The Royal Elite: Mattias (15 page)

“You sound pretty versed in this area. Is it because you
are
one?”

Mattias recognized the shine of wariness the second it entered Alannah's eyes. He supposed it was the next logical step in her mind, one he couldn't really blame her for. “I'm not an assassin.”

And that was mostly true. He didn't take jobs with the intention to kill—he took jobs with the intention to
save.
If he was forced to take other action, then he was prepared to do that.

“You could be a little more reassuring.” Alannah rested her chin on her fingers, which gripped the side of the seat. Conflicted, unsure.

“I'm not an assassin,” he repeated. “I did tell you that I'm battle trained. In my country, I hold several military titles, all of which require me to know how to kill a man. It's not quite the same thing, though, now is it?”

“Not the same at all. Yet I still have the feeling there's something you're not telling me.”

“I'm not the kind of man who gives away all his secrets.” He had the strangest desire to confide in Alannah despite the Royal Elite code to keep their group under wraps. He wanted her to understand why he was doing the things he was doing, so that she might not judge his character so harshly. The idea that she thought he might be an assassin bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

She searched his eyes, lush mouth drawn into a contemplative moue. Then, she straightened. Frowning. As if a stray thought crossed her mind. One that didn't set well with her. She shifted in the seat, facing forward to stare out the windshield.

Mattias had only known Alannah a couple of days, but already he recognized her signals and signs. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“I know better. Tell me.”

Silence.

“Alannah.” Her name had barely passed his lips before she popped open the driver's door and got out. Mattias followed suit, ignoring a bout of dizziness and the glare of the sun, left over remnants of the drug. Rounding the nose of the SUV, he caught up to her on the grass. Cupping her elbow, he swiveled her around to face him. Her eyes were full of fury and indignation.

“You planned this all along, didn't you? To get close. You knew before you ever met me that someone planned the hit, and all this, this...” she gestured flippantly with a hand, “...this was just part of your job.
I
was your job.”

It didn't take Mattias long to figure out where she was going with it. He loathed that he couldn't tell her the entire truth. “My only 'job' as you call it, was to make sure nothing happened to you. Getting to know you was all me.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Of course you don't,” he said. His hand fell to his side when she shrugged off his touch. “Because you're stubborn and hard headed and I could emblazon it across the sky but you'd still believe what you believe.”

“How can I not? No wonder you were bedding anything with two legs in the meantime.” She turned away, putting her back to him.

Mattias studied the line of her jaw, the curve of her shoulder. Under the sun, her dress glittered like black diamonds. It hugged her slender body in all the right places, accentuating everything feminine about her.

Feeling over-warm in his tuxedo, he resisted the urge to remove the jacket. It wouldn't do to expose anyone who might be watching to the presence of his shoulder holster.

“My initial contact with you was precisely what it appears to be. Yes,” he admitted, “I sought you out with the idea to keep an eye on you. But it wasn't
only
that after the first couple of times.”

She glared at him over her shoulder before looking forward toward the distant playground again.

Mattias took her silence to mean she was rethinking her statement. He said, “I don't know how it could be much more than what I've said after only a day or two. Things haven't been clear cut for either of us here.”

Slowly, she faced him. Found his eyes again. “No, I'll agree to that, at least. It's not clear cut or easily defined. So,” she paused, then continued, “what's next? Where do we go from here?”

“I need to find a payphone and call Ahsan. Right now, we need information, so it's a risk we'll have to take. Then, I'm thinking we find a safe haven for us to recover in for twenty-four hours or so. We'll get new clothes, I'll contact your father, and we'll arrange the most convenient meet up point.”

“That sounds like the only plan that makes sense. Are you certain we wouldn't be safer staying on the move?”

“I'm not certain of anything, Alannah. The situation is too fluid. All we can do is try to stay a few steps ahead of the enemy until we find out who is behind this.” He couldn't give her anymore reassurance than that. Ahsan, Chayton and Leander were hard at work, he knew, digging up whatever leads they could. Possibly questioning the kidnapper and Cleary.

