Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena: The Disenchanted Duke. Marie Ferrarella

this make you uncomfortable?”

      She shrugged, refusing to give him any satisfaction, even if something in the pit of her stomach was turning cartwheels.

      “Not particularly. If you want to walk around in your birthday suit, that’s up to you. I just want to go on record as saying that I sleep with my gun under my pillow and I tend to be rather jumpy where there’re any sudden moves involved.” She purposely dipped her line of vision to take in the towel he had draped around his hips and parts beyond.

      “I’ll keep that in mind.” Turning around, he reached for the clothes he’d hung on the hook behind the bathroom door and took them down. “It’s all yours. No insects.” He walked past her, then added in a stage whisper, “Just one small mouse.”

      “The only rodents that make me uneasy are rats.” Her eyes locked with his. “Big ones.”

      His laugh followed her into the bathroom, skimming along her skin even after she shut the door and took her clothes off.

      Perhaps more so.

      Cara took a quick shower, washing the dust of the road from her body as fast as she could. She was toweling herself dry in less than five minutes. Rather than securing the towel around her the way he had, she hurried back into her clothes if for no other reason than she could swear she could smell him on the now-damp towel.

      It made her uneasy, wrapping the towel around herself.

      Dressed, her hair damp and curling around her face, she opened the door. Nine minutes, start to finish, she silently congratulated herself.

      Max had his back to her and was talking in a low voice. It took her a second to realize he was on his cell phone. So he’d known who was calling. Probably his mysterious client, the one who wanted Weber taken back to Monticello, Montebello, or wherever it was he’d said he was taking the man.

      Over her dead body, she countered pugnaciously. Weber was going back to Shady Rock, Colorado, and that was that. The ten thousand dollars she was going to get was earmarked for Bridgette Applegate and Cara meant to get it to her or die trying. She owed Bridgette a lot.

      Bridgette Applegate was the last woman who had taken her in. Unlike the others, Bridgette hadn’t been part of the foster care merry-go-round. Bridgette had been a woman she’d met while she’d lived under that bridge in Denver, fighting off a fever of 103. Broke, desperate, she’d tried to take Bridgette’s purse and had collapsed in the struggle when Bridgette had fought back. She was close to being unconscious.

      Rather than call the police, Bridgette, a part-time nurse, had taken her home, put Cara in her own bed and tended to her as if she was her own daughter instead of a would-be mugger.

      After she got well, Bridgette insisted she remain with her until she figured out just what it was she was going to do with her life now that she was no longer going to throw it away. Bridgette Applegate had been the turning point in her life, the reason she believed in good instead of caving in before evil.

      And now Bridgette needed her help and she was damned if she wasn’t going to come through for the woman. And no sexy, flat-stomached, ripped P.I. was going to get in her way, with or without his towel.

      Max sensed Cara standing behind him. As politely as he could, he ended the conversation with his uncle. Everything that needed to be said had been covered, in terse, veiled language, leaving anyone eavesdropping in the palace and beyond in the dark.

      True, he still didn’t know why he was bringing Weber in, but all would be made clear once he was on Montebellan soil again. His uncle had promised as much and although Max had no desire to return to the country where the bad memories outweighed the good and his mother had been so unhappy, he knew his duty.

      Besides which, he had to admit that his curiosity about the matter was getting the better of him. He considered curiosity both his failing and his talent. Without it, he wouldn’t have pursued the career he had, wouldn’t have been as good at it as he was.

      But it also had a tendency to get him entangled in matters another man might have easily been able to walk away from.

      Like letting his imagination wander and get the better of him when it came to his new roommate.

      “Eavesdropping?” Max flipped his cell phone closed before turning around.

      Cara strode into the room as if she owned it. She’d learned a long time ago that bravado made people sit up and take notice and think twice before attempting to run right over you.

      “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s a small room. I don’t have anywhere to go and the bathroom was becoming claustrophobic.”

      He liked the way her wet hair framed her face. It occurred to him that the woman was completely unaware of her looks and totally unpretentious. He’d known so many women who were, if not vain about the gift genes and nature had bestowed on them, at least always fussing with their hair, their makeup, their clothes, paying far more attention to themselves than anyone else was.

      He’d yet to see Cara even glance at a mirror to check her appearance.

      He smiled at her. “You mean you were.”

      Her days of being shoved into a closet had created not only an underlying fear of the dark, but of tiny, confining places as well. But she’d be damned if she was going to say anything about it to him.

      Instead her eyes narrowed as she looked at his face. “You like correcting me all the time? Or am I getting some kind of a free demonstration of the way you ran that charm school of yours?”

      “Neither.” He rose to his feet, refusing to rise to her bait. His eyes skimmed over her. Her shirt was clinging to her chest, a damp spot where she’d failed to dry herself off forming just above where he imagined her cleavage to be. “You’re dressed.”

      There was only one large bath towel available beside the two hand towels. Had he expected her to come out wearing the towel like a sarong? Just because he liked to flaunt his attributes didn’t mean she did.

      “Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t wear hand-me-downs anymore.” She nodded toward the bathroom. “That includes someone else’s towel.”

      “Anymore? You come from a large family?”

      Damn, it was as if he had some kind of homing device, zeroing in on the one word she’d slipped up on.

      “I don’t come from any family at all, if it’s any business of yours, Ryker,” she informed him icily, calling an end to the conversation.

      His broad shoulders rose in a blameless half shrug. “Just making friendly conversation.”

      The hell he was. She raised her chin. She knew exactly where he was coming from. “Prying is never friendly.”

      Well, maybe he was, but any information he really wanted, he could always get from his grandfather and another wild ride on the information highway. He had the urge to drape his arm around her small, ramrod straight shoulders, but he squelched it.

      “Look, Rivers, you and I are going to be together for at least a little while, don’t you think we should have a truce?”

      Anything to get him to lower his guard again. “Fine with me.”

      He glanced over her head at the headboard. There were tacky posts on either side. Not aesthetically pleasing, but it might be strong enough to do the trick—if necessary.

      “And in the spirit of that truce, am I going to have to handcuff you to the bed, or can I have your word that you won’t suddenly try to take off with my car in the middle of the night?”

      “You have my word.” She had no intention of trying. She intended to succeed.

      After his conversation with his nephew, King Marcus replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle. He refused to believe that Lucas was dead, despite all the facts to the contrary. His son had been too full of life, too bright to have been extinguished so suddenly without a