Sixteen Hours On A Non-stop Course Across A Continent And An Ocean, When Each Of Them Found The Other…Interesting.

Sixteen hours, Sara marveled, unable to look away from Mr. Cordello’s gaze. Sara was going to be trapped in extremely close confines with this extremely interesting man for sixteen hours.

Of course, they wouldn’t be alone during that time, she reminded herself. There would be two pilots and two flight attendants aboard, as well. And the crew’s presence would go a long way toward keeping her in line and preventing her from doing anything rash. Something like, oh, say…leaping across the aisle and straddling Mr. Cordello’s waist and covering his mouth with her own and kissing him and kissing him and…

Where was she? Oh, yes. Sixteen hours. Right. It was a rather long time to be saddling—or rather, saddled with, she hastily corrected herself—the man.

Sixteen hours. They were in for an interesting trip!

Taming the Prince
Elizabeth Bevarly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELIZABETH BEVARLY

was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and earned her B.A. with honors in English from the University of Louisville in 1983. Although she never wanted to be anything but a novelist, her career side trips before making the leap to writing included stints working in movie theaters, restaurants, boutiques and a major department store. She also spent time as an editorial assistant for a medical journal, where she learned the correct spelling and meanings of a variety of words (such as microscopy and histological) that she will never, ever use again. When she’s not writing, Elizabeth enjoys old movies, old houses, good books, whimsical antiques, hot jazz and even hotter salsa (the music, not the sauce). She has claimed as residences Washington, D.C., northern Virginia, southern New Jersey and Puerto Rico, but she now resides with her husband and young son back home in Kentucky, where she fully intends to remain.

For David. You are my prince.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

One

It didn’t take a lot to make Shane Cordello happy. Just a flawless blue sky overhead, a balmy Southern California breeze ruffling his hair, the spicy aroma of kielbasa and onions on the grill, and the rhythmic, incessant bam-bam-bam-bam of a diligent jackhammer as it pulverized the pavement nearby.

Yeah, life didn’t get any better than that.

Which meant that today was an ideal day for Shane. After punching the time clock at the construction site where he worked as foreman, he headed to the lunch wagon parked just beyond the gate for one of those savory kielbasas. He skimmed off his battered hard hat as he went, running his fingers briskly through his sweat-dampened, shaggy brown hair.

The front of his denim work shirt was damp, too, he noted as he loosened the obligatory necktie that his position as foreman dictated he wear—though not on his off-hours, and lunch hour was one of those, by God—as were the knees of his faded blue jeans, though that last was due not to perspiration, but to the fact that he’d had to kneel down in the mud to look for the gold Waterman pen his mother had given him for his twenty-third birthday earlier in the year. When he’d finally found it, he’d taken it back to the foreman’s trailer and tucked it into his desk where he intended to leave it. He wasn’t the kind of man who should be responsible for things like solid gold pens. He was much better suited to clicking a plastic—disposable—Bic.

Yeah, disposable was the way to keep it, Shane thought. It didn’t pay to get too attached to material things in life, because they’d only get taken away from you, sooner or later, one way or another. He’d learned that, if not much else, during his sojourn on the planet.

He squinted his blue eyes against the sun beating down on him as he made his way toward the lunch wagon. November didn’t bring a cold autumn to L.A. the way it did to other parts of the country, but the air was definitely a bit cooler today and felt a bit less sunbaked than it had during the summer months. It was the ocean more than the air that signified the change of seasons in Southern California. These days, Shane was wearing his wet suit all the time when he surfed, because the temperature of the water had plummeted since summer—and even then, it had been none too warm. Other than having to don his wet suit on the weekends now, though, he hadn’t seen any big changes come into his life recently. Nor was he anticipating any to come anytime soon.

And that, of course, was just the way he liked it.

Amy Collins, who ran the lunch wagon that had visited the construction site daily since work had begun a week earlier, smiled when she saw Shane coming, anticipating his desire—his lunch desire, anyway—by forking up a kielbasa loaded with onions before he even asked for one. As for his other desires…

Well, it was no secret to anyone on the Wellman Towers site that Amy had been trying since day one to capture Shane’s interest. And, truth be told, he wasn’t completely immune to her charms. She was darkly pretty, round in all the right places, boisterously outspoken, even downright sassy at times, which was just the way he normally liked his women. But there was something about Amy, too, that told Shane she played for keeps when it came to men. And keeps was a place he never wanted to find himself, especially with a woman. Mainly because he knew too well that keeps didn’t exist—not in his little corner of the world, anyway. So he steered clear of Amy, knowing she’d meet a forever-after kind of guy someday.

Just, you know, not today.

“Hey, Amy,” he greeted her as he stopped in front of the window and dug into a denim pocket for a few wadded-up dollar bills.

“Hel-lo, Shane,” she replied in a soft, singsongy kind of purr.

He smiled in response, not necessarily because he liked her purr all that much—in fact, he found it kind of off-putting, truth be told—but because he always responded to women with a smile. Shane liked women. All women. A lot. And women seemed to like him, too. All women. A lot. So it was only natural that he greeted one with a smile whenever he met one. Even if she did purr.

“How’s it going?” he asked. The question was, at best, mechanical, at worst, hypothetical. Shane didn’t really expect or require an answer.

But Amy replied anyway. “I could be better, actually,” she said, smiling back. Her cheek dimpled with the action, a gesture he was somehow certain she’d spent years perfecting. “It’s been kind of lonely this week. But there’s a new Schwarzenegger movie opening up this weekend,” she added, having heard Shane remark that he was a big fan of both the actor and action films. “Want to go with me on Friday?”

“I can’t this Friday, Amy. Thanks, anyway.”

“Saturday, then?” she asked audaciously without missing a beat.

He shook his head. “I can’t this weekend at all. Stuff going on.”

She expelled a breath that bordered on impatient, and her smile fell some. “Stuff going on,” she echoed dubiously. “Right. You know, Shane, you could give a girl a complex, if you’re not careful.”

“Oh, I don’t want to do that,” he said honestly. “I really am going to be busy this weekend, Amy. That’s all.” There was no reason to tell her, he decided, that he was going to be busy doing nothing. That probably came under the heading of Too Much Knowledge.

“Yeah, right,” she said, punctuating the comment with a hmpf for good measure. “I bet the queen of England herself has called you up to invite you to tea.”

Shane grinned again and was about to offer some flip response when he was halted by the sound of his name sailing through the crisp afternoon air.

“Yo, Cordello!”

The voice bellowing the summons came loud and strong from the foreman’s trailer, and when Shane turned in that direction, he saw Daniel Mendoza, the contractor for Wellman Towers—oh, yeah, and his boss, too—standing at the open door of the trailer. He was holding his hand beside his head, forefinger and pinky extended, in the internationally recognized hand gesture for “You’ve got a phone call, dude.” Seeing it, though, immediately roused Shane’s apprehension.

Who would be calling him at work? he wondered anxiously. Most of his friends were co-workers on this very site, and those who weren’t knew better than to disturb him during the workday. His mother was currently honeymooning with husband number five in Tahiti—not that Shane thought the marriage would last much beyond the honeymoon, because they rarely did for her—so she was sure to have other things on her mind at the moment.

And his brother, Marcus, lived in Chicago and had way too much going on in his workaholic life to call Shane more than once or twice a month, and Shane had just spoken to him about a week ago. Not that Shane held it against his fraternal twin to be relatively incommunicado. Hell, his own life was plenty full these days, with work, if nothing else. He and Marcus had a solid, close relationship, one that transcended a need for constant communication. And that was no easy feat considering the fact that the two of them had been separated by divorce at nine years of age, when Shane went to live with their mother and Marcus went to live with their father. But the two boys had spent a month together every summer while they were growing up, and even in that limited amount of time, they’d managed to forge the kind of bond that few brothers—hell, few twins, for that matter—forged when they were raised in the same household.

