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

questioning look on Max’s face. “I hate loose ends. Why not let them know that he wasn’t going to be here? Someone else can use this room.” And then she grinned. “Aren’t credit cards wonderful?”

      She knew that Ryker had to have tracked Weber here the same way she had, by the man’s unwitting use of his credit card. Pausing to raise her skirt, she holstered her weapon, not unaware that Ryker was watching her every move and that there was an appreciative look in his eyes.

      She had to admit that, in part, she was playing up to it.

      Lowering her leg, she adjusted her skirt, allowing it to fall back into place. There was an amused smile on her face.

      “Careful, Ryker, or your eyes are going to fall out of your head.”

      It was beyond him how she could move so fluidly under the circumstances. He couldn’t picture moving around with a gun between his legs.

      “Doesn’t it chafe that way?”

      The question almost made her laugh. “Let me worry about that.”

      To his surprise, she took out her key and unlocked one of the handcuffs on Weber’s wrist.

      Had she changed her mind about leaving? “What are you doing?”

      As Max watched, she snapped the cuff on her own wrist. “Making sure that Weber doesn’t go anywhere without me.” She looked at Max innocently. “Ready? Let’s go.”

      Before he could say anything, she passed him and went out the door, pushing Weber out before her.

      They made an unsettling trio walking through the lobby, the woman in white handcuffed to the thin, well-dressed man in gray, with the tall, dark, solemn-faced man flanking him on the other side. They garnered more than their share of stares as they made their way to the front entrance.

      Bypassing the revolving door, they took the regular one, going through it single file. The man in the gray suit was between them.

      Once outside the entrance, Cara produced a ticket from her purse and handed it to Max.

      “What’s this?”

      “Your car, or it will be once the valet drives it up.” She shifted slightly, wishing she had on something other than a clingy dress with layers of material adhering to her. The day promised to be a scorcher and traveling on the road was going to be no picnic. Ryker was probably the type who made you roll down your windows instead of using the air conditioning.

      He looked at the ticket incredulously. “You put a stolen car in valet parking.”

      “Borrowed,” she corrected. “I placed a borrowed car in valet parking.” She smiled, as if it was a no-brainer. “Made it easier that way.”

      It was also safely out of the way rather than in plain sight the way it wouldn’t have been if she’d parked it on one of the adjacent streets.

      “Borrowed,” Max repeated, shaking his head. The woman was in a class by herself. “And just when did you intend on returning the ‘borrowed’ car?”

      Also simple. “After I brought my man in.”

      “Where would you know where to find me?” he pressed, wanting to see how far she would carry the charade out. He thought she was just making this up as she went along. But to his surprise, she rattled off his address. “How did you—?”

      She looked at him as if he had suddenly turned simple-minded. “The registration is in the glove compartment,” she reminded him. Cara pointed to the uniformed man hurrying toward them. Dressed in green livery complete with a hat, the valet looked as if he was barely out of high school. “Give the ticket to the nice man and we’ll be on our way.”

      Coming to a halt before them, the valet seemed to immediately hone on the steel bracelet linking Cara and Salim together. His eyes grew large.

      “Are those handcuffs?” he asked in almost hushed reverence.

      “Magic trick gone bad,” Cara told him matter-of-factly.

      “We’ve got a hacksaw around here somewhere,” the valet offered, his eyes bobbing up and down like tiny black bouncing balls from her face to her cleavage.

      Because the attention the valet tendered was so awkward and fumbling, Cara found it almost sweet. She smiled at him and could have sworn that he blushed in response.

      “Don’t worry yourself about it. It’s under control.” She slanted a look toward Max. “Give him the ticket, Ryker.”

      “I am being taken prisoner against my will,” Weber suddenly yelled, pushing himself forward.

      Though Salim was handcuffed to Cara, it was Max who pushed him back with the flat of his hand.

      Surprised, the valet looked from Cara, to the man she was handcuffed to, to the other man with them, clearly in a quandary.

      “Help me and I shall reward you,” Weber promised urgently.

      Cara twisted Weber’s arm behind his back while smiling sweetly at the valet.

      “Don’t let him fool you,” she warned. “Kevin kids like this all the time. We’re professional actors. We give shows in front of children’s groups all over the state. Kevin just did a line from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Pretty good, wouldn’t you say?”

      “Yes, ma’am, um—” At a loss who to believe, the valet plucked the ticket from Max’s hand and hurried off to retrieve the car that corresponded to the number on it. He was too nervous to look back.

      One corner of Max’s mouth curved upward. “A Thousand and One Arabian Nights?”

      She shrugged. “It was the first thing that came to mind.”

      It had just popped into her head when she’d looked at Weber’s olive complexion. It struck her that the man looked a little like he might have come from some country in the Far East.

      She had no idea how close to the mark she’d come, Max thought. There was no doubt in his mind, now that he had seen “Weber” and listened to him speak that the man had to have originated from Tamir, the small island country that was not too far from Montebello. There were dark forces that originated from Tamir, forces that formed terrorists groups who disagreed with the current house in power there. And with nearly everyone else as well.

      Silent up until this outburst, Weber cursed their souls to eternal hell.

      “You will pay for this,” he growled. “Both of you.” He glared at Max contemptuously, his eyes becoming tiny, dark slits. “Especially you.”

      “No,” Cara corrected. “You’ll pay—or at least the bail bondsman will.”

      She looked from the prisoner at her side to Max, getting an uneasy feeling that there was a piece of the puzzle that she was missing or had somehow overlooked. Was she going to be in any kind of danger, going off with these two? Had she let her guard down already with the wrong person?

      “You two know each other?” Weber lapsed into sullen silence. Turning, Cara looked at the private detective. “Well?”

      He’d never seen Weber before he’d dispatched to bring him home. But that wasn’t to say that Weber didn’t know him. Half of Europe probably did, thanks to the tabloids. It had made big news when he’d disappeared off the face of the earth, only to eventually turn up in the States. “By reputation.”

      Cagey, she thought. He wasn’t really answering her. “So what’s he supposed to have done?”

      He might have not known “Weber” but he knew his type. “Blown up a few things,” Max said matter-of-factly.

      She looked at Weber just as the valet finally drove up Max’s car.

      “Are you a terrorist, Weber?” There was a momentary flash of recognition in his eyes, but only surly silence met her