Jane Millionaire (25 page)

No, he wasn’t her Mr. Right. He was a famous Hollywood producer, and she was a cop. Had they met under different circumstances, he wouldn’t have given her the time of day--unless she’d pulled him over for speeding. Then, he probably would have flashed his toothpaste-ad-perfect smile and tried to schmooze his way out of his ticket.

And darn if she probably would have let him.

She grinned and pulled her covers tighter around her as she realized she most definitely wouldn’t have let him sweet talk his way out of a ticket. She’d have slapped handcuffs on his wrists and hauled his sexy Hollywood butt in to the station.

Oh, yeah. She’d have made a lasting impression on him, one way or the other.

She rolled over to stare through the moonlit room at the shadowed corner where the connecting door loomed. She’d offered her body to him, and he’d refused, continued to refuse each and every night that door remained shut. She had too much pride to go to his room again and throw herself at him.

She wasn’t a fool. She meant nothing except a quick tumble in the sack to pass time. Not really. She’d never had any great expectations of them having a happily ever after together. Rob wasn’t the type. He was pure Hollywood with all its glamour and glitz.

She suspected that for her their time together had been much more, and if he’d been receptive, she would have offered him her heart, along with her body.

Had she imagined the noise? Her gaze focused on the dark corner. Nothing. No shafts of light indicating the door had opened. Nothing at all.

Go to sleep, Jill. You’re imagining things
.

Or maybe she’d gone to sleep and was going to have one heck of a dream starring Rob Lancaster in the buff. Maybe of him carrying her from the lake, peeling her swim suit off with his teeth and making love to her on the dock. A girl could hope.

The moon had apparently gone behind a cloud, because she could no longer make out much of anything, but she wasn’t dreaming. That much she was sure of. The door had opened.

Instinctively, she sensed someone was in her room, and even though she couldn’t see him, she knew that someone was Rob. Excitement shimmied through her. He’d come to her. What did it mean?

“Who’s there?” she asked anyway, barely daring to breath.

“Shhh,” came a low masculine voice from close to her bed, causing her to jump. She hadn’t realized he’d crossed the room. Had she been away from the force so long that her police instincts had dulled completely?

“You scared me.” She sat up in her bed, finally able to make out his outline.

“Shhh, don’t talk. I covered the camera, but our conversation will still be picked up if we don’t keep our voices down.” Rob’s whisper reminded. He reached out and touched her plait, stroking his fingers over the long rope she’d braided her hair into prior to crawling into bed. His touch bordered on reference. And uncertainty. “Am I welcome here?”

He was asking… Her heart skipped a beat. Not that she hadn’t known the moment she’d realized he was in her room why he’d opened the door,
because she had
. There could only be one reason.

She should say no. She should tell him to get lost after the way he’d completely ignored her since the night at the lake, but to do so would be punishing herself.

This was their last night. Forever. Because once they left this idyllic setting they’d each go back to their lives and he’d forget about her. He’d even told her as much.

But she couldn’t deny him. Didn’t want to. She’d love him with all she had and make memories to cherish during the lonely nights ahead.

“Yes,” she whispered, clasping his hand and pulling it to her lips. She pressed a kiss against the strong surface of his palm. “I left the door unlocked, didn’t I?”

A God. He looked like some Greek God come to earth for a night of earthly passion. She whimpered as he kissed, suckled, touched, stroked, tasted every pore on her skin. When she knew she was going to cry out if he didn’t fill her body with his hard shaft, his mouth took hers, capturing any sound she might have made.

Now
, she mentally begged.
Oh, please now
.

As if he could read her thoughts, his hardness nudged her slick, wet folds, separating her mound of hot flesh. He clasped her fingers with his and pushed their locked hands down on either side of her head as he rose above her and thrust inside.

Deep. Hard. A shiver passed over her skin, and she wondered what he was feeling as he held his passion under tight reign. Did he feel the completeness, the oneness of their connected bodies?

His hips moved, slowly at first as he drove his thick length full hilt into her time and again, filling her with him. Then, his rhythm picked up speed and intensity. Her body and heartbeat matched his pace as his pelvis’ pistoning movement swept her sanity far, far away to a fantasyland where she was a real princess being eternally claimed by Prince Charming.

As much as it scared her, Rob was her Prince Charming--the only man for her.

Her breath caught as swirls of heat began to gyrate in her boiling center. Tiny bursts of electricity exploded, each one gaining momentum until Jill just knew
she
was going to explode like a fourth of July fireworks display.

Then she did.

Her back arched high off the bed, her hands clamped tight to his, her heart hammered. She gasped for breath that seemed impossible to catch as wave upon wave of sweet spasm rocked her.

Just as her inner thighs clenched with the peak of her orgasm, Rob covered her mouth with his and blew his breath into her, filling her empty lungs as he came with her. Hard.

Ohmygod. Oh. Yes. Yes. Yes.

She held his intoxicating air inside her lungs until heady dizziness overtook her. Still, she kept the life-sustaining air he’d given her until her chest threatened to burst.

