HER ROYAL BODYGUARD

In a tiny Mediterranean kingdom, Ava Wright has her dream job: planning royal weddings. When a killer targets Ava a week before the princess’s ceremony, the captain of the royal guard vows to protect her and keep the royal family safe. Ava knows that Jason Selini—a man of stubborn integrity—doesn’t think she belongs on palace grounds. But when they uncover why Ava is under attack, Jason shows himself to have the heart of a prince. Suddenly Ava hopes she’ll survive long enough to plan her own wedding.

Protecting the Crown: The royal family fights for love and country

“Somebody put a bomb in your car,” Jason said.

“But—that would have killed me.” Ava couldn’t get the image of her charred car from her mind.

The captain met her eyes for just a moment. Instead of hardened anger in his flintlike gray eyes, she saw a hint of sympathy, maybe even apology.

The change shook her as much as the realization that she’d narrowly escaped a horrific end. “They wanted me dead? But why?”

Jason offered her his hand and pulled her up to a seated position. He looked her full in the face, a bit of sadness shimmering in his steel-gray eyes. “Do you have any enemies?”

Ava stared at him for long seconds. Finally she answered, “You?”

“I’m the worst enemy you have?” he asked.

She nodded, no longer trusting her voice.

“Then I don’t know why anyone would put a bomb in your car.” He sucked in a sharp breath and met her eyes again. “But I intend to find out.”

RACHELLE McCALLA

is a mild-mannered housewife, and the toughest she ever has to get is when she’s trying to keep her four kids quiet in church. Though she often gets in over her head, as her characters do, and has to find a way out, her adventures have more to do with sorting out the car pool and providing food for the potluck. She’s never been arrested, gotten in a fistfight or been shot at. And she’d like to keep it that way! For recipes, fun background notes on the places and characters in this book and more information on forthcoming titles, visit www.rachellemccalla.com.

Royal Wedding Threat

Rachelle McCalla

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

—Ecclesiastes 4:12

To Ray, always

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DEAR READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

EXCERPT

ONE

“Ms. Wright? Ms. Wright, wait!”

Ava Wright did not wait, but trotted toward the pedestrian gate at the rear of the palace complex as quickly as she dared in her three-inch heels. She made eye contact with the guard inside the gatehouse and gave him her best commanding glare, signaling that she wanted the exit unlocked immediately.

The green light signaled that the gate’s electronic lock had been momentarily deactivated, allowing her to open the gate and pass through. Ava felt a small shiver of satisfaction as she made her escape. Good. Jason Selini might be the head of the Lydian Royal Guard, but she could still get her way, even if it meant giving orders to his men.

But the captain of the royal guard was right behind her. “We need to discuss this further, Ms. Wright. Our conversation isn’t over!” Captain Selini was one of the few people Ava had met who could match her commanding tone note for note, glare for glare.

No way was she butting heads with him any more today. The man was impossibly stubborn and could be completely unreasonable once he’d made up his mind on an issue—and he’d already made it clear that morning that his mind was quite made up about her plans for Princess Anastasia’s wedding.

Captain Selini had refused her location request. How could she possibly proceed with her wedding-planning duties if the location wasn’t approved? Given the princess’s eagerness to marry, Ava was already working on a short timeline. The captain’s refusal was a setback she couldn’t afford. She wanted to scream in frustration.

Instead Ava pulled her keys from her purse and pointed the key fob at her car parked in the distance on the opposite side of the cobbled street. Clicking the button on the key fob, she watched with satisfaction as her headlights blinked, signaling that she’d successfully unlocked the car doors.

Good. Nothing more stood between her and her escape route.

“Ms. Wright, please come back.”

It was the “please” that made her pause, almost against her will, halfway across the empty street, still a couple hundred feet from her car. She wavered there, undecided, for a few long seconds.

“Please,” he repeated, sounding almost pleading.

The pleading note in his voice prompted her to turn back, if only to see the expression on his face. Captain Jason Selini begging? She wouldn’t miss it, not after all the trouble he’d given her over the course of the recent royal weddings.

But when she turned to face him, she found he’d stopped in his tracks still dozens of feet from her and his face had gone nearly white.

“Get down!” he shouted, his words buried by an enormous boom behind her.

Ava ducked slightly, unsure what was happening. Time seemed to slow for a moment, and yet everything happened so quickly. She felt a sudden heat envelop her, blowing past her with a furious gust of hot wind. At the same time, she felt something sting her near her ankles.

The captain of the guard threw one arm up to shield his face as he ducked and ran toward her, still shouting something, though the blast of heat that had come from behind her swept forward and took his words away. That, or she couldn’t hear anything. Her ears began to ring, a distant, tinny sound that further disoriented her.

Jason was at her side in an instant, one hand firmly propping her up by her elbow. “Let’s get you out of here. Are you all right? Can you walk?”

Ava wanted to tell him not to be absurd, that of course she could walk, but as she took half a step forward in an attempt to prove it, the pain at her ankles bit into her furiously.

She looked down at her legs.

Far below her knee-length skirt, blood trickled down her ankles from half a dozen shards of glass that had embedded themselves in her skin.

Ava could only stare at her legs, wondering what had happened. Black smoke billowed toward her and she coughed, turning halfway around to see her car engulfed in flames. “What happened?”

“Car bomb. We’ve got to get you off the street.” The captain’s words echoed numbly against her throbbing eardrums.

“My car?” Ava blinked several times, but the smoke and heat stung her eyes, making it difficult to see, and she felt too stunned to think clearly.

“I’ll have to carry you,” the captain muttered as he bent to inspect the injuries on her legs.

Ava looked at him, horrified at the thought of him carrying her. Determined to prove she was perfectly capable of walking on her own, she tried to take another step forward but wobbled unsteadily, the ringing in her ears messing with her sense of balance. Fortunately she’d been on the far periphery of the blast, and what few shards of glass had flown that far had already fallen low, reaching only to her ankles. Other than the ringing in her ears and the injuries near her Achilles tendons, she didn’t think she was hurt.

“I’ve got to get you off the street in a hurry!” The captain glanced up and down the cobbled path, though Ava saw no further sign of danger, just a bunch of uniformed royal guards pouring out from the pedestrian gate and a car farther up the street pulling out from the curb and driving away.

“What do you mean?” Ava started to ask, but before she’d half spoken the question, the captain had plucked her up with his arms around her waist and tossed her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes. Her feet stuck out in front in a most undignified manner, and her head bobbed behind him as he trotted quickly back toward the gate to the palace courtyard.

“Sorry. I’ll have you down in a minute,” he apologized as he ran.

Ava yelped. She wanted to demand to be put down, and yet it had occurred to her that perhaps she didn’t want to be on the street, not if cars were going to be exploding. And she wasn’t nearly fit to walk, not with the sharp glass digging into her skin with every twitch of her legs and her ringing ears making her feel like a bobblehead doll.

Besides that, there was something oddly thrilling about being carried by the captain of the guard. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was but attributed it to all the trouble he’d given her and some peculiar sense of justice that he should have to carry her, running and giving orders to his men all at the same time.

