Command Performance Read online

  “For Alexander? Of course.”

  “Of course.” Amused, Gabriella rose to pick up her son before he could crawl under the porch after the kitten. “I’m not speaking of ‘of course,’ Eve.” She kissed Dorian on the cheek when he started to squirm, then settled him expertly on her hip. “If you ever allow your feelings for him to come to the surface, you’ll find a great many pitfalls. If you need to talk, come to me.” Then she laughed when Dorian tugged on her hair. “This one needs a good wash before dinner.”

  “Go ahead.” Eve managed to smile. “I’ll get the others.”

  But she sat there alone a few moments longer, not so sure of herself and no longer relaxed. Her feelings for Alexander were on the surface, she told herself. She cared about him as she cared about all the friends she’d made in Cordina. They were like a second family to her. Naturally, as a woman she found Alexander attractive. What woman wouldn’t? And perhaps there were moments, occasionally, when the attraction was a little too intense. That was nothing to lose sleep over.

  She didn’t want pitfalls. She’d maneuver them if she had to. In her career. Romantically—that was a different area altogether. She wanted no complications there. Wasn’t that the reason she had avoided romance for so long? Certainly there’d been men who had interested her, but …

  There’d always been a “but,” Eve thought. Rather than think it through too deeply, she’d always fallen back on the fact that she simply didn’t have time for relationships.

  The noise of the children shouting roused her. It wasn’t like her to daydream, either, she reminded herself. Jogging down the steps, she headed across the lawn. The children groaned a bit, but, after she promised to help them organize a game after dinner, went in to wash up.

  With them gone, the farm was so quiet she almost regretted having to find the others and go inside. She’d like to come back, Eve discovered. To sit on the porch in the evening, close her eyes and listen to nothing. It wouldn’t do for every day, even every week, but now and again it would be like healing oneself.

  She enjoyed the frantic pace of the life she’d chosen. Eve could go for days with little sleep and no spare time and not feel the strain. But once a year, twice a year, perhaps, to sit in the country and listen to nothing … Laughing at herself, she headed for the barn.

  There were high windows to let in the evening light, and the scent of horses was strong. No stranger to barns and stables, Eve headed down the sloping concrete floor. She squinted a bit, trying to adjust her vision to the change in light.

  “Bennett, I—”

  But it was Alexander who turned. The figure she had seen in front of the stall was darker and slightly broader than Bennett.

  “Excuse me, Your Highness.” Her manner stiffened automatically. “I thought you were Bennett.”

  “I’m aware of that. He’s with Reeve.” Alexander turned back to the horse. “They’ve gone to look at the new bull.”

  “Dinner’s almost ready. I told your sister—oh, she’s lovely, isn’t she?” Distracted by the mare, Eve stepped closer to stroke. “By the time Brie took me on a tour of the house, I’d forgotten I’d wanted to see the horses. Yes, you’re lovely,” Eve murmured, and ran her fingers down the mare’s nose. “Does she have a name?”

  “Spot,” he said, and watched Eve laugh.

  “What a name for a horse.”

  “I gave her to Adrienne as a birthday gift. She thought it was a fine name.” He nuzzled the mare’s ears. “We didn’t have the heart to make her change it.”

  “She’s lovely in any case. I named my first horse Sir Lancelot. I suppose I was more fanciful than Adrienne.”

  He lifted a hand to stroke the horse alongside hers. Their fingers trailed down but never touched. “Strange, I never saw you as the type for knights in shining armor.”

  “I was six, and I—” The rest was cut off as the mare gave Eve’s shoulder a hard push and sent her tumbling against Alexander. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness.”

  “‘Alex,’ damn it.” She was in his arms as she had been that afternoon. It was too late to prepare, too late to stem the feelings that rose up in him. “My name is Alexander. Must you insist on making me feel like a position instead of a man?”

  “I don’t mean to. I’m sorry.” It was washing over her again, that warm giddy feeling. A storm brewing. Water rising. She didn’t pull away. Her intellect told her to pull away and pull away quickly. She had no business being with him like this. Alone. Listening to nothing.

  His fingers crept into her hair, tangled there. Trapped. “Is it so difficult to think of me as flesh and blood?”

  “No, I—yes.” She couldn’t get her breath. The air in the barn was suddenly sultry, stifling. “I have to find Bennett.”

  “Not this time.” He pulled her close, damning who he was. “Say my name. Now.”

  There was gold in his eyes. Flecks of it. She’d never seen it before, never allowed herself to. Now, as the light grew dimmer, she could see nothing else. “Alexander.” She only breathed his name. Heat flowed through him like lava.

  “Again.”

  “Alexander,” she whispered, then pressed her mouth desperately to his.

