Chapter 17 #2
Erica had decided to go to Raul straight from the airport, which allowed her to wear her pilot’s uniform of dark green trousers and white cotton shirt with gold-braid-decorated shoulder tabs, making it clear their meeting was all business.
Dario greeted her at the door to Raul’s apartment.
“I’m glad you’re here,” the bodyguard said. “He’s been wound up tighter than a rope on a winch since lunchtime.”
“I’m here to talk ,” Erica said pointedly. She didn’t want anyone to consider her some sort of physical release valve for the prince’s frustrations.
Dario gave her an unreadable look and opened the door.
Raul had his back turned but pivoted as soon as the door clicked shut behind her. He wore navy blue trousers and a pale blue dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar and with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His sun-streaked hair was mussed as though he had been running his fingers through it.
“Erica! Thank you for coming!” He started toward her, using a polished wooden cane with a silver handle.
“Por supuesto, Senor,” she said with a curtsy. “How may I help you?”
He halted abruptly with a frown. “I asked you here as my friend, not as my subject.”
“It will be hard for us to be friends.” She stood at attention and wished she hadn’t left her pilot’s cap in the car. Holding it would have given her something to do with her hands other than clench them at her sides.
Sure enough, he raked his fingers through his hair, disordering the usually neat waves even more. “Please,” he said. “I need someone I can trust to speak to me honestly. A sounding board.”
The pleading in his voice and eyes crumbled her fragile barriers, although her muscles tightened at his use of the word trust . She nodded and forced her shoulders to relax. “Then let’s talk. Shall I get some beer?”
“Thank you. Beer would taste good.” He gave her a slight smile, and now she could see the tension in his jaw.
“I’ll be right back.” After she grabbed two bottles of Dark Lord and levered off the caps, she turned to find Raul standing beside one of two green leather wing chairs set in front of the fireplace. Thank God he didn’t expect her to sit on the couch where they’d made love.
He took the beer and waved her into the other armchair before he sat. “How was your trip to New York?”
“Smooth and easy.” Pure torture because every molecule in her body missed him. And now every molecule in her body strained toward him. “How’s being back at work?”
He took a gulp of beer. “A situation has come up.” He clicked his ring against the bottle. “With Odette Fontaine.”
A quiver of shock ran through her. He had been horrified when he let slip the truth about Grace and Odette. Now he was asking her to talk about it? She was getting whiplash.
“Odette is threatening to have Jean-Pierre Dupont give an interview about Gabriel’s kidnapping. In detail. Before the wedding.” Click, click went the ring.
“ Mierda! That’s a thousand times worse than you limping at the ceremony,” she said. “The media will have a feeding frenzy.”
“You understand.” Relief laced his voice.
“In addition to overshadowing the wedding, it would drag Gabriel back through the trauma of his abduction.” He stared at the label on his bottle and spoke in a low voice.
“In some ways, it would be a relief to finally let everyone know Gabriel sacrificed himself by taking my place. His courage should be acknowledged, but…” He met her gaze. “That would help me, not him.”
Anger and protectiveness surged through her. Neither Gabriel nor Raul should be exposed to this ugliness.
“But what can I do?” She opened her hand in a gesture of helplessness.
“I told my father that I would handle Odette. She has forced my father to visit her in CárcelMax before, and it hurts him each time. He suffers the devastating guilt of bringing a psychopath into our lives.”
She knew someone else who was good at guilt. It must run in the family.
Raul kept his eyes on her. “I would not ask this of you, but I don’t want to involve any of my family members. This is my problem to solve.”
“What about Mikel? Surely he would have some ideas,” she said, feeling out of her depth.
“Mikel works for my father.” Raul shifted in his chair.
Understanding dawned. Raul had taken on this task. He had to prove he could do it on his own.
“I have been going in circles in my head, trying to come up with a solution…or at least an approach,” Raul continued. “You have a way of helping me to break out of my rut.”
So now that he needed something from her, he would trust her with his family secrets. But her anger was easily washed away by the overpowering knowledge that he felt her perspective was valuable.
