THEIR_VIRGIN_PRINCESS (5 page)

“He’s got her.” Piper was following Rafe onto the dance
floor, her face shining up at him.

“Excellent. Keep an eye on our brat. I’ll let you know when
we’re done. Out.” Coop’s voice cut off, and Lan knew he was out of the loop for
a bit. He’d volunteered for this duty to remove himself from the meeting. He’d
rather watch over Alea because he didn’t agree with this clandestine shit.
Everyone was planning Alea’s life without including her. She should be in that
fucking meeting, but he’d been outvoted.

Rafe and Piper started a slow dance. Kade walked up behind
them, putting his hands on Piper’s waist and leaning over to kiss the back of
her neck.

Those two had backup. Even if anything ever happened to Rafe
or Kade, Piper al Mussad would never be alone. If one of them went down, she
would have two more husbands to lean on. They would protect the woman they
loved. He’d heard sad stories about some of the widows of guys he’d served with
in the Army. Once their husbands were dead, they were often utterly alone. So
many became single moms, struggling to make ends meet because they didn’t have
anyone else in their corner.

“Nix, how you doing?” A deep voice asked behind him.

He turned and saw one of the Lennox brothers holding out his
hand. Lan took it and tried to give him a smile. The other man tried to return
the gesture, mostly baring his teeth in return.

Cole and Burke were near perfect twins, but Lan had quickly
learned that Burke was the one who smiled. It wasn’t that Cole was always grim.
He could light up when his wife walked in the room, but otherwise, he was a
little standoffish. “Going good, Cole. Dane’s meeting with your guys right
now.”

Lennox nodded. “Good. Dominic runs a tight ship. They’ll get
you what you need. Sorry I couldn’t handle it personally, but this pregnancy
has been giving Jessa hell for a couple of months.”

“She’s perfectly good now.” A gorgeous redhead threaded her
arm through Cole’s and turned her face up to his. “I just needed to get through
the vomiting-up-my-toenails phase.”

There was that smile of Cole’s. Lan watched, a knot of
jealousy in the pit of his stomach. He hated this envy. He didn’t want Jessa or
begrudge Cole his happiness. He just wanted a little of his own.

“Jessa!” Alea’s smile turned genuine as she approached the
auburn beauty. What he wouldn’t give to have that smile directed at him...

“I heard you were here,” the princess said. “How is baby
Caleb?”

Lan supposed it had been inevitable that Alea would become
close to her saviors’ wife. Alea’s friendship with Jessa made her happy. As far
as Lan was concerned, that pretty much was all he needed to know about the
woman. If Alea loved her, then she had to be good people, as his granny would
say.

He watched as Alea talked to her friend, her posture relaxed
for once. Cole’s brother, Burke sauntered up, sliding his arm around Jessa’s
waist as they chatted with Alea.

When everyone was occupied, Cole’s face turned serious. With
an almost imperceptible cock of the head, he motioned Lan to follow him. They
stepped out of the conversation, just far enough so they couldn’t be overheard.

“What’s going on between you and Alea?” Cole asked.

“I’m her bodyguard. That’s it.” And that was where it would
stay because she had zero interest in him.

“Bullshit. Do you think I don’t have eyes? I saw the way you
looked at her. Man, I’m not trying to mess with you. I like very few people.
Alea is one of them. You’re one of them. That girl is still in trouble. Even if
Dominic’s guys found out that Khalil was the one behind her kidnapping and
she’s out of danger, she’s still in trouble.”

Because she hadn’t gotten over what had happened during her
abduction. How was she supposed to get over that? She wouldn’t let them see her
fear or pain, so how the fuck were they supposed to help her?

“I don’t think there’s a damn thing I can do. She doesn’t
want me.”

“Is she into one of your crew?” Cole’s face creased as
though he was thinking through a problem.

“No. She doesn’t like any of us.” Would it be better or
worse if she wanted Dane or Coop? Maybe. At least someone would be happy.

“Again, I call bullshit. The minute we stepped over here,
she started casting glances this way, and she’s not staring at me.”