  It was everything she’d wanted. Everything she’d waited for. She heard the thunder, felt the lightning, tasted the heat finally escape. With no thought to place, to time, to position, she wrapped her arms around him and let her body absorb.

  There was no cool control here, not the kind he coated himself with. She’d known it would be different, somehow she’d always known. His mouth was open, urgent, as if he had waited all of his life for this one moment. She felt his fingers dig into her flesh and trembled at the knowledge that she could be wanted so forcefully.

  He forgot everything but that he was tasting her at last. She was hot, spicy, aggressive. She’d been born for the tropics, for steamy days and steamy nights. Her hair flowed down her back, through his fingers. He gripped it as though it were a line to safety, though he knew the woman was danger.

  His tongue dove deeper to taste, to tease, to tempt. She was an aphrodisiac, and he was mindless with her flavor. Her hands were running over his back, kneading the muscles. He wanted them on his flesh where he could feel each stroke, each scrape.

  The air in the barn carried the scent of animal. Each moment his lips were on hers, he lost a bit more of the civilized. He wanted her there, while the sun went down and the barn became dark and quiet with night.

  “Eve?” The barn door creaked open, letting in a thin, dusky stream of light. “Did you get lost in here?”

  Head swimming, Eve leaned back against the wall and tried to catch her breath. “No. No, Bennett, we’ll be right in.” She pressed a hand to her throat.

  “Hurry along, will you? I’m starved.” The barn door shut and the light was lost.

  He’d nearly been lost, Alexander thought. Lost in her, lost to her. What right did she have to make him ache and want and need? She was standing there now, silent, her eyes dark and huge. How could a woman look so innocent when she’d nearly destroyed a man’s soul?

  “You change allegiance easily, Eve.”

  Her lips parted, first in confusion, then in surprise. The hurt came quickly, but before it could make her weak, she let in the fury. Her hand swept out and came hard against his face. The slap echoed, then silence remained.

  “I’m sure you can have me deported for that at the very least.” There was no hitch in her voice because she fought it down. There was only ice. “Just remember, if you decide to have me dragged away in irons, Your Highness, you deserved that. That and one hell of a lot more.”

  Fighting the need to run away, she turned and walked out of the barn as regally as one born to it.

  He didn’t go after her. His temper pushed him to, to go for her, to punish her somehow in some way. Not for the slap—that had been a small thing. But her words, the look in her eyes had carried more sting. What right did she have to make him feel remorse, to make him feel gui
lt, when it was she who had turned from one brother to the next without a qualm?

  But he wanted her. He wanted his brother’s woman with a desperation that was slowly eating him alive.

  He’d always wanted her, Alexander admitted as he rammed the side of his fist into the wall. The horses whinnied nervously, then settled. He’d always fought it. He ran a hand over his face, fighting to recapture the composure that was an essential part of his position.

  He would fight it still, he promised himself. Love for his brother left him no choice. But he could damn the woman, he thought grimly as he strode out of the barn. And he did.

  Chapter 4

  “You come and go so much these days I never get to see you.”

  Eve folded her oldest and most serviceable sweats in her suitcase before she glanced at her sister. “Things have been crazy. They’re going to get crazier.”

  “You’ve been back from Cordina for two months, and I’ve talked to your phone machine more than I have to you.” Chris dropped on the edge of the bed and studied the sapphire-colored silk blouse Eve packed beside the sweats. She started to suggest tissue paper, then reminded herself that baby sister had grown up.

  Both sisters had dark, thick hair, but Eve’s was pulled back in a braid, while Chris wore her hair chin-length and swingy. The family resemblance was there, in the shadowy cheekbones, the milky skin. It wasn’t age that separated them so much as style. Chris had a polish that had come from years of dealing with the art world and those wealthy enough to indulge themselves with art. Eve had a sensuality that she wore as casually as another woman wore scent. Once it had given the elder sister a great deal of worry. Now Chris could simply marvel at it.

  “Now you’re going off again. I guess if I want to see my sister, I’ll have to do it in Cordina.”

  “I was hoping you would.” Eve tucked a small leather cosmetic case in the side of her Pullman. “I hate to admit it, but I’m going to need all the moral support I can drum up.”

  “Nervous?” Chris circled her knee with linked hands. “You?”

  “Nervous. Me. I’ve never taken on anything this big. Four plays.” She checked the contents of her briefcase for the third time. “Hauling actors, technicians, assistants, seamstresses to the Mediterranean, dumping them in front of an international audience and claiming that we represent the American theater.” She pulled out a notebook, flipped through it, then stuck it back in her briefcase. “That’s a hell of a boast.”