“I’ll do my best,” she said.
“First, I have to tell you about Odette’s other attacks on my family.”
“There’s more?” It shocked her that the royal family had managed to conceal so much.
“Much more.” He knocked back the rest of his beer. “You know about the kidnapping, but after Gabriel was ransomed, Odette tried to kill him in New York City by hiring an assassin.”
“Oh my God! I knew something bad had happened there. The pilots on the Dragon Jet refused to talk about the trip.”
“Shortly after that, Odette attended a private family party at the Duke of Bruma’s estate and tried to shoot me. Quinn and Gabriel managed to disarm her, but Gabriel was creased by a bullet in the struggle.”
“Qué horror!” Raul had almost died. Her stomach twisted into a knot of fear and fury. The woman was totally insane.
“That was when she finally went to jail.” He clinked the ring again.
“But she reached out her tentacles from CárcelMax to reveal Grace’s existence to us.
That backfired because my father was thrilled.
However, the secret of Grace’s birth gives Odette leverage, even though so far she has agreed not to make their relationship public.
That was Grace’s accomplishment.” His eyes grew haunted.
“Not long ago, she manipulated a deranged man into attempting to poison my father.”
“ Madre de Dios! Did your father get very sick?” It was hard to absorb the bombardment of crimes Odette had committed.
“Luckily, Eve was with him when he collapsed. Because she had seen thallium poisoning in animals, she told Pater’s doctors to check for that and saved him from any permanent damage.” Raul looked away, his knuckles white as he gripped the bottle. “I will be forever grateful to her.”
His father had almost died. No wonder he was fighting powerful emotions.
“And he fell in love with Eve,” Erica said. Some Calevans had not been pleased when their king had married an American, but most were glad to see Luis happy. After all, the crown prince’s mother had been a Calevan noblewoman, so the royal bloodline was unsullied.
“I’m grateful for that as well,” Raul said. “But back to the current problem. Not only does Odette find new ways to torment my father, but she always times them to occur right before an important event, like Gabriel’s wedding.”
“Why don’t you put her in solitary confinement and forbid her visitors?” Erica asked. “Considering all the awful things she’s done, you would be justified.”
“Unfortunately, we are a civilized country that believes in the humane treatment of prisoners,” Raul said, his voice hard.
“How does she even communicate with Dupont? Isn’t he in prison in France?” Erica asked, leaning forward.
“She is allowed visits from her lawyer,” Raul said.
“Every prisoner has the right to that. Although Mikel has the lawyer under surveillance, Odette evidently has worked out some sort of code that is buried in seemingly innocuous messages.” He sighed.
“There is nothing illegal about Dupont revealing details of the kidnapping, so we can’t stop him. Only Odette can.”
He leaned forward, his focus locked on her. “I keep asking myself how I can convince her to shut him up. So far, I have no answers.”
She had no experience with crazed revenge-seeking psychopaths. “I’m not sure why you think I would have any insights to offer.”
Raul stretched out his hand in a gesture of supplication. “You see things so clearly. I need your perspective.”
Understanding hit her. She already knew the biggest secret of all about Odette and Grace, and he had told her about his part in the kidnapping. Telling her the rest, as shocking as it was, didn’t add much to her potential for leaking information.
“Okay, then.” She squared her shoulders and set aside her hurt. Even if she had gotten the job of adviser by default, it was still immensely satisfying that he needed her. “Let’s talk about leverage. What can you use to threaten her?”
“That’s the problem,” Raul said with a grimace.
“She’s in prison for life with no hope of parole.
We’ve impounded all the assets Quinn was able to find.
All her communication with the outside world has been cut off or is closely monitored.
She knows her rights as a prisoner, so we can’t use permanent solitary confinement to frighten her. ”
“What about her comfort? Worse food? A crappy mattress? Nasty-smelling soap that dries out her skin?”
“You are diabolical.” Raul’s eyes widened before he turned thoughtful. After a moment, he shook his head. “As tempting as those are, I would not stoop so low.”
“You’re a better person than I am,” Erica said. “I would want to make her life a living hell.”
