The Baron & The Bodyguard by Valerie Parv

Author:Valerie Parv
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Unable to contain her energy, Jacinta paced up and down Mathiaz’s office. He didn’t really mind. In short shorts the color of clotted cream, she moved with the grace of a young deer.

Her filmy floral top looked as if it was made from a scarf wound around her neck, hiding the fading bruises from her brush with the intruder. The scarf crossed in front over her breasts before being tied in back. As she paced, she revealed tantalizing sections of golden skin where the scarf pulled away from the shorts at her waist.

Mathiaz wondered idly if a tug on the knotted end would unravel the scarf, then chased the thought from his mind. In Jacinta’s present mood, she was more likely to bite his head off than to welcome his touch.

“I don’t understand. The man I saw at the Heritage Center was Zenio,” she insisted.

Mathiaz laced his fingers together on the desk top and looked down at them, trying to concentrate, which he found hard to do while watching her. “Palace security has kept tabs on him since you thought you recognized him during the break-in. According to them, during the time we were at the Heritage Center yesterday, he was taking his wife and new baby to the hospital for a checkup.”

Anger flared through her. “Since I thought I recognized him?”

He looked up. “I’m sure you believe you saw him both times, Jac.”

“Evidently you don’t.”

He didn’t like being the target of her anger. “My opinion doesn’t matter. He had a watertight alibi.”

“Alibis can be faked.”

“Not with the staff at the hospital as witnesses to his whereabouts the first time, and the security detail the second.” The baron let his voice crackle with annoyance. “This has gone on long enough. Andre Zenio stalked me once, but he was caught and paid the price. He earned his parole. The man is entitled to get on with his life without being under constant suspicion.”

She placed her hands flat on his desk, the pose straining the scarf wrap to the limit and making him drag in a choked breath. “Someone planted that bomb at the Treasury.”

A hint of orchid perfume wafted over him, making him want to wrap his arms around her and kiss away her annoyance. He reined in the impulse. “Obviously. That’s why the police and our own security people are working to find the culprit. Obsessing about Andre Zenio isn’t going to help.”

Her eyes slitted. “So you think I’m obsessing, do you?”

This conversation wasn’t going the way he’d planned it. When he awoke this morning, Mathiaz had intended to invite Jacinta to be his guest at tonight’s fireworks display to lead off tomorrow’s Journey Day holiday, the Carramer festival commemorating the unification of the islands into one kingdom.

Mathiaz’s cousin, Josquin and his family, and Mathiaz’s brother, Eduard, home on leave from the navy, would be in the party. Mathiaz had had some thought of getting his family used to the idea that Jacinta was becoming more to him than a bodyguard, if they hadn’t already guessed.

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