Romancing The Crown: Lorenzo and Anna: The Man Who Would Be King / The Princess And The Mercenary

“Turn left at the next four-way stop,” she told him. “Then just keep going straight for ten miles until we reach a dirt road. After that, it gets a little tricky.”

Tricky was, in fact, an understatement. When they reached the dirt road that led to the box canyon where Willy lived, Eliza knew from experience just how easy it was to lose your way. Off-road drivers had carved out dozens of tracks that intersected the main road and it was very confusing.

Frowning, she leaned forward to study the terrain and said suddenly, “Turn left here…I think.”

A quarter of a mile later, the road turned as rough as a washboard, just as it should have, and Eliza breathed a sigh of relief. “This is it. Watch the odometer. His house is exactly two miles from the cattle guard we’re coming up on.”

Because of the roughness of the drive, they were forced to go slowly, and it was another ten minutes before they actually reached the trees that surrounded Willy’s house on all sides, completely concealing it from the untrained eye. When Eliza told him to pull over and park, Lorenzo looked around in confusion. “Here? I thought we were going to his house.”

“We are,” she said, nodding toward the trees. “It’s back there.”

When he lifted a brow in surprise, Eliza had to smile. Willy’s cabin was only a hundred yards from the road, but from where they were parked, it looked like there wasn’t another living soul for a hundred miles. “I told you he likes his privacy. C’mon.”

Leading the way, she picked her way through the trees to a small log cabin that had to have been built by one of the original settlers in the area. Not quite plumb, it leaned to the left and had a front porch that appeared to be on the verge of collapsing. There were only two windows, which were dark and locked tight, and a formidable wooden door. Dark and dusty and less than welcoming, the place didn’t encourage visitors any more than Willy did.

Knowing that, Eliza felt she had to try to talk some sense into Lorenzo one more time. “This isn’t going to work, Your Grace. If you’d just listen to me…”

For an answer, he stepped forward and knocked loudly on the door. Not surprisingly, no one answered.

“Obviously, he’s not home,” he said, scowling.

“Oh, he’s here,” she said, and nodded to a metal loop on the door where it could be padlocked from the outside. “When he’s not here, he padlocks the door.”

“But there’s no vehicle.”

“Not that you can see,” she replied. “He drives an old army jeep that he hides in the woods.”

She didn’t say another word, but she didn’t have to. She’d made her point. Willy was home, and she knew him better than Lorenzo did. If he wasn’t answering his door, it was because he was feeling threatened.

Glaring at the closed door, Lorenzo swore softly and shot Eliza a hard look. “I screwed up, didn’t I? Don’t answer that,” he said quickly. “I know you told me he didn’t trust outsiders. I just thought I could get him to talk to me.”

“Why? Because royal blood flows through your veins? Trust me, Willy couldn’t care less about that. In his eyes, you’re a stranger. You could be the president of the United States, and he still wouldn’t open his door to you.”

“But he will for you.”

She shrugged. “If conditions are right and he wants to.”

Frustrated, Lorenzo knew he had no one but himself to blame for this little setback—she’d warned him that he needed her if he expected Willy to cooperate, but he hadn’t believed her. As head of Royal Intelligence, he didn’t have to go through someone else to get the information he needed. And he didn’t like it, dammit, but what choice did he have?

His pride stung, he said stiffly, “Would you call him, then, and see what you can arrange? We can’t even hope to find the prince without knowing where Willy found the scarf.”

For an answer, Eliza pulled out her cell phone and punched in Willy’s number. When she got a scratchy answering machine, she wasn’t surprised. Willy always retreated when he was upset. Hopefully, he’d surface soon.

“Willy, this is Eliza,” she said quietly when the machine began to record. “I apologize for intruding. Duke Lorenzo and I are leaving now, but it’s very important that I speak to you. Please meet me tomorrow morning at nine at the waterfall. The duke will be with me, but I’m the only one you have to speak to, okay? Please don’t let me down, Willy. We need your help.”

She hung up and found herself face-to-face with a very irritated duke. “What the hell did you do that for?” he demanded. “I don’t want to meet him tomorrow. What’s wrong with today? It’s not even eleven-thirty in the morning. We’ve got the whole damn day ahead of us.”

“Willy needs time.”

“We don’t have time! Don’t you get it? Thanks to your boss, the word is out that the prince is alive. And that means he’s in danger. Do you know how many con artists, opportunists and outright thugs read the headlines this morning and saw this as their lucky day? They figured out—like we did—that the prince had to be in some kind of distress or he would have contacted his family by now. And they’re going to go after him.”

The thought sickened Eliza, but there was nothing she could do about it. “I’m doing the best I can, Your Grace,” she replied. “If I could hold Willy’s feet to the fire and make him talk, I would. But all we can do now is wait. Trust me. He won’t talk until tomorrow.”

