“I didn’t want to risk spilling on the dress. I mean, if I got anything on it, how would I explain to Madame? Champagne, foie gras, salmon — those I could explain, but pizza sauce?”

  She aimed for a sophisticated chuckle, but it had too many nerves in it.

  “April, I didn’t bring you here for … with any expectations.”

  She drew in air slowly. “That’s too bad, Hunter.”

  Standing there, letting him see into her while he absorbed her message was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

  Shivers of nerves were going through her knees before his frown shifted, caught fire.

  He took a step toward her.

  The buzzer sounded.

  They looked at each other.

  The buzzer sounded again.

  “They couldn’t have been late this one damned time?” he muttered.

  She giggled. Then covered her mouth for fear she couldn’t stop.

  He looked at her an instant longer, then wrapped one hand around her upper arm, guided her to a corner of the couch, then left the apartment.

  He was back with the pizza before she’d entirely recovered.

  He set the box on the coffee table in front of her. Yanked off lengths of paper towel to use as napkins, opened the fridge, placing a bottle of beer on the counter as he asked what she wanted to drink. “I’ve got beer or water.”

  “Water, please. I don’t care for the taste of beer.”

  He looked over the top of the open fridge door at her for a suspended instant. Why was he staring—?

  Then he returned the beer to the fridge, got out two glasses and filled them with water.

  Oh.

  How was she going to swallow pizza after that?

  She did. Somehow.

  He turned on the TV to a basketball game.

  “Mind?” he asked.

  “No. Though I like football better.”

  He looked over at her and grinned. “Do you?”

  She ate one slice, he had two. They watched. Commented desultorily about the game and about the commentators.

  He shifted on the couch. Not coming closer. Yet brushing his leg against hers.

  That’s all it took.

  The game continued. At least she thought it did. She suddenly couldn’t hear the announcers.

  Her breathing changed. She heard his change, too.

  “Done?”

  “Yes.”

  He took the carton and glasses to the kitchen. She was standing when he returned. They looked at each other a long moment. Then he took her hand and led her to the bedroom.

  Beside the bed, he unbuttoned his shirt partway, then pulled it over his head.

  He looked down at her. “That shirt’s never looked better. And I’ve never wanted to get rid of it more.”

  She pulled it over her head and dropped it to the floor beside them.

  “Lacy.” With his index finger he traced the uneven edge of the bra cups. Her breathing also went uneven. “How attached are you to those shorts?”

  “Not very.” She slid them over her hips and let them drop. Her voice shook a bit, but she got out the next words. “But, Hunter Pierce, if you leave me in these socks, I will never forgive you.”

  He laughed. Then he slid both hands down one leg, furling the sock, following it with his mouth. She rested a hand on his shoulder to balance as he pulled it off her foot, feeling his motion in the shifting, bunching, and stretching of his muscles.

  He repeated the motion, holding her foot up, bending down to place a last kiss on the inside of her ankle.

  She could have melted into the bed right then.

  But he stood before she could, placing her hands at his zipper, then taking her mouth in a kiss that stroked and rocked, and apparently motivated her hands. Because she was pushing down his pants and his briefs together, feeling his bare, hard skin under her hands.

  He kicked away the pants. Drew both straps of her bra down until her breasts were free, bent and covered her with his mouth, drawing on her nipple. She jolted, pressing herself against his erection, feeling it through thin material that was all that covered her.

  He tipped her back toward the mattress, holding her with one hand and pulling back the covers with the other.

  He unhooked her bra. Both of them were pulling at her panties.

  Finally. Finally, they were gone.

  He had a bedside drawer open. A condom. She kissed the side of his neck.

  Then he was over her. Sliding into her, slowly, carefully.

  “Hunter.” She tried to draw him in faster.

  He held himself back, the tendons in his arms standing out.

  “Hunter.”

  She wiggled sideways and he slid in deeper. He groaned.

  “Yes, Hunter. Yes.”

  * * *

  He returned to the bed, resting on his side with his head propped on his hand.

  The sheet covered most of her. But, as he watched, her nipples pebbled, then peaked, nudging one corner almost enough for him to see that changing center of the breast nearer to him.

  “I like that.” He voice sounded unfamiliar to him.

  She caught her breath, drawing it in. Then as it came out again, he caught the corner of the sheet and lifted it. To see all of her.

  “This is what I thought you were saying I should be ashamed of. That day on the bench in the garden. I’d seen you in the dress, and all I could think of was wanting you like this,” he said

  She turned her face to him. “No. Never. Because I’ve wanted you like this even longer.”

  He entered her again before she’d finished her sentence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  * * *

  Without either saying it, they knew it was time to return to the embassy. They showered together.

  He wrapped her in a towel, then kissed her, deep and slow.

  He picked her up, her hair tumbling out of the pins that had protected it from the shower, the towel trailing away.

  He laid her on the bed. One knee beside her, he looked down at her.

  She saw the struggle in him. Knew it was a deeper struggle than the one he thought he waged.

  He cupped the inside of her calf with one hand. Drew it up to her raised knee, then down the slope of her thigh. Down, and inside her.

