Stranded with the Prince Read online

  She’d had nothing for breakfast but champagne.

  “I’m afraid our stash of caviar will have to wait. We need to find Vince. We need weapons and a way to communicate with the outside world.”

  “We can’t keep walking if we don’t eat.” She pulled her hand from his.

  To his regret, her subdued state seemed to be coming to an end. He stopped and faced her. “A person can go for days without food. You can’t go nearly as long with a knife between your shoulder blades.”

  She paled.

  Regretting his words, he drew a slow breath. “We’ll come across something.”

  And a little while later, they did. They stopped and lunched on wild oranges that were small but plentiful on this side of the hill. The sweet juice was just the right thing to quench their thirst, while the pulp was enough to make them feel like their bellies weren’t empty.

  They were spending time together almost companionably. It was the strangest thing.

  She sat cross-legged, her slim back against a tree, peeled her fourth orange with dainty fingers and bit in. A drop rolled down her chin before she caught it. Her lips were moist and shiny, like rubies in the noon light.

  A honeybee buzzed by, circled her head. With her hair all wild, she looked like some woodland fairy. In the right light, from the right angle, she was almost pretty, he realized with some surprise. Yes, definitely pretty. He might have noticed it before if he weren’t always trying to evade her.

  The bee circled again. She swatted it away, but within a few seconds another came by. And another. Coming from the same direction.

  He pushed to his feet and walked that way, if for no other reason than because his sudden awareness of the woman, who’d been nothing but a thorn under his skin thus far, unsettled him. At the edge of the grove he found a hollow tree.

  “Where are you going?” she called after him.

  “For honey. Stay where you are.”

  He broke off a young branch, stripped the leaves then the bark with his fingernails and crept up to the tree. Very slowly he reached up and dipped the branch inside; very slowly, he pulled it out. When wild honey dripped to the ground, he grinned.

  He carefully walked the loot back to Milda, who looked ready to run if they were attacked by the bees, but all they did was buzz around him. Still, a few seconds passed before she focused on the honey. But once she did, he didn’t have to offer it twice. He held the branch. She put a hand next to his to steady it. Then she tilted her mouth up, and her small, pink tongue darted out to lick the sweet goo.

  His groin tightened. A most unexpected reaction that jolted him.

  Not possible. Not now. Not with this woman.

  But his resolve weakened as her eyelids fluttered closed for a second and she gave a soft moan. Then she looked up at him with those dusky blue eyes. “This is beyond good. Thank you. I needed this.”

  He cleared his throat to respond. But as she went back to her snacking, he forgot what he was about to say. Lost track of time there for a second.

  Until she looked up at him again, sheepishly. “I ate it all.”

  He blinked hard and tossed the branch to the ground. He needed to snap out of it. They needed to get going and find the guard, make contact with the mainland. Instead, he hesitated.

  She winced as she shot him a guilty look. “I was so hungry I wasn’t even thinking.”

  A drop of wild honey still glistened on her lips.

  He liked full, pouty lips. Hers were on the thin side and crooked when she smiled. Not particularly seductive. Nobody was more surprised than he when he leaned in.

  She was soft and sweet; her mouth fitted his to perfection. He felt his body harden in a split second, his reaction disproportionate to the minor amount of bodily contact between them. He barely brushed his lips across hers, but he felt the impact all the way to his toes.

  For a moment so brief that he might have imagined it, she went with the flow. Then she was pushing against him. He pulled away, searching her stunned face, trying to gather his scattered thoughts.

  Her lips moved but no sound came out. She was probably looking for the words with which to best berate him.

  And he definitely deserved that. What in hell had he been thinking? Her life mission was to make him miserable. Normally, he couldn’t stand the sight of her. He pulled his spine straight and stepped back, standing stiff and still.

  And with that symbolic distance between them, whatever craziness had possessed him disappeared. He didn’t know where it had come from, but he did know one thing for sure: under no circumstances would he ever touch this woman again. She was nothing but trouble.

  “I—” She swallowed. “We shouldn’t be doing this. You are—” She paused. “I am—” She made a soft noise of frustration. “We can’t do this again.”

  For the first time they were in agreement. That threw him even more thoroughly off balance.

  It wasn’t right.

  He weighed the issue at hand, his gaze straying to those ruby lips that were pressed into a severe, angry line. Then the solution came to him and he flashed the woman his most wicked grin. “I think we’re definitely going to do this again.”

  And watched her sputter with outrage. Her magnificent breasts heaved with barely suppressed indignation. Her eyes were throwing thunderbolts.

  Which made him relax. Everything was back to normal between them again.

  ROBERTO STOLE FORWARD, breathing hard from the effort, wiping the sweat that ran into his eyes as he looked up. The top of the hill seemed a lot closer now than the last time he’d stopped for a breather. He needed high ground to see if his hunch was right and they were on an island. He wanted to know how many houses there were.

  José and Marco had gone off in different directions to get the lay of the land. The three of them were to meet back in a couple of hours at the rocky beach where they’d landed.

  Then Roberto reached the top at last, and could finally look around. An island, definitely. With no houses. A fishing boat passed by slowly to the north. He could see the mainland in the distance, a strip of gray at the edge of the azure.