“All right. Whatever you think is best. I guess we should get going.” Alannah took a step toward the SUV.

Mattias set a gentle hand on her arm, waited until they made eye contact to say, “Thank you for stepping in last night. For having the guts and wherewithal to get away from the others.”

For not letting him fall out the window to the asphalt after he'd been drugged. That act in itself—the drugging—was another oddity that he didn't mention to Alannah. Why not just shoot him if they wanted Alannah that bad? Why the caution? It could have been his status that saved him, considering what hell Latvala would rain down on his killers. Sander, his brother, would hunt the assassins until he found them. Maybe the men hadn't wanted that kind of international attention.

“I might not be happy with all of your choices, Prince Mattias, but I wouldn't let you die without a fight. You're welcome.” Blinking the sun from her eyes, she regarded him a moment more, then eased her arm from his lax grip.

Mattias let her go. For now, he welcomed the minor truce.

With a wary look around the park, he made his way back to the vehicle, intent on departing before unexpected—and unwanted—visitors arrived.

Alannah stared out the window while the Spanish scenery whipped by. It was a blur of color, made up mostly of deep yellow, dark green, terra cotta and occasionally a blip of red. She had no idea where they were at this point with her helter-skelter flight last night and Mattias's penchant for taking every back road he could find. They stopped twice, once to gas up and another for food. Mattias used a payphone attached to the side of the gas station to call his friends, and no amount of coaxing from her would get him to tell her what he knew. Or where they were going, for that matter. Along the way, he'd stripped his tuxedo jacket again, leaving him in the crisp shirt of white and black slacks that fit him better than she wanted to admit. He'd been forced to remove the shoulder holster, too, so that no one would see it.

The sight of the ocean perked her interest and she sat straighter in her seat. She knew from the drive time that they must be facing the Atlantic or the Bay of Biscay. To reach the Mediterranean, they would have had to drive for days instead of a handful of hours.

Expecting Mattias to pull up at another ragtag hole in the wall, she was surprised when he cruised onto the property of a very ritzy looking hotel. He self parked instead of driving to the valet service, shut off the engine, and glanced across the SUV.

“We'll be staying here for today, perhaps tomorrow.”

“Isn't this conspicuous? Won't someone recognize you and turn you in?” she asked, gaze dropping to the vee of his open shirt. When she realized what she was doing, her attention shifted back to his face. He was watching her with an unreadable expression.

“Turn me in to who? The assassins? If the random passerby knows who is out to get you—and now probably me—then we're in a lot more trouble than we expected. It's possible someone will recognize me, yes, but they most likely won't recognize you, which is why you'll go inside to the desk and ask for the manager. He'll give you a room key, that's all. No questions, no paperwork to fill out. Use the name Ruby.”

“Just Ruby? No last name?” Alannah couldn't argue that no one would likely recognize her. The pictures the media picked up of her were always either shots that didn't really resemble this Alannah, or ones where she was hiding behind hair and dark glasses. It was rare they paid any attention to her anyway—she just wasn't great media fodder. Scandal didn't follow her around everywhere, and she wasn't the type to go looking for it just to see her face on the cover of every magazine.

“No. I'll be waiting here, so come right back. The only way to the rooms is through the foyer and an emergency exit, so we'll need to hit up a nearby store for sunglasses and a hat along with new clothes. That should be enough to disguise me on the off chance someone knows who I am.”

“Today and tomorrow,” she said, repeating how long they might stay. She heard his reply about the disguise, filing the information away for later.

“Yes. Is that inconvenient?”

“No. You're going to great lengths to get me home safe. I would hardly complain about that.” And it wasn't a lie. Mattias had better things to be doing, she was sure, than to sneak her through a foreign country and hand her off to her father.

“Not
enough
time?” His voice dropped an octave. Suggestive.

