CHAPTER 22
Later that night, Luis sat on the sofa in his palace suite, once again paging through the book of fencing strategy without being able to absorb any knowledge from it. Occasionally, an illustration would catch his attention for a few seconds, but mostly he thought about Eve and Grace. Were they back from the veterinary group’s farewell dinner?
Eve said she would tell the Iowans that she and Grace would not be on the plane returning with them to the U.S. tomorrow, giving a vague excuse about being asked to stay and further develop the fear-free aspects of the future vet school. Bruno had already contacted the veterinary college in Iowa to clear Grace’s absence with those in charge of her academic career there, while substitute vet techs had been arranged for Eve at the clinic.
Luis would have them here with him for a few more days following the announcement in the morning. It would crack a hole in his chest when they left, but he already had plans for a visit to Iowa in a few weeks. There was also Grace’s graduation ceremony in about six months. The winter holidays in between he planned to negotiate with Eve and Grace. It would not be enough, but his schedule did not allow for much more, and Grace was uncomfortable about taking additional time off from her rotations.
He felt a sudden roil of nausea and a stab of pain in his gut, a powerful reaction to the upcoming separation.
His gaze drifted to the panel that opened into the secret passageway between his suite and Eve’s. The temptation to follow in his ancestors’ footsteps and sneak into Eve’s bedroom was almost overpowering. But he had told her that she must come to him. That was a salve to his own conscience rather than a belief that Eve would feel any pressure because he was the king. She did not fear his power. Or curry it.
He closed the book and tossed it onto the coffee table before he stood, a wave of fatigue making him catch the back of the chair for balance. He needed to sleep because tomorrow would be a day of speech writing, and he had to be mentally sharp. He wished to use his own heartfelt words to introduce Grace to Caleva as their princess. Starting toward his bedroom, he slipped the dragonhead cuff links out of his shirtsleeves as he walked.
The familiar soft click of a latch and a draft of air made him turn to see Eve step out of the secret passage. As she closed the panel behind her, he took in the waves of her glorious hair, the curves of her body beneath the simple blue dress she wore, and the clean, beautiful lines of her profile.
In a few strides, he reached her and gathered her in his arms, seeking her soft lips in a kiss that sent fire licking through his veins. She leaned into him, her breasts pillowing against his chest, and wound her hands around his neck and into his hair. He slid his hands downward to cup her lush bottom and press her closer against him. She gave a little moan that opened her mouth so he could tease her tongue with his.
His cock hardened as he tasted the heat and silk of her. Elation flooded his body.
She had changed her mind and come to him.
As he shifted to ease his thigh between hers, she slid her hands down over his shoulders to flatten her palms against his chest. The friction and warmth were so delicious that it took him several moments to realize she was pushing him away.
He released her mouth and lifted his head. “What is it, querida?”
“I came to say goodbye, not to—” She took a step back, so he reluctantly let his arms drop from around her.
“Why can we not do both?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I just wanted to…to say thank you for…well, for being you, I suppose.” Her smile had an edge of sadness. “It was fun, but now we have to go back to our real-life roles. You’re the king, and I am the adoptive mother of your daughter. We need to keep it that way for Grace’s sake. I will find a house away from San Ignacio so I’m not in the public eye. However, I will need to be able to join the royal family for special occasions without any awkwardness. If we continue our…liaison, that might become a problem.”
She was making rational sense, but he did not feel rational about her. “You will be part of the royal family because Grace is.” He could not stop himself from taking her strong, capable hands in his. He had to touch her. “She will need you here as she navigates her new life. You are her anchor, her place of comfort and security.”
His place of comfort and security too. He wanted Eve here, where he could listen to the music of her laugh, relish her sharp observations, and persuade her into his bed.
She pulled her hands from his grip and banded her arms around her waist. “No!” She looked toward the windows. “I’m going back to Iowa, and you’re staying in Caleva. We will continue on with our lives, and this little interlude will fade into a pleasant memory.”
