Royal Ransom Read online

  Chapter Two

  “Let’s just say I’m a smooth operator and leave it at that, Princess.” Hunter understood why Tashya was intent on quizzing him about how he planned to impersonate her brother, but he didn’t feel inclined to answer her. He had no intention of making love to any woman in Vashmira, since an amorous distraction was a surefire way to get a man killed.

  Tashya didn’t bother even to look over her shoulder to speak to him as she led him through Alexander’s plush bachelor quarters. Luckily, Hunter had mastered multitasking. While his memory retention was not quite photographic, he could memorize and catalog the contents of each room and learn the layout while studying her stiff back and assessing her mood.

  “Don’t call me princess.” The annoyance in her tone let him know that he’d struck a sensitive nerve.

  “Why not?”

  “Alexander never does.”

  Her curt comment, meant to put him in his place, only confirmed his assessment that Tashya possessed a keen mind. Under other circumstances, he might not have been surprised. But from the extensive research he’d done on her during his flight, he knew she’d grown up pampered. He also knew she spent a good part of her free time with a stable full of Thoroughbred horses. She rode them over fences, nursed them and cared for them, not exactly a hobby for the faint of heart. She revealed a toughness by trying to influence political changes within her country. Hunter knew all too well that politics could often be a dirty business, and in this part of the world, making changes had to be even more difficult for a woman to accomplish. But again, Tashya had undertaken a task that took brains and guts and that contrasted with the debutante image she projected so well.

  To her credit, although she clearly didn’t like him calling her princess, she wouldn’t say so. Instead she’d found the key to stopping him by mentioning his mission.

  “What does Alexander call you?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t sis.

  Because no way could he think of Tashya Zared as his sister. Hunter had four sisters who’d grown up in various attractive shapes and different sizes. His mouth never went dry when he looked at their legs. In fact, he rarely noticed their figures unless they specifically asked him to approve one of their latest outfits. However, he noticed Tashya’s attributes; his afternoon combat nap had been invaded by images of luminous skin, perceptive blue eyes and long, sexy legs.

  She halted in the plush living area. Deep, leather, U-shaped sofas faced a wall-size television screen. Colorful, silk throw pillows embroidered with gold threads and matching tassels decorated the contemporary furniture and picked up the colors from matching lounge chairs and coordinating wallpaper. The airy room possessed high ceilings, graceful interior arches and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a private courtyard with luxuriant vegetation.

  “He calls me Tashya. I call him Alex or Alexander.” She gestured behind a silk screen. “Your luggage is over there with the items you requested.” She peered curiously at his belongings.

  “What?”

  “Those bags don’t look as if they contain clothes.”

  “They don’t. I’ll wear Alexander’s stuff.” He didn’t elaborate on the rest of his equipment, and although clearly curious, she didn’t pry.

  She turned from the luggage to face him, her features composed, her eyes direct. “I appreciate your willingness to attempt to turn yourself into Alexander, and, despite my earlier skepticism, I’ll do everything I can to help you. So, what’s first?”

  Wow. Talk about diplomacy. She sure knew how to diffuse the tension caused by her earlier comments. However she could do nothing to ease the interest flaring in the pit of his stomach.

  Keep your mind on work.

  “Your help will be invaluable.”

  She must have heard the challenge in his tone because her brows knit downward into a slight frown. “How? Because I know Alexander?”

  “Exactly. You know his looks, his speech patterns, his day-to-day habits. Can you find me a picture of your brother? The bigger the portrait and the fewer clothes he’s wearing, the better.”

  She searched his face, her eyes round and solemn as if contemplating whether or not he was serious. Finally she nodded at some thought she didn’t share, snapped her fingers and hurried toward a closed door. “I think I know just the picture.” She opened the door, stepped into a bedroom, plucked a framed picture off the wall and returned, carefully closing the door behind her. “The court photographer took this at the beach last summer.”

