"So, Rhia de Hayes…they've sent you to 'bring me in,' I expect." he said as he handed back her ID. His eyes were veiled now, and his voice was that languid upper-class vaguely British drawl she'd always found so annoying. "What were you planning to do, conk me on the head, heave me over your shoulder and haul me back to Silvershire?"

"I was plannin' on checkin' the place while you were gone." Rhia said, leaning heavily on the nasal Cajun twang of her childhood; she could out-drawl just about anybody on the planet, if that was the way he was going to be. She glared at him as she tucked the ID back in her inside jacket pocket, inadvertently allowing him another glimpse of the silk chemise that had apparently so unnerved him before. And she reveled in the spark of response that flared in his cool gray eyes. Veiling the triumph in hers, she said accusingly. "You came back early. I figured you'd be havin' supper out."

"It was going to rain," Nikolas said with a dismissive shrug, "and I didn't have an umbrella. So, what was it you hoped to find hidden away amongst my socks and tightie whities? Guns, knives, explosives? Leaflets inciting the violent overthrow of the monarchy? Evidence of what a dangerous fellow I am?"

"Oh, I think I know what a dangerous fellow you are." Rhia said, and instantly wanted to bite off her tongue. Not only was it an inappropriate comment to make to a royal heir, but the voice that uttered it had turned low and husky, become almost a growl. It wasn't as though she'd never heard such a sound coming from her own throat before-on…certain occasions, yes, but never under these circumstances. Not while on a job, put it that way.

She wasn't sure which surprised her most, that or the small vibration that had begun to hum somewhere deep inside her chest.

Half angry with herself, she tore away the clip that had held her hair clubbed tightly to the back of her head and shook the thick dark waves down to her shoulders.

"You could easily have beat a hasty retreat when you heard me at the door," Nikolas remarked in a relaxed, conversational tone. "I assume you had an escape route planned. Why didn't you use it?" As he spoke, his gaze followed the motions of her hand and hair, his gray eyes heavy-lidded and amused, as if he knew exactly the effect he was having on her.

Of course he knows, dummy. Rhia repressed a shiver as she became intensely conscious of the cool silk of her chemise licking across her hardened nipples. How could he not know, when the evidence was right here in front of his face?

But to zip up her jacket now would be an admission of awareness she wasn't willing to make, and besides, she'd never been shy about her body. If it was going to go shivery and shameless over Nik Donovan, well…so be it. It wouldn't affect her ability to do the job she'd come to do.

And, if it came to that, she was also well aware of the effect her body had on members of the opposite sex, and she wasn't above using it to distract an opponent, if the occasion demanded.

When did the assignment become my opponent?

She faced this one unflinchingly and inhaled deeply, and smiled at the slight but unmistakable hitch she detected in his breathing. "I'd planned on coming back and knocking on your door. Talking to you-you know, like a civilized human being, one to another? Figured since I was already here I might as well save some time, see if I could persuade you to do the right thing and come back with me voluntarily."

Nikolas folded his arms on his chest. He was smiling too. now. a lazy, arrogant smile that caused an immediate and automatic elevation of her hackles. "And if that didn't work?"

She gave her head an airy toss and broadened her smile to a 'gator grin. "I planned to conk you on the head, throw you over my shoulder and haul you back to Silvershire."

He laughed, briefly but out loud, something she suspected he didn't do often. He made no comment, though, as the promised rain chose that moment to announce its arrival with a rush of cool wind that set the curtains to dancing and carried a mist of droplets into the room. Nikolas straightened and strode quickly to the balcony doors. He closed and latched them and twitched the curtains across the black rain-spangled glass, then turned to give her a leisurely up-and-down appraisal.

"It would appear you also are without an umbrella," he said mildly, lifting one eyebrow-an ability she lacked, and coveted. "I seriously doubt you'll find a taxi just now. Since I suppose this means you'll be staying for dinner, may I offer you a glass of wine?"

She shook her head, both in bemusement and in refusal of the offer of wine-she had no intention of letting anything slow her reflexes or cloud her judgment, not with this man. And although he seemed completely at ease. now. and was being effortlessly charming, she thought again of the smiling tiger.

