The Royal Treatment

The young lieutenant gave her a wary glance and a wide berth. Jade ignored him and stared after J.T., with a look cold and hard enough that, had he been the slightest bit more sensitive, would have sent him to his knees. As it was, he walked through the double doors to the palace and disappeared.

Disgusted, she gave in to the urge riding her and kicked the iron gate. All she accomplished with that smooth move was to darn near break her foot.

She limped down the drive to the sidewalk and the van waiting for her at the curb. Amazing. Five minutes with J.T. and her professionalism had dissolved into a sea of raging hormones and temper.

Sometimes “ex” didn’t really mean a thing, did it?

Two

Jade walked into her apartment, tossed her purse and keys onto the narrow hall table and slammed the door behind her. Automatically, she snapped both locks, then slapped the chain into place. She took extra care in turning the new dead bolt.

Temper, she warned herself, then kicked off her shoes and limped across the room in her stocking feet. Her toes ached. “Darn him, anyway. Why did it have to be him? Thousands of soldiers in the army, and J.T.’s the one I have to deal with.”

The plush, mauve carpet caressed the soles of her feet as she walked straight across the neat, uncluttered living room to the sliding glass doors. She flipped the lock, pushed the heavy panel open and stepped out onto her balcony.

The wind slapped at her, made her shiver, but she welcomed the cold, hoping it would put out the fire still burning in her blood. But the chances of that were pretty slim. Like it or not, J.T. could do things to her with a look that any other man wouldn’t be able to accomplish with a touch.

Jade sighed, reached up and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips, as if by doing so she could wipe away the memory of J.T.’s penetrating gaze. Seeing him again shouldn’t have been so hard. Three years had passed. Three long, busy, lonely years. It should have been more than enough time to get him out of her mind and heart.

But nothing about her relationship with J.T. had ever been easy. Jade closed her eyes and saw his face again. Those dark, chocolate eyes that seemed deep enough to hold the secrets of the universe.

She blew out a long, shaky breath. Her hair flew about her face and she reached up to scoop the long strands back. Tipping her face into the breeze, she inhaled the scent of the ocean and listened to the seabirds screeching as they wheeled and dipped in the gusts of wind.

Her pulse rate slowed and the knot in her stomach slowly dissolved. The sea-damp fall air was just what she had needed to cool off. Worked every time. Well, against her temper. The lust still humming in her veins was something else entirely. Usually, no matter what problem was bothering her, Jade could step out here, let the wind caress her, and she’d feel her troubles slide away. In fact, this wide, private balcony with a view of the bay was the reason she’d rented the apartment in the first place. Wouldn’t you know that J.T. would be the one problem not so easily gotten rid of?

She leaned her forearms on the railing and stared down at the world below. From her home on the top floor of the three-story building, she felt as though she could see forever. The horizon stretched out before her, filled with possibilities. And from three stories up, she felt safe from…

“Don’t go there,” she told herself firmly. But it was too late. Her mind had already drifted into dangerous territory. It wasn’t enough that work itself was becoming a problem. That J.T. had popped back into her life. No, she also had to worry about whoever it was sending her letters that were just creepy enough to make her install a new dead bolt on her apartment door.

The latest one had been delivered to her desk at work only yesterday, and she’d already memorized the contents.

My lovely Jade. Soon we will be together. Soon the world will know, as I do, that we were meant to be. Soon, my love, soon.

The police assured her she wasn’t in serious danger. Most of these cases, they insisted, turned out to be nothing more than an enraptured fan who didn’t have the courage to confront the object of his affection face-to-face. Still, that didn’t make her feel any better about having an unknown admirer stalking her.

Wrapping her arms around her middle and leaning against the weathered stone balustrade, she forced her thoughts away from what she couldn’t control and back to the problem at hand.

Getting into the palace.

Which would entail getting past her ex-husband. No small feat.

Just thinking about J.T. was enough to heat up her bloodstream again, and it wasn’t all due to anger. Life would have been so much easier if it were.

With the king in a coma, the public wanted to know that their country, their interests, were being taken care of. And it was Jade’s job to investigate that. At least, it was if she ever wanted to move away from fluff pieces to real news. If she ever wanted to prove to her father that— No, this wasn’t about her father. Or the baggage she carried around with her. This was about her goals. Her plans. Her ambitions.

Something J.T. had never understood.

Now, once again, standing between her and accomplishing her task was that mountain of a man. “Nothing’s changed there, has it?” she asked herself. Three years ago, he hadn’t wanted her to work, either. He’d wanted a traditional wife. A woman who would have dinner on the table every night at six and be content with taking care of him and their future children.