“Believe me, I do.” Raul shifted in his chair.
“However, I have learned through hard experience that when you lower yourself to your adversary’s level, you get dirt on your soul.
It’s almost never worth it. Honestly, I don’t think such minor inconveniences would deter Odette when she is set on destruction. ”
“So, no obvious way to punish her,” Erica mused.
“That was my conclusion.” Raul drummed his fingers on his knee. “The alternative is to offer her something she wants, but it must stay within the parameters of her imprisonment.”
Erica set her empty beer bottle on the small table that stood between their chairs. “Would you like another—wait!” she exclaimed. “You said Odette times her persecutions right before important events.”
“To cause maximum disruption of everyone’s lives,” Raul said bitterly.
“Certainly that, but she also does it to draw your attention when you least want to give it to her. She needs you to focus on her.” Excitement made her lean toward him.
“Maybe someone from your family could agree to visit her occasionally. Think of how powerful that would make her feel! Dragging a royal into her jail cell. It could work like a safety valve bleeding off her hatred, to keep it from building to an explosion when you can’t control it. ”
“Not her cell.” Raul made a moue of distaste. “The meetings are held in the warden’s office.”
Erica waved a hand at the quibble. “Just getting one of you to the prison is enough. And it gives you leverage. If she doesn’t behave, you stop the visits.” The more she thought about it, the more she thought it could work.
“That feels like rewarding Odette for her threats when she should be punished.”
“We’ve established that she’s at the maximum acceptable punishment, so what’s the alternative?” Erica gave him a direct look.
Raul twisted the dragon claw ring on his finger. “Have you ever been to CárcelMax?”
“I try to stay out of jail,” Erica said in a wry tone.
“For all that it’s a modern prison, it’s a grim place. The people incarcerated there are the worst of Caleva.” Raul swallowed.
She remembered what he had said earlier. “It gets dirt on your soul?”
“Something like that.” He twisted the ring one more time. “But if it keeps Odette from tormenting my family, I will do it.”
“Is there someone you could take turns with?” He looked so unhappy that she wanted to help him.
“No!” He sat up straight in his chair. “This is my duty.”
Dios, she wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him he didn’t have to take on every burden for his family. But she wouldn’t allow herself to touch him, much less hug him. Instead, she jumped up. “We need more beer now.”
“Gracias.” He tilted his head back to look up at her, the angles of his face softening. “I knew you would find an answer.”
“It’s only an answer if it works.” She turned away from the longing to lay her palm against his cheek and went to the fridge.
“It will work.” His voice was certain. “You spotted a weakness when no one else could.”
“I hope I’m right about it.” Returning with the open bottles, she handed him one and clinked hers against it. “To muzzling Odette.” They both drank and she sat. “When will you go see her?”
“Tomorrow morning.” He took a large gulp. “And after that, I have a rehearsal for the wedding. From viciousness to joy. Such a contrast.”
God, she hoped her suggestion helped Raul shut down the horrible woman. She didn’t want Gabriel’s happiness marred by the terrible events from his past. “Does Gabriel know about Odette’s latest?”
“No, and I plan to keep it that way.” Raul’s gaze settled on her face. “Are you flying tomorrow?”
“Every day until the wedding. It’s one of Gabriel’s ways to thank the musicians who’ve played at DragonFest.” If only it kept her busy enough to stop remembering all the ways she’d touched and been touched by the man sitting next to her.
“Then I shouldn’t keep you,” he said, regret lacing his voice. That made her feel a little better about being kicked out ever so politely.
Using his cane, he levered himself to his feet, which meant she stood too.
For a moment, she allowed herself to just admire him, his perfectly cut shirt and trousers showing off the broad shoulders and long legs she had pressed herself against. When her eyes traveled back up to his face, she almost gasped.
His eyes were lit with a naked yearning that matched her own.
But neither of them could act on it.
“Buenas noches,” she said, plunking her bottle onto the table harder than she meant to.
Before he could speak, she bolted for the door.
“Erica!”
She pulled open the door and slid into the hallway.
Safe.