Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 (21 page)

“Coming!” Nicki shouted, glad to hear the strength of her voice. It sounded bold and bubbly, exactly how Stefan was used to hearing her. She wouldn’t have to put on any sort of show, she reminded herself for the millionth time. She simply needed to be herself.

She opened the door and blinked. “Hey,” she managed, taking in his perfectly crisp blonde hair, his piercing blue gray eyes, the sheer masculinity of him, clad in a casual button down short-sleeved shirt and crisp trousers. He feet were shod in tech walking shoes that still managed to look suitable for dining al fresco in some fancy restaurant.

She glanced down at her own attire. “Should I change? I’m a little less formal.”

“You’re perfect.” He leaned down and took her face in both his hands, kissing her gently. “As much as you protest that word choice. Plus, the taxi is here.” He noted the camera on her shoulder. “Charged up?”

In more ways than one. “We could shoot for hours and have memory left,” she said, giving him the thumbs up. They made their way down the hallway. “Before we get to the cab, is there anything I should be searching for in particular?”

“Workers, mainly. Men of about six foot three, dark hair. Ari looks…
looked
a lot like Kristos, but he was built on a bigger frame.” He shook his head. “They used to joke that Queen Catherine was tired after having such a big baby, so she didn’t try as hard with Kristos.”

“Ouch!” Nicki said. “Brothers, I guess.”

“Kristos didn’t mind. He said she had to give birth to the hunk of rock first, before she could sculpt the David.” He smiled as Nicki gave a short, coughing laugh. “In addition to the workers, anything you can get of the overseers, or entry points from the warehouse to the outside, up or down the building. I don’t imagine they have extensive security, but there has to be something keeping those men in place at night. In place and quiet. Especially if this feeder camp has been in operation for a year.”

The cab was waiting for them at the front entrance of the hotel—not a taxi at all but a personal car of Omir. Stefan sat close to her despite the roominess of the back seat, and Nicki sensed her calm return. She could do this—she
was
doing this. Stefan didn’t appear to be concerned about her health or the safety of the mission. He trusted her to do her job, and her job was a simple one. Take pictures and don’t get lost, being sure to comment appreciatively at the right times. She could do this.

The car wound through the pretty streets of Alaçati, and Stefan pointed out various villas as they climbed the mountain, as if they hadn’t walked through this same district earlier in the day. His chatter served to ratchet down Nicki’s stress further.

“Up there—that one,” Stefan said suddenly, and she blinked, following the direction of his pointed finger. A villa sat perched on the edge of an outcropping of stone, wide decks open to the glory of the bay and the distant Aegean Sea beyond. “I think that is the kind of home I should want to buy, when I buy a home.”

“Really?” The villa was stunning, but not pretentious. “It doesn’t really hold a candle to the palace in Garronia,” she teased.

“Ah, but that is not mine,” he said. “This is the type of place I would go to when all the work is done in the palace, and the royal family is at rest. This is the place where I’d light my own candles.”

“That sounds nice.” Nicki kept the wistfulness out of her voice, but it was a near thing. The thought of Stefan on some promontory somewhere, watching the sunset, lighting candles as the night drew down on the city, was an image she’d have burned into her brain for the rest of her life. “Do you have someplace in mind, or do you plan to commute back and forth to Alaçati?”

He snorted. “Despite Omir’s many assurances to the contrary, there are beautiful places to be had in Garronia. But no, I haven’t started searching yet. There is always more work to do.” He tapped her knee. “But I think I shall start, when I return to the city. You will have to go with me while you remain in Garronia, if time allows.”

Nicki nodded, keeping her manner easy. She didn’t know if he was maintaining their banter for the sake of the driver or to keep her entertained, but they chatted back and forth for the remaining few minutes as they wound up familiar roads, and finally turned down the street that fronted the warehouse. The gates to the excavation site stood open, and they rolled inside.

Omir was waiting for them.

“Welcome, welcome,” he said as Nicki and Stefan exited the car, Nicki already bringing her camera up.

“Let me know what you want me to shoot,” she said, staring around as if she’d never seen the site before. “I can’t believe you stumbled over this.”

“The area was a bit of a blight on our beautiful city,” Omir said, warming to her clear admiration. “Overgrown, choked with weeds and brush.” He gestured all around them, and Nicki swung around, keeping her camera low as she squinted to the side.

“That building looks old—there had to have been something there.”

“The plot of land belonged to an industrial firm who had thought to build. Then the economy crashed, as economies do, only this was in the nineteen fifties. They let their lease expire, and the city bought the land and buildings. We had much to focus on with the beautification and development of the bay, however. It simply was not a priority.”

“Wow,” Nicki said, staring around with appropriately wide eyes. As she continued her expressions of awe, Stefan had turned away, peering intently at the far corners of the site.

Omir caught the movement. “So impatient! But then, we were as well when we discovered the treasures that lay underneath all the brush. You’ll see why we are eager to open it as a tourist destination.” He brightened as Nicki brought her camera up and repeated his little speech for the good of posterity. He explained the old usage of the land, the way it had fallen into jungle, and then declared with excitement how the city had reclaimed the property, only to discover the masterpiece beneath.

“The industrial firm would probably have blasted through the ruins, perhaps not even realizing what they were,” Omir continued dourly. “But the fates were not kind to them, and they paid for their hubris.” He waved to the warehouse building. “Soon we will tear down their warehouse to make way for parking and an extension building for the ruins. It is a fitting end for a company who sought to deface this national treasure of Turkey.”

Nicki didn’t look at Stefan, but she knew his attention was once more focused on the Turkish official. If they didn’t get Ari out of there on this trip, there was no guarantee he’d be there in another week or month.