  “Too late for cold feet,” Chris said briskly. She brushed dark feathered bangs back from her forehead. “Besides, the Hamilton Company of Players is an American theater group, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And you’ll be performing American plays, right?”

  “Right. Still—”

  “No stills, no buts.” A trio of rings glinted on Chris’s hand as she waved Eve’s words away. “You are representing American theater. And you’re going to be fantastic.”

  “See.” Eve leaned over the suitcase to kiss Chris’s cheek. “That’s why I need you.”

  “I’ll do my best to work my schedule so I can be there for the first performance. Even though I know you’ll be too busy to do more than blink at me.”

  “I promise to do more than that. Hopefully after the first performance, I’ll settle down.” She folded a pair of slacks by the pleats, then smoothed them carefully into the case. “It’s the preparation and paperwork that has me edgy.”

  “You’ve Daddy’s knack for handling details, a fact that constantly amazes me.” Still, Chris had to restrain herself from asking Eve if she had her passport. “I don’t doubt you’re going to pull this thing off without a hitch.”

  Had she packed the red suit? Eve started to check one more time, then forced herself to stop. She’d packed it. She’d packed everything. “I wish you were going with me so you could tell me that at regular intervals.”

  “The Bissets trust you. This wouldn’t be happening otherwise. I might not be there for the next few weeks, but you’ll have Brie behind you, and Alex and Bennett.”

  Eve zipped her case closed in one long move. “I don’t think I like the idea of having Alexander behind me.”

  “Still rub you the wrong way?”

  “At least. I never get the urge to curtsy and stick out my tongue with Brie or Ben. With him—”

  “With him I wouldn’t advise it,” Chris said with a laugh. “He takes his position too seriously. He has to.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Eve, you can’t understand what it’s like to be the first-born. I can sympathize in a way. The Hamiltons don’t have a country, but as far as Daddy’s concerned, we have an empire.” She sighed a bit, knowing her own choices had never quite satisfied him. “Since there was no son to pass the business on to, the pressure fell to me to learn it. When the message finally got across that that wasn’t going to work, the pressure changed to my marrying someone who could take over the business. Maybe that’s why I’ve never done either.”

  “I guess I’ve never really understood.”

  “Why should you? It was different for you.”

  “I know. No pressure here.” With a sigh, Eve leaned back against her dresser, taking a last look at the room she wouldn’t see for months. “Of course I had to go to school and perform well, and it was expected that I’d restrain myself from doing anything to disgrace the family, but if I’d wanted to sit by the pool for the rest of my life and read magazines, it would have been fine.”

  “Well, you hid the fact that you had a brain very well.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” She could smile at it now. “From myself, too. In any case, by the time it was discovered, the Hamilton Company of Players was too well established for Daddy to expect me to come into the business. So you’re right. I don’t really know what it is to be the heir and have little say in my own destiny. Even knowing that, it’s difficult for me to feel sorry for Alexander.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if you should. He’s meant to rule as much by personality as by circumstances of birth. I just wish the two of you got along better.” She took a small white daisy out of a vase on Eve’s dresser, broke the stem short, then slipped it into her sister’s buttonhole. “You’re going to be working closely with him and it isn’t going to help if one of you is always making the other snarl.”

  Eve took the rest of the flowers out of the vase, wrapped the dripping stems in a tissue and handed them to Chris. “I don’t think we’ll be working that closely.”

  “Isn’t Alex president of the center?”

  “Presidents delegate,” she said, and opened her purse to make sure the airline tickets were in place. “Believe me, His Highness doesn’t want to work shoulder to shoulder with me any more than I do with him.” She closed her purse with a snap. “Probably less.”

  “Did something happen when you were out there before?” Chris rose and put a hand on Eve’s hands to keep them still. “You seemed very unnerved when you came back, but I put it down to the project. Now I wonder.”

  “You wonder too much,” Eve told her lightly. “The only thing that happened was that I reaffirmed my belief that Alexander is a pompous, arrogant boor. If this project wasn’t so important I’d toss it back in his face and let him sink with it. Just thinking of him makes me angry.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Chris murmured, and decided to write Gabriella the first chance she had. “Well, if you’re lucky, you won’t have to deal with him personally.”

  “I’m counting on it,” Eve said with such vehemence that Chris thought it wiser to phone Gabriella the moment her sister was airborne. “It looks like I’m packed. Do I still get that ride to the airport?”

  “Absolutely. All we need are three strong men and a pack horse to get your luggage down to the car.”

  * * *

  Alexander was used to the photographers and reporters, just as he was used to the bodyguards. They had all been a part of his life from birth. Though he’d forced hims
elf not to pace in front of the observation window, he watched the plane land with a vague sense of relief. It had been twenty minutes late and his nerves had begun to stretch.

