Hot Heir: A Royal Bodyguard / Secret Heir / Marriage of Convenience Romantic Comedy Read online

  She blanches. “Does Manning know you need your eyes checked?”

  “I wasn’t the one who mistook a sandbag for a baby.”

  “But you were the one who mistook me for a damsel in distress.”

  “I daresay His Highness would have agreed with that assessment. Who are you covering for, Miss Maloney?” As if I’m unaware.

  “Ain’t covering for anyone, Viktor. Why do you have to make a criminal case out of everything?”

  “You stole a hot air balloon.”

  “We stole a hot air balloon. Don’t think those fellas are gonna split hairs over who started it.” She jerks her thumb over the edge at the line of police cars with flashing lights on the gravel road below us. The orchard seems to go on forever, and we’re rapidly descending to within meters of the tops of the trees. “We’re both in this up to our elbows. Ever been in lock-up, Viktor?”

  “As His Highness’s personal bodyguard, I have political immunity, my lady. So I assume that was an invitation to visit you in prison?”

  Her face twists in disgust a moment before her eyes go round. The basket catches on the top of a tree and tips.

  She gasps. I grab for her, wary of the flames fueling the balloon above us, aware that we’re still four or five meters above the ground, with branches and leaves and—and peaches between us and the earth.

  Miss Peach Maloney has crashed a peach balloon into a peach orchard.

  This truly is a peachy situation.

  Though my understanding is that peachy is generally synonymous with something positive.

  The sirens are growing louder, drowning out the roar of the flames still keeping the balloon half inflated. The basket is tilting sideways. Peach yelps and not only lets me hold her, but she grasps me around the neck and holds on. “Oh my lordy goodness,” she gasps.

  The basket skips over one tree and crashes into another with a second jolt, and we’re suddenly sliding out of it, sandbags coming with us. We bump and bang to the ground, branches attacking us, leaves and mid-July peaches raining down around us. I rotate so I take the brunt of the landing, and as soon as there’s earth beneath me, I ignore the jarring and the pain to leap to my feet and inspect Peach.

  “Get off, get off.” She pulls herself to sitting, winces, and yanks a stick with a smashed peach from beneath her rear end. “I’m fine, you—you—oh holy shiitakes, that’s not good.”

  I lift my eyes to where she’s staring over my shoulder.

  Flames.

  There’s a tree on fire.

  The balloon.

  It’s lit the orchard on fire.

  Without another thought, I grab her, toss her over my shoulder, and I head for safety.

  Exactly as I’ve been trained.

  Unfortunately, though, safety is a relative term.

  And my bad day is about to get much, much worse.

  2

  Viktor

  I’m rapidly approaching the authorities, weaving amongst the trees with Peach still tossed over my shoulder and fighting me every step, firemen streaming the opposite direction.

  “You don’t understand,” she’s hissing now. “I have to go find—”

  “Miss Papaya,” I answer for her.

  Her entire body goes rigid.

  “I’ve ears, Miss Maloney. I’m well aware of your sister.”

  “So you know—”

  “That a fourteen-year-old and her troubled friends should never be left alone with hot air balloons? Yes, my lady, I do know.”

  “You—”

  I silence her by depositing her upon the pavement beside the sheriff himself.

  She attempts to shove me in the shoulder, but I easily catch her hand.

  I’m less-prepared for the hit to the chest that I take as her gaze connects with mine.

  There’s anger, yes, but it’s the hurt, the fear, the worry that momentarily makes me step back.

  The silent question. Why are you doing this to me?

  The simple answer, of course, is that she absconded with a hot air balloon.

  But I fear this isn’t actually a simple problem.

  I rather detest complicated problems.

  Though I’m certain she never assumed there was a helpless baby in the basket, I do believe she’s attempting to cover for her sister. That she had no intention of leaving the ground in the hot air balloon, and that she was, in fact, attempting to stop the balloon.

  “Shall I call Miss Diamonte’s sister for you?” I ask.

