Affaire Royale by Nora Roberts

morning?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sit.” With an impatient gesture he motioned toward a chair. Protocol be damned, he wasn’t ready to sit himself. “How is she?”
    Reeve took a seat and watched the prince walk around the room with the same nervous grace his daughter had. “Physically, I’d say she’s bouncing back fast. Emotionally, she’s holding on because she’s determined to. Her secretary’s briefing her on names and faces at the moment. She intends to keep her schedule, starting today.”
    Armand drank half his coffee, then set the cup down. He’d already had too much that morning. “And you’ll go with her?”
    Reeve sipped his coffee. It was dark and rich and hot. “I’ll go with her.”
    “It’s difficult—” Armand broke off, struggling with some emotion. Anger, sorrow, frustration? Reeve couldn’t be quite sure. “It’s difficult,” he repeated, but with perfect calm, “to stand back and do little, give little. You came at my request. You stayed at my request. And now I find myself jealous that you have my daughter’s trust.”
    “‘Trust’ might be a bit premature. She considers me useful at the moment.” He heard the annoyance in his voice and carefully smoothed it over. “I can give her information about herself without drawing on her emotions.”
    “Like her mother, she has many of them. When she loves, she loves completely. That in itself is a treasure.”
    Armand let his coffee cool as he walked around to sit at his desk. It was an official move, of that Reeve wascertain. Imperceptibly he came to attention. “Last evening Bennett pointed out to me that I may have put you in an awkward position.”
    Reeve sipped his coffee, outwardly relaxed, inwardly waiting. “In what way?”
    “You’ll be at Gabriella’s side, privately and publicly. Being who she is, Brie is photographed often. Her life is a subject for discussion.” The prince picked up a smooth white rock that sat on his desk. It just fitted in the palm of his hand; it was a rock his wife had found years before on a rocky beach. “With my thoughts centered around Gabriella’s safety and her recovery, I hadn’t considered the implications of your presence.”
    “As to my … place in Gabriella’s life?”
    Armand’s lips curved. “It’s a relief not to have to explain everything with delicacy. Bennett’s young, and his own affairs are lovingly described in the international press.” There seemed to be a mixture of pride and annoyance. A parent’s fate, Reeve thought with some amusement. He’d seen it in his father often enough. “Perhaps that’s why this occurred to him first.”
    “I’m here for Her Highness’s security,” Reeve commented. “It seems simple enough.”
    “For the ruler of Cordina to have asked a former policeman, an American policeman, to guard his daughter, is not simple. It would, perhaps rightly, be considered an insult. We’re a small country, Reeve, but pride is no small thing.”
    Reeve sat silently a moment, weighing, considering. “Do you want me to leave?”
    “No.”
    Relief. It shouldn’t be what he was feeling, certainly not so intensely. But his hand on the cup relaxed. “I can’t change my nationality, Armand.”
    “No.” His answer was just as brief. He passed the rock into his other hand. “It would be possible, however, to change your position in such a way that would allow you to remain close to Gabriella without causing the wrong kind of speculation.”
    This time it was Reeve who smiled. “As a suitor?”
    “Again you make it easy for me.” Armand sat back, studying the son of his friend. Under less complicatedcircumstances, he might have approved of a match between Reeve and his daughter. He couldn’t deny he had hoped Brie would marry before this, and that he’d purposely tossed her together with members of British royalty and gentry, eligible men of the French aristocracy. Still, the MacGees had an impressive lineage and a flawless reputation. He