If they were going to find him, they’d need to find him tonight.

Stefan kept his manner cool and polite as they wound their way through the excavation site. The ruin was a minor one, by Mediterranean standards, but it was impressive enough. A thick, squat church was gradually being unearthed, as well as a grotto-like area surrounded by columns and the remains of an old well. He could easily see how it would be a tourist draw once completed—so much closer than the more well-known sites such as Ephesus, while conveying the same sense of ancient world wonder and beauty. With a small entry fee, Alaçati would see the return on its investment to unearth the place almost immediately.

And there were still at least a dozen men and women who appeared to be actual archaeologists, mixing in with the remaining construction workers despite the late hour.

“It is a constant push pull, eh?” Omir said for the benefit of Nicki’s camera. “We must move forward quickly, and the intention was always that this would be a working exhibit, with tourists and archaeologists side by side as new possibilities emerge. And yet the archaeologists, they would rather that all our big machines and noise would go away. We cannot do that—we would bring this fantastic site to the people as quickly as possible. But they are doing their job.”

They toured the grotto and what had been uncovered of the church, with Omir eagerly showing off the visible remains of another temple set into the rock beneath the primary one.

“Christianity is a bit of an opportunistic religion, yes?” Omir said. “Its agents come to this place, they see its beauty, its possibilities. Rather than honor what has come before, they build right on top of it, transferring the mystic holiness of the place to their own uses.” He flung his arms wide. “Not that you could blame them.”

They wound their way down into the church and the pagan temple before it, stopping to talk to archaeologists along the way. Nicki videoed every step and Stefan watched her closely. She gave no indication of being out of sorts, however. She chattered incessantly with Omir, appearing almost besotted by him, a reaction the Turkish official gleefully took as his due. Stefan knew she was doing it for the mission—everything for the mission—but he found it strangely galling to watch her make eyes at the pompous man. When she caught his eye at one turn and winked, he was only marginally comforted.

What was wrong with him?
He’d prided himself on not becoming entangled in anything so prosaic as a romance, not since he’d been brought to the palace and welcomed in by the royal family. His work was his romance, the family’s protection his greatest focus. He had no time for anything else.

But he hadn’t been lying when he’d shown Nicki the villa perched over the cliff. That was exactly the sort of home he could imagine himself in, with all the windows open to the sea and sun. And now he could imagine Nicki there as well, an entirely unexpected but not unwelcome thought. It was pointless to continue down that path, but he found himself straying toward the images he was conjuring forth for himself, if only to pass the time while the Turkish official nattered on.

The final stop on the tour was the most breathtaking by far—literally. Omir pointed them out to an open-air veranda. “Ah! We are here in time to see the sunset. Be sure to take full views! It is an extraordinary sight.”

For once the man was not exaggerating. Stefan moved to the side to allow Nicki to step forward and video the commanding view of the ocean, the skyline, the ridges in the far distance. Then she panned back around toward Omir, while he grinned self-importantly. “We will reinforce this area in particular to allow for tourists to experience the magnificent view in safety and comfort,” he said as Nicki focused on him.

She stiffened as he talked, her body language changing subtly and Stefan looked to where she was pointing the camera. Omir was in full throes of his discussion of the gated veranda decking they’d install to protect the ruins while allowing tourists maximum access, but that’s not what held Stefan’s attention.

The veranda fell away as the view curved back toward the warehouse, past a rough embankment that had once been an outer arch of the church. They were higher than the warehouse, and were afforded a clear view of the space between the two buildings, a thick knot of trees and jungle as he and Nicki had entered earlier that day.

Beside those trees, a line of men filed out of the excavation site under the careful scrutiny of two men whose stance indicated they were carrying weapons or had access to them—they were clearly men who held power over these workers. Plenty of other workers remained on the site—and certainly all the archaeologists—so this routine was clearly well established. The men marched to the warehouse, where the building’s garage stood open, trucks in place. After the men were safely inside, the garage doors rumbled shut. .

None of those workers had looked like Ari Andris, but Stefan was too far away to tell anything definitively.

“Have you had any interest yet from American or European tourist channels?”

Nicki’s gushing words distracted him, and he turned around in time as Omir noticed his stare, the official also pulled back by Nicki’s question. “What do you mean?”

“Well, gosh—it’s so intriguing what you’re doing, preserving cultural heritage while doing what’s right by the city as well. I’d have to think it would serve as a model for other reclamation or restoration projects.” She smiled, if possible with yet more earnestness. “Not that you necessarily need to share your success with the outside world, but—if you wanted, I could prepare a video segment developed specifically as a promo piece for those networks. You never know who could check it out. I know you’re busy but—”

“Our success is Turkey’s success,” Omir said resolutely. “I like this idea of yours. How long would it take to produce?”

“I could have a rough cut to you tomorrow, and then you could have anyone you prefer edit the final. That way if you have more footage or interviews, you can add them.”

“Yes! Yes, that is good.”

As Stefan half-listened to their conversation, he allowed his attention to veer to the right again. To his surprise, a paneled van rolled out of the building—and then another one. They turned left onto the access road, then disappeared over the side of the mountain.

He scowled. So were the workers being taken somewhere else? Or was this departure of the vans a ruse to satisfy anyone curious at the excavation site? He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the building. It was built solidly, but there were flaws—once you got high enough. There were windows in the upper reaches, as Nicki had pointed out. The roofline showed several doors on multiple levels, and even now one of the doors opened, and a man stepped out, a lit cigarette in his hand as he spoke on his phone.