Alpha Squad
Suzanne Brockmann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUZANNE BROCKMANN is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than twenty novels. Her first book was released in 1993, and since then she’s received seventeen different awards, including a 1997 Career Achievement Award. Her books have appeared on the New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller lists.

Suzanne lives near Boston with her husband and two children. She is also one of the founders and volunteer organisers of Natick’s Appalachian Benefit Coffeehouse, raising money for the Cabell/Lincoln Country Workcamp, which rebuilds housing for the poor, elderly and disabled in West Virginia.

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Prince Joe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My eternal thanks to my wonderful friend Eric Ruben, who called me up one day and said, “Hey, Suz, I just read a great article about navy SEALs. You should check it out.” (I did, and the rest, as they say, is history.) Special thanks to the Prince Joe Project volunteers from the Team Ten list at Yahoogroups.com: Rebecca Chappell and Agnes Brach (Co-captains), and Julie Cozzens, Miriam Caraway, Gail Reddin, Vanathy Nathan, Kristie Elliott and Julie Fish. Ladies, I salute you. Thanks so much for stepping forward and helping out. Thanks also to Katherine Lazlo and the many other readers who took the time to e-mail me and set me straight about the correct use of “Your Majesty” and “Your Royal Highness.”

Last but not least, thanks to the real teams of SEALs, and to all of the courageous men and women in the US military, who sacrifice so much to keep America the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Any mistakes I’ve made or liberties I’ve taken are completely my own.

For Eric Ruben, my swimming buddy

Prologue

Baghdad, January 1991

Friendly fire.

It was called friendly because it came from U.S. bombers and missile launchers, but it sure as hell didn’t feel friendly to Navy SEAL Lieutenant Joe Catalanotto, as it fell from the sky like deadly rain. Friendly or not, an American bomb was still a bomb, and it would indiscriminately destroy anything in its path. Anything, or anyone, between the U.S. Air Force bombers and their military targets was in serious danger.

And SEAL Team Ten’s seven-man Alpha Squad was definitely between the bombers and their targets. They were deep behind enemy lines, damn near sitting on top of a factory known to manufacture ammunition.

Joe Catalanotto, commander of the Alpha Squad, glanced up from the explosives he and Blue and Cowboy were rigging against the Ustanzian Embassy wall. The city was lit up all around them, fires and explosions hellishly illuminating the night sky. It seemed unnatural, unreal.

Except it was real. Damn, it was way real. It was dangerous with a capital D. Even if Alpha Squad wasn’t hit by friendly fire, Joe and his men ran the risk of bumping into a platoon of enemy soldiers. Hell, if they were captured, commando teams like the SEALs were often treated like spies and executed—after being tortured for information.

But this was their job. This was what Navy SEALs were trained to do. And all of Joe’s men in Alpha Squad performed their tasks with clockwork precision and cool confidence. This wasn’t the first time they’d had to perform a rescue mission in a hot war zone. And it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the last.

Joe started to whistle as he handled the plastic explosives, and Cowboy—otherwise known as Ensign Harlan Jones from Fort Worth, Texas—looked up in disbelief.

“Cat works better when he’s whistling,” Blue explained to Cowboy over his headset microphone. “Drove me nuts all through training—until I got used to it. You do get used to it.”

“Terrific,” Cowboy muttered, handing Joe part of the fuse.

His hands were shaking.

Joe glanced up at the younger man. Cowboy was new to the squad. He was scared, but he was fighting that fear, his jaw tight and his teeth clenched. His hands might be shaking, but the kid was doing his job—he was sticking it out.

Cowboy glared back at Joe, daring him to comment.

So of course, Joe did. “Air raids make you clausty, huh, Jones?” he said. He had to shout to be heard. Sirens were wailing and bells were ringing and anti-aircraft fire was hammering all over Baghdad. And of course there was also the brain-deafening roar of the American bombs that were vaporizing entire city blocks all around them. Yeah, they were in the middle of a damned war.

Cowboy opened his mouth to speak, but Joe didn’t let him. “I know how you’re feeling,” Joe shouted as he put the finishing touches on the explosives that would drill one mother of a hole into the embassy foundation. “Give me a chopper jump into cold water, give me a parachute drop from thirty thousand feet, give me a fourteen-mile swim, hell, give me hand-to-hand with a religious zealot. But this…I gotta tell you, kid, inserting into Baghdad with these hundred-pounders falling through the sky is making me a little clausty myself.”

Cowboy snorted. “Clausty?” he said. “You? Shoot, Mr. Cat, if there’s anything on earth you’re afraid of, they haven’t invented it yet.”

“Working with nukes,” Joe said. “That sure as hell gives me the creeps.”

“Me, too,” Blue chimed in.

The kid wasn’t impressed. “You guys know a SEAL who isn’t freaked out by disarming nuclear weapons, and I’ll show you someone too stupid to wear the trident pin.”

“All done,” Joe said, allowing himself a tight smile of satisfaction. They’d blow this hole open, go in, grab the civilians and be halfway to the extraction point before ten minutes had passed. And it wouldn’t be a moment too soon. What he’d told Ensign Jones was true. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but he hated air raids.

Blue McCoy stood and hand-signaled a message to the rest of the team, in case they’d missed hearing Joe’s announcement in the din.

The ground shook as a fifty-pound bomb landed in the neighborhood, and Blue met Joe’s eyes and grinned as Cowboy swore a blue streak.

Joe laughed and lit the fuse.

“Thirty seconds,” he told Blue, who held up the right number of fingers for the rest of the SEALs to see. The squad scrambled to the other side of the street for cover.

When a bomb is about to go off, Joe thought, there’s always a moment, sometimes just a tiny one, when everything seems to slow down and wait. He looked at the familiar faces of his men, and he could see the adrenaline that pumped through them in their eyes, in the set of their mouths and jaws. They were good men, and as always, he was going to do his damnedest to see that they got out of this city alive. Forget alive—he was going to get them out of this hellhole untouched.

Joe didn’t need to look at the second hand on his watch. He knew it was coming, despite the fact that time had seemed to slow down and stretch wa-a-a-ay out…

Boom.

It was a big explosion, but Joe barely heard it over the sounds of the other, more powerful explosions happening all over the city.

Before the dust even settled, Blue was on point, leading the way across the war-torn street, alert for snipers and staying low. He went headfirst into the neat little crater they had blown into the side of the Ustanzian Embassy.

Harvard was on radio, and he let air support know they were going in. Joe was willing to bet big money that the air force was too busy to pay Alpha Squad any real attention. But Harvard was doing his job, same as the rest of the SEALs. They were a team. Seven men—seven of the armed forces’ best and brightest—trained to work and fight together, to the death if need be.

Joe followed Blue and Bobby into the embassy basement. Cowboy came in after, leaving Harvard and the rest of the team guarding their backsides.

It was darker than hell inside. Joe slipped his night-vision glasses on just in time. He narrowly missed running smack into Bobby’s back and damn near breaking his nose on the shotgun the big man wore holstered along his spine.

“Hold up,” Bob signaled.

He had his NVs on, too. So did Blue and Cowboy.

They were alone down there, except for the spiders and snakes and whatever else was slithering along the hard dirt floor.

“Damned layout’s wrong. There’s supposed to be a flight of stairs,” Joe heard Blue mutter, and he stepped forward to take a look. Damn, they had a problem here.

Joe pulled the map of the embassy from the front pocket of his vest, even though he’d long since memorized the basement’s floor plan. The map in his hands was of an entirely different building than the one they were standing in. It was probably the Ustanzian Embassy in some other city, in some country on the other side of the damned globe. Damn! Someone had really screwed up here.

Blue was watching him, and Joe knew his executive officer was thinking what he was thinking. The desk-riding genius responsible for securing the floor plan of this embassy was going to have a very bad day in about a week. Maybe less. Because the commander and XO of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad were going to pay him a little visit.

But right now, they had a problem on their hands.

There were three hallways, leading into darkness. Not a stairway in sight.

“Wesley and Frisco,” Blue ordered in his thick Southern drawl. “Get your butts in here, boys. We need split teams. Wes with Bobby. Frisco, stay with Cowboy. I’m with you, Cat.”

Swim buddies. Blue had read Joe’s mind and done the smartest thing. With the exception of Frisco, who was babysitting the new kid, Cowboy, he’d teamed each man up with the guy he knew best—his swim buddy. In fact, Blue and Joe went back all the way to Hell Week. Guys who do Hell Week together—that excruciating weeklong torturous SEAL endurance test—stay tight. No question about it.

Off they went, night-vision glasses still on, looking like some kind of weird aliens from outer space. Wesley and Bobby went left. Frisco and Cowboy took the right corridor. And Joe, with Blue close behind him, went straight ahead.

They were silent now, and Joe could hear each man’s quiet breathing over his headset’s earphones. He moved slowly, carefully, checking automatically for booby traps or any hint of movement ahead.

“Supply room,” Joe heard Cowboy breathe into his headset’s microphone.

“Ditto,” Bobby whispered. “We got canned goods and a wine cellar. No movement, no life.”

Joe caught sight of the motion the same instant Blue did. Simultaneously, they flicked the safeties of their MP5s down to full fire and dropped into a crouch.

They’d found the stairs going up.

And there, underneath the stairs, scared witless and shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, was the crown prince of Ustanzia, Tedric Cortere, using three of his aides as sandbags.

“Don’t shoot,” Cortere said in four or five different languages, his hands held high above his head.

Joe straightened, but he kept his weapon raised until he saw all four pairs of hands were empty. Then he pulled his NVs from his face, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the dim red glow of a penlight Blue had pulled from his pocket.

“Good evening, Your Royal Highness,” he said. “I am Navy SEAL Lieutenant Joe Catalanotto, and I’m here to get you out.”

“Contact,” Harvard said into the radio, having heard Joe’s royal greeting to the prince via his headset. “We have made contact. Repeat, we have picked up luggage and are heading for home plate.”

That was when Joe heard Blue laugh.

“Cat,” the XO drawled. “Have you looked at this guy? I mean, Joe, have you really looked?”

A bomb hit about a quarter mile to the east, and Prince Tedric tried to burrow more deeply in among his equally frightened aides.

If the prince had been standing, he would have been about Joe’s height, maybe a little shorter.

He was wearing a torn white satin jacket, reminiscent of an Elvis impersonator. The garment was amazingly tacky. It was adorned with gold epaulets, and there was an entire row of medals and ribbons on the chest—for bravery under enemy fire, no doubt. His pants were black, and grimy with soot and dirt.

But it wasn’t the prince’s taste in clothing that made Joe’s mouth drop open. It was the man’s face.

Looking at the Crown Prince of Ustanzia was like looking into a mirror. His dark hair was longer than Joe’s, but beyond that, the resemblance was uncanny. Dark eyes, big nose, long face, square jaw, heavy cheekbones.

The guy looked exactly like Joe.

Chapter One

A few years later

Washington, D.C.

All of the major network news cameras were rolling as Tedric Cortere, crown prince of Ustanzia, entered the airport.

A wall of ambassadors, embassy aides and politicians moved forward to greet him, but the prince paused for just a moment, taking the time to smile and wave a greeting to the cameras.

He was following her instructions to the letter. Veronica St. John, professional image and media consultant, allowed herself a sigh of relief. But only a small one, because she knew Tedric Cortere very well, and he was a perfectionist. There was no guarantee that Prince Tedric, the brother of Veronica’s prep-school roommate and very best friend in the world, was going to be satisfied with what he saw tonight on the evening news.

Still, he would have every right to be pleased. It was day one of his United States goodwill tour, and he was looking his best, oozing charm and royal manners, with just enough blue-blooded arrogance thrown in to captivate the royalty-crazed American public. He was remembering to gaze directly into the news cameras. He was keeping his eye movements steady and his chin down. And, heaven be praised, for a man prone to anxiety attacks, he was looking calm and collected for once.

He was giving the news teams exactly what they wanted—a close-up picture of a gracious, charismatic, fairytale handsome European prince.

Bachelor. She’d forgotten to add “bachelor” to the list. And if Veronica knew Americans—and she did; it was her business to know Americans—millions of American women would watch the evening news tonight and dream of becoming a princess.

There was nothing like fairy-tale fever among the public to boost relations between two governments. Fairy-tale fever—and the recently discovered oil that lay beneath the parched, gray Ustanzian soil.

But Tedric wasn’t the only one playing to the news cameras this morning.

As Veronica watched, United States Senator Sam McKinley flashed his gleaming white teeth in a smile so falsely genuine and so obviously aimed at the reporters, it made her want to laugh.

But she didn’t laugh. If she’d learned one thing during her childhood and adolescence as the daughter of an international businessman who moved to a different and often exotic country every year or so, she’d learned that diplomats and high government officials—particularly royalty—take themselves very, very seriously.

So, instead of laughing, she bit the insides of her cheeks as she stopped several respectful paces behind the prince, at the head of the crowd of assistants and aides and advisers who were part of his royal entourage.

“Your Highness, on behalf of the United States Government,” McKinley drawled in his thick Texas accent, shaking the prince’s hand, and dripping with goodwill, “I’d like to welcome you to our country’s capital.”

“I greet you with the timeless honor and tradition of the Ustanzian flag,” Prince Tedric said formally in his faintly British, faintly French accent, “which is woven, as well, into my heart.”

It was his standard greeting; nothing special, but it went over quite well with the crowd.

McKinley started in on a longer greeting, and Veronica let her attention wander.

She could see herself in the airport’s reflective glass windows, looking cool in her cream-colored suit, her flame-red hair pulled neatly back into a French braid. Tall and slender and serene, her image wavered slightly as a jet plane took off, thundering down the runway.

It was an illusion. Actually, she was giddy with nervous excitement, a condition brought about by the stress of knowing that if Tedric didn’t follow her instructions and ended up looking bad on camera, she’d be the one to blame. Sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades, another side effect of the stress she was under. No, she felt neither cool nor serene, regardless of how she looked.

She had been hired because her friend, Princess Wila, knew that Veronica was struggling to get her fledgling consulting business off the ground. Sure, she’d done smaller, less detailed jobs before, but this was the first one in which the stakes were so very high. If Veronica succeeded with Tedric Cortere, word would get out, and she’d have more business than she could handle. If she succeeded with Cortere…

But Veronica had also been hired for another reason. She’d been hired because Wila, concerned about Ustanzia’s economy, recognized the importance of this tour. Despite the fact that teaching Wila’s brother, the high-strung Prince of Ustanzia, how to appear calm and relaxed while under the watchful eyes of the TV news cameras was Veronica’s first major assignment as an image and media consultant, Wila trusted her longtime friend implicitly to get the job done.

“I’m counting on you, Véronique,” Wila had said to Veronica over the telephone just last night. She had added with her customary frankness, “This American connection is too important. Don’t let Tedric screw this up.”

So far Tedric was doing a good job. He looked good. He sounded good. But it was too early for Veronica to let herself feel truly satisfied. It was her job to make sure that the prince continued to look and sound good.

Tedric didn’t particularly like his younger sister’s best friend, and the feeling was mutual. He was an impatient, short-tempered man, and rather used to getting his own way. Very used to getting his own way.

Veronica could only hope he would see today’s news reports and recognize the day’s success. If he didn’t, she’d hear about it, that was for sure.

Veronica knew quite well that over the course of the prince’s tour of the United States she was going to earn every single penny of her consultant’s fee. Because although Tedric Cortere was princely in looks and appearance, he was also arrogant and spoiled. And demanding. And often irrational. And occasionally, not very nice.

Oh, he knew his social etiquette. He was in his element when it came to pomp and ceremony, parties and other social posturing. He knew all there was to know about clothing and fashion. He could tell Japanese silk from American with a single touch. He was a wine connoisseur and a gourmet. He could ride horses and fence, play polo and water-ski. He hired countless aides and advisers to dance attendance upon him, and provide him with both his most trivial desires and the important information he needed to get by as a representative of his country.

As Veronica watched, Tedric shook the hands of the U.S. officials. He smiled charmingly and she could practically hear the sound of the news cameras zooming in for a close-up.

The prince glanced directly into the camera lenses and let his smile broaden. Spoiled or not, with his trim, athletic body and handsome face, the man was good-looking.

Good-looking? No, Veronica thought. To call him good-looking wasn’t accurate. Quite honestly, the prince was gorgeous. He was a piece of art. He had long, thick, dark hair that curled down past his shoulders. His face was long and lean with exotic cheekbones that hinted of his mother’s Mediterranean heritage. His eyes were the deepest brown, surrounded by sinfully long lashes. His jaw was square, his nose strong and masculine.

But Veronica had known Tedric since she was fifteen and he was nineteen. Naturally, she’d developed a full-fledged crush on him quite early on, but it hadn’t taken her long to realize that the prince was nothing like his cheerful, breezy, lighthearted yet business-minded sister. Tedric was, in fact, quite decidedly dull—and enormously preoccupied with his appearance. He had spent endless amounts of time in front of a mirror, sending Wila and Veronica into spasms of giggles as he combed his hair, flexed his muscles and examined his perfect, white teeth.

Still, Veronica’s crush on Prince Tedric hadn’t truly crashed and burned until she’d had a conversation with him—and seen that beneath his facade of princely charm and social skills, behind his handsome face and trim body, deep within his dark brown eyes, there was nothing there.

Nothing she was interested in, anyway.

Although she had to admit that to this day, her romantic vision of a perfect man was someone tall, dark and handsome. Someone with wide, exotic cheekbones and liquid brown eyes. Someone who looked an awful lot like Crown Prince Tedric, but with a working brain in his head and a heart that loved more than his own reflection in the mirror.

She wasn’t looking for a prince. In fact, she wasn’t looking, period. She had no time for romance—at least, not until her business started to turn a profit.

As the military band began to play a rousing rendition of the Ustanzian national anthem, Veronica glanced again at their blurry images in the window. A flash of light from the upper-level balcony caught her eye. That was odd. She’d been told that airport personnel would be restricting access to the second floor as a security measure.

She turned her head to look up at the balcony and realized with a surge of disbelief that the flash she’d seen was a reflection of light bouncing off the long barrel of a rifle—a rifle aimed directly at Tedric.

“Get down!” Veronica shouted, but her voice was drowned out by the trumpets. The prince couldn’t hear her. No one could hear her.

She ran toward Prince Tedric and all of the U.S. dignitaries, well aware that she was running toward, not away from, the danger. A thought flashed crazily through her head—This was not a man worth dying for. But she couldn’t stand by and let her best friend’s brother be killed. Not while she had the power to prevent it.

As a shot rang out, Veronica hit Tedric bone-jarringly hard at waist level and knocked him to the ground. It was a rugby tackle that would have made her brother Jules quite proud.

She bruised her shoulder, tore her nylons and scraped both of her knees when she fell.

But she saved the crown prince of Ustanzia’s life.

When Veronica walked into the hotel conference room, it was clear the meeting had been going on for quite some time.

Senator McKinley was sitting at one end of the big oval conference table with his jacket off, his tie loosened, and his shirtsleeves rolled up. Henri Freder, the U.S. ambassador to Ustanzia, sat on one side of him. Another diplomat and several other men whom Veronica didn’t recognize sat on the other. Men in dark suits stood at the doors and by the windows, watchful and alert. They were FInCOM agents, Veronica realized, high-tech bodyguards from the Federal Intelligence Commission, sent to protect the prince. But why were they involved? Was Prince Tedric’s life still in danger?

Tedric was at the head of the table, surrounded by a dozen aides and advisers. He had a cold drink in front of him, and was lazily drawing designs in the condensation on the glass.

As Veronica entered the room, Tedric stood, and the entire tableful of men followed suit.

“Someone get a seat for Ms. St. John,” the prince ordered sharply in his odd accent. “Immediately.”

One of the lesser aides quickly stepped away from his own chair and offered it to Veronica.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at the young man.

“Sit down,” the prince commanded her, stony-faced, as he returned to his seat. “I have an idea, but it cannot be done without your cooperation.”

Veronica gazed steadily at the prince. After she’d tackled him earlier today, he’d been dragged away to safety. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. At the time, he hadn’t bothered to thank her for saving his life—and apparently he had no intention of doing so now. She was working for him, therefore she was a servant. He would have expected her to save him. In his mind, there was no need for gratitude.

But she wasn’t a servant. In fact, she’d been the maid of honor last year when his sister married Veronica’s brother, Jules. Veronica and the prince were practically family, yet Tedric still insisted she address him as “Your Highness.”

She sat down, pulling her chair in closer to the table, and the rest of the men sat, too.

“I have a double,” the prince announced. “An American. It is my idea for him to take my place throughout the remaining course of the tour, thus ensuring my safety.”

Veronica sat forward. “Excuse me, Your Highness,” she said. “Please forgive my confusion. Is your safety still an issue?” She looked down the table at Senator McKinley “Wasn’t the gunman captured?”

McKinley ran his tongue over his front teeth before he answered. “I’m afraid not,” he finally replied. “And the Federal Intelligence Commission has reason to believe the terrorists will make another attempt on the prince’s life during the course of the next few weeks.”

“Terrorists?” Veronica repeated, looking from McKinley to the ambassador and finally at Prince Tedric.

“FInCOM has ID’d the shooter,” McKinley answered. “He’s a well-known triggerman for a South American terrorist organization.”

Veronica shook her head. “Why would South American terrorists want to kill the Ustanzian crown prince?”

The ambassador took off his glasses and tiredly rubbed his eyes. “Quite possibly in retaliation for Ustanzia’s new alliance with the U.S.,” he said.

“FInCOM tells us these particular shooters don’t give up easily,” McKinley said. “Even with souped-up security, FInCOM expects they’ll try again. What we’re looking to do is find a solution to this problem.”

Veronica laughed. It slipped out—she couldn’t help herself. The solution was so obvious. “Cancel the tour.”

“Can’t do that,” McKinley drawled.

Veronica looked down the other side of the table at Prince Tedric. He, for once, was silent. But he didn’t look happy.

