By Order of the Prince

Chapter Two

She had to be crazy.

Somehow between the time she’d left Amir’s suite and the time she’d left Antoine’s, she’d lost her ever-loving mind. The minute Beth reached her private office she sank down at her desk and shook her head, wondering what on earth she’d been thinking when she’d given Antoine that envelope, when she’d offered to help him.

She should have kept her mouth shut and taken the notes to Jake like she’d intended. The problem was she hadn’t been thinking. Instead, she’d been falling into the blue depths of Antoine’s eyes, touched by the loneliness and the feeling of isolation he hadn’t tried to hide.

She’d offered her help because she’d thought he needed it, which was a ridiculous thing for her to think. He was a prince, for God’s sake. He had people to take care of his every wish, his every need. The last thing he needed was a simple woman who didn’t know a thing about foreign politics and had only a high school education helping him investigate threats against members of royal families.

She checked her email and the voice mail on her phone to make sure there weren’t any fires to put out with the housekeeping staff, then moved to the multitask printer to copy the threatening notes in the envelope. With both the originals and the copies back in her pocket she left her office to do a walk-through of the hotel before heading back to Antoine’s suite.

The bulk of her work occurred in the mornings when she coordinated the staff to make sure all the rooms were cleaned and the guests’ needs were met. She was not only responsible for the cleaning staff, but also for inventory of housekeeping items needed for the cleaning and maintaining of the guests rooms.

It was her routine in the evenings to walk through the hotel and be accommodating to any guest who might have a problem or simply to be a friendly face to both returning regular guests and new people who had come to enjoy the luxury resort.

She knew how important it was to offer a personal touch to the people who vacationed or came here for work purposes. She liked to think that her work here was at least part of the reason people chose to come back again and again.

When it was finally time to return to Antoine’s suite a new tension began to well up in her stomach. The man definitely made her just a little breathless and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.

The last man who had left her breathless had not just broken her heart, but had shattered it into a million pieces. She’d never allow herself to be that vulnerable again. And she’d be a complete fool to entertain any feelings for a visiting prince who would soon return to his own life in his own country.

He’d obviously been waiting for her as he answered the door almost before her knock sounded. She stepped into the room and he closed the door behind her. “I made two copies of the notes,” she said. “One for you and one for me.” She handed him both the original and his copy.

“Why would you want a copy?” he asked curiously.

“In case something happens to yours,” she replied and tried to ignore how her heart stuttered at his nearness. At five feet nine inches, Beth was unaccustomed to men towering over her, but Antoine was a good four or five inches taller. He made her feel small and feminine.

“If you’ll get your driver, I’ll give him directions to the forensic lab where we can find Jane,” she said.

“You’re going to be my driver,” he replied smoothly. “I don’t want anyone to know what we’re doing, what we’ve found and that includes my entire security team. We must figure out a way to get me out of the hotel and to your car with nobody seeing me.”

Beth stared at him, not only nervous at the idea of being alone with him but also by the fact that she would be responsible for him while he was with her. “But what if something happens? What if you get hurt?”

His sensual lips curved up in a smile that warmed the ice-blue of his eyes. “Unless you’re planning on beating or maiming me, I should be just fine.”

“But surely you should take somebody from your security team with you,” she protested. She’d feel so much better if there was somebody big and burly and fully loaded with an arsenal of weapons.

The blue of his eyes paled to an icy silver and his lips thinned. “No. We go alone.” His voice was laced with command and for the first time he looked and sounded like a prince accustomed to getting his way.

She frowned thoughtfully. “Okay, if you go down this hall to the end, there’s another corridor, turn right and follow it and you’ll see an exit door. If you give me five minutes I can pull up outside the door.”

“Perfect, then I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

As Beth left the suite and headed back to the lobby nervous anxiety pressed tight against her chest. God forbid she had a wreck while driving the Prince of Barajas. Once again she found herself wondering when exactly she’d lost her mind and when she could hope for its return.

When she got into her car she quickly scanned the interior, noting the tear in the passenger seat, the faint layer of dust that covered the dashboard. Not exactly fit for royalty, but the ten-year-old car was paid off and still ran perfectly well. He’d just have to deal with the less-than-royal transportation.

She told herself that one of the reasons she wanted to help him was because this whole ordeal had hammered the hotel with negative publicity. But she suspected the truth of the matter was that she was desperate for something, anything that might fill the vast loneliness in her life, even if it was just for a single night.

She pulled up against the curb by the door she’d told Antoine to exit and watched as he strode toward her. Once again she was struck by his handsomeness and as he flashed a quick smile to her a crazy burst of heat momentarily usurped her nervous anxiety.

“Mission accomplished,” he said as he slid into the passenger seat. “Nobody saw my escape.”

“Won’t somebody worry if you aren’t in your room?” she asked as she pulled away from the curb.

“I have my cell phone with me and told my staff that I was retiring for the night and didn’t want to be disturbed for any reason. Nobody will even know that I’m missing from my suite,” he assured her.

Beth gripped the steering wheel tightly and headed toward the small town of Dumont. The scenery was spectacular with the last gasp of the sun sparking off the distant mountains and painting the landscape in lush shades of deep gold.

Antoine looked out the window and even though he was silent she felt a pulsing energy radiating from him. He turned to look at her, as if he’d felt her surreptitious gaze. “Do you think Jane will help us?”

“If anyone can pull a print from those papers, she can,” Beth replied. “But, she’s a by-the-book kind of woman. She might insist that the notes be handed over immediately to Sheriff Wolf.”

“Then I’ll just have to convince her that that’s not in our best interest,” he replied with an easy confidence.

“She’s pretty tough,” Beth warned.

“Yes, but I’m pretty charming,” he countered.

Beth gave a rueful laugh. “You charmed that envelope right out of my pocket.”

He sobered and she felt his gaze, intense and piercing on her. “I had a feeling you’d found something important and it was equally important that I convince you to tell me.”

“Do you always get what you want?” she asked lightly.

“It’s certainly rare that anyone tells me no.”

“I would imagine that being surrounded by yes-men could get a little boring at times.”

“Perhaps,” he replied and then cast his gaze out the side window once again.

The town of Dumont, Wyoming, was a small, charming place with historic buildings that dated back to the early 1800s. It had been a town filled with good, hard-working people before the royals had arrived. Now the streets were clogged with news vans and strangers.

Beth drove down the main drag and parked in front of the brick courthouse. “Jane’s lab and offices are on the second floor,” she said as she turned off the engine.

Antoine glanced at his wristwatch. “Won’t the offices be closed by now?”

“Security will let her know we’re here and it’s rare that Jane isn’t at work this late in the evening,” Beth explained.

Together they got out of the car and she noticed that Antoine did a quick sweep of the area with his narrowed gaze. Apparently he saw nothing to cause him alarm and they walked to the front door of the courthouse where Beth gestured to the security guard inside.

Within minutes they were in the elevator taking them to the second floor and Jane. She met them at the doorway of her office, her hazel eyes widening as she saw Antoine. “Prince Antoine, Beth…what’s going on?”

Antoine glanced up and down the hallway and then gestured to her office. “Ms. Cameron, perhaps we could speak to you in private.”

“Of course.” Jane ushered them into the small office and closed the door behind them.

“I was instructed today to pack up Sheik Amir Khalid’s items in his suite to be stored until we know what happened to him or somebody from his family came to claim them. While checking the nightstand drawers I found an envelope taped to the bottom of one,” Beth said.