  He accepted the frame, and their fingers touched. Soft skin with delicate calluses stroked him for the briefest second, calluses from gripping the reins of one of her horses. In that fleeting moment an awareness between them stirred, kindled, flared. She must have noticed the heat, too, because she released the frame so quickly that he juggled the picture before retaining a firm grasp. Was she sensitive about being touched? Or sensitive about his touch?

  He didn’t know. Couldn’t afford the distraction. Hunter’s father, a Vietnam veteran, had taught him about his duty to his country before his ABCs. Hunter’s job to protect this woman had to be his first priority. He couldn’t afford the jolts of stimulation zinging through him, jolts that would distract him from concentrating fully on the task ahead of him.

  Hunter forced his consideration from the princess to the prince’s photograph. A smiling Alexander wearing a swimsuit mugged for the camera as he played volleyball on a beach. In the background, a blue sea stretched to the horizon.

  “This is perfect.” Walking over to his bags, Hunter hefted a bulging case, returned to Tashya and grinned at her. “My cosmetics bag. I never travel without it.”

  “How…charming.”

  He unzipped the bag and pulled out several boxes of hair color in different shades from dark brunette to black. He choose one and tossed it to her. “What do you think?”

  She caught the box, peered at the advertisement and frowned. “I can’t tell much from this photograph, but Alexander’s hair is almost exactly the same color as mine and Nicholas’s.”

  Again he dug into his bag and removed a pair of scissors. “A lock of Alexander’s hair would be better,” he noted. “But if I can’t have his, how about the next best thing? Mind if I cut a lock of your hair, so I can match the color?”

  “I most definitely would mind.” Tashya retreated a step and folded her arms across her chest, giving him what he thought of as her haughty-imperious-princess stare.

  This was the first time she’d exhibited pride in her looks, and he had to swallow a smile as he considered her very female yet restrained reaction. If he’d have made the same request to his youngest sister, she’d have laughed in his face. Sister number one, Kathy, would have slapped him upside the head, and he shuddered at what the twins, Alessa and Audrey, would have done.

  He gentled his voice. “A little snip won’t show. Please, turn around and lift your hair off your neck. I’ll clip just one tiny wisp from underneath. It won’t show,” he repeated. “And it won’t hurt. I promise.”

  She released a loud, aggravated breath, spun around and lifted her hair. Her long, graceful neck reminded him of the dancers in a show that his sisters had dragged him to. He’d expected to hate the ballet—instead he’d been mesmerized by the graceful ballerinas and, afterward, had endured his sisters’s teasing for weeks.

  He set the frame down on a table, then approached her with his scissors. He trailed his fingers along the base of her scalp, enjoying the freedom to touch her. As his fingers closed on a lock, she shivered. A reaction to his brief touch? Or fear that he would do permanent damage to her beautiful hair?

  He lifted the scissors, giving unnecessary instructions but needing to reassure her with his voice. “You’ll never miss this tiny lock of hair. Hold still.” He cut the piece in one clean snip. “Perfect.”

  TASHYA LOWERED HER HAIR slowly, reluctant to turn around to face Hunter until she reined in her galloping emotions. How could the slightest graze of his fingertips along her neck
make her feel so weak? Her experience with the Toad, the crown prince of Moldova, had turned her off men for the past few months.

  While she enjoyed her position in the royal family, she hated being courted solely because of her position and title, or for political reasons.

  Unfortunately, she longed for someone to want her—not for her wealth or her position—but for herself. So far, she’d met several men who met those requirements, men who were wealthy and powerful in their own right. However, she had felt nothing special for any of them.

  Now she was reacting to Hunter, a man she barely knew and probably didn’t like. She gathered that he took his assignment to impersonate her brother seriously and wasn’t here to ingratiate himself with the royal family or with her. He offered little or no idle conversation to fill the uncomfortable silences. For all she knew, he didn’t notice the awkwardness of their forced togetherness.