In a moment he had her back through the door of the royal-guard headquarters, the building she’d only just left short minutes before. He settled her in a seated position on a hard sofa in the waiting room, with her injured legs sticking stiffly out in front of her. She didn’t dare twitch a muscle for fear of being further injured by the glass.

The captain called out to a guard seated behind a bulletproof glass panel, “Oliver, toss me the first-aid kit, will you?”

“Do you need me to assist you?” Oliver asked as he came around by way of a side door and delivered a large cross-emblazoned metal box.

“No. Keep an eye on those security screens and let me know if anything else blows up. And call the Sardis police. Tell them to send over their bomb squad. That car was on their side of the street.” As he spoke, Jason Selini gingerly touched Ava’s leg, then made a disgusted sound.

“How bad is it?” Ava asked.

“From the looks of it, they’re just surface scratches, nothing very deep, but I can take you to the hospital if you’d prefer.”

Ava grimaced. She liked to think of herself as a tough, independent woman. She had work to do. Prince Alexander’s wedding to Lillian Bardici was to take place in eight days, and she was already in the early stages of planning his little sister Princess Anastasia’s wedding, scheduled for just a few months later. Hospital visits were time-consuming, weren’t they? “I’m sure it’s fine. I can tend to them myself if you need to go out and see to your men.”

“You can tend to them yourself?” Jason challenged her, the firm set of his lips bent upward in grim amusement.

Determined to prove her statement, Ava leaned forward, ignoring the pain caused by the movement as her leg muscles stretched.

“Stop that. Now you’re making it worse,” the captain chided her, snapping on a pair of gloves before tearing open a few small packets.

“What are those?” Ava asked warily. She didn’t trust this man, not after the way they’d been arguing mere minutes before. In her mind, Jason Selini was nothing more than an obstacle to her goals. He’d never helped her before.

“Just a little antiseptic.” He bent over the cuts on her legs and gingerly plucked out the glass. Finally he looked satisfied with his work. “I believe I got all of the glass out. Once I clean off the blood, I can see what else is there. You’re fortunate you weren’t any closer to your car—these bits didn’t have the full force of the blast behind them. Any closer and you could have been seriously hurt. There.” He daubed a bit more with the antiseptic-soaked gauze. “It really wasn’t bad at all—just a bit of blood that made everything look worse.”

“You’re sure you don’t need to be outside with your men?”

The captain dug into a package of bandages. “They know what to do. They’ll secure the area and then hand things over to the bomb squad as soon as they arrive.”

“So this sort of thing happens all the time?” Ava had been in the tiny Mediterranean kingdom of Lydia for ten months—long enough to plan two royal weddings, a handful of titling ceremonies and a royal marriage-renewal ceremony. In that time, she’d heard rumors of violence and danger, and once had her reception hall locked down because of gunmen on the loose within the walls of the palace grounds. But this was the first car bomb she’d ever heard about.

“We haven’t had a vehicle explode since the royal motorcade was ambushed last June—almost a year ago now. But those were grenade hits, not bombs.”

“Ow!” Ava shrieked before he was quite finished. “Could you be more careful?”

“Sorry. That little piece of glass was hiding.”

“Are you sure I don’t need stitches?”

Jason held up his gloved hand in front of her, a slender shard of glass perched on one finger. “That’s all it was. I’m almost done. There’s nothing that needs stitching.”

Feeling slightly embarrassed that she’d shrieked for such a tiny piece of glass, Ava mustered up her pride. “I think you’re taking far too much satisfaction at seeing my pain, after all the trouble I’ve caused you,” she accused him.

Jason sighed and pasted another adhesive bandage above her ankle. “So you admit you’ve caused me plenty of trouble.”

“No more than you’ve caused me.” She bit her lip as the captain applied more antiseptic, dabbing roughly at her injuries. “You know, you could try to be gentle.”

The captain was silent for a moment, but his movements became more precise, with less pressure.

“You know,” Jason echoed her as he stuck another bandage carefully in place, “you could thank me.”

“For what? You threw me on this couch like you were tossing a sack of kittens in the river.”

She expected Jason’s sharp retort but instead heard snickering from the doorway, and looked up in time to see a group of royal guards filing back into the building.

“Report,” Jason commanded, not sounding the least bit amused.

The men sobered. “All’s clear. The Sardis Police Bomb Squad has taken over the crime scene. They’ve got their bomb-sniffing dogs working the entire perimeter of the palace grounds, three blocks deep. If there’s another bomb in the area, they’ll find it.”

“Good work, men. Back to your stations.”

The men filed out in silence, but before the door closed behind them, a voice carried clearly from the hallway. “He would like to toss her in the river like a sack of kittens.”

A chorus of guffaws agreed with the statement.

“You didn’t hear that,” Jason stated bluntly as he spread antiseptic on the last of her cuts.

“Yes, I did,” Ava informed him. “And I felt the sting.”

The captain applied the last bandage, but that hadn’t been the sting she was referring to. Did Jason Selini really want to be rid of her that badly that he’d toss her off a bridge? The captain seemed to be a man of integrity and perfectly upright character, but she knew his resentment toward her ran deep. They’d been in opposition since the very first ceremony she’d planned at the end of the previous summer. She’d ignored his attitude all these long months, just as she habitually ignored anyone who didn’t like her. Hadn’t she learned her lesson long before? She couldn’t please everyone. Best to focus on doing her job and giving her brides the weddings of their dreams. That much she could do.

But the image of her burning car had seared itself into her mind. Why had her car exploded? Had someone placed a bomb inside to hurt her? What if they’d killed her?

“It’s all right. I’m done.” The captain handed her a tissue.

Only then did Ava realize she’d started sniffling, her near brush with death somehow penetrating her usually impervious armor. “Why do you think my car blew up?” It took all of her resolve to keep her voice steady.

“Somebody put a bomb in it. From what I saw, they probably had it set to go off a certain number of seconds after you unlocked your door—the idea being that you’d be very near or inside the car at that moment. If you hadn’t stopped and turned around, that’s where you would have been.”

“But—that would have killed me.” Ava couldn’t get the image of her charred car from her mind—nor could she quite grapple with the idea of what would have become of her if she’d been inside.

The captain met her eyes for just a moment. Instead of hardened anger in his flint-gray eyes, she saw a hint of sympathy, maybe even apology.

The change shook her as much as the realization that she’d narrowly escaped a horrific end. “They wanted me dead?”

The captain closed the box of bandages and tucked them away in the first-aid kit, not meeting her eyes. “That’s the only reason I can think of for what I saw.”

“But why?”

Jason looked her full in the face, a bit of sadness shimmering in his steel-gray eyes. “Do you have any enemies?”

Ava stared at him for long seconds, her stunned mind taking longer than usual to process her thoughts. Finally she answered, “You.”

The captain turned away and began plucking up the bandage wrappers he’d left lying about. “I’m the worst enemy you have?”

She nodded, no longer trusting her voice.

“Then I don’t know why anyone would put a bomb in your car.” He sucked in a sharp breath and met her eyes again. “But I intend to find out.”

His words hit her with such cold force he might as well have tossed her in an icy river. His statement was part vow, part threat. What would it take to find out who’d tried to kill her? Discussing past relationships? Analyzing all the hurts she’d put behind her, including the ones that had made her who she was? She tried to return the captain’s determined gaze, but she found she couldn’t keep her head up, not at the prospect of rooting through the skeletons in her closet. That wasn’t a place she wished to explore, certainly not with this man who hated her.

