that the guy had a hard time meeting Alec’s eyes, and his laughter seemed forced—
signs of a guilty conscience?
Alec wondered.
Or just that he doesn’t quite know what to say to me, too, especially since we know each other?
It wasn’t unheard of to be replaced on short notice. But it couldn’t be easy. Still, it wasn’t as if he was being demoted. Not exactly. And if he was clean, the DSS would soon place him as RSO somewhere else.

“What’s the ambassador like?” he asked, for something innocuous to say.

“Okay, I guess, for a political appointee.”

Which didn’t tell Alec much. He had an appointment with the ambassador this afternoon, and he was keeping an open mind. Even though the ambassador would also be a target in his upcoming investigation, that was just speculation at this point. The ambassador deserved respect from Alec in every way. At least until something was proved against him. As RSO, Alec was the personal adviser to the ambassador on all security issues, and was responsible for all aspects of the embassy’s security. Conversely, Alec had every intention of using the ambassador as
his
adviser on all things Zakharian. At least until he got his feet wet.

“Well, I guess that’s about it,” the other man said. “You have the safe’s combination already, but you’ll change it, of course.” He took a set of keys from his pocket and laid them on the desk in front of him. “You’ll need these. Everything there opens a door somewhere in the embassy.” The outgoing RSO smiled briefly, stood and offered his hand.

Alec didn’t hesitate to shake it. He couldn’t let the outgoing RSO suspect anything more than he might already suspect under the unusual circumstances.

* * *

Alec was run ragged over the next few days, but he loved every minute of it. This was work he was born to do, and he did it with style. With a flair all his own. Putting his personal stamp on the job without conscious effort.

In addition to his meeting with the ambassador, he held a meet-and-greet with the entire embassy staff, memorizing their names and matching faces to them. It was another little knack he had, a trick he’d learned back when he’d first joined the DSS—people loved being remembered. It cost him nothing and gained him willing cooperation when he least expected it.

He obtained a list of embassy employees from the ambassador on down, going back five years—including their work histories and whatever else was on file— and began going through the data meticulously. Alec had no idea how long the human trafficking might have been going on. He’d go back as far as necessary, but five years was a good start, and he’d work his way backward starting from the present. He put the current ambassador and his predecessor as RSO at the top of the list, because the king had specified the corruption could be occurring at the highest levels.

Related to the investigation, Alec met privately with Colonel Marianescu and the three policemen the king had specified were working the trafficking case from the Zakharian side of things. Zakhar’s laws were stricter, their punishments more severe than in the United States, but crime existed everywhere, and Zakhar was no exception. The same rules of evidence didn’t apply, though, and Alec couldn’t help but feel a twinge of envy at how much easier it would be to make the case in Zakhar than it would be in the States, once all the evidence was assembled and indictments sought.

* * *

On Friday afternoon he met with Trace McKinnon at the palace to ensure complete privacy.

“The agency brought you up to speed?” Alec asked McKinnon when they were alone in the sitting room of the McKinnons’ suite in the palace.

“Not really. All I was told was that the State Department asked for me again—something critical and urgent here in Zakhar—and that you would fill me in on everything.”

Alec told him. It didn’t take long—McKinnon didn’t need all the
t
’s crossed and the
i
’s dotted. “I thought of you right off,” Alec said. “Especially since you mentioned in the car from the airport that the princess took a year’s leave of absence from the university after the twins were born. The plan wouldn’t work if she had to rush home to get back to teaching, because it involves her, too.”

“So you want Mara to stay on here in order to give me an ostensible reason for staying on, do I have that right?”

“Pretty much. And the job is right up the agency’s alley. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

McKinnon nodded thoughtfully. “It tracks. And Mara did take a year’s sabbatical.” A smile crept across his face. “I’ll have to check with her, but I know what she’ll say.”

“So, you’re in?”

“Are you kidding? Making Mara happy by giving her a reason to stay here indefinitely? It’s a no-brainer.”

* * *

Angelina sat quietly in one corner of the queen’s sitting room as Queen Juliana and Princess Mara drank tea and shared confidences about their husbands and their children in the way of longtime friends—which they were.

Angelina hadn’t said anything when the queen had introduced her favorite bodyguard to her best friend a week ago, but she’d been thrilled to have finally met the princess who’d played such a pivotal role in her life. The princess was only a few months older than Angelina, but she’d been held up to Angelina as a role model by her mother since she was a little girl.

Angelina’s mother hadn’t realized Angelina wasn’t patterning herself after the princess as a lady—she was inspired instead by the princess’s scholastic achievements and steadfast determination to achieve her goals, despite the common Zakharian attitude toward women.

Angelina had been fired up to follow in the princess’s footsteps. Not in mathematics—she’d known that wasn’t her forte—but she’d pushed herself to excel scholastically just as the princess had done. She’d graduated from college a year early and followed that up immediately with law school and then a budding career as a prosecutor—as budding a career in the law as any woman could find in Zakhar—before joining the military.

Her original dream of being a prosecutor might have been supplanted by her current dream job as one of the queen’s bodyguards, but that didn’t mean her original dream was gone. Someday she’d go back to it. Just not anytime soon.

“Trace tells me you and Captain Zale met Alec at the airport,” Princess Mara said, and suddenly Angelina realized the princess was addressing her. “What did you think of him?”

Angelina wasn’t about to admit she’d met Alec more than once—or that she’d kissed him twice—so she searched for something innocuous to say about a man the princess held in affection. “He seemed...nice, Your Highness.”