  Furthermore, she doubted that she and Hunter had anything in common. They came from different countries, different ethnic backgrounds, different social strata. Yet something in her responded to him on a level she couldn’t name. Fed up with herself, wondering if she would ever find the happiness that Nicholas shared with Ericka, she finally gathered her courage and turned around.

  He was gone.

  She hadn’t heard a footstep or a whisper of air. Had no indication Hunter could move as quietly as a shadow. Apparently, without saying a word, he’d headed into the bedroom, leaving the door open, as if in silent invitation for her to follow.

  Tashya didn’t go into bedrooms with men she didn’t know. Especially not a sinfully decadent bedroom with its princely bed and deluxe black-satin coverlet, plump cream-and-gold pillows and drapes thick enough to block all sunlight.

  She heard water running in the shower. Hunter must have headed straight through the bedroom and into the bathroom to dye his hair. An image of him naked in the shower seeped into her mind, his broad shoulders and his powerful chest tapering to a flat stomach, lean hips and legs. His muscular arms belonged to the man whose arousing fingertips had grazed her neck, creating the most disturbing sensation. A sensation she neither wanted to acknowledge nor to analyze. She’d much prefer that the sensual images of him stayed out of her head, but she seemed to have no control over the path her thoughts kept taking.

  She was no teenager subject to the whims of erratic and out-of-control hormones and fully believed she could make a rational decision over whom she felt an attraction to. She most definitely didn’t yearn for the excitement of falling for some military, secret agent man who’d charged into her life and who would vanish when his mission was over.

  Oh, no. She might not recognize exactly what she wanted, but she knew what she didn’t want. She didn’t want to think about Hunter as a romantic possibility. Didn’t even want to consider him taking a shower. Didn’t want to think about why she’d had such a powerful response to his touch.

  When he paraded out of the bathroom with only a towel twisted around his hips, she felt as if her horse had just leapt a six-foot fence and left her two giant strides behind. Her breath hitched.

  Hunter’s wet black hair was slicked back from his forehead. His naked chest with its curly black hair sent her pulse into a heated canter. She had to remind herself to breathe.

  Hunter paid no attention to her. He removed a cape from his bag, spread it over the floor and stood in front of a full-length mirror. With tweezers, he began to pluck his hairline and eyebrows, occasionally consulting Alexander’s picture. Then, while she watched in fascination, he gave himself a quick haircut, used Alexander’s custom gel and blew his hair dry. Finally, after consulting the picture, he cut his sideburns a quarter inch shorter. The change of hair color and style made a remarkable difference, but not enough.

  Padding to her brother’s closet, he opened the door and whistled at the huge space. Alexander probably had fifty suits in blue, another fifty or so in black and just as many in beige and white. One wall was lined with hundreds of shirts, another with dress shoes in the softest Italian leather, sneakers from lines endorsed by runners, cyclists and N.B.A. stars, fine English riding boots and sandals in every color and style imaginable.

  He glanced from the clothes to her, his expression reminding her of a determined and uncomfortable lover shopping for lingerie for his sweetheart—resolute, but at a complete loss.

  She barely recalled her intention to avoid the bedroom and stepped over the threshold. “Need some help?”

  “Please. What would Alexander wear on a casual evening spent in his room?”

  “Normally, his manservant lays out his clothes, but he’s on vacation. You need to remember that Alexander is extremely fastidious about his appearance and may reject Alan’s choice.” She plucked a dress shirt and casual slacks off their hangers, added a leather belt, shoes and socks.

  “What about underclothes?”

  She shrugged but didn’t bother restraining a grin of amusement. “Alexander doesn’t wear any.”

  Hunter winced. “You aren’t kidding, are you?”

  “My brother claims underwear binds the crown jewels.”

  Hunter carried the clothes back to the bathroom. “Does he often make bad jokes?”

  Apparently he didn’t expect an answer because he shut the door, only to return minutes later. She looked and then looked again. He really had begun to resemble Alexander. Yet, a keen examination by anyone close to her brother would reveal Hunter’s deception.

