скачать книгу бесплатно
From the expression on the college boy’s face, he got the message, but didn’t look happy about it. Again Hawk wondered if the relationship between Bob and Lina was closer than merely friends with a mutual interest in kayaking.
“Look, I’ll sign you both up, but I’ll need your contact details,” Bob said to Hawk. “I’ve got Lina’s. In fact, I already signed you up, babe. I was going to bring you the info sheet in World Politics.”
Lina smiled at Bob, her eyes lit with gratitude and excitement. “You’re the best. Thanks.”
Bob slipped his backpack off his shoulder and dug out a notebook. “Here, just put your stuff in here.” He didn’t let go of the notebook when Hawk reached for it, though. “You are a student here, right? This trip is only open to students at the university.”
Lina frowned, but her expression cleared when Sebastian said, “I’m in the MBA program across the street.”
“Oh. Okay then.” Bob let go of the notebook.
Hawk took it and flipped through the pages until he came to a list of names under a handwritten title, “Kayaking Trip.” He pulled his pen out of his pocket and took pictures of the list of names under the guise of clicking the pen open. He added his name and cover contact information to the bottom of the list.
He would have someone at Hawk Investigations run a report on the names on the list to make sure none of them represented a threat to Lina’s safety.
He wondered how she planned to dupe her bodyguard for an entire weekend, but he had no doubt, whatever her plan was, she would succeed. A princess who had managed to become an expert kayaker while going to the exclusive boarding school she had attended without her family’s knowledge was adept at getting around their strictures for her life.
Bob looked at his watch and then at Lina. “We’ve got almost an hour before class. Do you want to get coffee with me at the Starbucks on State Street?”
She bit her bottom lip and looked sideways at Hawk, then nodded. “Can we get our coffee at the cafeteria, though? I need to pick something up at the library before class.”
Hawk almost laughed out loud. She had to pick something up all right…her bodyguard. “You don’t mind if I tag along, do you?” he asked. “I could use a cup of coffee myself.”
Lina’s mouth curved into another blinding smile. “No, of course not. You’ll have to let me buy, though. It’s the least I can do after running into you in the quad.”
“You’re the one that ended up on the floor. I think I should buy.”
Bob shook his head. “Whoever wants to buy, let’s go. I need my fix of caffeine.”
“Were you up studying late again last night?” Lina asked him.
“You could call it that.”
She smacked his arm lightly. “You are so bad. Who was it this time? The sexy sorority girl with a boyfriend at a different school or the gymnast?”
“I’m not seeing the gymnast anymore. Her coach told her one more late night and lack of focus the next day and she was off the team.”
So, Bob was a player. And Lina knew it. The question was, did he plan on adding Lina to his list of conquests? Not on Hawk’s watch, he wouldn’t. Her family had hired his agency to see to her safety and he would do so. On every front. What she and the jock-boy did when Hawk finished with the case was not his problem.
He studiously ignored the tightening in his gut that occurred at that particular thought.
The student cafeteria coffee wasn’t bad. They even had an espresso machine. Not that Hawk drank specialty coffees, but both Lina and Bob did and from the hum of pleasure Lina emitted as she took her first sip, Hawk assumed it was good. He’d won the argument about him paying, but then he had expected to.
He wasn’t in the habit of losing—at anything.
“Are you going to the environmental demonstration tonight?” Bob asked Lina as he leaned back in his chair, his gaze following a curvy coed cross the dining room.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll try to be there.”
“There’s a rumor the Young Republicans are going to show up to heckle us.”
“Well, if they do, they’ll be heckling half their membership. Environmentalism isn’t the partisan issue big politicians say it is. There are conservationists on both sides.”
“If you say so.”
“You know I do.”
“Are you a political science student?” Hawk asked Lina, already knowing the answer, but wanting to get her to tell him more about herself. How much honesty was she willing to give?
“We both are,” Bob answered for her. “Lina’s a fence-sitter, though. She won’t identify with either of our major parties.”
Lina simply shrugged, but didn’t mention what Hawk assumed was her real reason for not identifying with either party. She was a citizen of Marwan, not the United States.
“I’m not a Young Republican and it kills my dad.” Bob’s satisfied smirk said a lot about why he leaned to the left politically.
Lina sighed and shook her head. “I swear you go to the rallies simply out of reactionary rebellion.”
“Didn’t you tell me once that you decided to study politics because your dad told you not to?” Bob asked pointedly.
The princess nodded, not looking the least bit phased. “It was a little more complicated than that, but his negative reaction to my interest in the subject did spur me on. However, how I react to what I’ve learned in my studies is the result of personal convictions. I hold beliefs different from my family, but not because I want to get a rise out of my dad. I doubt he’d even deign to notice, but my family’s political beliefs have had a strong and sometimes negative impact on my life.”
“In what way?” Bob asked.
Lina merely shook her head and changed the subject. Apparently Bob was not a close enough friend to be aware of Lina’s position as daughter to a desert king.