She decided it wouldn't be necessary to tell him she had no intention of calling a taxi. or. in fact, of leaving him at all. Fact was, she wasn't about to let Nikolas Donovan out of her sight until she had delivered him safely into the arms of his father, the king of Silvershire.

Chapter 2

Rhia stood in the entrance to the apartment's tiny kitchen and watched the recently discovered "lost" heir to the throne of Silvershire take a stoppered bottle of wine out of the tiny refrigerator.

He turned to make an offering gesture toward her with the bottle. "Are you quite certain you won't join me? It's rather nice for a rose, actually. Fellow who lent me this flat comes from a wine-making family down in Provence-he's left an apparently bottomless supply."

She shook her head, and he responded with a shrug that seemed to her more French than British. It was what came of growing up in an island kingdom located halfway between those two countries, she thought, as she watched him pour himself a half glassful and lift it to his lips. She couldn't imagine why observing that mundane activity should make her mouth water; she wasn't terribly fond of wine. She seldom drank at all, but when she did, she preferred bourbon whiskey. Straight.

His eyes, meeting hers above the rim of his glass, crinkled suddenly. He lowered the glass. "Oh, hell-of course, you're on the job, aren't you? Do forgive me. Perhaps a glass of water? Cup of tea?"

"I'm from South Louisiana." Rhia said drily "We Cajuns aren't all that much for tea." Well, hell, if he was going to play the British fop again-badly overplaying it, in her opinion, and she didn't know what his game was or whether to be amused by it or annoyed-she figured her trailer-park Cajun could trump his Oxford Brit any day of the week.

"Ah, yes-coffee would be your drink of choice. I imagine. Made with-what's that other…" He snapped his fingers impatiently.

"Chicory," she grudgingly supplied, then tilted her head. "How'd you come to know a thing like that?"

His chuckle was dry, his smile sardonic. "I know a little about a great many things, my dear." He waved the wineglass in a sweeping gesture. "My education has been…shall we say, eclectic? Wide-ranging?"

"An education fit for a man who would be king," Rhia said softly.

He snorted-a most unprincely sound. "An education attained courtesy of some very good scholarships and a lot of hellish hard work, which I doubt could be said of most royals." He paused, and his lips curled with disdain he made no effort to hide. "Not the one I knew personally, at any rate."

"Reginald, you mean. Yes, you two were at Eton together, weren't you?"

"And Oxford." Nikolas gazed at his wine as if it had gone sour. "Look, I am sorry he's dead-God knows I wouldn't wish for anyone to be murdered that way-poisoned, I mean-but the man was an arrogant, insufferable prick, if you want to know. And not fit to govern a frat house, much less a country."

"Ah," said Rhia, smiling slightly, "but he never got the chance, did he? And, as it turns out, he wasn't even the prince after all."

Instead of answering, he took a quick gulp of wine and set his glass down with a careless clank. Turning abruptly, he opened a cupboard door and took out an espresso maker which he placed on the countertop, plugged into a wall outlet and set about filling with an ease and efficiency that spoke of some degree of familiarity with the process.

Watching the movements of his hands, Rhia felt again that odd little quiver beneath her breastbone. His glossy dark hair might be in need of a trim, and a day's growth of beard might be shadowing his jaw, but there was no denying the grace in the lines of his body, the power in the breadth of his shoulders, the authority in the set of his chin, the intelligence in those intense gray eyes. And all of it, she thought, completely natural to him.

It must be in his genes. Even here, in this little bitty kitchen, making coffee for uninvited company, he looks like he was born to be a king.

"You can come in and sit down-I promise not to bite you." He threw the brittle invitation over his shoulder as he worked, and Rhia gave a guilty start, as if his long list of royal attributes might include the ability to read minds.

She shook her head and smiled, but stayed where she was. Prince or not, the kitchen was too small a space to hold two people who weren't already on intimate terms.

Intimate. The word sprang into her head from out of nowhere and sat pulsing in her brain like the neon lights on a Mississippi River casino boat.

"Tell me something." He gave her another look, this one as shaip and keen as any scrutiny she'd ever received from Walker Shaw, the shrink who'd done her psych evaluation when she joined the Lazlo Group. "How does a nice American girl from Louisiana come to be working for Corbett Lazlo?"