Page 10 of Captured

Dimitri stalked into the guest-apartment wing of the palace, his scowl deepening as he caught the flickering light from the sitting room east of the girls’ suites. He wasn’t in the mood to interrupt a late-night fireside girls’ chat, he just needed to talk to the blonde. Something wasn’t adding up.

Fortunately, a quick sweep of the sitting room reassured him that the room was empty.

Or...not quite empty.

He stepped inside, moving silently to where the very top of Lauren Grant’s head peeked out of a summer weight blanket. She’d wrapped herself in a cocoon, her purse tucked beside her, her face angled toward the warmth of the fire. He stood there for a moment, weighing his options.

The American wasn’t telling him everything. She wasn’t telling him much of anything.

But what did it matter,? She wasn’t his real concern. The royal family was, especially until plans got settled for how Kristos’s engagement would move forward. Then the remaining girls would be ushered along to enjoy the rest of their fancy European vacation. Once he’d confirmed that this Henry Smithson wasn’t tangled up in the affairs of the gods but was simply a fanboy freak, he would happily wave them all goodbye.

He had already missed the window of his leave to go see his family on Miranos, but that couldn’t be helped. The ONSF reports from the Turkish border were increasingly dire. The military needed to increase its presence to the north, and there were precious few fighters to spread out throughthe mountainous region. He’d assigned one of Kristos’s royal cousins to the job, along with his contingent of hotheads. That might have been a mistake, but sooner or later, the young fools would have to be trusted with real work.

Either way, he had too much to do to play nursemaid.

That didn’t change the fact that Kristos had asked him to take care of this woman. Worse, Dimitri wasn’t simply honor bound to do what his prince commanded, he needed it. Needed the assignment, needed the mission, just as he’d needed every mission over the past year. Especially those missions that required him to save people from themselves.

He’d failed at that the day Ari had disappeared. Failed miserably.

He wouldn’t fail this time, regardless if his focus wasn’t the heir to the throne, but some spoiled, insufferable woman whose touch he craved so much, it made his bones ache.

He wanted nothing more than to get away from Lauren Grant. He needed to put her on some plane back to America and never see her again. Because if she didn’t get out of his sight soon, he knew she’d drive him to do something he regretted.

Nothing permanent. Nothing stupid. But...still something more than he should.

Even now, he wanted to lean down and take her into his arms, holding her so tightly that he might never forget the warmth of her body against his, the touch of her lips, the feel of her long, lean legs?—

Stop it.

He stomped another step forward with perhaps a bit more force than necessary, and Lauren stirred. The blanket fell away from her face, and her hand reached out reflexively to keep it tight around her body, as if that flimsy bit of comfort was sufficient shield against the hornets’ nest she stirred up around herself simply by existing.

Well, he was more than in the mood to kick that nest a few more times right now.

Stopping short of the couch, he dragged an ottoman closer and sat on its edge. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared at her.

He could tell the moment she returned to awareness. It wasn’t so much a change in her coloring or a flutter of her lids, but an electric energy that seemed to course through her, warning her that once again, she was being watched. Once again, she was the focus of someone’s attention.

What would it be like for this woman to wake up outside the spotlight? He smirked. She’d probably be lost.

“Were you planning to stare at me all night?” Lauren’s eyes drifted open with a cold challenge, her face controlled, her tone even. There was nothing to indicate that she’d been sleeping, other than the fact that he’d observed her not thirty seconds earlier, dead to the world.

“Where is this Henry Smithson now?” he asked too gruffly, but the sharpness of his words seemed to ground her. She straightened on the couch, pulling the blanket tight around her.

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Has he ever threatened you?”

“Of course not.” Her outrage flickered between laughter and anger with such precision that every one of his nerves prickled. She was bluffing. Had to be. Still, Lauren continued. “He’s a friend of my father’s. I’ve known him since I was a little girl.”

“How little?” He didn’t know why he asked it, but the spasm of emotion that arrested her face might have been the confusion of waking up on any other woman.

But not this woman.

Either way, she recovered quickly enough, and rolled her eyes. “As if I could possibly remember. I was young, and he and my father did business together. I was paraded in front of allof Dad’s business clients at one point or another, it couldn’t be helped.” She tilted her head. “Why? Did you find something in that package after all?”

“We’re tracking it down. Officially, we expect to determine that it was emptied on the way to us, since Mr. Smithson cared more about the style of his presentation than its contents. He sent the thing to the palace unwrapped. Is he frequently careless?”

“I wouldn’t call him careless, no.” As if she realized she was saying too much, she lifted a slim shoulder. “He’s too good at business to be truly careless. He might have been conducting a test, to see how the good citizens of Oûros would react to such easy pickings. Or”—she waved off his bristled indignation—“he may merely have been playing a game. He likes games. Perhaps another package will arrive tomorrow, identical in every way, except this time, it will have something in it. That would play to his sensibilities.”

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