On the surface, there was nothing at all wrong with that. But Jade wanted more. Always had. And when she couldn’t get it through J.T.’s thick, chauvinistic skull that her ambitions were no less important than his, she’d stomped out of his life in a fit of righteous anger.

The only problem was, she’d left her heart behind.

Looking back now, she could see that she should have stayed and worked it out. Or at least tried. But she’d been so much younger then. So full of fire and impatience. And J.T., she conceded in her own defense, hadn’t been much better.

Jade sighed heavily and faced reality. The plain fact was she’d left, determined to have a career. But now that she had it, the career she’d wanted so desperately wasn’t making her happy. Maybe things would change if she actually managed to get the interview with the queen. But right now, Jade felt as though she’d made a stupid bargain when she’d given up her marriage for ambition.

Seeing him again hurt. The near electric shock of meeting his gaze was still buzzing through her brain. Almost as if she’d found something she hadn’t known was lost.

“Oh, you’re in sad shape,” she muttered, turning away from the ocean view to go back inside. She left the glass door open, and the sheer white drapes billowed in the wind like a sail. Like her, they were anchored and going nowhere.

A knock sounded on the apartment door and she jumped. Unease skittered along her spine, but she went to answer it anyway. Any interruption at all was better than letting her brain focus on J.T. and what they’d both lost. But she froze with her hand on the knob. The days of just throwing her door open without thinking about it were over.

She peered through the peephole and sighed as she recognized her building’s doorman.

“Charles?”

He stepped back and smiled, knowing that she was looking at him, then held up a manila envelope. “A package was delivered for you. From the television station. I’ll just leave it outside your door.”

“Thank you.” Quickly, she disengaged the locks and opened the door.

Charles was already walking to the elevator.

Jade snatched up the envelope, stepped back inside and closed and locked the door again. She looked down at the envelope. From the feel of it, there was a video tape inside, and when she tore it open, she was proved right.

A piece of notepaper fell from the envelope and she bent over to pick it up. “Found this on your desk. Thought it might be important.” It was signed by Janine, her secretary.

“On my desk?” Jade muttered as she walked back into the living room. There were no labels on the tape. Nothing to indicate what it might contain. But someone in the newsroom must have left it for her. Heading directly for the TV, she slipped the tape into the VCR, then turned on the set and hit Play.

An image of the palace appeared on the oversize television screen, and a chill crawled up her spine to lift the tiny hairs at the back of her neck. Traffic sounds, the call of birds and the sighing of the wind across the microphone were the only sounds. The unseen cameraman worked the zoom lens, and Jade was suddenly watching herself—with Harry, the station cameraman, right behind her—standing just outside the palace gates. She saw her own image argue with the guard, then grab the iron gate and shake it. She watched as she sent Harry back to the van, as she confronted J.T.

She relived the whole confrontation because she was simply too stunned to hit the stop button. In the video, she saw her hair ruffled by the wind. She felt the cameraman’s obsession as he slowly tightened the zoom to pan in on her alone—in effect, cutting her off from J.T. and the rest of the world. Keeping her separate.

For him only.

Slowly, the camera panned from the top of her head to the sole of her tapping foot and back up again. Jade felt her stalker’s obsession as if it were a living thing in the room with her. The shot tightened further, lingering on her eyes, her mouth. She could hear the cameraman’s labored breathing as he watched her, and the sound nearly choked off her own air.

At last, when she was turned away from the palace gates, the tape ended, fading into a solid blue screen that finally woke her out of her stupor. She jabbed the stop button with one fingertip, then dropped the remote to the floor as if it were poisonous.

Silence crashed down around her. The drapes, still billowing in the wind, suddenly made her aware of an unsecured entry point, and Jade hurried across the room. Of course, to break into a third-story apartment through the balcony doors, her stalker would have to be Spider-Man. But it made her feel better to slam the glass door shut. She locked it, then bent down to drop the metal guard into the track behind it.

Alone and scared, she turned her back on the view and stared at her apartment. For the first time, she didn’t see the comfortable, yet stylish furnishings. What she saw now was her sanctuary…invaded by a threat she couldn’t identify.

And she wanted to call J.T. so badly, her heart ached.

There was too much going on for J.T.’s liking.

He sat in the single chair opposite his boss’s desk and let his mind wander while Franklin Vancour was on the phone. In his fifties, Franklin was as fit as a man half his age. It came from years of military training, no doubt, and J.T. could appreciate that. The other man was as dedicated to duty as he was, and on that common ground, the two men understood each other.