Sweet Revenge

hurry?”
    Fighting back laughter, she scooped her hair out of her eyes. “If you must know I want—no, I need the loo.”
    “Oh. Why didn’t you say so?”
    Air whistled out between her teeth as she clamped them together. “I didn’t realize I’d need to announce it until I found myself shackled to you.”
    “Nice feeling, isn’t it?” he said as he bent over to kiss her.
    “Philip.”
    “Yes, the key.” He glanced around, then spotted his jeans heaped at the foot of the bed. “Come along.” With Adrianne in tow and swearing at him, he reached his jeans. “It’s in the pocket.” He dipped into one, found nothing, then tried another. “I don’t suppose you want company.”
    “Philip!” She wouldn’t laugh. At this moment laughter could be a disaster.
    “No? Well then.” He tossed the jeans back into a heap. “Got a hairpin?”
    When he started downstairs a short while later, he was hoping for coffee. The last thing he’d expected was to find Adrianne, dressed in baggy sweats, grilling bacon. The scent was enough to make him fall in love.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Fixing breakfast. Coffee’s hot.”
    He walked to the stove to stare at the meat grilling in the skillet. “You cook?”
    “Of course I cook.” She lifted bacon out and set it todrain. “Mama and I spent a lot of years without servants. I still prefer to see to myself.”
    “And you’re fixing me breakfast.”
    Embarrassed, she snatched up a carton of eggs. “For heaven’s sake, it’s not as though I’m laying down my life.”
    “You’re fixing me breakfast,” he said again, and brushed the hair from the nape of her neck so he could kiss it. “You do love me, Addy. You just don’t realize it yet.”
    He bided his time through the meal, letting her relax. What he didn’t know was that she was doing precisely the same thing. Lounging by her window that opened up to a view of Central Park, they lingered over coffee. They were there, looking out, when the first flakes of snow began to fall.
    “The city’s lovely in the snow. The first time I saw it I cried because I thought it wouldn’t stop until we were all buried in it. Then Mama took me out and showed me how to build a snowman.” She pushed away her coffee, knowing the caffeine would make her jumpy if she indulged in any more. “I wish I could take the next few days and show you around New York, but I have a lot of business to see to.”
    “I don’t mind tagging along.”
    She cleared her throat and tried again. “If you could come back in a few weeks, I’d be free to take you to some museums, a few shows, a gallery or two.”
    He tapped his cigarette on the table before lighting it. “I didn’t come here to be entertained, Addy, but to be with you.”
    “Philip, I leave for Jaquir at the end of the week.”
    He took a long, soothing drag. “That’s something we need to discuss.”
    “No, that’s something I’m going to do. I’m sorry you don’t understand or approve, but it doesn’t—it can’t—make any difference.”
    He continued to look out at the snow. A young boy was heading into the park walking a fleet of dogs. A pretty scene, he thought. He could be content spending a portion of his life on this continent, in this city, in this room. When he spoke, it wasn’t in anger, it wasn’t meant as a threat. It was said with the calm simplicity of fact.
    “There are things I can do, Addy, that would make itdifficult if not impossible for you to leave the country, much less go to an area as unstable as the Middle East.”
    Her head came up just a fraction, but it was enough to lend her the air of royalty. “I am Princess Adrianne of Jaquir. If I choose to visit the country of my birth, neither you nor anyone can stop me.”
    “You do that well,” he said. Well enough that the picture of her fathers face flashed in his mind. “And if it were only a visit you planned, you’d have a point. As it is, I can stop you, Adrianne, and I will.”
    “This isn’t something for you to decide.”
    “Keeping you alive has become a matter of some interest to me.”
    “Then you should understand that if I don’t go and do what I have to do, I may as well be dead.”
    “You’re dramatizing.” Leaning over the table, he grabbed her hands, forcing her to look at him. “I know a bit more now. I’ve spent a great deal of time over the last few days reading about your mother, digging up what scraps I could about your father, your early