That was odd. Elias thought they worked well as a team. Marko was his preferred sparring partner. And he enjoyed nursing a beer at a bar while watching his friend, the ultimate player, plow through every pretty female. He couldn’t think of any reason why they’d need to “take a walk.”
Shrugging into his jacket to cover his weapon, Elias said, “Shouldn’t you be heading up to Miss Wishner’s suite?”
“Soon.” Instead of going out the door leading to the main hallway, Marko jerked his head toward the back of the room. They went past the briefing room, past the bullpen, and past the locker rooms and gym. Marko punched in a code and opened the door to the armory.
“What’s this about?”
“It’s the most secure place I know, and I respect you too much to have anyone overhear this conversation.”
That didn’t sound good. Elias fisted his hand around the support for the nearest set of shelves, lined with boxes of ammo. “What the hell, Marko?”
“I should be asking you that.” Feet planted wide, thumbs tucked into the waist of his pants, Marko said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing fucking around with a Princess of the Realm?”
On a scale of one to ten of badness, this topped out at three hundred.
Denial was pointless. Marko wouldn’t confront him over a mere hunch. He knew. But how? They’d been so damned careful.
First things first, though.
In a smooth lunge, Elias seized Marko by the knot of his tie and shook him hard, once. “Don’t ever disrespect Her Highness with that kind of language again.”
The man had enough sense of self-preservation to go lax and not fight him. “Sorry. The disrespect was aimed at you, not her.”
“That’s the only reason I’m not beating you black-and-blue.” Elias let go and stepped back. Smoothed the lapel of his jacket and wished he could smooth the panic pinging through his brain half as easily. “How’d you find out?”
Marko eyed him warily. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, damage control. Have to figure out who else might know, or even suspect.”
“Nobody.” Then squinting as he reconsidered, he tilted his hand side to side. “Maybe Lathan, but not likely.”
“That’s not good enough. How, damn it?”
“I heard her talking to her sister. Miss Wishner, that is, not Princess Genevieve. We were in the grotto. They thought I was far back enough I couldn’t hear, but their voices just pinged off all that stone and came right at me.” Marko grinned. “Apparently, you’re ‘knee-meltingly wonderful’ in the sack.”
Christ. Good to know Kelsey appreciated his moves. But he didn’t know how he’d be able to look Mallory in the face the next time he saw her. Roughly, Elias muttered, “I don’t need a performance review, thank you very much.”
“Just reporting the details as I heard them.” He opened a box of bullets and took one out to play it over the backs of his fingers. Without looking up, he asked, “So it is true?”
“Yes. The legend of my bedroom prowess is not overhyped,” Elias deadpanned.
“This isn’t a joke.”
“I’m well aware.”
Although—if Elias believed in that nonsense—he’d say it was a huge karmic joke. That he’d spend his entire life working to salvage his family’s honor, to never make a single misstep, only to be tempted by the most amazing woman that he absolutely couldn’t have…
Marko snatched up another bullet to run over his other hand. Guess he really wanted an excuse not to look Elias in the face. “Look, this is awkward, a conversation I never want to have with anyone ever again, let alone a guy who outranks me and, on occasion, can be a better shot than me. But…what are you doing?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Taking his one shot?
Seizing the moment?
Being a reckless fool?
Elias paced in slow, measured steps to the end of the room. Past all the racks of police batons, ammunition, handguns, rifles, automatic rifles, grenades, gas masks, tear gas, and Kevlar vests. It still didn’t give him enough time to come up with a good answer, one that would explain away the immense risk he was taking with his career. His honor. And hell, his heart.
But all he blurted out was, “Kelsey’s…special.”
Marko glanced up enough to roll his eyes. “She’s a princess.”
“Not like that. She’s a special woman, with a big heart who doesn’t care at all about being royal. She just…cares. She’s beautiful. A little off-center. With a core of sweetness like the chocolate in the middle of a croissant.”
“Don’t attack me again, but”—Markus let the bullets fall and loosely fisted his hands, as though worried enough about Elias charging that he prepared—“she is beautiful. So is this just a one-off? Every man in the country’s been panting after Princess Genevieve for a decade, and Princess Valentina looks just like her.”
“It’s Princess Kelsey,” he snapped.
Yeah, he’d spent his whole life worrying about the missing Princess Valentina, just like everyone else. But Elias saw how hard this transition was for her. She might very well accept being folded into the Villani royal family. He had no doubt, however, that she’d always remain Kelsey Wishner in her mind. That’s who she was.
And all of Moncriano needed to accept it.
“You really think they’ll let her keep that name?” Marko winced, like he’d sucked on a lemon. “It’s so American.”
“It’s Irish, actually.” Because yes, the investigative team had checked. They’d looked into the origins of the name Kelsey Margaret Wishner to see if there was any possible clue in it to her abduction. “It is her name. If she stays, I have no doubt she’ll keep it. We need to not only respect that, but help enforce it.”
Cocking his head to the side, Marko said quietly, “I guess you answered my question after all. You like her, don’t you? You’re having some kind of an actual relationship with her?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
“I know.” Elias leaned back against a rack and let his head bang into the shelf. Hard. It didn’t shake loose any of his longing for Kelsey, though.
Marko stalked down to lean against the opposite rack, arms crossed. “There’s literally no way this can end well.”
“I know.”
“As soon as she’s announced as the missing princess, the country will go nuts. Her official calendar will fill up. The grand duchess will start a husband search for her, if she hasn’t already. You’ll have to distance yourself.”