since the prince’s press conference, they remained outside the three-story beige brick county courthouse that housed the sheriff’s office. Was he still here?
She maneuvered the ranch vehicle into an empty space quite a ways down the block. Then she glanced at the cell phone she’d dropped onto the passenger seat. Why had she called? Because of his damned eyes, imploring her to do the right thing. But was this the right thing?
If one of the camera crew captured her on film and nationally broadcast the coverage…
Would he recognize her? She glanced into the rearview mirror and even after nearly five years of this auburn color and long, straight style, she barely recognized herself except for her eyes. She could have tried to hide the brown with colored contacts, but she wouldn’t have been able to hide the fear that she’d never stopped feeling. Not with him out there, determined to find her.
And kill her.
But it wasn’t just her life she risked by coming here. She could be risking the sheik’s, too. What if he was safer if no one knew he was alive? But she remembered the anguish and frustration in Prince Sebastian Cavanaugh’s blue gaze, and guilt churned in her stomach. He had to know what had happened to his friend. She had to tell him.
Her fingers trembling, she fumbled with the handle before opening the driver’s door and sliding out of the vehicle. Then, head down, she hurried past the reporters’ vans. She hesitated outside the county courthouse before pushing open the door and stepping inside. Security scanners blocked the foyer, but while she stepped into a line, she could see into the outer office where the conference had been held. A few reporters waited while cameramen filmed the deputies taking calls.
Were those calls coming from people trying to claim the reward? But no one else had seen what she had, except for whoever she’d spied driving away from the scene. Maybe that person had decided to come forward and Jessica didn’t need to be here; she didn’t need to risk her own safety. Or Samantha’s.
She stepped out of the security line and backed toward the doors. She couldn’t risk going inside with all those cameras. But before she could turn away, Prince Sebastian looked up from the desk over which he’d been leaning. And his deep blue gaze met hers.
Panic accelerated her pulse, so that it leaped at her throat and hammered at her wrists. Even though several feet and people separated them, she had confirmation that the television screen had not made him more handsome than reality. With his golden brown hair, those piercing eyes and his long, lean body, he was as handsome in person as he’d been on the screen. More so even. Heat flashed through her along with the panic.
But then a camera flashed and another lens turned toward her, and panic won out. She turned and ran. But the sick feeling in her stomach warned her that it was already too late. Coming here had been a mistake. One that would probably get her killed.
Chapter Two
When the redhead turned and ran, breaking that strange connection between them, Sebastian’s breath shuddered out. Then, after those breathless seconds that he’d held perfectly still when their gazes had met, he moved again. Shoving through the security screeners, he pushed open the doors to the courthouse and raced after her.
She had to be the witness because he’d glimpsed the fear in her dark eyes, which had widened when the cameras had turned on her. The reporters hadn’t missed his interest in the woman who’d entered the courthouse but hesitated at the screeners. Sebastian had wanted to draw out the witness, not just for information about his friend but also to warn her.
Apparently she didn’t need his warning; she already knew she was in danger. And she ran as if an assassin—not a prince—pursued her. Despite his legs being longer than hers, he had to run to catch her. She’d already jumped inside her rusted SUV, but he grabbed the door before she could swing it closed.
“Let me go!” she implored him, her voice cracking with fear.
He shook his head. “You cannot leave until you say what you came here to tell me.”
“I—I didn’t come here to talk to you.”
“You are not the one who called and asked if I was at the office?”
Color suffused her delicately featured face. “No—No, that wasn’t me.”
He would not need Antoine’s assistance to determine if she spoke the truth or lies. She was not a very good liar. “Then why were you coming into the courthouse?”
“Uh, I have a ticket to pay.”
“You left before you paid it,” he pointed out.
“I—I forgot my checkbook.”
“Show me the citation,” he challenged her.
The color in her cheeks deepened to a darker red, nearly the same shade as her long auburn hair. “I forgot that, too.”
“You’re quite forgetful,” he mused. “Is that why you haven’t come forward before?”
Breaking the connection of their gazes, she ducked her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just got that ticket.”
“That will be easy enough to verify with Sheriff Wolf. What is your name?”
She tugged on the door handle. “You don’t need to verify anything. Just let me leave.”
“Not until you share with me what you saw that night.” Had Amir survived the explosion or had someone removed his body to conceal his murder? But that made no sense. Why leave the chauffeur’s burned corpse and remove Amir’s?
Of course, none of it made sense. They had come to the United States to propose trade agreements that would benefit this country as well as COIN, especially the methods Prince Stefan Lutece had developed to make oil drilling environmentally safe. These methods were the only reason that Sebastian and Antoine had agreed to drill on Barajas, but they needed a buyer for that oil. They needed money for health care and other social services, so nobody else left their island for Europe or America. And so that the voice inside his head wouldn’t keep telling him that he wasn’t cut out to be a ruler or a protector.
“Tell me what you saw,” he demanded, his frustration gnawing away at his usually rigid control.
She flinched but stubbornly repeated, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You cannot claim the reward until you share your eyewitness account of the explosion.”
“I don’t want a reward.”
“Of course you do,” he said, dismissing her claim. “That is why you came here. And why you wanted to make certain I would be here when you arrived—to collect your money.” Not to ambush him as the sheriff had warned. Of course, if that had been her plan, he had stepped neatly into her trap when he’d raced after her. But when their gazes had met and held, he’d felt no threat from her—only to her.
She shook her head, and her hair nearly brushed the shoulder of his suit because he stood so close to her—close enough to smell her summer fresh outdoors scent. “I don’t want your money.”
He held in a snort of derision, not wanting to offend her despite his anger over her taking so long to come forward. She obviously had more pride than money. The color of her vehicle was indiscernible from the rust eating away at the metal. Her clothes had also seen better days. Her jeans were torn, her dimpled knees peaking through the holes in the washed-out denim. The cuffs and collar of her blue plaid blouse were frayed, the mismatched buttons straining across her full breasts.
Awareness raised the dark hairs on his forearms and heated his stomach. Despite her threadbare attire, she was an attractive woman—beautiful even with her wide, brown eyes and delicate features. But stubborn, too. No matter how much she denied it, she needed his money.
He glanced around her and checked out the inside of her vehicle. The seats were torn, foam protruding through the rips in the