Marek went very still. “Someone has been talking.”
Tahra nodded. “I had lunch with Queen Juliana today. She told me.”
“What else did she tell you?”
She lifted his right hand, which was clasping her left one, and tilted it until she saw the slight genetic defect she’d missed before. “That you’re also the king’s second cousin.”
“She was just a fount of information, was she not?”
“Not completely. She wouldn’t tell me what mariskya meant. She said I should ask you.”
“That is something, anyway,” he said drily.
Tahra peeked at him. “She did say Marianescus love once, then never again. And that if I was your mariskya, I was a very fortunate woman.”
He laughed softly. “And she would know. The king—”
“Your second cousin.”
“My king,” he reiterated firmly. “Always. If you would know me, Tahra, you must know that. He is my king first and foremost. I would die to keep him safe. The same goes for the queen and the crown prince—because they are his. Can you understand that?”
She nodded solemnly. “I think so. Because duty is honor to you, isn’t it?” When he silently assented, she said, “Yes, I understand.” She glanced down and realized he still held the flower he’d picked for her. “May I have my rose?”
He seemed as surprised as she’d been that he still had it, but all he said was “Of course.” Then he brushed his lips against the petals in a romantic gesture that made Tahra sigh soundlessly, and offered her the rose, which she took in her right hand. She couldn’t lift anything heavy with that hand, but her surgeon had encouraged her to use her muscles in that arm whenever she could do so without putting a strain on her wrist.
They resumed walking, and after a few minutes Marek said out of the blue, “I failed him once. I will never fail him again.”
She stopped abruptly, and when he turned, a question on his face, she asked, “How did you fail him?” Because she couldn’t imagine it. Not a man like him.
His lips tightened. “It was several years ago. I had orders to arrest Prince Nikolai. Instead, he almost killed the king and his then-fiancée...the woman who is now queen.”
“But...”
“The king forgave me. He even took the blame on himself. Then he made me the head of the queen’s security detail. He trusted me to keep her safe for him. I have not forgotten.”
Puzzled, she said, “But that’s not your job now.”
Marek shook his head. “After the assassination attempt on the crown prince—”
“What?”
“I forgot you did not know. It happened right after I met you.”
“Someone tried to murder a baby?” She couldn’t fathom it.
“Why are you surprised? If people would kill dozens of children in a schoolyard—which you prevented—why should one child be any different?”
“But...the prince is okay, right? I mean, the assassination attempt failed.” She tapped the flat of her left hand against her head in frustration over her stupidity. “Of course he’s okay. Otherwise—”
“Yes, otherwise I would not be the head of his security detail.”
“So how did you... What happened with... Please explain.”
“After the assassination attempt on the crown prince on his christening day—which was foiled by Angelina, with some assistance from Alec, by the way—the man who was the head of the crown prince’s security detail offered his resignation...which the king eventually accepted. The king asked me to step into that role, and he promoted Angelina in my place. That is all.”
Tahra took Marek’s arm and started walking again but sniffed at the rose in her right hand at the same time, breathing in the delicate scent and loving it. “No wonder the queen seemed to understand what the parents of the children in that preschool would have felt,” she said, almost to herself.
“Yes, she nearly lost her son. It was a clever plot and a close call. Angelina—like you did days ago—figured out what was happening and prevented it.” He squeezed her hand. “That is why I say I am not the same man I was before. You and Angelina have opened my eyes.”
Tahra glanced up and read the truth on his face. “You are nothing like Angelina,” he continued. “You are not tall and lean—no, this is not an insult,” he added quickly when he saw her reaction. “You are perfect as you are. Soft and rounded and...and delectable.”
“Nice save,” she told him, choosing not to be offended. She knew she wasn’t tall and lean. She wasn’t short, but she had definite curves, just like her older sister.
“Nice save?” The puzzlement on his face matched his tone.
“Sports reference. American sports reference? It just means you prevented the other team from scoring or making a play that would have hurt your team.”
“Ahhh.” From puzzled his face turned amused. “So perhaps I should not mention you could never take me down—as Angelina did once.”
Tahra looked him over. So tall. So über-masculine—although she wasn’t about to use the word über to him again, she thought with an inner smile. Impressively masculine, she substituted in her mind. That’s a better description anyway. “I can’t imagine why I’d want to take you down,” she said aloud, letting her eyes twinkle at him, “but you’re right. You probably shouldn’t mention it.”
