Too late.
“I think it’s exactly what it seems,” Jacquie replied. The woman honked the horn. “Don’t miss your ride.”
Pierce muttered a curse, then strode across the lobby without a backward glance. Two seconds later, the car’s engine revved and it pulled away from the curb, tires squealing. Wherever they were going, the younger woman was in a hurry to get there.
Jacquie knew she should be glad to know the truth before she’d made a mistake.
Funny. She didn’t feel glad at all.
Maybe it would be easier the next time she made a move on a man.
Jacquie hitched her bag higher, fastened her own coat and waved to Raylene as if everything had gone according to plan. On the street, she hailed a cab.
There wouldn’t be any problem calling Cole right away, at least.
“You can stop digging your nails into the leather upholstery,” Farah said as she took another turn far more quickly than was sensible.
“You could obey the speed limit,” Pierce countered. He loosened his grip slightly, although it was against his better instincts.
“Rules are for ordinary people,” she informed him, just as she had a long time before. She raced through another intersection and Pierce felt his body tense.
He preferred to make the choice of having his life at risk, not to have the choice made for him. A car escape tool dangled from the rear view mirror, so at least she remembered something he’d taught her.
“If a cop saw you run that red light, he might find you very ordinary.”
Farah turned to laugh at him. “He’d have to catch me first.”
“Exit strategy.” Pierce used their old code phrase as he pointed at the garbage truck pulling out ahead of her, knowing she hadn’t seen it.
Farah recovered beautifully. She swerved into the lane for oncoming traffic, avoided a head-on collision with a taxi, and merged back into the lane where she should have been all along. She didn’t ease up on the accelerator one bit and she didn’t look ruffled.
“You should see your face,” she said with a smile.
“I can guess.”
“I always have an exit strategy. You taught me that.”
“Glad you remember.”
“I went to driving school in Germany,” she informed him. “On that closed track. They taught us a lot of great tricks.”
“Don’t feel obliged to show all of them to me,” Pierce said and Farah laughed again.
“It might be worth it, just to see if I could make you sweat.”
“I’ve sweat plenty tonight already, thanks.”
They were zooming up the side of the park and Pierce felt his attention sharpen. He never trusted darkness. Anything could lunge out of the shadows without warning—a child on a bike, an elderly woman with a dog, a dog that had broken the leash—and he watched vigilantly, afraid that Farah wasn’t paying enough attention.
“You don’t trust me,” she accused.
“You weren’t driving the last time I saw you.”
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t learn.”
“It doesn’t mean you did learn.”
She smiled and he saw her smile as another garbage trunk ambled into her lane two blocks ahead. “They must have taught you this one,” she murmured, then geared down fast. The car lunged ahead, responsive machine that it was, and Farah once again cut around the truck. This time, though, the oncoming traffic was closer. Pierce caught his breath. Farah slipped back to her lane ahead of the service vehicle in the nick of time. A food truck ambled in front of her, going far more slowly than she was, and she slid smoothly into the curb lane to go around it. She ripped through an intersection as the light turned red, slowed down to a sedate pace and merged into the road that crossed the park, sliding the engine back into the appropriate gear.
Pierce exhaled.
She flicked a glance at him. “You really need to give my upholstery a break.”
“You really need to slow down.”
“I want to get there now!”
“I want to get there alive.”
She laughed and laughed, unconcerned with anything beyond her own desires and plans. It was reassuring, in a way, to see that she was still the same confident girl she’d been at five. “Do you know, Pierce, that you’re the only one who ever tells me off?”
“I don’t think I was telling you off.”
“But you didn’t tell me how wonderful my driving was. You criticized me, if ever so gently.”
“Staff shouldn’t get above themselves.”
“You’re not staff, Pierce. Not anymore, anyway.” She gave him a sweet smile and her voice dropped. “I’ve missed you.”
Pierce heaved a sigh and deliberately unclutched his fingers from the seat. “As incredible as it might seem, I’ve missed you, too, Princess.”
It was true. Farah was rich, spoiled, demanding and impetuous, but she was also clever, kind and generous. Pierce found her charming, even when she was making trouble that he had to clean up, which made him wonder again why she’d sought him out.
“Is Rodrigo all right?”
“Flu,” she said with a shake of her head. “He doesn’t take care of himself, not like you do, and he’s not getting any younger. He picks up every little bug there is, so Maman has insisted he self-isolate. He’s not amused.”
“I can believe it.”
“I told them both that I could talk to you instead.”
She didn’t say what she wanted to discuss.
Pierce chose to wait, mostly because she expected him to ask.
“Why aren’t you in Paris?” Farah’s mother still made her home in Paris. Yvette’s beautifully furnished apartment had been her family home before she married her prince, and she’d kept it as a second residence throughout his lifetime. When he’d passed away, she’d retreated there—with Pierce’s assistance. Pierce thought it had been a wise choice on Yvette’s part to remove herself from all discussion about the succession of the throne.
“I stayed here after finishing college,” Farah explained. “I live in Boston with Mike.”
Michael was her older brother, the heir who should have taken his father’s role. Pierce knew why that hadn’t happened—the coup was public knowledge—but why was the former crown prince in