“There’s too much riding on the publicity from this event,” Senator McKinley explained. “You know as well as I do that Ustanzia needs U.S. funding to get their oil wells up and running.” The heavyset man leaned back in his chair, tapping the eraser end of a pencil on the mahogany table. “But the prospect of competitively priced oil isn’t enough to secure the size funds they need,” he continued, dropping the pencil and running his hand through his thinning gray hair. “And quite frankly, current polls show the public’s concern for a little-nothing country like Ustanzia—beg pardon, Prince—to be zilch. Hardly anyone knows who the Ustanzians are, and the folks who do know about ’em don’t want to give ’em any of their tax dollars, that’s for sure as shootin’. Not while there’s so much here at home to spend the money on.”

Veronica nodded her head. She was well aware of everything he was saying. It was one of Princess Wila’s major worries.

“Besides,” the senator added, “we can use this opportunity to nab this group of terrorists. And sister, if they’re who we think they are, we want ‘em. Bad.”

“But if you know for a fact that there’ll be another assassination attempt…?” Veronica looked down the table at Tedric. “Your Highness, how can you risk placing yourself in such danger?”

Tedric crossed his legs. “I have no intention of placing myself in any danger whatsoever,” he said. “In fact, I will remain here, in Washington, in a safe house, until all danger has passed. The tour, however, will continue as planned, with this lookalike fellow taking my place.”

Suddenly the prince’s earlier words made sense. He’d said he had a double, someone who looked just like him. He’d said this person was an American.

“This man,” McKinley asked. “What was his name, sir?”

The prince shrugged—a slow, eloquent gesture. “How should I remember? Joe. Joe Something. He was a soldier. An American soldier.”

“’Joe Something,’” McKinley repeated, exchanging a quick, exasperated look with the diplomat on his left. “A soldier named Joe. Should only be about fifteen thousand men in the U.S. armed forces named Joe.”

The ambassador on McKinley’s right leaned forward. “Your Highness,” he said patiently, “when did you meet this man?”

“He was one of the soldiers who assisted in my escape from the embassy in Baghdad,” Tedric replied.

“A Navy SEAL,” the ambassador murmured to McKinley. “We should have no problem locating him. If I remember correctly, only one seven-man team participated in that rescue mission.”

“SEAL?” Veronica asked, sitting up and leaning forward. “What’s a SEAL?”

“Part of the Special Operations,” Senator McKinley told her. “They’re the most elite special-operations force in the world. They can operate anywhere—on the sea, in the air and on the land, hence the name, SEALs. If this man who looks so much like the prince really is a SEAL, standing in as the prince’s double will be a cakewalk for him.”

“He was, however, quite unbearably lower-class,” the prince said prudishly, sweeping some imaginary crumbs from the surface of the table. He looked at Veronica. “That is where you would come in. You will teach this Joe to look and act like a prince. We can delay the tour by—” he frowned down the table at McKinley “—a week, is that what you’d said?”

“Two or three days at the very most, sir.” The senator grimaced. “We can announce that you’ve come down with the flu, try to keep up public interest with reports of your health. But the fact is, after a few days, you’ll no longer be news and the story will be dropped. You know what they say: Out of sight, out of mind. We can’t let that happen.”

Two or three days. Two or three days to turn a rough American sailor—a Navy SEAL, whatever that really meant—into royalty. Who were they kidding?

Senator McKinley picked up the phone to begin tracking down the mysterious Joe.

Prince Tedric was watching Veronica expectantly. “Can you do it?” he asked. “Can you make this Joe into a prince?”

“In two or three days?”

Tedric nodded.

“I’d have to work around the clock,” Veronica said, thinking aloud. If she agreed to this crazy plan, she would have to be right beside this sailor, this SEAL, every single step of the way. She’d have to coach him continuously, and be ready to catch and correct his every mistake. “And even then, there’d be no guarantee…”

Tedric shrugged, turning back to Ambassador Freder. “She can’t do it,” he said flatly. “We will have to cancel. Arrange a flight back to—”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t do it,” Veronica interrupted, quickly adding, “Your Highness.”

The prince turned back to her, one elegant eyebrow raised.

Veronica could hear an echo of Wila’s voice. “I’m counting on you, Véronique. This American connection is too important.” If this tour were canceled, all of Wila’s hopes for the future would evaporate. And Wila’s weren’t the only hopes that would be dashed. Veronica couldn’t let herself forget that little girl waiting at Saint Mary’s…

“Well?” Tedric said impatiently.

“All right,” Veronica said. “I’ll give it a try.”

Senator McKinley hung up the phone with a triumphant crash. “I think we’ve found our man,” he announced with a wide smile. “His name’s Navy Lieutenant Joseph P.—” he glanced down at a scrap of paper he’d taken some notes on “—Catalanotto. They’re faxing me an ID photo right now.”

Veronica felt an odd flash of both hot and cold. Good God, what had she just done? What had she just agreed to? What if she couldn’t pull it off? What if it couldn’t be done?

The fax alarm began to beep. Both the prince and Senator McKinley stood and crossed the spacious suite to where the fax machine was plugged in beneath a set of elegant bay windows.

Veronica stayed in her seat at the table. If this job couldn’t be done, she would be letting her best friend down.

“My God,” McKinley breathed as the picture was slowly printed out. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

He tore the fax from the roll of paper and handed it to the prince.

Silently, Tedric stared at the picture. Silently, he walked back across the room and handed the sheet of paper to Veronica.

Except for the fact that the man in the picture was wearing a relaxed pair of military fatigues, with top buttons of the shirt undone and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, except for the fact that the man in the picture had dark, shaggy hair cut just a little below his ears, and the strap of a submachine gun slung over one shoulder, except for the fact that the camera had caught him mid-grin, with good humor and sharp intelligence sparkling in his dark eyes, the man in this picture could very well have been the crown prince of Ustanzia. Or at the very least, he could have been the crown prince’s brother.

The crown prince’s better-looking brother.

He had the same nose, same cheekbones, same well-defined jawline and chin. But his front tooth was chipped. Of course, that was no problem. They could cap a tooth in a matter of hours, couldn’t they?

He was bigger than Prince Tedric, this American naval lieutenant. Bigger and taller. Stronger. Rougher edged. Much, much more rough-edged, in every way imaginable. Good God, if this picture was any indication, Veronica was going to have to start with the basics with this man. She was going to have to teach him how to sit and stand and walk…

Veronica looked up to find Prince Tedric watching her.

“Something tells me,” he said in his elegant accent, “your work is cut out for you.”

Across the room, McKinley picked up the phone and dialed. “Yeah,” he said into the receiver. “This is Sam McKinley. Senator Sam McKinley. I need a Navy SEAL by the name of Lieutenant Joseph—” he consulted his notes “—Catalanotto. Damn, what a mouthful. I need that lieutenant here in Washington, and I need him here yesterday.”

Chapter Two

Joe lay on the deck of the rented boat, hands behind his head, watching the clouds. Puffs of blinding white in a crystal blue California sky, they were in a state of constant motion, always changing, never remaining the same.

He liked that.

It reminded him of his life, fluid and full of surprises. He never knew when a cream puff might turn unexpectedly into a ferocious dragon.

But Joe liked it that way. He liked never knowing what was behind the door—the lady or the tiger. And certainly, since he’d been a SEAL, he’d had his share of both.

But today there were neither ladies nor tigers to face. Today he was on leave—shore leave, it was called in the navy. Funny he should spend the one day of shore leave he had this month far from the shore, out on a fishing boat.

Not that he’d spent very much time lately at sea. In fact, in the past few months, he’d been on a naval vessel exactly ninety-six hours. And that had been for training. Some of those training hours he’d spent as an instructor. But some of the time he’d been a student. That was all part of being a Navy SEAL. No matter your rank or experience, you always had to keep learning, keep training, keep on top of the new technology and methodology.

Joe had achieved expert status in nine different fields, but those fields were always changing. Just like those clouds that were floating above him. Just the way he liked it.

Across the deck of the boat, dressed in weekend grunge clothes similar to his own torn fatigues and ragged T-shirt, Harvard and Blue were arguing good-naturedly over who had gotten the most depressing letter from the weekly mail call.

Joe himself hadn’t gotten any mail—nothing besides bills, that is. Talk about depressing.

Joe closed his eyes, letting the conversation float over him. He’d known Blue for eight years, Harvard for about six. Their voices—Blue’s thick, south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line drawl and Harvard’s nasal, upper-class-Boston accent—were as familiar to him as breathing.

It still sometimes tickled him that out of their entire seven-man SEAL team, the man that Blue was closest to, after Joe himself, was Daryl Becker, nicknamed Harvard.

Carter “Blue” McCoy and Daryl “Harvard” Becker. The “redneck” rebel and the Ivy League-educated Yankee black man. Both SEALs, both better than the best of the rest. And both aware that there was no such thing as prejudices and prejudgments in the Navy SEALs.

Out across the bay, the blue-green water sparkled and danced in the bright sunshine. Joe took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sharp salty air.

“Oh, Lord,” Blue said, turning to the second page of his letter.

Joe turned toward his friend. “What?”

“Gerry’s getting married,” Blue said, running his fingers through his sun-bleached blond hair. “To Jenny Lee Beaumont.”

Jenny Lee had been Blue’s high school girlfriend. She was the only woman Blue had ever talked about—the only one special enough to mention.

Joe exchanged a long look with Harvard.

“Jenny Lee Beaumont, huh?” Joe said.

“That’s right.” Blue nodded, his face carefully expressionless. “Gerry’s gonna marry her. Next July. He wants me to be his best man.”

Joe swore softly.

“You win,” Harvard conceded. “Your mail was much more depressing than mine.”

Joe shook his head, grateful for his own lack of entanglement with a woman. Sure, he’d had girlfriends down through the years, but he’d never met anyone he couldn’t walk away from.

Not that he didn’t like women, because he did. He certainly did. And the women he usually dated were smart and funny and as quick to shy away from permanent attachments as he was. He would see his current lady friend on occasional weekend leaves, and sometimes in the evenings when he was in town and free.

But never, ever had he kissed a woman good-night—or good-morning, as was usually the case—then gone back to the base and sat around daydreaming about her the way Bob and Wesley had drooled over those college girls they’d met down in San Diego. Or the way Harvard had sighed over that Hawaiian marine biologist they’d met on Guam. What was her name? Rachel. Harvard still got that kicked-puppy look in his brown eyes whenever her name came up.

The truth was, Joe had been lucky—he’d never fallen in love. And he was hoping his luck would hold. It would be just fine with him if he went through life without that particular experience, thank you very much.

Joe pushed the top off the cooler with one bare toe. He reached into the icy water to pull out a beer, then froze.

He straightened, ears straining, eyes scanning the horizon to the east.

Then he heard it again.

The sound of a distant chopper. He shaded his eyes, looking out toward the California coastline, to where the sound was coming from.

Silently, Harvard and Blue got to their feet, moving to stand next to him. Silently, Harvard handed Joe the binoculars that had been stowed in one of the equipment lockers.

One swift turn of the dial brought the powerful lenses into focus.

The chopper was only a small black dot, but it was growing larger with each passing second. It was undeniably heading directly toward them.

“You guys wearing your pagers?” Joe asked, breaking the silence. He’d taken his own beeper off after it—and he—had gotten doused by a pailful of bait and briny seawater.

Harvard nodded. “Yes, sir.” He glanced down at the beeper he wore attached to his belt. “But I’m clear.”

“Mine didn’t go off, either, Cat,” Blue said.

In the binoculars, the black dot took on a distinct outline. It was an army bird, a Black Hawk, UH-60A. Its cruising speed was about one hundred and seventy miles per hour. It was closing in on them, and fast.

“Either of you in any trouble I should know about?” Joe asked.

“No, sir,” Harvard said.

“Negative.” Blue glanced at Joe. “How ’bout you, Lieutenant?”

Joe shook his head, still watching the helicopter through the binoculars.

“This is weird,” Harvard said. “What kind of hurry are they in, they can’t page us and have us motor back to the harbor?”

“One damn big hurry,” Joe said. God, that Black Hawk could really move. He pulled the binoculars away from his face as the chopper continued to grow larger.

“It’s not World War Three,” Blue commented, his troubles with Jenny Lee temporarily forgotten. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the approaching helicopter. “If it was World War Three, they wouldn’t waste a Hawk on three lousy SEALs.”

The chopper circled and then hovered directly above them. The sound of the blades was deafening, and the force of the wind made the little boat pitch and toss. All three men grabbed the railing to keep their footing.

Then a scaling rope was thrown out the open door of the helicopter’s cabin. It, too, swayed in the wind from the chopper blades, smacking Joe directly in the chest.

“Lieutenant Joseph P. Catalanotto,” a distorted voice announced over a loudspeaker. “Your shore leave is over.”

Veronica St. John went into her hotel suite, then leaned wearily back against the closed door.

It was only nine o’clock—early by diplomatic standards. In fact, if things had gone according to schedule today, she would still have been at a reception for Prince Tedric over at the Ustanzian Embassy. But things had gone very much not according to schedule, starting with the assassination attempt at the airport.

She’d gotten a call from the president of the United States, officially thanking her, on behalf of the American people, for saving Prince Tedric’s life. She hadn’t expected that. Too bad. If she’d been expecting the man in the White House to call, she might have been prepared to ask for his assistance in locating the personnel records of this mysterious navy lieutenant who looked so much like the crown prince of Ustanzia.

Nobody, repeat nobody she had spoken to had been able to help her find the files she wanted. The Department of Defense sent her to the Navy. The Navy representatives told her that all SEAL records were in the Special Operations Division. The clerk from Special Operations was as clandestine and unhelpful as James Bond’s personal assistant might have been. The woman wouldn’t even verify that Joseph Catalanotto existed, let alone if the man’s personnel files were in the U.S. Special Operations Office.

Frustrated, Veronica had gone back to Senator McKinley, hoping that he could use his clout to get a fax of Catalanotto’s files. But even the powerful senator was told that, for security reasons, personnel records for Navy SEALs were never, repeat never, sent via facsimile. It had been a major feat just getting them to fax a picture of the lieutenant. If McKinley wanted to see Joseph P. Catalanotto’s personnel file, he would need to make a formal request, in writing. After the request was received, it would take a mandatory three days for the files to be censored for his—and Ms. St. John’s—level of clearance.

Three days.

Veronica wasn’t looking to find Lieutenant Catalanotto’s deepest, darkest military secrets. All she wanted to know was where the man came from—in which part of the country he’d grown up. She wanted to know his family background, his level of education, his IQ scores and the results of personality and psychological tests done by the armed forces.

She wanted to know, quite frankly, how big an obstacle this Navy SEAL himself was going to be in getting the job done.

So far, she only knew his name, that he looked like a rougher, wilder version of Tedric Cortere, that his shoulders were very broad, that he carried an M60 machine gun as if it were a large loaf of bread, and that he had a nice smile.

She didn’t have a clue as to whether she’d be able to fool the American public into thinking he was a European prince. Until she met this man, she couldn’t even guess how much work transforming him was going to take. It would be better to try not to think about it.

But if she didn’t think about this job looming over her, she would end up thinking about the girl at Saint Mary’s Hospital, a little girl named Cindy who had sent the prince a letter nearly four months ago—a letter Veronica had fished out of Tedric’s royal wastebasket. In the letter, Cindy—barely even ten years old—had told Prince Tedric that she’d heard he was planning a trip to the United States. She had asked him, if he was going to be in the Washington, D.C., area, to please come and visit her since she was not able to come to see him.

Veronica had ended up going above the prince—directly to King Derrick—and had gotten the visit to Saint Mary’s on the official tour calendar.

But now what?

The entire tour would have to be rescheduled and re-planned, and Saint Mary’s and little Cindy were likely to fall, ignored, between the cracks.

Veronica smiled tightly. Not if she had anything to say about it.

With a sigh, she kicked off her shoes.

Lord, but she ached.

Tackling royalty could really wear a person out, she thought, allowing herself a rueful smile. After the assassination attempt, she had run on sheer adrenaline for about six hours straight. After that had worn off, she’d kept herself fueled with coffee—hot, black and strong.

Right now what she needed was a shower and a two-hour nap.

She pulled her nightgown and robe out of the suitcase that she hadn’t yet found time to unpack, and tossed them onto the bed as she all but staggered into the bathroom. She closed the door and turned on the shower as she peeled off her suit and the cream-colored blouse she wore underneath. She put a hole in her hose as she took them off, and threw them directly into the wastebasket. It had been a bona fide two-pairs-of-panty-hose day. Her first pair, the ones she’d been wearing at the airport, had been totally destroyed.

Veronica washed herself quickly, knowing that every minute she spent in the shower was a minute less that she’d be able to sleep. And with Lieutenant Joseph P. Catalanotto due to arrive anytime after midnight, she was going to need every second of that nap.

Still, it didn’t keep her from singing as she tried to rinse the aches and soreness from her back and shoulders. Singing in the shower was a childhood habit. Then, as now, the moments she spent alone in the shower were among the few bits of time she had to really kick back and let loose. She tested the acoustics of this particular bathroom with a rousing rendition of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s latest hit.

She shut off the water, still singing, and toweled herself dry.

Her robe was hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and she reached for it.

And stopped singing, mid-note.

She’d left her robe in the bedroom, on the bed. She hadn’t hung it on the door.

“No…you’re right. You’re not alone in here,” said a husky male voice from the other side of the bathroom door.

Chapter Three

Veronica’s heart nearly stopped beating, and she lunged for the door and turned the lock.

“I figured you didn’t know I was in your room,” the voice continued as Veronica quickly slipped into her white terry-cloth bathrobe. “I also figured you probably wouldn’t appreciate coming out of the bathroom with just a towel on—or less. Not with an audience, anyway. So I put your robe on the back of the door.”

Veronica tightened the belt and clutched the lapels of the robe more closely together. She took in a deep breath, then let it slowly out. It steadied her and kept her voice from shaking. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Who are you?” the voice countered. It was rich, husky, and laced with more than a trace of blue-collar New York. “I was brought here and told to wait, so I waited. I’ve been hustled from one coast to the other like some Federal Express overnight package, only nobody has any explanations as to why or even who I’m waiting to see. I didn’t even know my insertion point was the District of Columbia until the jet landed at Andrews. And as long as I’m complaining I might as well tell you that I’m tired, I’m hungry and my shorts have not managed to dry in the past ten hours, a situation that makes me very, very cranky. I would damn near sell my soul to get into that shower that you just stepped out of. Other than that, I’m sure I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“Lieutenant Catalanotto?” Veronica asked.

“Bingo,” the voice said. “Babe, you just answered your own question.”

But had she? “What’s your first name?” she asked warily.

“Joe. Joseph.”

“Middle name?”

“Paulo,” he said.

Veronica swung open the bathroom door.

The first thing she noticed about the man was his size. He was big—taller than Prince Tedric by about two inches and outweighing him in sheer muscle by a good, solid fifty pounds. His dark hair was cut much shorter than Tedric’s, and he had at least a two-day growth of beard darkening his face.

He didn’t look as exactly like the prince as she’d thought when she saw his photograph, Veronica realized, studying the man’s face. On closer inspection, his nose was slightly different—it had been broken, probably more than once. And, if it was possible, this navy lieutenant’s cheekbones were even more exotic-looking than Tedric’s. His chin was slightly more square, more stubborn than the prince’s. And his eyes…As he returned her inquisitive stare, his lids dropped halfway over his remarkable liquid brown eyes, as if he was trying to hide his innermost secrets from her.

But those differences—even the size differences between the two men—were very subtle. They wouldn’t be noticed by someone who didn’t know Prince Tedric very well. Those differences certainly wouldn’t be noticed by the array of ambassadors and diplomats Tedric was scheduled to meet.

“According to the name tag on your suitcase, you’ve gotta be Veronica St. John, right?” he said, pronouncing her name the American way, as if it were two words, Saint and John.

“Sinjin,” she said distractedly. “You don’t say Saint John, you say ‘Sinjin.’”

He was looking at her, examining her in much the same way that she’d looked at him. The intensity of his gaze made her feel naked. Which of course, underneath her robe, she was.

But he didn’t win any prizes himself for the clothing he was wearing. From the looks of it, his T-shirt had had its sleeves forcibly removed without the aid of scissors, his army fatigues had been cut off into ragged shorts, and on his feet he wore a pair of dirty canvas deck shoes with no socks. He looked as if he hadn’t showered in several days, and, Lord help her, he smelled that way, too.

“Dear God,” Veronica said aloud, taking in all of the little details she’d missed at first. He wasn’t wearing a belt. Instead, a length of fairly thick rope was run through the belt loops in his pants, and tied in some kind of knot at the front. He had a tattoo—a navy anchor—on his left biceps. His fingers were blackened with stains of grease, his fingernails were short and rough—a far cry from Prince Tedric’s carefully manicured hands. Lord, if she had to start by teaching this man the basics of personal hygiene, there was no way she’d have him impersonating a prince within her three-day deadline.

“What?” he said with a scowl. Defensiveness tinged his voice and darkened his eyes. “I’m not what you expected?”

She couldn’t deny it. She’d expected the lieutenant to arrive wearing a dress uniform, stiff and starched and perfectly military—and smelling a little more human and a little less like a real-life marine mammal-type seal. Wordlessly, she shook her head no.

Joe gazed silently at the girl. She watched him, too, her eyes so wide and blue against the porcelain paleness of her skin. It was hard for him to tell the color of her hair—it was wet. It clung, damp and dark, to the sides of her head and neck.

Red, he guessed. It was probably some shade of red, maybe even strawberry blond, probably curly. Yet, if there really was a God and He was truly righteous, she would have nondescript straight hair, maybe the color of mud. It didn’t seem fair that this girl should have wealth, a powerful job, refined manners, a pair of beautiful blue eyes and curly red hair.

Without makeup, her face looked alarmingly young. Her features were delicate, almost fragile. She wasn’t particularly pretty, at least not in the conventional sense. But her cheekbones were high, showcasing enormous crystal blue eyes. And her lips were exquisitely shaped, her nose small and elegant.

No, she wasn’t pretty. But she was incredibly attractive in a way he couldn’t even begin to explain.