That made him laugh. He stopped short and drew her into his embrace, dropping a kiss onto her upturned face. “You are a constant delight.” He stared down at her, and Tahra caught her breath. Everything he was feeling was there in his eyes, his face. Love and desire, and something else. Something she suddenly realized was even more important to her. Admiration.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You are nothing like Angelina. And yet you are just like her in one crucial way.”
Her pulse wasn’t steady and neither was her breathing when she asked, “What way?”
“You have a warrior’s heart.”
* * *
The sun had long since set before Marek, carrying the picnic basket they’d retrieved from the gazebo, led Tahra back inside the palace through the side door they’d used earlier. The guard posted there wasn’t the same man who’d been on the door before, but he snapped a salute at Marek and addressed them both by name...in English.
“Good evening, Captain Zale, Miss Edwards.” He held the door for them.
Marek returned the salute, answering in Zakharan. A quick exchange followed, and though Tahra thought she was ignoring a conversation she wasn’t part of in a language she didn’t know, she was startled when she recognized a half-dozen words. She waited until they were out of earshot of the guard before she asked Marek about it.
“Yes,” he replied as he led her down a short corridor lined with doors. “You have been taking lessons in Zakharan for as long as I have known you.”
“I have?”
“Yes. Zakharan is not an easy language to learn as an adult, but you told me when we met that you felt, since you worked at the embassy here in Drago, it was important to at least try.” He turned a corner, then unlocked a door, opened it, turned on the light and ushered Tahra inside. “Here we are. I have been wanting to show you my office, but the occasion never arose.”
Marek’s office was small but immaculate. No clutter anywhere. Everything had a place, everything was tidied away. Not even a piece of notepaper by the phone or a pen lying haphazardly on the expanse of his desk. And Tahra wondered, If that’s the way he is at work, how is he at home? Would he be driven to distraction by how she left things here and there? Would he try to control her that way, too? She was neat and tidy at work, but that was at work. At home she liked to be...well...not messy, but not quite so organized, either.
A whiteboard covered the wall behind his desk, with a grid of days, dates and what appeared to be blocks of time across the top, and names neatly lettered down the left side. Xs were scattered across the grid in various boxes. When he saw the direction of Tahra’s gaze, he explained, “That is a chart of who is on duty when.”
“Guarding the crown prince.”
“Precisely.”
“I hadn’t realized there were so many,” she murmured.
“Unlike the king, who chafes under the necessity and will accept only one bodyguard at a time, there are always two men on duty guarding the crown prince twenty-four hours a day. Eight-hour shifts times two men per shift means a minimum of six men per day. But of course, they must be relieved for meals and such, which means an additional man per shift, who acts as supervisor in my absence. And then I must also allow for the fact that a man cannot work seven days a week, fifty-two weeks in a year, so additional men are necessary. The queen, too, requires two bodyguards at all times, but that is Angelina’s responsibility now. We share men, so there is always full coverage of the queen and the crown prince and yet no man’s time is wasted.”
“Only men?”
Marek had the grace to look abashed. “On the crown prince’s detail, yes. The queen insisted from the beginning that a certain number of her bodyguards be women, which is how Angelina came to be assigned in the first place. But every bodyguard is a member of the Zakharian National Forces on detached duty. That is, while they are on special assignment as bodyguards and the normal chain of command does not apply, they are still in the military. Which means they are referred to as ‘men,’ even those who are women.”
“Oh.” She tried not to judge, but it seemed somewhat archaic.
“You must be patient with us. Zakhar is still adapting to the change.”
“The change?”
“It has only been since the king ascended the throne that women were allowed in the Zakharian National Forces. And it has not even been three years since they were allowed to serve in combat.”
“I see.” And now that he’d brought it up, Tahra remembered her State Department briefing on the history of Zakhar, its political structure and its attitudes on a variety of issues, including women’s rights. “The king instituted a lot of changes, didn’t he?”
“He is the king.” Implicit in his words and tone was a firm conviction that Zakhar’s ruler was always right.
Tahra smiled to herself. She would never tell Marek, because it was obvious he believed God Himself would not allow the king to be wrong, but she was too American to accept that those in positions of power were perfect beings. Everyone was human. And everyone made mistakes. She was just glad, for Marek’s sake, that the king he admired and served with such dedication seemed to live up to his ideals.
“So what’s this?” she asked as she glanced at the whiteboard on the wall across from Marek’s desk, where a series of squares had been blocked out—four in the first row, then three and three. She moved closer when she saw her name written in a box in the top right corner, circled in red.
“I think best when I can visualize what is happening. Ten nearly simultaneous attacks in one day...”
