Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 Read Online Free PDF

going to get tested only to find out the worst. I’m not. As long as I don’t put anyone else in danger…”
    “But what about putting yourself in danger?” Emmaline’s voice was soft. “We don’t want anything to happen to you.”
    “It won’t,” Nicki said. “Especially if Stefan is on the boat.” She smiled. “If he had to rescue me, I’d never live it down.”
    Lauren snorted. “Okay, but let’s say you have a dizzy spell or your heart starts to react to something scary or intense. Your pulse goes up, right? What happens then?”
    “I faint,” Nicki shrugged. “That’s it, so far. If anything worse ever happened, I’d get tested—really, I would. But it’s never gone beyond a momentary blackout, I swear. No one’s even cracked out an AED around me.”
    “That might not work anyway,” Fran put in. “A defibrillator is meant to re-start a malfunctioning heart, not a dying one.”
    Nicki let the shiver roll through her at the idea that her heart muscle could possibly be dying, but kept her expression strong and steady—like she needed to be. “There you go. So there’s no point in worrying about it. Besides, if Stefan gets a hint that I might not be a hundred percent physically fit, there’s no way he’d let me go along on this mission. None.”
    Emmaline sighed. “And it’s that important for you to go?” Her question was quiet, but it drew the attention of all the girls to her.
    Nicki hesitated. They couldn’t understand, she knew. They’d never had a fear that they were…fundamentally different. Fundamentally unreliable. Nicki’d overcome that fear with a college life and new career filled with solo adventures and living on people’s couches, never attaching, never committing. But this…
    “It is,” she finally said, and was surprised to find her words equally soft. “I just…I really want to be a part of this.” To be a part of something that mattered. Something that her body couldn’t hold her back from.
    “Well, then you should go,” Fran said, her calm voice easing the tension again. “You’ll just have to be smart.”
    “They’re meeting now, you know,” Emmaline said, pursing her lips as she glanced at her phone. “I’m sure they’ll be talking about you, Nicki. Making their final decisions.”
    Nicki stood, eager for any reason to move again. “Well, then maybe I should go listen in,” she said.

    “There is absolutely no chance I’m going to let her come with us.” Stefan placed the dossier on the table in front of him. He didn’t lean forward; he didn’t lean back. This was not a negotiation; it was a simple point of fact. A point he’d made six times already, by his count.
    Cyril turned from scanning the monitors. They were in the palace’s main conference room. He addressed Dimitri, the last person to deal with an American targeted by outside forces. “Had you to do it over again, would you have taken Lauren to Miranos?”
    “No,” Dimitri rumbled. “We went there because we did not understand the lengths to which her insane ex would go. Had I known he was so deadly, and deranged, we would not have left the mainland. I would have put her in a safe house and sat on it.” He grimaced. “I agree with Stefan. It is too dangerous to take an American into Turkey. Even one with a reason to be there.”
    “A very good reason,” Cyril observed blandly. “Unlike any of us.” He pointed to the screens. “Nicole Clark was actually bylined last year at the Alaçati competition. She competed deep into the tournament before falling out of the running, then continued on in her journalistic role.”
    “Adventure blogging is not journalism,” Stefan snapped. “She has none of the training of an international correspondent, she simply has a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection.” Stefan scowled. “It is not her credentials, though they are nonexistent. I will grant you her experience in windsurfing and her presence at last year’s tournament are