Affaire Royale by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

the family. Though not a close enough friend, Brie remembered, that he knew her well. He had his own life in America. Had she been there? He’d said she had.
    She lay there, willing her mind to open. Only impressions came to her. Stately marble buildings and long formal dinners. And a river, a river with lush green grass on its banks and much boat traffic. It tired her, she discovered, to push herself to remember something even so unimportant. Still, she thought she’d been to Reeve’s country.
    Concentrate on him, Brie told herself. If he were to be any help to her she had to understand him. Good-looking, she thought, and very smooth on the outside. She wasn’t so sure about what lay within. He seemed to her a man who would be ruthless and solitary, a man who did things in his own style. Good, she thought. That was precisely what she needed.
    He had no reason, as her family did, to want to shield her. Nor did he have a reason, she added with a frown, to give her the help she wanted. Perhaps he’d agreed only to keep close to her so that he could do the jobher father had commissioned him for. Bodyguard, she thought with annoyance. She wanted no one’s shadow falling over hers.
    And yet, Brie continued as she dipped the sponge into the water, isn’t that what she’d asked for herself when she’d spoken to him? Because she’d felt … what, when she’d seen him standing in the hall? Relief. It shamed her to admit it. Her family had been there, concerned and loving, and yet she’d felt an overwhelming sense of relief seeing a stranger standing behind them.
    Perhaps it was better that she’d forgotten herself. Brie threw down the sponge so that water splashed up and hit the side of the porcelain. How was she to know if she would like the woman she was? She might easily find herself to be someone cold, unfeeling, selfish. All she had discovered was that she was a woman who liked beautiful clothes and manicures. Perhaps she was just that shallow.
    But they loved her. Brie picked up the sponge again to press it against her face. The water was hot and smelled like an expensive woman. The love she’d seen in her family’s eyes had been real. Would they love her if she didn’t deserve it? How long would it take to discover what depths there were in her?
    Passions. She remembered the flare she’d felt when Reeve had kissed her hand. It had been sharp and raw and stunning. Didn’t that mean she had normal feminine needs? But had she ever acted on them? With a half laugh, Brie lay her head back and closed her eyes. How many women could honestly say they didn’t know if they were innocent or not?
    Would he know? Would a man like Reeve sense such things about a woman? Sometimes when he looked at her Brie felt him reaching inside and finding nerves no stranger had a right to find. Now when she thought of him, she wondered what it would be like to have him touch her—really touch her. Fingertips against the skin, palm against flesh. She felt the arousal start deep, and let it work through her.
    Was this a new experience? Brie wondered as she pressed a hand to her stomach. Had other men made her feel so … hungry? Were there other men who had sent her mind to wandering, imagining, dreaming? Perhaps she was a careless sort of woman who desired a man just because he was a man. Was she a woman a man would desire?
    Rising from the tub, she let the water cascade from her. Reeve had been right about the possible advantages of her situation. She could watch and observe what reactions she brought to others. Tonight she would.
    *   *   *
    On the arm of her father, Brie walked down the long stairway. There’d be cocktails in the
petit salon
, he’d told her, but hadn’t added he’d come for her because she wouldn’t know the way. He did pause at the base of the stairs to kiss her hand. It was a gesture much like Reeve’s, but brought her a smile rather than excitement.
    “You look lovely, Brie.”
    “Thank you. But it