Affaire Royale

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Authors: Nora Roberts
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of them are set for execution. Espionage,” he added when she remained silent. “It took the matter out of your father’s hands. Money was one thing, releasing prisoners another. Negotiations were well under way when you were found on the side of the road.”
    “I’ll go back there,” Brie mused. “To the place my car was found and to the place I was found.”
    “Not right away. I agreed to help you, Brie, but in my way.”
    Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Which is?”
    “My way,” he said simply. “When I think you’re strong enough, I’ll take you. Until then, we move slow.”
    “If I don’t agree?”
    “Your father might just take Loubet’s plan more seriously.”
    “And I’d go nowhere.”
    “That’s right.”
    “I knew you wouldn’t be an easy man, Reeve.” She walked a few feet away, into a stream of moonlight. “I haven’t much choice. I don’t like that. Choice seems to me to be the most essential freedom. I keep wondering when I’ll have mine back. Tomorrow, after I meet with my secretary …”
    “Smithers,” Reeve supplied. “Janet Smithers.”
    “What a prim name,” Brie observed. “I’ll go over my schedule with Janet Smithers in the morning. Then I’d like to go over it with you. Whatever it is I’m committed to do, I want to do. Even if it’s spending hoursshopping or sitting in a beauty parlor.”
    “Is that how you think you spend your time?”
    “It’s a possibility. I’m rich, aren’t I?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, then …” With a shrug, she trailed off. “Tonight, before dinner, I lay in the bath and wondered. Actually, I thought of you and wondered.”
    Very slowly he dipped his hands in his pockets. “Did you?”
    “I tried to analyze you. In some ways I could and others not. If I had a great deal of experience with men, it’s forgotten along with everything else, you see.” She felt no embarrassment as she walked to him again. “I wondered if I were to kiss you, be held by you, if I’d see that part of me.”
    Rocking back on his heels, he studied her blandly. “Just part of the job, Your Highness?”
    Annoyance flickered in her eyes. “I don’t care how you look at it.”
    “Maybe I do.”
    “Do you find me unattractive?”
    He saw the way her lip thrust forward so slightly in a pout as she asked. She seemed a woman accustomed to flowery, imaginative compliments. She wouldn’t get them from him. “Not unattractive.”
    She wondered why it sounded almost like an insult. “Well, then, do you have a woman you’re committed to? Would you feel dishonest if you kissed me?”
    He made no move toward her, and the bland smile remained. “I’ve no commitments, Your Highness.”
    “Why are you calling me that now?” she demanded. “Is it only to annoy me?”
    “Yes.”
    She started to become angry, then ended up laughing. “It works.”
    “It’s late.” He took her hand in a friendly manner. “Let me take you up.”
    “You don’t find me unattractive.” She strolled along with him, but at her own pace. “You have no allegiances. Why won’t you kiss me then and help? You did agree to help.”
    He stopped and looked down at her. The top of her head came to his chin. With her chin tilted back, she looked eye to eye with him. “I told your father I’d keep you out of trouble.”
    “You told me you’d help me find out who I am. But perhaps your word means nothing,” she said lightly. “Or perhaps you’re a man who doesn’t enjoy kissing a woman.”
    She’d taken only two steps, when he caught her arm. “You don’t pull any punches, do you?”
    She smiled. “Apparently.”
    He nodded, then held her close in his arms. “Neither do I.”
    He touched his lips to hers with every intention of keeping the kiss dispassionate, neutral. Though he understood her reasons, her needs, he also understood she’d goaded him into doing something he was better off avoiding. Hadn’t he wondered what that soft, curving mouth would taste like?

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