[Montacroix Royal Family Series 01] - Guarded Moments (6 page)

Their eyes met and held; blazing amber eyes dueling with hard gray. Caine tried to remember when he'd run across such a hardheaded woman and came up blank. "Okay, Drew," he said on a frustrated burst of breath, "take the princess back to the damn diner."

Satisfied, Chantal rewarded him with a dazzling smile that didn't quite expunge his irritation but nevertheless managed to ease it a great deal. "Thank you, Mr. O'Bannion," she said. "That's very diplomatic of you."

As the limousine made an illegal U-turn in the center of the nearly deserted street, Caine didn't answer. He didn't dare.

Thirty minutes later, Caine was sitting in a red vinyl booth, looking in awe at Chantal across the scratched and nicked green Formica table. For a princess, there was certainly nothing dainty about her appetite, he considered, watching as she single-handedly made a cheeseburger, a double order of fries and a chocolate milk shake disappear. At the moment, she was debating over dessert.

"I suppose, since I'm in America, I should have the apple pie," she mused aloud. "But the chocolate cake sounds heavenly."

Where did she put it all? As he cast an appraising glance over her slender but oh so pleasingly curved figure, Caine decided that her metabolism must be locked into high gear.

"Why not order them both?"

"What a marvelous idea! I can eat the apple pie now and take the cake back to the hotel for later. Thank you, Mr. O'Bannion. That was a decision worthy of Solomon."

"Not quite, but I'll accept the compliment nevertheless. On one condition."

"Do you think the waitress would be willing to serve the pie a la mode… ? What condition is that?"

"You're in luck. Apple pie without vanilla ice cream is unpatriotic. And the condition is that you stop calling me Mr. O'Bannion. The name's Caine."

Chantal nodded. "Caine," she repeated slowly, as if measuring the taste and feel of it on her tongue. "Caine O'Bannion. It's a fine, strong name. I like it."

"I'll tell my mother," he said dryly. "She'll be so happy that you approve."

Chantal refrained from answering immediately, waiting while Caine gave her order to the waitress. She braced her elbows on the table and linked her fingers together, studying him judiciously. "Why do you insist on being so sarcastic," she asked quietly, "when it's not your nature?"

Caine took a sip of his coffee. He'd been wrong; it didn't taste like battery acid. Toxic waste was more appropriate. "What makes you think it's not?"

"The president has been a friend of my family since I was a child. He'd never have requested the State Department to assign you to me if he'd known how rude you'd be. Or how much you were going to dislike me."

"I don't dislike you."

"Don't you?"

"Not at all. Oh, maybe I did at first, when you pulled that little stunt in the airport, but if you want to know the truth, Princess, you're beginning to grow on me."

"Always the diplomat," she murmured.

When he stretched his long legs under the table and brushed hers, Chantal felt a tingle of something indiscernible race through her veins. What was it? Pleasure? Desire? Fear? As she met his unwavering gaze, she reminded herself that just because Caine O'Bannion was different from any man she'd ever met, didn't mean that he was special.

For someone who'd been schooled in royal discretion since birth, Chantal's face was an open book. Caine watched as the emotions washed over her delicate features in waves. When he viewed what could only be fear, he wondered what the hell he'd done to make her afraid of him. Whatever it was, he considered, he'd have to correct things before they got out of hand. Before she called the president and requested that he be replaced.

While trying to think of something to say that would ease the tension hovering over the table, Caine was saved by the waitress returning with Chantal's dessert. Putting his hand over his chipped white mug, Caine turned down the offer of a refill on the toxic waste.

"Montacroix is a constitutional monarchy, isn't it?" he asked in an apparent attempt to change the subject. In truth, he wanted to see if he could determine a reason for the attempts on the princess's life.

"That's right. Besides my father, the country is ruled by the prime minister, a four-member cabinet appointed by the prince, and an eight-member elected parliament."

"The monarchy is always represented by a prince?"

"Succession to the throne is through the male line."

Obviously no one was trying to keep Chantal from ascending the Montacroix throne. "Does that bother you?"

"Does what bother me?"

"That you'll always be merely a princess with ceremonial duties and no real power?"

Chantal laughed. "If you knew my brother, Burke, you wouldn't be asking me that question," she said. "In the first place, I'd never want all the responsibilities he's going to inherit. And in the second place, though I dearly love my country, I'm not certain I wish to spend the rest of my life in Montacroix."

So far everything they'd discussed had been in her file, but this last statement was news. "What's the matter, is Montacroix getting a little too provincial for you, after all those years of jet-setting around the world?"

Chantal ignored his gritty tone. "Not at all. I love Montacroix, but I have become more introspective as I approach my thirtieth birthday, and lately I've been thinking that since I've spent the first twenty-nine years of my life in my father's country, I should see how I adapt to my mother's homeland."

"I'm afraid there's not a lot of demand for royalty in America, Princess."

Her chin came up. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a very rude man?"

Her annoyance rolled off him as he shrugged. "If by rude you mean I'm not continually tugging my forelock in your presence, I suppose I could plead guilty."

"That's not what I'm talking about," she tossed back on a flare of temper. "I'm referring to the way that you continually insult me for something I have no control over."

They were the only customers in the diner. Realizing that she had drawn the interest of both the bored, gum-chewing waitress and the late-night fry cook, Chantal lowered her voice.

"There are those in Montacroix, even now, who cannot forgive my father for falling in love with my mother. Despite the fact that long before they'd met, the doctors had informed him that his first wife, Princess Clea, would never be sane enough to leave the sanitarium where she'd been a patient for years."

