if another passenger was first off the plane, somebody who’d been here before and knew what to do.
Then she reached the ground and two adorable little girls came to curtsy before her and hand her an enormous bouquet of the most gorgeous pale purple roses she’d ever seen. Cameras flashed, reporters shouting in various languages. She recoiled from them as she caught a few questions in English, “Why now?” and “What are your plans?”
Which pretty much told her that there was a misunderstanding of giant proportions going on here. Either that or she was on some hidden-camera show, but for the life of her she couldn’t think who would set her up like that.
She was a little cog working at a large company that made video games. In other words, a complete nobody.
A portly, official-looking man stood at the end of the red carpet in front of a black stretch limousine. He was smiling from ear to ear, looking at her, his outfit straight out of some Renaissance painting, wearing enough velvet to do Elvis proud. But it was the military official next to him who drew Judi’s attention. He looked vaguely familiar.
His dark eyes watched her with disquieting intensity. He was a head taller than the man in the funky robes and filled out his uniform in a way that could make a girl sigh. The way he carried himself meant he was the man in charge. He had a charismatic smile that made looking away from him nearly impossible. If all Valtrian men looked like him, she might have a pretty interesting holiday yet.
More men in uniform lined her path. If it weren’t for the red carpet, she would have thought this was all some sort of security measure and the handsome stranger the security chief. As it was, she figured there had to be someone important on the plane, a celebrity even, and tried to think back to her fellow passengers in first class. Then glanced back. The two guards who’d been standing just outside the airplane’s door when she’d stepped out were still there, holding everyone else back.
Her steps faltered right in front of Liberace and the army guy. Their smiles widened as they looked at her expectantly.
She was pink-eared embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m who you think I am,” she whispered to them and looked for a way to gracefully disappear. Sadly, a trapdoor on the tarmac did not conveniently present itself.
Liberace looked confused. Army guy looked as if he might have expected her to say something like that.
But before he had a chance to respond, Liberace inclined his head and said, “Your Highness, may I present the Lady Judit Marezzi.”
The air stuck in her lungs. And stayed there permanently when his Highness—his Highness?—took her hand and brushed a warm kiss over her knuckles. Oh my God, he was! She recognized him from media photos now, although the Valtrian royal family was never as big news in U.S. tabloids as the British. But because of her Valtrian roots, the few times they had been mentioned, she’d paid attention.
His lips were utterly masculine and bone-meltingly sexy, and might have twitched, whether with annoyance or amusement she couldn’t tell.
“Welcome back to Valtria. I hope your flight was pleasant.” His voice was low and rich timbered, a voice made for seduction that resonated in her chest and seemed to nestle there.
She didn’t breathe again until he let her hand go.
Liberace looked up to the airplane. “And your social secretary and entourage?”
Entou—what? Her head was beginning to spin.
“I’m sorry, there must be a mistake.” She offered a painful smile, hating to make a fool of herself in front of the handsome prince. Oh man, the stories she was going to tell the girls at the office when she got back.
His Highness caught on first. He nodded to one of the guards next to him, who opened the limo’s door. She was ushered in efficiently, away from the flashing cameras and the most awkward public moment of her life. It bordered on ridiculous how grateful she felt for the reprieve.
The two men got in after her and, for a moment, tense silence ruled.
Then Liberace said, “I’ve sent a detailed outline of the reception, protocol and hour-by-hour plans of your entire stay to Lady Viola, your social secretary.” He seemed bewildered and scandalized by her behavior.
His Highness simply observed her. And managed to unnerve her completely just by doing that.
Her brain slowed to a crawl. “Aunt Viola?” She stared at the older man. Her aunt had just had emergency gallbladder surgery. Judi would have canceled the whole trip if her aunt hadn’t forbidden her to do it. The only time the short, timid, fairy godmother-type of a woman had ever put her foot down as long as Judi could remember.
“Who do you think I am?” she asked tentatively.
“Lady Judit Marezzi, daughter of Lord Conrad Marezzi and Lady Lillian.”
Okay, the names matched. Except for the lord and lady part, although she did remember her father mentioning to her they were from an old, important family. She didn’t remember her mother, who had died when Judi was three. She did remember her father, however. He’d gotten remarried, to an American, before dying just days after Judi’s fifth birthday. Her American stepmother wasn’t the type to dwell on the past. Neither was Aunt Viola, who’d moved to the States after her father’s death.
The limousine began to move. And for a long while, as Liberace went on about impossible and incomprehensible acts, she was frozen in place, unsure what on earth was going on and how to act. Then the car left the airport and entered a busy highway, and she was aware all of a sudden that she was being carted off to an unknown location by two strange men.
“Stop.” She raised her hand, palm out. “I need you to let me go right now.” Where was her luggage, anyway? Never mind. She would take that up with the airline later. Right now she needed to return to reality posthaste. “I want you to let me out right here.”
His Highness flashed her a somber, I-don’t-think-so glance. She appreciated the manly, sexy and formidable look on a guy as much as the next girl, but not when said guy was standing in the way of her freedom.
“Now listen—” She might have wagged her index finger for a second there before she caught herself and found her very last smidgen of ladylike restraint.
Liberace gasped. “Please consider…The press…This is…We are miles from the city proper.”
“And who are you?” She was running out of patience.
He looked puppy-eyed hurt. “I’m Chancellor Hansen. You might recall that we have corresponded.”
Uh-huh. And she kept in regular touch with Mick Jagger and the Dalai Lama, as well. She was beginning to feel on the edge of desperate.
“I need you to take me to my hotel. I’m staying at the Ramada at center city.” She dug into her purse to get the paper with the exact address.
DID SHE THINK SHE WAS in a taxicab?
“You’ll be staying at the royal palace,” Miklos said. Security would be impossible at a hotel. If that was what she wanted, she should have notified the chancellor months ago so they could have properly set it up.
“I don’t think so.” She gave