  “What—?” But her body knew what. Knew it immediately. Her eyes went wide. Her internal muscles tightened around his fingers with alacrity.

  With his thumb, he gently flicked the nub at her opening, then stroked his fingers deeper inside of her. She arched, pushing her hips toward him, drawing him in more and more.

  He pressed against her side, then hooked one foot over her leg, drawing it wide. His fingers delved inside her, his thumb easing and teasing. Over and over. Her hips lifted and he encouraged her. Urged her. Pushed her. Opened her. Touched her.

  Released her.

  And held her.

  She was sinking right through the bed and floor and into the earth several stories below. She was weightless, floating up into the sky with no sense of cold or movement.

  She just was.

  Complete and empty.

  Hunter rose from the bed, went to the bathroom, then into the living room. From the faint sounds, he was communicating with someone. She supposed telling Derek they were safe. And not returning.

  Whatever might follow from that did not penetrate her haze.

  She’d never had this before.

  It wasn’t that the few other men she’d been with had been selfish lovers — well, maybe a little selfish. So they wanted her to come — expected her to come — at the same time they did. That way they got to prove they were masterful lovers at the same time they reached their own pleasure. No need to expend a lot of energy that didn’t directly reward them.

  Hunter had given her this.

  An orgasm that was all about her.

  He came back to the bed. Laid beside her, pulling the covers over the two of them together.

  * * *

  She’d slept. It was deeper night now. Not darker, because of light seeping in from the street, but later.

  He was awake.

  “My mother died when I was little,” he said. “Four, five maybe. I don’t know. I remember her a bit. Soft voice. Thin. Guess she was sick by the time I knew her.”

  She placed her hand on his ribs. Rising and falling with the intake and exhale of his breaths.

  “I lived with a family. Some sort of cousin of my father’s. When the fighting started, they wanted to leave the city, get to the country where they thought it would be safer. They said my father didn’t want me to be that far away. I don’t remember that. They told me about it when I was there last week.”

  He breathed, steady and even.

  “They hugged me. The man, his wife, a couple of their kids who were older than me and came running from nearby houses when they heard I was there. They cried. All of them cried. And they hugged me over and over. I don’t remember any of them. They said how glad they were to see me, to see with their own eyes what they had been told — that I had grown up to a man, with a fine job. I don’t know how they could have known anything about me, have been told anything about me. I asked, but they waved it off — not important. As long as I was safe. … Safe.”

  She felt him slip back into memories — of last week’s meetings or of longer ago?

  After several minutes, he expelled a deep breath.

  “I don’t remember them. What I remember is my father coming to get me. There were men with guns in the street. Not soldiers, but they must have been loyal to the king, because they let us through. My father brought me to the palace. Told me that my duty was to be brave. Then he was gone again. I don’t remember much about the days of fighting except not being allowed outside. And knowing that my father was doing his duty. That was always what he did — his duty to the king and the country.

  “I never saw him again.”

  His hand on her back drew her against him. She reached farther around him, her body covering more of his, as if she could protect him. But the pain was inside him.

  “The next memory is the man saying the words that meant he was dead. I knew the words. But I didn’t understand — couldn’t take in the meaning. He couldn’t be dead. My mother was dead, but she’d been small and sick. He was big and strong. I couldn’t believe it. Not until I saw that the man held the shoulder belt from my father’s uniform and my mother’s locket. The next thing I remember is running and running, and knowing I’d already been running a long time. I knew I couldn’t run any more. I slept where I’d stopped running. Then I did it again. I have no idea how long. No idea where I ran to or from. Until … Scotty.”

  She tightened her arms around him.

  * * *

  They were about to leave in the morning when she said, “Hunter, I have something else for you. Something I only got yesterday.”

  He looked around, then made a show of looking behind her back. “Can’t be a present. No wrapping paper in sight. And you wrap anything that doesn’t move.”

  She tried to smile. From his expression the attempt failed.

  She handed him the paper where she had carefully written the numbers and words. Not like her hasty scrawl on the pad she’d been using for notes as she’d advanced layer by layer until she reached these few lines of information.

  He read it, flipped the paper over, saw that side was blank and read the front again. Then he looked at her.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s an address and phone number.”

  They’d lived not half an hour’s drive from here all this time.

  “I can see that.” His mouth started to lift into a grin. Then it stopped. As if he knew.

  “It’s Scotty’s parents,” she said.

  “I told you—”

  “They want to see you.”

  He swore, short and profane, harsh enough to make her throat hurt in sympathy.

  “Did you know his father had been in the foreign service? That he’d even worked in that embassy that was attacked in Africa — Oh, my God. How stupid of me. Of course you knew. That’s why — why you joined the Diplomatic Security forces. Sharon said you could have gone to any agency, but you chose State.”

  He looked away from her. That was okay, she didn’t need to see his face to know she was right.

  “They want to see you,” she repeated.

  “I don’t want to see them. I won’t see them.”

  He thrust the paper toward her. She kept her hands at her side.

  He closed his hand into a fist, so tight the tendons in his arm stood out. Then he opened his hand, dropped the crumpled sheet at her feet and walked out.