But what other choice did she have?

TWO

Jason Selini felt the tiniest glimmer of sympathy toward this woman who’d caused him so many headaches over the past several months. Ava Wright was impossibly stubborn, sharp-tongued and utterly unreasonable once she’d made up her mind to have her way.

And she always got her way. Jason had never been able to override her wishes except for a few times when he’d been able to prove her plans would cause imminent danger to royal life and property. The rest of the time she was a steamroller, exerting her will in spite of all his efforts to make her see reason.

And yet, as he glanced at her now, perched on the edge of the hard sofa in the waiting room of the royal-guard headquarters, she looked shaken. More than that, she looked like a scared little girl, and for the first time he realized she was almost certainly younger than his thirty-three years, in spite of her international success as a wedding planner.

Though the woman usually looked as impeccable as the weddings she planned, the incident had marred her facade. Her hair, which was dyed a harsh red and usually styled in jagged spikes shooting out from her head, now looked as limp and dazed as the rest of her. And her makeup, which had always been flawless, if a bit fierce, was now smeared, making her look eerily like a homeless street urchin, save for the expensive suit and shoes.

With the last of the first-aid items tucked safely away in the case, Jason realized he could delay the inevitable conversation no longer. “I’d like you to come to my office.”

“Why?” She blinked up at him, dark smudges outlining her eyes, highlighting the fear that glimmered above the green of her irises.

“I need to get your statement about what happened while everything is still fresh in your memory.” He didn’t add that he wanted to grill her on possible attackers and motives. Though the crime had technically occurred on the Sardis police side of the street, given the proximity to the palace and Jason’s duty to protect the royal family, Jason considered it his job to root out the reasons behind the attack—and prevent anything similar from happening again. He appreciated the expert help of the Sardis bomb squad, and he’d be sure to keep them in the loop with everything he learned, but he wasn’t about to sit back and wait for them to do his job for him.

Ava scowled. “You think that’s a moment I’m likely to soon forget?”

“Or suppress. It happens all the time. The more violent the incident, the bigger the wall the victim puts up.” He extended his hand as a gentlemanly gesture, fully expecting her to refuse it.

To his surprise, she placed her palm in his and leaned against him as she levered herself up from the sofa. It occurred to him that, prior to throwing her over his shoulder moments before, he’d never touched the woman. Her hand felt small and shaky as she held tight to him. From what he knew of her, he was certain she wouldn’t have leaned on him at all unless she’d had no other choice. Ava was too independent for that. Her first steps were cautious, but then she walked beside him with increased confidence.

“Your legs okay?”

“Better now, thank you.”

Surprised at her thanks, Jason almost smiled. “You’re welcome.”

He led her back through to his office, where her plans for Princess Anastasia’s wedding to Kirk Covington still lay atop his desk. Her requested location was fraught with hazards, even under the best circumstances. Given the explosion that could have killed them both, the plan was all the more unthinkable. He helped her into a chair, then shoved the stapled pages to the side of his desk.

Jason opened up a fresh incident-report template on his computer. “Now, tell me your version of what happened.”

Ava sat up straight, looking less shaken already. “We were in here, discussing the plans for Princess Anastasia’s wedding location.”

Jason did his best to accurately type her words, though he very nearly switched out discussing for arguing about but caught himself before he hit the wrong keys. The way his screen was angled, Ava might be able to see his words. Best not to upset her further—he knew how obstinate she could be when angered.

“And then?” he prompted once he’d entered all she’d said.

“Well—” she looked at him bluntly “—you were being completely unreasonable—”

“That’s not relevant—”

“It’s an island.” Ava rose on her seat and picked up her previous argument right where she’d left off before stalking out in a huff earlier. “If anything, it’s more secure than the Sardis Cathedral and just as safe as anything within the palace walls.”

“The palace complex is the most secure location in Sardis.” Jason would have directed Ava back to her statement, but the security of the palace complex wasn’t something he could let come under question. Along with ensuring the safety of the members of the royal family, his primary duty was to keep the palace grounds secure at all times.

“Oh!” Ava threw back her head with a sarcastic fake laugh. “And the gunmen who ran amok during Duchess Julia’s titling ceremony—was that an example—”

Jason gave up trying to type and instead reached across his desk toward the woman, pointing one finger as he spoke. “That is precisely why I can’t allow you to attempt to hold a royal wedding on an island. If gunmen can get inside these walls, they can easily attack an island.”

“Precisely my point. If either location is equally vulnerable—”

“They’re not vulnerable!” Jason snapped, wishing to end the conversation and get back to typing his report.

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem with using the island of Dorsi—”

“The island of Dorsi is off-limits. No one is allowed to step foot on that island.”

“All the more reason why it’s perfectly—” Ava rose to her feet as she tried to cut off his words.

But Jason would not be interrupted. “It’s too dangerous. It’s forbidden!” Jason found he had to stand as well, just to make himself heard. Besides, he couldn’t let the redhead tower over him.

“It’s absolutely not dangerous. My clients have already vetted the location—”

Outraged, Jason leaned across his desk. “No one is allowed to step foot on Dorsi.”

Ava planted her hands on the desktop and glared at him across the shiny surface. “I already have.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Princess Stasi and Kirk Covington took me there to show me where they wanted to hold the ceremony—in the ruins of the ancient cathedral where the Lydian kings and queens of old were married.”

“You’ve been to the island of Dorsi?” Jason had been there once, too—a memory he’d prefer to forget. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Maybe too dangerous for you.”

“I’ve been there—to retrieve a dead body.”

To his satisfaction, Ava looked the slightest bit startled by his words. “Whose dead body?”

“My predecessor, Viktor Bosch. He was captain of the royal guard before me. I was appointed after his death.” To Jason’s relief, his words silenced the wedding planner. “His death was a direct result of the dangers of the island. I cannot allow—”

But the woman’s fury rose with renewed vigor. “You cannot refuse a member of the royal family.” She leaned farther across the desk, invading his side.

“I can if it endangers safety.” Jason leaned forward again, wishing to push the woman back out of his space, using physical force if necessary. “And I already have.” He grabbed a self-inking stamp from his desk drawer and slapped the word against the paper with so much force droplets of red ink splattered around the letters.

Rejected.

Ava grabbed the stack of paper away from him. “You can’t—”

Jason tugged back on his half of the papers. He needed to file it with the king’s office to make it official. “I already did.”

“It’s not your decision to make!” Ava tugged on the pages.

Jason felt her fingers slipping and pulled harder, certain he’d nearly gained the advantage. “I’ve made the decision! It’s done,” he shouted over her words, even as she increased the volume of her demands.

Suddenly the door across from him swung open, and Jason looked up to see Galen and Titus, two of his royal guardsmen, standing in the open doorway, watching his wrestling match with the wedding planner in obvious shock and amusement.

“We did knock.” Titus cleared his throat. “No one answered.”

“We heard sounds of distress and felt it in the best interest of your safety to open the door,” Galen added.