Shane’s father was someone he rarely saw or heard from these days, so long ago had the two of them lost touch, and he doubted the elder Cordello would be calling him for any reason, at work or at home. So since Shane’s friends were all here on the site, and his relations were all hundreds of miles away with other things on their minds, then there was no reason for anyone to be calling him at work. Not unless…

Not unless it was an emergency.

Leaving the kielbasa sitting on the lunch wagon window where Amy had placed it, Shane sprinted toward the foreman’s trailer with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. That sickness grew more resolute with each stride he completed, until it had coalesced into a cold, greasy lump when he saw the grim expression on his employer’s face. Oh, no…

“What is it, Mr. Mendoza?” he asked breathlessly as he took the trailer’s metal stairs two at a time.

His boss’s expression turned malevolent. “I’ve told all of you that personal phone calls to or from this site are prohibited.”

Shane relaxed at the censure. If Mr. Mendoza was this ticked off, the call couldn’t be much of an emergency. “I’m sorry,” Shane apologized, even though he’d had little control over who might have picked up a telephone and dialed this particular number. “Who is it?”

“A woman,” his boss said with distaste, making clear his opinion of that half of the world’s population.

Shane’s earlier concern changed immediately to confusion. “A woman?” he repeated. “I’ve never given this number to any women.” In fact, he hadn’t given it to anyone but Marcus. With strict instructions that his brother only dial it in case of emergency, Shane couldn’t help recalling, his anxiety rising to the fore once again. “What woman? What does she want?” he asked.

“How the hell should I know what woman?” Mr. Mendoza snapped. “She says it’s personal,” he added, his voice dripping with even more repugnance than before on that final word. Obviously the man disliked personal matters even more than he disliked women. “And she sounds like a woman who’s old enough to be your mother. Frankly, Cordello, I do not want to go there. It’s just too—” He punctuated the statement by giving his entire body a shudder of disgust.

Ignoring the other man, Shane’s confusion turning again to concern, he snatched up the phone. “Mother?” he said without preamble. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

There was a slight pause from the other end of the line, then a woman’s voice—indeed old enough to belong to his mother, but not his mother’s voice—replied, “Mr. Cordello?”

Even with only two words to go by, Shane detected an accent, vaguely British, in the woman’s voice, a clue that helped him not at all in discerning her identity. He didn’t know anyone from Great Britain. He only recognized the accent because he was a faithful viewer of Benny Hill reruns on cable.

“Yes, this is Shane Cordello,” he said, his fear rising to the fore again as his confusion compounded. “Who is this? What’s happened?”

There was another pause, then the woman said, “Please hold, Mr. Cordello, for Her Majesty Queen Marissa of Penwyck.”

“For who?” he said, certain he must have misunderstood.

“For Her Majesty Queen Marissa of Penwyck,” the woman repeated. “Please hold.”

Shane balked at the cool command in both the woman’s instructions and her voice, and he almost hung up the phone on principle alone. Who did this woman think she was, calling him—at work, no less—then telling him to hold? And for the queen of Penwyck? What the hell was that all about? Why hadn’t they asked him if he had Prince Albert in a can, too? he wondered, so certain was he that this must be a practical joke.

The only thing that kept him from slamming the receiver back into its cradle was that his curiosity was a more potent force than his pride. Not that he believed for a moment that the queen of Penwyck was about to pick up the phone at the other end of the line, mind you, but clearly this wasn’t any run-of-the-mill crank call. No, this was a pretty sophisticated crank call, and Shane wanted to get to the bottom of it. Mainly so he could put an end to it. No sense having the woman call back and rile Mr. Mendoza any further than his employer was already riled. Because the words employer and riled were two words Shane never wanted to see appearing close together in the same sentence.

After a moment of staccato static and erratic popping—giving him the impression of a genuine long-distance phone call, by golly—a quick click signified that someone had picked up another line. Then a different woman’s voice, still old enough to belong to his mother, still not his mother’s voice, came over the line.

“Mr. Cordello?” the second woman said. She, too, had an accent, also vaguely British, and a bit more cultivated than the first woman’s, if such a thing were possible.

“Yeah, I’m Shane Cordello,” he replied with less courtesy than before. “Who the hell are you? And don’t bother telling me you’re the friggin’ queen of Penwyck, lady, ’cause I ain’t buyin’ it.”

There was a stretch of silence from the other end of the line, followed by a single, hasty chuckle. “I have no intention of telling you such a thing, Mr. Cordello.”

“Good.”

“Because I am not the, ah, friggin’…queen of Penwyck.”

“I knew it.”

“I am, in fact, the royal queen of Penwyck.”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, lady, what do you take me for? I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”

There was another brief silence, then, “No, I realize that. You were born twenty-three years ago. On April fourteenth. Am I correct?”

Slowly Shane pulled the receiver from his ear and gazed at it with narrowed eyes, as if in doing so, he might force the phone to offer up more information than it was giving him about the woman at the other end of the line. Then, when he realized how ridiculous he must look to his employer, he put the receiver back where it was. “Yeah,” he told the woman. “That’s my birthday. A matter of public record, too,” he added meaningfully. “It still doesn’t tell me who you are or what you want.”

Instead of a lengthy silence this time, the response from the other end of the line was a weary sigh. “Oh, dear,” the woman said, not quite under her breath. “This is going to be a bit more difficult than I thought.” Then, “I understand why you might be skeptical, Mr. Cordello,” she added. “But I assure you that I am indeed Her Majesty Queen Marissa of Penwyck. And it is very important that I speak with you about a very urgent mat—”

“Right,” he interrupted again. “If you’re the queen of Penwyck, then I’m the prince of darkness. Tell me another one.”

“Actually, Mr. Cordello, you’re not far from the truth,” the woman said, sounding a bit less imperious than she had before.

Shane opened his mouth to mutter another disdainful quip, but what came out instead was “Huh?”

“I said you’re not far from the truth,” the woman repeated. “Though you’re not—quite—the prince of darkness.”

Once again, Shane tried to summons a haughty retort. And once again, what came out was “Huh?”

“Perhaps it would be better if I let you speak to your brother, Marcus, first,” the woman said.

“Marcus?” Shane echoed, growing even more confused now.

But instead of hearing the woman’s voice in reply again, Shane was treated to his brother’s. “Hello, Shane. It’s Marcus.”

The confusion that had been wheeling around in Shane’s head for the last several minutes came to a crashing halt, crumbling now into a vast heap of bewilderment. “Marcus?” he said, recognizing his brother’s voice immediately. “Where are you? Who was that woman? What the hell is going on?”

“Answering those questions in order,” Marcus said, “as to the first one, I, uh, I’m in Penwyck. You know Penwyck, Shane, surely. Small island nation? Near other island nations of Ireland and Great Britain? It’s been in the news lately because they’re forming a military alliance with the United States. You’ve heard about that, right?”

“Uh…”

“And I think our mother honeymooned here with husband number three, if memory serves,” Marcus continued blithely. “It’s really a beautiful place. Nice people. I mean really nice people. Food could be a little spicier. Not that I’m complaining.”

Marcus Cordello, Shane knew, was not the kind of man to fool around. His brother hadn’t become a millionaire at the age of nineteen by making prank phone calls, and he didn’t maintain a multimillion-dollar real-estate empire in one of the nation’s largest cities by asking people if they had Prince Albert in a can. No way would Marcus jerk Shane around. If he said he was in Penwyck, then, by God, the man was in Penwyck. And if Marcus was in Penwyck, then that meant that the woman who’d called herself the queen of Penwyck could, by God, very well be—

Uh-oh.

“You’re in Penwyck?” Shane echoed miserably.

“I’m in Penwyck,” Marcus confirmed.

“The Penwyck that has a Queen Marissa?”

“So you have been watching the news,” his brother said, clearly holding back a chuckle.

“Um, Marcus?”

“Yes, Shane?”

“Was that really the queen of Penwyck I was talking to on the phone a minute ago?”

“It was indeed.”

“The woman I just blew off so royally was really a queen?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“So you’re standing beside the queen of Penwyck?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Is she, um, really, really mad?”

