[Montacroix Royal Family Series 01] - Guarded Moments (17 page)

She'd pushed too far. Burke had always chided her on her impatience. Damn, she thought, struggling to ease the tenseness from Caine's body with hands and lips, when would she learn to curb her natural impulsiveness?

"I was only joking," she soothed, not quite truthfully. Actually, the idea, which she honestly hadn't thought of until this moment, sounded wonderful.

Caine observed her carefully, looking for some hint of a prevarication. What they'd shared was special. Unique. But unfortunately, it hadn't changed a thing.

Dear Lord, she really was in danger, Chantal realized suddenly. She was in danger of falling in love with Caine. Perhaps she already had. If that was the case, he could hurt her now. He could tear her heart to ribbons, and this time she might not recover.

"Honestly, Caine, I don't expect a lifetime commitment from you. I'm entirely willing to accept a short-term relationship. A no-strings affair that will last only as long as I'm in your country."

Even as she heard the words leave her lips, Chantal knew they were a lie. She wanted more from him, a great deal more. But afraid of frightening Caine away, she tried to make herself believe that she would be satisfied with whatever he was willing, or able, to give.

Just when he'd come to believe that Chantal was not the fall-in-bed-at-the-drop-of-a-hat princess of the supermarket tabloids, she did a 180-degree turnaround and invited him to enter into a one-night—or in this case, eight-night—stand. It was such a rapid reversal that Caine felt as if he should ask the real princess to please stand up.

"No strings," he repeated dubiously, running his hand down her side from her shoulder to her thigh. Her skin was warm and soft, and she trembled under his light touch.

Her heart was drumming. Her blood warmed. Would he always be able to affect her this way? With a single touch? A mere look? "No strings," she said.

Caine's hand settled on her hip, his fingers molding to the slender bone as he remained silent for a long, thoughtful moment. Experience had taught him that nothing in life came totally unencumbered. "Is that really what you want?"

"Isn't it enough?"

Caine tried to accept her answer for what it was: a declaration that the only future he and Chantal had together was a brief, fiery affair that would last just as long as her time in the States. Wasn't that exactly what he'd wanted?

So why did he suddenly find the idea strangely distasteful?

"Do you honestly believe that it's enough?"

Because she wasn't entirely sure of the nature of her own needs, Chantal could not understand his. "Really, Caine," she protested on a forced laugh, "must you take everything so seriously?"

"I take you seriously." With fingers that were heartbreakingly gentle, he brushed her hair back from her forehead, wondering what childhood adventure had rein that thin scar over her eye and wishing he'd been there to prevent it. "I wish I didn't. But I can't help it."

Even as she warned herself against setting herself up to be hurt again, Chantal felt a tiny seed of hope taking root in her heart. A hope that would make her vulnerable. Dependent. All the things she'd sworn she'd never be again.

"Is that so bad?"

"I don't know," Caine said on a long breath. "I just don't know." He shaped her shoulders with his palms. Just looking at her made him want. Touching her made him ache.

Chantal didn't resist as he drew her into his arms. As their mouths met, they went together to a shimmering, glowing place where there was no need for answers.

11

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Chantal was in the shower when the phone rang. "O'Bannion," Caine answered it.

"Hey, Caine," Drew said without preamble, "I just thought you might want to know that I'm with the Giraudeau family now. Their plane has landed a little ahead of schedule, and we should be arriving at the hotel in thirty minutes or so."

Thirty minutes. Hardly time to take care of one last item of business, let alone try to explain to Chantal why he was going to leave her. Well, Caine considered, it had been nice while it lasted. But it was time to return to reality.

"Thanks. Could you do me one more favor?"

"Sure."

"Stay with them until my replacement arrives."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "Be glad to," Drew said finally.

"Thanks."

Hanging up the receiver, Caine dragged his hand wearily over his face. Chantal was still in the shower; he could hear her singing over the sound of the water running. Part of him wanted to join her under the streaming warm water, to make love to her one last time. Another more responsible part of him cautioned against it.

Picking up the phone again, he placed a long-distance call to Washington.

"Believe me, Caine," James Sebring said after listening to Caine's request, "the fact that Chantal found out about your little deception and didn't throw a tantrum makes me even more convinced that you're the perfect man for the job. The princess has never taken well to authority figures. Her agreeing to remain under your protection proves that you've a talent for handling her."

That was definitely one way of putting it, Caine decided grimly. "Sir, you don't understand," he tried again. "Things aren't as simple as they were."

"Now that you are no longer having to pretend to be someone you're not, I would think things would be a great deal less complicated," the director countered.

"No disrespect intended, sir, but there is nothing uncomplicated about Chantal." Perhaps it was the way he'd said her name—a softening of his tone, a lingering over the musical sound. Whatever it was, the director's next words gave Caine the impression that he'd revealed far more than he'd intended.

"Do you know," Sebring said slowly, thoughtfully, "I seem to recall Chantal's father, Prince Eduard, saying much the same thing about her mother thirty years ago."

"I don't believe you understand, sir," Caine protested.

"On the contrary, I believe I understand all too well." There was another long pause. "I appreciate your dilemma, Caine. I also know that you're an honorable man and will do the right thing. Including keeping the princess safe."

He decided to try one last time. "I believe I could be more effective tracking down her assailant." As he'd sat beside her all those long, lonely hours, watching her sleep, Caine had decided to find the man who'd done this to Chantal, to ask for a personal leave of absence in order to get the job done.

"That's not your duty, Caine," the director said firmly.

