Prince Joe. Suzanne Brockmann
she would still have been at a reception for Prince Tedric over at the Ustanzian Embassy. But things had gone very much not according to schedule, starting with the assassination attempt at the airport.
She’d gotten a call from the president of the United States, officially thanking her, on behalf of the American people, for saving Prince Tedric’s life. She hadn’t expected that. Too bad. If she’d been expecting the man in the White House to call, she might have been prepared to ask for his assistance in locating the personnel records of this mysterious navy lieutenant who looked so much like the crown prince of Ustanzia.
Nobody, repeat nobody she had spoken to had been able to help her find the files she wanted. The Department of Defense sent her to the Navy. The Navy representatives told her that all SEAL records were in the Special Operations Division. The clerk from Special Operations was as clandestine and unhelpful as James Bond’s personal assistant might have been. The woman wouldn’t even verify that Joseph Catalanotto existed, let alone if the man’s personnel files were in the U.S. Special Operations Office.
Frustrated, Veronica had gone back to Senator McKinley, hoping that he could use his clout to get a fax of Catalanotto’s files. But even the powerful senator was told that, for security reasons, personnel records for Navy SEALs were never, repeat never, sent via facsimile. It had been a major feat just getting them to fax a picture of the lieutenant. If McKinley wanted to see Joseph P. Catalanotto’s personnel file, he would need to make a formal request, in writing. After the request was received, it would take a mandatory three days for the files to be censored for his—and Ms. St. John’s—level of clearance.
Three days.
Veronica wasn’t looking to find Lieutenant Catalanotto’s deepest, darkest military secrets. All she wanted to know was where the man came from—in which part of the country he’d grown up. She wanted to know his family background, his level of education, his IQ scores and the results of personality and psychological tests done by the armed forces.
She wanted to know, quite frankly, how big an obstacle this Navy SEAL himself was going to be in getting the job done.
So far, she only knew his name, that he looked like a rougher, wilder version of Tedric Cortere, that his shoulders were very broad, that he carried an M60 machine gun as if it were a large loaf of bread, and that he had a nice smile.
She didn’t have a clue as to whether she’d be able to fool the American public into thinking he was a European prince. Until she met this man, she couldn’t even guess how much work transforming him was going to take. It would be better to try not to think about it.
But if she didn’t think about this job looming over her, she would end up thinking about the girl at Saint Mary’s Hospital, a little girl named Cindy who had sent the prince a letter nearly four months ago—a letter Veronica had fished out of Tedric’s royal wastebasket. In the letter, Cindy—barely even ten years old—had told Prince Tedric that she’d heard he was planning a trip to the United States. She had asked him, if he was going to be in the Washington, D.C., area, to please come and visit her since she was not able to come to see him.
Veronica had ended up going above the prince—directly to King Derrick—and had gotten the visit to Saint Mary’s on the official tour calendar.
But now what?
The entire tour would have to be rescheduled and replanned, and Saint Mary’s and little Cindy were likely to fall, ignored, between the cracks.
Veronica smiled tightly. Not if she had anything to say about it.
With a sigh, she kicked off her shoes.
Lord, but she ached.
Tackling royalty could really wear a person out, she thought, allowing herself a rueful smile. After the assassination attempt, she had run on sheer adrenaline for about six hours straight. After that had worn off, she’d kept herself fueled with coffee—hot, black and strong.
Right now what she needed was a shower and a two-hour nap.
She pulled her nightgown and robe out of the suitcase that she hadn’t yet found time to unpack, and tossed them onto the bed as she all but staggered into the bathroom. She closed the door and turned on the shower as she peeled off her suit and the cream-colored blouse she wore underneath. She put a hole in her hose as she took them off, and threw them directly into the wastebasket. It had been a bona fide two-pairs-of-panty-hose day. Her first pair, the ones she’d been wearing at the airport, had been totally destroyed.
Veronica washed herself quickly, knowing that every minute she spent in the shower was a minute less that she’d be able to sleep. And with Lieutenant Joseph P. Catalanotto due to arrive anytime after midnight, she was going to need every second of that nap.
Still, it didn’t keep her from singing as she tried to rinse the aches and soreness from her back and shoulders. Singing in the shower was a childhood habit. Then, as now, the moments she spent alone in the shower were among the few bits of time she had to really kick back and let loose. She tested the acoustics of this particular bathroom with a rousing rendition of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s latest hit.
She shut off the water, still singing, and toweled herself dry.
Her robe was hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and she reached for it.
And stopped singing, mid-note.
She’d left her robe in the bedroom, on the bed. She hadn’t hung it on the door.
“No…you’re right. You’re not alone in here,” said a husky male voice from the other side of the bathroom door.
Veronica’s heart nearly stopped beating, and she lunged for the door and turned the lock.
“I figured you didn’t know I was in your room,” the voice continued as Veronica quickly slipped into her white terry-cloth bathrobe. “I also figured you probably wouldn’t appreciate coming out of the bathroom with just a towel on—or less. Not with an audience, anyway. So I put your robe on the back of the door.”
Veronica tightened the belt and clutched the lapels of the robe more closely together. She took in a deep breath, then let it slowly out. It steadied her and kept her voice from shaking. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Who are you?” the voice countered. It was rich, husky, and laced with more than a trace of blue-collar New York. “I was brought here and told to wait, so I waited. I’ve been hustled from one coast to the other like some Federal Express overnight package, only nobody has any explanations as to why or even who I’m waiting to see. I didn’t even know my insertion point was the District of Columbia until the jet landed at Andrews. And as long as I’m complaining I might as well tell you that I’m tired, I’m hungry and my shorts have not managed to dry in the past ten hours, a situation that makes me very, very cranky. I would damn near sell my soul to get into that shower that you just stepped out of. Other than that, I’m sure I’m very pleased to meet you.”
“Lieutenant Catalanotto?” Veronica asked.
“Bingo,” the voice said. “Babe, you just answered your own question.”
But had she? “What’s your first name?” she asked warily.
“Joe. Joseph.”
“Middle name?”
“Paulo,” he said.
Veronica swung open the bathroom door.
The first thing she noticed about the man was his size. He was big—taller than Prince Tedric by about two inches and outweighing him in sheer muscle by a good, solid fifty pounds. His dark hair was cut much shorter than Tedric’s, and he had at least a two-day growth of beard darkening his face.
He didn’t look as exactly like the prince as she’d thought when she saw his photograph, Veronica