CHAPTER TWO
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Hawk learned that, though Lina could be described as nothing less than involved, she had no friends that knew the truth about her. In fact, while she had many people she spent time with, she had none Hawk would classify as close friends period. At least the report about her he had received had been correct in that regard. Even if it had been wrong about so much else.
And nothing in the report had prepared him for the growing attraction between them. He had thought it would be something he could use to stay close to her, but discovered quickly that it was far more a detriment than a benefit in regard to doing his job.
How could he protect her when he was distracted by how her ebony hair shone in the sunlight? His fascination with her waist-length hair had been born the first time he saw her wear it down. It looked and felt like silk. And how did he know how it felt?
He couldn’t stop himself from touching it. And Lina didn’t seem to mind. While she shied away from a lot of physical touch from others, keeping hugs short and one-armed with even her female acquaintances, she leaned into Hawk’s touch. Not that he had touched her…that way. But he wanted to. Badly. His fingers actually ached to brush against the luscious curves hidden under her clothing.
It wasn’t that she wore anything overtly sexy, but it was the way she moved, with an innate sensuality he was certain she had no idea she possessed.
Like right now, she was sitting across from him at the Starbucks her friend Bob had first mentioned. The way she held her head in attention while Hawk spoke highlighted the delicate curve of her neck and drew his gaze down to breasts that were molded lovingly by the cotton of her T-shirt. He was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra. Or the one she had on was so thin she might as well not be wearing it, because for the last several minutes her nipples had been hard. His mouth was watering for a taste of the sweet flesh.
“Sebastian?” she asked in a soft…almost uncertain voice.
His gaze shot from her breasts to her face and he felt himself going red. When was the last time that happened? He was a twenty-seven-year-old millionaire in his own right. He’d left blushing boyhood behind too long ago to remember it, if indeed it had ever been a phase for him. “Yes?”
“I…uh…I wondered if you wanted…um…”
“Yes?”
She was silent for several seconds, chewing on her bottom lip, looking too damn delectable. Then she said all in a rush, “Maybe we could go for a walk down State Street.”
“Sure. If you’ve got the time.” Once again, her regular bodyguard believed that she was studying. This time, at home.
When Hawk had learned Lina knew how to bypass the security and leave the apartment she shared with a chaperone next to the one that housed her security detail, he’d been ready to strangle somebody. Her bodyguards were at the top of Hawk’s list. How many times had the princess left her home unprotected? Hawk had not revealed the security breach to the family retainers, though.
He was operating under the assumption that the threat to her family could be from within and he wasn’t taking any risks. He would give a full report with detailed suggestions for improving security for the princess when this situation was over. He had another operative from his staff at Hawk Investigations watching Lina’s building when he slept. And she was supposed to be sleeping. With the feisty princess one could never be sure.
Normally he would have the entire case assigned to his operatives, but Hawk had made his investigative agency an international contender and multimillion dollar company by knowing when it was prudent to take a personal interest in a client’s needs. He’d certainly made the right call this time.
Lina moved close to him as they walked along the tree-lined street near the capitol building and, of its own volition, his arm snaked around her petite waist.
It was only natural considering his role, but it felt too good. Not only was she a client (even if she didn’t know he was her paid protector), but Hawk didn’t do affectionate gestures and warm fuzzy feelings. His liaisons with women were just that. Commitment free, exchanges of pleasure without any false protestations of emotion. He didn’t even have female friends. He had no interest in getting serious with a woman. In any guise. Ever.
Every woman he had known had been devious in her own way. The woman who had given him birth had pretended maternal interest until the day she found a more lucrative benefactor than his father. She’d dumped them both and had contacted Hawk exactly twice in the intervening years. Both times she had wanted to use him. He’d let her the first time, but known enough to send her packing the second.
His grandmother was just as mercenary, though she’d stayed with Hawk’s grandfather. He didn’t know if the men in his family sucked at picking out women to share their lives with, or were simply unlucky. Either way, he’d managed to follow family tradition twice before establishing a firm rule about the type of relationship he was willing to have with the feminine sex.
Which was none at all. Not with the women related to him and not with the women who occasionally shared his bed.
While the things he felt around Lina were more intense and harder to control, he had to control them. Because she was no different than the other women in his life he should have been able to trust.
She lied to her security detail and family on a regular basis. Would she be any more trustworthy in a relationship?
He didn’t think so. After all, she hadn’t yet told him the true nature of her life. They might not be in a relationship and she wasn’t even a candidate for a brief liaison. But she didn’t know that. As far as she knew, their flirtatious friendship could go anywhere. Yet she still maintained the deception about her life.
And that life—her existence as a princess—was one reason the depth of his desire for her was so completely unacceptable. Even if she wasn’t his assignment, an affair would carry too many complications with it.