“Define ‘really, really,”’ Marcus said.

“Like, off-with-his-head mad?”

There was a moment of silence, as if Marcus were contemplating the mood of the woman beside him, a full continent and ocean away from where Shane was standing himself.

“Nah,” Marcus said finally.

Shane expelled a soft sigh of relief.

Then, “She’ll probably just want to take off your hand when you get here,” Marcus added.

“What?” Shane said.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the take-off-your-hand part of Marcus’s statement that got to Shane most deeply. It was the when-you-get-here part that made him take notice.

Then again, Shane thought, why was he surprised by this surprise? Marcus was beginning to make a habit out of dropping bombshells whenever he called. Hell, the last time they’d spoken, his brother had told him there was a possibility that the two of them had been adopted as infants, not that Shane had believed that for a moment. Now Marcus was suddenly in Penwyck, visiting the queen. What next? Would he announce his candidacy for president of the United States? Shane wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Actually, Her Majesty is a very pleasant woman,” Marcus continued, dispelling Shane’s troubling thoughts—sort of. “So she might only want a couple of fingers from you, really.”

Okay, troubling thoughts were back now.

Shane closed his eyes and lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, in an effort—a totally futile effort, he soon learned—to ward off a massive headache that seemed to erupt out of nowhere.

“Marcus,” he tried again, struggling very hard to maintain his feeble grip on reality. Maybe if he spoke a little more slowly, this conversation would make sense.

And maybe, too, he told himself further, Jennifer Lopez would give him a call this weekend and ask him to go skinny-dipping with her in Puerto Vallarta.

“Marcus,” he said once more. “What. Are. You. Talking. About.”

Marcus expelled a long, weary sigh from the other end of the line. “What I’m talking about, Shane,” he said, “is something you’re probably not going to believe. Are you sitting down?”

Shane dropped into his boss’s big, comfy chair without even asking permission, and somehow didn’t even care when Mr. Mendoza began to glare at him as if this were Shane’s last day on earth. Or, at the very least, his last day on the Wellman Towers construction site.

Whatever.

“I’m sitting down,” Shane said. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

“Well,” Marcus began, “once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there lived a beautiful queen and a handsome king who were blessed with a pair of royal twin sons….”

Sara Wallington pushed back the sleeve of her pink cashmere sweater and checked the slim gold watch on her wrist for the sixth time in ten minutes, then sighed heavily with impatience. My, how time crawled when one was having woe, she thought morosely. For there could certainly be nothing fun in acting as a glorified nanny for the next twenty-four hours. A nanny for what might potentially be the heir to a throne, granted, but a nanny nonetheless. However, the heir apparently was nowhere to be seen just yet, and they were due to leave L.A. at precisely 11:00 p.m. Right now, it was nearly ten o’clock. Even if they were flying on a private jet, there was a strict departure time they must meet. If the man were any later, they were going to have trouble keeping to their schedule. And she did so loathe not being punctual.

She sighed heavily again, fidgeted with her pearl necklace, twisted the matching pearl stud in one ear and tucked an errant wisp of pale red hair back into her chignon. Then she scanned the hoards of people scampering through LAX like rabid animals and wondered how in the queen’s name she was going to find Shane Cordello among them. Of course, it had been Queen Marissa herself who’d gotten Sara into this. A favor, Her Majesty had told Sara’s mother in Penwyck when she’d called to see if Sara was available to aid Shane in his travels. Never mind that Sara had finals next month to study for and a term paper to write. She’d escort Mr. Cordello to her native country because her queen commanded it. Favor equaled duty when it came to Her Majesty.

Nevertheless, locating the man was going to be a bit of a task since Sara had been given only a sketchy description of him to go by: brown hair, blue eyes, six-foot-two, one hundred eighty pounds. So she had been able to deduce that he was a largish man, though certainly that wasn’t so unique for this vast country of America. Most men here seemed to be big and boisterous and very nearly overwhelming, she had noticed during her four-plus-year stay. Oh, and Shane Cordello was supposed to be rather good-looking, too—according to his brother, at any rate—which ought to make him oh so easy to spot here in Los Angeles where everyone seemed to be beautiful.

Not much to go on, Sara thought, not for the first time since receiving the queen’s phone call this morning. This morning, she marveled again, thinking about how much her circumstances had changed in scarcely twelve hours’ time. Sara had barely had time to explain the situation to her professors, assuring them she’d return to her classes five days hence, bright and early Monday morning, and would they be so kind as to give her her assignments in advance so that she wouldn’t lose too much time.

Now, armed with both her homework and what few belongings she would need for a long weekend in her homeland, Sara waited patiently to meet her destiny. Or, at the very least, to meet Shane Cordello. She was also armed with a handy visual aid, a big white sign, hand-lettered with the word Cordello, to help her in finding that destiny. Or, at the very least, in finding that man. At present, she held the sign waist-high before her, obscuring the simple, camel-colored straight skirt she had coupled with her white blouse and pink cardigan. She boosted the sign a bit higher, at chest height now, hoping that Mr. Cordello wasn’t one of those handsome, but not-too-bright males whom one met so frequently in this city.

Not that Sara had spent much time with any men, bright or dim, during her four-and-a-half-year sojourn in this country. College courses did rather limit one’s social life, after all, particularly when one was pursuing her master’s degree… At least they did if one was serious.

She checked her watch again. Heavens, five minutes had passed this time between glances. She must be vastly enjoying herself now.

“Miss Wallington?”

Sara glanced up at the summons—rather a long way up, too, she couldn’t help noticing, which, she supposed, shouldn’t surprise her, since she scarcely topped five-foot-two herself—into the face of the man who had just petitioned her. And she immediately realized that brown hair and blue eyes and rather good-looking was a description that didn’t do the man justice. His hair was, in fact, the color of rich, velvety espresso, and his eyes were an incisive cobalt-blue, reminding her of the darkest depths of the ocean. As for good-looking… Oh, my. That phrase did more than a mere injustice to a man who was, in fact, quite extraordinarily, splendidly, unspeakably, dazzlingly, breathtakingly… She sighed deeply in spite of herself.

Magnificent. That was what Shane Cordello was. In his snug blue jeans and white V-neck T-shirt beneath a faded denim jacket, his low-heeled books scraping over the floor as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the man made every system Sara had—and some she hadn’t been aware of possessing until this very moment—go on absolute red alert. Never in her life had she encountered a man who made her mouth water. But as she watched his mouth hook into a crooked, wicked little smile, parts of her now—and not just her mouth, either—were feeling very…ah, liquid, indeed.

And when Sara noticed all those changes—in both her body and her very psyche—and when she understood how Mr. Cordello’s mere physical presence in her general vicinity had turned her so readily and thoroughly into a volcano about to burst, the relief she had felt initially upon his arrival suddenly evaporated into… Well, into something else entirely. Something damp and steamy and hot, and altogether inappropriate for a woman who had been asked to perform a favor for her queen. And it simply would not do to experience a cumbersome sort of lust for the man one had been instructed to return to the queen unharassed. Lust, after all, was the one thing that prospective members of the Royal Intelligence Institute did not feel for their charges. It could only—would only—lead to trouble.

“Mr. Cordello,” Sara greeted him with as much courtesy—and as little lust—as she could manage. “How delightful to finally make your acquaintance. Queen Marissa has told me much about you.”

His expression, which had been rather open and affable before, suddenly changed then, to one of obvious wariness. “She told you about me, huh?” he asked.

Sara nodded. “She said you were quite charming.”

Actually, what Her Majesty had said was that Shane Cordello was a man who didn’t suffer fools lightly, but one might certainly translate that into charming—if one were frightfully generous about such things, and Sara did pride herself on being a generous person.

“She said that?” Shane Cordello replied dubiously.

“She did indeed,” Sara assured him, trying to quell the hot shudder that wound through her whenever he spoke in that rich, rhythmical baritone that very nearly hypnotized her into a narcotic stupor. American accents were so, ah, delightful.

