Kate Walker - Claiming His Princess - Duty at What Cost? / A Throne for the Taking / Princess in the Iron Mask

He knew why she was thanking him, but she’d put him in an impossible position with her earnest request and he was still fuming about it. ‘It was a foolish thing to do.’

‘Maybe.’ She threw him a brief smile. ‘But I needed to do it and you understood that.’

‘I understood you had a crazy idea and it came off okay this time. Next time it might not.’

‘Life’s a risk, no?’ She cocked her head. ‘I would have thought your job was full of them.’

‘Calculated risks are different from spontaneous reactions.’

‘It wasn’t a spontaneous reaction,’ she said indignantly. ‘I’d thought about it all morning.’

‘Next time you might want to share that,’ he said dryly.

‘Okay.’ She shrugged. ‘I take your point, but it doesn’t stop me from being happy that I did it.’

Wolfe grunted in response and made the mistake of moving to stand behind his desk. He’d had to train himself to ignore her delicious scent all week, but this close, in the confines of this suddenly overheated room, it was nearly impossible to do.

When she didn’t make a move to leave he glanced at her. ‘Was there something else?’

‘Yes. Do you have any news on who might have killed my brother?’

‘No.’ He had some leads to go on but he had no intention of telling her that. Keeping a client apprised of his intel was not the way he operated.

‘Okay, then.’

Her slender fingers trailed over the top of his desk, but just when he thought she was going to give him a break and leave she swung back towards him.

‘I’m going for a walk outside. Just in case you need to know.’

Of course he needed to know.

‘If you go I’ll have to go with you.’

Her eyes met his. ‘Okay.’

Her voice had a husky quality, and all he wanted to do was haul her across his desk and push that stretchy top up her chest. ‘I suggest you get a jacket. It’s cold outside.’

‘I don’t know where you get your weather information from,’ Ava said ten minutes later, her sneaker-shod feet crunching the gravel footpath underfoot. ‘It’s not cold at all.’

She shrugged out of her lightweight jacket and draped it loosely over her shoulders. ‘I love these cloudless summer nights in Anders. The cicadas singing and the mountains in the background. When I was small I used to lie on the grass with my mother and count the stars. It’s not possible to do that in Paris.’

‘No stars?’

‘It’s not the stars; it’s the grass. If you so much as look the wrong way at the lush lawns in a Parisian park a gendarme will come over and slap you with a misdemeanour charge.’ She wagged her finger playfully. ‘One can look but never touch.’

Wolfe knew exactly how that felt.

‘Even princesses?’

She threw him an impish grin. ‘Afraid so. The only people who get special treatment in Paris are the Parisians.’

Wolfe laughed, finding himself relaxing under the vast velvet sky, intrigued as Ava relived her time in Paris and made comparisons between France and Anders. He’d found himself making similar comparisons between Australia and Anders during the week. It was most likely because it had been years since he’d spent so long in one place, but as much as he would have said he was a beach lover he found the small mountainous nation of Anders surprisingly serene and peaceful.

‘How do you feel about being back?’ he asked.

Ava stopped walking and turned to face the mountains, their high peaks barely discernible in the night sky. ‘Two weeks ago I would have said I hated it, but now…now it’s growing on me again.’

She hesitated, and he could see her wrestling with herself about whether to continue. Surprisingly he wanted her to. He liked listening to her talk.

‘Because?’

‘Because I’ve missed the fresh scent of pine in the air and the tranquillity of being surrounded by every shade of green. It feels like home, and being here has made me realise that I miss that more than I allowed myself to think about.’ Her hand trailed a clump of lavender and she raised her fingers to her nose and inhaled the sweet scent. ‘The only fly in the ointment is my father,’ she continued, almost to herself. ‘He’s so determined that he’s always right it becomes exhausting trying to deal with him at times. What about you?’ she asked lightly.

‘No. I find him easy to get along with,’ Wolfe deadpanned.

She stopped in the middle of the path and arched her brow. ‘You know what I mean.’

He did. He just had no intention of talking about his parents.

Stepping off the path onto the well-tended lawn, he walked a short distance and laid his palms against the trunk of an ancient pine tree. He wasn’t sure if she would follow, but then he heard her soft tread on the pine needles and felt glad that she had. ‘They say if you hold your hands against the trunk like this you can feel its secrets.’

‘Really?’

She spread her fingers wide against the trunk beside his and stirred up all sorts of unwelcome responses inside his body.

‘What do you feel?’

Wolfe paused, quite sure she didn’t want to hear what he was really feeling. ‘Bark.’

She laughed and shook her head. ‘And for a minute there I thought you were going to go all deep and meaningful on me.’

‘Mmm, not me.’ Wolfe caught her lingering gaze and moved back to the worn path.

‘You grew up on a farm, didn’t you?’

‘Yep.’ He hoped his short answer gave away just how little he wanted to talk about his past.

‘What was it like?’

No such luck…

‘Dusty.’

‘Pah!’

He glanced at her and couldn’t help chuckling at her disgusted expression.

‘Do you know you close up like a crab whenever I ask you anything personal?’

‘Clam.’

‘That’s what I said.’ She studied him as if she was trying to work him out. ‘Why do you make it so hard to know you?’

Wondering what to say to that thorny question, Wolfe was relieved when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw that it was his brother. ‘Excuse me, but I have to take this.’ He pressed the answer button. ‘Ad-man, what’s up?’

His brother hesitated on the other end of the line. ‘Oh, sorry, bro. Have I caught you in the middle of a run?’

It took Wolfe a second to understand his brother’s comment, and then he became conscious that his breathing was tense and uneven. Great . ‘Just work. Don’t tell me you’re still in the office, too?’

‘With you living it large in a European castle, guarding a beautiful maiden, where else would I be?’

Wolfe told his brother he’d trade places with him in the blink of an eye but even as he said it he knew he was lying. Quickly changing the subject, he tormented his brother a little more and then ran through a few work-related issues before ringing off.

‘Well, that was convenient.’

Wolfe lifted his gaze to the woman who was slowly driving him mad and realised that other than his brother she was the only person who had ever teased him about his behaviour.

Feeling overly hot, even though the air temperature had dropped a couple of degrees, he focused on the small cluster of flowers she held in her hands, not unlike a bride waiting to walk down the aisle. Shaking off that disconcerting image, he made his voice curt when he spoke. ‘We should head back inside.’

‘Okay.’ She sniffed the small posy and fell into step beside him. ‘Was that your brother?’

He thought about changing the subject, but knew if he did her interest would only grow, not wane. ‘Yes.’

‘You sound close to him.’

‘I am.’

‘So, no sibling rivalry?’

He shook his head. ‘We’re less than two years apart so we did everything together.’