The robe she wore was too big for her. It drew attention to her slight frame, accentuating her slender wrists and ankles.

She looked like a kid playing dress up in her mommy’s clothes.

Funny, from the cut and style of the business suits that had been neatly packed in her suitcase, Joe had expected this Veronica St. John—or “Sinjin,” as she’d pronounced it with her slightly British, extremely monied upper-class accent—to be, well…less young. He’d expected someone in their mid-forties at least, maybe even older. But this girl couldn’t be a day over twenty-five. Hell, standing here like this, just out of the shower, still dripping wet, she barely looked sixteen.

“You aren’t what I expected, either,” Joe said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “So I guess that makes us even.”

He knew he was making her nervous, sitting there like that. He knew she was nervous about him getting the bedspread dirty, nervous about him leaving behind the lingering odor of dead fish—bait from the smelly bucket Blue had knocked over earlier that morning. Hell, he was nervous about it himself.

And damn, but that made him angry. This girl was somehow responsible for dragging him away from his shore leave. She was somehow responsible for the way he’d been rushed across the country without a shower or a change of clothes. Hell, it was probably her fault that he was in this five-star hotel wearing his barnacle-scraping clothes, feeling way out of his league.

He didn’t like feeling this way. He didn’t like the barely concealed distaste he could see in this rich girl’s eyes. He didn’t like being reminded that he didn’t fit into this opulent world of hers—a world filled with money, power and class.

Not that he wanted to fit in. Hell, he wouldn’t last more than a few months in a place like this. He preferred his own world—the world of the Navy SEALs, where a man wasn’t judged by the size of his wallet, or the price of his education, or the cut of his clothes. In his world, a man was judged by his actions, by his perseverance, by his loyalty and stamina. In his world, a man who’d made it into the SEALs was treated with honor and respect—regardless of the way he looked. Or smelled.

He leaned back on the big, fancy, five-star bed, propping himself up on his elbows. “Maybe you could give me some kind of clue as to what I’m doing here, honey,” he said, watching her wince at his term of endearment. “I’m pretty damn curious.”

The rich girl’s eyes widened, and she actually forgot to look disdainful for a few minutes. “Are you trying to tell me that no one’s told you anything?”

Joe sat up. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

She shook her head. Her hair was starting to dry, and it was definitely curly. “But that’s impossible.”

“Impossible it ain’t, sweetheart,” he said. A double wince this time. One for the bad grammar, the other for the “sweetheart.” “I’m here in D.C. without the rest of my team, and I don’t know why.”

Veronica turned abruptly and went into the hotel suite’s living room. Joe followed more slowly, leaning against the frame of the door and watching as she sifted through her briefcase.

“You were supposed to be met by—” she pulled a yellow legal pad from her notebook and flipped to a page in the back “—an Admiral Forrest?” She looked up at him almost hopefully.

The navy lieutenant just shrugged, still watching her. Lord, but he was handsome. Despite the layers of dirt and his dark, scowling expression, he was, like Prince Tedric, almost impossibly good-looking. And this man was nearly dripping with an unconscious virility that Tedric didn’t even begin to possess. He was extremely attractive underneath all that grime—if she were the type who went for that untamed, rough-hewn kind of man.

Which, of course, Veronica wasn’t. Dangerous, bad-boy types had never made her heart beat faster. And if her heart seemed to be pounding now, why, that was surely from the scare he’d given her earlier.

No, she was not the type to be attracted by steel-hard biceps and broad shoulders, a rough-looking five o’clock shadow, a tropical tan, a molten-lava smile, and incredible brown bedroom eyes. No. Definitely, positively not.

And if she gave him a second glance, it was only to verify the fact that Lieutenant Joseph P. Catalanotto was not going to be mistaken for visiting European royalty.

Not today, anyway.

And not tomorrow. But, for Wila’s sake, for her own career, and for little Cindy at Saint Mary’s, Veronica was going to see to it that two days from now, Joe would be a prince.

But first things first. And first things definitely included putting her clothes back on, particularly since Lieutenant Catalanotto wasn’t attempting to hide the very, very male appreciation in his eyes as he looked at her.

“Why don’t you help yourself to something to drink,” Veronica said, and Joe’s gaze flickered across the suite, toward the elaborate bar that was set up on the other side of the room. “Give me a minute to get dressed,” she added. “Then I’ll try to explain why you’re here.”

He nodded.

She walked past him, aware that he was still watching right up to the moment she closed the bedroom door behind her.

The man’s accent was atrocious. It screamed New York City—blue-collar New York City. But okay. With a little ingenuity, with the right scheduling and planning, Joe wouldn’t have to utter a single word.

His posture, though, was an entirely different story. Tedric stood ramrod straight. Lieutenant Catalanotto, on the other hand, slouched continuously. And he walked with a kind of relaxed swagger that was utterly un-princely. How on earth was she going to teach him to stand and sit up straight, let alone walk in that peculiar, stiff, princely gait that Tedric had perfected?

Veronica pulled fresh underwear and another pair of panty hose—number three for the day—from her suitcase. Her dark blue suit was near the top of the case, so she pulled it on, then slipped her tired feet into a matching pair of pumps. A little bit of makeup, a quick brush through her almost-dry hair…

Gloves would cover his hands, she thought, her mind going a mile a minute. Even if that engine grease didn’t wash off, it could be hidden by a pair of gloves. Tedric himself often wore a pair of white gloves. No one would think that was odd.

Joe’s hair was an entirely different matter. He wore his hair short, while Tedric’s flowed down past his shoulders.

They could get a wig for Joe. Or hair extensions. Yes, hair extensions would be even better, and easier to keep on. Provided Joe would sit still long enough to have them attached…

This was going to work. This was going to work.

Taking a deep breath and smoothing down her suit jacket, Veronica opened the door and went back into the living room.

And stopped short.

The living room of her hotel suite was positively crowded.

Senator McKinley, three different Ustanzian ambassadors, an older man wearing a military dress uniform covered with medals, a half-dozen FInCOM security agents, Prince Tedric and his entire entourage all stood frozen and staring at Joe Catalanotto, who had risen to his feet in front of the sofa. The tension in the room could have been cut by a knife.

The man in uniform was the only one who spoke. “Nice to see that you dressed for the occasion, Joe,” he said with a chuckle.

Joe crossed his arms. “The guys who shanghaied me forgot to bring my wardrobe trunk,” he said dryly. Then he smiled. It was a genuine, sincere smile that warmed his face and touched his eyes. “Good to see you, Admiral.”

Joe looked around the room, his gaze landing on Prince Tedric’s face. Tedric was staring at him as if he were a rat that had made its way into the hotel room from the street below.

Joe’s smile faded, and was replaced by another scowl. “Well,” he said. “I’ll be damned. If it isn’t my evil twin.”

Veronica laughed. She couldn’t help it. It just came bubbling out. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, and all but clamped her hand across her mouth. But no one seemed to notice—no one but Joe, who glanced over at her in surprise.

“Don’t you know who you’re talking to, young man? This is the crown prince of Ustanzia,” Senator McKinley said sternly to Joe.

“Damn straight I know who I’m talking to, Pop,” Joe said tightly. “I’m the kind of guy who never forgets a face—particularly when I see it every morning in the mirror. My team of SEALs pulled this bastard’s sorry butt out of Baghdad.” He turned back to Tedric. “Keeping free and clear of war zones these days, Ted, you lousy bastard?”

Everyone in the room, with the exception of Joe and the still-grinning admiral, drew in a shocked breath. Veronica was amazed that her ears didn’t pop from the sudden drop in air pressure.

The crown prince’s face turned an interesting shade of royal purple. “How dare you?” he gasped.

Joe seemed to grow at least three feet taller and two feet broader. He took a step or two toward Tedric, and everyone in the room—with the exception of the admiral—drew back.

“How dare you put yourself into a situation where my men had to risk their lives to pull you back out?” Joe all but snarled. “One of my men spent months in intensive care because of you, dirtwad. I’ll tell you right now, you’re damned lucky—damned lucky—he didn’t die.”

The deadly look in Joe’s eyes was enough to make even the bravest man quiver with fear. They were all lucky that Joe’s friend hadn’t died, Veronica thought with a shiver, or else they’d be witnessing a murder. And unlike the morning’s assassination attempt, she had no doubt that Joe would succeed.

“Mon Dieu,” Tedric said, hiding the fact that his hands were shaking by slipping into his native French and turning haughtily to his aides. “This…this…creature is far more insolent than I remembered. Obviously we cannot risk sending him into public, masquerading as me. He would embarrass my heritage, my entire country. Send him back to whatever rock he crawled out from under. There is no other option. Cancel the tour.”

On the other side of the room, one of the senator’s assistants quickly translated Tedric’s French into English, whispering into McKinley’s ear.

With a humph, the prince stalked toward the door, taking with him Senator McKinley’s hopes for lower-priced oil and Wila’s dreams of economic security for her country.

But McKinley moved quickly, and cut Prince Tedric off before he reached the door.

“Your Highness,” McKinley said soothingly. “If you’re serious about obtaining the funding for the oil wells—”

“He’s a monster,” Tedric proclaimed loudly in French. McKinley’s assistant translated quietly for the senator. “Even Ms. St. John cannot turn such a monster into a prince.”

Across the room, Joe watched as Veronica hurried over to the prince and Senator McKinley and began talking in a lowered voice. Turn a monster into a prince, huh? he thought.

“You always did know how to liven up a party, son.”

Joe turned to see Admiral Michael “Mac” Forrest smiling at him. He gave the older man a crisp salute.

The admiral’s familiar leathery face crinkled into a smile. “Cut the bulldinky, Catalanotto,” he said. “Since when did you start saluting? For criminy’s sake, son, shake my hand instead.”

The admiral’s salt-and-pepper hair had gone another shade whiter, but other than that, the older man looked healthy and fit. Joe knew that Mac Forrest, a former SEAL himself, still spent a solid hour each day in PT—physical training—despite the fact that he needed a cane to walk. Ever since Joe first met him, the Admiral’s left leg had been shorter than his right, courtesy of the enemy during the Vietnam War.

Mac’s handclasp was strong and solid. With his other hand, he clapped Joe on the shoulder.

“It’s been nearly a year and you haven’t changed the least bit,” Admiral Forrest announced after giving Joe a once-over. The older man wrinkled his nose. “Including your clothes. Jumping Jesse, what hole did we drag you out of?”

“I was on leave,” Joe said with a shrug. “I was helping Blue pull in a major tuna and the bait bucket spilled on me. The boys in the Black Hawk didn’t give me a chance to stop at my apartment to take a shower and pick up a change of clothes.”

“Yeah.” The admiral’s blue eyes twinkled. “We were in kind of a hurry to get you out here, in case you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed,” Joe said, crossing his arms. “I take it I’m here to do some kind of favor for him.” With his chin, Joe gestured across the room toward Prince Tedric, who was still deep in discussion with Senator McKinley and Veronica.

“Something tells me you’re not happy about the idea of doing Tedric Cortere any favors,” Mac commented.

“Damn straight,” Joe said, adding, “sir. That bastard nearly got Frisco killed. We were extracting from Baghdad with a squad of Iraqi soldiers on our tail. Frisco took a direct hit. The kid nearly bled to death. What’s maybe even worse, at least in his eyes, is that his knee was damn near destroyed. Kid’s in a wheelchair now, and fighting hard to get out.”

Mac Forrest stood quietly, just letting Joe tell the story.

“We’d reached the Baghdad extraction point when Prince Charming over there refused to board the chopper. We finally had to throw him inside. It only gave us about a thirty-second delay, but it was enough to put us into the Iraqi soldiers’ firing range, and that’s when Frisco was hit. Turns out His Royal Pain-in-the-Butt refused to get into the bird because it wasn’t luxurious enough. He nearly got us all killed because the interior of an attack helicopter wasn’t painted in the colors of the Ustanzian flag.”

Joe looked steadily at the admiral. “So go ahead and reprimand me, Mac,” he added. “But be warned—there’s nothing you can say that’ll make me do any favors for that creep.”

“I’m not so sure about that, son,” Mac said thoughtfully, running his hand across the lower part of his face.

Joe frowned. “What’s going on?”

“Have you seen the news lately?” Mac asked.

Joe looked at him for several long moments. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Just asking.”

“Mac, I’ve been in a chopper, a transport jet and a jeep tonight. None of them had in-flight entertainment in the form of the evening news,” Joe said. “Hell, I haven’t even seen a newspaper in the past eighteen hours.”

“This morning there was an assassination attempt on Tedric.”

Aha. Now it suddenly all made sense. Joe nodded. “Gee, sir,” he said. “And I already smell like bait. How appropriate.”

Mac chuckled. “You always were a smart mouth, Catalanotto.”

“So what’s the deal?” Joe asked. “Where am I inserting? Ustanzia? Or, oh joy, are we going back to Baghdad?”

Inserting. It was a special operations term for entering—either stealthily or by force—an area of operation.

The admiral perched on the arm of the sofa. “You’ve already inserted, son,” he said. “Here in D.C. is where we want you—for right now. That is, if I can convince you to volunteer for this mission.” Briefly, he outlined the plan to have Joe stand in for the crown prince for the remainder of the American tour—at least until the terrorists made another assassination attempt and were apprehended.

“Let me get this straight,” Joe said, sitting down on the couch. “I play dress-up in Cortere’s clothes—which is the equivalent of painting a giant target on my back, right? And I’m doing this so that the United States will have more oil? You’ve got to do better than that, Mac. And don’t start talking about protecting Prince Ted, because I don’t give a flying fig whether or not that bastard stays alive long enough to have his royal coffee and doughnut tomorrow morning.”

Mac looked across the room, and Joe followed the older man’s gaze. Veronica was nodding at Prince Tedric, her face serious. Red. Her hair was dry, and it was definitely red. Of course. It had to be red.

“I don’t suppose working with Veronica St. John would be an incentive?” Mac said. “I had the opportunity to meet her several weeks ago. She’s a real peach of a girl. Rock-solid sense of humor, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it to look at her. Pretty, too.”

Joe shook his head. “Not my type,” he said flatly.

“Mrs. Forrest wasn’t my type when I first met her,” Mac stated.

Joe stood. “Sorry, Mac. If that’s the best you can do, I’m outta here.”

“Please,” Mac said quietly, putting one hand on Joe’s arm. “I’m asking for a personal favor here, Lieutenant. Do this one for me.” The admiral looked down at the floor, and when he looked back at Joe, his blue eyes were steely. “Remember that car bomb that took out a busload of American sailors in London three years ago?”

Silently, Joe nodded. Oh, yeah. He remembered. Mac Forrest’s nineteen-year-old son had been one of the kids killed in that deadly blast, set off by a terrorist organization called the Cloud of Death.

“My sources over at Intelligence have hinted that the assassins who are gunning for Prince Tedric are the same terrorists who set off that bomb,” the admiral said. His voice trembled slightly. “It’s Diosdado and his damned Cloud of Death again. I want them, Lieutenant. With your help, I can get them. Without your help…” He shook his head in despair.

Joe nodded. “Sir, you’ve got your volunteer.”

Chapter Four

It was nearly two-thirty in the morning before Veronica left the planning meeting.

All of the power players had been there—Senator McKinley, whose million-dollar smile had long since faded; Henri Freder, the Ustanzian Ambassador; Admiral Forrest, the salty-looking military man Veronica had met several weeks ago at an embassy function in Paris; stern-faced Kevin Laughton, the Federal Intelligence Commission agent in charge of security; and Prince Tedric’s four chief aides.

It had been decided that Prince Tedric should be spirited away from the hotel to a safe house where he’d be guarded by FInCOM agents and Ustanzian secret service men. The American sailor, Joe Catalanotto, would simply move into Tedric’s suite of rooms on the tenth floor, thus arousing no suspicion among the hotel staff and guests—or even among the prince’s own lesser servants and assistants, who would not be told of the switch.

After convincing the prince to give Veronica St. John a chance to work with the sailor, McKinley had gotten the ball rolling. Prince Tedric was gone, much to everyone’s relief.

Veronica and the prince’s main staff were working to reschedule the beginning of the tour. The idea was to organize a schedule that would require Joe to have the least amount of contact with diplomats who might recognize that he was not the real prince. And the FInCOM agents put in their two cents worth, trying to set up times and places for Joe to appear in public that would provide the assassins with an obvious, clear target without putting Joe in more danger than necessary.

“Where’s Catalanotto?” Admiral Forrest kept asking. “He should be here. He should be part of this op’s planning team.”

“With all due respect, Admiral,” Kevin Laughton, the FInCOM chief, finally said, “it’s better to leave the strategizing to the experts.” Laughton was a tall man, impeccably dressed, with every strand of his light brown hair perfectly in place. His blue eyes were cool, and he kept his emotions carefully hidden behind a poker face.

“In that case, Mr. Laughton,” Forrest said tartly, “Catalanotto should definitely be here. And if you paid close attention, sir, you might even learn a thing or two from him.”

“From a navy lieutenant?”

“Joe Cat is a Navy SEAL, mister,” Forrest said.

There was that word again. SEAL.

But Laughton didn’t look impressed. He looked put-upon. “I should’ve known this was going too smoothly,” he said tiredly. He turned to Forrest. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the expression, Admiral: Too many cooks spoil the broth?”

The admiral fixed the younger man with a decidedly fishlike stare. “This man is going to be your bait,” he said. “Can you honestly tell me that if your roles were reversed, you wouldn’t want in on the planning stages?”

“Yes,” Laughton replied. “I can.”

“Bulldinky.” Forrest stood. He snapped his fingers and one of his aides appeared. “Get Joe Cat down here,” he ordered.

The man fired off a crisp salute. “Yes, sir.” He turned sharply and disappeared.

Laughton was fuming. “You can’t pull rank on me. I’m FInCOM—”

“Trust me, son,” Forrest interrupted, sitting down again and rocking back in his chair. “See these do-hickeys on my uniform? They’re not just pretty buttons. They mean when I say ‘stop,’ you stop. And if you need that order clarified, I’d be more than happy to call Bill and have him explain it to you.”

Veronica bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling. By Bill, the admiral was referring to the President. Of the United States. The look on Kevin Laughton’s face was not a happy one.

The admiral’s young aide returned and stood patiently at attention just behind Forrest’s chair. Forrest tipped his head to look up at him, giving him permission to speak with a nod.

“Lieutenant Catalanotto is unable to attend this meeting, sir,” the aide said. “He’s getting a tooth capped, and…something done with his hair, sir. I think.”

“Thank you, son,” Forrest said. He stood, pushing his chair back from the conference table. “In that case, I suggest we adjourn and resume in the morning, when Lieutenant Catalanotto can attend.”

“But—”

The admiral fixed Laughton with a single look. “Don’t make me make that phone call, mister,” he said. “I may have phrased it kind of casually, but my suggestion to adjourn was an order.” He straightened and picked up his cane. “I’m going to give you a little hint, Laughton, a hint that most folks usually learn the first day of basic training. When an officer gives an order, the correct response is, ‘Yes, sir. Right away, sir.’”

He glanced around the table, giving Veronica a quick wink before he headed toward the door.

She gathered up her papers and briefcase and followed, catching up with him in the corridor.

“Excuse me, Admiral,” she said. “I haven’t had time to do any research—I haven’t had time to think—and I was hoping you could clue me in. What exactly is a SEAL?”

Forrest’s leathery face crinkled into a smile. “Joe’s a SEAL,” he said.

Veronica shook her head. “Sir, that’s not what I meant.”

His smile became a grin. “I know,” he said. “You want me to tell you that a Navy SEAL is the toughest, smartest, deadliest warrior in all of the U.S. military. Okay. There you have it. A SEAL is the best of the best, and he’s trained to specialize in unconventional warfare.” His smile faded, giving his face a stern, craggy cast. “Let me give you an example. Lieutenant Catalanotto took six men and went one hundred miles behind the lines during the first night of Operation Desert Storm in order to rescue Tedric Cortere—who was too stupid to leave Baghdad when he was warned of the coming U.S. attack. Joe Cat and his Alpha Squad—they’re part of SEAL Team Ten—went in undetected, among all the bombs that were falling from U.S. planes, and pulled Cortere and three aides out without a single fatality.”

Admiral Forrest smiled again as he watched an expression of disbelief flit across Veronica’s face.

“How on earth…?” she asked.

“With a raftload of courage,” he answered. “And a whole hell of a lot of training and skill. Joe Cat’s an expert in explosives, you know, both on land and underwater. And he knows all there is to know about locks and security systems. He’s a top-notch mechanic. He understands engines in a way that’s almost spiritual. He’s also an expert marksman, a sharpshooter with damn near any ordnance he can get his hands on. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, missy. If you want me to continue, then we’d better find a place to sit and get comfortable, because it’s going to take a while.”

Veronica tried hard to connect everything she’d just heard with the grimy, unkempt, seemingly uneducated man who had appeared in her hotel room. “I see,” she finally said.

“No, you don’t,” Forrest countered, a smile softening his words. “But you will. Best thing to do is go find Joe. And when he talks to you, really listen. You’ll know soon enough what being a SEAL means.”

Joe sat in the hairdresser’s portable chair, looking at himself in the hotel-room mirror.

He looked…different.

A dentist had come in and capped the tooth he’d chipped three years ago while on a training mission and had never had fixed.

Joe had stopped noticing it after a while. He’d had the rough edges filed down the day of the accident, but he’d never had the time or inclination to get the damn thing capped.

The capped tooth wasn’t the only thing different about him now. Joe’s short dark hair was about six inches longer—and no longer short—thanks to the hair extensions the tired-looking stylist had almost finished attaching.

It was odd, seeing himself with long hair like this.

Joe had grown his hair out before, when he’d had advance warning of covert operations. But he liked wearing his hair short. It wasn’t military-regulation short, just a comfortable length that was easy to deal with.

Long hair got in the way. It worked its way into his mouth, hung in his face, and got in his eyes at inopportune moments.

And it made him look like that cowardly idiot, Tedric Cortere.

Which was precisely the point, right now.