Oh, dear. She really must put a stop to these strange goings-on inside her this instant. “Now, then,” she continued in as stalwart a fashion as she could manage. Stalwart, she had always told herself, was a very good thing to be. Even if stalwartness wasn’t exactly the most potent boy-magnet in the world, it was still quite the virtue. One should never underestimate the power of a stalwart woman. Ever.

“The jet has been made ready for our takeoff,” she said. “Shall we board? Queen Marissa couldn’t spare the official royal jet, of course, but she has sent one of the smaller jets. Our sixteen-hour flight to Penwyck will be ever so much more comfortable this way.”

Of course, had Her Majesty sent the much larger royal jet, that flight time would have been cut nearly in half, and it would only be approximately ten hours that Sara would be forced to spend with Mr. Very Handsome, Very Interesting Cordello. Providing the larger vessel would have also made it possible for them to arrive in Penwyck at a decent hour, local time. But no. Sixteen hours it would be then, and local arrival time would be approximately… Oh, let her think for a moment… Add eight hours’ time difference…plus sixteen…carry the one… Eleven p.m. tomorrow, she finally calculated. Which wouldn’t be too frightfully indecent an hour, she supposed, if it weren’t for the fact that they were both bound to be exhausted from their sixteen-hour flight and wanting desperately to fall into bed.

Fall into separate beds, she hastily qualified. Alone. Naturally, part of their flight time would be spent on the ground refueling and such, but she and Mr. Cordello would be confined to the very small jet even then. She didn’t want to risk losing him now that she had him by allowing him to wander around an airport for any length of time.

Not that she had him, Sara quickly corrected herself. Not like…that. Not the way a woman traditionally thought of having a man. It wasn’t as if the man belonged to her, after all. Nor did she want him, she quickly reminded herself. Or any other man for that matter. But she did so want to keep Mr. Cordello within eyeshot, because if she lost the man who might be king, it would most definitely look bad on any potential résumé she might want to put together. And it went without saying that she would have to put together a résumé should she lose Mr. Cordello. Because there was no way the Royal Intelligence Institute would take her on if she bungled an assignment as simple as this.

Sixteen hours, she marveled again, unable to look away from his—oh dear…very interested, she could tell—gaze. Sixteen hours on a nonstop—save brief stops for refueling—course across a continent and an ocean, when each of them clearly found the other…interesting. She was going to be trapped in extremely close confines with this extremely interesting man for sixteen hours.

Of course, they wouldn’t be alone during that time, she reminded herself. There would be two pilots and two flight attendants aboard, as well. And the crew’s presence would go a long way toward keeping her in line and preventing her from doing anything rash. Something like, oh, say…leaping across the aisle and straddling Mr. Cordello’s waist and covering his mouth with her own and kissing him and kissing him and kissing him and…

Where was she? Oh, yes. Sixteen hours. Right. It was a rather long time to be saddling—or rather, saddled with, she hastily corrected herself—the man.

Best to think of something else, Sara, she told herself.

She glanced down to see that Mr. Cordello held only one small canvas bag. “Is that all you’ve brought? Don’t you have another bag?”

He, too, glanced down at his burden—unburdensome though it may have been—then back up at Sara. His expression now indicated that he found her question unusual. “Will I need anything more?” he asked. “I didn’t get the impression I’d be staying in Penwyck very long. Just long enough to get this ridiculous story straightened out.”

During her phone call this morning, the queen had explained to Sara all the particulars of the ridiculous story, as Mr. Cordello had referred to it. But Her Majesty wasn’t as ready to dismiss the situation as such. Not yet. There was, at present, compelling evidence to suggest that twenty-three years ago, the newborn sons of Queen Marissa and King Morgan of Penwyck were switched at birth with a pair of different twins.

The way it had been explained to Sara, King Morgan’s resentful brother, Broderick, jealous of Morgan because he ascended to the throne when Broderick thought the position should be his, was claiming that he had arranged twenty-three years ago to have the king’s rightful heirs kidnapped and placed by adoption with a wealthy family in America immediately after their birth. In their place, he said, he’d had a different set of newborn twins passed off as the king and queen’s sons, knowing that neither would be qualified to take control of Penwyck because they weren’t descended from royal blood. And that would be the day that Broderick saw his revenge on his brother fulfilled. In the meantime, he’d relished the knowledge that the boys Queen Marissa and King Morgan had raised as their own weren’t, in fact, their own sons at all.

Now the queen was beside herself with worry over whether or not Broderick was telling the truth, and whether or not he had been successful in carrying out his plan, and she wouldn’t rest until the mystery was solved. The allegedly switched twins had been traced to the Cordello brothers in America, and Her Majesty was adamant that they join her in Penwyck until all was made clear. Marcus Cordello was already in Penwyck, having been accompanied there by Lady Amira Corbin, who had been sent on an errand similar to Sara’s. Now it was up to Sara to bring the other Cordello home.

If, in fact, Penwyck was truly his home.

“You don’t think you may be one of Her Majesty’s missing sons?” Sara asked her Cordello now.

“Hell, no, I don’t think so,” he retorted. Immediately, however, he looked chastened. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Pardon my French.”

Sara bit back a smile. “I’m fluent in several languages, Mr. Cordello, one of which happens to be French, and I didn’t detect any French in what you just said. However, I accept your apology. Though I assure you, you needn’t feel as if you must coddle me. I’m made of firmer stuff than that, I promise you.”

He grinned again at that, but this time it was a grin that told her he didn’t believe her for a minute. But that was all right, Sara thought. She knew most men—those who didn’t know her well, at any rate—looked at her as if she were a delicate porcelain doll who should be kept constantly under glass. What would Shane Cordello say, she wondered, if he knew the master’s degree she was just completing in public administration included minors in tae bahk do and M-16s? Ah, well. No reason to overwhelm the poor man. They’d only be together for—she gulped inwardly—sixteen hours.

“Well, there is apparently substantial evidence, Mr. Cordello, to suggest that the men raised as Prince Dylan and Prince Owen were switched at birth with the rightful heirs to the throne, and that you and your brother, Marcus, may very well be the true princes of Penwyck.”

“Horse doodoo,” he replied mildly. “To put it bluntly.”

Sara laughed. “Thank you so much for sparing my tender sensibilities,” she said. And as she said it, her gaze met Shane Cordello’s again, holding firm this time, and something in the air between them seemed to crackle and fizz and very nearly explode.

Not good, she thought as a strange heat rippled up her spine and into her chest and down into parts of her that in no way needed warming right now. Not good at all. For sixteen hours, she would be seated beside this man on a very small jet, with no one to bother them save two pilots and two attendants. Pilots and attendants who were trained specifically not to bother the jet’s occupants unless those occupants pushed the call button on the arm of their very plush seats.

Sixteen hours, she thought again. Oh, yes. It was going to be a very long flight back to Penwyck indeed.

Two

By the time their jet took off from LAX, it was past one-thirty, so backed up was the air traffic. The moment the wheels left the ground, Shane reminded himself he’d be trapped in this little metal bucket for sixteen hours with only a few infrequent breaks, and told himself to relax. Better yet, he thought, sleep. It had been one helluva day—hell, two helluva days—and God knew he was close to exhaustion. But something kept him wide awake—gosh, he couldn’t imagine what—so he remained wide-awake, assessing his situation instead.

He replayed everything in his head that Marcus had told him the day before, correlating it with everything the two of them had discussed the last time they spoke. But much of it still made no sense to him. Adopted. That, of course, was what was spinning fastest and foremost in his brain. Marcus and Shane had been adopted as newborns, his brother had told him yesterday, because their mother had been unable to conceive. Neither parent had ever seen fit to tell the boys, evidently. The opportunity had never arisen. There had never been any cause. The timing was never right. Take your pick of lame excuses. But Marcus had assured him that their father had verified it when he’d asked for the facts. Still doubtful, however, Shane had tried to call their mother to hear her version of things. But he’d been unable to reach her, and she hadn’t returned his call by the time he left his apartment. He’d had to leave a message for her instead.