This little interlude. He did not like to hear what had happened between them being dismissed that way. Anger flared like a kerosene-soaked torch, and his stomach clenched again. But something nagged at him, so he forced himself to take a mental step back and think. It was her body language. Despite her words, she was not projecting rejection.
She was protecting herself.
He wanted to fold his arms around her, to melt the stiffness from her posture so she once again was warm and pliant against him. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, the cuff links clinking against his signet ring.
“You will not fade in my memory,” he said, pushing so much intensity into his voice that it became a growl. “You will burn like a flame. You going back to Iowa will not quench that, especially when I will see you again in a few weeks and then again at Grace’s graduation.”
Even though there were several feet of air between them, she unwound her arms to make a pushing motion with her hands. “I’m just a novelty, a stranger, an American.”
The anger sparked again. “You think I am that easily enthralled?” he snapped.
“Enthralled?” she said. “No. I think you were intrigued. And possibly grateful to me for raising your daughter.”
“Madre de Dios!” He clenched his fists in his pockets. “You are a beautiful, sensual woman of great intelligence and honor. Your spirit glows with compassion and decency and kindness. Perhaps all those things make you a novelty, because you are so unique, but it is not the trivial novelty you speak of.”
Her eyes widened in a look of disbelief as he spoke.
God, he wanted to kiss her.
“You’re projecting onto me what you want Grace’s mother to be like,” she said. “You don’t really know me.”
Now he wanted to shake her. He took a deep breath. “Over many years and meetings with thousands of people, I have learned to take the measure of a person quickly. By now, I am rarely wrong. I know you. I know I want you in my life.”
She had her arms curled around her waist again, yet he saw her sway toward him, an unconscious movement that told him so much. She looked away. “I’m not queen material.”
His breath seemed to evaporate from his lungs. Queen material. He hadn’t considered the possibility that she could be his queen, a partner by his side for the rest of their lives.
As he examined the idea, she turned back to him with a dry look. “Yeah, that’s what I figured, but I can’t invest in this relationship and then walk away without a backward glance.”
He started to tell her that she was wrong about his moment of hesitation, but agony slashed through his gut like a rusty sword.
Luis began to speak, but before he could agree that she wasn’t cut out to be a queen, he doubled over with a groan that sounded like it was wrenched up from his toes. “Luis! What is it?” She dashed to his side as he sank to the floor, his arms clutched around his abdomen. “What do you need?”
“Basura,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Trash can?” she translated to confirm.
He nodded, the tendons in his neck standing out with strain.
She desperately scanned the room and saw a leather trash can sitting beside a desk. Racing to grab it and return to his side, she knelt and placed it in front of him. He vomited into the receptacle so violently that it seemed like his stomach might come up his throat.
He dry-heaved a few more times before he let go of the trash can and braced his hands on the floor on either side of it. Lifting his head, he said, “I’m never ill.”
She remembered his comment about eating a lot of strange things in his travels. “I know.”
“Call Mikel,” he said and then vomited again.
Panic welled up in her throat at the implications. “I don’t have my phone.”
He swallowed hard and ground out, “Panic button. Beside door.”
She pushed to her feet and raced for the main door. A red button was mounted on the wall. She pressed it several times before running back to kneel at Luis’s side.
She was a medical professional, even if it was for nonhuman patients. She needed to focus. “Luis, tell me what you’re feeling beside the nausea.”
“Pain in my abdomen. In my thighs.” He paused to inhale deeply. “Tingling in my feet.”
“When did it start?” She laid her hand gently on his back to offer comfort.
“Just now. No, I felt the nausea earlier. Ignored it.” He wrapped his hands around his stomach with another groan. “Not food poisoning. Ate here all—”
He collapsed, his head striking the trash can, which she grabbed before it could spill its contents.
“Luis!” She rolled him onto his side to keep him from aspirating in case he vomited again. But his body lolled in a way that said he was unconscious. “Shit!” She yanked a pillow off a nearby chair and wedged it under his head before she checked his pulse. Weak and fast but there.