God help them, Joe vowed, if they expected him to wear those satin suits with the ruffles and metallic trim, and those garish rings on his fingers. No, God help him. This was a job, and if the powers that be wanted him to dress like an idiot, he was going to have to dress like an idiot. Like it or not.

Joe stared into the mirror at the opulence of the hotel room. This place gave him the creeps. He was nervous he might break something or spill something or touch something he wasn’t supposed to touch. And his nervousness really annoyed him. Why should he be nervous? Why should he feel intimidated? It was only a lousy hotel room, for Pete’s sake. The only difference between this room and the cheap motel rooms he stayed in when he traveled was that here the TV wasn’t chained down. Here there was a phone in the bathroom. And the towels were thick and plentiful. And the carpets were plush and clean. And the wallpaper wasn’t stained, and the curtains actually closed all the way, and the furniture wasn’t broken and mismatched. Oh yeah, and the price tag for a one-night stay—that was different, too.

Sheesh, this place was as different from the places he usually stayed as night was to day, Joe reminded himself.

But the truth was, he wished he was staying at a cheap motel. At least then he could lie on the bed and put his feet up without being afraid he’d ruin the bedspread. At least he wouldn’t feel so goddammed out of his league.

But he was stuck here until another assassination attempt was made or until the prince’s U.S. tour ended in five weeks.

Five weeks.

Five weeks of feeling out of place. Of being afraid to touch anything.

“Don’t touch!” he could still hear his mother say, when as a kid, he went along on her trips to Scarsdale, where she cleaned houses that were ten times the size of their tiny Jersey City apartment. “Don’t touch, or you’ll hear from your father when we get home.”

Except Joe didn’t have a father. He had a whole slew of stepfathers and “uncles,” but no father. Still, whoever was temporarily playing the part of dear old dad at home would have leaped at any excuse to kick Joe’s insolent butt into tomorrow.

Jeez, what was wrong with him? He hadn’t thought about those “happy” memories in years.

The hotel-room door opened with an almost-inaudible click and Joe tensed. He looked up, turning his head and making the hairdresser sigh melodramatically.

But Joe had been too well-trained to let someone come into the room without giving them the once-over. Not while he was looking more and more like a man who’d been an assassin’s target just this morning.

It was only the media consultant. Veronica St. John.

She posed no threat.

Joe turned his head, looking back into the mirror, waiting for the rush of relief, for the relaxation of the tension in his shoulders.

But it never came. Instead of relaxing, he felt as if all of his senses had gone on alert. As if he’d suddenly woken up. It was as if he were about to go into a combat situation. The colors in the wallpaper seemed sharper, clearer. The sounds of the hairdresser behind him seemed louder. And his sense of smell heightened to the point where he caught a whiff of Veronica St. John’s subtle perfume from all the way across the room.

“Good God,” she said in her crisp, faintly British-accented voice. “You look…amazing.”

“Well, thank you, sweetheart. You’re not so bad yourself.”

She’d moved to where he could see her behind him in the mirror, and he glanced up, briefly meeting her gaze.

Blue eyes. Oh, baby, those eyes were blue. Electric blue. Electric-shock blue.

Joe looked up at her again and realized that the current of awareness and attraction that had shot through him had gone through her, as well. She looked as surprised as he felt. Surprised, no doubt, that a guy from his side of the tracks could catch her eye.

Except he didn’t look like himself anymore. He looked like Prince Tedric.

It figured.

“I see you had the opportunity to take a shower,” she said, no longer meeting his eyes. “Did your clothes get taken down to the laundry?”

“I think so,” he said. “They were gone when I got out of the bathroom. I found this hotel robe…I’d appreciate it if you could ask Admiral Forrest to send over a uniform in the morning. And maybe some socks and shorts…?”

Veronica felt her cheeks start to heat. Lord, what was wrong with her? Since when did the mention of men’s underwear make her face turn as red as a schoolgirl’s?

Or maybe it wasn’t the mention of unmentionables that was making her blush. Maybe it was the thought that this very large, very charismatic, very handsome, and very, very dangerous man was sitting here, with absolutely nothing on underneath his white terry-cloth robe.

From the glint in his dark brown eyes, it was clear that he was able to read her mind.

She used every ounce of her British schooling to keep her voice sounding cool and detached. “There’s no need, Your Highness,” she said. “We go from here to your suite. A tailor will be arriving soon. He’ll provide you with all of the clothing you’ll need for the course of the next few weeks.”

“Whoa,” Joe said. “Whoa, whoa! Back up a sec, will ya?”

“A tailor,” Veronica repeated. “We’ll be meeting with him shortly. I realize it’s late, but if we don’t get started with—”

“No, no,” Joe said. “Before that. Did you just call me ‘Your Highness’?”

“I’m done here,” the hairdresser said. In a monotone, he quickly ran down a quick list of things Joe could and could not do with the extensions in his hair. “Swim—yes. Shower—yes. Run a comb through your hair—no. You have to be careful to comb only above and below the attachment.” He turned to Veronica. “You have my card if you need me again.”

“Find Mr. Laughton on your way out,” Veronica said as Joe stood and helped the man fold up his portable chair. “He’ll see that you get paid.”

She watched, waiting until the hairdresser had closed the hotel-room door tightly behind him. Then she turned back to Joe.

“Your Highness,” she said again. “And Your Excellency. You’ll have to get used to it. This is the way you’re going to be addressed.”

“Even by you?” Joe stood very still, his arms folded across his chest. It was as if he were afraid to touch anything. But that was ridiculous. From the little information Veronica had gleaned from Admiral Forrest, Joe Catalanotto, or Joe Cat as the admiral had called him, wasn’t afraid of anything.

She crossed the room and sat down in one of the easy chairs by the windows. “Yes, even by me.” Veronica gestured for him to sit across from her. “If we intend to pull off this charade—”

“You’re right,” Joe said, sitting down. “You’re absolutely right. We need to go the full distance or the shooters will smell that something’s not right.” He smiled wryly. “It’s just, after years of ‘Hey, you!’ or ‘Yo, paesan!’ ‘Your Highness’ is a little disconcerting.”

Veronica’s eyebrows moved upward a fraction of an inch. It figured she’d be surprised. She probably thought he didn’t know any four-syllable words.

Damn, what was it about her? She wasn’t pretty, but…at the same time, she was. Her hair was gorgeous—the kind of soft curls he loved to run his fingers through. Joe found his eyes drawn to her face, to her delicate, almost-pointed nose, and her beautifully shaped lips. And those eyes…

His gaze slid lower, to the dark blue blazer that covered her shoulders, tapering down to her slender waist. She wore a matching navy skirt that ended a few inches above her knees, yet still managed to scream of propriety. Her politely crossed legs were something else entirely. Not even the sturdy pumps she wore on her feet could hide the fact that her legs were long and graceful and sexy as hell—the kind of legs a man dreams about. This man, anyway.

Joe knew that she was well aware he was studying her. But she had turned away, pretending to look for something in her briefcase, purposely ignoring the attraction he knew was mutual.

And then the phone rang—a sudden shrill noise that broke the quiet.

“Excuse me for a moment, please,” Veronica said, gracefully standing and crossing the room to answer it.

“Hello?” she said, glancing back at Joe. As she watched, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Thank goodness. He couldn’t undress her any further with eyes that were closed. And with his eyes closed, she didn’t have to be afraid that the warmth that spread throughout her entire body at his unmasked interest would somehow show. Heaven help her if this man got the idea that he could make her heart beat harder with a single look. She had enough to worry about without having to fight off some sailor’s amorous advances.

“The tailor has arrived,” one of Tedric’s aides told her. “May I ask how much longer you’ll be?”

“We’ll be up shortly,” Veronica said. “Please arrange to have coffee available. And something to eat. Doughnuts. Chocolate ones.” Lt. Joe Catalanotto looked the chocolate-doughnut type. They could all certainly use some extra sugar to keep them awake.

She hung up the phone and crossed back to Joe. His head was still back, and his eyes were closed. He’d slumped down in the chair as if he had no bones in his entire body.

He was totally, absolutely and quite soundly asleep.

Veronica sat down across from him and leaned forward, studying his face. He’d shaved and somehow managed to get all of the grease and dirt off in the shower. Even his hands were free of grime. His hair was clean and now, with the extensions, quite long. To the average eye, he might have looked quite a bit like Prince Tedric, but Veronica knew better.

Tedric had never been—and never would be—this handsome.

There was an edge to Joe Catalanotto’s good looks. A sharpness, a definition, an honesty that Tedric didn’t have. There was something vibrant about Joe. He was so very alive, so vital, as if he took each moment and lived it to its very fullest. Veronica had never met anyone quite like him before.

Imagine taking a squad of seven men deep behind enemy lines, she thought, with bombs falling, no less. Imagine having the courage and the confidence to risk not just one’s own life, but six other lives, as well. And then imagine actually enjoying the danger.

Veronica thought of the men she knew, the men she was used to working with. They tended to be so very…careful. Not that they weren’t risk takers—oftentimes they were. But the risks they took were financial or psychological, never physical. Not a single one would ever put himself into any real physical danger. A paper cut was the worst they could expect, and that usually required a great deal of hand-holding.

Most men looked softer, less imposing when asleep, but not Joe. His body may have been relaxed, but his jaw was tightly clenched, his lips pulled back in what was almost a snarl. Underneath his lids, his eyes jerked back and forth in REM sleep.

He slept ferociously, almost as if these five minutes of rest were all he’d get for the next few days.

It was strange. It was very strange. And it was stranger still when Veronica sighed.

It wasn’t a particularly weighty sigh, just a little one, really. Not even very loud.

Still, Joe’s eyes flew open and he sat up straight. He was instantly alert, without a hint of fatigue on his lean face.

He took a sip directly from a can of soda that was sitting on the glass-topped end table and looked at Veronica steadily, as if he hadn’t been fast asleep mere seconds earlier. “Time for the tailor?” he said.

She was fascinated. “How do you do that?” she asked, leaning forward slightly, searching his eyes for any sign of grogginess. “Wake up so quickly, I mean.”

Joe blinked and then smiled, clearly surprised at her interest. His smile was genuine, reaching his eyes and making the laugh lines around them deepen. Lord, he was even more attractive when he smiled that way. Veronica found herself smiling back, hypnotized by the warmth of his eyes.

“Training.” He leaned back in his chair and watched her. “SEALs take classes to study sleep patterns. We learn to catch catnaps whenever we can.”

“Really?” Joe could see the amusement in her eyes, the barely restrained laughter curving the corners of her mouth. Her natural expression was a smile, he realized. But she’d taught herself to put on that serious, businesslike facade she wore most of the time. “Classes to learn how to sleep and wake up?” she asked, letting a laugh slip out.

Was she laughing at him or with him? He honestly couldn’t tell, and he felt his own smile fade. Damn, what was it about this particular girl that he found so intimidating? With any other woman, he’d assume the joke was shared, and he’d feel glad that he was making her smile. But this one…

There was attraction in her eyes, all right. Genuine animal attraction. He saw it there every time she glanced in his direction. But there was also wariness. Maybe even fear. She didn’t want to be attracted to him.

She probably didn’t think he was good enough for her.

Damn it, he was a Navy SEAL. There was nobody better. If she wanted to ignore the fire that was ready to ignite between them, then so be it. Her loss.

He would find plenty of women to distract him during this way-too-simple operation, and—

With a hiss of silk, she crossed her long legs. Joe had to look away.

Her loss. It was her loss. Except every cell in his body was screaming that the loss was his.

Okay. So he’d seduce her. He’d ply her with wine—no, make that expensive champagne—and he’d wait until the heat he saw in her eyes started to burn out of control. It would be that easy. And then…Oh, baby. It didn’t take much to imagine his hands in her soft red hair, then sweeping up underneath the delicate silk of her blouse, finding the soft, sweet fullness of her breasts. He could picture one of those sexy legs wrapped around one of his legs, as she pressed herself tightly against him, her fingers reaching for the buckle of his belt as he plundered her beautiful mouth with his tongue and…

Sure, it might be that easy.

But then again, it might not.

He had no reason on earth to believe that a woman like this one would want anything to do with him. From the way she dressed and acted, Joe was willing to bet big bucks that she wouldn’t want any kind of permanent thing with a guy like him.

Veronica St. John—“Sinjin,” she pronounced it with that richer-than-God accent—could probably trace her bloodline back to Henry the Eighth. And Joe, he didn’t even know who the hell his father was. And wouldn’t that just make dicey dinner conversation. “Catalanotto…Italian name, isn’t it? Where exactly is your father from, Lieutenant?”

“Well, gee, I don’t know, Ronnie.” He wondered if anyone had ever called her Ronnie, probably not. “Mom says he was some sailor in port for a day or two. Catalanotto is her name. And where she came from is anyone’s guess. So is it really any wonder Mom drank as much as she did?”

Yeah, that would go over real well.

But he wasn’t talking about marriage here. He wasn’t talking about much more than quenching that sharp thirst he felt whenever he looked into Veronica St. John’s eyes. He was talking about one night, maybe two or three or four, depending on how long this operation lasted. He was talking short-term fling, hot affair—not a lot of conversation required.

It was true, he didn’t have a lot of experience with debutantes, but hell, her money and power were only on the surface. Peel the outer trappings away, and Veronica St. John was a woman. And Joe knew women. He knew what they liked, how to catch their eye, how to make them smile.

Usually women came to him. It had been a long while since he’d actively pursued one.

This could be fun.

“We trained to learn how to drop instantly into rapid-eye-movement sleep,” Joe said, evenly meeting the crystal blueness of Veronica’s eyes. “It comes in handy in a combat situation, or a covert op where there may be only brief stretches of time safe enough to catch some rest. It’s kept more than one SEAL alive on more than one occasion.”

“What else do SEALs learn how to do?” Veronica asked.

Oh, baby, what you don’t know…

“You name it, honey,” Joe said, “we can do it.”

“My name,” she declared in her cool English accent, sitting back in her chair and gazing at him steadily, “is Veronica St. John. Not honey. Not babe. Veronica. St. John. Please refrain from using terms of endearment. I don’t care for them.”

She was trying to look as chilly as her words sounded, but Joe saw heat when he looked into her eyes. She was trying to hide it, but it was back there. He knew, with a sudden odd certainty, that when they made love, it was going to be a near religious experience. Not if they made love, When. It was going to happen.

“It’s a habit that’s gonna be hard to break,” he said.

Veronica stood, briefcase in hand. “I’m sure you have a number of habits that will be a challenge to break,” she said. “So I suggest we not keep the tailor waiting a minute longer. We have plenty of work to do before we can get some sleep.”

But Joe didn’t move. “So what am I supposed to call you?” he asked. “Ronnie?”

Veronica looked up to find a glint of mischief in his dark eyes. He knew perfectly well that calling her “Ronnie” would not suit. He was smiling, and she was struck by the even whiteness of his teeth. He may have chipped one at one time, but the others were straight and well taken care of.

“I think Ms. St. John will do quite well, thank you,” she said. “That is how the prince addresses me.”

“I see,” Joe murmured, clearly amused.

“Shall we?” she prompted.

“Oh, yes, please,” Joe said overenthusiastically, then tried to look disappointed. “Oh…you mean shall we leave? I thought you meant…” But he was only pretending that he misunderstood. He couldn’t keep a smile from slipping out.

Veronica shook her head in exasperation. “Two days, Lieutenant,” she said. “We have two days to create a miracle, and you’re wasting time with sophomoric humor.”

Joe stood, stretching his arms above his head. His feet and legs were bare underneath his robe. So was the rest of him, but Veronica was determined not to think about that.

“I thought you were going to call me ‘Your Highness.’”

“Two days, Your Highness,” Veronica repeated.

“Two days is a breeze, Ronnie,” he said. “And I’ve decided if I’m the prince I can call you whatever I want, and I want to call you Ronnie.”

“No, you most certainly will not!”

“Why the hell not? I’m the prince,” Joe said. “It’s your choice—Ronnie or Honey. I don’t care.”

“My Lord, you’re almost as incorrigible as Tedric,” Veronica sputtered.

“’My Lord,’” Joe mused. “Yeah, you can call me that. Although I prefer ‘Your All-Powerful Mightiness.’ Hey, while I’m making royal decrees, why don’t you go ahead and give the serfs a day off.”

He was laughing at her. He was teasing her, and enjoying watching her squirm.

“You know, this is going to be a vacation for me, Ron,” he added. “Two days of prep is a cakewalk.”

Veronica laughed in disbelief. How dare he…? “Two days,” she said. “You’re going to have to completely relearn how to walk and talk and stand and sit and eat. Not to mention memorizing all the names and faces of the aides and ambassadors and government officials that the prince is acquainted with. And don’t forget all the rules and protocols you’ll have to learn, all of the Ustanzian customs and traditions…”

Joe spread his hands and shrugged. “How hard could it be? Give me a videotape of Tedric and half an hour, and you’ll think I’m the same guy,” he said. “I’ve gone on far tougher missions with way less prep time. Two days—forty-eight hours—is a luxury, sweetheart.”

How could he think that? Veronica was so stressed out by the rapidly approaching deadline she could barely breathe.

“Less than forty-eight hours,” she told him sharply. “You have to sleep some of that time.”

“Sleep?” Joe smiled. “I just did.”

Chapter Five

“And never, ever open the door yourself,” Veronica said. “Always wait for someone—a servant—to do it for you.”

Joe gazed at her across the top of his mug as he sat on the other side of the conference table in Tedric’s royal suite. “Never?” he said. He took a sip of coffee, still watching her, his dark eyes mysterious, unreadable. “Old Ted never opens the door for anyone?”

“If he were with a king or a queen, he might open the door,” Veronica said, glancing down at her notes. And away from those eyes. “But I doubt you’ll be running into any such personages on this tour.”

“What does Ted do when he’s all alone?” Joe started to put his mug down on the richly polished oak tabletop, but stopped as if he were afraid to mar the wood. He pulled one of Veronica’s file folders closer and set his mug down on top of the stiff manila. “Just stand there until a servant comes along to open the door? That could be a real drag if he’s in a rush to use the head.” He rested his chin in the palm of his hand, elbow on the table, as he continued to gaze at her.

“Your Highness, an Ustanzian prince never rests his elbows on the top of a table,” Veronica said with forced patience.

Joe smiled and didn’t move. He just watched her with half-closed bedroom eyes that exuded sexuality. They’d been working together all night, and not once had he let her forget that she was a woman and he was a man. “I’m not a Ustanzian prince,” he said. “Yet.”

Veronica folded her hands neatly on top of her notes. “And it’s not called a ‘head,’” she said. “Not john, not toilet, not bathroom. It’s a water closet. W.C. We went through this already, remember, Your Highness?”

“How about I call it the Little Prince’s Room?” Joe asked.

Veronica laughed despite her growing sense of doom. Or maybe because of it. What was she going to do about Joe Catalanotto’s thick New Jersey accent? And what was she going to do about the fact that this man didn’t, for even one single second, take anything they were doing seriously?

And to further frustrate her, she was ready to drop from exhaustion, while he looked ready to run laps.

“My mother’s name is Maria. She was an Italian countess before she met my father. My father is King Derrick the Fourth, his father was Derrick the Third,” Joe recited. “I was born in the capital city on January 7, 1961…You know, this would be a whole lot easier on both of us if you would just hand me your file on this guy, and give me a videotape so I can see firsthand the way he walks and stands and…”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant.” A FInCOM agent by the name of West stood politely to one side.

Joe looked up, an instant Naval Officer. He sat straighter and even looked as if he was paying attention. Now, why couldn’t Veronica get him to take her that seriously?

“At Admiral Forrest’s request, Mr. Laughton requires your consultation, sir, in planning the scheduling of the tour, and the strategy for your protection,” West continued. “That is, if you wish to have any input.”

Joe stood. “Damn straight I do,” he said. “Your security stinks. Fortunately those terrorists took the night off, or I’d already be dead.”

West stiffened. “The security we’ve provided has been top level—”

“What I’m saying is your so-called top-level security isn’t good enough, pal,” Joe countered. He looked back at Veronica. “What do you say you go take a nap, Ronnie, and we meet back at…” He glanced at his watch. “How’s eleven-hundred hours? Just over two hours.”

But Veronica stood, shaking her head. She wanted desperately to sleep, but unless she attended this meeting, the visit to Saint Mary’s would be removed from the tour schedule. She spoke directly to the FInCOM agent. “I’d like to have some input in this meeting, too, Mr. West,” she said coolly. “I’m sure Mr. Laughton—or Admiral Forrest—won’t mind if I sit in.”

Joe shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“Princes don’t shrug, Your Highness,” Veronica reminded him as they followed West out into the corridor and toward the conference room.

Joe rolled his eyes.

“And princes don’t roll their eyes,” she said.

“Sheesh,” he muttered.

“They don’t swear, either, Your Highness,” Veronica told him. “Not even those thinly veiled words you Americans use in place of the truly nasty ones.”

“So you’re not an American,” Joe said, walking backward so he could look at her. “Mac Forrest must’ve been mistaken. He told me, despite your fancy accent, that you were.”

Joe had talked about her with Admiral Forrest. Veronica felt a warm flash of pleasure that she instantly tried to squelch. So what if Joe had talked with the admiral about her. She’d talked to the admiral about Joe, simply to get some perspective on whom she’d be dealing with, who she’d be working closely with for the next few weeks.

“Oh, I’m American,” Veronica said. “I even say a full variety of those aforementioned nasty words upon occasion.”

Joe laughed. He had a nice laugh, rich and full. It made her want to smile. “That I won’t believe until I hear it.”

“Well, you won’t hear it, Your Highness. It wouldn’t be polite or proper.”

Her shoe caught in the thick carpeting, and she stumbled slightly. Joe caught and held her arm, stopping to make sure she had her balance.

Veronica looked really beat. She looked ready to fall on her face—which she just about did. Joe could feel the warmth of her arm, even through the sleeve of her jacket and blouse. He didn’t want to let her go, so he didn’t. They stood there in the hotel corridor, and FInCOM Agent West waited impatiently nearby.

