learned, especially anything she learned the hard way.
Part of him wanted to stay like this, feeling her strong body beneath his the way he’d imagined the day before, but he was too much of a gentleman to take advantage of the situation. He jumped to his feet, pulling her up with him.
They dusted themselves off silently. Then, still without saying a word, they resumed their jogging. But something had changed between them. Alec couldn’t put his finger on it, and he wasn’t sure what it meant.
“You are good,” she said finally, surprising him once again. Her tone was admiring, the compliment sincere, not grudging as he would have expected.
“So are you.”
She shook her head. “With some men, yes. But not with you. You are like Captain Zale. I took you by surprise, that is all. I cannot expect to do that again.”
The sun was rising over the mountains now, dispelling the river mist and painting the eastern sky with a rosy glow that reflected off both of them. Angelina was silent for a moment and then said softly, diffidently, “I do not believe your older brothers have all the looks in the family.” Totally out of the blue. As if the subject had never been changed. Her serious blue-gray eyes met Alec’s, and he could see what that admission meant to a woman like her.
He stopped so suddenly she didn’t realize he was going to—he didn’t realize he was going to—and she kept running for a few steps. Then she halted, turned and faced him. “What is wrong?” she asked. “Why have you stopped?”
Why did you say that? He wanted to ask, but didn’t. For the first time since he’d been a callow teenager, he felt unsure of himself. Unsure of the woman he was with. Angelina was so different from all the women he’d known—except maybe his sister—that he didn’t know what to make of her.
The blood was suddenly pulsing through his body. His fingers tingled, his breath ran ragged. Not from running. His body had never felt this way after running. This was an awareness. A sudden, urgent need to eliminate the distance between them. To make her tell him what she meant by that seemingly innocuous statement and the enigmatic expression in her eyes. To touch her. Ravage her. Leave his mark on her.
She didn’t move when he did. Another woman would have quailed at the male intensity in his face. Another woman would have retreated. But Angelina wasn’t like any other woman. She wouldn’t back down. Ever. And something in Alec responded to that knowledge. Fiercely.
She was in his arms before he knew it. They were both damp, sweaty, both fighting for control of themselves, and each other. Her body was firm and hard against his, as he’d known it would be. But it was soft, too, a softness so totally unexpected it disarmed him.
Their lips met, but not in a kiss. No, definitely nothing as tame as a kiss. This was war between them, their mouths fused as if they were both firing shots over the bow in a take-no-prisoners stance. Hunger roared through his body, and an aching need to give her back just a tiny fraction of what she was giving him.
Then it was over. Angelina tore herself out of his embrace, and Alec watched as she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, as if she was removing the taste of him from her lips. As if she could wipe out the memory the same way.
“Why did you do that?” she asked him finally.
“Because you wanted me to.” It sounded arrogant put that way, so he added, “Because I wanted to.”
“That is not true.”
“Which? That I wanted to kiss you?” One corner of his mouth twitched upward into an engaging grin. “I wanted to. Oh, yeah, I definitely wanted to, since the first moment I saw you.”
She shook her head. “Not that. You said I wanted you to kiss me. And that is not true.”
His grin faded and he held her gaze with his steady one. “Yes, you did,” he told her, accepting the truth even if she refused to acknowledge it. “You wanted to know what it would be like. We both did. And now we know.” And nothing will ever be the same again.
* * *
Aleksandrov Vishenko sat in his luxurious pied-à-terre in the heart of Manhattan, sipping at his snifter of Courvoisier L’Essence, pondering ways and means. He’d been contacted—through secure channels—by Prince Nikolai Marianescu, the king of Zakhar’s cousin. The cousin who’d failed so miserably eighteen months ago to dethrone the king and take his place, and who now resided in a prison cell.
The king’s cousin had named most of his coconspirators in the plot to kill the king—including two of Vishenko’s henchmen—but he had not dared to name Vishenko himself. Now he was trying to use his previous silence—and the threat of disclosure—to force Vishenko to do his bidding. The prince wanted revenge on Zakhar’s royal couple by assassinating their precious son who was not yet a month old—the heir all of Zakhar had prayed for.
Crown Prince Raoul was vulnerable, the prince insisted. There was a perfect window of opportunity coming up for him to die a very public, very gruesome death his parents would never recover from. The perfect revenge.
Vishenko smiled to himself, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and reluctantly came to the same conclusion as the unfortunate prince who thought he still had leverage from within his prison cell. It was a false assumption, but Vishenko was not going to say so. Not yet.
He had his own reasons for wanting the child dead, and they had nothing to do with vengeance. Only expedience. A means to a desired end.
He didn’t want Zakhar’s king dead—not anymore—despite the ongoing risk of his illegal activities being exposed. Despite the fact that the Russian Brotherhood, the Bratva—a branch of which Vishenko headed in the US as well as Zakhar—cared nothing for the monarchy. Any monarchy. Or any government, for that matter.
The king was good for Zakhar, and therefore good for Vishenko—that was all he cared about. Stable governments meant stable economies, which were greatly beneficial to his various legitimate enterprises all over the world, including Zakhar. All his legitimate Zakharian enterprises had prospered these past few years under the king’s rule. And he was nothing if not a pragmatist.
He just wanted the king...distracted for a time. Wanted the king’s attention focused elsewhere, just long enough for Vishenko’s men to wind down the operation that threatened to expose his identity.
The arrival of the American embassy’s new regional security officer, Alec Jones—who the current RSO insisted was incorruptible—had prompted the Americans to suggest shutting things down immediately.
He couldn’t do it. There were women in the pipeline, and the operation was just too profitable to bring it to a screeching halt. Especially when it had just been expanded six months ago. If the new RSO was truly not susceptible to bribery—and Vishenko was by no means convinced of that, since he believed every man had his price—then perhaps Alec Jones could be...nullified...in another fashion. The Americans would balk, of course. Corruption was one thing in their minds. Murder was something completely different.
So perhaps it would be better to do as the Americans wanted and shut things down...for now. A few more weeks—that’s all his men needed to wrap things up and put the operation in Zakhar on the shelf. It could be dusted off later and reinstated if circumstances changed. If not...well, there were other European countries, after all. It would just be a matter of bribing the right officials.
Aleksandrov Vishenko had operated in the shadow world for years with few people the wiser, reaping the rewards that came to a man who had no scruples. No morals. It would not have been a bad thing if Prince Nikolai had dethroned the king of Zakhar and taken his place, for then Vishenko would have had the new king in his pocket.
Not to be, he thought with a fatalistic shrug. Prince Nikolai was in jail and would remain there. Which meant Vishenko was safe...for now. But that could change.
So the little crown prince had to die. Unfortunate but necessary. And when he did, Prince Nikolai would