On the dance floor, he’d sensed any residual resistance melting from her spine. However, he couldn’t think of that now. He needed to get Kate to a secure location, and then find out how the pair of party crashers had slipped through security.
Picking nervously at the yellow diamond earring, Kate nodded toward his phone. “What’s the report? Can we talk in here?”
“Yes.” He tucked his phone back into his coat.
“You’re sure? No bugs or cameras? Remember, I know how sneaky the press can be.”
“This is my hotel, with my security.” Although right now his security had suffered a serious breach in the form of two struggling actors seeking to increase their visibility. If the party crashers’ confessions were even true. They had every reason to lie. “I stay in my own establishments whenever possible. Javier has two people in custody. He’s checking their story and also making sure there aren’t more people involved. Luckily, the initial pair never made it past the coat check.”
“Sounds like Javier earned his Christmas bonus tonight.”
“He’s a valuable member of my staff.”
Sighing, she sagged onto the small bench lining the back of the elevator, red velvet cushion giving slightly beneath her. “So the crisis is over?”
“We should know soon. Javier is questioning them directly.” As security concerns eased, his other senses ramped into overdrive, taking in the scent of Kate’s hair, the gentle rise and fall of her chest in her off-the-shoulder gown. “Anything more?”
Possibilities for that bench marched through his mind with unrelenting temptation.
“No, nothing, well, except you confuse me. You’ve been such a prince—in a good way—for the past three days. Then you go all autocratic on me.” Her head fell back against the mirror behind her. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. A grumpy prince is easier to resist than a charming prince.”
He stepped closer. “You’re having trouble resisting me?”
Her fingers dug into the crushed velvet. “You have a certain appeal.”
“Glad to hear it.” He liked the way she didn’t gush with overblown praise. Duarte sat beside her.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for the okay from Javier.” He slid his arm around her shoulders and nuzzled her neck.
“What about the mirror? Are you sure it’s not a two-way?” she asked but didn’t pull back.
“Thinking like a journalist, I see. Smart.” He grazed his knuckles along her bared collarbone, eliciting a sexy moan from her.
Flattening her hands against his chest, she dug her fingers in lightly. Possessively? “I’m thinking like the paranoid fiancée of a prince. Unless your whole intent is for someone to snap pictures of us making out in an elevator. I guess that would go a long way toward persuading the public we’re a happily engaged couple.”
“What I want to do with you right now goes beyond simple making out, and you can be sure, I don’t want anyone seeing you like that except me. I pay top dollar to my security people. Everything from my phones, to my computers, to my hotels—this is my domain,” he declared, his mouth just over hers. “Although you’re right in that it’s always wise to double-check the mirrors.”
He reached behind her and ran his fingers along the frame. “This one is hung on the elevator wall rather than mounted in it. And when you press against the pane…” He angled toward her until their bodies met, her back to the glass. “Hear that? Not a hollow thump. A regular mirror for me to see the beautiful curve of your back.”
“Duarte…” She nipped his lower lip.
“Not that I need to see your reflection when the real deal right in front of me is so damn mesmerizing,” he growled.
Sliding his hands down, he cupped her waist and shifted her around until she straddled his lap. Champagne-colored satin pooled around them, her knees on either side of him. His groin tightened. The need to have her burned through him.
And then she smiled.
Her soft cool hands cupped either side of his face and she slanted her lips more firmly across his. Just as she gave no quarter in every word and moment of her day, she demanded equal time here and now. He was more than happy to accommodate.
Liquid heat pumped through him as finally he had unfettered access to her mouth. Champagne and strawberries from their dinner lingered. He was fast becoming drunk on the taste of Kate alone. Her fingers crawled under his coat, digging into his back, urgent, insistent.
Demanding.
He thrust his hand in her hair. Tiny diamonds tink, tink, tinked from her updo onto the floor.
“Duarte,” she mumbled against his mouth.