When her breath released in a soft, swift gush, sizzling quivers sent her over the edge again, falling right into one amazing orgasm after another.

Rob’s gentle, searching kiss told her she wasn’t alone in the needy-for-reassurance emotional aftermath of the most phenomenal experience of her life.

“Because this is wrong and I can not see the purpose of my interrupting your show. What difference could it possibly make for me to show my face? Your show has been a success in your country. My appearance would only cause pain to your Jane Millionaire.”

And possibly to Jeff. Had he fallen in love with the beautiful “Jane”?

JP shrugged. “Okay, if you don’t want your moment in the spotlight, that’s fine with me.”

“Really?” Not in her wildest dreams had she envisioned her conversation with JP going this well. She had expected to have to plead with him.

“Sure, but I have to admit, you surprise me.”

There the man went with his disgusting cigar. Did he think she did not know he snuck and smoke when he was in his rooms? Did he think her staff not loyal to her, their princess?

“Why?”

JP laughed, walking over to look at an antique, gold inlayed snuffbox her father had given her as a gift. “Well, you’re missing your chance with Kensington, for one thing.”

“My chance with Jeff? What do you mean?”

“Cut the crap, your Highness. We both know you brought him here because you’re in love with him. Nice fellow, too.”

In another century she could have had him beheaded for speaking to her in such a manner. At times, Isabella longed for the past ways.

“I do not see your point. What does my feelings for Jeff have to do with today?”

He picked the snuffbox up and Isabella had to squelch the urge to ask him to set it down. “If you don’t make your appearance at the taping of the show today, you’ll never know how he really feels, will you? You’ll basically be giving your blessing for him to woo another woman. Come to think of it, that’s what you’ve already done by bringing him here under false pretenses.”

“I-” She wanted to deny his words, but could not. She had arranged for Jeff’s inclusion. Just so she could see him once more.

And the truth was, she loved him. Had known she had when she had been at his mission site and had volunteered to stay longer. She had only left when news of her father’s illness had been delivered. Left without telling Jeff goodbye. How could she explain that her father was king and might be dying? That although she had fallen in love with him, she did not know if she would ever see him again?

But she had had to. Her heart had demanded to know if the emotions in her chest were real or the figments of her vivid imagination.

The truth. Isabella closed her eyes. Tell Jeff that after a year apart she still loved him. But even if he loved her, they could not be together because although he was the prince of her heart, he was not royalty by blood.

“Just think about it. You’ve still got about an hour before the show starts. Why not let Jeff know you’re here? What’s the worst that can happen?”

Did he mean other than the possibility that she might selfishly denounce the throne by choosing to be with Jeff, if he would still have her? To let her honorable, but chauvinistic cousin to become king and stall women’s rights and equality?

Then the truth occurred to her.

The worst thing she could imagine would be Jeff seeing her and not caring one way or the other that she had stepped back into his life after a year’s absence.

All the bachelors were on edge. Jill wiped her sweaty palms with a perfectly pressed white cloth napkin. Heck, she was edgy, too.

A fire roared in the six-foot wide fireplace along one stone wall. The blaze had to be for ambience because the weather was gorgeous and this room felt hotter than Hades.

She shifted in her seat of honor at the twenty-foot, elaborately set dining table. China, silverware, crystal juice glasses, gorgeous fresh floral arrangements. She halfway expected Jeeves to come ask if she’d like some Grey Poupon with her Eggs Benedict. Would she miss being waited on hand and foot when she went back to California? Somehow she doubted that’s what she’d be missing.

Two bachelors sat to either side of her. Jeff on her immediate right and Steve to her left. All four stared at her as they picked at their breakfast.

She was certainly the center of attention this morning.

She averted her gaze to the intricate imperial pattern on the edge of the china and caught a faint whiff of the vivid blossom’s fragrance over the aroma of their food.

Their last meal together.

She hadn’t said much this morning and even Jeff had quit trying to elicit conversation after several failed attempts. She simply didn’t know what to say. Not to Jeff or Steve. Certainly not to the other two bachelors.

She didn’t want to spend a week on a tropical island on a pretend honeymoon.

At least not with any of them.

And she was tired of pretending. She just wanted to be herself and to hell with anyone who didn’t like it. And before long, she’d go back to being plain Jill Davidson, instead of Princess Isabella Jane Strovanik.

She dropped her fork onto the white lacy tablecloth. It’s tines clanged against a fragile appearing saucer, the noise reverberating around the silent room.

“Excuse me,” she murmured in her princess voice and picked up the utensil to take another bite of perfectly prepared sex, er, eggs.

Oh, man. She had to get her mind off Rob, before she made a complete fool of herself in front of the ever-present cameramen.

But the more she tried, the more memories flooded her.

Rob had been wild and wonderful, and she’d felt the desperation in his lovemaking. Feral. Hungry. Out of control. Yet, tender, giving, almost worshipful in his touches, his kisses.

Even if she hadn’t been able to tell him how he affected her, at least she’d had the opportunity to show him. No words had passed between them. Only the guttural sounds of shared ecstasy.