The door flew open, and Mikel rushed in, followed by two men with guns drawn. Mikel took in the scene with a sharp glance and turned to his men. “Get a gurney and the ambulance.”
“What happened?” he barked at Eve, kneeling beside Luis to pick up the same wrist she had.
“We were talking, and he suddenly doubled over,” Eve said. “He threw up twice before he collapsed. He said his thighs hurt, his feet are tingling, and he was nauseated earlier.”
Mikel nodded in acknowledgment of Eve’s summary as he checked Luis’s breathing. The two men raced back through the door, wheeling a gurney between them.
“Help me,” Mikel commanded them.
The three of them lifted Luis onto the stretcher with exquisite gentleness, tilting the back up so he didn’t risk choking on vomit. One took a basin from a shelf beneath it and placed it on Luis’s legs before gently strapping him securely to the gurney.
Eve wanted to reach out to him, but the men were in her way, standing on either side of Luis.
She tore her gaze away from his white, slack face when no one moved toward the door. “Shouldn’t you go to the hospital now?”
Mikel nodded, his face like granite. “The moment the corridor is clear. We don’t want anyone seeing the king on a stretcher.” He went still in that way his men did when listening to their earpiece. “Let’s go!” he commanded.
Something nagged at Eve’s brain. If Luis hadn’t ingested poison through something he had eaten, how could he have gotten so sick?
“Rat poison!” she said, jogging behind the swiftly moving gurney. “Tell the doctors to check for thallium poisoning.”
Mikel threw her a skeptical glance. “How could he have eaten rat poison?”
“You can absorb it through the skin,” she said. “He has weakness and pain in his thighs. That can be a symptom of thallium poisoning. I’ve seen dogs collapse like that.”
Mikel nodded, his gaze focused and sharp. “I’ll make sure to tell them.”
Luis’s escort threw open a small door, and they entered a garage of some sort. A white van waited with its doors ajar to reveal an impressively equipped mobile medical unit manned by two men in white lab coats. Luis’s gurney was lifted inside, and Mikel vaulted in after it.
As soon as the van’s doors were closed, the garage door clanked open, and the van sped away.
Eve stared after it, her stomach in knots as she replayed the violence of Luis’s breakdown and remembered the poor, dying dogs who had been brought into the clinic too late to save from the poison.
“Se?ora, I’ll take you back to your room,” one of the men said, holding the door open for her.
“I…thank you,” she said, stepping into the corridor as she tried to recall everything she could about thallium poisoning. That particular type of rat poison had been outlawed in the U.S. because of its deadliness for humans. In fact, it had been used to commit a spate of murders in Australia in the 1950s. Still, old packages were sometimes forgotten in barns or basements until an animal got into it.
The antidote was Prussian blue. Hemodialysis was used to clear the thallium from the bloodstream. But the doctors here should know that, shouldn’t they? Or should she text Mikel to tell him?
As she debated, they arrived at her suite. “Buenas noches, se?ora,” her escort said, ushering her through her door before departing. She closed the door and leaned against it, her eyes closed as fear squeezed its fingers around her heart.
Luis would be all right. He had the best doctors in the country treating him. Still…
She raced into her bedroom to grab her phone and text Mikel the information about thallium poisoning. He didn’t respond. She sat on the bed and slumped forward, elbows on knees, head in hands.
He’ll be fine.
She lifted her head. Should she tell Grace? Or Raul? They would just worry along with her, but they had the right to know, because Luis was their father.
She shoved up from the bed and crossed through the suite’s living room to knock on Grace’s door. “Sweetie? It’s Mom.”
“Come in,” her daughter called.
Eve opened the door to find Grace propped up in bed with her laptop on her knees. She set it aside when she saw Eve’s face.
“What is it?” Grace asked. “What’s wrong?”