Joe was playing with fire. He knew that he was playing with fire. But, hell. He was a demolitions expert. He was used to handling materials that could blow sky-high at any time.

Veronica looked down at his hand still on her arm, then lifted enormous blue eyes to his.

“I’m quite all right, Your Highness,” she said in that Julie Andrews accent.

“You’re tired as hell,” he countered bluntly. “Go get some sleep.”

“Believe it or not, I do have some information of importance to add to this scheduling meeting,” she said hotly, the crystal of her eyes turning suddenly to blue flame. “I’d truly appreciate it if you’d unhand me so we could continue on our way, Your Highness.”

“Wait,” Joe said. “Don’t tell me. A prince never offers a helping hand, is that it? A prince lets a lady fall on her face, right?”

“A prince doesn’t take advantage of a lady’s misfortune,” Veronica said tightly. “You helped me—thank you. Now let me go. Please. Your Excellency.”

Joe laughed. This time it was a low, dangerous sound. His hand tightened on her arm and he drew her even closer to him, so that their noses almost touched, so that Veronica could feel his body heat through the thin cotton shirt and dark slacks the tailor had left him with after the early-morning fitting.

“Babe, if you think this is taking advantage, you’ve never been taken advantage of.” He lowered his voice and dropped his head down so he was speaking directly into her ear. “If you want, I’ll demonstrate the differences. With pleasure.”

She could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck as he waited for her to react. He was expecting her to run, screaming, away from him. He was expecting her to be outraged, upset, angry, offended.

But all she could think about was how utterly delicious he smelled.

What would he say, what would he do if she moved her head a fraction of an inch to the right and pressed her cheek against the roughness of his chin. What would he do if she lifted her head to whisper into his ear, “Oh, yes”?

It wouldn’t be the response he was expecting, that was certain.

But the truth was, this wasn’t about sex, it was about power. Veronica had played hardball with the big boys long enough to know that.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested—he’d made that more than clear in the way he’d looked at her all night long. But Veronica was willing to bet that right now Joe was bluffing. And while she wasn’t going to call his bluff, she was going to let him know that merely because he was bigger and stronger than she, that didn’t mean he’d automatically win.

So she lifted her head and, keeping her voice cool, almost chilly, said, “One would think that a Navy SEAL might be aware of the dangers of standing too long in a public corridor, considering someone out there wants Tedric—whom, by the way, you look quite a bit like these days—dead.”

Joe laughed.

Not exactly the response she was expecting after her verbal attack. Another man might have been annoyed that his bluff hadn’t worked. Another man might have pouted or glowered. Joe laughed.

“I don’t know, Ron,” he said, letting her go. His dark eyes were genuinely amused, but there was something else there, too. Could it possibly be respect? “You sound so…proper, but I don’t think you really are, are you? I think it’s all an act. I think you go home from work, and you take off the Margaret Thatcher costume, and let down your hair and put on some little black sequined number with stiletto heels, and you go out and mambo in some Latin nightclub until dawn.”

Veronica crossed her arms. “You forgot my gigolo,” she said crisply. “I go pick up my current gigolo and then we mambo till dawn.”

“Let me know when there’s an opening, honey,” Joe said. “I’d love to apply for the job.”

All humor had gone from his eyes. He was dead serious. Veronica turned away, afraid he’d see just from looking at her how appealing she found the thought of dancing with him until dawn, their bodies clasped together, moving to the pulsing beat of Latin drums.

“We’d best not keep Mr. Laughton waiting,” she said.

“Your Excellency.”

“Damn,” Joe said. “Margaret Thatcher’s back.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Veronica murmured as they went into the secret-service agents’ suite. “But she never left.”

“Saint Mary’s, right here in Washington,” Veronica said from her seat next to Joe at the big conference table. “Someone keeps taking Saint Mary’s off the schedule.”

“It’s unnecessary,” Kevin Laughton said in his flat, almost-bored-sounding Midwestern accent.

“I disagree.” Veronica spoke softly but firmly.

“Look, Ronnie,” Senator McKinley said, and Veronica briefly shut her eyes. Lord, but Joe Catalanotto had all of them calling her Ronnie now. “Maybe you don’t understand this, dear, but Saint Mary’s doesn’t do us any good. The building is too small, too well protected, and too difficult for the assassins to penetrate. Besides, it’s not a public event. The assassins are going to want news coverage. They’re going to want to make sure millions of people are watching when they kill the prince. Besides, there’s no clear targeting area going into and out of the structure. It’s a waste of our time.”

“This visit’s been scheduled for months,” Veronica said quietly. “It’s been scheduled since the Ustanzian secretary of press announced Prince Tedric’s American tour. I think we can take one hour from one day to fulfill a promise the prince made.”

Henri Freder, the Ustanzian ambassador to the United States, shifted in his seat. “Surely Prince Tedric can visit this Saint Mary’s at the end of the tour, after the Alaskan cruise, on his way back home.”

“That will be too late,” Veronica said.

“Cruise?” Joe repeated. “If the assassins haven’t been apprehended before the cruise to Alaska is scheduled, there’s no way in hell we’re getting on that loveboat.” He looked around the table. “A cruise ship’s too isolated. It’s a natural target for tangos.”

He smiled at their blank expressions. “Tangos,” Joe repeated. “T’s. Terrorists. The bad guys with guns.”

Ah. There was understanding all around.

“Unless, of course, we’re ready and waiting for ‘em,” Joe continued. “And maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Replace the ship’s personnel and passenger list with platoons of SEALs and—”

“No way,” Laughton said. “FInCOM is handling this. It isn’t some military operation. SEALs have no place in it.”

“Terrorists are involved,” Joe countered. “SEAL Team Ten has had extensive counterterrorist training. My men are prepared for—”

“War,” Laughton finished for him. “Your men are prepared and trained for war. This is not a war, Lieutenant.”

Joe pointed to the cellular phone on the table in front of Laughton. “Then you’d better call the terrorists. Call the Cloud of Death, call up Diosdado. Call him up and tell him that this is not a war. Because he sure as hell thinks it’s one.”

“Please,” Veronica interjected. “Before we continue, may we all agree to keep Saint Mary’s on the schedule?”

McKinley frowned down at the papers in front of him. “I see from the previous list that there weren’t going to be any media present at the event at Saint Mary’s.”

“Not all of the events scheduled were for the benefit of the news cameras, Senator,” Veronica said evenly. She glanced around the table. “Gentlemen. This rescheduling means hours and hours of extra work for all of us. I’m trying my best to cooperate, as I’m sure you are, too. But I happen to know that this appearance at Saint Mary’s was of utmost importance to Prince Tedric.” She widened her eyes innocently. “If necessary, I’ll ring up the prince and ask for his input and—”

“No need to do that,” Senator McKinley said hastily.

Getting self-centered Prince Tedric in on this scheduling nightmare was the last thing anyone wanted, Veronica included. His so-called “input” would slow this process down to a crawl. But she was prepared to do whatever she had to do to keep the visit to Saint Mary’s on the schedule.

McKinley looked around the table. “I think we can keep Saint Mary’s on the list.” There was a murmur of agreement.

Joe watched Veronica. Her red curls were up in some kind of feminine arrangement on the top of her head. With her delicate features and innocent blue eyes, she looked every inch the demure, cool English lady; and again, Joe was struck by the feeling that her outward appearance was only an act. She wasn’t demure or cool, and if his gut feelings were right, she could probably outmanipulate the entire tableful of them. Hell, she just had. But she’d done it so subtly that no one was even aware they’d been manipulated.

“About the Alaskan cruise,” Senator McKinley said.

“That’s not until later in the tour.” Joe leaned back in his chair. “Let’s keep it off the public schedule for now. We don’t want the T’s—terrorists—choosing that opportunity above everything else. We want ’em to strike early on. But still, we can start making arrangements with the SEAL teams, start getting ’em prepped for a potential operation aboard ship.”

“No SEALs,” Kevin Laughton said tersely.

Joe gave the FInCOM agent a disbelieving look. “You want high casualties? Is that your goal here?”

“Of course not—”

“We’re all on the same team, pal,” Joe said. “We all work for the U.S. Government. Just because I’m Navy and you’re Fink—”

“No SEALs.” Laughton turned to an aide. “Release this schedule to the news media ASAP, keeping the cruise information off the list.” He stood. “My men will start scouting each of these sites.”

Joe stood up, too. “You should start right here in this hotel,” he said. “If you’re serious about making the royal suite secure, you’re understaffed. And the sliding door to the balcony in the bedroom doesn’t lock. What kind of security is that?”

Laughton stared at him. “You’re on the tenth floor.”

“Terrorists sometimes know how to climb,” Joe said.

“I can assure you you’re quite safe,” Laughton said.

“And I can assure you that I’m not. If security stays as is, if Diosdado and his gang decide to come into this hotel to rid the world of Prince Tedric, then I’m as good as dead.”

“I can understand your concern,” Laughton said. “But—”

“Then you won’t have any objection to bringing the rest of my Alpha Squad out here,” Joe interrupted. “You’re obviously undermanned, and I’d feel a whole hell of a lot better if—”

“No,” Laughton said. “Absolutely not. A squad of Navy SEALs? Utter chaos. My men won’t stand for it. I won’t have it.”

“I’m going to be standing around, wearing a damned shooting target on my chest,” Joe retorted. “I want my own guys nearby, watching my back, plugging the holes in FInCOM’s security net. I can tell you right now, they won’t get in your boys’ way.”

“No,” Laughton said again. “I’m in charge of security, and I say no. This meeting is adjourned.”

Joe watched the FInCOM chief leave the room, then glanced up to find Veronica’s eyes on him.

“I guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way,” he said.

The man known only as Diosdado looked up from his desk as Salustiano Vargas was shown into the room.

“Ah, old friend,” Vargas greeted him with relief. “Why did your men not say it was you they were bringing me to see?”

Diosdado was silent, just looking at the other man as he thoughtfully stroked his beard.

Vargas threw himself down into a chair across from the desk and casually stretched his legs out in front of him. “It has been too long, no?” he said. “What have you been up to, man?”

“Not as much as you have, apparently.” Diosdado smiled, but it was a mere shadow of his normally wide, toothy grin.

Vargas’s own smile was twisted. “Eh, you heard about that, huh?” His smile turned to a scowl. “I would have drilled the bastard through the heart if that damned woman hadn’t pushed him out of the way.”

Diosdado stood. “You are lucky—very, very lucky—that your bullet missed Tedric Cortere,” he said harshly.

Vargas stared at him in surprise. “But—”

“If you had kept in touch, you would have been aware of what I have spent months planning.” Diosdado didn’t raise his voice when he was angry. He lowered it. Right now, it was very, very quiet.

Vargas opened his mouth to speak, to protest, but he wisely shut it tightly instead.

“The Cloud of Death intended to take Cortere hostage,” Diosdado said. “Intends,” he corrected himself. “We still intend to take him.” He began to pace—a halting, shuffling process as he dragged his bad leg behind him. “Of course, now that you have intervened, the prince’s security has been strengthened. FInCOM is involved, and my contacts tell me that the U.S. Navy is even playing some part in Cortere’s protection.”

Vargas stared at him.

“So what,” Diosdado continued, turning to face Salustiano Vargas, “do you suggest we do to bring this high level of security and protection back to where it was before you fouled things up?”

Vargas swallowed, knowing what the other man was going to tell him, and knowing that he wasn’t going to like what he heard.

“They are all waiting for another assassination attempt,” Diosdado said. “Until they get another assassination attempt, security will be too tight. Do you know what you are going to do, my old friend Salustiano?”

Vargas knew. He knew, and he didn’t like it. “Diosdado,” he said. “Please. We’re friends. I saved your life—”

“You will go back,” Diosdado said very, very softly, “and you will make another attempt on the prince’s life. You will fail, and you will be apprehended. Dead or alive—your choice.”

Vargas sat in silence as Diosdado limped, shuffling, from the room.

“Tell me what it is about Navy SEALs that makes Kevin Laughton so upset, Your Highness,” Veronica said as she and Joe were delivered safely back to Prince Tedric’s hotel suite. “Why doesn’t he want your Alpha Squad around?”

“He knows his guys would give him problems if my guys were brought in to do their job,” Joe said. “It’s a slap in the face. It implies I don’t think FInCOM can get the job done.”

“But obviously, you don’t think they can.”

Joe shook his head and sat down heavily in one of the plush easy chairs in the royal living room. “I think they’re probably top-notch at mid-level protection,” he said. “But my life’s on the line here, and the bad guys aren’t street punks or crazy people with guns. They’re professionals. Diosdado runs a top-notch military organization. He’s a formidable opponent. He could get through this kind of security without blinking. But he couldn’t get through the Alpha Squad. I know my SEALs are the best of the best. SEAL Team Ten is elite, and the Alpha Squad is made up of the best men in Team Ten. I want them here, even if I have to step on some toes or offend some FInCOM agents. The end result is I stay alive. Are you following me?”

Veronica nodded, sitting down on the sofa and resting her briefcase on a long wooden coffee table.

The sofa felt so comfortable, so soft. It would be so easy to let her head fall back and her eyes close…

“Maybe we should take a break,” Joe said. “You can barely keep your eyes open.”

“No, there’s so much more you need to learn,” Veronica said. She made herself sit up straight. If he could stay awake, she could, too. “The history of Ustanzia. The names of Ustanzian officials.” She pulled a file from her briefcase and opened it. “I have fifty-seven pictures of people you will come into contact with, Your Highness. I need you to memorize these faces and names, and—Lord, if there were only another way to do this.”

“Earphone,” Joe said, flipping through the file.

“Excuse me?”

He looked up at her. “I wear a concealed earphone,” he said. “And you have a mic. We set up a video camera so that you can see and hear everything I’m doing while you’re some safe distance away—maybe even out in a surveillance truck. When someone comes up to shake my hand, you feed me his name and title and any other pertinent info I might need.” He flipped through the photos and handed them back to Veronica. “Pick out the top ten and I’ll look ’em over. The others I don’t need to know.”

Veronica fixed him with a look, suddenly feeling extremely awake. What did he mean, the others he didn’t need to know? “All fifty-seven of these people are diplomats Tedric knows quite well. You could run into any one of these people at any time during the course of this tour,” she said. “The original file had over three hundred faces and names.”

Joe shook his head. “I don’t have time to memorize faces and names,” he said. “With the high-tech equipment we have access to—”

“You don’t have time?” Veronica repeated, eyebrows lifted. “We’re all running out of time, Lieutenant. It’s my task to prepare you. Let me decide what there is and isn’t time for.”

Joe leaned forward. “Look, Ronnie, no offense, but I’m used to preparing for an operation at my own speed,” he said. “I appreciate everything you’re trying to do, but in all honesty, the way that Ted walks and talks is the least of my concerns. I’ve got this security thing to straighten out and—”

“That’s Kevin Laughton’s job,” she interrupted. “Not yours.”

“But it’s my ass that’s on the line,” he said flatly. “FInCOM’s going to change their security plans, or this operation is not going to happen.”

Veronica tapped her fingernails on the legal pad she was holding. “And if you don’t look and act enough like Prince Tedric,” she said tartly, “this operation is not going to happen, either.”

“Get me a tape,” Joe countered. “Get me a videotape and an audiotape of the guy, and I promise you, I swear to you, I will look and act and sound exactly like Ted.”

Veronica’s teeth were clenched tightly together in annoyance. “Details,” she said tightly. “How will you learn the details? Assuming, of course, that you are able to miraculously transform yourself into European royalty simply by viewing a videotape?”

“Write ’em down,” Joe said without hesitation. “I retain written information better, anyway.” The telephone rang and he paused briefly, listening while West answered it. “Lieutenant, it’s for you,” the FInCOM agent said.

Joe reached for the extension. “Yo. Catalanotto here.”

Yo. The man answered the phone with “Yo” and Veronica was supposed to believe he’d be able to pass himself off as the prince, with little or no instruction from her?

“Mac,” Joe said into the telephone. It was Admiral Forrest on the other end. “Great. Thanks for calling me back. What’s the word on getting Alpha Squad out here?”

How did a lieutenant get away with calling an admiral by his first name, anyway? Veronica had heard that Forrest had been a SEAL himself at one time in his long navy career. And from what little she knew about SEALs so far, she suspected they were unconventional in more than just their warfare tactics.

Joe’s jaw was tight and the muscles in the side of his face were working as he listened to Forrest speak. He swore sharply, not bothering to try to disguise his bad language. As Veronica watched, he rubbed his forehead—the first sign he’d given all day that he was weary.

“FInCOM has raised hell before,” he said. “That hasn’t stopped us in the past.” There was a pause and he added hotly, “Their security is lax, sir. Damn, you know that as well as I do.” Another pause. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do that.”

Joe glanced up and into Veronica’s watching eyes. She looked away, suddenly self-conscious about the fact that she was openly eavesdropping. As she shuffled through the file of photographs, she was aware of his gaze still on her.

“Before you go, sir,” he said into the telephone. “I need another favor. I need audio- and videotapes of Tedric sent to my room ASAP.”

Veronica looked up at that, and directly into Joe’s eyes. “Thanks, Admiral,” he said and hung up the phone. “He’ll have ’em sent right over,” he said to Veronica as he stood.

He looked as if he were about to leave, to go somewhere. But she didn’t even get a chance to question him.

“FInCOM’s having a briefing about the tour locations here in D.C.,” Joe said. “I need to be there.”

“But—”

“Why don’t you take a nap?” Joe said. He looked at his watch, and Veronica automatically glanced at hers. It was nearly five o’clock in the evening. “We’ll meet back here at twenty-one hundred hours.”

Veronica quickly counted on her fingers. Nine o’clock. “No,” she said, standing. “That’s too long. I can give you an hour break, but—”

“This briefing’s important,” Joe said. “It’ll be over at twenty-hundred, but I’ll need an extra hour.”

Veronica shook her head in exasperation. “Kevin Laughton doesn’t even want you there,” she said. “You’ll spend the entire time arguing—”

“Damn straight, I’m going to argue,” Joe said. “If FInCOM insists on assuming the tangos are going to mosey on up to the front door and ring the bell before they strike, then I’ve got to be there, arguing to keep the back door protected.”

Joe was already heading toward the door. West and Freeman scrambled to their feet, following him.

“Put those details you were talking about in writing,” Joe suggested. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Veronica all but stamped her foot. “You’re supposed to be working with me,” she said. “You can’t just…leave…”

But he was gone.

Veronica threw her pad and pen onto the table in frustration. Time was running out.

Chapter Six

Veronica woke up from her nap at seven-thirty, still exhausted but too worried to sleep. How was Joe going to learn to act like Prince Tedric if he wouldn’t give her any time to properly teach him?

She’d made lists and more lists of details and information Joe had no way of knowing—things like, the prince was right-handed. That was normally not a problem, except she’d noticed that Joe was a lefty. She’d written down trivial information such as the fact that Tedric always twirled the signet ring he wore on his right hand when he was thinking.

Veronica got up from the table and started to pace, alternately worried, frustrated and angry with Joe. Who in blazes actually cared what Tedric did with his jewelry? Who, truly, would notice? And why was she making lists of details when basic things such as Tedric’s walk and ramrod-straight posture were being ignored?

Restless, Veronica pawed through the clothes in her suitcase, searching for a pair of bike shorts and her exercise bra. It was time to try to release some of this nervous energy. She dug down farther and found her favorite tape. Smiling grimly, she crossed to the expensive stereo system built into the wall and put the tape into the tape deck. She pushed Play and music came on. She cranked the volume.

The tape contained an assorted collection of her favorite songs—loud, fast songs with pulsating beats. It was good music, familiar music, loud music.

Her sneakers were on the floor of the closet near the bathroom. As Veronica sat on the floor to slip them onto her feet and tie them tightly, she let the music wash over her. Already she felt better.

She scrambled up and into the center of the living room, pushing the furniture back and away, clearing the floor, giving herself some space to move.

With the furniture out of the way, Veronica started slowly, stretching out her tired muscles. When she was properly warmed up, she closed her eyes and let the music embrace her.

And then she began to dance.

Halfway through the tape, it came to her—the answer to her frustration and impotent anger. She had been hired to teach Joe to act like the prince. With his cooperation, the task was formidable. Without his cooperation, it was impossible. If he failed to cooperate, she would have to threaten to withdraw.

Yes, that was exactly what she had to do. At nine o’clock, when she went down the hall to the royal suite, she would march right up to Joe and look him in the eye and—

A man wearing all black was standing just inside her balcony doorway, leaning against the wall, watching her dance.

Veronica leaped backward, her body reacting to the unannounced presence of a large intruder before her brain registered the fact that it was Joe Catalanotto.

Heart pounding, chest heaving, she tried to catch her breath as she stared at him. How in God’s name had Joe gotten into her room?

Joe stared, too, caught in the ocean-blueness of Veronica’s eyes as the music pounded around them. She looked frightened, like a wild animal, uncertain whether to freeze or flee.

Turning suddenly, she reached for the stereo and switched the music off. The silence was abrupt and jarring.

Her red curls swung and bounced around her shoulders as she turned rapidly back to look at him again. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Proving a point,” he replied. His voice sounded strained and hoarse to his own ears. There was no mystery as to why that was. Seeing her like this had made his blood pressure rise, as well as other things.

“I don’t understand,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she studied his face, searching for an answer. “How did you get in? My door was locked.”

Joe gestured to the sliding door that led to the balcony. “No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was open. Warm night. If you breathe deeply, you can almost smell the cherry blossoms.”

Veronica was staring at him, struggling to reconcile his words with the truth as she knew it. This room was on the tenth floor. Ten stories up, off the ground. Visitors didn’t simply stroll in through the balcony door.

Joe couldn’t keep his gaze from sliding down her body. Man, she was one hot package. In those skintight purple-and-turquoise patterned shorts and that tight, black, racer-backed top that exposed a firm, creamy midriff, with all those beautiful red curls loose around her pale shoulders, she looked positively steamy. She was slender, but not skinny as he’d thought. Her waist was small, her stomach flat, flaring out to softly curving hips and a firm, round rear end. Her legs were incredible, but he’d already known that. Still, in those tight shorts, her shapely legs seemed to go on and on and on forever, leading his eyes to her derriere. Her breasts were full, every curve, every detail intimately outlined by the stretchy fabric of her top.