Hoping to take advantage of the momentary distraction, Jason gave the papers a final hard tug. To his surprise, however, Ava held on so tightly his efforts pulled her partway onto his desk.

The wedding planner glared up at him furiously.

Jason stopped tugging on the papers but didn’t release them. While letting her keep hold of the papers wouldn’t result in her getting her way, he couldn’t bear the thought of giving her the satisfaction of prevailing over him, not when she’d already gotten her way so many times. It was almost as though she held more authority than he did—it hadn’t escaped his noticed that his men in the gatehouse had unlocked the pedestrian gate for her, even though he’d been right behind her.

As the youngest captain in the history of the royal guard, he didn’t always feel as though his men thought he deserved his position of authority over them. Ava’s constant triumphs degraded his power—which complicated his efforts to keep the royal family safe.

Titus continued, “The Sardis bomb squad has found something they want you to see.”

Immediately concerned, Jason asked, “Is it safe?”

“It’s a small bit of residue on the ground,” Galen clarified. “They think it might be bomb-related material. The dogs sniffed it out.”

“I’ll take a look.” Jason glanced at Ava. “You can stay here.”

“I’m coming, too.” She shot him a look that said she wasn’t about to back down.

Having fought the woman enough times before, Jason had learned to pick his battles. He didn’t need his men to watch him be defeated by the wedding planner. “Fine. But the papers stay here. And you’ll do as I say.”

He heard Ava make a noise in her throat, followed by hushed snickers from his men.

Jason chafed, not just that the woman so openly defied him, but that her disobedience was obvious to his men—and apparently amused them to the point of barely stifled disrespect. His men—the royal guards who’d served alongside him for years—were drilled in decorum. They understood ceremony and symbolism and the dignity of their positions. But the newest recruits from the army, including Titus, were a rougher sort, more interested in proving their strength than polishing their shoes. If the royal guard hadn’t desperately needed the manpower, he’d have sent the men back to the army.

His inability to control the wedding planner set a particularly bad example for his men. At a time when he wanted the new recruits to learn etiquette and protocol, Ava Wright made them snicker and crack jokes behind his back.

He needed to regain full control of the royal guard.

Too bad the wedding planner seemed equally determined to control everything within her reach.

If he was going to control the royal guard, he’d have to set things straight with the wedding planner first.

* * *

Ava watched as the captain bent to inspect what appeared to be a random patch of cobblestones. They were a little over a block away from the place where her car still smoldered, a blackened testimony to the violence that had invaded her morning.

“We’ve taken samples,” a member of the bomb squad told the captain soberly. “We’ll have to process them at the lab to learn exactly what it is, but based on the dogs’ reaction, it’s most likely residue from an explosive.”

They stood about eight feet from the sidewalk—where the driver would have stepped through the door of a compact car, had a vehicle still been parked there. Ava tried to sort out what the men were saying. “So whoever put the bomb in my car may have parked here, in this spot?”

“Exactly.” Jason nodded. “We can review the footage from the security cameras on the palace wall to see if they picked up anything, although I’ll warn you, the cameras are designed to protect the walls, not the streets of Sardis outside our jurisdiction. We might not have gotten much. What was the time window that your car was parked on this street?”

“I arrived to meet with the princess shortly before eight, then stopped by your office to get your approval on the wedding plans. You kept me waiting.”

Jason didn’t apologize. “The explosion happened shortly after ten. That’s more than a two-hour window. Any number of vehicles may have come and gone in that time.”

Though she was tempted to point out to the captain that he might have narrowed the window by agreeing to see her when she’d first arrived at headquarters, another thought made her heart beat with apprehension. “A car pulled away from this spot right after the explosion.”

Both the captain and the members of the bomb squad looked surprised.

“You mean you saw a car drive off?” Jason clarified.

Ava nodded, the memory rushing back clearly now. She was certain of what she’d seen. Everything had happened so quickly, and yet she distinctly recalled seeing a car pull away—in the back of her dazed mind, she’d thought to herself the driver was fortunate to have parked ahead of her on the street. Otherwise the vehicle would have had to drive past her smoldering car to leave.

The bomb tech scowled at the captain. “The person witnessed an explosion, but instead of checking to see if everyone was all right, he fled?”

“Maybe he was scared?” Ava suggested, her voice betraying that same emotion.

“Or guilty.” Jason ran a frustrated hand through his hair, exposing the silvery flecks that framed his close-cropped ebony hair. “We need to look at that footage. Can you describe the car you saw?”

“It was a car,” Ava told him, recalling all she could.

“Make or model?”

Ava bit her lip. She hadn’t looked closely enough to see any details—most of her attention had been on the pain in her legs and all the confusion around her. The ringing in her ears hadn’t helped her focus at all, either.

“Color?” Jason prompted.

Ava pinched her eyes shut, replaying the memory. “Dark?” She couldn’t say anything more certain than that.

To his credit, Captain Selini neither laughed nor rolled his eyes. “We’ll have to look at the footage. Are we done here?” he asked the bomb tech.

The squad member nodded. “We’ll give you a call when we get the results on those samples.”

Ava walked alongside the captain as he headed back toward the pedestrian gate in the palace wall, to the royal-guard headquarters building that lay inside the palace grounds. They passed the smoldering remains of her car, and she glanced at it, her steps wavering as she considered what might have happened if she hadn’t stopped and turned back to face the captain.

She could have been killed. At the very least, it would have been her face that was disfigured, instead of her ankles.

Suddenly the captain took hold of her arm. “Are you okay?”

Ava wanted to dismiss his question with a laugh, but she had to struggle to catch her breath, and she felt uncharacteristically unsteady on her feet. Attempting to straighten, to pull away from the support of his hand on her arm, she instead stumbled forward unsteadily, her high heels catching in the gaps between the cobblestones.

Jason clasped one hand around her waist. For an instant, she feared he was going to hoist her over his shoulder and trundle her off as before, but instead he met her eyes with surprising concern. “Don’t look at the car,” he told her in a soothing voice. “Just walk slowly. One foot in front of the other.”

In any other situation, Ava would have snapped at him. But it was all she could do to lean on his arm and step slowly forward as instructed. She glanced at his face and found his eyes on hers, concerned, reassuring. His eyes, which had only ever seemed cold and steel-gray before, now held a hint of compassion she hadn’t expected.

“I am not an invalid,” she told him sharply as soon as she found her voice. She needed to push him away. It was her personal policy not to trust anyone. She’d learned that lesson the hard way, enough that she didn’t usually forget. Trust led to pain. Always.

And yet, for the moment at least, it seemed she needed him. His strong arm kept her upright, when otherwise she might fall. She felt so light-headed, the memory and the fear swirling together in her mind. What would have happened if Jason hadn’t stopped her from reaching her car? And why had someone planted a bomb there? Granted, she didn’t go out of her way to be nice to people—not anymore, not since the two people she most trusted on earth had taken advantage of her trust so horribly.

But surely her newfound assertiveness hadn’t prompted the attack. Perhaps she had become prickly, maybe even harsh. She’d only meant to keep people from getting too close to her. She’d never dreamed it would be enough to provoke someone to attempt to kill her.