Lan let his eyes slide toward her. Sure enough, Alea jerked
her gaze back to Jessa Lennox as quickly as she could. In fact, a little crowd
had formed around her now, as Jessa and Alea had been joined by a familiar,
pretty blonde, Hannah James. Her husbands, the James brothers, ran Black Oak
Oil and had long-standing ties with the Bezakistani royal family.

Husbands. It seemed like everyone was getting on the marital
bandwagon lately. Everyone except the one woman who had grown up surrounded by
plural marriage.

“You were with her those first few days after you rescued
her, right?” Lan asked.

“I was.” Cole’s tone turned grim.

“How bad was she?” He’d read the medical reports, but they
were clinical. Sure, he knew the date of her kidnapping, where she’d been held,
when she’d been rescued. He knew she’d been tortured. But none of that really
explained the ordeal that had shaped the woman he knew now.

“Unimaginable. Look, she should be the one to tell you, but
I’m starting to worry that she’ll never confide in anyone. She looks healthy
now. She’s a hundred and eighty degrees from the skinny, drug-addicted girl I
carried out of that brothel. In fact, she looks great, until I see her eyes.”

“Drugs?” Nowhere in those fucking reports had anyone
mentioned drugs. Alea would never have done that of her own free will. She was
so proud and seemingly in control. So…fuck. Her captors had drugged her. Hell,
just how much of her soul had they taken?

“Shit. I’d hoped Tal would have let you in on that since
you’re her bodyguard.” Cole groaned a little. “I’m going to get my ass kicked,
but Tal, Rafe, and Kade are treating her with kid gloves. She’s drifting. I
know they think they’re sheltering her, but someone has to push that girl to
open up. Look, I understand the impulse to stay out of things. I really do, but
if there’s one thing I’ve learned about getting people to heal…sometimes you
gotta give them a shove. You can’t just hope people will change all by
themselves. If you care about Alea, you have to pry her open, man. She’s not
made of glass. That woman fought like hell in that brothel. She fought to get
off the drugs. Maybe she just needs a little help from someone to help her
fight for her future.”

Wouldn’t he love to be that someone? “Man, she’d just fight
me, too.”

Lan stared at her openly now, not even trying to disguise
his longing. He didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought. He was in love
with that woman. She would never love him back. They came from different
worlds. She was a princess, and he had no idea who his father was.

But maybe sometimes love wasn’t about getting what he
wanted. Maybe sacrifice was really at the heart of it. If he pushed her, fought
for her, maybe she could tear down that tough-girl mask and find a way to be
happy—even if it wasn’t with him, Dane, and Coop.

“I don’t think you’ll have to fight her too hard. Just push
a little every day. Talk to her. Don’t let up and don’t let her force you to
the side. I know how this goes. Jessa tried her hardest to shove us out of her
life. She said some horrible things to me. It hurt, but then I realized she was
both lashing out and testing us. Burke and I had hurt her when we’d left her
alone. She had to push until she realized we weren’t going to disappear again,
no matter what. Nothing she could say or do was going to throw us out of her
life. Alea might have the same M.O.”

“We’ve never been with Alea.”

“We?”

Lan felt himself flush.
Damn
it
. “We all have feelings for her, me, Dane, and Coop. We thought we could
pursue her together, but she wasn’t interested in us, either together or
apart.”

“Or she’s scared that none of you can accept what she’s been
through.”

“She survived. That’s the only thing that matters. Why
wouldn’t we accept that?”

“Survival is a funny thing, man, and you damn well know it.
When you’re down in the trenches all that matters is living, but it’s not so
simple once you return to the real world. People judge you. You measure what
you did to live against conventional social mores…and suddenly what once seemed
like a simple choice is murky and gray.”

He knew exactly what Cole was talking about.

“That’s when you have to deal with the reality that you
lived and some didn’t,” Cole went on. “That’s when you have to accept who the
fuck you really are.”

He hadn’t thought about it that way before. Alea was a
survivor, but she had a heart. How guilty did she feel for getting out alive
when others hadn’t? How ashamed was she by whatever she’d had to do in order to
live? She’d been through a war of sorts, and he had no idea how much of herself
she’d lost along the way.

The fact that Alea had survived and could function now
proved how strong she was. She deserved better than to be treated like some
fragile doll who couldn’t make a decision about her own life. Despite what all
the other guys thought, she could handle the truth. Being in control of her
future might even help her heal from the past.