  She purses her lips together and turns her back on me.

  Ah.

  It’s to be the silent treatment.

  “Let’s get this over with, Sheriff,” she says. “I got places to be.”

  “Afraid you’re not going anywhere, Peach.”

  When she doesn’t immediately reply with a sassy retort, I step closer.

  “Ain’t your concern, Mr. Royal Bodyguard.” His lip tugs upward.

  He’s made it no secret that he doesn’t appreciate having royals with political immunity living in his county. But as making Miss Gracie unhappy would destroy his chances of winning a re-election campaign—she’s rather more popular in the county than he is—he’s tolerated His Highness’s contingency. In return, we’ve caused as little fuss as possible.

  Which hasn’t been difficult, as most of Miss Gracie’s friends prefer coming to see her in the big house His Highness bought for her.

  Though big is a fairly relative term.

  One could fit twenty or more inside the palace back in Stölland.

  The sheriff jerks his head at one of his deputies. “Go on and escort Mr. Bodyguard here outside the crime scene.”

  Peach still doesn’t look at me.

  Her silence shouldn’t bother me, except Peach and silence go together like sheep and bathing suits.

  “’Twould be my pleasure to provide my account of the events,” I tell the sheriff.

  “Won’t be necessary.”

  Perhaps not to him.

  But I do believe Miss Gracie would be most disappointed if I left her friend at the mercy of this man.

  “Miss Maloney—” I begin.

  “Go away, Viktor.”

  My job is not to get personally involved. Which has never been a problem before.

  However, until now, I’ve been in few situations where the distinction between black and white has been quite this gray.

  Perhaps my affection for Miss Gracie—and her positive influence on His Highness—is clouding my judgment.

  Or perhaps I’ve become too attached to baiting Miss Maloney.

  Whatever the case, allowing the sheriff’s deputy to lead me away from Peach feels wrong.

  I’m about to turn back when a familiar face breaks through the clumps of law enforcement and comes striding toward me.

  My senses go on high alert.

  Though His Highness’s father insisted we add two more guards to our detail upon the birth of Prince Manning’s daughter last month, it’s still worrisome to see Kristofer, my primary partner, approaching by himself.

  My steps quicken. “Trouble?” I ask when I’m within lip-reading range.

  He shakes his head. “A message. For you. You’d best come quickly.”

  “A message?”

  “Official courier from the country of Amoria. His Highness sent me immediately.”

  My steps halt.

  Amoria.

  Surely not. My brother assured me this wouldn’t happen, and of the lot of us, he would know best.

  I glance back at Peach. She’s being handcuffed while firefighters spray the flaming orchard with thick streams of water. My gut sours.

  Much as I dislike the woman, this isn’t right.

  “Dare I ask what she’s gotten herself into now?” Kristofer inquires. He’s a few years my senior, just as tall and fit, though he seems to be suffering the ill-effects of the heat with far more grace than I. He’s also less prone to baiting Peach under any circumstances.

  “I imagine she’d fa
r rather we notify her closest friends that she may be in need of assistance,” I reply.

  He nods once. “Go on to the house. I’ll assist Miss Maloney.”

  As Miss Gracie would undoubtedly request.

  We’ve become quite soft, the both of us.

  I nod my thanks, though it’s not mine to offer, and accept the keys to the armored SUV.

  Apparently my family’s past has come calling. For my grandfather’s sake, I’ll see what it has to say.

  3

  Viktor

  Though I should be back on duty at the manor, instead, I’m pacing my modest bedroom in the converted carriage house on a phone call with my brother. Alexander is five years my junior, the youngest of the three of us, and also the most worldly and open-minded.

  The most like our father.

  Who would have been my first choice for a phone call tonight, but mobile signals don’t reach the afterlife.

  “You’d make a fine king,” he tells me. “Amoria should be lucky to have you, and you know Mum and Eva would support you.”