Eve sat on the bed and took one of Grace’s hands in hers. “Your father was just taken to the hospital, unconscious and with severe intestinal distress. Mikel is with him, and he has the best doctors in the country, but I thought you should know.”
“I want to go to the hospital.” Grace tugged her hand away and threw off the covers.
“I don’t know if we’re allowed to,” Eve said. “Mikel said they don’t want people to know that the king is ill.”
“Shit!” Grace said. “There has to be a way. I’m calling Raul.”
“I don’t know if he’s aware of the situation,” Eve said. “I was going to talk with him next.”
“Why are you the one telling us?” Grace asked with sudden focus. “Were you with him when he got sick?”
“Yes. I went to talk to him in his apartment, and he collapsed.”
“What do you think is going on?” Grace was pulling on jeans and a T-shirt as she talked.
Eve hesitated. “I’m not a doctor—not even a vet like you—so I don’t know.”
“You have an idea, though, I can tell,” Grace said, shoving her feet into her sneakers.
“It might be thallium poisoning,” Eve said. “I told Mikel to have the doctors test for it.”
Grace’s cheeks lost all their color. “Rat poison? No!” she whispered, going still. “That’s ugly stuff. Even if he survives, there could be permanent damage…”
“He’s strong, and he’s the king. He’ll have every medical advantage it’s possible to give him,” Eve reassured her…and tried to reassure herself.
“I’m calling Raul,” Grace said, grabbing her phone from the nightstand.. “He’ll get us to the hospital.”
Eve thought about stopping her, but she wanted to be at the hospital as badly as Grace did. “Tell him gently,” she said as she heard the phone ringing through Grace’s speaker.
“I just heard Pater went to the hospital.” Raul’s voice was tight with concern. “Do you know what happened?”
“Mom was with him, and she’s here, so she can tell you.” Grace nodded to Eve.
Eve repeated her abbreviated version of the night’s events, leaving out her theory about thallium poisoning. She had no qualifications for diagnosing Luis’s illness, so she wouldn’t share it with the prince.
“We need to get to the hospital,” Grace said as soon as Eve finished. “Mom says Mikel doesn’t want anyone else to know that the king is sick, but you must know how we can sneak in.”
“Come to my apartment, and we’ll leave from here.” He disconnected.
“Do you know where Raul’s apartment is?” Eve asked.
“Just beyond Dad’s,” Grace said, pulling on a hoodie.
Dad’s. She’d said the word so naturally. Something about that made Eve’s heart clench. “Let me get a sweater,” she said, dashing out the bedroom door.
Grace led the way down the hallway. A guard stood in front of the door to Luis’s apartment, nodding as they passed.
“Why are they guarding it now?” Eve murmured.
“Maybe to keep anyone else from getting poisoned,” her daughter said.
A cold realization hit Eve. It was a crime scene. Mikel and his personnel would be going through the rooms with a fine-tooth comb.
Grace stopped in front of a door and knocked. Raul opened it and waved them inside. He was dressed like Grace, in jeans and a T-shirt. “We’re going out the same way Pater did. There’s a car waiting for us in the garage.” He hesitated for a moment before saying, “When my father is…incapacitated, I become acting head of Caleva. I don’t want to invoke that provision yet, so let’s keep this very quiet.”
“Of course,” Eve said, understanding that Raul hoped his father would recover before any announcement needed to be made.
She prayed he was right.
A knock sounded on a different door, and Raul called, “Come in.”
A powerfully built man dressed in dark trousers and a long-sleeved shirt stepped inside. “We are ready, Se?or.”
“Let’s go,” Raul said, waving Grace and Eve in front of him.
The man led them swiftly through narrow corridors with rough stone walls and worn stone floors. Eve wondered if these had been built for servants or soldiers defending the castle, or both. After several twists and turns, they arrived at the same garage where the van had whisked Luis away. Now a beige minivan stood in the dim light, its side door open.
