Command Performance by Nora Roberts

sister will also be there.”
    “I can be grateful to have at least one reasonable person around.”
    “Eve, you go on the defensive before it’s necessary.”
    “Boy Scout motto.”
    “
Pardon?
”
    “Be prepared,” she said, and was amused enough to smile. “All right, then, I won’t pick a fight yet. Tomorrow’s another matter. I’m ready to go to the wall on this, Your Highness, and you’re going to find I’m not easy to beat.”
    “I’m aware of that already.” And he was already looking forward to it. “Perhaps it would be best if we agreed to keep our personal relationship separate from our work at the center.”
    She held her glass in her hand and tried to concentrate on the palace as they rode through the gates. It always gave her a sense of peace and security. But not this time. She shifted a bit in her seat. “We haven’t got a personal relationship.”
    “No?”
    When she turned her head she was surprised and a bit unnerved to see he was amused. She wasn’t going to find his smiles as easy to deal with as his scowls. “No. What happened the last time was …” Finding nodefinition available, she shrugged the attempt away.
    “Was unfortunate,” he finished, then took her empty glass and set it down. “Unfortunate that it occurred in that manner and ended poorly. Shall I apologize?”
    “No, I’d rather you didn’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Because then I’d have to accept your apology.” Taking a deep breath, she faced him directly. “If I don’t accept it, I’ll stay annoyed with you and it won’t happen again.”
    “There’s a flaw in your logic, Eve.” He continued to sit after the car stopped at the palace steps. Even when the driver opened the door, Alexander stayed where he was, watching her, compelling her to watch him. “You are most often annoyed with me, yet it did happen. But for the sake of your argument, I won’t apologize.”
    He stepped from the car and offered his hand, leaving her no choice but to accept it. “Somehow I think I was outmaneuvered,” she muttered.
    “You were.” Then he smiled, abruptly charming, and led her up the palace steps.
    She matched her steps with his, but for the first time found herself hesitating to pass through the large ornate doors of the palace. “I never considered you much of a game player, Your Highness.”
    “On the contrary, I enjoy games very much.”
    “Chess, fencing, polo.” She moved her shoulders restlessly. “Not people games.”
    Her scent was the same, the same as it had been the last time he’d seen her, touched her. The same scent that had awoken him in the middle of the night when she’d been thousands of miles away. “You called me a politician. What is politics but a people game?” The heavy door slid open soundlessly. Eve sent him a long, cautious look before she stepped inside.
    “My father wishes to see you. I’ll take you to him. Your bags should arrive shortly.”
    “All right.” She started up the steps beside him. “The prince is well?”
    “Yes.” He wouldn’t elaborate on her unspoken question. The Paris incident wasn’t a closed book, but one he thought best to leave untouched.
    Feeling the snub, Eve started the climb from the second to the third floor in silence. “You don’t want me to speak of what happened in Paris to your father.”
    “There’s no reason for you to speak of it.”
    “Of course not.” The words came out with the brittleness of hurt. “It was nothing to me, after all.” She swung up the last of the stairs and down the hall ahead of him, only to be forced to wait at the closed door that led to Prince Armand’s office.
    “Your emotions remain too close to the surface,” Alexander noted. He’d recognized this, even envied it, as a man who’d been forced year after year to keep his own buried. “That wasn’t said to offend you.”
    “No, you don’t have to deliberately try to offend.”
    “
Touché
,” he said with something close to a sigh.
    “I