  They’d reached an uninhabited island, with two hikers. One now—whoever had spoken on that radio. Roberto scratched the stubble on his chin. Still, one was enough to spot them, to report them to the police. If they took that guy out, the island would be theirs for a few days, until people came to look for the hikers. A couple of days would be enough to recover from their near drowning. They needed rest and food to regain their strength before they made their way to the mainland. The first hiker had a considerable stash of food. And his buddy probably had supplies of his own.

  The hikers had to have a boat, too, he figured. Although, so far he hadn’t been able to spot it. But, between the three of them, they should be able to find the damn thing sooner or later.

  He swept the vista again and thought he saw the tip of a tent by the edge of the trees to the north. He glanced at the watch he’d gotten off the first hiker. Plenty of time. And he could definitely handle one man.

  He made his way down the hill, keeping the dead hiker’s knife close at hand. Looked like military issue, but the man hadn’t been in uniform, although his black clothes did have some sort of coat of arms on them. Maybe the two men were government surveyors of some sort.

  But then, where was their equipment?

  Maybe they were gamekeepers, here to keep hunters and fishermen off the island.

  Roberto didn’t much care one way or the other. One of them was dead, and the other was about to join his buddy.

  A good hour passed before he reached the tent. He considered the gun for a second, but then grabbed the knife. With the fishing boat that close to the island, he couldn’t risk someone hearing a shot.

  He snuck up to the tent, burst through the flap, found the inside empty. But just then, a noise came from behind him.

  MILDA MOVED ACROSS the rocky ground as if the devil was after her. They had to find the other guard. There was
a killer on the island. They had no food or water, and she was getting weaker by the minute. The sooner they got to a radio the better. But that wasn’t the only reason for her to hurry.

  The prince had kissed her. Kind of.

  Tasted her. Barely.

  She’d blown the whole thing way out of proportion. She’d acted as if she’d never been kissed before. Which she had. On a few occasions. But she’d never felt that lightning of heat and need, the weakening of the knees that Lazlo’s barely-there kiss had caused.

  What did he kiss her for?

  She pushed harder, needing to stay ahead of him and keep some distance between them.

  His lips had been firm and warm and felt as good as they had in her dreams, for love’s sake.

  Thank God, she’d found the strength to pull away before she could completely embarrass herself. And that ridiculous threat of him wanting to do it again! She’d been marching forward in silence, rounding the island in search of the other guard ever since.

  She kept going, trying to forget the kiss, trying to forget the dead guard. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to do either. But at the very least, she had to find a way to put both out of her mind, because she had to function to stay alive.

  In her haste to get away from him, she’d gotten quite a bit ahead of the prince. The sound of rolling rocks somewhere ahead of her on the hillside reached her. She couldn’t see through the trees.

  Could be a wild animal.

  Or could be the other guard.

  Or could be the killer.

  She slowed, but it was too late. Since her eyes were on the woods, she didn’t notice the crevasse in front of her, half covered by lush, green vines. She stepped onto the leaves, and her feet touched air. She tumbled, down, down, down, the earth swallowing her startled cry…. which ended abruptly when hitting bottom pushed the air from her lungs.

  Just as well. Alerting the killer to her whereabouts was the last thing she needed.

  Every part of her was sore as she stood. There were leaves in her hair and dirt on her face. Her arm stung where she’d scraped off the skin. She flexed her limbs. At least nothing felt broken.

  The hole was as narrow as it was deep, probably carved by water running down the hill.

  Lazlo was peering down from the mouth of the hole. “Are you okay?”

  “Just get me out of here.” She didn’t even want to think of the snakes and spiders that were probably down there with her. Luckily, there was hardly any light filtering down to the bottom, so she couldn’t see anything that would have started her screaming.

  She looked up. The prince seemed to be lying down. He lowered his arm, but his hand remained out of reach. He moved forward and leaned into the hole up to his waist but, even like this, several inches still separated them.

  “Can you climb up the side?” he asked.

  She felt around and made contact with square stones. Maybe the hole hadn’t been created by water after all. Could be that she’d fallen into an old well. She tried to climb, but the stones were covered with slippery moss and she slid back immediately. She grabbed on to some roots to support her weight, but that didn’t work for long either. She jumped.

  The very tips of their fingers touched.

  She thudded back to the ground, panic flashing through her as dry branches snapped under her feet.

  What if he couldn’t pull her out of here?

  Her heart beat in her throat as he disappeared from the mouth of the hole. What if he left her?

  He’d disliked her from the get-go. He considered her a nuisance. She’d tricked him onto the island in the first place. It seemed unlikely that he would have forgotten that.

  “Please, don’t leave—” She dodged the duffel bag coming down on top of her. “What—” She scampered aside as he jumped in, nearly knocking her off her feet. “What are you doing?” Panic switched to anger. Didn’t he think at all? Now they would both be trapped down here.

  Instead of answering, he put a hand over her mouth and whispered into her ear, “Somebody’s coming.”

  After a startled moment, she nodded.