THREE

Jason watched the images on the security screens as Oliver replayed the relevant moments. As he’d feared, Ava’s car had been parked on the edge of the security camera’s range, with only the rear bumper in view. The vehicle she’d watched drive away moments after the explosion had been far beyond that. They didn’t get so much as a shadow.

“That’s it?” Ava asked impatiently from where she stood near his elbow. “You haven’t got a single image of any of it?”

“You parked beyond the range of our cameras,” Jason explained, trying to keep the frustration he felt from entering his voice. The woman could be difficult to deal with on a good day. She was already upset enough.

“I normally park closer, but that was the nearest spot when I arrived this morning.”

Convinced the screens had nothing more to show him, Jason turned to face the wedding planner. Her tone might have been icy, but her eyes were round with fear.

As well they should be. Among the many questions that vied for his attention, the foremost was whether the woman had been specifically targeted, or if her car had been randomly chosen for its position near the palace, but beyond the range of his cameras. Until he could answer with confidence that she had no more to fear than anyone else, he needed to take steps to keep her safe.

“Stay here and review the footage,” he told her. “I have some phone calls to make.”

Jason strode to his office, thinking quickly. There were apartments built into the rear wall of the palace grounds. Once used to house servants of the royal family, they continued to provide lodging for long-term guests and staff, even some of his guards. If he could secure a vacancy, the wedding planner could stay inside the safety of the palace walls, under the watchful eyes of his guards.

“Where are you going?” Ava’s demanding tone carried down the hall after him.

Jason mustered up his patience as he called back to her, “To my office to make some phone calls.”

“So you’re just leaving me? That’s it? I don’t have a car anymore. What am I supposed—”

He raised a hand to shush her. “The phone calls are for your benefit. I’m trying to find you a place to stay.”

“It was my car that blew up, not my apartment.”

“You don’t need a car.” Jason reached his office and hurried inside, wishing he could close the door and keep her out.

“Yes, I do! I have a business to run.” She stomped into the office after him. “I’ve got a wedding in eight days and another in less than four months. I have work to do.”

“The guards can drive you.”

“Guards? I don’t want—”

“I don’t care what you want. It’s for your safety. I’m going to find you a place to stay near the guards.”

“I don’t want to stay near your guards! They want to throw me in the river like a sack of kittens.” A note of despair carried through her bossy tone.

“No, that was me, as I recall.” Jason hoped his admission might deflate her anger. For a moment, as he glanced at her to gauge the effect of his words, he thought he caught a glimmer of gratitude in her eyes—as though she understood the effort he’d put into his gracious words and appreciated the gesture.

But in an instant, cold fury snapped into her eyes again. “You wish I’d made it to my car before the bomb went off, don’t you?”

Jason glared at her, wondering if he’d imagined the gratitude in her eyes. Why would she be so mean to him if she understood he was trying to assuage her concerns? He’d wondered before, while arguing with her, if she wasn’t actually trying to pick a fight with him, to egg him on instead of making peace.

But why would she do that?

Really, for all he’d done for her that morning, bandaging her cuts and dropping everything else on his morning schedule, she ought to have shown him a little appreciation. “I wish the bomb hadn’t gone off at all. I wish there’d been no bomb. But since there was, and since you were the recipient, intended or not, we’ve got to put you under guard.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Someone may be trying to kill you. That car that pulled away may have been the bomber, waiting to see if his efforts worked. If so, he knows you’re still alive. Given the risks he’s taken so far, there’s no reason to think he isn’t going to try again.”

Ava blinked at him. “I don’t have time for this. I have work to do.”

“So do I. The longer I argue with you, the further I fall behind. Let me make some phone calls and we’ll see what we can do to keep you safe until we sort this out.”

Theresa Covington, the palace household manager, answered his phone call. He inquired about an available room among the palace-wall apartments and was relieved that Theresa was able to reserve an apartment for Ava. “Thank you, Theresa. Have a lovely day.” He closed the call with the household manager and smiled at Ava.

She scowled at him. “What?”

“I’ll drive you to your apartment so you can pack a bag.”

“I’m not staying among your guards.”

“You’ll have your own apartment. There are guards also staying in the palace-wall apartments. Theresa told me you stayed in one when you first arrived in Lydia, before you found your own place.” Jason stepped past her down the hall, poking his head into the switchboard room to tell Oliver where he was going.

Ava followed him, still frowning. “I don’t appreciate this loss of my freedom. I have an important job to do.”

In spite of her protests, she followed him to the royal garages.

Jason chose a bulletproof vehicle. Only the new limousines, ordered since the insurgent ambush the previous summer, had armor plating, and he couldn’t justify driving the wedding planner in a limo. The bulletproof sedan should be more than adequate for a quick trip to Ava’s apartment.

Fortunately Ava’s place wasn’t far from the palace complex, and the drive passed in silence. Jason would have fumed at the woman’s rudeness, except that he’d seen that glimmer of fear in her eyes, that wounded little girl who’d peeked out when she thought no one was looking, and he began to wonder if she wasn’t picking fights with him on purpose. Perhaps her anger was a ruse to distract him from something deeper. But what?

Jason parked in front of Ava’s building, just across the street from her door. “Wait for me to walk you in,” he told her as he put the car in Park and turned off the engine.

But to his chagrin, the woman ignored him, stepping out as he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the driver’s side door. Ava quickly rounded the front of the vehicle and glanced up and down the empty street before darting across toward her door.

Jason saw it all in a single glance—Ava’s unsteady, injured trot across the two empty traffic lanes; the charcoal-gray Volkswagen Jetta that pulled out from the curb just over a block away the moment Ava turned her attention from looking both ways to walking; and the squeal of tires that betrayed the VW’s sudden acceleration.

Jason leaped into action, shouting at Ava to hurry as he ran toward her. She was already in progress crossing the street. The car approached in the same lane he’d been driving in, on the side of the street opposite her apartment. If she hurried, she’d be out of the way in time.

But even as Jason bounded toward her, he glimpsed the car swerving toward them, into the other lane. Ava was hobbling far too slowly in her three-inch heels. She’d never make it.

With only half a second to act, Jason scooped an arm around Ava’s waist and leaped with her toward the curb. He had her nearly to the sidewalk when the Jetta, oblivious of the curb or the neat little flower patch in front of Ava’s apartment, swerved onto the sidewalk, knocking his legs out from under him and sending his back smashing into the windshield and side mirror.

It was a glancing blow, but the force was enough to send them both airborne for several feet. Jason tightened his arms around Ava, tucking her head into the relative safety of his chest as they hit the sidewalk and rolled.

He looked for the car, fearful the vehicle might swing around and take a second pass. The two of them were high up on the sidewalk now, nearly against the steps of Ava’s building, but the curb hadn’t stopped the car before, and if it decided to pin them to the concrete steps, not even his embrace would shield the wedding planner from injury.

To his relief, he saw the Jetta disappear over the rim of the hill, speeding away. Unfortunately, given the distance, he couldn’t make out the plate number.

Jason turned his attention to Ava next. “Are you okay?” He had her still tucked tight against him, but pulled back just far enough so he could see her face.

One red-nailed hand clutched his shirt. She blinked up at him. “What was that?”