  As would our father and grandfather before him. One day, Amoria will need us again, and one day, we shall answer the call, my grandfather used to say. I sit hard on the reading chair beside my bed and rub my forehead. The letter His Highness handed me lies open on my bed, and I’m aware there is still a guest in his house waiting to speak with me.

  Because the king of Amoria, the man who stole the throne and exiled my grandfather fifty years ago, has died heirless, and the country would like our family back.

  And I, the eldest son and most likely heir, do not meet all the criteria necessary for such a transition.

  I had expected that they wouldn’t come looking for us. That they had other plans for succession.

  Apparently they’ve decided to right an old wrong that I believed the rest of the world to have forgotten.

  My grandfather’s country may in fact be the country he always remembered it to be.

  “I haven’t a wife, Alexander,” I remind him.

  Because there’s still that hurdle.

  “Just select a woman. Any woman. They’re all a bother, so why be picky?”

  “If it were truly that easy, I’d let you take the job.”

  He barks out a laugh. “Samuel has always wanted to be my dirty secret. I should marry our cousin and then tell the palace staff Samuel was my butler.”

  So perhaps the country still has some room for growth. Should I fail to take a wife, Alexander, though happily married, would also be ineligible to inherit the crown.

  “Quite a waste to go from physician to butler,” I observe.

  “But how convenient to have a butler trained in open-heart surgery. Have you spoken at all with Mum yet?”

  The hand-delivered parchment bearing the seal of Amoria mocks me from atop the crisp blue quilt. Mum will be most disappointed when she realizes I’ve failed at the family’s only chance to accomplish the one thing my father always wished he could have succeeded at in his lifetime—reclaiming his family’s throne.

  I sigh. “I’m rather terrified she’d produce a bride within minutes.”

  “She has been singing your praises to Elisabet down the road. You remember Elisabet? Dark hair. Long nose. Rather twitchy tail.”

  “While the horse would undoubtedly be lovely in a wedding dress, she’d be quite a mess at tea time. Though I daresay probably better at diplomacy than most world leaders.”

  “You do comprehend, of course, that the peace of an entire nation is dependent upon your love life?”

  “I’m beginning to comprehend that you’ve no intention of being helpful.”

  He chuckles. “Were the country not arcane in its requirement of a married heterosexual monarch, I should be quite helpful. They’ve economic opportunities they’re overlooking, a crumbling infrastructure that should be easily fixed with a few social programs, and their tourism board is dreadfully out of touch with the global world. And ‘country of love’? Passion, perhaps—they do so like to yell and be dramatic. But love? I daresay they’ve forgotten the meaning.”

  My brother is spot-on. We all grew up on tales of Amoria as it once was, the country with parades of roses and neighborly acceptance and romantic mountain escapes. I’ve seen enough of the world to understand the rose tint my grandfather, and then my father, gave to the country of their birth. I’ve also seen enough of the good in people to know that unexpected heroes can come from anywhere.

  Have I a desire to be king?

  No. It’s not a role I should wish upon anyone.

  The gold and glory appeal little to me, and even less so when the position comes with the knowledge that nothing in your life shall be your own anymore.

  However, it’s not desire driving my thoughts tonight.

  It’s duty.

  Duty to my family, to their memory and their history and their future. Duty to a people who have been failed and who will tumble farther without a steady monarch.

  “There’s not a single woman who’s caught your fancy?” Alexander asks.

  An unbidden image of blond hair, blue eyes, and a smart red mouth pops into my brain. I shake my head.

  That would be sheer insanity even if a monarchy were not on the line.

  A knock sounds at my door, and I rise. “I believe the messenger has found me,” I tell Alexander. “I must go.”

  “Call anytime,” he replies. “Don’t answer any questions about your love life. By my calculations, you still have a week to find a bride.”

  I hang up, descend the stairs and cross between the small kitchen and the comfortably-appointed living area to open the door, expecting a royal messenger.

