King's Ransom (Man on a Mission 2)

Relief flooded him. Not DeWinter. Never him. Someone. But not him.

“Now I’ve got a couple of questions of my own,” DeWinter said, closing the keyboard with a decided thud and rising to his full six foot two. “Juliana didn’t want to return to Zakhar to film this movie. She wouldn’t tell us why, but it’s obvious to me...now. It’s also obvious you maneuvered to get her here. Why? And who the hell do you think you are to break her heart?” Now his stance was a threat.

Andre considered both questions for several heartbeats and chose to answer the last one first. “I never broke her heart.” He hesitated for another couple of heartbeats. “She left me.”

“Well, that answers the first question, too,” DeWinter replied. “Why,” he answered as Andre lifted a questioning eyebrow. “You want her back. That’s why you went to all this trouble and expense to get her here.” When Andre didn’t answer, just folded his lips tighter together, DeWinter said, “The screenwriter you picked is a friend of mine. She let it slip who commissioned the screenplay. When I asked the studio about it they played dumb...but I’m not stupid. I offered to take a substantial cut in salary for a piece of the film, but I was smugly told they had all the financing they needed. And I wasn’t even here a week before I started putting two and two together and coming up with some very interesting answers.”

Andre didn’t want to ask, but he had no choice. “Have you said anything to Juliana?”

DeWinter shook his head. “She’s having a hard enough time with things as it is.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Juliana and I have been nothing but friends since the day we met. But I’ll be honest. From the very beginning I told myself I could heal her...if I were free.”

He let that sink in, watching Andre with sharp eyes before continuing. “But the flip side is that if I had been single and hunting her, we wouldn’t be friends. Juliana doesn’t let men get close to her—not in that way. Someone did that to her. Some man. I’ve always known it—I just never knew who it was...until now.”

Andre shook his head decisively. “It was not me.”

DeWinter grunted, but whether in denial or agreement, Andre couldn’t be sure. And now that DeWinter had confirmed he and Juliana weren’t lovers, now that he’d denied Juliana was in love with him, Andre needed time. Time to reassess, to consider what it all meant. Time to figure out why Juliana would accuse him of breaking her heart. And why DeWinter had been misled into thinking the same thing.

But there was still one question he wanted answered. “What was Juliana telling you this afternoon on the set?” It still ate at him, the pleading expression on her face as she looked at the man opposite him, the way she’d touched him with intimate purpose.

DeWinter cursed fluently, and suddenly the two men were standing toe to toe in confrontation, neither one backing down. “That is none of your damn business.”

“That is what she said, too.” Andre’s eyes narrowed. “If you have lied to me—”

“What Juliana said is private, and has nothing whatever to do with you, or her, either, for that matter. It concerns my wife. And that’s all I’m going to tell you.” Eyes clashed; steely resolve met steely resolve. Then DeWinter shouldered Andre aside and stalked out.

* * *

At first Juliana had been so angry at Andre she’d gone for a long walk in the gardens surrounding the palace, needing to expend all the excess energy that had built up during their confrontation. But then she realized she should warn Dirk. She wouldn’t put it past Andre to ask Dirk the same questions he’d asked her earlier... To see if our answers match, she thought derisively. Damn him!

She hurried inside, smiling at the guards at the door as they let her in. In her haste she didn’t see the shadowy figure that had followed her into the garden now follow her up the stairs and down the corridor to the DeWinters’ suite, pretending to continue on without hesitation when she stopped and tapped on the DeWinters’ door.

Sabrina opened the door. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, a worried frown on her face. “I thought it might be Dirk.”

Surprised, Juliana asked, “He’s not here?”

Sabrina shook her head. “He went off with the king twenty minutes ago.”

“Damn! I didn’t warn him soon enough.”

Sabrina cocked her head to one side. “You know why the king wanted to see Dirk?” Hot color seeped into Juliana’s cheeks, and Sabrina pushed the door wide. “You’d better come in and tell me about it.” She led Juliana into the sitting room and curled up gingerly in a corner of one of the sofas, waving a hand to tell Juliana to sit wherever she wanted.