Adopted. It didn’t seem possible, but in hindsight, it explained so many things. Deep down, he believed what his brother had told him. But he hadn’t had time to process it all. Adopted. Shane still wasn’t sure how he felt about it. On one hand, it changed nothing about his life. On the other hand, it changed everything.

But even that was the least of his worries right now. Because in addition to having been adopted as a newborn, there was a chance—a reasonably good one, evidently—that Shane and Marcus had been born in Penwyck to its rulers, and that they had been switched at birth with a different pair of fraternal twin boys born at roughly the same time. The mother of those boys, then a recently widowed friend of the queen’s, had died in childbirth, and the queen had arranged for them to be adopted by a wealthy American couple—Joseph and Francesca Cordello.

Somewhere along the line, though, everything had gone awry. The queen’s brother-in-law, Broderick, disgruntled that his brother had inherited the throne instead of him, had instigated a switch of the twins, replacing Owen and Dylan Penwyck with the orphaned boys, and sending the infant princes off to be adopted by the Cordellos in Chicago instead. At least, that was what Broderick was claiming. Queen Marissa, who had known of her brother-in-law’s intentions, thought she’d thwarted the plan before it could be carried out, but now, apparently, she had reason to think otherwise. Now, apparently, she had reason to think that maybe the boys she had raised as her own were not her own, and that the American Cordello twins might very well be.

Frankly, the whole situation made Shane’s head spin. Even after having had two days to mull it all over, he was still trying to figure out the whys and wherefores and what-the-hells. That was another reason why he had agreed to this trip to Penwyck—just to have explained to him once and for all, hopefully with audiovisual aids, what the hell was going on. He honestly couldn’t believe that he and Marcus were the missing heirs to the throne. His gut told him no, and his gut was never wrong. Queen Marissa, too, seemed to think it unlikely, though she did grant there was a possibility. That was why she had insisted on Shane’s and Marcus’s coming personally to Penwyck, so that they could administer a DNA test on them, in the queen’s presence, just to make sure the Cordello twins weren’t, in fact, the Penwyck twins. Or vice versa.

Or whatever.

Oh, man, did Shane have a headache now. And he was already exhausted, before his trip had even begun. Sixteen hours, he marveled again. And all of it stuck on a little jet with an escort who seemed disinclined to do anything more than rigorously read big books and sip tea.

The jet might be small, he noted, but it lacked nothing in comfort. He and the prim-and-proper Miss Wallington were the only two passengers on a vessel that was outfitted for a dozen more, and one of the flight attendants had pressed a Scotch and water—damned good Scotch, too, he mused as he enjoyed a second sip—into his hand within moments of him sitting down. Obviously the service was going to be excellent. And the decor was posh and luxurious, reminding him more of a five-star hotel than a jet—not that he had much experience with five-star hotels, not since he was a child at any rate—with oversize seats and plush carpeting down the aisle and pink-tinted lighting to make things easy on the eyes. And his traveling companion…

Well. He certainly had no complaints there, either. Talk about easy on the eyes. When Marcus had called him that morning to go over final preparations for the trip, he’d said the queen was sending an envoy to meet him at LAX who would accompany him to Penwyck. Shane had immediately pictured some doddering old stuffed shirt with a walruslike handlebar mustache decked out in an overly decorated uniform of the Empire. Even when Marcus had said the envoy was named Sara Wallington, Shane had altered his description only slightly, making the stuffed shirt a stuffed blouse, instead. The rest of the description had remained pretty much the same, right down to the mustache, though it hadn’t been quite so walruslike on the female version.

But Sara Wallington was in no way walruslike. To put it mildly. No, she was, in fact, one of the most beautiful women Shane had ever laid eyes on. She was also, unfortunately, he was fast realizing, one of the most refined. Dammit. With her crisp, cultivated accent, and her pale red hair twisted up into some kind of bun, and her sea-green eyes currently hidden behind a pair of small, oval-shaped, wire-rimmed reading glasses that she’d donned immediately after sitting down and unfolding the huge tome she currently had open in her lap, she might very well be the owner of this jet, so princesslike was her demeanor.

Still, he didn’t think he was the only one who’d felt the little sizzle of heat that had arced between them during their initial encounter. Prim and proper Miss Wallington might be, but there was interest—and more—lying beneath her cool, pink-sweatered facade. And Shane couldn’t wait to explore and find out just what that more might be.

He stifled a groan. Just what he needed. Trapped in close quarters for sixteen hours with a beautiful woman who was obviously interested in him, too, and she was exactly the kind of woman he should avoid. She couldn’t be some flashy, fun-loving, devil-may-care hedonist who had as much experience as he had himself and might be amenable to a little short-term fooling around once they arrived in Penwyck—or even before they arrived in Penwyck, he thought further with a lascivious glance at the washroom at the front of the cabin—and then ride off into the sunset with a cheery “Cheerio.” No, she had to be some delicate, pearls-wearing, pink-sweater-encased, chaste-looking little nun who would doubtless find it unseemly to break into a sweat. At least, into the kind of sweat that Shane had in mind for the two of them.

She for sure looked like the kind of woman who would want a man to stick around for a while. And not the kind of man Shane was, either. No, Miss Sara Wallington would no doubt want some guy in tweeds and button-downs and riding boots, a man who could say words like poppycock and bumbershoot with a straight face, a man who would feel more at home viewing pictures in an art gallery while sipping champagne than digging in the dirt on a construction site while anticipating his first Rolling Rock of the evening. A man who would want the same things she probably wanted out of life—commitment, kids, cocker spaniel and the thatched-roof cottage with a cobblestone fence.

Ah, well, Shane told himself philosophically. It wasn’t like he didn’t have other things to occupy his mind right now, what with all this missing-princes-and-switched-at-birth-and-heir-to-the-throne business going on in his life. Not that it was his mind, necessarily, he’d been thinking of engaging with Miss Pink Sweater over there. Miss Pink Sweater who didn’t seem to be any more interested in sleeping than Shane was. Unfortunately, her condition obviously hadn’t come about because she was preoccupied by the same lusty thoughts that were trying to preoccupy Shane at the moment. No, it was more because Miss Pink Sweater over there was too busy reading her big book. And daintily sipping her tea. And totally not even noticing he was there.

Dammit.

The problem was, Shane didn’t want to occupy his mind with all those other things right now. Maybe not ever. How the hell was a man supposed to react to the news that he might be the heir to a royal throne in a country he’d hardly thought about before? King Shane? Gee, that didn’t sound like the appropriate moniker for a blue-collar construction worker whose closest brush with nobility had been his childhood visits to White Castle. There had to have been a royal foul-up somewhere. Still, he hadn’t quite been able to turn down Queen Marissa’s royal command when she’d insisted he come to Penwyck to join his brother, Marcus, until they could get to the bottom of the mystery.

Hey, if nothing else, Shane thought, he could have a nice little vacation and spend some time with his brother. No matter that he didn’t have any vacation time coming. He was pretty sure he’d lost his job anyway, by taking off the way he had yesterday. Mr. Mendoza hadn’t looked as if he’d believed the story about King Shane any more than Shane believed it himself.

Inevitably, his gaze stole across the aisle to linger on Sara Wallington again. She really was beautiful, he thought, no matter how tightly she bound herself. The loose sweater and tailored skirt had done nothing to hide her curves, and a few errant wisps of silky hair had fallen from their confinement, giving her the look of a woman who might just be able to let herself go wild once in a while if given the right kind of provocation. Her profile, in the soft light raining down from above her, was elegant and fine, her skin creamy and flawless, touched with just a hint of pink on her high cheekbones. But it was her mouth that caused Shane to feel most restless. Full and delicious looking, all he could do was wonder how she would taste if he touched his lips to hers.

Her head snapped up suddenly then, and she turned to look at him, her gaze falling directly onto his. Her expression was slightly alarmed, as if she’d somehow known what he was thinking about—or maybe she’d been thinking about it, too? he couldn’t help wondering—and the pink on her cheeks darkened some when she saw him gazing back at her so resolutely. Instead of calling him on it, however, she only smiled—albeit with a bit of starch.