After they had climbed in, their guide slid the door shut and jumped into the front passenger seat. As soon as he had settled, the driver headed for the now-opening garage door.
“How long to the hospital?” Grace asked Raul.
“About fifteen minutes at normal speed,” Raul said. “The medical van would have gone faster.”
“And there were doctors in the van with him,” Eve said, to comfort her daughter. “They would have started diagnostics and treatment right away.”
Grace was silent a moment before she gave a choked sob. “Dad and I just found each other.”
“Are you aware of something about my father’s condition that I’m not?” Raul asked, his voice sharp.
“We don’t have any more information than you do,” Eve assured him.
“You seem very concerned, though,” Raul said. “Why?”
Raul was far too astute. Eve sighed inwardly. “Based on my very brief observations of your father’s symptoms, I had one idea about what might have caused them, which I passed on to Mikel. Remember, I am not a doctor, and it is just one of many possibilities.”
“And your idea is?” he prodded.
“It might be thallium poisoning,” Eve said reluctantly. “In the U.S., thallium was once used for rodent control, so I’ve seen the symptoms in animals. Remember that I don’t work with human patients, so I’m speculating.”
“And thallium poisoning is bad?” he asked.
“Only if it doesn’t get treated right away,” Eve said with partial truth. It also depended on how much thallium Luis had absorbed. “Which isn’t the situation here.”
“You believe someone tried to kill him.” Anger hardened his voice.
Eve turned to look Raul in the eye. “All I know is that your father said he is never sick. Tonight, he vomited violently before he blacked out. That made me consider causes other than natural ones.”
“But he ate at the palace for every meal today,” Raul said. “It would be virtually impossible to get poison into his food.”
“Thallium can also be inhaled or absorbed through the skin. It’s a heavy metal,” Grace explained.
“Joder!” Raul swore. “Mikel will find whoever did this, and they will be locked up for the rest of their life.”
That wouldn’t help Luis survive, though. Eve hated the fact that the last words she had said to him before he’d collapsed had been harsh ones. Why hadn’t she admitted that she loved him and that was why she had to walk away?
Because if he knew, he would have persuaded her to stay. She still had enough of a sense of self-preservation to be sure of that.
Still, she wished she had been…nicer.
At least she had been there to call for help immediately. What if he had been alone? Could he have reached the panic button before he had passed out? A vision of Luis dying on the floor, alone, in a pool of vomit, made her heart twist in horror.
“We’re almost there,” Raul said. “We’ll go in a back entrance to get to the private floor of the wing where the royal family is treated.” He had donned a sweatshirt and now pulled the hood up over his head. “Grace, you should cover your hair too,” he said. “Eve, do you have a hat?”
She hadn’t thought about a disguise when she’d grabbed her sweater. When she shook her head, Raul said, “Dario, can you give Se?ora Howard a hat of some kind?”
Their guide opened the glove compartment and pulled out a black baseball cap, which he handed to Eve. She gathered up her hair into a ponytail and threaded it through the back of the cap before she pulled the bill low over her face.
The minivan came to a stop in front of a metal door with a single light over it. Dario escorted them through a series of utility hallways, all empty of people, into a foyer with a marble floor and a giant flower arrangement on a round wooden table. Two guards in dark suits stood by the outside door. Dario nodded to them before hitting the button for the elevator.
Brass doors slid open to reveal a large car, its walls embellished with beautiful glass tiles. This must be the private wing Raul had mentioned. The elevator whooshed upward multiple floors to the penthouse level and disgorged them into a plush reception area with a wooden desk graced by another flower arrangement and manned by a pleasant-looking young man dressed in teal-green scrubs.
“Buenas noches, Su Alteza Real,” the man said, rising to bow to Raul and smile at Grace and Eve. His name tag said he was Jacobo. “Se?or Silva will be here in just a moment. Please make yourselves comfortable.” He gestured behind the desk.
