Lessons in Seduction

“Wait here.” Adam’s deep voice, so used to command, sounded through the speaker system.

A hotel valet opened the rear door, and Adam and the perfectly elegant Ms. Fulbright Scholar with the endless legs exited. Clara. That was her name.

Wait here could mean anything from thirty seconds to thirty minutes, to hours—she’d had it happen before with other passengers. He was seeing a woman home from a date; Danni had no idea if it was their first or second or something more. Maybe Clara would invite him in. Maybe she’d slide his tie undone and tear that stuffy suit jacket off his broad shoulders and drag him into her hotel room, her lips locked on his, making him stop thinking and start feeling, her fingers threading into his dark hair, dropping to explore his perfectly honed chest. Whoa. Danni put the brakes on her thought processes hearing the mental screech that was in part a protest at just how quickly her mind had gone down that track and just how vividly it had provided the images of a shirtless Adam.

Danni had grown up on the palace estates, so yes, despite their five-year age difference they’d sometimes played together, as had all the children living on the palace grounds. There was a time when she’d thought of him as almost a friend. Certainly as her ally and sometime protector. So she couldn’t entirely see him as just a royal, but he would be Crown Prince one day. And she knew she wasn’t supposed to imagine the Crown Prince shirtless. She also knew that she could too easily have gone further still with her imaginings.

Besides, Danni hadn’t picked up any of those types of signals from the couple in the back, but then again, what did she know. Maybe well brought up, cultured people did things differently. Maybe they were better at hiding their simmering passions.

She eased lower in her seat, cranked up the stereo and pulled down the brim of her cap over her eyes to block out all the light from the hotel. The good thing about driving for the royal family was that at least she wouldn’t be told to move on.

She leapt up again when she felt and heard the rear door open. “Holy—”

Minutes. He’d only been minutes. She jabbed at the stereo’s off button. The sound faded as Adam slid back into the car.

Utterly unruffled. Not so much as a mismatched button, a hair out of place, or even a lipstick smudge. No flush to his skin. He looked every bit as serious as before as he leaned back in his seat. Nothing soft or softened about him. Even the bump on his nose that should have detracted from the perfection of his face somehow added to it. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Had they even kissed?

Danni shook her head and eased away from the hotel. She shouldn’t care. She didn’t care.

Normally, with any other passenger she’d say something. Just a “Pleasant evening, sir?” At times a chauffeur served as a sort of butler on wheels. But Adam wasn’t any other passenger, and with his head tipped back and his eyes closed, he clearly wasn’t needing conversation from her. Long may the silence last. She’d have him back to the palace in fifteen minutes. Then she’d be free. She’d have pulled it off. Without incident. Her father would be back tomorrow. No one would be any the wiser.

Finally, a quarter of an hour later, she flexed her fingers as the second set of palace gates eased open. Minutes later, she drew to a sedate stop in front of the entrance to Adam’s wing, the wheels crunching quietly on the gravel. Nobody knew what it cost her, the restraint she exercised, in never once skidding to a stop or better yet finishing with a perfectly executed handbrake slide, lining up the rear door precisely with the entrance. But she could imagine it. The advanced security and high-performance modules of her training had been her favorite parts.

Her smile dimmed when the valet who ought to be opening the door failed to materialize. Too late, Danni remembered her father complaining about Adam dispensing with that tradition at his private residence. Her father had been as appalled as if Adam had decided to stop wearing shoes in public. Danni didn’t have a problem with it. Except for now. Now, Adam could hardly open his own door while he was asleep.

There was nothing else for it. She got out, walked around the back of the car and after a quick scan of the surroundings opened Adam’s door then stood to the side, facing away from him. She’d hoped the fact that the car had stopped and the noise and motion, albeit slight, of the door being opened would wake him. When he didn’t appear after a few seconds she turned and bent to look into the car.

Her heart gave a peculiar flip. Adam’s eyes were still closed and finally his face and his mouth had softened, looking not at all serious and unreachable. Looking instead lush and sensuous. And really, he had unfairly gorgeous eyelashes—thick and dark. And he smelled divine. She almost wanted to lean in closer, to inhale more deeply.

