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“Elskovians never surrender.” He poured a third shot for each of them. The Russians and their vodka had nothing on the Elskovians and their akvavit. He handed her the glass, and their fingers brushed, and just like that the air around them again crackled with sexual tension. “They fight until they win.”
“No matter the cost.” On autopilot, she repeated the rest of the words emblazoned on the Elskovian state seal and tried to ignore her awareness of him.
He clicked his glass against hers in toast. “No matter the cost.”
The alcohol barely singed this time as she sipped, watching him over the rim of her glass. She didn’t know what this man was willing to sacrifice to get his way, but judging by the stony resolve reflected in his blue eyes, she imagined he’d give everything. It was both comforting and frightening.
Chapter Five
Night had turned the sky inky black hours ago, not that Dom had noticed. His eyes were glued to the woman shown on the small monitor in the mountain compound’s security office.
He shouldn’t be watching her. It was invasive. It was wrong. It was creepy. Yes to all of the above, but he kept his eyes glued to the monitor anyway, because he was an asshole. As long as he remembered that little fact, maybe he’d stop thinking about how five hours earlier he’d dry humped the future queen like a drunk college freshman behind the dorms. He would have done more—in fact, his balls still ached to do more—but the feedback from his comm device brought him back to reality lightning fast.
Ignoring the way blood rushed to his cock just from the memory of her pink lips and the way she’d felt pushed up against him, he focused on the bay of monitors in the security room.
There were surveillance cameras throughout the house’s public areas. The monitor that had captured his attention showed the library tucked between Princess Eloise’s bedroom and his. The door to the hallway remained shut, and to a newcomer that entry point seemed like the only way in. But there were secret doors to each of their bedrooms hidden behind bookshelves that were activated by hidden levers. On the bedroom side of things, the doors were hidden from the unobservant just as well, but she’d found hers. He couldn’t help but admire her for that. The woman was more than a pretty face; her mind worked fast to connect the dots that left others wondering. If she hadn’t already, she’d soon discover the small armory secreted behind a false wall in the back of her walk-in closet. He wouldn’t expect any less from her. She hadn’t made it through the past ten years on her own without any outside resources or support because she was an airheaded wimp.
He pressed a few buttons on the control pad, an
d the monitor showing the library went blank. “Let her have some privacy,” Dom said. “It’s been a rough day.”
“Yes, sir,” said Major Bendtsen as he sat in front of the console, never taking his eyes from the twenty monitors that played a rotating series of shots from strategic locations around the mountain compound.
“Status report.”
“Everyone is on high alert but will remain as hidden as possible from view, as you ordered. Resistance One has been updated to her arrival. Our people in Harbor City and Elskov continue to monitor the Fjende operatives, but it doesn’t seem they’re aware the princess has been removed from her daily life.”
“It won’t stay that way for long, so don’t lose focus.” Not like he did every time he was near the woman. “Did you tell His Roy—” Dom stopped himself before he said the words that couldn’t be spoken aloud, not even in this trusted space. “Did you tell Resistance One that she doesn’t want to assume her duties?”
“No, sir.”
He didn’t blame the major. The messenger who delivered that news was bound to end up bearing the brunt of Resistance One’s fury—or his own. Ten years’ worth of strategizing to restore the monarchy to power and finally have his revenge on the Fjende who’d killed his family lay in the hands of a woman who didn’t want anything to do with the plan. He had five days to persuade her to do her duty; if he didn’t, the country went to shit, the Fjende would win, and his parents would remain unavenged.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Carry on.” He slipped out of the security room, exiting through the door that from the other side looked like a working indoor waterfall.
The water feature at the end of the greenhouse had been set up so that the liquid was diverted any time the door opened from the inside and with the downward push on a garden gnome’s red hat from the outside. He didn’t know what kind of paranoid person had designed the château with its hidden passages and secret rooms, but it made it the perfect location for the Resistance’s headquarters, and it had been his first purchase when he’d made his hundredth million eight years ago.
The air was hot and sticky inside the double-paned, bulletproof glass walls, and he slipped off his suit jacket as he crossed the clay-colored Spanish tile floor with its embedded sensors that detected changes in pressure—one of his little additions that added to the hidden appeal of the château. Emerging into the sitting room on the south end of the main building, he checked for the discreet surveillance hidden in the mounted taxidermy so cleverly—one of the stag’s black eyes was a camera. It was the same with the heat-sensitive motion detectors in the oak-lined hallway, the weight-activated alarms on the stairs, and the concealed visual spying devices throughout the château. If he relaxed his guard here in the mountains, it was because it was the one place in the world he could.
He paused for a moment outside the library door to give himself enough time to suck in a deep breath and then entered the room.
“I was wondering where you’d run off to.” She flicked on one of the Tiffany table lamps. The soft light created a dim halo around her body, outlining every delectable curve. “For a large house, there sure aren’t a lot of people around.” She paused and arched an eyebrow. “Or are there?”
So that’s how they were going to play this, huh? The challenge in her voice did something to him. Made him want to push her right back, see how she reacted, and find out if he could get her to lose some of that cool control on display. Let the games begin.
“You know there are.” He shut the door behind him and leaned against it, another nonverbal reminder that she might be royalty, but here in this château he was the one in charge.
“How many?” she asked, her tone light, but he wasn’t fooled.
“Enough.” No one knew all the specifics of security except for him, not even Major Bendtsen, who acted as his second in command. Some would call it paranoia. He preferred to think of it as the ultimate safety measure.
She sauntered over to the bookshelves and let her slim fingers slide across the books’ spines as she made her way to the hidden door that led to her bedroom. Stopping at just the right spot, she pulled out a first edition of Huck Finn. The shelf swung open on silent hinges, revealing her room.
“And the Scooby-Doo haunted house doors?” she asked.
He would not look at the king-size bed visible through the opening. Imagining her naked on that bed was the last thing his big or little head needed at the moment. “They came with the house, Your Royal—”