  He hadn’t spoken to Eve in weeks. Whatever correspondence had been necessary, whatever details had to be handled, had been seen to through her secretary to his secretary, through his assistant to her assistant. They’d had no contact at all for nearly three months, yet he remembered their few turbulent moments in Gabriella’s barn as though they had happened yesterday. If he awoke in the middle of the night, it was the memory of her scent that woke him. If he caught himself daydreaming in the middle of the afternoon, it was her face that had formed in his mind.

  He shouldn’t think of her at all; yet it was impossible not to. How could he forget the passion and the power that had run through him when he had finally held her? How could he ignore the needs and longings that had burst through him when his mouth had been on hers? He couldn’t dismiss her from his mind when, after months had passed, the sensation of her hair tangled in his fingers was so vivid and real.

  Work hadn’t helped, though he’d heaped it on himself in defense. Worry hadn’t helped, though it was there constantly. His father had returned to Cordina. Seward had been buried. Those responsible remained unknown—or unproved. His father’s life, his country’s well-being, were very much in jeopardy, but he’d yet to erase one woman from his mind. A woman he had no right to desire.

  But he did, and desire flared only more strongly when he saw her.

  She looked a bit tired, a bit frazzled and very much in charge. Her hair had been braided and clipped on top of her head and she wore large, light-framed sunglasses. As she walked, she talked to several people around her while slipping on an oversized red jacket. The rich hue gave her a look of confidence and energy. Alexander realized she’d chosen it for exactly that purpose. She had a briefcase in one hand, a flight bag over her shoulder. In the ten, perhaps fifteen seconds since she had walked into the terminal, he’d noticed every detail.

  Her lipstick had worn off, but there was a slight hint of color in her cheeks. The red jacket had gold buttons. A tendril of hair had escaped and curled in front of her left ear. There was a white daisy, a little droopy, in the buttonhole nearest her heart. It made him wonder who had given it to her, who had watched her plane leave, as he’d watched it land.

  When she saw him, the slight hint of color disappeared and her shoulders tensed.

  She hadn’t expected him to be there. She knew, of course, that they were to be met officially, but she hadn’t thought it would be Alexander. In her mind she’d planned out the first meeting. She would be rested, refreshed after a long soak in the tub at the hotel. She would have changed into the long, glittery evening gown she’d bought precisely for that purpose. And she would treat him with mild but unmistakable coolness.

  Now all she could think was that he was here, looking wonderful. He was so tall, so sturdy. His eyes were so dark, so secretive, they made her want to discover what he hid from everyone else. She wanted to smile, to throw out both hands to him and tell him how good it was to see him. Pride had her sinking into a formal curtsy.

  “Your Highness.”

  He didn’t notice the spree of flashbulbs or the crowd of reporters. He was focused on her, on the pout of her lips, on the eyes that met his more in challenge than in greeting.

  “Miss Hamilton.” He offered his hand. When she hesitated, because she hesitated, he brought it deliberately to his lips. Only he was close enough to hear her hiss of breath. “We welcome you and your troupe to Cordina.”

  Her hand squirmed in his and was held firm. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “Your luggage and transportation are being seen to.” He smiled at her, really smiled, with an enjoyment he hadn’t felt since she’d left. “Two members of my staff will accompany your troupe to their hotel and see them settled.”

  Her nails dug into the palms of his hand. “You’re very kind.”

  He wondered that no one else heard the quiet insult behind the words. “It is our wish to make your stay here comfortable. If you will come with me.” As the reporters closed in, he brushed them off. “Miss Hamilton will answer all your questions at tomorrow’s press conference. Now she needs to rest after the long flight.”

  A few more persistent newsmen pursued them. Alexander simply took Eve’s arm and drew her away.

  “Your Highness, it might be best if I stay with the troupe.”

  “You have an assistant?”

  “Yes, of course.” She was forced to increase her pace to keep up with him.

  “That’s what assistants are for.” There were muscles in the arm under the jacket, taut and sculpted. He wondered what they would feel like when they were tensed and ready to receive him. “You’d be wiser to get to the palace quickly and avoid being run over by the press.”

  “I can handle the press,” she began, then stopped. “I’m going to the hotel. The dinner at the palace isn’t for hours yet.”

  “You’ve no reason to go to the hotel.” They were out the side entrance of the terminal as arranged by security and moving toward the waiting limo. “Your assistant and the members of my staff will see to the needs of your troupe.”

  “That’s all very well and good,” she began as she was forced to climb into the limo. “But I’d like to unpack myself, freshen up. I’m sure whatever we have to discuss can wait a few hours.”

  “Of course.” He settled back and signaled to the driver.

  “There’s no reason for you to go out of your way to take me to the hotel when I could go with the rest.”