Even more disheveled than after her last brush with death, the wedding planner didn’t look at all her usual prickly, put-together self. Jason felt his heart twist with sympathy. “That,” he groaned as he rolled onto his back in preparation for sitting up, “is proof that whoever bombed your car this morning is targeting you specifically.”

* * *

Ava pinched her eyes shut and held tight to Captain Selini’s shirt. She didn’t like the man—couldn’t stand him most days—but right now she’d have gladly buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed.

The captain spoke rapidly into his earpiece, instructing his dispatcher to send men in a car. But his words came in shallow gasps and his face turned deep red as he struggled to breathe.

“Are you okay?” Ava asked in a whisper, scrutinizing his features as she awaited his response. Had the car simply knocked the wind from his lungs, or was he seriously injured?

Her conscience stabbed her. If she’d waited to cross the street with him as he’d said, would they still have been hit? The car had struck him directly and thrown him hard against the cement. What if he died because she hadn’t listened?

It occurred to Ava as she stared at his face that the captain wasn’t as old as she’d assumed him to be, in spite of the early gray that flecked his hair. For all the times she’d argued with him, she’d never bothered to look at him closely—part of her personal policy against getting close to any person in any way. But now as she watched him from inches away, she realized he was hardly any older than she was.

Jason Selini groaned as he sucked in a breath.

Ava rolled onto her side, out of his way as he struggled to sit up. “Can I help you?” she asked, extending one hand, realizing only when she saw that her hands were empty that she’d left the plans for Princess Anastasia’s wedding in the car. Suddenly the plans didn’t seem so important. The captain appeared to be in real pain.

“Is your back broken?”

Jason winced. “I’m wearing body armor.” He strained to breathe. “That took the bulk of the blow, probably saved us both, but my steel plate is dented now.” Captain Selini grasped the steps as he pulled himself to standing. “Let’s get off this street.”

Suddenly fearful that the dark car might return, Ava hurried to her door and let them into the small shared foyer, then led the way to her apartment door, unlocking it carefully.

“Wait.” Jason’s hand covered hers. “They know where you live. They were waiting for us.” He ran his hands around the door frame. Ava assumed he was checking for trip wires or a triggering device of some nature.

Fear pounded from Ava’s heart to her ears in one beat. “They’d have to come through the front door to get to this one. They’re both locked.”

“Open it slowly.” The captain relented, straining to breathe, his face frightfully red.

Wishing she could hurry and help the captain before he passed out, Ava nonetheless did as instructed, watching and waiting, ready to spring away if the captain gave any sort of signal at all.

But nothing happened. Her apartment looked the same way it always did—blank white walls, minimal decor, honey-oak wooden floor gleaming in the midday sunlight.

Captain Selini clutched his chest as he stepped inside, talking into his earpiece, between gasping breaths reporting on what had happened.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Ava closed the door behind him, then peered up into his face as he bent over, his face more purple than red.

“My armor.” The captain twisted to one side, grimaced and turned back again, panting. “It’s cutting into my diaphragm.”

“Do you need to take it off?”

“Can you help me?”

Ava wasn’t sure what to do, but she figured the captain must be in terrible pain to ask her to help him. Quickly, she unbuttoned the front of his uniform. Purple-faced and fumbling, he explained to her the straps and fasteners, and she pulled him free of the steel-plated body armor.

He straightened immediately, his white T-shirt moving against his well-muscled back and shoulders as he pulled in a real breath for the first time since the car had struck, and flexed his brawny arms backward, testing his range of motion slowly.

For a moment, all Ava could do was stare. She’d always assumed the captain, like all the other guards, was strong. They had physical-fitness requirements for their job, no doubt, so of course they worked out. But she wasn’t at all aware of how very physically fit the captain was until he threw his beefy arms up over his head and flexed his muscles, pulling in a deep breath as he assured himself of his full mobility.

Ava’s mouth went dry and she watched him in silence. No, he wasn’t as old as she’d assumed. The man appeared to be youthful and fit and actually almost attractive, now that she paid attention. Of course, he had that permanent frown line between his eyebrows that made him seem older. But other than the ever-present scowl on his face, Captain Selini was...handsome.

Rather than gawk, Ava returned to the tiny kitchenette that adjoined her open living space. “Can I get you something to drink, or an ice pack? What can I do?”

“Get packed before that guy returns.”

“Was he a guy?” Ava asked as she stepped from the kitchenette to the bedroom to gather her things.

“I don’t know. The glare of sunlight on the windshield made it difficult for me to see him, but I thought the driver looked male. Did you get a look at him?”

“I barely saw the car at all,” Ava confessed. She pulled out her duffel bag, then stared at her open closet and tried to think. How long was she planning to be gone? What should she pack? And what if the man who’d tried twice now to kill her showed up again? Perhaps she ought to choose more practical footwear. She only had eight days until Prince Alexander’s wedding. The adventures of the morning had already disrupted her schedule.

She gulped a breath, trying to clear her head, to focus on what she needed to pack and not think any more about what it had felt like to be in Captain Selini’s arms. He had such very nice arms. And his manly scent was alluring, as well. That was another thing for her not to think about.

“What can I do to help?”

Ava spun around to find the captain standing in her doorway, looking very uncaptain-like in his T-shirt. Instead he looked like any normal person, but with extra-strong arms that had wrapped around her and saved her from the car. The terror she’d felt in that moment tore through her again, and she shuddered to think how close they’d both come to horrific injury, or worse. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I never said I was.”

“Can I get you an ice pack, then?”

“You can get packed so we can get out.” The captain stepped into the small room, making it feel that much tinier with his wide shoulders occupying so much of the space.

“How long do I need to pack for?”

“A couple days should be fine. We can send a team back later to get the rest. Just grab the necessities, or I’ll do it for you. We need to get you to safety as soon as possible. I need to figure out what’s going on.”

Rather than let the captain make good on his threat to select her wardrobe choices for her, Ava tossed clothes into the bag. “What do you think is going on?” she asked as she darted toward her bathroom for everything else she’d need.

“Somebody’s trying to kill you.” The captain’s tone was so grim Ava couldn’t help looking up as she stepped past him, then froze as his gray eyes locked on hers.

“Kill me?” she repeated. On some level, she’d realized as much already, but hearing him speak the words so bluntly made it all seem real in a way she wasn’t ready to deal with yet.

“Given the two attempts so close together, I’d say they’re in a hurry about it.”

Ava felt her arms go limp as her duffel bag sagged toward the floor. Why would someone want to kill her? What was she supposed to do? Would they strike again at any moment? Overwhelmed, Ava hung her head.

“Hey.” Captain Selini’s hand fell gently on her shoulder, a tiny gesture of comfort in the midst of the cold fear that gripped her. His strong hand sent an unwelcome tingle of awareness through her. Normally she’d have shaken him off, but his touch imparted comfort. And she desperately needed comfort, no matter how much she resented that fact.

She looked up into his face, still surprised to see how handsome he looked at close range, when he wasn’t yelling at her, when she actually looked at him long enough to see past the silver flecks, which she realized now were probably brought on by the stress of his job or possibly as a result of arguing so many times with her. If it hadn’t been for her personal policy never to get close to anyone, she might have given in to the impulse to lean toward him, to bury her face against his strong shoulder and sob.

