The Ultimate Seduction

“Oh, Ryzard,” she said when he draped her jacket over her shoulders, “Please tell her I’m sure her husband will live. The burns are bad, but they didn’t find internal injuries. I’ve lost my translator and she’s so upset.”

Together they reassured the woman and made arrangements for her to catch up with her husband at the burn unit in Paris.

Calm settled as everyone was accounted for. There was a longer journey ahead to bring the mine back into operation, but the immediate crisis was over. Tiffany stifled a yawn as she thanked people and gave them final directions for breaking down the field hospital they’d erected.

“I can’t thank you enough for this,” Ryzard said.

“When you’re part of a club, you pitch in to help your fellow members when they need it, right?”

She was being her cheeky self, but he wasn’t in a frame of mind to take this gesture so lightheartedly.

“I’m being sincere, Tiffany. I hope your motives were not that superficial.”

She sobered. “I told you last night that this struck close to home for me. But I don’t suppose you remember, being pretty much sleepwalking at the time.”

Was it only empathy for fellow burn victims that had brought her here? He flinched, wondering where he got off imagining she could have deeper feelings for him when he’d pushed her from his life the way he had.

“Hey, Tiff,” some flyboy called across. “You catching a lift in my bird or...?”

“Oh, um—”

Ryzard cut her off before she could answer. “You’ll come to Gizela with me.”

“Will I,” she said in the tone she used when she thought he was being arrogant, but he only cared that she acquiesced. He did not care for the way she hugged the pilot and kissed his cheek, thanking him for his help.

Ryzard lifted his brows in query when she turned from her goodbye.

“He grew up with Paulie and my brother. I’ve known him forever,” she defended. “We needed pilots so I called him.”

It was petty and ungrateful to think, we didn’t need them that badly, but he was still short on sleep and deeply deprived of her. His willingness to share her, especially when he was so uncertain how long he’d have her, was nil.

His own transport arrived. They fell asleep against each other in the back of the 4x4 for the jostling four-hour drive back to Gizela.

* * *

The palace looked better than ever, Tiffany noted when she woke in front of it. Its exterior was no longer pockmarked by bullet holes and the broken stones were gone, giving the grounds a sense of openness and welcome. Inside, she went straight up the stairs next to Ryzard, both anxious for a shower. They parted at the top and she went to her room, where, he had assured her, everything she’d left was still there.

She wasn’t sure what it meant. A dozen times she’d thought about asking for the items to be shipped, but she’d been afraid that contacting him would be the first step toward falling back down the rabbit hole into his world. Or it would have been final closure, something she hadn’t been ready for. Had he felt the same? Because he could have had the things shipped to her at any time.

The not knowing hung like a veil over the situation, making her wonder if she was being silly and desperate when she dressed for his flag salutation, or respectful and supportive. He wouldn’t have brought her here if he didn’t want her here, she told herself, but she faltered when they met at the top of the stairs.

He wore his white shirt, black suit and presidential sash. His jaw was freshly shaved and sharply defined by tension as he took in her houndstooth skirt and matching wool jacket. “You don’t have to,” he said for the second time.

She almost took him at his word, almost let herself believe that he only wanted her, didn’t need her, but his eyes gave him away. They weren’t flat green. They burned gold. As if he was taking in treasure. As if she said she wasn’t ready, he would wait until she was.

“I want to,” she assured him, wondering if she was being an imaginative fool. Why would she want to do this? Pride of place, she guessed. It made her feel good to be with him no matter what he was doing. She admired him as a man and took great joy in watching him rise to his position.

Outside, it was blustery and tasting of an early-fall storm with spits of rain in the gusting wind. Leaves chased across grass and their clothes rippled as they walked to the pole. The flag snapped its green and blue stripes as he made his pledge and saluted it.

A burst of applause made them both turn to the crowd gathered at the gate. It was a deeper gathering than Tiffany had seen any other time. Hundreds maybe. A fresh rush of pride welled in her.

“Your predecessor wouldn’t have cut up his hands freeing trapped miners,” she said, picking up his scabbed hand. It was so roughened and abused, she instinctively lifted it to her lips.

The cheering swelled, making her pull back from touching him. “Sorry. That was dumb.”

“No, they liked it. They’re here for you as much as me. They know what you did for us.” He faced the crowd and indicated her with a sweep of his hand and a bow of his head.

His people reacted with incendiary passion, waving flags and holding up children.

“They’re thanking you, Tiffany.” He lifted her hand to his own lips, and another roar went up.

They stood there a long time, hands linked, waving at the crowd. No one walked away. They waited for her and Ryzard to go in first.

“Are you crying?” he asked as they entered the big drawing room. It was such a stunning room with its gorgeous nineteenth-century furniture and view overlooking the sea, but she still wasn’t comfortable in it.

Averting her gaze from Luiza’s portrait, she swiped at her cheeks. “That was very moving. I didn’t expect it. I had the impression they thought of me as an interloper.” Now she couldn’t help straying a glance at Luiza, as if the woman might be eavesdropping.

For a long moment he didn’t say anything, only looked at the portrait with the same tortured expression she’d seen on him before, when his feelings for Luiza were too close to the surface.

She looked away, respecting his need for time to pull himself together, but taking a hit of despair over it, too.

“It’s my fault you felt that way,” he said in a low, grave voice. “But please try to understand what she meant to me. Luiza made me see that Bregnovia is my home. That if I fought for it and made it ours, mine—” he set his fist over the place where her name was inked forever “—I would always belong here. That was deeply meaningful after so many years of being rootless and displaced.”

She nodded, unable to speak because she did understand and felt for him.

“I needed her love after losing my parents. I would have shut down otherwise. Become an instrument of war.”

Instead of a leader who had retained his humanity. It was one of the qualities she admired most in him, so she could hardly begrudge the woman who’d kept his heart intact through the horrors of battle and loss.

“When I lost her, I couldn’t let myself become embittered and filled with hatred. It would have gone against everything she helped me become, but I couldn’t face another loss like it. The vulnerability of loving again, knowing the emotional pain of grief if something were to happen... It terrifies me, Tiffany.”

He said it so plainly, never faltering even when he was exposing his deepest fear.

She wanted to look to the ceiling to contain the tears gathering to sting her eyes. It killed her to hear that he couldn’t give up his heart, but she couldn’t look away from him.

“It’s okay. I admire her, too,” she managed. Her voice scraped her throat with emotion, but she was being sincere. “I wish I’d met her. She had amazing willpower. I wouldn’t have had the guts to do what she did.”

“Guts.” The harsh sound he made was halfway between a laugh and a choke of deep anguish. “Luiza had ideals. Now she is our martyr and a symbol of our sacrifice and loss. I would do her a disservice to forget or dismiss that, but it doesn’t make you an interloper for living where she died, Tiffany. She had a vision. When I look at you, I see reality. Our reality. Scarred by tragedy, but so beautiful. So strong and determined to carry on.”

His tender look of regard had its usual effect of striking like an unexpected punch into her solar plexus, making her breath rush out. She had to cover her lips to still them from trembling.

“I don’t like comparing you. It’s disrespectful to both of you, but you’re right. You and Luiza are very different. You wouldn’t have killed yourself. Given the same situation, you would fight with everything in you to stay alive until I came for you, no matter what happened. That’s who you are. Your courage astounds me.”

He ran his hand down his face only to reveal an expression of profound regret.

“When I sent you away, all I could think was that I didn’t want to risk the pain of loss again. And did you crawl back in your cave even though I’d hurt you? No. You went on with your life without me, and I was so hurt and so proud at the same time.”