Alannah imagined him using that tone on the blonde woman which served to remind her how annoyed she'd been—how annoyed she
was—
about that. To make matters worse, she still wasn't sure what to think about how the Prince came into her life. By clandestine means, yes. But was he telling the truth about knowing her? Beyond what he needed to protect her? She couldn't deny the sparks between them, the chemistry.

Judging by the blonde's lusty cries, there had been no lack of chemistry there, either.

Irritated that she continued to relive it, she got out of the SUV without another word. Straightening her dress, feeling conspicuous in such an expensive gown, she cut through the parking lot toward the front entrance of the hotel.

The entire way she could feel Mattias staring at her back. Good. Let him stare.

Just as Mattias said, there was no trouble obtaining the key card to their room. The manager pretended like nothing was out of order and the other two employees never looked her way. If they did, they hid it well. She exited through the double sliding doors, passed under a breezeway covered in bougainvillea, and walked back to the SUV. She caught Mattias's eye coming around the front of the truck. He wore a thoughtful expression, following her progress until she was sitting next to him once more. Wordlessly, she handed the key card over.

Disregarding it, he started the SUV and got them on the road again.

Alannah regretted the new silence, the new tension. Or did she? The complicated situation gave her a headache. Sliding the key card into a drink slot, she pulled the seat belt on and cast a wary eye to the city at large.

Their adversary could be anywhere, ready to surprise them at a moment's notice. Alannah discovered she didn't feel as safe as she'd hoped by putting a couple of hours driving time between the park and here.

The only thing that made her feel halfway secure was the man behind the wheel. One glance across the seats assured her he was currently as irritated with her as she was with him.

She wondered when—not if but
when—
their volatility would come to a head.

While Alannah shopped in a small, nondescript store, Mattias thought about his conversation with Ahsan. With power finally restored at the manor, he'd made contact with his brethren. The desert dweller had informed Mattias that the second chase car, disabled by Ahsan and Chayton's bullets, proved to be empty by the time the two men arrived. Two or three assassins had scrambled overland in the dark, escaping through the terrain with enough skill to elude capture. The initial kidnapper, taken to an area hospital, wasn't talking. No one could get close enough to press him in the ways that would make him spill everything, not with security hovering right outside the patient's door.

Ahsan and Chayton were using Morano's manor as a staging area while they contacted Alannah's father to make transfer arrangements. Ahsan had also used his connections to secure the room at the ritzy hotel for he and Alannah.

Revelers of the gala continued their illustrious party, none the wiser to the drama on the distant road leading in. Cleary and the unnamed stranger they suspected might be a hit man were being watched closely, while the roster of guests and staff went through rigorous scanning to see who, exactly, had been using fake names.

So far, Ahsan hadn't heard from Leander, either, and Mattias couldn't decide if that was a bad or good thing. Leander, more than capable in his area of expertise, could be hot on a fresh lead and unable to take calls. Or, he could have whatever information he'd found and be on his way back to Spain. Either way, Mattias wasn't concerned. Leander would call when he could, or simply show up out of the blue as he was often fond of doing.

What bothered Mattias more than anything at the moment was the sense that he was missing something important. A vital clue, or clues, something subtle that would help him understand what was going on.

Something about the whole set up seemed...off. His instincts told him there was more to it than met the eye.

Before he could delve too deeply into more internal speculation, he saw Alannah emerge from the store. She had two large bags in hand and had taken the opportunity to use the dressing rooms to change. Gone was the glittery gown. In its place: jeans, a short sleeved white tee shirt and bright white sneakers. A turquoise visor cast a shadow across half her face and dark sunglasses covered her eyes.

“Find everything we needed?” he asked after she got in.

“Yes. You'll have to change in the SUV, but I've got clothes that should fit you well enough.” Alannah set one bag on the back seat and the other on her lap. Rifling through, she pulled out a baseball cap with a skein of blonde hair attached to the inside. The kind people wore as jokes or at Halloween to complete a costume.