Beyond their greeter, a large Calevan coat of arms was mounted on one wall above a cushy-looking sofa that anchored a whole seating arrangement of upholstered chairs and tables…with more flowers, of course. There was nothing clinical about the royal family’s waiting room.
“May I offer you a beverage?” Jacobo asked.
“We can help ourselves, gracias,” Raul said, coming into the seating area. He went to a wall of cabinets and opened one door to reveal a well-stocked refrigerator. “Who would like a bottle of water?”
Eve figured it would give her something to do with her hands, so she joined him to accept what turned out to be a glass bottle with a Calevan dragon on the label. As she twisted off the cap, Mikel came through a set of double doors on the other side of the room.
He gave a half bow to Raul and nodded to Eve and Grace. Eve got the distinct feeling that if the Crown Prince of Caleva had not been their companion, Mikel would have told them both to go home.
“Mikel, how is he?” Raul asked, his voice intense.
Mikel gave Eve a look she couldn’t decipher. “Se?ora Howard was correct in her suspicion of thallium poisoning. They have given him the antidote and are flushing his system now.”
“But how is he? What is the prognosis?” Raul asked again.
“The doctors are optimistic,” Mikel said, his tone soothing. “They will know more after the antidote has had more time to clean out the poison.”
“I want to see him,” Raul said.
Grace moved to stand beside the prince. “I want to as well.”
Eve was desperate to see Luis, but she was low man on this particular totem pole, so she remained silent.
“The doctors will bring you in as soon as possible,” Mikel said. “Right now, he is still unconscious, and they are working hard to eliminate the effects of the poison.”
Fear and worry slashed through Eve, making her stomach roil. Thallium could do severe damage to various systems and organs if the dosage was high.
Raul spun on his heel and went over to stand in front of a plate-glass window, his arms crossed tightly. Eve wanted to put her arm around him in comfort, but she didn’t know how the prince would feel about it coming from her.
Instead, she leaned over to whisper in Grace’s ear. “Go be with Raul. He needs someone to talk to right now. Try to reassure him that thallium poisoning can be treated effectively.” Talking to her half brother would also give Grace something to do other than worry about her father.
Grace nodded but turned to hug Eve, murmuring in her ear, “You may have saved Dad’s life.” She gave a tiny sob and let go, wiping the back of her hand across her cheek before joining Raul.
Eve watched until Raul let his arms drop to his sides and shifted to look at Grace as they conversed in low tones.
“May I speak with you privately?”
Eve jumped as Mikel spoke from right behind her. “Of course.”
Mikel gestured toward an open door across the room, his expression bland.
She accompanied him into a small conference room containing a long wooden table on which were arrayed several laptops. Mikel held a rolling leather chair for her to sit in. After closing the door, he sat across from her.
“What do the doctors really say?” she asked, since Raul and Grace couldn’t hear them.
“What doctors always say,” Mikel said with a grimace. “That they won’t know until the treatment has had more time to work.”
Eve nodded, but panic tightened its fist around her heart.
“I know you are worried about His Majesty, but I need to ask you some questions,” Mikel said. “My apologies.”
Puzzled, she nodded.
“Have you had any digestive issues since you came to Caleva?” he asked.
“Digestive issues? No.”
“Has Grace complained of any health problems?”
The truth dawned on her. Mikel was already trying to track down Luis’s poisoner.
“No, she’s been fine.”
“You have spent some time alone with His Majesty,” Mikel said. “Did he eat or drink anything during those…encounters?”
Eve felt heat rising in her cheeks. Of course Mikel would know there was something going on between them. After all, she had been alone with Luis tonight when he’d collapsed. “I… Let me think.” She reviewed the times they had been together and shook her head. “He didn’t eat anything that I saw.”
“And you didn’t give him any food or beverage that came from outside either the palace or Casa en las Nubes? Perhaps as a gift?”
“That would be like bringing gold to King Midas,” Eve said before she stiffened in outrage. “You can’t think that I poisoned Luis!”
“It is my job to explore all possibilities.” Mikel’s voice held no inflection.