“Mara, please,” the princess said. “I am an American now, and I prefer the freedom of being just me.” Her green eyes twinkled. “And Alec is many things, but
nice
is not a word I would have picked to describe him.” She tilted her head to one side. “Liam, now,
he
is nice. Sweet, too. And idealistic. But Alec?” She shook her head. “No, Alec is not sweet. And he is not idealistic. But he is a man to contend with. I would not want to be on the wrong side of him, but I would trust him with my life.”

* * *

Humming a tune under his breath, Alec left the McKinnons’ suite and headed for the grand staircase. He was just about to go down when he saw a woman come out of another suite on the other side of the landing. A woman he recognized in a heartbeat. Recognized, and wanted to talk to. Urgently.

He’d thought of Angelina whenever he’d had a free moment. And even when he didn’t really have a free moment, just a few seconds. Every night since he’d last seen her in the cathedral—since he’d kissed her until they were both trembling—he’d found himself thinking how lonely his bed was without her. As if they were already lovers. As if he knew what it would be like with her, so that her absence hurt. Physically. An ache that started—predictably—in his loins, but that spread throughout his body as he imagined her there next to him in bed.

“Angel.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried far enough.

She turned his way, startled. “Alec.” She glanced around quickly and hurried over to where he stood at the top of the staircase. “You are not to call me that,” she said in a hushed voice. When Alec tilted his head and gave her a questioning look, she explained, “You are not to call me Angel...in public.”

“Why not?” Vivid in his memory was the moment he’d first used that name, and he could tell by her expression and the warm tide of color washing over her face she was remembering, too.

“It is...unprofessional.”

“How is a nickname unprofessional?”

“Not any nickname, just that one.” When Alec raised his brows in question, she added, “Because it is too...too feminine.” Then she quickly changed the subject. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting McKinnon. You?”

“I work here,” she reminded him. “Queen’s security detail, remember?”

“Right.” He smiled at her, his most whimsical smile. Deliberately turning on the charm. “So when do you get off duty?”

She looked as if she wanted to smile back but wouldn’t let herself. “Now, actually. I am done for the day.”

Alec remembered Angelina saying,
“We cannot do this...
I
cannot do this,”
after they’d kissed in the cathedral. But she hadn’t said why. Until she explained, Alec wasn’t about to just let it go. They
had
something together. Something good. Something explosive. Something worth fighting for. As long as he was in Zakhar—and he was here for at least a year, maybe more—he was going to pursue it. Unless she said no.

Alec wasn’t a wolf. When a woman said no, that was it for him—he took her at her word. The trick was persuading her not to say no in the first place. To give her a damned good reason to say yes. “I cannot” wasn’t the same thing as “no.”

Now he said, “Dinner? I’ve got an apartment—I moved in two days ago—but I haven’t had time to stock up the kitchen yet, so I’ve been eating out. I took the advice of somebody at the embassy last night—big mistake. Don’t get me wrong, the food was okay. But a man on his own in a restaurant geared for couples gets shunted off to a table behind the service door, and the waiters act as if he’s invisible.”

Angelina made a valiant attempt to hold back her smile, but it was impossible. “I cannot see you allowing that to happen. Not you.”

Alec grinned. “Okay, you’re right. I didn’t. But they tried. Believe me, they tried. It would’ve been easier if I’d had a date with me. Someone like you. A beautiful woman always gets great service.”

She wasn’t averse to the compliment—that was obvious. But just as obvious was the fact she wasn’t expecting it—either the compliment or the flirtatious way it was delivered—and it took her off guard. Despite that, she came back quickly with, “Only if she is with a man. A woman dining out on her own in Zakhar is...unusual. Breakfast and lunch are not a problem. But dinner?” Her lips quirked into a hint of a smile. “A woman alone is not considered a good tipper. But a man with a woman he is trying to impress—that is a different story.”

He thought he knew the answer already, but he moved a step closer and asked, “So could I impress you...by being a big tipper?” His voice was husky with meaning.

She didn’t back up, and he admired that about her. Most women would have...if a man invaded their personal space. But Angelina just shook her head. “You do not have to impress me that way,” she said honestly, her blue-gray eyes meeting his. “I am already impressed.”

She doesn’t play games,
Alec realized with a sense of shock.
But then you knew that.
It was refreshing. And at the same time disarming.
Tread cautiously,
a little voice in the back of his head warned him. But Alec—who was so good at trusting his instincts— ignored the warning.

His voice dropped a notch when he urged, “Have dinner with me, Angel. Pick a restaurant—any restaurant you want. Just have dinner with me.” It wasn’t his usual approach. He was good at charming a woman, an approach that had worked many times before. But somehow, his usual facile charm was absent this time around. And Alec had never held his breath as he waited for an answer. That was something new, and he wondered why her answer was suddenly so important.

Angelina tilted her chin up, staring at him so intently, so seriously, Alec was sure she was going to say no. The decision hung in the balance for a moment. Then she said, “Mischa’s, in the central district, is probably the best choice. They have been there since before my mother was born.” Her eyes smiled before her lips joined in. “They are not four-star, you understand. Casual dining, not formal. But the food is good, and at a reasonable price. You will like it, I think. Even the king enjoyed eating there with his fellow soldiers when he was in the Zakharian National Forces. There is a picture of him with his unit on one wall, with pictures of other famous diners.”

“Sounds good. Where is it?”

“It is a little difficult to explain. Do you know the central district?”

“My apartment’s there. And I should tell you my sister calls me the human GPS—I’ve never gotten lost yet, no matter where in the world I find myself.”

Angelina’s smile deepened. “Where exactly is your apartment?”

When Alec told her it was on Vasska Street near Jalena Lane, she said, “But that is very close to Mischa’s. No more than five blocks away. You could walk to your apartment from the restaurant. And the market is on the way. I could help you shop—not everyone speaks English. Did you take a taxi?”