“This is everything that happened that day?” She turned to look at him and he nodded. She faced the board again, touching the numbers written in each of the squares, a chill running down her spine as she recognized what those numbers signified. “Oh, God,” she whispered, tears springing to her eyes. “So many dead.”
Scarcely two seconds later, strong arms enfolded her from behind. “None from the preschool,” he reminded her in a deep voice. “Thanks to you.”
“Yes, but why? I mean why all these attacks?” She turned and burrowed into Marek’s comforting embrace. “Who would do something like this?”
He hesitated, as if there were things he knew he couldn’t share with her. Finally he said, “An organization called the Zakharian Liberation Front has taken public responsibility. Have you heard of it?”
She didn’t even raise her head from where it resided. “No.”
“Their credo is ‘Zakhar for Zakharians.’”
This time she was forced to look up. “Immigrants?” she asked, appalled. “Those pitiful refugees? That’s their reason for mass murder?”
“That is what they say, yes.”
Something in his voice made her ask, “You don’t believe it?”
He didn’t answer right away, just stared over her head at everything written on the whiteboard. “I do not know,” he said slowly. Deliberately. “All the targets so far have some connection with those who have made their way to Zakhar and are settling here with the king’s blessing and encouragement.”
He pointed to the top left. “A train from the eastern border, packed with asylum seekers.” His finger moved across the top to the next square. “The refugee processing center in the middle of Drago.” He pointed to the next block. “The Zakharian National Forces training facility, where seventy percent of the new recruits were male émigrés.” He hesitated, then indicated top right. “A preschool, where almost half the children enrolled are émigrés. And the other six targets across Zakhar have similar makeups.”
“Seems pretty obvious to me the refugees are the focus.”
“It would seem that way, yes. And yet... It is nothing I can name, just a feeling there is something we are overlooking.”
“What’s being done about it?”
“The king has stated the Zakharian Liberation Front’s actions are unacceptable to him, and has expressed his desire for three things.” Tahra correctly interpreted “expressed his desire” to mean “issued a royal command,” at least where Marek and the men who served the king were concerned.
“What are those three things?”
“Protect the refugees at all costs. Bring to justice all who are involved in the attacks. Root out and destroy the Zakharian Liberation Front so something like this never occurs again.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Not me personally, but yes, the secret intelligence service, assisted by the Drago police and the Zakharian National Forces, is doing everything in its power to make his wishes a reality.”
“What else?”
“The head of the king’s protection detail asked Angelina and me to form a task force with him, so any potential threat to the royal family is immediately nullified. We have already met twice. I cannot disclose the specifics, but rest assured the royals are as safe as we can make them.”
“Yes, but what exactly are you doing?” She didn’t know how she knew, just that she did—Marek wouldn’t sit back and wait for someone else to solve the mystery and bring the perpetrators to justice. Even if she wasn’t involved, even if she wasn’t still a potential target, Marek was too über-alpha—there’s that word again, she chastised herself silently—too much of a take-charge man to sit quietly on the sidelines while someone else ran the ball.
“What makes you think I am doing anything?” he parried. “My job is to ensure the safety of the crown prince, and tangentially the safety of the royal family as a whole. That I am doing. Always.” But she knew he was keeping something from her...again.
Again?
Tahra stiffened. Where had that thought come from? What would make her think Marek had deceived her about something in the past? The past she couldn’t remember. That has to be it, she reasoned. Because she couldn’t think of anything he’d said or not said since she’d woken up in the hospital that could qualify for “again” in that context.
She started to ask him but changed her mind at the last minute because Marek had been right earlier—if he told her too much about her past, how would she know if she ever really regained her memory, or just thought she had?
There’s another reason, too, a little voice in the back of her mind taunted her. You’re afraid to know.
Shocked, Tahra acknowledged the little voice was right. She was afraid. Because despite the strikes Marek had against him—that control thing he had going, not to mention his less-than-ideal attitude toward women—he was drawing her under his spell, like a fragile moth to a far-too-tempting flame. She was falling in love with him all over again...in the space of four days.
Four days? She mentally counted back to what she referred to as Day One, when she’d woken from a coma in the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, Marek at her bedside. And yes, today was only Day Four.
Okay, it wasn’t really four days. She’d grown to love him at some point in the past year and a half. But she didn’t remember that. Didn’t remember him. So in some ways it was as if she’d opened her eyes, taken one look at his handsome features and incredible body, and decided he was the man she’d been waiting for all these years. Not like her at all.
Unless...subconsciously...she remembered him, her body as well as her heart. Which was where the fear came in. Because he’d done something—what, she hadn’t a clue—but something to break her heart. She was sure of it.