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“This one,” she said finally in English, surprising him yet again. The bedroom was neither the largest nor the most opulent, although it had its own attached sitting room and luxurious bath. But when he joined her at the window from which she’d drawn back the drapes he realized why she’d picked it.
The Rockies soared in majestic wonder—layer upon snow-capped layer of blue and purple mountains filling the horizon. All at once Trace remembered Zakhar’s capital city, Drago, nestled deep in a mountain valley surrounded by towering, jagged peaks, and the princess’s words at the airport, I hope to soon feel at home here.
She turned abruptly, not realizing how close he was behind her, and bumped into him. “Excuse me,” she said, looking up at him with a faint smile. But Trace didn’t back away. The expression on her face in the seconds before she ran into him held him mesmerized. He knew that expression. Knew the emotions it sprang from. He just never expected to see it on the face of a princess.
Loneliness.
Why the hell should she feel lonely? It’s not as if she has no one here with her from home—she brought a bevy of people with her. Every one of them here exclusively to see to her comfort and protection. Just like me.
He stared into her face. Her smile faded and her green eyes widened. And Trace could have sworn the delicate, expensive perfume she wore increased its potency as her pulse points heated up. Something tugged at him again, something he hadn’t felt in years. Not just desire. Not just passion.
He wanted to run the tips of his fingers along the curve of her cheek and banish the loneliness from her eyes. He wanted to pull the clip from her golden brown hair and have it spill over his hands in a heavy wave, then wind it about his throat, binding them together. And he wanted to draw her into the shelter of his arms and tell her...
Tell her what?
His face hardened in rejection of his unprofessional reaction to her and he backed away, muttering a soft imprecation under his breath. Then he turned and abruptly strode out. But not before he saw an expression in her eyes that stabbed through him. An expression he knew would keep him awake that night—and many nights to come—trying to figure it out. An expression so markedly different from the avid one he’d seen in the eyes of countless women over the years that he would never be able to erase it...or her...from his mind.
She was attracted to him. And it surprised the hell out of her. But that wasn’t what tore at his heart. That wasn’t what would haunt his nights. It was her quiet expectation—and acceptance—of his rejection that told Trace more than words just how little she expected from the men in her life. Princess or no princess, no one as young and lovely as she was, no one with her impressive string of accomplishments and with her whole life ahead of her should feel that way. Ever.
Chapter 2
Mara watched Special Agent McKinnon go, watched him walk away from her as she had expected. Why should he be any different? she thought. But she was still surprised deep down...and that surprised her. He had seemed so unique, so different from all the men she knew, men who either treated her with kid gloves and a stultifying protocol, or the ones she had always studiously avoided—men who looked at her with conquest in their eyes, wondering what it would be like to bed a princess.
Trace McKinnon had done neither. He had reminded her of her brother, Andre. No, that is not correct, she told herself with a little shake of her head, wondering why her first instinct was to liken Special Agent McKinnon to her beloved brother when they were nothing alike. Not in physical appearance, and not in their attitudes toward her.
Andre had always called her dernya as far back as she could remember, which meant “little treasure” in Zakharan. That had been his pet name for her ever since childhood, because, he said, she was the most precious gift he’d ever received. She’d always tried in word and deed to live up to Andre’s estimation of her, even though it had sometimes meant sacrifices few people would have understood. Andre had never insulted her the way Special Agent McKinnon had, slicing through her defenses with that one word, Princess. But the protective air, the way he’d taken charge, yes, that was Andre. And she knew that despite how Special Agent McKinnon felt about her she was safe with him.
But there was something more. Just a flicker— perhaps she had imagined it—but for a few seconds she thought his eyes had softened as they gazed at her. Softened, and warmed. Not the way some men looked at her with avarice or sexual conquest in their minds, as if she were a prize to be won. No, his eyes had seemed to plumb the depths of her lonely soul. As if he understood loneliness. As if they shared some special bond. Then he had cursed under his breath and walked away, and the spell had been broken.