Lan knew what he had to do. “Well, hell.”

“What?” Cole asked.

“I’m going to get my ass kicked. I hate getting my ass
kicked.” He steeled himself. If he was going to start fighting for his
princess, he might as well start now.

“No one ever tries to kick my ass anymore,” Cole grumbled.

Resolved, Lan stalked back to Alea, his heart chugging.
Right here, right now, he was going to change everything. Yeah, he should
probably wait. If he wanted to play on a team, he shouldn’t make decisions
alone. But he wasn’t risking that Dane and Coop would hate the plan and try to
shut him down. Alea deserved to know what was going on.

“Landon?” Alea’s eyes widened as he reached for her hand.

“Come with me, Princess. We’ve got a meeting to attend.”

She began to protest, her words saying one thing, while her
fingers said another. Maybe he was going about this all wrong, but as he led
her out of the ballroom, Lan could have sworn she squeezed his hand, holding on
tight.

* * * *

Cooper held the door open for Sheikh Talib al Mussad and
wondered if they were doing the right thing. Alea needed peace and to believe
she was safe. He didn’t like the idea of worrying her just because they had a
gut instinct that could be wrong. If his hunch was on the money, they’d handle
it so she could be none the wiser. Right?

Tal strode into the room where Dane and the Anders brothers
had already set up. There were seats with a folder in front of each.

The investigation into Alea’s abduction. God, he almost
didn’t want to know what that file said. A part of him wanted to pretend that
the past was behind them all, that she was healing even now, and merely playing
coy and hard to get.

But he knew better. Alea had been ground under some fucker’s
boot, and deep down Coop needed to know who he could blame so he’d have someone
to kill. He’d finally found the girl who made his heart pound, and she was
broken because of this asshole. Or maybe there was more than one asshole.
Shooting multiple criminals wouldn’t bother him.

The tall dude at the front of the room slipped out of his
blazer and took a seat at the head of the table. “If you will all take a seat,
we can go over the findings fairly quickly and get the sheikh back to his ball.
My name is Riley Anders, and I’m the research expert at Anthony Anders. This is
my brother, Lawson. He’s pure muscle so don’t expect him to actually talk. He
prefers to grunt.”

Law sat beside him, straddling the back of a chair, and
flipped his brother the finger.

“So they’re civilized,” he muttered as he took a seat next
to Dane.

Dane leaned over, talking behind his hand. “No doubt. But
according to the Lennox brothers, these guys are the best.”

“I just wish we’d done the investigation ourselves.”

Dane shook his head. “We wanted the best. Alea deserves it.
After they tell us the news, then we take over. We can either give her the good
news that Khalil was the one who had her kidnapped or we quietly take down the
motherfucker who did. That, my friend, is a job we will do ourselves and
relish.”

Because they damn straight were the best at killing someone
who needed to die.

“If you’ll open your folders, you’ll see that we’ve done a
very thorough investigation of the princess’s abduction. Since we were not
allowed to interview Princess Alea, it’s incomplete,” Riley pointed out with a
tight smile.

Tal scowled. “I’ve explained this. You have everything you
need in the reports.”

Law’s eyes narrowed. “Do we? Those reports seem a bit
sanitized. There are no real details about what happened to her while she was
held.”

“Bad shit,” Dane shot back. “What the fuck more do you need
to know?”

Riley glared. “Shut the testosterone off and get real. We
need to know everything. We’re not here to judge the princess. We’re here to
figure out who plotted her kidnapping. Knowing what she endured during her
captivity might provide clues.”

Tal leaned forward intently, his jaw tight. “Are you telling
me you know this wasn’t random? Alea is a beautiful girl. Isn’t it possible
that she was taken and held for the highest bidder? It makes sense that she’d
be targeted because she hid her wealth. The person who nabbed her might have
believed she wasn’t protected.”

Law’s head shook, shooting down Tal’s earnest hope. “Not a
chance.”

“What my brother means to say is that we have proof to the
contrary. Turn to page five of the file. It’s a photocopy of the note that brought
Alea to the club that night. It was found amongst her things from New York,”
Riley said quietly, the very somberness of his voice an answer to the question.