  “I’m not done yet,” he said, as if reading her thoughts.

  Once again he rooted into his cosmetics bag, and this time he removed several sets of colored contact lenses. After gently placing the lenses into his eyes, sky-blue replaced his normal gray, and his resemblance to Alexander startled her. Perhaps, he really might pull off the subterfuge.

  When he reached into his magic bag this time, she forgot to breathe. She didn’t recognize the white objects. Opening his mouth, he placed one set of caps over his upper teeth, another set over his lowers.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Your brother’s teeth are shaped and colored differently from mine. These caps fix the problem.”

  “How can you speak with those things in your mouth? Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

  “No more than walking around without underwear,” he muttered in a deliciously husky grumble that sounded nothing like Alex.

  She recalled that he’d told her changing his appearance was the easy part, and now she understood what he’d meant. If Hunter stood absolutely still and said nothing, she might for a short second believe he was her brother—but not for a moment longer. His posture was stiffer, straighter. He held his head at a different angle and even his small movements were a dead giveaway.

  Hunter moved with the sleek economy of motion of a ninja fighter. Alexander’s gestures tended to be grand and larger than life. Exuberant and flashy. Hunter possessed an inner stillness that radiated calm. Alexander was full of life.

  “You said you had videotapes of your brother?” Hunter strode back into the living room and she followed.

  “There’s a stack of tapes on top of the VCR.” She settled into a chair. “I hope you know how to work it. I’m not great with mechanical devices.”

  She didn’t mention that every time she wanted to record a program she had to ask for help. Didn’t understand why the VCRs had to be so complicated.

  Hunter had no difficulty. He popped the tape into the machine, then fiddled with two remote controls. Alexander, wearing one of his ceremonial uniforms, appeared on the large-screen television, walking alongside Nicholas during the coronation ceremony.

  “This is a recent tape?” Hunter asked. He didn’t sit. Instead he watched the tape, then used the remote to rewind a segment.

  By the fourth or fifth replay, Tashya had grown bored. She wanted to call Alex again, to make sure he was okay. She wanted to check with Nicholas’s secretary, to remind her not to schedule him too heavily over the first few weeks of his marriage. I
n the early evening, she often helped her stepmother bath the baby and tuck in her half brothers, Dimitri and Nikita. She’d had a long day, and clearly Hunter didn’t need her to study the tapes. About to say goodbye, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.

  Alex? For a moment she’d thought he had returned, then she chided herself. Hunter was mimicking Alexander’s walk, his posture, his demeanor. It was amazing. He had him down in less than half an hour. “That’s remarkable.”

  “I’m trying to establish muscle memory.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you have a saying over here that once you learn to ride a bike, you’ll never forget?”

  She nodded.

  “The reason you don’t forget is mostly due to muscle memory. The brain is good at establishing patterns. I’m trying to brand Alexander’s patterns over my own. They need to be instinctive, so that if I flirt with a pretty girl, or issue an order, or protect you, I don’t return to old habits.”

  “How long does this branding take?”

  “Usually several weeks. I’m rushing things a bit.” He turned and paced in the opposite direction.

  “You lost Alex’s timing for an instant during that turn. My brother moves his arms more.”

  “Like this?” He turned again.

  “You really are good at this.”

  She suspected that imitating her brother was not all he was good at and that Hunter would be just as good at doubling as her bodyguard as any security agent in the palace, probably better. Her confidence in Hunter soared as she watched him take on Alexander’s traits, one after the other. Although she hadn’t realized how tense she’d been since the shots had been fired into their carriage after the wedding, she now felt herself relaxing a little.

  With Hunter at her side until palace security caught the shooter, she would be safe enough to continue her normal activities. Critical votes would soon take place in the cabinet. She planned to lobby hard to see that legislation ensuring women’s rights was enacted in Vashmira. Hunter would protect her while she worked.