  He let her mouth go, but didn’t step away. No place to go without rubbing against the dirt wall, roots sticking out and spiderwebs and God knew what else. Scorpions, probably. There were plenty of those on most Mediterranean islands.

  But it was hard to think of the local flora and fauna when the tips of her breasts were touching his chest. The hollow of his throat was inches from her mouth. If there were more light, she could probably see his pulse beating there. She could feel his breath fanning her hair.

  Last night, even being cold, wet and miserable, she’d been aware of his body lying next to hers. And then today, he’d kissed her. Now she knew how his mouth felt on hers. Their close proximity took the awareness to a whole new level.

  Every time she took a breath, her breasts moved and her nipples rubbed against his chest. Heat shot through her and pooled low in her belly, as tension built. She pressed closer to him to stop the rubbing, not sure she’d improved the situation. Now her breasts were flattened against him. He put an arm around her.

  She was about ready to jump out of her skin when she heard footsteps above.

  They stood motionless, barely daring to breathe. Her fingers curved around Lazlo’s arm. The footsteps neared, stopped. A moment passed before whoever it was began to walk away.

  Then they could no longer hear him.

  And with some of that acute fear gone, her full focus was back on Lazlo, against whose hard body she was plastered.

  His head dipped forward.

  “Don’t kiss me again,” she protested, then grew mortified when she realized that hadn’t been his intention.

  He was simply positioning himself to reach something at his back. “I haven’t really kissed you yet.” His voice turned low and wicked. “I was just tasting the honey.”

  He flipped on the flashlight and panned the sides of the hole. Since she didn’t want to look into his eyes, she kept her gaze on the walls instead.

  Roughly carved, square stones peeked from the dirt here and there, their prison definitely a manmade structure. One spider that was big enough to give her nightmares for the rest of her days moved into a large crack between two rocks. She scooted closer to Lazlo, which hardly seemed possible.

  He directed the light at their feet.

  They were standing on old bones, most covered with moss. She couldn’t even see the ground. Human, she realized when she spotted a yellowish jawbone. And about climbed the prince. Yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Oh, gross.

  “I’m guessing those would be the Etruscan sacrifices.” Lazlo wasn’t the least rattled. He gently peeled her off him, then bent his knees. “Get on my shoulders.”

  She didn’t argue, for once, eager to get out any way she could. The maneuver began awkwardly, but then she thought, to hell with it, and grabbed on to his shoulders, stepped on his bent knee then worked herself up until she was standing with her feet next to his ears. She was just about to pop her head out of the hole when she heard a surprised shout. A man, close by.

  “That was Vincent,” Lazlo said beneath her. “Hurry.”

  She took a quick peek. Nobody within sight. She crawled out, kicking some dirt and small rocks back at Lazlo as she went. She whispered a low “Sorry.”

  Then Lazlo was next to her before she even began worrying about how to pull him up. He had more upper body strength than she did, she supposed. Probably could hang on to the roots more easily. He even had the bag with him.

  Her gaze swept the area again as she stood. And what she saw made her heart beat faster. “Look.”

  A white fishing boat sliced the waves in the distance.

  She waved her arms madly over her head.

  “They can’t see us,” Lazlo said, his lips tightening. “But if we had a gun, they might hear the shots.”

  “We have to find Vincent.”

  He nodded. “Quickly.”

  The boat was heading awa
y from the island.

  He immediately took off in the direction of the shout, keeping himself between her and possible danger.

  They walked too slowly, constrained by both the need to stay silent and the mess of vines and bushes.

  An eternity seemed to pass and they still couldn’t hear or see the man they were seeking.

  Then he stopped and swore under his breath, motioned for her to get down, behind the cover of a tree.

  She immediately obeyed, foreboding making her chest heavy. He crept forward, inch by inch, toward a prone body on the ground.

  The black fatigues belonged to the royal guard.

  Her heart lurched into a faster rhythm.

  Lazlo stopped and listened. Waited. “Vincent,” he whispered after a while, and motioned for her to stay where she was while he checked out the body.

  Despite the heat, she shivered behind the tree. An other body. Deep down she knew that Vincent was dead.

  But this time, she got herself together faster.

  THIS TIME, SHE HELPED LAZLO bury the man with a knife wound in the back, and mark the grave. Then they tried to backtrack to the guard’s tent, in the hope that they would find either his weapon or his radio—neither of which were with him—or at least some food for later.

  “The boat is gone.” She looked out over the sea when they were back at the well again.

  “If there was one, there’ll be others,” Lazlo said.

  What he didn’t mention, probably to keep her spirits up, was that even if a boat did come sufficiently close to the island, they had no way of gaining the crew’s attention. Her small pile of driftwood by the beach was nothing. They definitely needed to work more on that later.

  But it was dusk by the time they found Vincent’s campsite. His supplies were missing. At least his tent was on sandy soil, which provided some clues.

  Lazlo inspected the ground carefully. “The prints are from three different sets of shoes. Only one would be Vincent’s.”

  The implication wasn’t lost on her. A shiver ran down her spine. “The killer is not alone.”

  “And they have weapons. Two guns now, at least. Knives.”

  “We could hide.”