“Was there something you wanted, Mr. Cordello?” she asked softly.

Oooo, loaded question, Shane thought. What would she do if he answered her truthfully? he wondered. “No, nothing,” he lied instead. “I think I have everything I need.”

“Excellent,” she replied. “Should you think of something…” Her voice trailed off before she finished the remark, as if Shane should know how she’d intended to finish it.

“If I think of something?” he prodded her, a spark of hope flickering to life somewhere inside him. Maybe they were on the same wavelength.

She smiled that cool, starchy smile again, and what little spark he’d felt firing suddenly sputtered and died. “Feel free to summon one of the attendants,” she finished crisply.

He smiled back, a smile, he felt certain, that was every bit as stiff as hers was. “I’ll do that,” he assured her. Somehow he refrained from adding Your Highness, even though that was exactly the sort of response she seemed to command.

She smiled yet another perfunctory smile, then dropped her gaze back to the book she had opened in her lap. It was a big, thick hardback, probably a textbook, and Shane realized then that she must be a student. Certainly she looked young enough to be, but there was something in her carriage that made her seem like a much older woman, so he hadn’t until now realized that she was probably pretty close to his own twenty-three. He told himself not to bother her, because she so clearly wanted to be left alone, but reluctant to consider the prospect of sixteen hours of silence, and still feeling restless for some reason, and still not wanting to think about that possible-prince business, he jump-started their conversation—what little they’d enjoyed so far—again.

“Are you a student?” he asked her.

Very slowly she lifted her head and turned to look at him again. “Of sorts,” she said evasively.

“UCLA?” he asked.

She shook her head, but said nothing to enlighten him, as if she didn’t want to tell him what school she attended.

“USC?” he tried again.

And again she shook her head. Then, clearly reluctant to divulge even a vague direction to her place of learning, she told him, “I attend a small private college near Santa Barbara.”

Woo, now they were gettin’ somewhere, Shane thought. That was just so specific. “But you’re not American, obviously,” he said, wanting to know more about her, even if she was evasive and starchy and refined and wearing a pink sweater.

“No, I’m from Penwyck originally,” she told him. Adding nothing more to enlighten him.

“You grew up there?”

“Yes,” she said. And nothing more.

“So…” he tried again. “What brought you to the States?”

“That small, private college near Santa Barbara,” she told him.

“You couldn’t major in your specialty in Penwyck?”

When she smiled this time, it was in a way that made Shane think she knew something he didn’t know, and that she got great pleasure in the knowing of it. “You could say that,” she said. Evasively. Starchily. Refinedly. Pink sweaterishly.

Shane narrowed his eyes at her. Just what was she trying to hide? he wondered. What could she possibly be studying here that she couldn’t study in her homeland? Especially since she looked like the kind of woman who would major in English or library science or home ec. Surely they had those things in Penwyck.

“So,” he began again.

“Mr. Cordello, I don’t wish to be impolite, but I do have finals next month and quite a bit of work to do before they arrive. Since I’m obligated to miss my classes for the rest of this week, I thought the least I might do was take advantage of our flight to get in some study time.”

In other words, Shane translated, Leave me the hell alone.

He lifted both hands, palm out, in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry,” he said, finding it hard to feel apologetic. “Don’t want to distract you from your studies. I’ll just, um—” he glanced at the call button on the arm of his seat “—summon the attendant. How will that be?”

And before Miss Pink Sweater, Finals-to-Study-For Wallington could say another word, one of the flight attendants appeared at Shane’s side, obviously ready at his beck and call. And although she was by no means a princess—unlike some people, he thought morosely—the attendant was quite…fetching. Fetching in the dark, curvy way he liked for women to be fetching, too, and not wearing a pink sweater and pearls. Fetching enough that she might very well make the next sixteen hours more bearable. If Shane played his cards right.

Sara read over page 548 of Detente and Diplomacy for a New Millennium for perhaps the sixteenth time and tried not to notice how tantalizing was the sound of Shane Cordello’s rough, rich laughter. It was much more appealing than the flight attendant’s laughter—which Sara found much too high-pitched and much too obvious—that was certain. And Sara should know. She’d been listening to both of them laugh for the better part of fourteen hours now.

Of course, there had been a few breaks in the hilarity during that length of time, periods when Sara and Mr. Cordello had slept with dubious success, and periods when the jet had landed to refuel and restock, and periods when the cabin crew had taken breaks. But for the most part, Shane Cordello and Fawn the flight attendant—honestly, Sara thought, as if anyone on board actually believed that was her real name—had gotten on swimmingly. And if there had been moments when Sara had found herself grinding her teeth and swallowing her irritation, well… It was only because Fawn had one of those tittering laughs that could drive any sane person to drink.

Of course, Sara realized she had only herself to blame. She had, after all, fairly chased Mr. Cordello into Fawn’s clutches by treating him so shabbily since meeting him. But she hadn’t been able to help herself. He confused her, made her feel things she wasn’t used to feeling, things she didn’t want to feel. In doing so, he’d raised her defenses, as well. And when Sara’s defenses were raised, she wasn’t the most accommodating person in the world. No, actually, she was the most fearful. And her fear always made her behave badly.

Oh, when would they be landing? she wondered, checking her watch. It was now nearing 3:00 p.m. Thursday, West Coast time, so they must be within two hours of Penwyck. Absently, she adjusted the time on her watch to reflect the Meridian Time Zone, which would now put them at 10:45 p.m. Penwyck time.

She’d probably do well to try and sneak in another nap before they landed, she thought, since she would no doubt have little opportunity to really sleep until dawn. Once the jet landed—in the dead of night, she couldn’t help reminding herself morosely—she and Mr. Cordello would be met by members of the Royal Intelligence Institute. But she was under royal edict to stay with Mr. Cordello herself until she could hand-deliver him to Queen Marissa and his brother. Those two would almost certainly be in bed asleep by the time they arrived, which meant that Sara would be obligated to keep an eye on Mr. Cordello until morning. They could eat a proper meal at the palace, she thought, then exchange pleasantries until Her Majesty joined them. Or, if Mr. Cordello wanted to sleep himself, Sara could… She sighed heavily. She supposed she could stand in the doorway of his room and watch him sleep. Because she had promised Queen Marissa she would not leave the man’s side until he was safely delivered to Her Majesty.

Sara reached for her cup of Earl Grey, then decided that she’d consumed enough tea on this flight to float the entire India Company, and that a glass of champagne would be most welcome now. She pushed the buzzer to summon the attendant—oh, what rotten luck, it was Fawn on duty, and now the poor thing would be forced to end her conversation…and effusive tittering…with Shane Cordello—in an effort to order a drink. And although poor Fawn did her best to hide her irritation at being so put-upon as to perform her job, it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time for Sara to finally get her drink.

Honestly. Good help was so hard to find these days.

As Fawn—the darling girl—retreated to the minibar, Shane Cordello returned to his seat opposite Sara’s. He was wearing a smile that was much too smug for her liking, but he didn’t seem too much the worse for wear. He did look tired, though, Sara noted, his hair rumpled—adorably so, she couldn’t help thinking—and faint purple crescents smudging his eyes. She doubted she looked much better, having worn the same clothes for more than twenty-four hours now, but somehow, he didn’t make her feel as if she should be discomfited by the fact. His own white T-shirt and jeans were as rumpled as his hair, but on him, somehow, the look worked to his advantage.

All in all, Sara thought, with his untidy clothes and his tousled hair and his heavy-lidded eyes, and his day’s growth of dark beard, he looked like a man who wanted to collapse into bed…with a willing woman…and get absolutely no sleep while he was there.

A strange, languorous heat wound through her as she envisioned him doing exactly that, with—oh, dear—herself cast in the role of the willing woman. Immediately, Sara banished the graphic image from her brain. But remnants of it lingered, scorching the edges of her mind, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t banish it completely.