He knew the story, of course. Anyone who didn't know the story of the beautiful love child produced by Prince Eduard and international sex symbol Jessica Thorne would have had to have spent the past three decades camped out on the dark side of the moon. In fact, Caine recalled, a condemnation of the American actress had actually been written into the congressional record by a Mississippi legislator running for reelection on a morality platform.

"I knew that his wife had been hospitalized," Caine said. "I hadn't realized she'd had mental problems."

"According to my father, instability ran in her family. Her mother committed suicide in a mental institution. Princess Clea had been getting progressively worse throughout their marriage. Shortly after Burke was born, she was committed to the sanitarium, where she finally died last year."

"It must have been tough on your father."

"My governess, who was also governess to my father, once told me that life around the palace had been dreadful for a very long time. Which is why I've always been happy he was fortunate enough to receive a second chance at love, despite the fact that even as a child, I heard people whispering about my mother and their affair behind my back. When I was seven, I finally got up the nerve to ask my father what they meant when they referred to me as 'the bastard princess.'"

The sudden surge of tenderness came as a surprise to Caine. Feeling like a first-class heel for causing that haunting shadow to drift into her eyes, he reached out and took her hand in his. The compassionate caring man in him wanted to apologize, to assure her that she didn't have to tell him any of this. The professional in him recognized a possible motive for her sudden rash of "accidents."

"Who are 'they'?"

Distracted by the feel of his thumb tracing slow circles on the delicate skin of her palm, Chantal failed to comprehend Caine's question. "Pardon?"

Her skin was soft, like the underside of camellia petals. And warm. As he watched the need rise in her eyes, Caine's body responded with an answering heat. "The people who talk about you," he said, forcing himself to keep his mind on his assignment. "Who are they?"

The treacherous thumb had moved to the inside of her wrist. Chantal wondered if he could feel the hammering of her pulse. "No one."

Caine was not accustomed to having his concentration sabotaged this way. And he damn well didn't like it. Princess, hell, he decided as he fought the need to drag her out of this tacky diner and into the back seat of the limousine, where he could finally satisfy his taste for those full, dark lips. She was a witch. A siren. For the first time in his life, Caine understood his father's obsession with Jessica Thorne; like mother, like daughter.

"Someone was talking about you," he pointed out, his voice brusque as he struggled to regain control of both mind and body. "And it bothered you enough to ask your father."

It was his curt tone that brought Chantal back to earth with a bang. Fool, she chided herself. She had no doubt that Caine knew exactly what he was doing to her equilibrium and was enjoying himself immensely.

"I don't understand," she said softly, retrieving her hand with a slight tug. "Your duty, as I was led to believe, is merely to see that my upcoming tour goes smoothly. That nothing will happen to embarrass your country."

"That's about it in a nutshell."

"Then why are you so interested in me?"

Good question, Caine acknowledged silently. The pearl on her finger gleamed like white satin, making the narrow silver band beside it appear almost austere. The two pieces of jewelry were as dissimilar as the disparate personalities he'd witnessed. Who the hell was Princess Chantal Giraudeau, really? And why was the answer suddenly so important?

"You're right. My job is simply to take care of your travel arrangements and make certain that you're comfortable."

He was lying. Of that Chantal was certain.
Why
he was lying, she didn't know. "The story of my childhood is not important. I don't know why I brought it up."

"I believe you were attempting to point out that I was no better than those Montacroix citizens who harbored prejudice against an innocent child," Caine said mildly.

He might be rude, but Chantal had to admit that she liked his directness. So unlike a diplomat, she mused yet again. "You can be quite astute when you put your mind to it, Mr. O'Bannion."

"Caine."

She nodded. "Caine. And as it appears that we will be practically living in each other's pockets for the duration of this tour, you must call me Chantal."

Caine had already determined that it was going to take every ounce of his concentration during the next three weeks to keep his professional distance. He wasn't certain he wanted to dispense with yet another barrier.

"I don't know…"

"Please." Although the restraint necessary for a princess had been drilled into her from a tender age, touching came naturally to Chantal. She reached out and touched his arm, feeling the muscle harden involuntarily under her fingertips. "I really will go mad if you insist on calling me Princess for the next three weeks."

Knowing when he was licked, Caine shook his head. "Does anyone ever say no to you?"

Satisfied with having gotten her way and pleased by the reluctant smile curving his grim lips, Chantal grinned. "There are always a few brave souls who attempt it."

"And what happens to them?"

"What else?" she asked, mischief sparkling in her dark eyes. "I have them flogged."

Her throaty laughter tugged at some unseen chord deep inside Caine. "What else?" he muttered as he tossed some bills onto the table and rose to leave.

It was high time he got the princess back to her hotel room before she touched him again and made him forget his lifelong tenet of never mixing work with pleasure.

4

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Caine lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the woman sleeping in the adjoining suite. As beautiful as she'd always appeared in the various magazines, the photos didn't begin to do her justice, he mused, remembering the way her dark hair gleamed under the sparkling lights of the embassy's crystal chandelier. Her complexion possessed the smooth, fine glow usually associated with fine porcelain. And those tawny eyes… A man could easily drown in those eyes. That is, if he was weak or foolish enough to permit himself to get that close.

Caine had never considered himself either weak or foolish.

Although he had been assigned to the princess to protect her during her stay in America, Caine knew that if he really wanted to keep Chantal from harm, the best way to do it would be to figure out who was staging these so-called accidents. With that in mind, he gave up on sleep. Slipping into a pair of old tennis shorts and a sweatshirt, he took the manila folder out of the closet safe and began reading…