But instead of inviting her to lean against him and cry, the captain gave her a tiny shake. “Get going. We need to leave in two minutes. Pull yourself together.”

FOUR

Jason turned and left Ava alone to pack her bag. He needed to breathe—preferably in a room that didn’t smell floral and feminine. Still unsure how badly he’d been injured, he pulled his arms back and flexed his muscles again. Sore. Very, very sore. But nothing froze up or refused to move. Nothing felt broken.

He examined what he could of the sparse apartment, searching for clues that might explain why someone would want to kill the wedding coordinator. An event gone bad, perhaps? Surely any offended party would sue before resorting to murder. Jason scoured the room and noticed a desktop with a smattering of documents littering the surface.

Postcards of the kingdom of Lydia—unaddressed, unsent. Ava must have bought them to share with friends back home in the United States. Brochures of various florists, musicians...nothing he wouldn’t have expected a wedding planner to have on her desk. But perhaps she’d offended one of the vendors represented on the brochures. Would an angry dressmaker resort to murder? Jason scooped up the brochures. They were worth looking into.

As he shuffled the glossy pages into his hands, Jason found something different—a photograph, fairly large but unframed, a close-up of a woman’s face. It was by far the most personal item Jason had seen on the desk. He stopped shuffling pages long enough to look at the woman. She was pretty, her brown hair in loose curls tumbling around her face, her eyes twinkling, her full lips spread in a broad, happy smile.

“I need everything from that desk, too.”

Jason turned to see Ava standing in the doorway, her duffel slung over her shoulder. He realized the woman in the picture looked a lot like Ava. A sister, perhaps? Ava stepped toward him, a second bag gaping wide. She held it out, and he dropped the brochures with the picture on top of the other items into the bag.

Ava gave a little yelp, reached for the picture, then shook her head quickly and closed the bag instead.

At the same moment Jason heard a vehicle outside. He turned to see an bulletproof royal-guard sedan come to a stop double-parked beside the car he’d driven earlier. “Let’s go.” Jason grabbed his body armor and uniform shirt, but Ava’s reaction to the picture didn’t sit well with him. “Who’s in the picture?”

A horrified expression flashed across the wedding planner’s face, followed by reddening cheeks. “Where did you find that?”

“It was on your desk with the brochures.” Intrigued by her response and wondering if he was onto something, he prodded further. “Is it your sister?”

“I’m an only child.” She pulled the door open and waited for him to step into the foyer.

“It’s got to be a relative of some sort.” Jason hovered next to her as they opened the outer door. Two guards stepped from the car—Titus and Adrian, two of the recent transfers from the Lydian army. They looked ready for war in their helmets, with automatic rifles—not the usual image he liked his royal guards to project, but given the circumstances, he almost felt relieved by their rough-and-ready approach.

“Why does it matter?” Ava asked as they stepped down the stairs to the sidewalk, where she peered anxiously in both directions.

Jason tried to shrug, but his back protested, so he said simply, “She’s pretty.” Nodding to his men, he led Ava quickly across the street and into the bulletproof car.

“Well, thank you,” Ava said as he opened her door first and took her bag from her shoulder.

Jason raised a questioning eyebrow.

“The picture?” Ava pointed. “It’s me.” She sat inside the car and pulled the door shut after herself as Jason shook off his surprise and hurried back around to the driver’s side. With no sign of the Jetta anywhere, his men got back into their car, ready to follow him back to the palace.

Jason shot Ava a quick, assessing glance as he started the car and pulled carefully away from the curb. Maybe the lovely girl in the picture really was Ava, but that raised even more questions in his mind—such as why any woman who could look so pretty would choose instead to make herself appear so severe. “I’ve never seen you smile,” he realized aloud as he drove back toward the palace, watching his mirrors carefully for any sign of the attack Jetta, grateful for the presence of his men in the car behind them.

“I make it a policy not to,” Ava told him bluntly.

“Why not?”

She sighed and settled back against her seat. “It’s a long story.”

“Is it?” He stepped on the accelerator as he pulled away from a stoplight. “Well, get ready to tell it. I want to hear all your stories.”

“What? You can’t be serious.”

“Somebody wants to kill you. You’re going to help me figure out who it is.”

* * *

Ava stared at the street ahead and bit her lip. She would not cry. No way was she going to let the maddening captain of the Lydian Royal Guard see her cry.

But at the same time, she felt terrified at the thought of sharing anything about her past. Couldn’t the bomb squad analyze the residue they’d found on the street and track down the killer that way? Wasn’t that how crimes were solved on television? Why should she have to spill all her painful secrets?

She should have thrown away the engagement photo instead of cutting Dan out of the picture and saving the rest. Why hadn’t she? It was a flattering picture of her, true, but it wasn’t as though she was going to use the head shot for promotional purposes. She didn’t even look like that anymore.

With a guilty swirl in her stomach, Ava realized she hadn’t tossed the picture because she’d wanted a reminder of what it had felt like to be happy—not simply because she doubted she’d ever be that happy again, but as a caution should she ever allow herself to trust anyone as much as she’d trusted Dan. Happiness was stupid, a fool’s fancy.

That was why she’d kept the picture.

Too soon, they arrived at the palace. Jason parked the car inside the garage. His men who’d followed them parked their car and met him in the expansive cobbled driveway.

“Accompany Ms. Wright to apartment 8-B in the palace-wall apartments. Theresa Covington was going to send over a housekeeping team to check her in—they should be there by now.”

Offended that he was dumping her so abruptly, Ava glared at the captain. “You’re not coming with me?”

“I have important things to do.”

Ava looked at the guards. She couldn’t be sure, but she was nearly certain one of them had cracked the joke about tossing her in the river. And the other one had laughed when he’d said it. She didn’t want to be left with these men. Captain Selini might be impossibly stubborn, but she knew she could trust him. He’d saved her life twice that day—once on purpose, even.

She grabbed the captain’s arm as he started to walk away. “What am I supposed to do?” she hissed at him, not wanting the other guards to guess she didn’t want to be left with them.

“Whatever you usually do.” The captain’s grin was half challenge. “You’re a very busy woman. You’ve got an important wedding in eight days and another four months after that.” He quoted her words back at her, one eyebrow raised as if to dare her to deny his claim.

He’d won—and he knew it. She could tell by the triumphant angle of his smirk.

Ava blew out a frustrated breath. “Come on, you two,” she told the guards, readjusting her bag over her shoulder as she marched toward the sidewalk that led to the apartments on the rear palace wall. Her ankles hurt almost as much as her feelings, but she wouldn’t let these men see her pain.

She’d learned a long time ago not to let her feelings show. Why should two attempts on her life change anything?

* * *

Jason wasn’t really surprised to see Ava appear in his office doorway shortly after lunch. She’d fixed her hair and makeup, donned a zebra-print top and white slacks that covered her ankle injuries. She appeared ready to behave like her usual impossible self.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Jason said by way of greeting.

“What?” She narrowed her eyes warily.

“For you to get your tiger stripes back in place.” He meant the words as a subtle jab, but the by the way Ava threw her shoulders back, he guessed she took them as a compliment. “To what do I owe this visit?”

