Free The Playboy Prince by Nora Roberts

don’t travel without your security or an assistant.”
    “Whenever possible. My secretary will be in the car behind us. Let’s give them a run, shall we?” He switched on the ignition. From the rich sound under the hood, Hannah decided it was filled with engine. Before she could draw a breath, Bennett sent the car speeding down the long, sedate drive. He drove the way he rode a stallion. Full speed.
    “They’re muttering already, I imagine.” He gave the guards at the gates an easy salute. “If Claude had his way, I’d never go over thirty kilometers. I’d also be closed up in a bulletproof limo wearing a suit of armor.”
    “It’s his job to protect you.”
    “A pity he has so little humor about it.” Bennett downshifted, then sent the car squeaking around a curve.
    “Did your grandfather live a long and fruitful life?”
    “What?”
    “Your grandfather,” Hannah repeated as she folded her hands neatly in her lap. “I wondered if he lived a long life. It seems unlikely if he drove like this.”
    The wind was blowing his hair around his face as he turned his head to grin at her. “Trust me,
ma belle
, I know the roads.”
    She didn’t want him to slow down. It was the first time she’d felt true freedom in months. She’d nearly forgotten how sweet it tasted. The sea shimmered blue and white beside the road as they traveled down from the heights of the capital. Palms twisted their way toward the sky, bending and swaying in the stiff breeze. Lush red flowers burst out of bushes that grew helter-skelter along the roadside. The air smelled of sea and perpetual spring.
    “Do you ski?” Bennett asked her as he noticed her watching a man glide over the water behind a low-slung boat.
    “I never have.” It looked wonderful. “I’m sure you have to be fairly athletic. I’m more at home in libraries.”
    “One can’t read all the time.”
    She watched the skier take a somersaulting tumble into the water. “I think perhaps I can.”
    Bennett grinned and roared though a lazy S-turn. “Life’s hardly worth the trouble without a few spills. Don’t you ever have the urge for adventure, Hannah?”
    She thought of the last ten years of her life, of the assignments that had taken her from castles to ghettos and everywhere in between. French alleys. Italian waterfronts. She thought of the small-caliber pistol she carried in her bag and the pencil-slim stiletto tucked like a lover against her thigh.
    “I suppose I’ve always preferred my adventures vicariously, through books.”
    “No secret dreams?”
    “Some of us are exactly what we seem.” Suddenly uncomfortable, she shifted away from the topic. “I didn’t realize you were a naval officer.” Another lie, she thought. But her profession was built on them.
    “I served a couple of years. At this point, it’s more of an honorary rank. Second sons are traditionally bound for the military.”
    “So you chose the navy.”
    “Cordina’s surrounded by the sea. Our fleet is smaller than yours, certainly, but it’s strong.”
    “And these are uneasy times.”
    Something came and went in his eyes. “In Cordina we’ve learned that all times are uneasy times. We’re a peaceful country, and because we want to remain so, we’re prepared always for war.”
    She thought of the pretty white palace with its exotic gardens and fairy-tale turrets. Inaccessible by sea, with a cliff-top view that scanned miles with the naked eye. She sat back as the sea rolled by. Nothing ever was as simple as it seemed.
    Le Havre was charming. Nestled at the base of a long hill, it clustered together with small white-washed buildings and clapboard cottages. Fishing and sail boats swayed quietly at neat docks at one curve of the harbor. Around the seawall of old stone, hardy blue flowers pushed their way through cracks. There were lobster traps and nets spread and drying in the sun. The scent of fish was heady and oddly pleasant in the early morning air.
    At a glance, it could