“We’ll find them later.” To hell with anything but being with her. He couldn’t remember when he’d ached so much to be inside a woman. This woman. He’d known her for three intense days that felt a lot longer than his three-month relationships of the past.
Of course he’d never met anyone like Kate.
His phone buzzed in his coat pocket. She stiffened against him. His phone vibrated again, her fingers between the cell and his chest, so the sensation buzzed through her and into him. She wriggled in his lap. He throbbed in response, so hard for her that he couldn’t think of anything else.
“Ignore the phone.” He gathered her closer, not near enough with the bunching satin of her evening gown between them.
“The call could be important,” she said, regret tingeing her voice as she cupped his face and kissed him quickly again. “It could be Javier with an update. Or something even more important,” she insisted between quick nibbles. “You said your father is sick. You don’t want to be sorry you ignored a message.”
Her words slowly penetrated his passion-fogged brain. What had he been thinking? Of course that was the whole point. Kate had a way of scrambling rational thought.
He pulled out his phone and checked the screen. His gut clenched with dread.
“Duarte?” Kate asked, sliding to sit beside him. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s my brother Antonio.” He reached for the elevator button, already preparing himself for the worst—that their father had died. “Let’s go to our suite. I need to call him back.”
Standing in her walk-in closet that rivaled the size of her studio apartment, Kate stepped out of her princess gown and hung it up carefully among the rest of her extravagant wardrobe. Another elaborate fiction, covering up the sham of her engagement with layers of beaded and embroidered fabrics. She smoothed the front of tonight’s dress, releasing a whiff of Duarte’s cedar scent and memories of the elevator.
As they’d returned to the suite, Duarte had asked for privacy for his conversation with his brother and suggested she change clothes. Her heart ached to think what he might be hearing now. She wanted to stand beside him and offer silent comfort. Without question, the proud prince wouldn’t stand for any overt signs of sympathy. Apparently he saved unrestrained emotions for elevator encounters.
Her body hummed with the memory of embracing him, straddling his lap with the hard press of his arousal evident even through the folds of her dress. Warm air from the vent whispered over her skin as she stood in her matching champagne-colored underwear with nothing more than diamond earrings and a lopsided updo.
How different the evening might have been if the call hadn’t come through. She wouldn’t have stopped at just a kiss. Right now they could have been living out her fantasy of making love in an elevator.
Or here, in her room, with him peeling off her thigh-high silk stockings. What came next for them now? Would they be leaving right away? Or staying overnight?
She was used to pulling up stakes in a heartbeat for a story. In fact, she kept a change of clothes in her camera case for just such occasions. A camera case that wasn’t monogrammed or even made of real leather, for that matter. She was in over her head playing make-believe with a real live prince.
Her cell phone rang from across the room, and she almost jumped out of her skin. Oh, God. Her sister. They hadn’t spoken today and Kate had promised. She snatched up an oversized T-shirt from the top of her camera case and yanked it over her head as she sprinted across the room.
She scooped her ringing phone from the antique dresser without looking at the screen. “Hello? Jennifer?”
“’Fraid not,” answered her editor from the Global Intruder.
Harold Hough kept the e-zine afloat through his dogged determination. She should have known she couldn’t avoid him for long.
“Is there some emergency, boss? It’s a little late to be calling, don’t you think?”
“You’re a tough lady to reach now that you’re famous. Hope you haven’t forgotten us little people.”
Sagging on the end of the bed, she puffed out her cheeks with a hefty sigh while she weighed her words. “I explained that my fiancé is fine with me talking to you. I will relay more snippets when Duarte and I have discussed what we’re comfortable with the world knowing.”
Resentment scratched inside her. Thank God she hadn’t told him about her plans to sneak into Duarte’s Martha’s Vineyard resort. As far as Harold knew, she’d been hiding a relationship with Duarte these past few months and now was attempting to control the fallout with her leaks to him. And she sure wasn’t going to tell him about a surprise call from Duarte’s brother.