Not only was there the whole virginity thing, but Lina herself was not the type of woman to be content with a little, or even a lot, of between the sheets pleasure. She was more the type to believe in everlasting love and the whole fantasy that went along with it.
He might not trust her. He may be more cynical than other men still naïve to the ways of women, but Hawk wasn’t about to be the cause of Lina’s shattered fantasies. That would happen soon enough. Life would see to it.
Not even a princess was immune.
On top of all of that, Hawk had worked too hard to build his company into an international power player in the industry. He wasn’t risking its reputation for a woman. No matter how enticing she was.
Flashing faster than instantaneous replay, scene after scene of her time with Sebastian rolled across the movie screen in Lina’s mind.
Sebastian had offered to drive her to the kayaking excursion in his car. A Dodge Viper, the same gunmetal gray of his eyes, the powerful sports car didn’t have room for anyone else. So they would spend the ninety-minute drive to the campground alone. She found her attention occupied by his profile and the way his powerful thighs bulged in his jeans, rather than the admittedly gorgeous scenery out the window.
She’d spent endless hours thinking about this man, trying to decide if he was as interested in her as she was in him.
She had no experience and no one she felt comfortable going to for advice. That left her with her own opinion based on…well nothing. Okay, there’d been the gossip from other girls in high school, but none of it seemed to apply. Sebastian wasn’t pushing for sex or copping a feel every time they were in a remotely private place.
She thought it was probably because he was older, a graduate student who already had some experience in the business world.
She was pretty sure he desired her, though. The way he looked at her at times made her brain melt. And other bits as well.
She’d tried reading women’s magazines, but they all touted open communication in a relationship. Did that mean she was supposed to just ask him?
She would rather pick up on nonverbal clues. And she was convinced there were some.
Sometimes, his eyes would gleam with something that responded to the ache deep in her womb whenever he was around. But he had never acted on it and they had been seeing each other for three weeks now. They hadn’t had any dates per se, but he’d been around pretty much constantly since she’d run into him in the quad.
Since he did not seem like a big joiner, the fact that he was at meetings she’d never before seen him at or rallies she was pretty sure he had no personal interest in, she had to assume she was the reason he showed up. Which meant he wanted her, right?
It amazed her, really. That a man like Sebastian would be interested in Lina Marwan was pretty incredible. She was accustomed to people being drawn by her royal status, but like the rest of the students at the university, he had no way of knowing she was a princess. But he liked her…maybe…
He was everything she had dreamed of finding in a boyfriend, not that he was actually her boyfriend.
She sighed. Sebastian gave her a questioning look. She smiled a little and shrugged. Thankfully he didn’t ask her what she was thinking. She might just blurt it out and embarrass herself unbearably.
He was so gorgeous; he was assertive without being domineering. He listened to her, maybe even better than her brother. He was smart and driven—his going for an MBA showed that. And he was intense in this really, super sexy way. Was it any surprise she was falling for Sebastian Hawk in a big way?
The problem was that sometimes she was convinced that all he wanted was friendship.
She was so bad at this whole male-female thing. Her lack of practical experience was becoming a real nuisance. If she had been like the other girls who attended the female-only academy she had, she would have at least had a chance when not in school to meet people of the opposite gender. To learn to flirt for goodness sake. Though she had to admit that even if she had the opportunity, the male dominant nature of her family had made her wary around men and she probably would have shied away from any sort of interaction.
That caution combined with the reality that in order to date it would have meant further deceptions, or the indignity of being subjected to not only a bodyguard, but a chaperone as well, had also kept her from pursuing or responding to the pursuit of any guys since she’d arrived at university. Until Sebastian.
Of course, it helped that he was willing to spend time with her doing the things she already arranged for involvement in.
Only…for this man, she would do whatever it took to see him personally. She just wished she knew what to do with him.
Not that lack of experience had ever stopped her from trying something that she wanted to. She was not the demure, ornamental—aka useless—piece of feminity her father believed her to be.
Sebastian was so different from the men in her family. He never dismissed her thoughts as unimportant simply because she wasn’t heir to a throne or provincial position. He wasn’t surprised by her intelligence and he didn’t seem to think her political science major was a waste of her time. Not that he knew why she had chosen that major, but he acted like he believed she could, and most likely would, do something valuable with her education.
That was her hope.
She’d spent her childhood separated from her home, only to see her parents and siblings one week out of the year when she flew to Marwan and stayed in the royal palace with them. She did not remember her parents ever touching her with affection, and knew for a fact her father had never once given her any recognition as anything but his inferior female offspring.
She refused to spend her adult life feeling and being insignificant. She wanted to make a difference in the world and not merely as the attractive, well mannered appendage on some man’s arm.
“You’re pretty quiet over there,” Sebastian said.
“I was thinking how different you are from the men in my family.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“In what way?”
“You don’t discount me simply because I’m female.”
“Who does that?”
“My father. To some extent my uncle. Others.”
“Your brother?”