“I need to go out.”

“My men can drive you. I’ve assigned Titus and Adrian to take care of you.”

Ava glanced down the hall, then stepped into the room and pulled the door closed solidly behind her. “I don’t want them following me.”

Jason should have guessed she wouldn’t want to cooperate—if only because she always had to argue. “You need protection. Someone’s trying to kill you.”

“And do you really think your men would stop them?” She leaned over his desk as she had so many times before. But this time, instead of yelling, she kept her voice low, almost pleading. “They don’t like me. I want you to come with me.”

Jason exhaled with exasperation. “I have things to do. I’m the captain of the guard. We’ve got a royal wedding in just over a week, and a bomb went off outside our gates this morning. I’m busy.” He glared at her.

When she glared silently back at him, he added, “I don’t like you any more than they do.”

“Good.” Ava stood straight. “Anyway, everything’s in place for Alexander’s wedding. It’s Princess Anastasia’s timeline that worries me. I should have the venue established by now.”

“Sardis Cathedral,” Jason volunteered. “The same as every other royal wedding in the history of Lydia.”

“Not every royal wedding in the history of Lydia,” Ava corrected him sharply. “Before Castlehead was abandoned, the kings and queens were always married—”

“We’re not going to Dorsi.” Jason stood and crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to wince at the pain in his aching back. “I don’t want to hear you speak of it again. It’s absolutely beyond question.”

“You don’t want me to speak of it again?” Ava raised an eyebrow. When Jason nodded, she continued, “I’ll make you a deal. I won’t ever bring it up again if you’ll accompany me to the island and hear the plans I’ve laid out for Anastasia’s wedding.”

Jason clenched his teeth, torn. He hated to let the woman have her way, even one tiny bit. However, he had planned to spend the rest of his afternoon—and even his evening, if necessary—grilling her about her past, searching for any hint of who might be trying to kill her. Alexander’s wedding was coming up far too soon for them to fire Ava and find someone else, but at the same time, if someone was trying to kill her, the whole palace was in danger. The bomb outside that morning had proved that.

Going to Dorsi would provide him with the necessary time and isolation to talk to Ava freely and ask her every question he could think of. It would also get her out of the city, away from where the attempts on her life had taken place and—should trouble attempt to follow them—far from the royal family he’d vowed to protect.

If it carried the bonus of convincing her to drop the Dorsi request once he’d heard her out, so much the better.

He uncrossed his arms. “Fine. We’ll go to Dorsi. How soon can you be ready to leave?”

“I’m ready now.”

“Good. You’ll have to promise me you’ll do whatever I say—the island is dangerous.”

Her triumphant glare didn’t falter. “As long as you hear me out, I’ll do whatever you say.”

* * *

Ava brought along the duffel bag containing all the brochures and papers from her desktop. She adjusted the strap over her shoulder as she followed the captain down the dock to a royal-guard speedboat. If Captain Selini wanted to ask her about possible suspects, she’d be ready with the brochures. They could analyze any and every vendor she’d ever worked with—as well as those she’d rejected—and root out possible suspects among them. Anything to keep the captain busy and too distracted to ask about her personal life.

There was no reason for Jason Selini to know anything about her past. Everyone she’d ever known or loved or cared about was half a world away, in Seattle, her hometown. The distance was far too great for any of them to be suspects. No, surely some angry cake decorator had gone off the deep end and decided to target her for not fully appreciating his buttercream frosting.

The captain hopped aboard and extended one hand toward Ava. She ignored the proffered help and planted one foot on the boat, determined to prove that, while she might be injured, she was by no means helpless.

As her foot touched the gleaming white step, the boat shifted, bobbing in the water. Ava hadn’t anticipated the motion, but, firmly intending to recover her balance on her own, she pushed off the pier with her other foot. The captain had hopped into the boat with grace. She could do so, as well.

The boat, however, wasn’t cooperating, and the bulky bag over her shoulder didn’t help. She careened forward, swung her arms wide and nearly punched the captain as he reached to steady her.

She landed hard against his shoulder and yelped.

“Steady now?” Jason asked, his hands surprisingly gentle on her arms as he held her upright.

She glanced up into his face, furious when she spotted amusement sparkling in his gray eyes. “I would be fine if—” She tried to think. Surely somehow her blunder was his fault, or could at least be blamed on him.

“If you’d taken my hand when I’d first offered it?” He looked far too pleased with himself.

Ava glared at him and pulled away, perhaps a bit too suddenly. Only Jason’s grip still secure on her arms kept her from tumbling backward.

“If this boat didn’t rock so much!” she shot back at him.

“Boats do that.” He watched her a moment longer, letting go of her arms but standing close, ready to catch her again if she tipped.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, flustered that she’d crashed into his shoulder and further distraught that he had such nice shoulders for crashing into. If she was going to embarrass herself, she’d have preferred to do so in front of someone who wasn’t so strong and handsome.

“Can I help you to your seat?” Jason offered.

Though she would rather have walked herself, Ava wished to avoid crashing into those shoulders again, so she took hold of his hand this time, though she glared at him the entire way to the seat and especially once she’d sat down. And she didn’t say thank-you, because she didn’t feel thankful at all. In fact, she quite resented needing his help.

To her relief, the captain ignored her as he got the boat started and pointed them out to sea. Ava watched carefully, still not completely trusting him to take her to the forbidden island of Dorsi.

The Lydian capital city of Sardis sat on the Mediterranean coast, on the tip of the tiny kingdom nestled between Greece and Albania. The island of Dorsi was the most remote of the dozens of islands that formed an archipelago extending out from the mainland. Once a peninsula connected by land to Sardis, the islands had been washed free by centuries of storms.

Dorsi had once been known as Castlehead, but after hurricanes and crumbling shorelines had rendered the former Lydian palace uninhabitable, the royal family had relocated to the palace in Sardis. Because of the island’s history and Princess Stasi’s own adventures there with her fiancé, Kirk Covington, the affianced pair wanted to be married in the ruins of the palace cathedral.

In Ava’s mind, the island was the perfect spot for a private wedding, which was what the youngest princess wanted. And Ava always gave her brides what they wanted—that promise, and her ability to fulfill it, made her one of the top wedding planners in Seattle, before she’d left everything to come to Lydia.

Kirk Covington had warned her of the supposed dangers of the island. Dorsi was said to have been contaminated by land mines during the World Wars, though Ava had never heard explained what enemy had placed them, since Lydia had remained neutral throughout those conflicts. Besides that, the massive blocks of limestone that teetered in ruinous towers were rumored to fall at the slightest provocation, especially when disturbed by those who didn’t belong there.

The island itself was such a formidable rock that there didn’t seem to be any decent spot to anchor, and if that weren’t deterrent enough, the periphery of the island was dotted every twenty feet or so with fearsome signs, warning potential visitors of certain death should they venture there.

But no rocks had fallen when she’d visited the island with Kirk and Stasi. Indeed, the peaceful Mediterranean shores had looked to her like the perfect location for a private wedding, just foreboding enough to keep the paparazzi at a distance. She only had to convince Jason Selini to agree with her. Perhaps if she cooperated with his investigation questions, he’d be more willing to see things her way.

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