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But if she couldn’t tell Trace yet, there was one person she could share this with. Andre, she thought, smiling to herself. I must tell Andre.
* * *
“So are you going to ask him?” Liam said to Alec in an undertone as the two brothers stripped off their boots and mufflers in the guest house mudroom. “Or should I?”
“Ask me what?” Trace said from the doorway. His stance appeared casual as he crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder and one jeans-clad hip against the door frame. As always when he was awake, he was strapped, his SIG SAUER nestled in its shoulder holster. It was such a part of him he would only have noticed if he wasn’t wearing it. He knew neither of the Jones brothers would be intimidated by him openly displaying the weapon as other people might be, so he never bothered covering the shoulder holster with a jacket when he was in the guest house.
But something was up, and Trace had a fairly good idea what it was. He knew Alec and Liam were too smart, too aware, not to have noticed the change in the princess this past week. Not to mention they could probably read the change in him, too. If nothing else, the tension in his muscles right now was a dead giveaway, so he tried to relax. He was only partially successful.
Liam glanced up but didn’t reply right away, just removed his coat and hung it on the wall rack above his boots before meeting Trace’s eyes and saying, “Is there something we should know...about the princess?”
Trace’s face hardened. “Like what?”
Alec answered for both of them before Liam could. “Like the way she looks at you.”
Trace’s eyes narrowed as he quickly decided the best defense was a good offense. His gaze moved from Alec to Liam. “Weren’t you the one who said from the get-go that the princess looks at me differently than the way she looks at either of you?” he asked Liam. He shrugged. “Nothing I can do about that.”
Liam glanced at Alec, then back at Trace. “Yeah, but...”
“But what?”
“It’s different somehow. She’s different.”
Trace cursed mentally, but refused to allow anything he was feeling to be reflected on his face. Instead he shrugged again, feigning disinterest. “You told me to cut her some slack, so I did. That’s all.”
Liam started to respond, but Alec put a hand on his arm. “Never mind,” he said. “It’s not important. ’Cause if it was, McKinnon would tell us. Right?”
His brown eyes, so like his sister Keira’s, sought Trace’s eyes. And something in that steady gaze made Trace say, “Yeah. If there was anything you needed to know to keep the princess safe, you’d know. That’s the only thing any of us have to worry about—keeping her safe.”
“Okay then,” Alec said, as if that ended the conversation. But Liam looked unconvinced, and Trace wondered just what the Jones brothers thought they knew about the princess...and him.
Once again he resolved to keep the secret of their tryst in his cabin to himself. Alec and Liam didn’t have a need to know in order to do their jobs—that was something private and precious between the princess and him, and no one needed to know about it. And he was doing his job...difficult as it was. He’d managed to regain his objectivity after an intense internal struggle, and he knew he was providing the princess with the same high standard of professional protection Alec and Liam were, if not higher. So he had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing he’d done or was doing was putting the princess at risk. Nothing.
* * *
He had always known that with great power came great responsibility. He had never hesitated to exercise both when called upon, had never shirked the difficult life-or-death decisions most men never faced. Now he bent a hard stare on the two men standing at military attention in front of him. Young. Proud. Warriors both. The crème de la crème of his fighting corps, men he had trained with. Men he trusted with his life. Men who were nearly fanatical in their desire to protect him—from anything. And even more importantly in this situation, men who would willingly kill or die on his command. Knowing he could be sending them to their deaths, but knowing, too, he had no other choice. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” he murmured to himself. That reminder was the final deciding factor.
“Make no mistake,” he said abruptly. “You have not volunteered for an easy assignment. This man has killed before. He could kill again if he perceived you as a threat. Even if you are not killed, you could be captured. Imprisoned. Put to death or left to rot for years, with no possibility of escape. No reprieve. No chance for freedom. The prison doors would open only if you were willing to talk. But that must never happen. No one must ever know. Are we clear on that? Lukas? Damon?”