"I want this man, sir."

"So do we all."

"If you'd only assign someone else to the princess—"

"While you're an exemplary agent, I'm ordering you to leave the detective work to the FBI. Is that clear?"

Caine had worked at the agency long enough to realize when arguing would be futile. "As a bell, sir."

Chantal was still humming when she exited the bathroom, a fluffy peach bath towel wrapped around her. As she heard Caine requesting to be relieved of his duty, a dark, spreading pain started in the pit of her stomach. He couldn't want to leave her. Not after all they'd shared. Some men might take whatever a woman was offering, then vanish. But not Caine. Please, not Caine, she begged, pressing her hand against her left breast, where the hurt threatened to take root.

He'd no sooner hung up when Caine heard a slight sound behind him. Turning, he viewed a frighteningly ashen Chantal standing in the doorway. "Are you all right?" he asked, hurrying to her side. "Is it your head?"

With a calm that belied the turmoil battering away inside her, Chantal met his concerned gaze with a level one of her own. "My head is fine."

"You're too pale."

"Honestly, Caine, I'm fine."

The heat that had been practically emanating from her earlier was gone, and she'd cloaked herself in a sheet of ice. Strange, Caine considered, he would not have thought Chantal had it in her to be cold.

"You're angry with me."

Afraid of her tumultuous emotions, Chantal wrapped her arms around herself in an unconscious gesture of self-protection. "I am not."

He put his fingers under her stubborn chin and tilted her head up. "Yes, you are. And I'll be damned if I know why."

"You're imagining things, Caine. Just let it be."

Tempted to shake her, Caine grasped hold of her arms. "No. Not until I get a straight answer."

"You were arranging for a replacement," she said, jerking free. "Tell me, Caine, did you also expect this replacement to share my bed? Is that one of the perks of being an executive bodyguard?"

He'd hurt her. Badly, it seemed. Caine wondered if he could do anything right where this woman was concerned.

"Chantal, listen to me." He put his arms around her, holding her when she tried to resist. "What we've shared the past few days is very important to me. Not just the lovemaking, although that was definitely a highlight, but all of it. Even the arguments. And to tell you the truth, although I'm not at all sure how I feel about what's happening between us, I could never take it—or you—lightly."

His hands moving up and down her back cajoled as his lips against her temple soothed and excited at the same time. "You were going to leave me," she murmured into the hard line of his shoulder.

"I was going to explain later, after I made the arrangements."

"For your replacement. So you could go back to Washington."

"I wasn't going back to Washington."

She tilted her head back, studying him gravely. "You weren't?"

"No. I wanted to track the man down who did this to you. To make him pay."

A host of emotions coursed through her, thrilling and terrifying at the same time. She reached up and traced the ridged line of his jaw. "I hadn't realized a professional could feel the need for revenge."

"That's pretty much what Director Sebring said when I asked for a change of assignment." What Caine hadn't told the director was that while he was crawling through all that smoke, he'd realized that the need to protect Chantal had stopped being professional long ago.

"Does that mean he refused?"

"Turned me down flat."

"Then you're staying with me? Until the end of the tour in Los Angeles?"

Conflict raged in him. He wanted to leave now, while his heart and his life were intact. At the same time he wanted to lock the door, take Chantal to bed and spend the rest of his life making wild, passionate love to her.
Go. Stay
. The words reverberated inside his brain until he thought he'd go mad.

"Until Los Angeles," he agreed, lowering his head. When his lips touched hers, ambivalence disintegrated. "Now, if you don't get some clothes on, Princess, I'm going to forget that your parents will be here in less than half an hour."

Her family. How could she have forgotten that Caine had told her they were flying to America? "I suppose I should warn you."

"Warn me about what?"

"My father is a very perceptive man. If he suspects that there is more than business between us, I'm afraid you may be in for a parental grilling."

"Don't worry about it. I was a Seal before I joined Presidential Security."

"A seal? Like the sea animal?"

"The navy's special forces. They trained us to survive torture techniques, so I can probably handle whatever your father might think up."

Chantal sighed. "It is obvious that you do not know my father."

The first thing Prince Eduard Giraudeau did upon entering Chantal's suite was to embrace his daughter in a huge bear hug. Then he turned toward Caine, his hands on his hips, a dark glower on his face. "You're O'Bannion."

Caine would have had to have been deaf not to hear the accusation in Chantal's father's tone. "I am," he replied.

"Both your president and James Sebring assured me that you would protect my daughter."

"Papa, Caine saved my life," Chantal protested. "He and Mr. Tremayne risked their own lives to get me out of Blair's house before the flames completely gutted it."

Eduard harrumphed. "If he'd been doing his job properly, you never would have gotten yourself in such a fix in the first place," he insisted, not taking his fierce eyes from Caine's.

"You're not telling me anything I haven't told myself a million times since it's happened, Your Highness," Caine said.

Easing the awkward moment, Burke stepped forward. "I believe introductions are in order. I'm Chantal's brother, Burke. This is. our mother, and I believe you've spoken with Noel."

As he stood face-to-face with Burke Giraudeau, Caine felt as if he were being thoroughly summed up. The younger prince had a lean, intelligent face and dark eyes that looked as if they never missed a thing. After shaking hands with Chantal's brother, Caine turned toward Jessica. "I've always admired your work, Mrs. Giraudeau. I wish we were meeting under any other circumstances."

Jessica smiled. "Why, thank you, Mr. O'Bannion, although I wouldn't think you'd be old enough to remember any of my movies."