  Instead, Prince Manning himself stands there wilting in the heat. The humid air leaches into the lukewarm steadiness of the carriage house, and I immediately snap to attention. “Your Highness.”

  “I daresay it’s time we cut the formality, Viktor. May I come in? It’s bloody intolerable out here.”

  He’s wearing his normal smile, but his light eyes are too keen. If he’s unaware of why I’ve a visitor from a foreign country, he’s intelligent enough to have guessed.

  “Of course, Your Highness.”

  He steps into the carriage house with a flat stare over his still upturned lips. As fourth in line to inherit his own kingdom, he’s always maintained a more relaxed attitude toward crowns and titles, and he’s recently been granted leave to stay in the States indefinitely, playing professional hockey for the Thrusters in Copper Valley, Virginia.

  “If you continue to Your Highness me,” he informs me, “I shall be forced to Your Majesty you. Is that quite clear?”

  “It’s quite incorrect, Your Highness.”

  He lifts his brows at me. “I’ve misread the reason for your visitor?”

  “Unlikely, Your Highness.”

  His smile flatlines. “It would be my utter pleasure to inform Gracie you’ve taken a recent liking to black licorice.”

  I nearly smile in response myself. Baiting Prince Manning is nearly as relaxing as baiting Peach Maloney. “As Your Highness is fully aware, inheriting a monarchy is always accompanied by conditions. Though I have the bloodlines, I have not the wife.”

  He pauses before rubbing his palms into his eye sockets. “Why is it always the wife?” he mutters.

  “We men do like to make life difficult for ourselves, Your Highness.”

  His smile has completely disappeared, though it’s been several months since he’s been in any royal danger himself. Were it not for Miss Gracie, he should be in his own personal marital hell right now.

  “How long have you to find a wife?” he inquires.

  “Seven days, Your Highness.”

  He grimaces.

  “Exactly, Your—down. Now.”

  There’s movement at the window behind His Highness.

  A person. Skulking through the bushes.

  I shove His Highness behind the small kitchen table, which provides woefully inadequate coverage, e
specially for a man of his size, but it’s the best I have. Without a moment’s hesitation, I fly out the door and into the wall of hot, thick air, barking orders to Kristofer on the other end of the two-way radio always clipped to my side.

  A slender blond figure is dashing toward the woodlands at the back of the property.

  Papaya.

  I give chase, both because I’ve no idea how much she overheard, and because the child needs a keeper even more than her sister does.

  “Stop!” I order.

  Of course, she ignores me.

  Where I have training on my side, she has youth, and the footrace to the back of the property is more intense than it should be. We pass the gazebo His Highness had installed as a surprise for Miss Gracie before we understood the reality of the heat of the South, and I note that Miss Gracie’s flower baskets are in need of water.

  Later.

  First, Papaya.

  I’m gaining on her, but not nearly as quickly as I should be.

  Bloody hot Alabama.

  She dashes into the woods two meters in front of me. Where the break from the sun should provide some relief, instead, the canopy of leaves merely traps the humid air and blocks any possibility of a breeze. I’m running through a bloody swamp with a solid floor of dead leaves and pine needles.

  “Stop,” I order again.

  To my utter astonishment, she veers left with a shriek. I’ve only a moment to realize why before I’m suddenly flying headfirst into a swarm of bees. I, too, leap to my left, snagging Papaya’s upper arm as she swats at her head, and within moments, I have her wrist in a handcuff.

  She yanks at her hand, swats at a bee on her face, and glares at me while I force her back outside the woods. “Peach is right. You’re a pain in the ass.”

  I scan the surrounding area, looking for any evidence of her normal companion in crime. “You’re a ways from home, Miss Maloney.”

  “Out of breath, old man?” she replies in a pant.

  “Merely warming up, I assure you.”

  “For a heart attack.”

  It’s remarkable. Such a bright, sunny face. So much similarity to her sister in her smart mouth, the cock of her hip, and the make my day flashing in her blue eyes.