“So, Miss Wallington,” Mr. Cordello began in that luscious voice, smiling his delicious smile, “how much longer ’til we get there?”

Sara lifted her champagne to her mouth for a quick—but substantial—sip. “Not too, I should think,” she told him when she completed the action, the velvety liquid warming her throat, her chest, her belly and points beyond. Oh, no, wait, she thought. It wasn’t the champagne warming those points beyond. No, it was Shane Cordello’s smile that was doing that. Oh, dear. “No, ah…no more than an hour or two I would imagine,” she managed to add in a voice that she was relieved to realize didn’t make her sound too awfully feeble-minded.

His smile seemed to grow even more dangerous somehow, and Sara couldn’t help thinking that he had almost certainly picked up on that points beyond business. Probably because of her not too awfully feeble-minded voice.

His verbal response, however, wasn’t quite in keeping with that dangerous smile. “Wanna play Twenty Questions?” he asked.

Sara arched her brows curiously. “I beg your pardon?”

Mr. Cordello lifted his shoulders and let them drop in a shrug that she supposed he meant to look casual, but somehow it didn’t. “Twenty Questions,” he repeated. “It’s a game my brother and I used to play as kids to pass the time on long car trips.” His expression went a bit grim when he added, “Or to drown out the noise of our parents’ shouting at each other there at the end.”

Tactfully, Sara pretended she hadn’t heard that last part, and focused on the first part instead. “You and your brother must be very close. Being twins and all, I mean.”

“Actually, our closeness has less to do with being twins than it does being cast adrift at an early age.”

“I’m not sure I follow you,” Sara said.

“Our folks split up when Marcus and I were nine. Marcus went to live with our father, and I went to live with our mother.”

A pang of something sharp and unpleasant twisted Sara’s midsection, and she was surprised to realize how very much she cared about what had happened to this man she had only just met. “That must have been very difficult for you both,” she said softly.

He expelled an exasperated sound. “To put it mildly. We were able to spend a month together every summer, but it never felt like enough. Even now, I wish we had more time to spend together.”

“Yet, as adults, you live hundreds of miles away from each other,” Sara couldn’t help pointing out.

Mr. Cordello shrugged again, almost apologetically this time. “My mother has made Southern California her home, and I don’t want to be too far away from her. She’s—” He halted abruptly.

“What?” Sara asked before she could stop herself, knowing it was impolite to pry. Even if Mr. Cordello had been the one to bring it up.

He expelled a weary breath. “She’s… She’s not very… She has a habit of…” Now he uttered a restless sound. “Let me put it this way. She’s on husband number five, and none of them since my father have been much of a prize. Even my father didn’t do right by her, as far as I’m concerned. But at least he loved her. For a while. She’s just not good at taking care of herself,” he finally concluded. “She needs someone close by to keep an eye on her. On things,” he quickly corrected himself. “So as long as she calls L.A. home, that’s where I’ll be, too.”

Something inside Sara turned over a little bit at hearing his admission. He was a good son. He wanted to make certain his mother was well cared for. In spite of his rough outward appearance, he had a protective, gentle streak inside. She never would have guessed that. And knowing it now…

Well. Knowing it now only made him that much more dangerous, Sara thought. Because it made him that much more appealing. That much more interesting. That much more likable. And she couldn’t afford to like Shane Cordello. She just couldn’t. Circumstances being what they were, it couldn’t possibly go anywhere. She had a career all mapped out, one she hadn’t even had the opportunity to embark upon yet, and it did not include the addition of another human being in her life. And Mr. Cordello might very well be embarking on a new career of his own—heir to a kingdom—one that would turn his entire life upside down. The best either of them could hope for would be something temporary at best. And what would be the point in that?

“Twenty Questions,” Sara said, backpedaling. “How is it that you play such a game?”

Mr. Cordello seemed not to understand the question at first, because he was clearly still lost in memories of his brother and his mother and the mix of everything those two created inside him. Then suddenly he smiled, a smile that was at once relieved and regretful. “I think of something, and you can ask me twenty questions that I have to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to. If you can’t guess what I’m thinking about with twenty questions, I win. If you do guess before you reach twenty, you win. Or we could do it the other way around. You think of something, and I get to ask you questions until I guess what it is you’re thinking.”

Sara gazed at him again, more studiously this time, considering his blue eyes, his full, succulent mouth, the overly long dark hair that was just begging for a woman’s fingers to sift through it. Lowering her gaze surreptitiously, she noted the way the sleeves of his T-shirt strained over salient biceps, and the rich, dark hair that sprung from the V-neck. Then higher again, over the strong column of his throat and the sculpted jaw, darkened and coarsened now by his uncivil beard. And for some reason, she found herself wondering how it would feel to have her own delicate skin abraded by his.

“Maybe you should start,” she said. “You think of something first, and I’ll ask you questions.”

Because God knew there was no way that Sara wanted him delving into her own thoughts just now.

Three

Oh, man. Shane was ninety-nine percent sure he could tell what Miss Sara Wallington was thinking right now, without having to ask her a single question. Because, whether she realized it or not, she was giving off clues like nobody’s business. Really good clues, too. Clues he wanted very badly to pick up and run with. Maybe that washroom at the front of the cabin could prove useful after all…

The thought was just forming in his brain when the small jet suddenly gave a lurch. Automatically, Shane gripped the arms of his seat, but not before he was thrown sideways by another jolt. Then forward by another. And backward by another. Immediately, his gaze flew to Sara’s. “What the hell was that?” he asked.

She shook her head, her expression—and her ferocious stranglehold on the arms of her own seat—indicating that she was clearly as alarmed as he. But where Shane would have expected someone in a pink sweater and pearls and a bun to fasten her seat belt and start wringing her hands and muttering something like, “We’re all going to die, we’re all going to die,” what Sara Wallington did was leap up from her seat and march forward, stating in no uncertain terms, “I have no idea what the hell that was, but I intend to find out.”

No sooner had she stood, however, than the jet began to execute a fierce turn, something that threw her right back into her seat in an awkward sprawl. For one long moment, the jet banked so sharply and so swiftly that neither of them could rise from their seats. When the vessel finally did come out of the turn, though, Sara immediately jumped up again and began her forward march once more.

Shane was about to leap up right behind her when Fawn the flight attendant came striding down the aisle toward them, brushing one hand over the backs of the seats as she came, as if she were preparing for another one of the jet’s odd maneuvers. Reluctantly, he eased back into his seat, because he figured she was going to reassure them that everything was fine, they’d just hit a little turbulence, had had to change course to avoid more, and how about another Scotch or champagne to tide them over for the remainder of the flight, hmm? But instead of reassuring them, as the curvy brunette drew nearer, she whipped out a small automatic pistol and pointed it right at Sara’s heart.

All in all, it wasn’t a development that Shane had anticipated.

“You’ll do well to take your seat, Miss Wallington,” Fawn said in an even cooler, crisper tone than Sara had been using herself on this flight. And that was saying something. “Otherwise,” she added just as coldly, “I shall be obliged to shoot you.”

And again Shane’s pink-sweater-and-pearls-wearing companion surprised him. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said coolly as she stepped forward, and in one fluid effort disarmed the other woman with a good swift kick to her hand. Without hesitation, Sara then scooped up the dropped weapon, grabbed the flight attendant and spun her around into a chokehold that would have done Hulk Hogan proud, and pointed the weapon right at Fawn’s head.

Shane’s mouth dropped open in astonishment, but before he could say a word, the other flight attendant—a man—and one of the pilots, likewise a man, appeared in the aisle beyond Sara and Fawn, each of them armed with their own weapons.

“Release her and sit down, Miss Wallington,” one of the men said.

As he spoke, Fawn began to struggle with Sara, and in the ensuing altercation, Sara dropped the pistol again, but tore the sleeve of the flight attendant’s uniform. On her exposed forearm, Fawn bore a tattoo, an ugly black dagger, which was something Shane thought an odd choice for a woman like her. He would have had her pegged for a long-stemmed rose. Or a unicorn, maybe. Something fluffy and harmless.

