Prince Incognito Read Online Free PDF Page B

across the hall if you need anything. You might want to lock yourself in the room. Don’t trust my father.”
    “Thank you.” He took a step forward, intending to shake her hand.
    She shrank back against the door frame.
    “I haveno intention of hurting you.” He assured her quickly, wishing he had evidence to back up his claim. “I don’t think I’m dangerous.”
    Her eyes flickered across the breadth of his shoulders, to the thick biceps that stretched the sleeves of the T-shirt he wore, up to his full height, towering over her in the close confines of the stateroom. “I think—” a tremor cut through her words “—you couldbe plenty dangerous, if you wanted to be.”
    He lowered his head. She had an excellent point. His powerful physique indicated that he lived a lifestyle that required him to be strong. Did that mean he was dangerous? Her uncle and her father thought so.
    “Thank you for everything—” he began, startled by the sound of someone knocking on the other side of the heavily lacquered mahogany door.
    Lillian looked concerned and stepped away from the door to make room to open it.
    As she did so, the door swung open, virtually eliminating any open floor space in the tiny room. He shrank back, intending to get out of her way, but she must have had the same thought, because she stumbled into him and he reached out to steady her just as the door swung open.
    Lily’s father stoodon the other side, his face red up to his receding hairline, his eyes bulging with anger.
    Lily shuffled away, but the move only made her look that much more guilty as she disentangled herself from his arms.
    “Lillian,” her father seethed. “What are you doing?”
    She opened her mouth to answer.
    He raised one hand, silencing her as he addressed the soldier. “Who are you?”
    “I don’t know,” he admitted.
    “He’s lost his memory from the blasts,” Lily explained. “But he could regain it at any time.”
    Lily’s father shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. This man is coming with me.”
    “Why? Where?” Lillian looked as though she might try to step between them.
    “Your uncle David would like to see him.” Her father grabbed the soldier by his arm. “On deck.Now.”
    He could have fought the older man, but having just assured Lillian that he wasn’t dangerous, he didn’t figure he ought to strike her father. That left him with no choice but to walk in the direction he was shoved.
    “Stay in your room, Lily.”
    “No.” The stubborn woman trailed them both up onto the deck.
    For one disorientated moment, he thought perhaps a storm had blownup. Then he recognized the familiar sound of a military helicopter’s pulsing rotors.
    He tensed, all his instincts telling him there was danger in the darkness.
    A man stepped into the dim circle of light provided by a fixture next to the pilothouse door. Other than the military uniform he wore, and his hair more salt than pepper, he looked like Lillian’s father.
    The uniformedman—apparently Lily’s uncle David—spoke. “You tried to run away. That was foolish.” He raised a hand, gesturing to somewhere beyond them.
    Four uniformed men stepped from the shadows—soldiers, with guns slung across their backs. They stepped toward him as though to apprehend him.
    His heart pounded. Should he fight them or go nicely? He didn’t even know who he was—how was he supposedto know how to respond to these men?
    “No!” Lillian screamed from behind him, pushing her way between him and the men who approached.
    The soldiers reacted, two of them lunging toward him, two others rushing her, intention to harm spelled across their features and their postures.
    He made up his mind instantly. He couldn’t let them hurt Lillian.
    Whipping his boot around ina high-round kick, he sent the nearest two soldiers sprawling.

THREE
    L illian staggered back, as the soldier who’d rescued her from the sea dispatched a flurry of kicks at the soldiers who swarmed the deck of