Julie Miller - Personal Protection

The uniformed officer sat in one of the chairs lining the hallway, while Aleks stood beside her holding a paper cup of coffee. She touched her hair and ate up Aleks’s attention. She was light, fun, perhaps not a strong enough presence to portray a convincing royal consort.

Meanwhile, the other woman, probably a detective, judging by her gray slacks and jacket, was plugged into her earbuds, and was scrolling through information on her phone as she paced the hallway outside the office’s glass windows. Her expression remained stern as the uniformed officer caught her attention and tried to share the joke with her. The detective shook her head and continued her pacing. The woman’s gravitas would certainly come through as they made their public appearances. She’d be a beauty if she smiled. But the tight lock of her mouth indicated a rigidity that might make it hard for her to adapt to the spontaneous opportunities for secret conversations he expected to arise as the investigation unfolded. And thus far, not much about being a prince was going according to any organized plan.

Captain Hendricks buried his hands in his pockets. “Either one of those women would make a fine liaison officer between you and KCPD.”

They were both no doubt competent law enforcement officers, although neither type initially appealed to him. Not the way Officer Valentine’s earthy vitality and tempting mouth had switched on his male radar. However, he wasn’t here to meet the love of his life. If the woman could act her part as half of a convincing couple, then so could he. His life and the future of his country might depend on making the right choice here. A lightweight or a hard case. “They both have undercover experience?”

“Yes. Detective Wardyn is a few years past her last UC assignment, but she’s a seasoned investigator. Officer Rangel is fairly new, but she has a higher marksmanship score.”

Brains or brawn? He needed both.

“Then I suppose we should bring them in for a conversation. I don’t want to reveal too much to either of them. The fewer people who know the specific details...”

And then a dusty ponytail and long black coat came into view as Officer Valentine shot up from her chair and circled her desk to point her finger in the face of the fat man who was mouthing off at her.

“Tell me more about her.” Ivan nodded toward the argument that was not ending well for the handcuffed man. The grungy woman slapped a photograph on the desk in front of the man and forced him to look at it.

“Officer Valentine?” The captain chuckled at something Ivan failed to understand. “Looks like she’s brought in a perp for processing.”

Perp . Perpetrator. Ivan quickly translated the American slang and determined that Officer Valentine was a brave woman. The man she’d handcuffed made two of her, even with the heavy coat she wore. And yet she...

Ivan felt the hint of a smile relaxing the tight lines beside his mouth. “What about her? Does she have a military background? Earlier, she used a move on her prisoner that I learned during hand-to-hand combat training. Skills like that might be more useful than marksmanship when it comes to a protection detail.”

“Carly Valentine? You think she can be your princess? Or, you know, personal bodyguard?” Hendricks didn’t seem to be a man who was used to stuttering over his words, and he quickly shook off his surprise at Ivan’s interest in the woman. “Valentine does a lot of UC work for us. She’s a natural on the streets but—”

“Can she look professional when she is not in that costume?” Ivan paused for a moment, wondering if he should trust logic over what his instincts were telling him. “That is a costume, yes?”

“Let’s hope so. You want to meet her?”

“Yes. There is something about her that seems like we could have worked together before. Under different circumstances. It might make our cover story more believable.”

“It’s your call.” The captain crossed to his desk and picked up the phone to call his assistant. “Brooke? I need to see Carly Valentine in my office ASAP. And pull up her personnel file for me, please. Thanks.”

Ivan was still at the window, watching as Carly Valentine answered the phone at her desk. Her shoulders sagged before she glanced back toward the captain’s office. She spoke to the man sitting at the desk across from hers. After he nodded, she unlocked the perp from his chair and handed him off to the other officer, who led the prisoner out of sight down a long hallway.

Officer Valentine brushed off the sleeves of the oversize coat she wore, sending up a puff of gray dust in a cloud around her. The shake of her head told Ivan she was nervous about being summoned to the captain’s office. She tried to tuck the loose waves back into her ponytail but stopped to inspect her hands. Another officer pointed to her face and Ivan could read the curse on her lips at the streak of soot her fingers had left there. She peeled off her fingerless gloves, quickly wiped her hands and face on a wad of tissues, and then steeled her shoulders before crossing to the captain’s outer office. Her coat billowed out around her like the dusters cowboys wore in the American Western movies he loved to watch.

Joe Hendricks stood at his desk, reading information off the computer screen. “I’ve got Valentine’s file here. She did have MP training in the National Guard. Looks like her stint with them ended earlier this year about the same time she earned her associate degree in criminal justice studies. She’s been with the department four years. That’s not as much experience as either of those officers in the hallway.”

Didn’t matter. “What does she do for you?”

“Right now, she’s working an undercover assignment. She’s attached to our human trafficking task force.”

“Human trafficking? As in prostitution? Sex slavery?”

Hendricks nodded. “She’s on the streets, identifying runaways and at-risk individuals.”

Ivan turned back to the window. “And the man she brought in?”

“I’m not sure. But with Valentine, I’m guessing she caught him with his hands on the wrong person. She’s a natural-born protector. Can’t imagine what kind of fierce mama bear she’d make if she ever decides to have kids.”

“Fierce mama bear?” She was in the hallway right outside the office now. Her gaze met and held his through the window. Her eyes were green like the mountain meadows of his homeland—and narrowed with suspicion.

“That’s our Valentine.”

She blinked, breaking the momentary connection between them. Oblivious to Aleks’s curious interest as she walked past him and the other two female officers, she tossed her long ponytail down the center of her back and strode into the assistant’s office.

Grimy. Plain. Fierce. Intriguing. Very good at playing her part.

A woman he just might have something in common with.

“Hey, Brooke.” Carly Valentine closed the door behind her and crossed the small office over to her friend’s desk. Her pulse thrummed in her ears with more nerves than the adrenaline charge that had raised her heart rate when Dougie Freeland had whacked her in the temple with his big, bulbous head. “Can you give me a clue? What did I do?” She thumbed over her shoulder to the bull pen where the detectives and uniforms worked when they were in the office. “Did those guys in the elevator complain about me or my gruesome twin out there? I swear I didn’t let Dougie touch them.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Brooke Kincaid looked up from her computer and smiled. The gesture was meant to reassure her, but that smile shifted into an apologetic frown, leaving Carly feeling anything but. “I’m still not sure what’s going on, other than I’ve pulled service records and promised that anything I see or hear can’t leave this office. By the way, are you okay?”