Until Sara, too, noted the mark and said, “I should have known. Black Knights.”

Her voice dripped with contempt when she said it, leading Shane to believe she knew exactly what she was talking about, even if he was totally clueless.

“Of course we’re Black Knights,” the male flight attendant agreed with an evil smile, holding his gun steady on Sara as Fawn scooped up the dropped weapon and did likewise with it. “Who else would we be?”

“Dissidents,” Sara said, and Shane knew she was providing the information for his benefit. “They’re traitors to the crown.”

Fawn made a soft tsking sound in objection. “Please, Miss Wallington,” she said. “We’re activists, not traitors.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” Sara agreed bitterly. “You actively participate in dissension, treason and terrorism. Sorry for the confusion.”

“We have a very noble cause,” Fawn told her. “We want independence for the people of Penwyck.”

“The people of Penwyck are already independent,” Sara said.

“They won’t be if this alliance with Majorco goes through,” the pilot objected. “And joining with the United States for any reason is certain to make the country dependent on the evil empire.”

“Oh, please.” It wasn’t Sara who took exception this time, but Shane. “Evil empire?” he added. “C’mon, guys. Drag yourselves into the twenty-first century already.”

But the Black Knights ignored him—except for the pilot, who aimed his pistol directly at Shane’s head.

“Fascists,” Sara spat at them. “You’ll never win, you know. Your only support comes from within. The people of Penwyck love their king and queen and trust them to do what’s best for the country, as indeed they will. You’re nothing but scum, all of you.”

At that, Fawn stepped forward, doubled her fist and backhanded Sara as hard as she could across the face. “We will succeed in our cause,” she said levelly as Sara immediately straightened again.

And Shane had to hand it to the pink sweater, because Sara didn’t so much as raise a hand to her face to acknowledge the strike. He, on the other hand, lurched out of his seat with the intention of charging Fawn, stopping only when the pilot extended his arm meaningfully, sharpening his aim. Shane honestly wasn’t sure what he’d planned to do when he’d reacted as he had. He’d certainly never considered himself to be the kind of man capable of striking a woman. But he also knew there was no way in hell he’d let anyone get away with hitting Sara Wallington.

Not unless, you know, they pulled a gun on him.

Sara extended an arm across the aisle to stop Shane from going too far, even before he stopped himself. “It’s all right,” she told him.

“The hell it is,” he retorted, still poised for attack, his entire body humming with the adrenaline that pumped through it. He couldn’t begin to understand what was going on, but the danger was clear, and he was naturally itching to do something about it. The problem was he just couldn’t imagine what to do that wouldn’t end up with a gunshot wound to either him or Sara, or both, one that might potentially be fatal.

“It’s pointless to fight them,” Sara said, clearly speaking to Shane. “They outnumber us, and they’ll kill us both without a thought.”

“Indeed we will,” Fawn said, angling her gun on Sara again.

Which, Shane had to admit, was infinitely more effective in keeping him at bay than pointing a gun at him was, something Fawn obviously realized. Dammit.

“In fact,” she added, “I don’t see why we need to keep you alive anyway. We have the diamonds we came after, after all.”

“Fawn!” the pilot rasped. “You stupid git! Don’t say another word!”

The flight attendant looked properly chastened, but a bitter fire still burned in her eyes.

“Diamonds?” Sara asked. “I’ve never known the Black Knights to take an interest in fine jewelry.”

Evidently unable to keep herself quiet, Fawn piped up again, “They’re to finance—”

“Fawn!” the pilot interjected once more. “Shut your trap.”

“Yes, do, please, Fawn,” Sara cajoled. “You’re becoming tedious.”

Fawn doubled her fist and raised her hand once more, and Shane prepared to spring forward to… Do something in retaliation. But the other flight attendant tugged Fawn backward, nudging her behind himself, and took her place instead.

“Sit,” the pilot told Sara as if he were speaking to a cowering spaniel. “Sit, Miss Wallington, or die. And if you die, then where will that leave the future king of Penwyck, eh?”

“I’m not the future king,” Shane quickly pointed out. “I’m just a construction worker from SoCal who’d rather be surfing.”

The man turned his attention to Shane and grinned an evil little smile. “Well, we don’t know that for sure, now, do we? And neither do the king and queen. Oh, you have value to us, Mr. Cordello. You have no idea how much. Now return to your seats,” the man repeated. “We’ll be landing shortly.”

“Where?” Sara demanded.

He chuckled. “As if we’d tell you.” Then he smiled. “All right. Not Penwyck. There. That should narrow it down for you.”

“And what will happen when we get there?” Sara commanded.

The man’s smile broadened. “You ask too many questions, Miss Wallington. You and Mr. Cordello are safe for the time being, provided you do exactly as you are told and don’t try to escape. But if you try anything improper, we will kill you.” He turned his icy gaze on Shane then, too. “Both of you. In the world of the Black Knights, all people are created equal, whether they be a mere student or heir to the throne.”

“Meaning all life is equally cheap to you,” Sara said flatly.

In reply, the man only turned his gaze back to her and smiled that grim smile again.

And somehow Shane knew that none of it was true. Not that the Black Knights were activists. Not that all people were created equal in their world. Not that their cause was a noble one. Not that he and Sara were safe.

And not that Sara was a mere student, either. He just wished he knew for sure who—and what—she really was.

Sara wasn’t surprised when she exited the jet approximately two hours later—with her hands bound behind her back and her cheek throbbing from where the ferocious Fawn had struck her—to find that they had landed on a deserted, poorly lit tarmac out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, she couldn’t be positive that two hours had passed, but she was reasonably sure that was how long they had remained in flight after the hijacking. She’d been forced to guesstimate the passage of time, as the Black Knights had taken her watch. And her pearls. And her textbooks. And her purse and luggage. And her shoes.

Strangely, it was the textbooks about which she was most concerned. She did hope the Black Knights didn’t examine them too closely. And she hoped she got them back eventually. They’d been frightfully expensive.

She had only been able to guess at what their final destination might be, as well, though she had done her best to gauge the jet’s direction at one point by opening the screen over the window beside her seat and noting the position of the moon and stars. Unfortunately, one of the terrorists had seen what she was doing—hence her tied hands—and had slammed the screen back down again. Before he’d managed to do so, however, Sara had been able to discern with some confidence that they had been heading southeast. Which would have put them in Spain, or perhaps Portugal.

Nevertheless, with it being night, she had been unable to determine anything in the landscape that might have proven to be a landmark—no mountains, no shorelines, no lakes, nothing. The air was cooler and crisper than what she was accustomed to, not to mention surprisingly windy, leading her to believe they were at a higher elevation than one might find in Penwyck. But with so many variables in place, she honestly couldn’t say with any real certainty where they were.

Of one thing, however, she was completely certain: she and Shane could be dead by dawn if they didn’t behave exactly as they were told.

The Black Knights were a nasty group, completely without morals or scruples. They wouldn’t balk at killing a young student or a man who might be king. They wouldn’t balk at killing anyone. Over the last decade, they’d been responsible for a number of assassination attempts on King Morgan, and numerous episodes of political sabotage. Oh, they’d started off as a small faction of seemingly ineffective upstarts, but it hadn’t been long before they’d organized into a formidable enemy of the crown. They were even suspected of kidnapping Prince Owen of Penwyck, and Sara couldn’t help wondering now just how deeply their involvement had run in a number of other intrigues that had plagued the royal family over the years. Certainly they were capable of just about anything.

Her right cheek throbbed again, reminding her that she probably had a very impressive black eye by now. Honestly, she wouldn’t have thought the tittering Fawn would have even known how to make a fist, let alone use one. Just the first of many mistakes that Sara now realized she had been making since leaving L.A. The first had been in trusting that the crew who boarded Her Majesty’s jet in L.A. were the same ones who regularly flew with the royal family—clearly, they were not. The second had been in assuming that their flight would be a boring, uneventful one—clearly, it had not been.

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