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She fought against him, kicking and hitting, but he kept the cloth pressed against her nose and mouth. Her lungs burned with the effort not to breathe as she struggled in his iron grasp, but it didn’t do her any good. Blackness ate around the edges of her vision, the lack of oxygen taking its toll. She didn’t have long before she’d pass out, with or without the help of whatever chemical was in the cloth.
Ten years. She’d made it a decade without anyone finding her, without her secret coming out. Foolishly, she’d thought she was finally safe. Now she’d pay the price for a crown she’d never worn and a kingdom she’d never ruled. Dom pulled her close to his hard chest so she wouldn’t fall to the cold marble floor, holding her tight but without cruelty. No doubt that would come later.
“Everything is going to be okay, Princess Eloise,” he whispered against her ear. “I promise.”
But it wouldn’t. She knew better than to ever trust a man who promised happy endings in the middle of a kidnapping.
Chapter Two
Dominick Rasmussen tucked Princess Eloise closer against his chest as the elevator whisked them down to the subterranean garage and then opened its doors. He did a quick visual sweep of the space before stepping out, but it wasn’t necessary. His team had been on surveillance duty for hours while he suffered through playing dress-up until a well-executed phone call sent Eloise’s coworker on a wild goose chase to her child’s school. Everything had gone perfectly, just as they’d planned…and that was the problem.
The kidnapping had been too easy, and it pissed him off. His anger beat against him in time with his footsteps, echoing against the concrete walls and parked cars in the nearly vacant space. The whole store had been a security nightmare. Getting up to the private personal shopping area required a special key card to open Dylan’s main elevator on the eighth floor, but stealing one from the concierge on the main floor would have been child’s play. Once on the showroom floor, there were surveillance cameras, but they were only angled to capture movement around the designer clothing, especially the pieces of couture displayed like artwork. There was a sideboard filled with snacks and drinks but no register to warrant another camera. That would be too uncouth for the überrich, who had their bills sent to their accountants, he supposed.
Then there was the employee-only area. Sneaking back there had taken the skill of a toddler on a mission to grab the last chocolate chip cookie. All he’d had to do was, literally, take a single step beyond a curtained wall. There weren’t any surveillance cameras in the employee area, the elevator leading to the garage, or the roped-off parking area for eighth-floor shoppers. There wasn’t even a damn valet waiting, because anyone who shopped on that exclusive floor had their own driver.
If the Fjende had gotten to her first, she’d be dead and his country would be lost forever. By staying away from her so long, he’d nearly guaranteed the violent coup that had allowed the Fjende to steal the throne would go unanswered. The Resistance would have sacrificed so much for nothing. Dom would do whatever it took to make sure that never happened. The royals would return to Elskov and retake the throne.
/> Princess Eloise sighed in his arms, her soft breath tickling the sensitive skin along his neck and sending a shot of lust straight to his cock. Without thinking, he tightened his hold on her. It was the wrong choice. She was small, only five feet, six inches, according to her file, but her curves filled his hands, pressed against his chest, and imprinted on his mind.
The flirting earlier hadn’t been necessary for his mission, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. The Elle Olsen he’d met upstairs was a woman who needed to be flirted with, fucked hard, and satisfied completely. For a few minutes, he’d let himself believe he was the man for the job. Thank God he’d come to his senses and remembered she was pretending to be someone else just as much as he was. He could flirt with the shopgirl; he couldn’t even make eye contact with the princess without her prior approval.
Pulling himself back from the brink again, he punched the button on his key fob and unlocked the Mercedes. She stirred in his arms and clutched the lapels of his suit as he lowered her into the passenger seat. The weakened chloroform he’d soaked the handkerchief in only needed to keep her knocked out until they made it to his secure compound in the mountains a few hours outside Harbor City, but already she struggled against it. Good. Elskov needed a strong ruler who’d fight, because the Fjende weren’t going to give up power willingly.
He clicked her seat belt closed and shut her door before circling the silver coupe and getting in on the driver’s side. The motor purred to life, and he pulled out of the garage, waving to the parking attendant as he did, making sure his raised arm and partially turned body blocked the man’s view of the passed-out woman in the passenger seat. After merging into traffic, he pressed the button on the comm unit hidden in his tie clip. “The package is secure. See you at rendezvous point.”
