King's Ransom (Man on a Mission 2)

He frowned. “Why is that? The producer never mentioned it to me.”

“It just came up yesterday evening,” she explained. “And you were otherwise occupied.”

“But why?” Juliana’s gaze slid in the direction of Andre’s bodyguard, though she didn’t say anything. But Andre got the message. “Lukas,” he told his bodyguard, “would you leave us, please? I will let you know when we are done.”

“Yes, Sire.”

The man got up, casting a searching look over Juliana, as if he thought she might be concealing a weapon somewhere. Although where he thinks it’s hidden is a mystery to me, she thought, suddenly amused despite the seriousness of the situation. She was wearing a lightweight summer dress similar to the one she’d worn the other night in the little library, but this one was in a deep shade of rose, a vibrant color that set off her ebony hair and made her skin look translucent. It had a fitted bodice and swirling skirt, but a skirt that clung to her figure, leaving no room for anything bulky hidden beneath it. Add to that bare legs and sandals, and she didn’t think she looked like a threat. On the other hand, she didn’t fault Lukas for his devotion to duty. Terrorists didn’t always look like terrorists, and women could be assassins, too.

When they were alone finally, Andre steepled his fingers and touched them to his lips before asking, “Why?” And Juliana knew the time had come to tell him the truth.

Chapter 13

“Dirk’s wife, Sabrina, has cancer,” Juliana said on a rush. “But there’s a complication. She’s also pregnant.” She gave Andre an appealing look. “You can’t tell anyone, not even Dirk, that you know. Bree has told people about the pregnancy, but she doesn’t know Dirk told me about the cancer. He told me in confidence. I’m trusting you because—”

“So that is it,” he said softly, interrupting her, and Juliana knew he’d made the connection between this information and all the seemingly intimate exchanges he’d witnessed between Dirk and her. “Why could you not tell me this before?” There was a strained note in his voice—not harsh, not accusing, more like...hurt. Hurt she hadn’t trusted him enough to confide in him. And surprising to her, hurt and regretful he hadn’t trusted her, either.

He got up and walked over to one of the bookcases that lined the room, running his fingers blindly over the bindings. “I owe you an apology, little one,” he said with his back still turned to her, his voice very deep. “And DeWinter, too.”

“Yes, but you can’t apologize to him. Not now. You can’t tell him you know.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s why they’re changing the schedule all around. Dirk wants to take Bree back to the States for treatment. Bree wants him to finish filming King’s Ransom first. Dirk thinks he can be done in less than two weeks, and it’s possible. But that means putting all my scenes without him off into the future.”

“So you will be staying in Zakhar longer than originally planned?” Andre still hadn’t turned around, but now he did. And there was an expression on his face that told Juliana this was good news to him.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “And because the shooting schedule’s been rearranged on King’s Ransom, that means I’m free the next few days to film that appeal for the Red Cross you mentioned. And free to help in any other way I can.” She looked him full in the face. “What can I do? How can I help?”

* * *

Juliana stood in the midst of the devastation, hearing Andre’s voice from the night before, “Ninety-seven dead, thirty-two of them children.” Looking at the houses knocked off their footings, some buildings seemingly exploded from the inside out and some just literally wiped off the face of the earth, it was hard to believe anyone had survived when the mountain had rumbled down on Taryna.

Electricity was still out, and the natural gas was still turned off, Andre had told her just before their helicopter had taken off. But large portable generators had been brought in to provide power for the cleanup crews, along with tents, cots and portable restrooms for their use. And there were a couple of Red Cross food trucks dispensing hot coffee and meals for the workers around the clock. Andre had mobilized a small army on short notice.

Juliana glanced down at the script she’d been given, in both English and Zakharan, but she’d already memorized her few lines that would be spoken on camera. The rest would be a voice-over, while the disaster footage the camera crew was shooting now was shown. For that she didn’t need to memorize; she just needed to rehearse so it wouldn’t sound as if she was reading from a script when she spoke her appeal for donations.