And, God, the way she’d been dancing when he’d first climbed onto the balcony had exuded a raw sensuality, a barely contained passion. He’d been right about her. She had been hiding something underneath those boxy, conservative suits and that cool, distant attitude. Who would have guessed she would spend her personal time dancing like some vision on MTV?

She was still breathing hard from dancing. Or maybe—and more likely—she was breathing hard from the sudden shock he’d given her. He’d actually been standing inside the balcony door for about ten minutes before she looked up. He’d been in no hurry to interrupt. He could have stayed there, quite happily, and watched her dance all night.

Well, maybe not all night…

Veronica took a step back, away from him, as if she could see his every thought in his eyes. Her own eyes were very wide and incredibly, brilliantly blue. “You came in…from the balcony?”

Joe nodded and held something out to her. It was a flower, Veronica realized. He was holding a rather tired and bruised purple-and-gold pansy, its petals curled up for the night. She’d seen flowers just like it growing in flower beds outside the hotel.

“First I climbed down to the ground and got this,” Joe said, his husky voice soft and seductive, warmly intimate. “It’s proof I was actually there.”

He was still holding the flower out to her, but Veronica couldn’t move, her mind barely registering the words he spoke. A black band was across his forehead, holding his long hair in place. He was wearing black pants and a long-sleeved black turtleneck, with some kind of equipment vest over it, even though the spring night was quite warm. Oddly enough, his feet were bare. He wasn’t smiling, and his face looked harsh and unforgiving. And dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

Veronica gazed at him, her heart in her throat. As he stepped closer and pressed the flower into her hand, she was pulled into the depths of his eyes. The fire she saw there became molten. His mouth was hard and hungry as his gaze raked her body.

And then his meaning cut through.

He’d climbed down to the ground…? And back up again? Ten stories?

“You climbed up the outside of the hotel and no one stopped you?” Veronica looked down at the flower, hoping he wouldn’t notice the trembling in her voice.

He crossed to the sliding door and pulled the curtain shut. Was that for safety’s sake, or for privacy? Veronica wondered as she turned away. She was afraid he might see his unconcealed desire echoed in her own eyes.

Desire? What was wrong with her? It was true, Joe Catalanotto was outrageously good-looking. But despite his obvious physical attributes, he was rude, tactless and disrespectful, rough in his manners and appearance. In fact, he was about as far from being a prince as any man she’d ever known. They’d barely even exchanged a civil conversation. All they did was fight. So why on earth could she think of nothing but the touch of his hands on her skin, his lips on hers, his body…?

“No one saw me climbing down or up,” Joe said, his voice surrounding her like soft, rich velvet. “There are no guards posted on this side of the building. The FInCOM agents don’t see the balcony for what it is—a back door. An accessible and obvious back door.”

“It’s so far from the ground,” she countered in disbelief.

“It was an easy climb. Under an hour.”

Under an hour. This is what he’d been doing with his time, Veronica realized suddenly. He should have been working with her, learning how to act like Tedric, and instead he was climbing up and down the outside of the hotel like some misguided superhero. Anger flooded through her.

Joe took a step forward, closing the small gap between them. The urge to touch her hair, to skim the softness of her cheek with his knuckle, was overpowering.

This was not the scenario he’d imagined when he’d climbed up the side of the hotel and onto her balcony. He’d expected to find Veronica hard at work, scribbling furiously away on the legal pad she always carried, or typing frantically into her laptop computer. He’d expected her to be wearing something that hid her curves and disguised her femininity. He’d expected her hair to be pinned up off her neck. He’d expected her to look up at him, gasping in startled surprise, as he walked into the room.

And, yeah, he’d expected her to be impressed when he told her he’d scaled the side of the hotel in order to prove that FInCOM’s security stank.

Instead, finally over her initial shock at seeing him there, Veronica folded her arms across her delicious-looking breasts and glared at him. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “I’m supposed to be teaching you how to fool the bloody world into thinking you’re Prince Tedric and you’re off playing commando games and climbing ten stories up the outside of this hotel?”

“I’m not a commando, I’m a SEAL,” Joe said, feeling his own temper rise. “There’s a difference. And I’m not playing games. FInCOM’s security stinks.”

“The President of the United States hasn’t had any qualms about FInCOM’s ability to protect him,” Veronica said tersely.

“The President of the United States is followed around by fifteen Finks, ready to jump into the line of fire and take a bullet for him if necessary,” Joe countered. He broke away, pulling off the headband and running his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. “Look, Ronnie, I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

“Is that supposed to be an apology?”

It wasn’t, and she knew it as well as he did. “No.”

Veronica laughed in disbelief at his blunt candor. “No,” she repeated. “Of course not. Silly me. Whatever could I have been thinking?”

“I can’t apologize,” Joe said tightly. “Because I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You’ve wasted time,” Veronica told him. “My time. Maybe you don’t understand, but we now have less than twenty-four hours to make this charade work.”

“I’m well aware of the time we have left,” Joe said. “I’ve looked at those videotapes Mac Forrest sent over. This is not going to be hard. In fact, it’s going to be a piece of cake. I can pose as the prince, no problem. You’ve gotta relax and trust me.” He turned and picked up the telephone from one of the end tables Veronica had pushed aside to clear the living-room floor of furniture. “I need you to make a phone call for me, okay?”

Veronica took the receiver from his hand and hung the phone back up. “No,” she said, icily. “I need you to stop being so bloody patronizing, to stop patting my hand and telling me to relax. I need you to take me seriously for one damned minute.”

Joe laughed. He couldn’t help himself. She was standing there, looking like some kind of hot, steamed-up-windows dream, yet sounding, even in anger, as if she was trying to freeze him to death.

“Ah, you find this funny, do you?” Her eyes were blue ice. “I assure you, Lieutenant, you can’t do this without me, and I am very close to walking out the bloody door.”

She was madder than hell, and Joe knew the one thing he shouldn’t do was keep laughing. But damned if he couldn’t stop. “Ronnie,” he said, pretending he was coughing instead of laughing. Still, he couldn’t hide his smile. “Ronnie, Ronnie, I do take you seriously, honey. Honest.”

Her hands were on her hips now, her mouth slightly open in disbelief. “You are such a…a jerk!” she said. “Tell me, is your real intention to…to…foul this up so royally that you won’t have to place yourself in danger by posing as the prince?”

Joe’s smile was wiped instantly off his face, and Veronica knew with deadly certainty that she’d gone too far.

He took a step toward her, and she took a step back, away from him. He was very tall, very broad and very angry.

“I volunteered for this job, babe,” he told her, biting off each word. “I’m not here for my health, or for a paycheck, or for fame and fortune or for whatever the hell you’re here for. And I’m sure as hell not here to be some kind of lousy martyr. If I end up taking a bullet for Prince Tedric, it’s going to be despite the fact that I’ve done everything humanly possible to prevent it. Not because some pencil-pushing agency like FInCOM let the ball drop on standard security procedures years ago.”

Veronica was silent. What could she possibly say? He was right. If security wasn’t tight enough, he could very well be killed. She couldn’t fault him for wanting to be sure of his own safety. And she didn’t want to feel this odd jolt of fear and worry she felt, thinking about all of the opportunities the terrorists would have to train their gunsights on Joe’s head. He was brave to have volunteered for this mission—particularly since she knew he had no love for Tedric Cortere. She shouldn’t have implied otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” Veronica murmured. She looked down at the carpet, unable to meet his eyes.

“And as for taking you seriously…” Joe reached out and with one finger underneath her chin, he lifted her head so that she was forced to look up into his eyes. “You’re wrong. I take you very seriously.”

The connection was there between them—instant and hot. The look in Joe’s eyes was mesmerizing. It erased everything, everything between them—all the angry words and mistrust, all the frustration and misunderstandings—and left only this basic, almost primitive attraction, this simplest of equations. Man plus woman.

It would be so easy to simply give in. Veronica felt her body sway toward him as if pulled by the tides, ancient and unquestioning. All she had to do was let go, and there would be only desire, consuming and overpowering. It would surround them, possess them. It would take them on a flight to paradise.

But that flight was a round trip. When it ended, when they lay spent and exhausted, they’d be right here—right back where they’d started.

And then reality would return. Veronica would be embarrassed at having been intimate with a man she barely knew. Joe would no doubt be smug.

And they would have wasted yet another hour or two of their precious preparation time.

Joe was obviously thinking along the exact same lines. He ran his thumb lightly across her lips. “What do you think, Ronnie?” he asked, his voice husky. “Do you think we could stop after just one kiss?”

Veronica pulled away, her heart pounding even harder. If he kissed her, she would be lost. “Don’t be foolish,” she said, working hard to keep her voice from shaking.

“When I make love to you,” he said, his voice low and dangerous and very certain, “I’m going to take my sweet time.”

She turned to face him with a bravado she didn’t quite feel. “When?” she said. “Of all the macho, he-man audacity! Not if, but when I make love to you…Don’t hold your breath, Lieutenant, because it’s not going to happen.”

He smiled a very small, very infuriating smile and let his eyes wander down her body. “Yes, it is.”

“Ever hear the expression ‘cold day in hell’?” Veronica asked sweetly. She crossed the room toward her suitcase, found a sweatshirt and pulled it over her head. She was still perspiring and was still much too warm, but she would have done damn near anything to cover herself from the heat of his gaze.

He picked up the telephone again. “Look, Ronnie, I need you to call my room and ask to speak to me.”

“But you’re not there.”

“That’s the point,” he said. “The boys from FInCOM think I’m napping, nestled all snug in my bed. It’s time to shake them up.”

Careful to keep her distance, careful not to let their fingers touch, Veronica took the phone from Joe and dialed the number for the royal suite. West picked up the phone.

“This is Ms. St. John,” she said. “I need to speak to Lieutenant Catalanotto.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” West replied. “He’s asleep.”

“This is urgent, Mr. West,” she said, glancing up at Joe, who nodded encouragingly. “Please wake him.”

“Hang on.”

There was silence on the other end, and then shouting, as if from a distance. Veronica met Joe’s eyes again. “I think they’re shaken up,” she said.

“Hang up,” he said, and she dropped the receiver into the cradle.

He picked up the phone then, and dialed. “Do you have a pair of sweats or some jeans to pull on over those shorts?” he asked Veronica.

“Yes,” she said. “Why?”

“Because in about thirty seconds, fifty FInCOM agents are going to be pounding on your door—Hello? Yeah. Kevin Laughton, please.” Joe covered the mouthpiece with his hand and looked at Veronica who was standing, staring at him. “Better hurry.” He uncovered the phone. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

Veronica scrambled for her suitcase, yanking out the one pair of blue jeans she’d packed for this trip.

“He is?” she heard Joe say into the telephone. “Well, maybe you should interrupt him.”

She kicked off her sneakers and pulled the jeans on, hopping into them one leg at a time.

“Why don’t you tell him Joe Catalanotto’s on the line. Catalanotto.” He sighed in exasperation. “Just say Joe Cat, okay? He’ll know who I am.”

Veronica pulled the jeans up and over her hips, aware that Joe was watching her dress. She buttoned the waistband and drew up the zipper, not daring to look in his direction. When I make love to you…Not if, when. As if their intimate joining were already a given—indisputable and destined to take place.

“Yo, Laughton,” Joe said into the telephone. “How’s it going, pal?” He laughed. “Yeah, I thought I’d give you a little firsthand demonstration, and identify FInCOM’s security weak spots. How do you like it so far?” He pulled the receiver away from his ear. “That good, huh? Yeah, I went for a little walk down in the gardens.” He met Veronica’s eyes and grinned, clearly amused. “Yeah, I was struck by the beauty of the flowers, so I brought one with me up to Ms. St. John’s room to share with her, and—”

He looked at the receiver, suddenly gone dead in his hands, and then at Veronica.

“I guess they’re on their way,” he said.

Chapter Seven

“I need more coffee,” Veronica said. How could Joe be so awake? She hadn’t seen him yawn even once as they’d worked through the night. “I think my laryngitis idea might work—after all, we’ve been giving the news media reports that Prince Tedric is ill. You wouldn’t have to speak and—”

“You know, I’m not a half-bad mimic,” Joe insisted. “If I work on it more, I can do a decent imitation of Prince Tedric.”

Veronica closed her eyes. “No offense, Joe, but I seriously doubt you can imitate Tedric’s accent just from listening to a tape,” she said. “We have better things to do with your time.”

Joe stood and Veronica opened her eyes, gazing up at him.

“I’m getting you that coffee,” he said. “You’re slipping. You just called me ‘Joe.’”

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” she murmured.

But he didn’t smile. He just looked down at her, the expression in his eyes unreadable. “I like Joe better,” he finally said.

“This isn’t going to work, is it?” she asked quietly. She met his eyes steadily, ready to accept defeat.

Except he wasn’t defeated. Not by any means. He’d been watching videotapes and listening to audiotapes of Prince Tedric in all of his spare moments. It was true that he hadn’t had all that many spare moments, but he was well on his way to understanding the way Tedric moved and spoke.

“I can do this,” Joe said. “Hell, I look just like the guy. Every time I catch my reflection and see my hair this way, I see Ted looking back at me and it scares me to death. If it can fool me, it can fool everyone else. The tailor’s delivering the clothes he’s altered sometime tomorrow. It’ll be easier for me to pretend I’m Tedric if I’m dressed for the part.”

Veronica gave him a wan smile. Still, it was a smile. She was so tired, she could barely keep her eyes open. She’d changed out of her jeans and back into her professional clothes hours ago. Her hair was up off her shoulders once again. “We’ve got to work on Tedric’s walk. He’s got this rather peculiar, rolling gait that—”

“He walks like he’s got a fireplace poker in his pants,” Joe interrupted her.

Veronica’s musical laughter echoed throughout the quiet room. One of the FInCOM agents glanced up from his position guarding the balcony entrance.

“Yes,” she said to Joe. “You’re right. He does. Although I doubt anyone’s described it quite that way before.”

“I can walk that way,” Joe said. He stood, and as Veronica watched, he marched stiffly across the room. “See?” He turned back to look at her.

She had her face in her hands and her shoulders were shaking, and Joe was positive for one heart-stopping moment that she was crying. He started toward her, and knelt in front of her and—She was laughing. She was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down her face.

“Hey,” Joe said, faintly insulted. “It wasn’t that bad.”

She tried to answer, but could get no words out. Instead, she just waved her hand futilely at him and kept on laughing.

Her laughter was infectious, and before long, Joe started to chuckle and then laugh, too.

“Do it again,” she gasped, and he stood and walked, like Prince Tedric, across the room and back.

Veronica laughed even harder, doubling over on the couch.

The FInCOM agent was watching them both as if they were crazy or hysterical—which probably wasn’t that far from the truth.

Veronica wiped at her face, trying to catch her breath. “Oh, Lord,” she said. “Oh, God, I haven’t laughed this hard in years.” Her eyelashes were wet with her tears of laughter, and her eyes sparkled as, still giggling, she looked up at Joe. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into doing that again?”

“No way,” Joe said, grinning back at her. “I draw the line at being humiliated more than twice in a row.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” she said, but her giggles intensified. “Yes, I was,” she corrected herself. “I was laughing at you. I’m so sorry. You must think I’m frightfully rude.” She covered her mouth with her hand, but still couldn’t stop laughing—at least not entirely.

“I think I only looked funny because I’m not dressed like the prince,” Joe argued. “I think if I were wearing some sequined suit and walking that way, you wouldn’t be able to tell the two of us apart.”

“And I think,” Veronica said. “I think…I think it’s hopeless. I think it’s time to give up.” Her eyes suddenly welled with real tears, and all traces of her laughter vanished. “Oh, damn…” She turned away, but she could neither stop nor hide her sudden flow of tears.

She heard Joe’s voice, murmuring a command to the FInCOM agents, and then she felt him sit next to her on the sofa.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, come on, Veronica. It’s not that bad.”

She felt his arms go around her and she stiffened only slightly before giving in. She let him pull her back against his chest, let him tuck her head in to his shoulder. He was so warm, so solid. And he smelled so wonderfully good…

He just held her, rocking slightly, and let her cry. He didn’t try to stop her. He just held her.

Veronica was getting his shirt wet, but she couldn’t seem to stop, and he didn’t seem to mind. She could feel his hand in her hair, gently stroking, calming, soothing.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet. She could hear it rumble slightly in his chest.

“You know, this guy we’re after?” Joe said. “The terrorist? His name’s Diosdado. One name. Kind of like Cher or Madonna, but not so much fun. Still, I bet he’s as much of a celebrity in Peru, where he’s from. He’s the leader of an organization with a name that roughly translates as ‘The Cloud of Death.’ He and a friend of his—a man named Salustiano Vargas—have claimed responsibility for more than twelve hundred deaths. Diosdado’s signature was on the bomb that blew up that passenger flight from London to New York three years ago. Two hundred and fifty-four people died. Remember that one?”

Veronica nodded. She most certainly did. The plane had gone down halfway across the Atlantic. There were no survivors. Her tears slowed as she listened to him talk.

“Diosdado and his pal Vargas took out an entire busload of U.S. sailors that same year,” Joe said. “Thirty-two kids—the oldest was twenty-one years old.” He was quiet for a moment. “Mac Forrest’s son was on that bus.”

Veronica closed her eyes. “Oh, God…”

“Johnny Forrest. He was a good kid. Smart, too. He looked like Mac. Same smile, same easygoing attitude, same tenacity. I met him when he was eight. He was the little brother I never had.” Joe’s voice was husky with emotion. He cleared his throat. “He was nineteen when Diosdado blew him to pieces.”

Joe fell silent, just stroking Veronica’s hair. He cleared his throat again, but when he spoke, his voice was still tight. “Those two bombings put Diosdado and The Cloud of Death onto the Most Wanted list. Intel dug deep and came up with a number of interesting facts. Diosdado had a last name, and it was Perez. He was born in 1951, the youngest son in a wealthy family. His name means, literally, ‘God’s gift.’” Joe laughed a short burst of disgusted air. “He wasn’t God’s gift to Mac Forrest, or any of the other families of those dead sailors. Intel also found out that the sonuvabitch had a faction of his group right here in D.C. But when the CIA went to investigate, something went wrong. It turned into a firefight, and when it was over, three agents and ten members of The Cloud of Death were dead. Seven more terrorists were taken prisoner, but Diosdado and Salustiano Vargas were gone. The two men we’d wanted the most got away. They went deep underground. Rumor was Diosdado had been shot and badly hurt. He was quiet for years—no sign of him at all—until a few days ago, when apparently Vargas took a shot at Prince Tedric.”

Joe was quiet again for another moment. “So there it is,” he said. “The reason we can’t just quit. The reason this operation is going to work. We’re going to stop those bastards for good, one way or another.”

Veronica wiped her face with the back of her hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried like this. It must have been the stress getting to her. The stress and the fatigue. Still, to burst into tears like that and…

She sat up, pulling away from Joe and glancing around the room, alarmed, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. She’d lost it. She’d absolutely lost it—and right in front of Joe and all those FInCOM agents. But the FInCOM agents were gone.

“They’re outside the door,” Joe said, correctly reading her thoughts. “I figured you’d appreciate the privacy.”

“Thank you,” Veronica murmured.

She was blushing, and the tip of her nose was pink from crying. She looked exhausted and fragile. Joe wanted to wrap her back in his arms and hold her close. He wanted to hold her as she closed her eyes and fell asleep. He wanted to keep her warm and safe from harm, and to convince her that everything was going to be all right.

She glanced at him, embarrassment lighting her crystal blue eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You’re tired.” He gave her an easy excuse and a gentle smile.

They were alone. They were alone in the room. As Joe held her gaze, he knew she was aware of that, too.

Her hair was starting to come free from its restraints, and strands curled around her face.

He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and lightly brushing the last of her tears from her cheek. Her skin was so soft and warm. She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, didn’t even move. She just gazed at him, her eyes blue and wide and so damned innocent.

Joe couldn’t remember ever wanting to kiss a woman more in his entire life. Slowly, so slowly, he leaned forward, searching her eyes for any protest, alert for any sign that he was taking this moment of truce too far.

Her eyes flickered and he saw her desire. She wanted him to kiss her, too. But he also saw doubt and a flash of fear. She was afraid.

Afraid of what? Of him? Of herself? Or maybe she was afraid that the overwhelming attraction they both felt would ignite in a violent, nearly unstoppable explosion of need.

Joe almost pulled back.

But then her lips parted slightly, and he couldn’t resist. He wanted a taste—just a taste—of her sweetness.

So he kissed her. Slowly, gently pressing his lips to hers.

A rush of desire hit him low in the gut and it took every ounce of control to keep from giving in to his need and pulling her hard into his arms, kissing her savagely, and running his hands along the curves of her body. Instead, he made himself slow down.

Gently, so gently, he ran his tongue across her lips, slowly gaining passage to the softness of her mouth. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to move still more slowly, even slower now. She tasted of strawberries and coffee—an enticing combination of flavors. He caressed her tongue with his own and when she responded, when she opened her mouth to him, granting him access and deepening their kiss, he felt dizzy with pleasure.

This was, absolutely, the sweetest kiss he’d ever shared.

Slowly, still slowly, he explored the warmth of her mouth, the softness of her lips. He touched only her mouth with his, and the side of her face with the tips of his fingers. She wasn’t locked in his arms, their bodies weren’t pressed tightly together. Still, with this gentle, purest of kisses, she had the power to make his blood surge through his veins, to make his heart pound in a wild, frantic rhythm.

He wanted her desperately. His body was straining to become joined with hers. And yet…

This kiss was enough. It was exhilarating, and it made him feel incredibly happy. Happy in a way he’d never been even while making love to the other women he’d had relationships with—women he’d been attracted to and slept with, but hadn’t particularly cared for.

He felt a tightness in his chest, a weight of emotion he’d never felt before as, beneath his fingers, Veronica trembled.