“Why would I tell you what I thought the poison was if I wanted to kill him?” She was furious and baffled.
“You regretted your action when you saw the effect. You wanted to be the hero who saved your daughter’s father and the king. One never knows how a murderer will justify their crime,” Mikel said.
“Seriously?” She couldn’t believe he would think that. “How would I get my hands on thallium? Thallium-based rat poison has been illegal in the U.S. for decades.”
“You said you have seen its symptoms in dogs, so clearly it can still be found there.”
“Leftover in some random farmer’s barn! I wouldn’t know how to find any myself,” she protested. “And I would have had to carry it all the way to Caleva with me. Why would I even think to do that?”
He looked at her in a way that said he was picturing her as a murderer. “Perhaps you resented having the king sweep into your daughter’s life and take her away from you. Did you give him anything at all, perhaps a gift of some kind?”
“No!” Now she was terrified. The relentless Mikel would not hesitate to lock her up in the CárcelMax prison, with psychopaths like Odette. She fought down her fear and tried to think rationally. She couldn’t tell Mikel that she wouldn’t poison Luis because she was crazy in love with him. She hadn’t even told Luis that.
The simplest truth fought its way through her panic. “I could never harm Luis, because of Grace, whom I love more than anyone in the world. To take Luis away from her would hurt her deeply.” She looked directly at Mikel. “You have a daughter. Wouldn’t you do almost anything to protect her from pain?”
The silence stretched as Mikel’s gaze rested on her face. When he finally spoke, it was in a low voice. “What I have done to protect my daughter is beyond anything you can imagine, so I accept your reasoning.”
Relief flooded Eve, and she let out a shaky sigh.
Mikel did not stop asking questions, though. “Did you notice His Majesty handling any objects more than once?”
“Objects?” The change in subject threw her off-balance again.
“Something that might have carried the thallium,” Mikel said. “We are going through the registry of gifts he has received recently, but you could help narrow down the search.”
As she considered his question, Eve’s cheeks flushed again. Mostly, Luis had been touching her when they’d been together in private. She banished that from her mind and closed her eyes, trying to conjure up her memories of each time she’d seen him alone. “I can’t think of any—wait! I never saw him pick it up, but he had the same book at Casa en las Nubes and in his room at the palace. It caught my eye because it had a picture of fencers on the cover, and Luis said he likes to fence for exercise.”
Mikel pulled out his phone and scrolled for a moment. “Fencing Strategies Through the Ages?”
“I didn’t read the title.” She had been focused on more important things…like Luis looking at her as though he wanted to tear her clothes off and taste every inch of her body. The memory sent a flicker of heat through her veins.
Mikel tapped at his phone for a few moments before he looked up. “We know who presented him with the book. If the thallium came from that…”
Eve shivered at Mikel’s malevolent expression. She hoped he never looked at her that way.
“Gracias, se?ora,” he said. “Your help has been invaluable.”
Eve had whiplash. First, he accused her of trying to murder Luis, and now he was praising her?
He must have seen something in her expression because he said, “I had to ask. It is my job.”
And he made no apology for it.
“I will need to speak with Grace as well,” he said.
The mother bear in her rose up. “If you accuse her of trying to murder her father, I don’t care how scary you are, I will make your life hell.” She didn’t know how, but she would find a way.
He considered her for a moment. “I believe you.”
“So you won’t accuse her?” Grace was upset enough about her father. Eve didn’t want her daughter to go through the same wringer Mikel had just put her through.
“I will do my job.” He stood. “But I have no reason to believe your daughter was involved in the attempt on His Majesty’s life.”
Relief swept through Eve, and she blew out a breath. “Thank you.”
Mikel went to the door, opened it, and waited until she followed him. “To be clear, I would not hesitate to accuse even the prince if I thought it was necessary to the investigation,” he said, waving her into the reception room.
Luis had said he trusted Mikel with his life. There was a reason for that.