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She didn’t move when he did Another woman would have quailed at the male intensity in his face Another woelina wasn’t like any other wo in Alec responded to that knowledge Fiercely
She was in his arhting for control of theainst his, as he’d known it would be But it was soft, too, a softness so totally unexpected it disarmed him
Their lipsas tame as a kiss This ar between the shots over the bow in a take-no-prisoners stance Hunger roared through his body, and an aching need to give her back just a tiny fraction of what she was giving him
Then it was over Angelina tore herself out of his embrace, and Alec watched as she wiped the back of her hand across herthe taste of him from her lips As if she could wipe out the memory the same way
“Why did you do that?” she asked him finally
“Because you wanted ant put that way, so he added, “Because I wanted to”
“That is not true”
“Which? That I wanted to kiss you?” One corner of his rin “I wanted to Oh, yeah, I definitely wanted to, since the first moment I saw you”
She shook her head “Not that You said I wanted you to kiss me And that is not true”
His grin faded and he held her gaze with his steady one “Yes, you did,” he told her, accepting the truth even if she refused to acknowledge it “You wanted to knohat it would be like We both did And noe know” And nothing will ever be the saain
Aleksandrov Vishenko sat in his luxurious pied-à-terre in the heart of Manhattan, sipping at his snifter of Courvoisier L’Essence, pondering ways and h secure channels—by Prince Nikolai Marianescu, the king of Zakhar’s cousin The cousin who’d failed soand take his place, and who now resided in a prison cell
The king’s cousin had na—including two of Vishenko’s henchmen—but he had not dared to na to use his previous silence—and the threat of disclosure—to force Vishenko to do his bidding The prince wanted revenge on Zakhar’s royal couple by assassinating their precious son as not yet a month old—the heir all of Zakhar had prayed for
Crown Prince Raoul was vulnerable, the prince insisted There was a perfectof opportunity coruesome death his parents would never recover froe
Vishenko smiled to himself, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and reluctantly caht he still had leverage from within his prison cell It was a false assu to say so Not yet
He had his own reasons for wanting the child dead, and they had nothing to do with vengeance Only expedience A means to a desired end
He didn’t want Zakhar’s king dead—not any exposed Despite the fact that the Russian Brotherhood, the Bratva—a branch of which Vishenko headed in the US as well as Zakhar—cared nothing for the overnment, for that matter
The king was good for Zakhar, and therefore good for Vishenko—that was all he cared about Stable governreatly beneficial to his various legiti Zakhar All his legitimate Zakharian enterprises had prospered these past few years under the king’s rule And he was nothing if not a pragmatist
He just wanted the kingdistracted for a ti enough for Vishenko’s men to wind down the operation that threatened to expose his identity
The arrival of the Aional security officer, Alec Jones—who the current RSO insisted was incorruptible—had pros down immediately
He couldn’t do it There omen in the pipeline, and the operation was just too profitable to bring it to a screeching halt Especially when it had just been expanded six o If the new RSO was truly not susceptible to bribery—and Vishenko was by no means convinced of that, since he believed every man had his price—then perhaps Alec Jones could benullifiedin another fashion The A in theircompletely different