“Adam,” she said quietly. Right now she’d have been more comfortable with “sir” or “your highness” because she suddenly felt the need for the appropriate distance and formality, to stop her from thinking inappropriate and way too informal thoughts of the heir apparent. To stop her from wanting to touch that small bump on the bridge of his nose. But one of the things Adam had always insisted on was that the personal staff, particularly the ones who’d effectively grown up with him in the palace circles, use his name.

He was trying to be a prince of the times. Secretly she thought he might have been happier and more comfortable a century or two ago.

“Adam.” She tried to speak a little louder but her voice came out as a hoarse whisper. Danni swallowed. All she had to do was wake him and then back out of the car. She leaned closer, steeling herself to try again. Ordering her voice to be normal. It was only Adam after all. She’d known him most of her life though five years and infinite degrees in rank separated them.

His eyes flew open. His gaze locked on hers and for a second, darkened. Not a hint of lethargy there. Danni’s mouth ran suddenly dry. “Can I help you?” he asked, his voice low and silky with a hint of mockery as though he knew she’d been staring. Fascinated.

Disconcerted by the intimacy she’d imagined in his gaze, she responded with an unfamiliar heat quivering through her. “Yes. You can help me by waking up and getting out of my car.”

“Your car, Danielle?” He lifted one eyebrow.

“Your car. But I’m the one who still needs to drive it round to the garage,” she snapped. Oops. Definitely not supposed to snap at the prince, no matter how shocked at herself she was. Definitely not appropriate. But her curt response seemed almost to please him because the corners of his lips twitched. And then, too soon, flattened again.

Danni swallowed. She needed to backpedal. Fast. “We’ve reached the palace. I trust you had a pleasant evening.” She used her blandest voice as she backed out of the car. Stick to the script. That was all she had to do.

Adam followed her and stood, towering over her, his gaze contemplative. “Very. Thank you.”

“Really?” She winced. That so was not in the script. What had happened to her resolve to be a shadow?

His gaze narrowed, changing from contemplative to enquiring with a hint of accusation. “You doubt me, Danielle?” A cold breeze wrapped around her.

Well, yes. But she could hardly say that and she oughtn’t to lie. She searched for a way around it. “No one would know other than yourself.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

She willed him to just step away from the car. Go on into the palace. Get on with saving the nation and the world. Then she could close the door and drive away and get something to eat. And it would be as if tonight had never happened. There would be no repercussions. Not for her and not for her father.

But he didn’t move. He stood absolutely still. Her stomach rumbled into the silence.

“You haven’t eaten?”

“I’m fine.”

Again the silence. Awkward and strained. If he would just go.

He stood still. Watching her. “I didn’t realize you were driving for us again. I thought you were in the States.”

“I was for a while. I came back.” Three-and-a-half years ago she had moved back for good. “But this is temporary, just for tonight in fact. I’m staying with Dad and he had something come up.” Danni held her breath. Did he remember the ban? Would it matter now?

He nodded and she let out her breath. “Everything’s all right with him?”

“Absolutely. A sick friend. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Good.” Adam turned to go into the palace and then just when she thought she was free, turned back. “What was it you said?”

“He’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Not then. Earlier. When you were driving.”

All manner of desperate, inappropriate words raced through her mind. No, no, no. He couldn’t have heard.

“I can’t remember.” So much for her principles. She was lying through her teeth.

“It was around the time I got the laptop out to show Clara the geographic distribution of lava from the 1300 eruption of Ducal Island.”

She did roll her eyes then; she couldn’t help it. He was too much. “My point exactly,” she said, throwing her hand up in surrender. “I said, ‘Way to romance a woman, Adam.’ Really. The geographic distribution of lava?”

His expression went cold.

There was a line somewhere in the receding distance, one she’d long since stepped over. Her only hope was to make him see the truth of her assertions. “Come on, Adam. You weren’t always this stuffy.” She’d known him when he was still a boy becoming a man. And later she’d occasionally seen glimpses of an altogether different man beneath the surface when he’d forgotten, however briefly, who he was supposed to be and just allowed himself to act naturally.

Now wasn’t that time.

His brows shot up. But Danni couldn’t stop herself.

“What woman wants to talk about lava and rock formations on a date?” Too late, Danni remembered the saying about how when you found yourself in a hole the best course of action was to stop digging.