Amelia Autin - King's Ransom

If he ever let her go.

Movement out of the corner of her eye made Juliana tear her gaze away from Andre, and she sighed gratefully as she saw Dirk and Sabrina nearing. Sabrina was wearing a sequined sky blue tunic belted over a long silver skirt, with the delicate filigree sapphire necklace and earrings that suited her. Juliana knew Dirk had given them to her as a pledge of his love years ago from the money he’d earned in his first starring role, and she wore them often. Like Juliana, she had “matched her eyes” with her dress, and from a distance she looked as lovely as she always did. But close up her smile looked forced, and there were two tiny lines of pain bracketing her mouth.

“Bree, are you okay? You look—”

Sabrina’s smile widened, but it was an effort. “It’s nothing, just a twinge, that’s all.” She turned in the direction where Juliana had been staring when she walked up. “That is a dangerous man,” she said softly, and Juliana couldn’t hide her sharp intake of breath. “He’s why you didn’t want to return to Zakhar.” The eyes of the two women met, and Sabrina’s were knowing, sympathetic.

Dirk spoke for the first time. “So that’s the king of Zakhar. I’ve seen the portrait of the first king in the portrait gallery, and I must say there’s an amazingly strong resemblance. You’d think after five centuries the genes would be diluted to the point where the resemblance would be nonexistent, but no.” He reached over and rubbed the backs of his fingers comfortingly against Juliana’s cheek. “He wants you, babe,” he added casually. “And he looks like the kind of man who always gets what he wants.”

“Dirk!” Sabrina’s tone chided her husband, and he gently patted her arm.

“Don’t worry, Bree. I’m not telling Juliana anything she doesn’t already know.” He glanced back at Juliana. “Am I.” It wasn’t a question.

“No.” Her voice was husky. “But he’s not going to have me.” Not ever again.

“Want me to pound him into the ground for you?” he teased.

She laughed as he had intended her to do, although a little shakily. “I’ll fight my own battles, thank you very much.” She glanced from Dirk to Andre across the room, and back to Dirk again. Both men were close in age, of a similar height and weight, and in superb physical shape. But still... “If I were you,” she drawled, teasing him back, “I wouldn’t be too quick to take him on. He’s a fighter. He trained with the Zakharian National Forces, and he doesn’t look as if he’s lost his edge.”

Dirk spluttered with laughter and looked down at his wife. “Did you hear that, Bree? I think she just insulted my manhood.”

Now it was Bree who patted his arm. “That’s okay. You’re man enough for me, honey, and that’s all that counts.” Husband and wife stared into each other’s eyes, private smiles forming as they retreated to their own little world, and a pang of pain darted through Juliana when she saw the unshadowed love for each other in their faces.

* * *

Andre watched Juliana from afar, watched as she spoke with the man he recognized as Dirk DeWinter, the actor who would be portraying his legendary ancestor in King’s Ransom opposite Juliana. His gaze sharpened into something cold and deadly when the man caressed Juliana’s cheek in a comforting fashion. Juliana’s name had never been linked romantically with DeWinter’s. Nevertheless, Andre didn’t want him touching Juliana, not for comfort or anything else. If anyone was going to comfort her, it would be him.

His bodyguard tonight, Captain Lukas Branko, stood two feet away, alert to any sudden betraying shift in the crowd, his eyes constantly on the move. Andre forcibly relaxed his tense muscles and tried to distract himself by thinking of something—anything—else, and his bodyguards’ warnings came to mind.

This kind of duty in a large, diverse crowd of people was a nightmare for any bodyguard, Lukas and Damon had told him more than once, much less anyone as fanatically devoted to their assignment as they were. It wasn’t just the devotion of subjects for their king, Andre knew. It wasn’t just the devotion to duty of men for whom duty was honor. Lukas and Damon were not without ambition, but their ambitions for the past three years had all centered around one object—keeping King Andre Alexei IV alive. Alive and ruling over Zakhar for many years to come. No matter what they had to do. No matter if they died trying.

It was the “die trying” part neither Lukas nor Damon cared for, Andre also knew. Even more than his other bodyguards, die trying was an excuse to them, an excuse for which they had no patience and no forgiveness. They would keep their king safe, no matter who else had to die. Even if it meant taking the law into their own hands. Even if it meant disregarding a direct order from the very king whose word was law to them.

Their stance on the subject had amused Andre at times, so much so he’d even discussed that contradiction in terms with his cousin Zax in one of their private meetings. But Zax hadn’t been amused, Andre remembered now. And he wondered why that memory had suddenly occurred to him tonight of all nights.

He searched the throng of people for his cousin’s face. Maybe Zax can help me keep my mind off Juliana. But he couldn’t spot him in the overcrowded room. Then—despite ordering himself not to—Andre’s gaze wandered inevitably back to Juliana, still standing with her friends where he’d left her.

He stared at her across the distance that separated them, wanting nothing more than to sweep her into his arms and carry her from the noisy, glittering crowd into the quiet sanctuary of his bedroom, the way he’d longed to do since the first moment she’d appeared at the top of the Grand Staircase tonight. Wanting nothing more than to make Juliana see what she was to him, what she had always been. Wanting to erase that hard, bitter edge he didn’t understand but that he knew had to be an act, revealing the genuine, loving woman he remembered.

But she had to come to him. He could not force her. He could not make her. He had done everything humanly possible to get her this far, but that was as far as he could go. Now it was up to her. He could only do whatever lay in his power to convince her she belonged here in Zakhar. With him.

Her career was a stumbling block. She was at the height of her beauty, the height of her talent and power. It seemed as if there was nothing she couldn’t accomplish in her career. No role she couldn’t play.

On the other hand, there was no man in her life now, and had not been for several years. He was sure of it. But he had not relied on the tabloids for that information. She’d been under the covert protection...and surveillance...of his agents ever since he’d ascended the throne. Ever since he’d acknowledged that the unbroken line of Marianescus ruling Zakhar for over five hundred years would be broken, unless...

The Privy Council was again pressuring him to marry and beget heirs. Delicately, to be sure, and some members more than others, but pressuring nevertheless. He’d managed to maintain his composure in the face of the subtle and not so subtle hints thrown out by the Privy Council regarding the topic of his marriage. He’d never succumbed to the intense pressure his father had placed on him—he wasn’t succumbing to the Privy Council’s pressure now.

Since women couldn’t sit on the Zakharian throne, Andre’s heir wasn’t his sister, Mara. That was his cousin Zax, the oldest son of his deceased uncle Evander—and a year older than he was. Andre had never worried overmuch about the succession when he’d served in the Zakharian National Forces, not even when his unit was deployed to Afghanistan. He knew Zakhar would be in good hands with Zax at the helm, although it would have meant breaking the unbroken father-to-son direct line. But in the years since then, he’d recognized the supreme importance of that unbroken line—not to himself or his yet-to-be-born son, but to the people of Zakhar.