worse.
When they arrived at the lobby Regan felt a surge of adrenaline race through her. Glancing around, she was disappointed to find that the large lobby was mostly empty. Before she could make a move in either direction her arm was gripped, vice-like, and she was towed along towards the reception desk.
The smile on the young man’s face faltered as he took them in. They probably looked quite a sight, she thought grimly. Her with her fast-drying hair no doubt resembling a wavy cloud around her head, and her unwanted companion with a scowl as dark as his clothing.
‘Ah, Your Majesty, it is an honour.’ The man bowed towards the desk, his expression one of eternal deference. Then he said something in Santarian that her companion answered. The younger man’s eyes went as big and as round as a harvest moon.
‘But...’ He gave her a panicked look. ‘Miss James, this is His Majesty the King of Santara.’ The words almost came out in a stutter, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was saying them.
Frankly, nor could Regan. ‘How do I know you haven’t just set this up?’ she said with disdain. ‘One man’s opinion is hardly folk law.’ Turning back to the concierge, Regan said, ‘Actually, I’d like to report—’
She didn’t get any further as the stranger beside her growled something low under his breath and then towed her further into the lobby, veering off towards the sound of a pianist playing a soulful song. Through French windows Regan saw a room full of people.
Stopping just inside the entrance, they stood waiting until finally most of the room grew silent, staring at the two of them. Then half of the occupants stood and bowed low towards the man still holding her arm.
Regan shook her head, her brain refusing to compute the evidence that he really was the King of Santara. Which meant that if he was right then maybe her brother was with his sister, Princess Milena, his new research assistant. She swallowed, swaying on her feet.
Clearly worried she was about to do something girly, like swoon in his presence, the King snaked a hand around her waist, pulling her up against him. Regan set her hand flat against his chest to stop their bodies colliding. Her head fell back on the stem of her neck as the heat from his body sapped the last of her strength. She could feel his heart pounding a steady rhythm to match her own but all she could focus on was the blue of his eyes, indigo in the soft light. Time seemed to disappear as he looked back at her with such heat Regan’s thoughts ceased to exist. It didn’t matter who she was or what he was. All that mattered was that he kiss her. Kiss her so that the ache building inside her subsided.
A soft growl left his throat, his eyes devouring her lips, and for a brief moment she thought he would kiss her.
But then his eyes turned as sharp as chipped jewels and his hand tightened on her hip. ‘Satisfied?’ he murmured, throwing her earlier question back at her.
Regan shook her head, her balance precarious despite his firm hold. She heard the word ‘no’ coming from a long, dark tunnel right before she did something she’d never done before. She fainted.
TWO NIGHTS LATER Jag sat behind his large desk brooding over the voice message he had received from Milena.
‘Hi Jag. I know you’re worried—you’re you—and I’m sorry I can’t tell you where I am, or what I’m doing, but I want you to know that I’m with a friend and I’m fine. I’ll explain everything when I return. I love you.’
‘Any idea where the call originated from?’ he asked Tarik.
‘Unfortunately not. It was likely made from a burner phone and it was sent through several different carriers. Whoever scrambled the transmission is good.’
Chad had scrambled the transmission, of that Jag was one hundred percent certain; he’d hired the kid in the first place because he was a borderline genius with technology. Anger coursed through him, a hot and welcome replacement for the impotence he’d felt since she’d gone.
He turned to stare outside the window, brooding. On the one hand he was happy that his sister was safe and well, but the reality was that she could have been forced into making that phone call. Not that she’d sounded forced. She’d sounded full of vigour. Almost buoyant. A state he hadn’t seen her in for quite a while. A state he would welcome if the memory of what had transpired three years ago wasn’t like a smoking gun in his mind.
Then there was the obvious assumption that if she hadn’t been forced to leave Santara then she’d gone somewhere with Chad James of her own free will, and that raised a whole host of ugly questions Jag didn’t want to consider. Questions like, what were they doing together that Milena wasn’t able to tell him about? Like maybe she was considering not going through with the marriage to the Crown Prince of Toran? Questions like, was she unhappy, and, if so, why hadn’t she come to him the way she used to when she was a child?
He rubbed his fingers hard across his forehead. Well, of course she’d been coerced. There was no other way to look at this. Just as he had coerced Regan James into coming to the palace. He recalled the moment she had fainted when she had discovered that he was actually the King, the dead weight of her body as she’d slumped in his arms. He’d had a lot of reactions from women in the past when they’d found out he was royalty—everything from obsequious preening to outright manipulation—but he’d never had a woman faint on him before. Which had been a good thing because right before that he’d nearly given in to an urge he’d been fighting all night and leant down and kissed her. In public! He didn’t know what bothered him about that the most: the fact that his inimitable self-control had taken a long hike, or that he would have shocked the hell out of those watching.
Shocked himself, he’d quickly scooped her into his arms and taken her out to his waiting SUV. She’d come to fairly quickly in the car, demanding that he return her to her hotel, but he had calmly reminded her that it had been her choice to come with him and that she was now out of options.
Well aware that his behaviour had been less than stellar with regard to the American woman, he pushed thoughts of her, and his sister, from his head and picked up the raft of reports he needed to sign off. ‘These can go to Helen to have the corrections worked up, these can go back to Finance, and this one I still have to read. Tell Ryan I’ll get to it later tonight.’
‘Very good.’
He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘For once I hope that’s it for the night.’ He gave Tarik a faint smile and saw the old man hesitate. It was only the slightest of movements but Jag knew him too well to miss it. His body immediately shifted into combat mode. ‘What is it? And please tell me it has nothing to do with the American.’
As much as he had been trying to keep her presence in the palace under wraps, she had been trying to stop him. Banging on the door of her suite, demanding that she be given her phone and her computer, demanding that she be released, demanding that he come to her. But Jag didn’t want to go to her. Already her voice and the memory of her scent had imprinted themselves on his brain. He couldn’t imagine that seeing her was going to make that any better.
‘Unfortunately it does. She is refusing to eat,’ Tarik said.
‘Refusing to eat?’ Jaeger felt his stomach knot. ‘Since when?’
‘Since last night, sir. She did not eat her evening meal and today she has rejected all food.’
Jag’s jaw hardened. If Regan thought she was going to make herself ill by not eating she had another thing coming.
Trying not to overreact, he pushed himself to his feet. ‘What time is her evening meal due to be delivered?’
‘It has been delivered. She sent it away.’
Jaeger scowled. ‘Have my dinner taken to her suite in half an hour.’
He made