The Playboy Prince by Nora Roberts

less of a prince then. I can’t say I have the sea in my blood the way Captain Dumont does, but it isn’t something I’ll forget.”
    “What is it you remember best?” she asked before she caught herself.
    “Watching the sun rise at sea or better, riding out a storm. God, we went through one off Crete. The waves were a fifty-foot wall. The wind was like the wrath of God, so loud, so enormous that you could shout in someone’s ear and not be heard. No sky, only water, wall after wall of it. An experience like that changes you.”
    “How?”
    “It makes you realize that no matter who you are, what you are, there’s something bigger, greater. Nature’s a powerful equalizer, Hannah. Look at her now.” With one hand he gestured toward the sea as he negotiated another curve. “Calm, almost impossibly beautiful. A hurricane doesn’t make her less beautiful, only more dangerous.”
    “It sounds as though you prefer the danger.” She understood that, perhaps too well.
    “At times. Danger’s its own seduction.”
    She could say nothing to that. It was something she had learned herself years before.
    With the briefest of signals to the car behind him, Bennett pulled over. “At the moment I prefer the calm.” He got out of the convertible, ignoring the guard who stood anxiously by the hood of the trailing car. “Walk with me on the beach, Hannah.” He opened her door and held out a hand. “I promised Marissa some shells.”
    “Your security doesn’t look pleased.” Nor was she when she noticed how open they were.
    “They’d only be pleased if I were sitting in a bulletproof globe. Come now, Hannah, didn’t you tell me sea air was good for the constitution?”
    “Yes.” She laid her hand in his. He was safe, after all, as long as she played her part and played it well. “You’ll have to find shells big enough that they can’t be swallowed. At Marissa’s age, children tend to eat theoddest things.”
    “Always practical.” With an easy laugh, he lifted her by the waist over the low seawall. He saw her gaze focus over his shoulder and knew a guard would be following at a discreet distance. “You should take your shoes off, Hannah. You’ll only get sand in them.”
    It was the practical thing to do, of course. The logical thing. Hannah tried to tell herself she wasn’t shedding part of her cover along with the pumps. “You must have some fascinating coral formations in these waters.”
    “Do you scuba?”
    “No,” she lied. “I’m not a very strong swimmer. I went to a marine exhibit in London a few years ago. Until then, I had no idea what an incredible variety of shells there were, or how valuable they can be.”
    “Lucky for me Marissa has simple tastes.” With his hand on hers, he walked to the sea edge. “A couple of clam shells, and she’ll be delighted.”
    “It’s kind of you to think of her.” He
was
kind, she thought. That itself was one of the most difficult things to overlook. “You seem to be a great favorite among your nieces and nephews.”
    “Oh, I suppose that’s because I don’t mind making a fool of myself now and then in a game. How about this one?” Bending, he picked up a long spiral that had broken off a larger shell and been worn smooth by the ebb and flow of the sea. At the top of the curve was a peaked cap that looked almost like a crown.
    “Very suitable,” Hannah commented when he handed it to her.
    “Marissa doesn’t care for suitable. She prefers pretty.”
    “It is pretty.” With a smile, Hannah ran a finger along the curve that went from pale amber to polished pink. “She should have it in her windowsill where the sun would hit it. Oh look.” Forgetting herself, she stepped into the surf and pried out an unbroken scallop shell. It was shaped like a fan, bone-white on one side, opalescent pink inside its shallow bowl. “You could tell her that fairies take their biscuits in it when they have tea.”
    “So Hannah believes in fairies,” he