If they were lucky. She didn’t say the words, but she knew he heard them, nonetheless. His green eyes dark with fury, he struggled with his own impatience, and she knew exactly how he felt. She hated Willy’s phobias, hated the way he called her with a press-stopping story he’d somehow stumbled across, only to retreat like a scared turtle when she needed more information. Sometimes, his tips paid off. Many times they didn’t. She could handle that because she knew whenever she followed up a tip from anyone, there was always a chance it would fizzle into nothing. What drove her crazy, though, was the number of times Willy had left her cooling her heels. Patience wasn’t her strong suit, and she could well understand Lorenzo’s frustration.

To his credit, though, he knew when he was beat. Sighing in disgust, he said, “All right. It looks like we’re going to play this Willy’s way. We might as well go back to the hotel.”

Chapter 5

They stayed at the same hotel they had before, this time in a suite with two connecting bedrooms, and Eliza spent the day working on the opening of her feature. It should have been easy, but she felt as if her entire career was on the line, and with good cause. Not only was Deborah waiting in the wings to take over her column, but no one else in the world had this story. She had to do it right. So she struggled with words and couldn’t seem to find a place to start the story…until she shifted her focus to her meeting with the king and queen of Montebello. As she described the palace and the reaction of the prince’s parents to the news that there was a good chance their son was still alive, she knew her readers would be more than satisfied with the story.

“I want to read that.”

Lost in the quiet world she always retreated to in order to write, it was several long minutes before Lorenzo’s words registered. When they did, she glanced up, startled, to find him scowling at her from the overstuffed chair from which he’d apparently been watching her for some time. Looking over the top of her glasses, she said, “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” he said flatly. “I want to read that. If there’s anything that might be harmful to the prince, you’ll have to take it out.”

Her eyes narrowed fractionally. “Really? I don’t remember anything in my agreement with King Marcus that gives you the right to censorship.”

“That’s because there isn’t one.”

“You’re damn straight, there isn’t one! I never would have agreed to it if there had been. This is the United States, Your Grace. We’re real big on freedom of speech, not to mention freedom of the press, around here.”

The citizens of Montebello were, too, but he only said, “It’s my duty to protect the prince. If I say there’s something in your writing that could be harmful to him, it’s coming out. End of discussion.”

She would have never deliberately placed anyone in danger with her writing, but what went into her column was for her and Simon to decide, not a fairy-tale duke who would be king. And it was high time he realized that.

“You think so, do you?” she taunted, arching a brow. “Well, take that!” And with a single key stroke, she sent the beginning of the feature in an e-mail to Simon.

Later, she realized it was her red hair that got her into trouble. The spark of temper that went along with that hair had been her cross to bear all her life. It had just flared like a match. She knew they were both under a great deal of strain, knowing the prince was out there somewhere, in possible danger, and they couldn’t discover where because her informant wasn’t in the mood to cooperate yet. She felt guilty and frustrated…and resentful that Lorenzo thought so little of her just because she was a reporter.

Stunned, Lorenzo couldn’t believe her defiance. No one had ever challenged him so openly before! Outraged, he stormed over to her, so frustrated that he stupidly thought there had to be a way he could retrieve the e-mail. “Give me that!”

“No! What are you doing? Let go!”

Jumping to her feet, she grabbed her computer and clutched it to her chest even as he reached for it, and for a second, they acted like two children fighting over a favorite toy. Then his fingers accidentally brushed against her breast and everything changed. In a heartbeat, awareness flashed between them like heat lightning.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Lorenzo froze. He was, he liked to think, a man who knew women. But in that instant, he felt like a sixteen-year-old who’d experienced the kick of sexual attraction for the first time in his life and didn’t have a clue what to do about it. With a will of their own, his eyes dropped to her lips, which had parted in a soft gasp, and his mind blurred. All he could think about was kissing her.

And it was all her fault. That soft, fresh scent of hers was driving him crazy. He’d dreamed of her last night, replayed in his sleep that moment in the used-clothing store when he’d helped her into the sheepskin coat and turned her in front of the mirror so she could see how pretty she was. He should have kissed her then. He’d wanted to, but the store clerk had watched them with an eagle eye, and the time hadn’t been appropriate.

But now they were alone and he could already taste her….

Need clawing at him, he reached for her…and saw his own need reflected in her eyes. And just that quickly, the fog of desire misting his brain cleared. What was he doing? he wondered wildly, stiffening. They didn’t even like each other! The only reason they were working together was because they were being forced to. And she was a reporter, for heaven’s sake! How had he allowed himself to forget that? God only knew what would end up in her column if he was stupid enough to drop his guard with her.

That brought him back to his senses as nothing else could, and with a softly muttered curse, he abruptly stepped back. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking of rushing you like that. I’m just going crazy sitting around here twiddling my thumbs, and then when you sent that e-mail, all I could think of was getting it back. If anything happened to the prince because of something you wrote—”

“It won’t,” she said hoarsely, her heart pounding crazily. He’d almost kissed her, she thought, dazed, then told herself she had to be mistaken. She had a real talent for pushing his buttons. He was furious with her—why would he want to kiss her? Her imagination was just playing with her mind and her lonely heart, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to make a complete fool of herself.