threw questions at her like she was some kind of underling, not even giving her a chance to answer one before he tossed another one at her. And that, on top of the heated words they’d exchanged at the palace, was too much, as far as Eliza was concerned. Settling into a more comfortable position, she leaned back in her seat and surveyed him with a jaundiced look in her eyes that he would have been wise to be wary of.
“Since we’re going to be working together, Your Grace,” she said silkily, “I think it’s important that we begin as we mean to continue. I know you’re the head of Montebello Intelligence, and I understand you’re used to grilling people, but in the future, I would appreciate it if you didn’t treat me as if I was some sort of suspect. For the record, I don’t take orders well and I appreciate the word please when I’m asked to do something. I’m also reasonably intelligent. If you’ll remember that, we’ll get along just fine.”
Just that easily, she put him in his place and made him feel like a jackass, all without breaking a sweat. He was the one with royal blood, but she was the one acting like a damn princess. And Lorenzo couldn’t help but admire her for that. She’d had every right to tell him off—he’d acted like a jerk, and he didn’t know why. There was just something about this tall, skinny American that really set his teeth on edge.
She was a reporter, he reasoned, and he’d yet to meet one that he liked. They were all a bunch of leeches. There wasn’t a royal in the world who could make a move, however innocent, without a reporter somewhere jumping on the story and making money off of it. And he hated that. Other people were allowed their privacy and the right to occasionally do something stupid in public without it making headlines, but not a royal. Because of reporters like Eliza.
All right, so maybe he couldn’t hold her responsible for what her cohorts did. He was still stuck with her, like it or not. He had to tolerate her, but that was it. He didn’t have to like her ingenuity, didn’t want to admire her tenacity, and sternly ordered himself not to find her Katharine Hepburn-type looks attractive in any way. He couldn’t allow himself to forget that anything he said or did while he was with her could be splashed all over the front page. He hated that, but there was nothing he could do about it—the king had ordered him to accompany her back to Colorado. His objective was to find Lucas, hopefully alive, and he couldn’t do that without Eliza.
And that meant he had to find a way to work with her. “Look,” he sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you and it certainly wasn’t my intention to treat you like a suspect. I’m not happy with the king’s orders, but I had no right to take that out on you. I won’t do it again.”
As far as apologies, it was much more than she’d expected. Pleasantly surprised, she said, “Thank you. I appreciate that.” Now that peace was established, she was more than willing to cooperate. “I don’t know what else I can tell you about Willy other than what I already have. He doesn’t deliberately lie—he’s just so suspicious that he’s paranoid sometimes.”
“But you believe him? You think he really found the scarf where he said he did?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But you just said that he’s paranoid sometimes. How do you know that he didn’t find the scarf at the crash site and just imagine it was somewhere else? He doesn’t sound very stable, if you ask me.”
Eliza couldn’t argue with that. There were times when Willy wasn’t very stable. But she believed him, and she couldn’t even say why. “I don’t know how to explain him to you. After he found the scarf, he must have called me a dozen times at work. He was truly concerned that the king was going to accept the fact that the prince was dead and name a new successor to the throne.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if he had,” Lorenzo replied. “Everyone knows that if Lucas showed up alive, even if it was years from now, that he would be the king’s heir. He’s his son. No one else could ever take his place.”
“You and I know that, but Willy isn’t always playing with a full deck. In his eyes, once the king named a successor, Prince Lucas would lose his place in line forever, and he couldn’t let that happen.”
Still skeptical, he could only shake his head in wonder. “And this is the man who’s going to lead us to the prince. God help us all.”
Eliza couldn’t argue with that. Prince Lucas had been missing for a year, and what clues there were that might lead to his whereabouts had probably long since dried up and blown away. Every major law enforcement agency in the country had already looked for him, without success. If they were going to find him, they were going to need all the help they could get.
Lorenzo had never met anyone who could fall asleep so easily. After Eliza told him everything she could about Willy Cranshaw, she pulled her notebook computer from her satchel, busily typed her notes, then tucked it away again. Just seconds after that, she leaned back in her seat and was out like a light almost immediately. Not knowing her intentions until she dosed off, he felt guilty for not offering her a bed in the lounge at the back. Then, as he found himself studying her in spite of his best efforts not to, he was glad he hadn’t.
Why did she have to be so pretty?
The thought slipped into his head uninvited, irritating him no end. He would have sworn he didn’t care much for redheads, but there was something about her corkscrew curls that he found incredibly feminine and appealing—especially when they were piled on top of her head as they were now. He wanted to touch them to see if they were as soft as they looked—but he didn’t dare.
Glancing away, he sternly ordered himself to ignore her. He might as well have told himself not to breathe. She’d forgotten to take off the small, hornrimmed glasses she wore when she worked, and they’d slipped down on her pert nose. He should have left them alone, but before he could stop himself, he found himself reaching for them.
Too late, he realized his mistake. When he gently lifted the glasses from her nose, she sighed in her sleep and turned slightly toward him, snuggling too close for comfort. The faint scent of her perfume drifted to his nose, teasing him. Swearing soundlessly, he clenched his teeth on an oath and carefully laid her glasses on the tray in front of her, then quickly turned his attention to a news magazine he retrieved from his briefcase. The words blurred before his eyes, but he didn’t look at his companion again. It was just safer that way. And though he realized it might be even safer for him to move to another seat in the otherwise empty cabin, he couldn’t bring himself to leave her presence. It was as if she held him there, by her side.
“Your Grace, we will be landing in Denver in approximately ten minutes,” the flight attendant said.
Jerked awake by the softly spoken words, Eliza sat up with a start, only to frown when her gaze fell on the tray in front of her…and her glasses. She had no memory of taking them off, let alone laying them on the tray.
Suddenly suspicious, she glanced at her companion, but he never raised his eyes from his magazine. Had he taken them off for her? she wondered, only to dismiss the idea with a soundless snort. Not likely. He might have apologized for his curt behavior, but he’d admitted he wasn’t happy about working with her. He would tolerate her, but she didn’t expect him to be considerate. She’d probably removed her glasses herself and just forgotten about it.
And that was for the best, she assured herself. She didn’t want any favors from him, didn’t want any reason to like him. They didn’t have to be friends for her to do her job—they just had to be civil. Then when they each returned to their very different worlds, they could part company without any regrets.
So she
