think that. Sure, he had lush, curly black hair—true black, not dark brown—and pale blue eyes. Sniper’s eyes. He had a built-in tan (was he part Akiak? or maybe Ekok?) and the muscular definition of a champion lifter. His head and hands were blocky, like they had been carved by a skilled craftsman who was in a hurry. He filled out his black tailored suit—a man his size couldn’t buy off the rack—superbly.
Gorgeous? Please. She was just distracted because she hadn’t been laid in 29 months and 18 days.
“Sire,” he was saying, “I apologize. I will tender my resignation at—”
“The hell. I didn’t hear a thing either. Serves us right for showing up on her turf without calling. Oh, wait. Edmund’s been leaving her messages all week.” The king beamed at her. “Should have had the palace guards drag you to my place instead.”
“Dead palace guards,” she informed him. “Mutilated subjects. Body parts all over the Sitka Palace.”
“I see you inherited none of your mother’s charm. Just my mouth. Oh, and my fabulous good looks,” he added modestly.
“Like you knew a thing about my mother.” It made her angry, it enraged her, to hear this pampered cheating bastard talk about her dear dead mom. “She was a fling, a one-night stand that lasted for a week or two.”
“She was lovely and sweet and funny, and you will watch your tone when you speak to me, Nicole.”
She almost took a step backward. He hadn’t been smiling. He hadn’t been fucking around. He had sounded like—well, like a king.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
The king cheered up instantly. “That’s all right. It’s been a weird week for everybody. So if you’ll just hop in the car, we can go back to the palace and—”
“No.”
“What?”
“No, King Alexander.”
“Bad idea,” Jeff said quietly at her left shoulder.
Without turning her head, she snarled, “Nobody hit your buzzer, Jeff.”
“Please don’t call me Jeff,” he whispered in her ear. Annoyingly, all the hairs on her left arm stiffened to attention, and she jerked her head away from his mouth.
The king coughed. “Uh, Nicole, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot, but I wasn’t exactly asking.”
“I’m not going and I do not submit to your authority, sir.”
“Uh.” The king shot Jeff a look and coughed again. “You sort of don’t have a—”
“How quickly we forget, King Cheats-on-His-Fiancée. You might want to reread my letter. My mother and father were Alaskan citizens, but I was born in Los Angeles.”
The king scowled. “Dual citizenship.”
“Right-o.” Under Alaskan law, merely residing in Alaska did not mean you were a subject of the king. You needed to be Alaskan on both sides and born in the country. Any deviation resulted in dual citizenship, and the gentleman (or bastard princess) in question could claim the other country as her own. “So thanks for stopping by, ta-ta, so long, get lost.”
The king stood and, like Jeff, he went up and up and up. Of course, he was standing two steps above her, but still. She craned her head to glare up at him. “Go away now.”
“I don’t get it,” he complained.
“I’m not surprised. Mom didn’t like you for your keen intellect.”
The bodyguard actually flinched, but the king didn’t move. Instead, he scowled down at her. “I’m gonna let that one go by.”
“Thanks gobs.”
His black brows caromed together and his eyes were dark blue slits. But she would not be intimidated! Well, not much.
“If you didn’t want to see me,” he bitched, “and you don’t want to come to the palace, why the hell did you write me that letter?”
“Because my mother asked me to. It was in her will. She told me about you and she asked me to get in touch, and that was all she asked.” And it was damn sure all she was going to do. “It was the only thing she ever asked of me in twenty years.”
“Oh.” Then, quietly, “I’m sorry about your mother. She was wonderful.”
Tears stung her eyes; on the whole, she preferred him kingly and commanding and generally acting like a jerk. “Go,” she said. “Please.”
The bodyguard—Jeff—reached under her trailer with a long arm and retrieved his gun. He gave her a look she couldn’t figure as the king thumped down her steps.
“Well,” the king said after an awkward pause.
“Good-bye,” she said.
Without another word, they left.
Nicole fumbled for her door, ran into the trailer, collapsed on the couch, and wept for fifteen minutes. Then she got up, walked to the bathroom, washed her face, and kicked a hole in the cupboard under the sink.
Chapter 7
Alexander Baranov, descendant of Russian rebels who took a country for themselves, bounded into his office, with Jeff right on his heels. Edmund was spreading out various paperwork for him to sign, which on any other occasion would have dampened his mood and made him contemplate loading a shotgun.
“Good heavens,” Edmund said, eyeing the rumpled Jeff. For Edmund, that was the equivalent of “Holy hell! What happened to you, Jeffrey?”
“My kid,” Al couldn’t help bragging. “She got the drop on both of us.”
Edmund blinked slowly, like a gecko. This was the equivalent of anyone else yelling, “Oh my God!”
“My king, I remind you that we have yet to verify our own DNA testing and—”
“Yeah, yeah, but I’m telling you. She’s the spitting image of Alex and Kathryn. She’s got the Baranov blue eyes and the dark hair.” Al plopped into his chair as Jeff took up his position just inside the doorway. Al knew Jeff’s humiliation was a live thing, a stinging thing, and he would stay closer than usual until the sting wore off. Although he was pleased with Nicole, he felt for his proud bodyguard and made no comment when Jeff didn’t leave the office.
“Mouthy, too,” Al continued, trying not to grin and failing. “I didn’t see much of her mother in her, to tell the truth. But I know it like I know how to gut a salmon: Nicole Krenski is my daughter.”
“Pure poetry as usual, my king. May I meet her?”
“Uh.” Al glanced at Jeff, who remained a stone. “Well, she refused to come with us.”
Edmund, tidying still more paperwork, froze. This was the equivalent of anyone else yelling, “What the holy hell are you talking about?!?”
After a long silence, Edmund straightened and put his fingers together, Mr. Burns style. The only thing missing was a drawn-out “Ehhhxxxceleeent.”
Edmund took a breath and let it out. “She . . . refused?”
“Flat out.”
“But she cannot. She may be royalty, but she is also your subject, and as such, she—”
“Nope, dual citizenship.”
“Dual . . . ah.” Edmund tapped his long, skinny fingers together. “But if she refused to return with you, then why did she bother to—ah. Perhaps her mother asked her to? A, erm, dying wish, perhaps?”
“Right on the nose, Eddie.”
“Sire, if you call me that again I shall instantly tender my resignation, and