LITMIR.BIZ

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She turned to look at Hawk. “I mean if you don’t have an issue with a woman teaching you.”

      “No, I’d like that.”

      “Hey, Wayne could train the newbie and then you could be my partner,” Bob suggested.

      “The newbie would prefer to partner his new friend.” It was the only way the princess was getting out on the water. A bodyguard could hardly do his job from the shore or another boat.

      “Oh, I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to talk about you like you weren’t there.” Lina’s doelike eyes shone with genuine repentance. “I hate it when people do that to me.”

      He supposed, considering the strongly conservative and male centered family she came from, she’d had a lot of experience with it, too. “No problem.” But the look he gave Bob told the other man not to mess with him.

      From the expression on the college boy’s face, he got the message, but didn’t look happy about it. Again Hawk wondered if the relationship between Bob and Lina was closer than merely friends with a mutual interest in kayaking.

      “Look, I’ll sign you both up, but I’ll need your contact details,” Bob said to Hawk. “I’ve got Lina’s. In fact, I already signed you up, babe. I was going to bring you the info sheet in World Politics.”

      Lina smiled at Bob, her eyes lit with gratitude and excitement. “You’re the best. Thanks.”

      Bob slipped his backpack off his shoulder and dug out a notebook. “Here, just put your stuff in here.” He didn’t let go of the notebook when Hawk reached for it, though. “You are a student here, right? This trip is only open to students at the university.”

      Lina frowned, but her expression cleared when Sebastian said, “I’m in the MBA program across the street.”

      “Oh. Okay then.” Bob let go of the notebook.

      Hawk took it and flipped through the pages until he came to a list of names under a handwritten title, “Kayaking Trip.” He pulled his pen out of his pocket and took pictures of the list of names under the guise of clicking the pen open. He added his name and cover contact information to the bottom of the list.

      He would have someone at Hawk Investigations run a report on the names on the list to make sure none of them represented a threat to Lina’s safety.

      He wondered how she planned to dupe her bodyguard for an entire weekend, but he had no doubt, whatever her plan was, she would succeed. A princess who had managed to become an expert kayaker while going to the exclusive boarding school she had attended without her family’s knowledge was adept at getting around their strictures for her life.

      Bob looked at his watch and then at Lina. “We’ve got almost an hour before class. Do you want to get coffee with me at the Starbucks on State Street?”

      She bit her bottom lip and looked sideways at Hawk, then nodded. “Can we get our coffee at the cafeteria, though? I need to pick something up at the library before class.”

      Hawk almost laughed out loud. She had to pick something up all right…her bodyguard. “You don’t mind if I tag along, do you?” he asked. “I could use a cup of coffee myself.”

      Lina’s mouth curved into another blinding smile. “No, of course not. You’ll have to let me buy, though. It’s the least I can do after running into you in the quad.”

      “You’re the one that ended up on the floor. I think I should buy.”

      Bob shook his head. “Whoever wants to buy, let’s go. I need my fix of caffeine.”

      “Were you up studying late again last night?” Lina asked him.

      “You could call it that.”

      She smacked his arm lightly. “You are so bad. Who was it this time? The sexy sorority girl with a boyfriend at a different school or the gymnast?”

      “I’m not seeing the gymnast anymore. Her coach told her one more late night and lack of focus the next day and she was off the team.”

      So, Bob was a player. And Lina knew it. The question was, did he plan on adding Lina to his list of conquests? Not on Hawk’s watch, he wouldn’t. Her family had hired his agency to see to her safety and he would do so. On every front. What she and the jock-boy did when Hawk finished with the case was not his problem.

      He studiously ignored the tightening in his gut that occurred at that particular thought.

      The student cafeteria coffee wasn’t bad. They even had an espresso machine. Not that Hawk drank specialty coffees, but both Lina and Bob did and from the hum of pleasure Lina emitted as she took her first sip, Hawk assumed it was good. He’d won the argument about him paying, but then he had expected to.

      He wasn’t in the habit of losing—at anything.

      “Are you going to the environmental demonstration tonight?” Bob asked Lina as he leaned back in his chair, his gaze following a curvy coed cross the dining room.

      “I’m not sure, but I’ll try to be there.”

      “There’s a rumor the Young Republicans are going to show up to heckle us.”

      “Well, if they do, they’ll be heckling half their membership. Environmentalism isn’t the partisan issue big politicians say it is. There are conservationists on both sides.”

      “If you say so.”

      “You know I do.”

      “Are you a political science student?” Hawk asked Lina, already knowing the answer, but wanting to get her to tell him more about herself. How much honesty was she willing to give?

      “We both are,” Bob answered for her. “Lina’s a fence-sitter, though. She won’t identify with either of our major parties.”

      Lina simply shrugged, but didn’t mention what Hawk assumed was her real reason for not identifying with either party. She was a citizen of Marwan, not the United States.

      “I’m not a Young Republican and it kills my dad.” Bob’s satisfied smirk said a lot about why he leaned to the left politically.

      Lina sighed and shook her head. “I swear you go to the rallies simply out of reactionary rebellion.”

      “Didn’t you tell me once that you decided to study politics because your dad told you not to?” Bob asked pointedly.

      The princess nodded, not looking the least bit phased. “It was a little more complicated than that, but his negative reaction to my interest in the subject did spur me on. However, how I react to what I’ve learned in my studies is the result of personal convictions. I hold beliefs different from my family, but not because I want to get a rise out of my dad. I doubt he’d even deign to notice, but my family’s political beliefs have had a strong and sometimes negative impact on my life.”

      “In what way?” Bob asked.

      Lina merely shook her head and changed the subject. Apparently Bob was not a close enough friend to be aware of Lina’s position as daughter to a desert king.

      CHAPTER TWO

      OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Hawk learned that, though Lina could be described as nothing less than involved, she had no friends that knew the truth about her. In fact, while she had many people she spent time with, she had none Hawk would classify as close friends period. At least the report about her he had received had been correct in that regard. Even if it had been wrong about so much else.

      And nothing in the report had prepared him for the growing attraction between them. He had thought it would be something he could use to stay close to her, but discovered quickly that it was far more a detriment than a benefit in regard to doing his job.

      How could he protect her when he was distracted by how her ebony hair shone in the sunlight? His fascination with her waist-length hair had

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