He pulled back then, and she looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

“Well,” she said. “My word.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed. He hadn’t intended to whisper, but he couldn’t seem to speak any louder.

“That was…unexpected.”

He couldn’t entirely agree. He’d been expecting to kiss her ever since their eyes first met and the raw attraction sparked between them. What was unexpected was this odd sense of caring, this emotional noose that had somehow curled itself around his chest. It was faintly uncomfortable, and it hadn’t disappeared even when he’d ended their kiss.

She glanced at him. “Maybe we should get back to work.”

Joe shook his head. “No,” he said. “I need a break, and you do, too.” He stood, holding out his hand to her. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your room. You can take a nap. I’ll meet you back here in a few hours.”

Veronica didn’t take his hand. She simply gazed up at him.

“Come on,” he said again. “Cut yourself some slack.”

But she shook her head. “There’s no time.”

He gently touched her hair. “Yes, there is. There’s definitely time for an hour of shut-eye,” he said. “Trust me, Ronnie, you’re gonna need it to concentrate.”

Joe could see indecision on her face. “How about forty minutes?” he added. “Forty winks. You can crash right here on the couch. I’ll order some coffee and wake you up at—” he glanced at his watch “—oh-six-twenty.”

Slowly she nodded. “All right.”

He bent down and briefly brushed her lips with his. “Sleep tight,” he said.

She stopped him, touching the side of his face. “You’re so sweet,” she said, surprise in her voice.

He had to laugh. He’d been called a lot of things in his life, and “sweet” wasn’t one of them. “Oh, no, I’m not.”

Veronica’s lips curved into a smile. “I didn’t mean that to be an insult.” Her smile faded and she looked away, suddenly awkward. “Joe, I have to be honest with you,” she said quietly. “I think that kiss…was a mistake. I’m so tired, and I wasn’t thinking clearly and, well, I hope you don’t think that I…Well, right now it’s not…We’re not…It’s a mistake. Don’t you think?”

Joe straightened. The noose around his chest was so damn tight he could hardly breathe. A mistake. Veronica thought kissing him had been a mistake. He shook his head slowly, hiding his disappointment behind a tight smile. “No, and I’m sorry you think that,” he replied. “I thought maybe we had something there.”

“Something?” Veronica echoed, glancing up at him.

This time it was Joe who looked away. He sat down next to her on the couch, suddenly tired. How could he explain what he meant, when he didn’t even know himself? Damn, he’d already said too much. What if she thought by “something” he meant he was falling in love with her?

He pushed his hair back with one hand and glanced at Veronica.

Yeah, she wanted him to fall in love with her about as much as she wanted a hole in the head. In the space of a heartbeat, he could picture her dismay, picture her imagining the restraining order she’d have to get to keep him away from her. He was rough and uncultured, blue-collar through and through. She hung out with royalty. It would be embarrassing and inconvenient for her to have some crazy, rough-edged, lovesick sailor following her around.

Gazing into her eyes, he could see her trepidation.

So he gave her a cocky smile and prayed that she couldn’t somehow sense the tightness in his chest. “I thought we had something great between us,” he said, leaning forward and putting his hand on her thigh.

Veronica moved back on the couch, away from him. His hand fell aside.

“Ah, yes,” she said. “Sex. Exactly what I thought you meant.”

Joe stood. “Too bad.”

She glanced at him but didn’t meet his gaze for more than a fraction of a second. “Yes, it is.”

He turned away, heading for the bedroom and his bed. Maybe some sleep would make this pressure in his chest lighten up or—please, God—even make it go away.

“Please, don’t forget to wake me,” Veronica called.

“Right,” he said shortly and closed the door behind him.

The knock on the door came quickly, no less than five minutes after Joe had called room service for coffee. Man, he thought, people really hopped to it when they thought a guy had blue blood.

West and the other FInCOM agent, Freeman, both drew their guns, motioning for Joe to move away from the door. It was an odd sensation. He was the one who usually did the protecting.

The door opened, and it was the room-service waiter. West and Freeman handed Joe two steaming mugs of fragrant coffee. Joe carried them to the coffee table and set them down.

Veronica was still asleep. She’d slid down on the couch so that her head was resting on the seat cushion. She clutched a legal pad to her chest.

She looked incredibly beautiful. Her skin was so smooth and soft looking, it was all he could do not to reach out with one knuckle to touch her cheek.

Veronica St. John.

Who would have guessed he would have a thing for a prim-and-proper society girl named Veronica St. John? “Sinjin,” for Pete’s sake.

But she wasn’t interested in him. That incredible, perfect kiss they’d shared had been “a mistake.”

Like hell it had.

Joe had had to force himself to fall asleep. Only his extensive training had kept him from lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling and expending his energy by playing their kiss over and over and over again in his mind. He’d spent enough time doing that while he was in the shower, after he woke up. Each time he played that kiss over in his head, he tried to figure out what he’d done wrong, and each time, he came up blank. Finally he’d had to admit it—he’d done nothing wrong. That kiss had been perfect, not a mistake.

Now all he had to do was convince Veronica of that fact.

Yeah, right. She was stubborn as hell. He’d have a better chance of convincing the Mississippi River to flow north.

The hell of it was, Joe found himself actually liking the girl, trying to make her smile. He wanted to get another look behind her so-very-proper British facade. Except he wasn’t sure exactly where the facade ended and the real girl began. So far, he’d seen two very conflicting images—Veronica in her prim-and-proper work clothes, and Veronica dressed down to dance. He was willing to bet that the real woman was hidden somewhere in the middle. He was also willing to bet that she would never willingly reveal her true self. Especially not to him.

Joe had more than just a suspicion that Veronica considered him substandard. He was the son of a servant, while she was a daughter of the ruling class. If she had a relationship with him, it would be a lark, a kick. She’d be slumming.

Slumming.

God, it was an ugly word. But, so what? So she’d be slumming. Big deal. What was he going to do if she approached him? Was he going to turn her down? Yeah, right. Like hell he’d turn her down.

He could just picture the scenario.

Veronica knocks on his door in the middle of the night and he says, “Sorry, babe, I’m not into being used by curious debutantes who want a peek at the way the lower half lives and loves.”

Yeah, right.

If she knocked on his door, he’d fling it open wide. Let her go slumming. Just let him be the one she was slumming with.

Veronica stirred slightly, shifting to get more comfortable on the couch, and the legal pad she’d been holding fell out of her arms. Joe moved quickly and caught it before it hit the floor.

Her hair was starting to come undone, and soft red wisps curled around her face. Her lips were slightly parted. They were so soft and delicate and delicious. He knew that firsthand.

It didn’t take much to imagine her lifting those exquisite lips to his for another perfect kiss—for a deep, demanding, soulful kiss that would rapidly escalate into more. Way more.

And then what?

Then they’d be lovers until she got tired of him, or he got tired of her. It would be no different from any of the other relationships he’d had.

But so far, everything about this was different. Veronica St. John wasn’t some woman he’d met in a bar. She hadn’t approached him, handed him the keys to her car or her motel room and asked if he was busy for the next twenty-four hours. She hadn’t even approached him at all.

She wasn’t his type. She was too high-strung, too uptight.

But something he’d seen in her eyes promised a paradise the likes of which he’d never known. Hell, it was a paradise he was probably better off never knowing.

Because what if he never got tired of her?

There it was. Right out in the open. The big, ugly question he’d been trying to avoid. What if this noose that had tightened around his chest never went away?

But that would never happen, right?

He couldn’t let Veronica’s wealth and high-class manners throw him off. She was just a woman. All those differences he’d imagined were just that—imagined.

So how come he was standing there like an idiot, staring at the girl? Why was he too damned chicken to touch her, to wake her up, to see her sleepy blue eyes gazing up at him?

The answer was clear—because even if the impossible happened, and Joe actually did something as idiotically stupid as fall in love with Veronica St. John, she would never, not in a million years, fall in love with him. Sure, she might find him amusing for a few weeks or even months, but eventually she’d come to her senses and trade him in for a more expensive model.

And somehow the thought of that stung. Even now. Even though there was absolutely nothing between them. Nothing, that is, but one perfect kiss and its promise of paradise.

“Yo, Ronnie,” Joe said, hoping she’d wake up without him touching her. But she didn’t stir.

He bent down and spoke directly into her ear. “Coffee’s here. Time to wake up.”

Nothing.

He touched her shoulder, shaking her very slightly.

Nothing.

He shook her harder, and she stirred, but her eyes stayed tightly shut.

“Go away,” she mumbled.

Joe pulled her up into a sitting position. Her head lolled against the back of the couch. “Come on, babe,” he said. “If I don’t wake you up, you’re going to be madder than hell at me.” He gently touched the side of her face. “Come on, Ronnie. Look at me. Open your eyes.”

She opened them. They were astonishingly blue and very sleepy. “Be a dear, Jules, and ring the office. Tell them I’ll be a few hours late. I’m bushed. Out too late last night.” She smiled and blew a kiss into the air near his face. “Thanks, luv.” Then she tucked her perfect knees primly up underneath her skirt, put her head back down on the seat cushions and tightly closed her eyes.

Jules?

Who the hell was Jules?

“Come on, Veronica,” Joe said almost desperately. He had no right to want to hog-tie this Jules, whoever the hell he was. No right at all. “You wanted me to wake you up. Besides, you can’t sleep on the couch. You’ll wake up with one hell of a backache.”

She didn’t open her eyes again, didn’t sigh, didn’t move.

She was fast asleep, and not likely to wake up until she was good and ready.

Gritting his teeth, Joe picked Veronica up and carried her into the bedroom. He set her gently down on the bed, trying to ignore the way she fit so perfectly in his arms. For half a second, he actually considered climbing in under the covers next to her. But he didn’t have time. He had work to do. Besides, when he got in bed with Veronica St. John, it was going to be at her invitation.

Joe took off her remaining shoe and put it on the floor, then covered her with the blankets.

She didn’t move, didn’t wake up again. He didn’t give in to the desire to smooth her hair back from her face. He just stared down at her for another brief moment, knowing that the smart thing to do would be to stay far, far away from this woman. He knew that she was trouble, the likes of which he’d never known.

He turned away, needing a stiff drink. He settled for black coffee and set to work.

Chapter Eight

Veronica sat bolt upright in the bed.

Dear Lord in heaven, she wasn’t supposed to be asleep, she was supposed to be working and—

What time was it?

Her watch read twelve twenty-four. Oh, no, she’d lost the entire morning. But she must have been exhausted. She couldn’t even remember coming back here to her own room and—

Oh, Lord! She realized she wasn’t in her own room. She was in the prince’s bedroom, in the prince’s bed. No, not the prince’s. Joe’s. Joe’s bed.

With a dizzying flash, Veronica remembered Joe pulling her into his arms and kissing her so slowly, so sensuously that every bone in her body seemed to melt. He had rid them of their clothes like a seasoned professional and…

But…she was still dressed. Right down to her hose, which were twisted and uncomfortable. She’d only dreamed about Joe Catalanotto and his seductive eyes and surprisingly gentle hands.

The kiss had been real, though; and achingly, shockingly tender. It figured. Joe would know exactly how to kiss her to make her the most vulnerable, to affect her in the strongest possible way.

She’d expected him to kiss her almost roughly—an echo of the sexual hunger she’d seen in his eyes. She could have handled that. She would have known what to say and do.

Instead, Joe had given her a kiss that was more gentle than passionate, although the passion had been there, indeed. But Veronica was still surprised by the restraint he’d shown, by the sweetness of his mouth against hers, by the slow, lingering sensuality of his lips. She could very well have kissed him that way until the end of time.

Time. Lord! She’d wasted so much time.

Veronica swung her legs out of bed.

She’d told Joe to wake her up. Obviously, he hadn’t. Instead of waking her, he’d carried her here, into his bedroom.

She found one of her shoes on the floor, and searched to no avail for the other. Perfect. One shoe off and one shoe on, having slept away most of the day, her dignity in shreds, she’d have to go out into the living room where the FInCOM agents were parked. She’d have to endure their knowing smirks.

She was a wimp. She’d fallen asleep—and stayed asleep for hours—while on the job.

And Joe…Joe hadn’t kept his promise to wake her up.

She’d been starting to…like him. She’d been attracted from the start, but this was different. She actually, genuinely liked him, despite the fact that he came from an entirely different world, despite the fact that they seemed to argue almost constantly. She even liked him despite the fact that he clearly wanted to make their relationship sexual. Despite all that, she’d thought he had been starting to like her, too.

Her disappointment flashed quickly into anger. How dare he just let her sleep the day away? The bastard…

Veronica fumed as she tucked her blouse back into the top of her skirt and straightened her jacket, thankful her suit was permanent-press and wrinkle-proof.

Her hair wasn’t quite so easy to fix, but she was determined not to emerge from the bedroom with it down and flowing around her shoulders. It was bad enough that she’d been sleeping in Joe’s bed. She didn’t want it to look as if he’d been in there with her.

Finally, she took a deep breath and, single shoe in her hand and head held high, she went into the living room.

If the FInCOM agents smirked condescendingly, Veronica refused to notice. All she knew was, Joe was not in the room. Good thing, or she might have lost even more of her dignity by throwing her shoe directly at his head.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said briskly to West and Freeman as she gathered up her briefcase. Ah, good. There was her missing shoe, on the floor in front of the sofa. She slipped them both onto her feet. “Might I ask where the lieutenant has gone?”

“He’s up in the exercise room,” one of them answered.

“Thanks so very much,” Veronica said and breezed out the door.

Joe had already run seven miles on the treadmill when Veronica walked into the hotel’s luxuriously equipped exercise room. She looked a whole lot better. She’d showered and changed her clothes. But glory hallelujah, instead of putting on another of those Margaret Thatcher suits, she was wearing a plain blue dress. It was nothing fancy, obviously designed to deemphasize her femininity, yet somehow, on Veronica, it hugged her slender figure and made her look like a million bucks. Her shoes were still on the clunky side, but oh, baby, those legs…

Joe wiped a trickle of sweat that ran down the side of his face. When had it gotten so hot in here?

But her greeting to him was anything but warm.

“I’d like to have a word with you,” Veronica said icily, without even a hello to start. “At your convenience, of course.”

“Did you have a good nap?” Joe asked.

“Will you be much longer?” she asked, staring somewhere off to his left.

That good, huh? Something had ticked her off, and Joe was willing to bet that that something was him. He’d let her sleep. Correction—he’d been unable to wake her up. It wasn’t his fault, but now he was going to pay.

“Can you give me five more minutes?” he countered. “I like to do ten miles without stopping.”

Joe wasn’t even out of breath. Veronica could see from the computerized numbers lit up on the treadmill’s controls, that he’d already run nine miles. But he didn’t sound winded.

He was sweating, though. His shorts were soaking wet. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his smooth, tanned skin was slick as his muscles worked. And, dear Lord, he had so many muscles. Beautifully sculpted, perfect muscles. He was gorgeous.

He was watching her in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that covered the walls of the exercise room. Veronica leaned against the wall near the door and tried not to look at Joe, but everywhere she turned, she saw his reflection. She found herself staring in fascination at the rippling muscles in his back and thighs and arms, and then she started thinking about their kiss. Their fabulous, heart-stoppingly romantic kiss. Despite his nonchalant attitude, that kiss had been laced with tenderness and laden with emotion. It was unlike any kiss she’d experienced ever before.

Veronica had been well aware that Joe had been holding back when he kissed her that way. She’d felt his restraint and the power of his control. She had seen the heat of desire in his eyes and known he wanted more than just a simple, gentle kiss.

Veronica couldn’t forget how he’d searched her eyes as he’d leaned toward her and…

Excellent. Here she was, standing there reliving Joe’s kiss while staring at his perfect buttocks. Veronica glanced up to find his amused dark eyes watching her watch his rear end. No doubt he could read her mind. Of course the fact that she’d been nearly drooling made it all the easier for him to know what she’d been thinking.

She might as well give in, Veronica admitted to herself. She might as well sleep with the man and get it over with. After all, he was so bloody positive that it was going to happen. And after their kiss, despite her best intentions, all Veronica could think about was “When was he going to kiss her again?” Except he hadn’t woken her up, which meant that he probably didn’t even like her, and now she was mad as hell at him. Yes, kissing him had been a royal mistake. Although at the time, when she’d said those words, she’d meant another kind of mistake entirely. She’d meant their timing had been wrong. She’d meant it had been a mistake to add a romantic distraction to all of the other distractions already driving her half mad.

Then, of course, he’d said what he’d said, and…

The fact that Joe saw their growing relationship as one based purely on sex only added to Veronica’s confusion. She knew that a man like Joe Catalanotto, a man accustomed to intrigue and high adventure, would never have any kind of long-term interest in a woman who worked her hardest to be steady and responsible and, well, quite frankly, boring. And even if that wasn’t the case, even if by some miracle Joe fell madly and permanently in love with her, how on earth would she handle his leaving on dangerous, top-secret missions? How could she simply wave goodbye, knowing she might never again see him alive?

No, thank you very much.

So maybe this pure sex thing didn’t add to her confusion. Maybe it simplified things. Maybe it took it all down to the simplest, most basic level.

Lord knew, she was wildly attracted to him. And so what if she was watching him?

Veronica met Joe’s gaze almost defiantly, her chin held high. One couldn’t have a body like that and expect people not to look. And watching Joe run was like watching a dancer. He was graceful and surefooted, his motion fluid and effortless. She wondered if he could dance. She wondered—not for the first time—what it would feel like to be held in his arms, dancing with him.

As Veronica watched, Joe focused on his running, increasing his speed, his arms and legs churning, pumping. The treadmill was starting to whine, and just when Veronica was sure Joe was going to start to slow, when she was positive he couldn’t keep up the pace a moment longer, he went even faster.

His teeth were clenched, his face a picture of concentration and stamina. He looked like something savage, something wild. An untamed man-creature from the distant past. A ferocious, barbaric warrior come to shake up the civility of Veronica’s carefully polite twentieth-century world.

“Hoo-yah!” someone called out, and Joe’s face broke into a wide smile as he looked up at three men, standing near the weight machine in the corner of the room. As quickly as his smile appeared, the barbarian was gone.

Odd, Veronica hadn’t noticed the other men before this. She’d been aware of the FInCOM agents lurking near her, but not these three men dressed in workout clothes. They seemed to know Joe. SEALs, Veronica guessed. They had to be the men Joe had asked Admiral Forrest to send.

Joe slowed at last, returning the treadmill to a walking speed as he caught his breath. He stepped off and grabbed a towel, using it to mop his face as he came toward Veronica.

“What’s up?”

Joe was steaming. There was literally visible heat rising from his smooth, powerful shoulders. He stopped about six feet away from her, clearly not wanting to offend her by standing too close.

His friends came and surrounded him, and Veronica was momentarily silenced by three additional pairs of eyes appraising her with frank male appreciation. Joe’s eyes alone were difficult enough to handle.

Joe glanced at the other men. “Get lost,” he said. “This is a private conversation.”

“Not anymore,” said one of them with a Western twang. He was almost as tall as Joe, but probably weighed forty pounds less. He held out his hand to Veronica. “I’m Cowboy, ma’am.”

She shook Cowboy’s hand, and he held on to hers far longer than necessary, until Joe gave him a dark look.

“All right, quick introductions,” Joe said. “Lieutenant McCoy, my XO—executive officer—and Chief Becker and Ensign Jones. Also known as Blue, Harvard and Cowboy. Miss Veronica St. John. For you illiterates, it’s spelled Saint and John, two words, but pronounced Sinjin. She’s Prince Tedric’s media consultant, and she’s on the scheduling team for this op.”

Lt. Blue McCoy looked to be about Joe’s age—somewhere in his early thirties. He was shorter and smaller than the other men, with the build of a long-distance runner and the blue eyes, wavy, thick blond hair and handsome face of a Hollywood star.

Harvard—Chief Becker—was a large black man with steady, intelligent brown eyes and a smoothly shaven head. Cowboy’s hair was even longer than Blue McCoy’s, and he wore it pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. His eyes were green and sparkling, and his smile boyishly winsome. He looked like Kevin Costner’s younger brother, and he knew it. He kept winking at her.

“Pleased to meet you,” Veronica said, shaking hands with both Blue and Harvard. She was afraid if she offered Cowboy her hand again, she might never get it back.

“The pleasure’s all ours, ma’am,” Cowboy said. “I love what you’ve done with the captain’s hair.”

“Captain?” Veronica looked at Joe. “I thought you were a Lieutenant.”

“It’s a term of endearment, ma’am,” Blue said. He, too, had a thick accent, but his was from the Deep South. “Cat’s in command, so sometimes he gets called Captain.”

“It’s better than some of the other things they call me,” Joe said.

Cat.

Admiral Forrest had also called Joe by that nickname. Cat. It fit. As Joe ran on the treadmill, he looked like a giant cat, so graceful and fluid. The nickname, while really just a shortened form of Catalanotto, wasn’t too far off.

“Okay, great,” Joe said. “We’ve made nice. Now you boys get lost. Finish your PT, and let the grown-ups talk.”

Lt. McCoy took the other two men by the arms and pulled them toward weight-lifting equipment. Harvard began to bench-press heavy-looking weights while Cowboy spotted him, one eye still on Joe and Veronica.

“Now let’s try this one more time,” Joe said with a smile. “What’s up? You look like you want to court-martial me.”

“Only if the punishment for mutiny is still execution,” Veronica said, smiling tightly.

Joe looped his towel around his neck. “Mutiny,” he said. “That’s a serious charge—especially considering I did my damnedest to wake you up.”

Veronica crossed her arms. “Oh, and I suppose your ‘damnedest’ included putting me in a nice soft bed, where I’d be sure to sleep away most of the day?” she said. She glanced around, at both the FInCOM agents and the other SEALs, and lowered her voice. “I might also point out that it was hardly proper for me to sleep in your bed. It surely looked bad, and it implied…certain things.”

“Whoa, Ronnie.” Joe shook his head. “That wasn’t my intention. I thought you’d be more comfortable, that’s all. I wasn’t trying to—”

“I’m an unmarried woman, Lieutenant,” Veronica interrupted. “Regardless of what you intended, it is not in my best interests to take a nap in any man’s bed.”

