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“I’m not a Young Republican and it kills my dad.” Bob’s satisfied smirk said a lot about why he leaned to the left politically.
Lina sighed and shook her head. “I swear you go to the rallies simply out of reactionary rebellion.”
“Didn’t you tell me once that you decided to study politics because your dad told you not to?” Bob asked pointedly.
The princess nodded, not looking the least bit phased. “It was a little more complicated than that, but his negative reaction to my interest in the subject did spur me on. However, how I react to what I’ve learned in my studies is the result of personal convictions. I hold beliefs different from my family, but not because I want to get a rise out of my dad. I doubt he’d even deign to notice, but my family’s political beliefs have had a strong and sometimes negative impact on my life.”
“In what way?” Bob asked.
Lina merely shook her head and changed the subject. Apparently Bob was not a close enough friend to be aware of Lina’s position as daughter to a desert king.
CHAPTER TWO
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Hawk learned that, though Lina could be described as nothing less than involved, she had no friends that knew the truth about her. In fact, while she had many people she spent time with, she had none Hawk would classify as close friends period. At least the report about her he had received had been correct in that regard. Even if it had been wrong about so much else.
And nothing in the report had prepared him for the growing attraction between them. He had thought it would be something he could use to stay close to her, but discovered quickly that it was far more a detriment than a benefit in regard to doing his job.
How could he protect her when he was distracted by how her ebony hair shone in the sunlight? His fascination with her waist-length hair had been born the first time he saw her wear it down. It looked and felt like silk. And how did he know how it felt?
He couldn’t stop himself from touching it. And Lina didn’t seem to mind. While she shied away from a lot of physical touch from others, keeping hugs short and one-armed with even her female acquaintances, she leaned into Hawk’s touch. Not that he had touched her…that way. But he wanted to. Badly. His fingers actually ached to brush against the luscious curves hidden under her clothing.
It wasn’t that she wore anything overtly sexy, but it was the way she moved, with an innate sensuality he was certain she had no idea she possessed.
Like right now, she was sitting across from him at the Starbucks her friend Bob had first mentioned. The way she held her head in attention while Hawk spoke highlighted the delicate curve of her neck and drew his gaze down to s that were molded lovingly by the cotton of her T-shirt. He was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra. Or the one she had on was so thin she might as well not be wearing it, because for the last several minutes her s had been hard. His mouth was watering for a taste of the sweet flesh.
“Sebastian?” she asked in a soft…almost uncertain voice.
His gaze shot from her s to her face and he felt himself going red. When was the last time that happened? He was a twenty-seven-year-old millionaire in his own right. He’d left blushing boyhood behind too long ago to remember it, if indeed it had ever been a phase for him. “Yes?”
“I…uh…I wondered if you wanted…um…”
“Yes?”
She was silent for several seconds, chewing on her bottom lip, looking too damn delectable. Then she said all in a rush, “Maybe we could go for a walk down State Street.”
“Sure. If you’ve got the time.” Once again, her regular bodyguard believed that she was studying. This time, at home.
When Hawk had learned Lina knew how to bypass the security and leave the apartment she shared with a chaperone next to the one that housed her security detail, he’d been ready to strangle somebody. Her bodyguards were at the top of Hawk’s list. How many times had the princess left her home unprotected? Hawk had not revealed the security breach to the family retainers, though.
He was operating under the umption that the threat to her family could be from within and he wasn’t taking any risks. He would give a full report with detailed suggestions for improving security for the princess when this situation was over. He had another operative from his staff at Hawk Investigations watching Lina’s building when he slept. And she was supposed to be sleeping. With the feisty princess one could never be sure.
Normally he would have the entire case igned to his operatives, but Hawk had made his investigative agency an international contender and multimillion dollar company by knowing when it was prudent to take a personal interest in a client’s needs. He’d certainly made the right call this time.
Lina moved close to him as they walked along the tree-lined street near the capitol building and, of its own volition, his arm snaked around her petite waist.
It was only natural considering his role, but it felt too good. Not only was she a client (even if she didn’t know he was her paid protector), but Hawk didn’t do affectionate gestures and warm fuzzy feelings. His liaisons with women were just that. Commitment free, exchanges of pleasure without any false protestations of emotion. He didn’t even have female friends. He had no interest in getting serious with a woman. In any guise. Ever.
Every woman he had known had been devious in her own way. The woman who had given him birth had pretended maternal interest until the day she found a more lucrative benefactor than his father. She’d dumped them both and had contacted Hawk exactly twice in the intervening years. Both times she had wanted to use him. He’d let her the first time, but known enough to send her packing the second.
His grandmother was just as mercenary, though she’d stayed with Hawk’s grandfather. He didn’t know if the men in his family sucked at picking out women to share their lives with, or were simply unlucky. Either way, he’d managed to follow family tradition twice before establishing a firm rule about the type of relationship he was willing to have with the feminine sex.
Which was none at all. Not with the women related to him and not with the women who occasionally shared his bed.
While the things he felt around Lina were more intense and harder to control, he had to control them. Because she was no different than the other women in his life he should have been able to trust.
She lied to her security detail and family on a regular basis. Would she be any more trustworthy in a relationship?
He didn’t think so. After all, she hadn’t yet told him the true nature of her life. They might not be in a relationship and she wasn’t even a candidate for a brief liaison. But she didn’t know that. As far as she knew, their flirtatious friendship could go anywhere. Yet she still maintained the deception about her life.
And that life—her existence as a princess—was one reason the depth of his desire for her was so completely unacceptable. Even if she wasn’t his ignment, an affair would carry too many complications with it.
Not only was there the whole ity thing, but Lina herself was not the type of woman to be content with a little, or even a lot, of between the sheets pleasure. She was more the type to believe in everlasting love and the whole fantasy that went along with it.
He might not trust her. He may be more cynical than other men still naïve to the ways of women, but Hawk wasn’t about to be the cause of Lina’s shattered fantasies. That would happen soon enough. Life would see to it.
Not even a princess was immune.
On top of all of that, Hawk had worked too hard to build his company into an international power player in the industry. He wasn’t risking its reputation for a woman. No matter how enticing she was.
Flashing faster than instantaneous replay, scene after scene of her time with Sebastian rolled across the movie screen in Lina’s mind.
Sebastian had offered to drive her to the kayaking excursion in his car. A Dodge Viper, the same gunmetal gray of his eyes, the powerful sports car didn’t have room for anyone else. So they would spend the ninety-minute drive to the campground alone. She found her attention occupied by his profile and the way his powerful thighs bulged in his jeans, rather than the admittedly gorgeous scenery out the window.
She’d spent endless hours thinking about this man, trying to decide if he was as interested in her as she was in him.
She had no experience and no one she felt comfortable going to for advice. That left her with her own opinion based on…well nothing. Okay, there’d been the gossip from other girls in high school, but none of it seemed to apply. Sebastian wasn’t pushing for sex or copping a feel every time they were in a remotely private place.
She thought it was probably because he was older, a graduate student who already had some experience in the business world.
She was pretty sure he desired her, though. The way he looked at her at times made her brain melt. And other bits as well.
She’d tried reading women’s magazines, but they all touted open communication in a relationship. Did that mean she was supposed to just ask him?
