LITMIR.BIZ

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that matched hers.

      But a less-likely prince had never been born, and he knew it.

      He hoped the clerk wouldn’t look up, because there might be something memorable about seeing a man blushing because his supposed lady friend had kissed him and used an odd endearment on him.

      Ronan didn’t make it worse by looking at her, but he felt a little stunned by the sweetness of her lips on his cheek, by the utter softness, the sensuality of a butterfly’s wings.

      “Oh, look,” she said softly, suddenly breathless. She was tapping a worn sign underneath the glass on the counter.

      “Motorcycles for rent. Hour, day, week.”

      It would be the last time he’d be able to use this credit card, so maybe, despite his earlier rejection of the idea, now was the time to change vehicles. Was it a genuinely good idea or had that spontaneous kiss on the cheek rattled him?

      He’d already nixed the motorcycle idea in his own mind. Why was he revisiting the decision?

      Was he losing his edge? Finding her just too distracting? He had to do his job, to make decisions based solely on what was most likely to bring him to mission success, which was keeping her safe. Getting stopped in a stolen car was not going to do that. Blending in with the thousands of tourists that scootered around this island made more sense.

      Since talking to Gray, he wondered if the whole point of the threats against the princess had been to stop the wedding, not harm her personally.

      But he knew he couldn’t let his guard down because of that. He had to treat the threat to her safety as real, or there would be too many temptations to treat it lightly, to let his guard down, to let her get away with things.

      “Please?” she said softly, and then she tilted her sunglasses down and looked at him over the rims.

      Her eyes were stunning, the color and depth of tropical waters, filled at this moment with very real pleading, as if she felt her life depended on getting on that motorcycle.

      Half an hour later, he had a backpack filled with their belongings, he had moved the car off the road into the thick shrubs beside it and he was studying the motorcycle. It was more like a scooter than a true motorcycle.

      He took a helmet from a rack beside the motorcycles.

      “Come here.”

      “I don’t want to wear that! I want to feel the wind in my hair.”

      He had noticed hardly anyone on the island did wear motorcycle helmets, probably because the top speed of these little scooters would be about eighty kilometers an hour. Still, acquiring the motorcycle felt a bit like giving in, and he was done with that. His job was to keep her safe in every situation. Life could be cruelly ironic, he knew. It would be terrible to protect her from an assassin and then get her injured on a motorbike.

      “Please, Charming?” she said.

      That had worked so well last time, she was already trying it again! It served him right for allowing himself to be manipulated by her considerable charm.

      She took off her sunglasses and blinked at him. He could see the genuine yearning in her eyes, but knew he couldn’t cave in. This was a girl who was, no doubt, very accustomed to people jumping to make her happy, to wrapping the whole world around her pinky finger.

      “Charming isn’t a good code name for me,” he said.

      “Why not?”

      “Because I’m not. Charming. And I’m certainly not a prince.” To prove both, he added, sternly, “Now, come here and put on the helmet.”

      “Are you wearing one?”

      He didn’t answer, just lifted his eyebrow at her, the message clear. She could put on the helmet or she could go home.

      Mutinously she snatched the straw hat from her head.

      He tried not to let his shock show. In those few unsupervised minutes while he had talked to Gray on the phone, she had gone to the washroom, all right, but not for the reason he had thought or she had led him to believe. Where had she gotten her hands on a pair of scissors? Or maybe, given the raggedness of the cut, she had used a knife.

      She was no hairdresser, either. Little chunks of her black hair stood straight up on her head, going every which way. The bangs were crooked. Her ears were tufted. There wasn’t a place where her hair was more than an inch and a half long. Her head looked like a newly hatched chicken, covered in dark dandelion fluff. It should have looked tragic.

      Instead, she looked adorable, carefree and elfish, a rebel, completely at odds with the conservative outfit he had picked for her. Without the distraction of her gorgeous hair, it was apparent that her bone structure was absolutely exquisite, her eyes huge, her lips full and puffy.

      “Where’s your hair?” he asked, fighting hard not to let his shock show. He shoved the helmet on her head quickly, before she had any idea how disconcerting he found her new look. His fingers fumbled on the strap buckle, he was way too aware of her, and not at all pleased with his awareness. The perfume he’d caught a whiff of at the wedding tickled his nostrils.

      “I cut it.”

      “I can clearly see that.” Thankfully, the mysteries of the helmet buckle unraveled, he tightened the strap, let his hands fall away. He was relieved the adorable mess of her hair was covered. “What did you do with it after you cut it?”

      Her contrite expression told him she had left it where it had fallen.

      “So, you did it for nothing,” he said sternly. “Now, when we’re traced this far, and we will be, they’ll find out you cut your hair. And they’ll be looking for a bald girl, easier to spot than you were before.”

      “I’m not bald,” she protested.

      “I’ve seen better haircuts on new recruits,” he said. She looked crestfallen, he told himself he didn’t care. But he was aware he did, just a little bit.

      “I’ll go back and pick up my hair,” she said.

      “Never mind. Hopefully no one is going to see you.”

      “Does it look that bad?”

      He could reassure her it didn’t, but that was something Prince Charming might do. “It looks terrible.”

      He hoped she wasn’t going to cry. She put her sunglasses back on a little too rapidly. Her shoulders trembled tellingly.

      Don’t be a jerk, he told himself. But then he realized he might be a lot safer in this situation if she did think he was a jerk.

      When had his focus switched from her safety to his own?

      Rattled, he pushed ahead. “I need you to think very carefully,” he said. “Is there a place on this island we can go where no one would find us for a week?”

      He tried not to close his eyes after he said it. A week with her, her new haircut and her new green bikini stuffed in the backpack. Not to mention the shorty-shorts, and a halter top that had somehow been among her purchases.

      He could see in her eyes she yearned for things that were forbidden to her, things she might not even be totally aware of, things that went far beyond riding on motorcycles and cutting her hair.

      Things her husband should be teaching her. Right this minute. He had no right to be feeling grateful that she had not been delivered into the hands of a man she’d dreaded discovering those things with.

      Instead she’d been delivered into his hands. One mission: keep her safe. Even from himself.

      Still, he was aware he was a warrior, not a saint. The universe was asking way too much of him.

      He turned from her swiftly, got on the motorcycle, persuaded it to life. He patted the seat behind him, not even looking at her.

      But not looking at her didn’t help. She slid

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