His cell rang exactly sixteen minutes later. The caller ID read “unknown number.” Of course, he didn’t need a name to know who was on the other end. He was surprised the Resistance’s leader had waited this long. Dom put in his Bluetooth synced to the coupe; if the princess woke up on the drive, there would be trouble enough without her hearing the voice on the other end of this call. He hit the answer-call button on his steering wheel. “Good afternoon, sir.”
“Is she okay?” the other man asked in his signature wheezy half croak, which was all that was left of his voice after the assassination attempt.
“Yes, everything went as planned.” This operation had been in the works for a year, slow and steady to make sure the Fjende weren’t alerted to the princess’s whereabouts. They’d planned so far ahead that they’d hacked into Dylan’s internal server six months ago and put in a two-week vacation request for one Elle Olsen so her disappearance wouldn’t cause concern. The timing for this had to be perfect.
“Did you have to get physical?” the other man asked.
Dom tightened his grip on the steering wheel. As if he’d hit a woman, let alone the one about to wear Elskov’s royal crown. “No, sir. The chloroform eased the process.”
“You better not have given her too much, dammit. Everything rides on her.”
“I’m well aware of that.” He reached across to her and pressed his fingers to the pulse point in her throat. Electricity singed his skin where he touched the smooth column of her neck, making his lungs tighten and his cock thicken against his thigh, but he held on long enough to confirm what he already knew. “Her breathing is steady and her heartbeat strong. She might have a headache when she wakes, but that should be it.”
“Does she have an inkling about what’s at stake?”
“We didn’t get into that with her yet, sir.” No, instead he couldn’t stop flirting with her to see the light pink blush that climbed its way up from the sliver of cleavage visible above the scoop neck of the white sweater that clung to her, outlining every delicious curve. “I thought it would be prudent to get her out of Harbor City and have that conversation in a more private and secure location.”
“Don’t tell me where. The fewer specifics I know, the better. I thought we could risk a face-to-face prior to the Kronig, but that can’t happen now. The Fjende are getting too close.”
That was all it took to get his mind zeroed back in on what mattered. “Any sign that they discovered her location?”
“Nothing our spies have reported. Make sure it stays that way.”
“It will,” Dom said without hesitation.
“Don’t get cocky with me. You lose focus, and everything goes straight to hell. We have one shot at this. You have a week to get her prepped and ready. No fuckups, Rasmussen.” Per usual, the Resistance’s leader hung up without a good-bye.
Dom clicked off the Bluetooth and pressed the gas pedal harder. After the violent havoc they’d caused in the coup during which most of the royal family had been killed, the Fjende had become the power behind the throne in Elskov. For ten years they’d plotted and planned, but with the Kronig coronation celebration in seven days, victory was within the Resistance’s grasp, and he’d do whatever it took to make sure nothing interfered with the big day. The sooner he got the princess to his well-guarded compound, the better.
A couple of hours later, he passed through the gate guarded by two well-armed Resistance members and turned onto the half-mile drive. The entire twenty-acre compound covered the top third of Mount Livingston. The defensive position provided a perfect way to guard against intrusion. Motion sensors, surveillance cameras mounted at strategic locations, and enough armed muscle to take out a small army protected the rest of the property. He parked the car in front of the log château that had once been a vacation home for the Du Ponts. With fifteen bedrooms, servants’ quarters, and a bunkhouse, it had acted as the Resistance’s headquarters for the past ten years, but they’d be abandoning it soon, all thanks to the slip of a woman sleeping peacefully in the passenger seat.
Her skirt had worked its way up during the drive, showing off miles of long, muscular legs that made his mouth dry. He shouldn’t look—she was his sovereign—but he was a man, one who’d dedicated his adult life to her whether she’d known it or not. Unable to resist, he looked. His gaze traveled over her tight body from her killer legs to the thin strip of creamy flesh at her narrow waist exposed by how her sweater had climbed up her body, to her full lips partially open in a relaxed O that made him wonder what they’d look like wrapped around his dick.
