Page 15 of Royal Agenda

He frowned. “I cannot cut this off.” He lifted her hair, fingering it as one would a piece of velvet cloth. The tender and thoughtful gesture had her wondering what it would feel like to have him cup her face in his hands. “Sarebbe un crimine.” It would be a crime.

“I trust you,” she replied, closing her eyes. If she looked at him anymore, she’d violate one of the basic rules of etiquette school—you don’t stare at people. In her head, she could study him all she wanted to, and no one would ever know. Then, she’d avoid him at all costs when this appointment was over. He was too smooth, too handsome, and too attentive to ignore. As if that wasn’t enough, he was a rare find in Florida, USA. Stumbling upon an Isoladian was like catnip for her.

She was a sucker for rare bloodlines, and Ryker had some of the rarest on the planet. Not to mention, his voice melted every joint in her body. She’d once bought an entire display case of pastries because the man behind the counter had a voice like that. When he’d asked, “You only want one?” She’d handed over her credit card and told him to give her all he had.

Ryker could undo her at the seams, taking apart her gypsy heart.

And she couldn’t have that. Oh no. She most certainly couldn’t have that.

Four

Ryker drove out to the fishing docks where Sean’s “business,” Bob’s Underwater Salvage, operated. He purchased the company from Bob five years ago when Bob retired and hadn’t bothered changing the name. Why? Because he thought it was funny.

Sean was a mix of several things, and had taken a while for Ryker to understand. He was the class clown who aced the class. His grandfather, Don, scared most men with just a look–something he’d perfected while serving in the US military. Though he was always pleasant when he came into the barbershop. Ryker had the sneaking suspicion that Don would not have returned if he had not done well the first time. The man had standards that Ryker respected.

While the docks were about getting boats in and out of the water and fishing, the main boardwalk was a great place to hang out. They had an ice cream shop, bands on occasion, restaurants with outdoor tables, stores, and hot dogs, which he could never quite wrap his European taste buds around.

He had walked there after work every night for three nights, hoping to bump into Grace. He could not get the stunning woman out of his head. Probably because he had slipped into her personal space and caressed her head and hair like a love-sick prince.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,” he mumbled, even as his fingers tingled at the memory of her silken hair flowing through them.

He had not had to ask her to let down her hair so that he could access her tower, yet she had shared a part of herself in the stories she told of her sisters. Growing up, they were close, and her love for them came through every word.

As she regaled him with her stories, he’d removed braids to reveal the most gorgeous natural hair he had ever touched.

She had highlights from the sun that were almost white, with every shade down to her natural vanilla woven throughout. Artificially creating that look would take eight hours and thousands of dollars, and she wore it like a queen.

Her hair wasn’t the only thing that had him in knots, though it was possible that he’d fallen in love with it at first brush stroke.

She’d managed to set Mack on edge with her ability to pick up on accents and read his and Liam’s half-sibling relationship without effort. The men had been undercover for over a year. They were certain no one suspected them. Until Grace. It was as though she could see right through their carefully constructed secret identities. Though she had not mentioned military service, he was sure she had noticed that they stood too straight and moved with the speed of someone trained in combat.

Mack did not reveal to her that his mother had died and he had been forced out of Scotland to the U.S. to live with his father–even after her astute guess at his past.

She either had a superpower or she was a spy. Since Liam’s background check cleared her of all espionage activity, he was inclined to believe she was super and powerful.

He should not wander the boardwalk searching for a glimpse of her long, tan legs and easy smile. And he should not cruise downtown hoping to catch her sapphire blue eyes watching him drive by. And he should not walk through the lobby four times a day on the off chance she would be there, and he could kiss her hand in greeting.

These were not the reasons he was in Diamond Cove, yet he had done all of them under his heart’s command.

According to news reports, his plane had gone down in the Bermuda Triangle, never to be found. He was, by all accounts, a dead man. He was immortalized as the prince who was killed by the mysterious Devil’s Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean. A tragedy. A mystery that would never be solved.

A dead man’s heart should not beat with ferocity when a woman drew near, and his most certainly thrummed for Grace.

He needed a distraction from the way she consumed him.

This brought him to Sean’s salvage company headquarters, which doubled as team headquarters for the SEALs. Not that the unsuspecting population of Diamond Cove knew anything about the secrets residing somewhere off their shoreline, assuming his calculations were correct. If they did, every treasure hunter in the world would invade.

He lifted three pizza boxes off the passenger seat and climbed out of the vehicle. The scent of dead fish hit him square in the face, as it did every time he stepped onto the dock where the local fishermen cleaned their catch. He wrinkled his nose, wishing for the black sand beaches of his homeland and the clean, crisp air.

Wolfe, one of the Seal team who resembled his name in frightening detail, said he was a beach snob.

It was possible he was right—though Ryker would never tell him that. He would and did tell him to keep his beard trimmed and his hair from growing over his ears.

White sand didn’t feel like home, nor like childhood where balancing relations with the United States and his home country was not his concern.

They were very much his concern now.

He walked into the warehouse-type building. Two shiny wave runners on the trailer waited for adventure. Boat, sailing, and ship paraphernalia were neatly organized on custom-made shelves and in bins. Everything had a label. Sean was military through and through and therefore very tidy, but it was Gray—co-Seal-team leader with Mack—who made sure everything from Sean’s underwater salvage company to Gray’s and Knox’s construction company to their undercover mission ran like clockwork—inspections happened regularly. The two months Gray and Ryker were flatmates almost ruined the special operation.

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