Joe laughed. “I think maybe you’re overreacting just a teeny little bit. This isn’t the 1890s. I don’t see how your reputation could be tarnished simply from napping in my bed. If I were in there with you, it’d be an entirely different matter. But if you want to know the truth, I’d be willing to bet no one even noticed where you were sleeping this morning, or even that you were asleep. And if they did, that’s their problem.”

“No, it’s my problem,” Veronica said sharply, her temper flaring. “Tell me, Lieutenant, are there many women in the SEALs?”

“No,” Joe said. “There’re none. We don’t allow women in the units.”

“Aha,” Veronica retorted. “In other words, you’re not familiar with sexual discrimination, because your organization is based on sexual discrimination. That’s just perfect.”

“Look, if you want to preach feminism, fine,” Joe said, his patience disintegrating, “but do me a favor—hand me a pamphlet to read on the subject and be done with it. Right now, I’m going to take a shower.”

By now they had the full, unconcealed attention of the three other SEALs and the FInCOM agents, but Veronica was long past caring. She was angry—angry that he had let her sleep, angry that he was so macho, angry that he had kissed her—and particularly angry that she had liked his kiss so damn much.

She blocked Joe’s way, stabbing at his broad chest with one finger. “Don’t you dare run away from me, Lieutenant,” she said, her voice rising with each word. “You’re operating in my world now, and I will not have you jeopardizing my career through your own stupid ignorance.”

He flinched as if she’d slapped him in the face and turned away, but not before she saw the flash of hurt in his eyes. Hurt that was rapidly replaced by anger.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Joe said through clenched teeth. “I was only trying to be nice. I thought sleeping on the couch would screw up your back, but forget it. From now on, I won’t bother, okay? From now on, we’ll go by the book.”

He pushed past her and went into the locker room. The FInCOM agents and the three other SEALs followed, leaving Veronica alone in the exercise room. Her reflection gazed back at her from all angles.

Perfect. She’d handled that just perfectly.

Veronica had come down here to find out why he’d let her sleep so long, and wound up in a fierce argument about sexual discrimination and her pristine reputation. That wasn’t the real issue at all. It had just been something to shout about, because Lord knew she couldn’t walk up to him and shout that his kiss had turned her entire world upside down and now she was totally, utterly and quite thoroughly off-balance.

Instead, she had called him names. Stupid. Ignorant. Words that had clearly cut deep, despite the fact that he was anything but stupid and far from ignorant.

What Veronica had done was take out all her anger and frustration on the man.

But if anyone was to blame here, it was herself. After all, she was the one foolish enough to have fallen asleep in the first place.

“Hey, Cat!” Cowboy called loudly as he showered in the locker room. “Tell me more about fair Veronica ‘Sinjin.’”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Joe answered evenly. He glanced up to find Blue watching him.

Damn. Blue could read his mind. Joe’s connection to Blue was so tight, there were few thoughts that appeared in Joe’s head that Blue wasn’t instantly aware of. But what would Blue make of the thoughts Joe was having right now? What would he make of the sick, nauseous feeling Joe had in the pit of his stomach?

Stupid. Ignorant.

Well, that about summed it all up, didn’t it? Joe certainly knew now exactly what Veronica St. John thought of him, didn’t he? He certainly knew why she’d thought that kiss was a mistake.

Cowboy shut off the water. Dripping, he came out of the stall and into the room. “You sure there’s nothing you can tell us about Veronica, Cat? Oh, come on, buddy, I can think of a thing or two,” he said, taking a towel from a pile of clean ones and giving himself a perfunctory swipe. “Like, are you and she doing the nightly naked two-step?”

“No,” Joe replied flatly, pulling on his pants.

“You planning on it?” Cowboy asked. He slipped into one of the plush hotel robes that were hanging on the wall.

“Back off, Jones,” Blue said warningly.

“No.” Joe answered Cowboy tersely as he yanked his T-shirt over his head and thrust his arms into the sleeves of his shirt.

“Cool,” Cowboy said. “Then you don’t mind if I give her a try—”

Joe spun and grabbed the younger man by the lapels of his robe, slamming him up against a row of metal lockers with a crash. “Stay the hell away from her,” he snapped. He let go of Cowboy, and turned to include Blue and Harvard in his glare. “All of you. Is that clear?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

The noise echoed as Cowboy stared at Harvard and Blue.

“Shoot,” he finally said. “Anybody have any idea what the hell’s going on?”

Chapter Nine

Room service arrived at the royal suite before Joe did.

“Set it out on the table, please,” Veronica instructed the waiter.

She’d ordered a full-course meal, from appetizers to dessert, complete with three different wines.

This afternoon’s lesson was food—or more precisely, eating food. There was a hundred-dollar-a-plate charity luncheon in Boston, Massachusetts, that had been left on the prince’s tour schedule. Both the location and the visibility of the event were right for a possible assassination attempt, but it was more than a hi-and-bye appearance. It would involve more than Joe’s ability to stand and wave as if he were Prince Tedric.

The hotel-suite door opened, and Joe came inside, followed by three FInCOM agents. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing his T-shirt underneath, and he met Veronica’s eyes only briefly before turning to the laden dining table. It was quite clear that he was still upset with her.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“This is practice for the Boston charity luncheon,” Veronica replied. “I hope you’re hungry.”

Joe stared at the table. It was loaded with dishes covered with plate-warmers. It was set for two, with a full array of cutlery and three different wineglasses at each setting. What, didn’t Miss High-and-Mighty think he knew how to eat with a fork? Didn’t she know he dined with admirals and four-star generals at the Officers’ Club?

Stupid. Ignorant.

Joe nodded slowly, wishing he was still pissed off, wishing he was still nursing the slow burn he’d felt upstairs in the exercise room. But he wasn’t. He was too tired to be angry now. He was too tired to feel anything but disappointment and hurt. Damn, it made him feel so vulnerable.

The room-service waiter was standing next to the table, looking down his snotty nose at Joe’s unbuttoned shirt. Gee, maybe the waiter and Veronica had had a good laugh about Joe before he’d arrived.

“This is unnecessary,” he said, turning back to look at Veronica. Man, she looked pretty in that blue dress. Her hair was tied back with some kind of ribbon, and—Forget about her, he told himself harshly. She was just some rich girl who’d made it more than clear that they lived in two different worlds, and there was no crossing the border. He was stupid and ignorant, and kissing him had been a mistake. “Believe it or not, I already know which fork is for the salad and which fork is for the dessert. It might come as a shock to you, but I also know how to use a napkin and drink from a glass.”

Veronica actually looked surprised, her blue eyes growing even wider. “Oh,” she said. “No. No, I knew that. That’s not what this is.” She let a nervous laugh escape. “You actually thought I thought I’d need to teach you how to eat?”

Joe was not amused. “Yeah.”

My God, he was serious. He was standing there, his powerful arms folded across his broad chest, staring at her with those mystifying dark eyes. Veronica remembered that flash of hurt in Joe’s eyes when they’d argued in the exercise room. What had she said? She’d called him stupid and ignorant. Oh, Lord. She still couldn’t believe those words had come out of her mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“I owe you an apology,” Veronica explained. “I was very angry this afternoon, and I said some things I didn’t mean. The truth is, I was frustrated and angry with myself. I was the one who fell asleep. It was all my fault, and I tried to take it out on you. I shouldn’t have. I am sorry.”

Joe looked at the waiter and then at the FInCOM agents who were sitting on the sofa, listening to every word. He crossed to the door and opened it invitingly. “You guys mind stepping outside for a sec?”

The FInCOM agents looked at each other and shrugged. Rising to their feet, they crossed to the door and filed out into the corridor. Joe turned to the waiter. “You, too, pal.” He gestured toward the open door. “Take a hike.”

He waited until the waiter was outside, then closed the door tightly and crossed back to Veronica. “You know, these guys will give you privacy if you ask for it,” he said.

She nodded. “I know,” she said. She lifted her chin slightly, steadily meeting his gaze. “It’s just…I was rude to you in public, I felt I should apologize to you in public, too.”

Joe nodded, too. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. That sounds fair.” He looked at her, and there was something very close to admiration in his eyes. “That sounds really fair.”

Veronica felt her own eyes flood with tears. Oh, damn, she was going to cry. If she started to cry, she was going to feel once more just how gentle Joe’s hard-as-steel arms could be. And Lord, she didn’t want to be reminded of that. “I am sorry,” she said, blinking back the tears.

Oh, damn, Veronica was going to cry, Joe thought as he took a step toward her, then stopped himself. No, she was trying hard to hide it. It was better if he played along, if he pretended he didn’t notice. But, man, the sight of those blue eyes swimming in tears made his chest ache, reminding him of this morning, when he’d held her in his arms. Reminding him of that unbelievable kiss…

Veronica forced a smile and held out her hand to him. “Still friends?” she asked.

Friends, huh? Joe had never had a friend before that he wanted to pull into his arms and kiss the living daylights out of. As he gazed into her eyes, the attraction between them seemed to crackle and snap, like some living thing.

Veronica was okay. She was a decent person—the fact that she’d apologized proved that. But she came from miles on the other side of the railroad tracks. If their relationship became intimate, she’d still be slumming. And he’d be…

He’d be dreaming about her every night for the rest of his life.

Joe let go of Veronica’s hand as if he’d been stung. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, where had that thought come from…?

“Are you all right?” The concern in her eyes was genuine.

Joe stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Sorry. I guess I’m…After we do this dining thing, I’m going to take another short nap.”

“A three-minute nap this time?” Veronica asked. “Or maybe you’ll splurge, and sleep for five whole minutes…?”

Joe smiled, and she gave him an answering smile. Their gazes met and held. And held and held and held.

With another woman, Joe would have closed the gap between them. With another woman, Joe would have taken two short steps and brought them face to face. He would have brushed those stray flame-colored curls from the side of her beautiful face, then lifted her chin and lowered his mouth to meet hers.

He had tasted her lips before. He knew how amazing kissing Veronica could be.

But she wasn’t another woman. She was Veronica St. John. And she’d already made it clear that sex wasn’t on their agenda. Hell, if a kiss was a mistake, then making love would be an error of unbelievable magnitude. And the truth was, Joe didn’t want to face that kind of rejection.

So Joe didn’t move. He just gazed at her.

“Well,” she said, slightly breathlessly, “perhaps we should get to work.”

But she didn’t cross toward the dining table, she just gazed up at him, as if she, too, were caught in some kind of force field and unable to move.

Veronica was beautiful. And rich. And smart. But more than just book smart. She was people smart, too. Joe had seen her manipulate a tableful of high-ranking officials. She couldn’t have done that on an Ivy League diploma alone.

He didn’t know the first thing about her, Joe realized. He didn’t know where she came from, or how she’d gotten here, to Washington, D.C. He didn’t know how she’d come to work for the crown prince of Ustanzia. He didn’t know why she’d remained, even after the assassination attempt, when most civilians would have headed for the hills and safety.

“What’s your angle?” Joe asked.

Veronica blinked. “Excuse me?”

He reworded the question. “Why are you here? I mean, I’m here to help catch Diosdado, but what are you getting out of this?”

She looked out the window at the afternoon view of the capital city. When she glanced back at Joe, her smile was rueful. “Beats me,” she said. “I’m not getting paid nearly half enough, although it could be argued that working for royalty is a solid career boost. Of course, it all depends on whether we can successfully pass you off as Prince Tedric.”

She sank down onto the couch and looked up at him, elbow on her knee, chin in her hand. “We have less than six hours before the committee makes a decision.” She shook her head and laughed humorlessly. “Instead of becoming more like Tedric, you seem more different from him than when we started. I look at you, Joe, and you don’t even look like the prince anymore.”

Joe smiled as he sat next to her on the couch. “Lucky for us, most people won’t look beneath the surface. They’ll expect to see Ted, so…they’ll see Ted.”

“I need this thing to work,” Veronica said, smoothing her skirt over her knees. “If this doesn’t work…”

“Why?” Joe asked. “Mortgage payment coming due on the castle?”

Veronica turned and looked at him. “Very funny.”

“Sorry.”

“You don’t really want to hear this.”

Joe was watching her, studying her face. His dark eyes were fathomless, and as mysterious as the deepest ocean. “Yes, I do.”

“Tedric’s sister has been my best friend since boarding school,” Veronica said. “Even though Tedric is unconcerned with Ustanzia’s financial state, Wila has been working hard to make her country more solvent. It matters to her—so it matters to me.” She smiled. “When oil was discovered, Wila actually did cartwheels right across the Capital lawn. I thought poor Jules was going to have a heart attack. But then she found out how much it would cost to drill. She’s counting on getting U.S. aid.”

Jules.

Be a dear, Jules, and ring the office. Veronica had murmured those words in her sleep, and since then, Joe had been wondering, not without a sliver of jealousy, exactly who this Jules was.

“Who’s Jules?” Joe asked.

“Jules,” Veronica repeated. “My brother. He conveniently married my best friend. It’s quite cozy, really, and very sweet. They’re expecting a baby any moment.”

Her brother. Jules was her brother. Why did that make Joe feel so damned good? He and Veronica were going to be friends, nothing more, so why should he care whether Jules was her brother or her lover or her pet monkey?

But he did care, damn it.

Joe leaned forward. “So that’s why Wila didn’t come on this tour instead of Brain-dead Ted? Because she’s pregnant?”

Veronica tried not to smile, but failed. “Don’t call Prince Tedric that,” she said.

He smiled at her, struck by the way her eyes were the exact shade of blue as her dress. “You know, you look pretty in blue.”

Her smile vanished and she stood. “We should really get started,” she said, crossing to the dining table. “The food’s getting cold.”

Joe didn’t move. “So where did you and Jules grow up? London?”

Veronica turned to look back at him. “No,” she replied. “At first we traveled with our parents, and when we were old enough, we went away to school. The closest thing we had to a permanent home was Huntsgate Manor, where our Great-Aunt Rosamond lived.”

“Huntsgate Manor,” Joe mused. “It sounds like something out of a fairy tale.”

Veronica’s eyes grew dreamy and out of focus as she gazed out the window. “It was so wonderful. This big, old, moldy, ancient house with gardens and grounds that went on forever and ever and ever.” She looked up at Joe with a spark of humor in her eyes. “Not really,” she added. “I think the property is only about four or five acres, but when we were little, it seemed to go to the edge of the world and back.”

Night and day, Joe thought. Their two upbringings were as different as night and day. He wondered what she would do, how she would react if she knew about the rock he’d crawled out from under.

Veronica laughed, embarrassed. “I don’t know why I just told you all that,” she said. “It’s hardly interesting.”

But it was interesting. It was fascinating. As fascinating as those gigantic houses he’d gone into with his mother, the houses that she’d cleaned when he was a kid. Veronica’s words were another porthole to that same world of “Look but don’t touch.” It was fascinating. And depressing as hell. Veronica had been raised like a little princess. No doubt she’d only be content to spend her life “happily ever after,” with a prince.

And he sure as hell didn’t fit that bill.

Except, what was he doing, thinking about things like happily ever after?

“How about you, Joe?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Where did you grow up?”

“Near New York City. We really should get to work,” he said, half hoping she’d let the subject of his childhood drop—and half hoping that she wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t. “New York City,” she said. “I’ve never lived there, I’ve only visited. I remember the first time I was there as a child. It all seemed to be lights and music and Broadway plays and marvelous food and…people, people everywhere.”

“I didn’t see any plays on Broadway,” Joe said dryly. “Although when I was ten, I snuck out of the house at night and hung around the theater district, trying to spot celebrities. I’d get their autograph and then sell it, make a quick buck.”

“Your parents probably loved that,” Veronica said. “A ten-year-old, all alone in New York City…?”

“My mother was usually too drunk to notice I was gone,” Joe said. “And even if she had, she wouldn’t have given a damn.”

Veronica looked away from him, down at the floor. “Oh,” she said.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Oh.”

She fiddled with her hair for a moment, and then she surprised him. She looked up and directly into his eyes and smiled—a smile not without sorrow for the boy he’d once been. “I guess that’s where you learned to be so self-reliant. And self-confident.”

“Self-reliant, maybe. But I grew up with everyone always telling me I wasn’t good enough,” Joe said. “No, that’s not true. Not everyone. Not Frank O’Riley.” He shook his head and laughed. “He was this mean old guy who lived in this grungy basement apartment in one of the tenements over by the river. He had a wooden leg and a glass eye and his arms were covered with tattoos and all the kids were scared sh—Scared to death of him. Except me, because I was the toughest, coolest kid in the neighborhood—at least among the under-twelve set.

“O’Riley had this garden—really just a patch of land. It couldn’t have been more than twelve by four feet. He always had something growing—flowers, vegetables—it was always something. So I went in there, over his rusty fence, just to prove I wasn’t scared of the old man.

“I’d been planning to trample his flowers, but once I got into the garden, I couldn’t do it,” Joe said. “They were just too damn pretty. All those colors. Shades I’d never even imagined. Instead, I sat down and just looked at them.

“Old Frank came out and told me he’d loaded his gun and was ready to shoot me in my sorry butt, but since I was obviously another nature lover, he’d brought me a glass of lemonade instead.”

Why was he telling her this? Blue was the only person he’d ever mentioned Frank O’Riley to, and never in such detail. Joe’s friendship with Old Man O’Riley was the single good memory he carried from his childhood. Chief Frank O’Riley, U.S.N., retired, and his barely habitable basement apartment had been Joe’s refuge, his escape when life at home became unbearable.

And suddenly he knew why he was telling Veronica about Frank, his one childhood friend, his single positive role model. He wanted this woman to know where he came from, who he really was. And he wanted to see her reaction; see whether she would recognize the importance old Frank had played in his life, or whether she would shrug it off, uncaring, uninterested.

“Frank was a sailor,” Joe told Veronica. “Tough as nails, and with one hell of a foul mouth. He could swear like no one I’ve ever known. He fought in the Pacific in World War Two, as a frogman, one of the early members of the UDTs, the underwater demolition teams that later became the SEALs. He was rough and crude, but he never turned me away from his door. I helped him pull weeds in his garden in return for the stories he told.”

Veronica was listening intently, so he went on.

“When everyone else I knew told me I was going to end up in jail or worse, Frank O’Riley told me I was destined to become a Navy SEAL—because both they and I were the best of the best.”

“He was right,” Veronica murmured. “He must be very, very proud of you.”

“He’s dead,” Joe said. He watched her eyes fill with compassion, and the noose around his chest grew tighter. He was in big trouble here. “He died when I was fifteen.”

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

“Frank had one hell of a powerful spirit,” Joe continued, resisting the urge to pull her into his arms and comfort her because his friend had died more than fifteen years ago. “Wherever I went and whatever I did for the three years after he died, he was there, whispering into my ear, keeping me in line, reminding me about those Navy SEALs that he’d admired so much. On the day I turned eighteen, I walked into that navy recruitment office and I could almost feel his sigh of relief.”

He smiled at her and Veronica smiled back, gazing into his eyes. Again, time seemed to stand totally still. Again, it was the perfect opportunity to kiss her, and again, Joe didn’t allow himself to move.

“I’m glad you’ve forgiven me, Joe,” she said quietly.

“Hey, what happened to ‘Your Highness’?” Joe asked, trying desperately to return to a more lighthearted, teasing tone. She was getting serious on him. Serious meant being honest, and in all honesty, Joe did not want to be friends with this woman. He wanted to be lovers. He was dying to be her lover. He wanted to touch her in ways she’d never been touched before. He wanted to hear her cry out his name and—

Veronica looked surprised. “I’ve forgotten to call you that, haven’t I?”

“You’ve been calling me Joe lately,” he said. “Which is fine—I like it better. I was just curious.”

“You’re nothing like the real prince,” she said honestly.

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

She smiled. “Believe me, it’s a compliment.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Joe said. “But I wasn’t sure exactly where you stood.”

“Prince Tedric…isn’t very nice,” Veronica said diplomatically.

“He’s a coward and a flaming idiot,” Joe stated flatly.

“I guess you don’t like him very much, either.”

“Understatement of the year, Ronnie. If I end up taking a bullet for him, I’m gonna be really upset.” He smiled grimly. “That is, if you can be upset and dead at the same time.”

Veronica stared at Joe. If he ended up taking a bullet…

For the first time, the reality of what Joe was doing hit her squarely in the stomach. He was risking his life to catch a terrorist. While Tedric spent the next few weeks in the comfort of a safe house, Joe would be out in public. Joe would be the target of the terrorists’ guns.

What if something went wrong? What if the terrorists succeeded, and killed Joe? After all, they’d already managed to kill hundreds and hundreds of people.

Joe suddenly looked so tired. Were his thoughts following the same path? Was he afraid he’d be killed, too? But then he glanced up at Veronica and tried to smile.

“Mind if we skip lunch?” he asked. “Or just postpone it for a half hour?”

Veronica nodded. “We can postpone it,” she said.

Joe stood, heading toward the bedroom. “Great, I’ve gotta crash. I’ll see you in about thirty minutes, okay?”

“Do you want me to wake you?” she asked.

Joe shook his head, no. “Thanks, but…”

Oh, baby, he could just imagine her coming into his darkened bedroom to wake him up. He could just imagine coming out of a deep REM sleep to see that face, those eyes looking down at him. He could imagine reaching for her, pulling her down on top of him, covering her mouth with his…

“No, thanks,” he said again, reaching up with one hand to loosen the tight muscles in his neck and shoulders. “I’ll set the alarm.”

Veronica watched as he closed the bedroom door behind him.

They were running out of time. Despite his reassurances, Veronica didn’t believe that Joe could pull it off.

But those weren’t the only doubts she was having.

Posing as Prince Tedric could very easily get Joe killed.

Were they doing the right thing? Was catching these terrorists worth risking a man’s life? Was it fair to ask Joe to take those risks when Tedric so very clearly wouldn’t?

But out of all those doubts, Veronica knew one thing for certain. She did not want Lieutenant Joe Catalanotto to die.

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