  * * *

  The drive was silent. Inside the gates of the embassy, he turned off the car, but neither of them got out.

  “I’m going to the office, I’ll be back this afternoon,” he said.

  “Hunter, you have to face the past. You have to face his parents. You have to forgive yourself. They expect you today.”

  She placed the crumpled sheet she’d smoothed out on the console between them. Then she added another sheet. “These are the directions. And their names.”

  “I’m going to the office,” he repeated harshly.

  She reached out and stroked the back of his head, down to this neck. “I wish you’d do it for yourself. You deserve that. But if you won’t, then you have to do it for them. And for Scotty.”

  “No—”

  “Their names are Pierce and MaryLou Hunter Ascot. He named you after his family.”

  * * *

  “Where’s Hunter?” Derek asked as soon as she walked in. “I saw his car come in.”

  “He has an errand to run.”

  “I’ll call him—”

  “No. Please.” He looked up at her vehemence. That’s when she noticed the strain on his face. “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know. There’ve been a lot of calls… Madame hangs up on them and says the king can’t be disturbed.”

  “What kind of calls?”

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. “She won’t tell me. Says it’s embassy business.”

  “Then it probably is.” Surely Madame could handle any situation. “I’m going to walk the dogs, then take a shower. After that I’ll see if I can find out from Madame what’s going on. In the meantime, if you’re really worried, call Sharon. But, please, Derek, don’t call Hunter. It’s important.”

  * * *

  The knock on her bedroom door was so perfectly timed April was tempted to believe the knocker somehow knew precisely when she slipped her shoes on and finished drawing a comb through her hair.

  She opened to the door. Madame stood there.

  “I must speak,” she said.

  “Of course. Is this about the phone calls?”

  Ignoring the question, Madame came in, closed the door behind her. “You have sent him to those people. The people of that Scotty.”

  “The family of the soldier who helped him?” As confused as she was by Madame, she added calmly, “Yes.”

  The other woman said something that could only be a curse from the tone, though April had no idea what the word was. “He must return to Bariavak when King Jozef goes. Before the surgery, he must know the boy will go with him.”

  April shook her head. “Hunter won’t go to Bariavak. He won’t leave here, his job—”

  “He will go if you go to Bariavak.”

  “Me? But … but you know I’m not Princess Josephine-Augusta, I’m not his granddaughter.”

  Madame made a dismissive sound. “Of course. I have known since before I ever set eyes on you. Yet you paraded as his granddaughter.”

  “I did not. Besides, he knows—”

  “It doesn’t matter what he knows. It is what he needs. And he needs that boy with him. He needs a new generation of true men. Not that nephew of his. So you must go to Bariavak so the boy will.”

  Questions crowded forward. The one that came out was, “Why? Why would King Jozef need Hunter to return to Bariavak with him?”

  Madame looked at her, unblinking, long enough to make April want nothing more than she wanted to break the look. But she didn’t. At last, Madame turned away. She sat on the bench at the foot of the bed, staring straight ahead.

  April pulled the desk chair around to face the other woman, sat, and waited.

  “I was in Bariavak at the time of the rebellion,” Madame said, “not yet having come here to the embassy. My older brother was the closest aide to King Jozef. We had … grown up together.

  “Laurentz was the head of the king’s personal security. His wife had died, leaving him a young son, who spent time with a cousin’s family while his father was on duty. When the fighting began, he received permission to bring his son inside the palace walls.

  “He was everywhere in those hours, guiding the defense of the palace, leading the fighting. Everyone knew then and after that without Laurenz, there would have been a different outcome. He turned the tide. Only when he reported to the King that fact did he learn of the disappearance of Princess Josephine-Augusta. He immediately set out to try to find her.”

  Madame sat still and quiet for a moment. When she resumed, she needed to clear her throat.

  “They must have come very close to those who took the princess, because they were killed. Laurentz and Anton Sabdoka, who was his second in command. My only child.”

  A gasp escaped April, but Madame’s control and dignity did not allow for questions or sympathy. Madame would tell this as she had to.

  “When the word was brought, my brother was with the king, as was the boy. The messenger blurted out the news. For a moment, the boy seemed not to understand, then he did. He cried out and he struck the king. His fists against King Jozef’s legs over and over as he said, ‘You killed him, you killed him.’ And the king let him. Until the boy could strike no longer.

  April wiped at tears on her cheeks but never took her eyes off the other woman.

  “Amid all that was happening, with his own granddaughter missing and his daughter distraught, Jozef immediately ordered that Laurentz’ son be cared for and brought up in the royal household.” She shook her head. “There was such chaos. The boy ran away. No one knew where or even when. My brother had come to me … to tell me the news of my son. So he was not there to lead, either. Still, a search was made. For days they searched. But there were so few left, from those killed, those searching for the princess, those trying to have the country run again. Jozef was everywhere. Talking to everyone. Seen at all moments. Reassuring his people. Repairing damage to hopes as well as buildings. For all except Princess Sophia. She slipped away. Each day that her baby was gone a little farther.”

 

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