The Star Princess Page 16

  Ilana was at a loss how to reconcile this epiphany with her fear of falling for Ché. They’d just met. But the potential was there; she could feel it. And yet she feared it. Why? If she knew the root cause, why did the thought of commitment, of permanence, scare the stuffing out of her?

  Ché lowered his chin. The corners of his mouth looked to be fighting a smile. “Great Mother. Have I actually rendered you speechless?”

  At that, she staggered back to something resembling composure. “Dream on.”

  “Slang,” he reminded her.

  “It means that you are so, so wrong.”

  “I had that feeling.” He exhaled. “Ilana, I do not know how I can convince you of it, but I have no lack of desire for you. On the contrary.” His eyes blazed darkly. “I have had visions of making love to you since we first met, months ago. I want you, Ilana. Surely you can tell. But,” he said, “I am loath to squander my fantasies on one impulsive night.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Took a calming breath. He was going to talk her right into an orgasm if he kept this up. “When I said you were wrong, I meant the speechless part.”

  He blinked. She almost smiled. “Ah,” he said.

  To his credit, he acted unruffled. Then again, talking about sex did not embarrass the Vash.

  She rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. “If you’re worried that I’ll see you the same as the other guys, don’t. You’ve already pulled away from the pack. No one’s ever turned me down before. You’re the first. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting that—or you—anytime soon.”

  Again he gave her that helpless look.

  “It’s a compliment, Ché. And some humble pie, too. I figured you for the predictable one, not me. I…don’t know what to say. Other than I don’t like it—I don’t like being predictable. I won’t settle for being forgettable, either.”

  She picked up her glass of water, stepping backward to the nook’s entrance. At Ché’s raised eyebrow, she waved him forward. “Come on. At least four women are dying for your attention out there. You can’t spend all your time with me. We came here to have fun, and that’s what we’re going to do. Especially you.”

  “And you?” he asked.

  “Hell. Don’t worry about me. I always enjoy myself. Fun is my middle name. Now, go. Get out there and have a good time.”

  He dipped his head in that charming Vash way of his. “As you wish.”

  “That’s more like it.” When I make a bet, I don’t like to lose. Smiling wickedly, Ilana sashayed out of the nook.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Parked across the street from her condo in Ché’s Porsche, Ilana killed the ignition. The lovely hush of an upscale automobile surrounded them like a luxury cocoon.

  It was late, well after two a.m. They’d closed down Reach. After the nook, she’d avoided Ché, leaving the flirting to her girlfriends—that was why she’d invited them dancing in the first place—but at the end of the night, Ché had bade her friends farewell, leaving without promises for dates, without a single exchange of phone numbers. Maybe, despite her earlier coaching, he didn’t “get” how dating was done on Earth. The social scene was completely foreign to him. But she wouldn’t give up. She had a bet to win.

  Though he appeared unaffected by the alcohol, Ché had knocked back a number of drinks. So when it came time to leave, she’d offered to drive.

  She pulled the keys from the ignition and handed them over. “Cool car. Drives like a dream. Makes drinking fizzy water all night worth it. Almost.”

  Ché peered through the windshield into the misty night. “I will escort you inside, and then I would like to take a walk.” He turned to her. “If you don’t mind.”

  “I mind that you’ll be out alone. This is L.A., not the palace. It’s a fairly safe neighborhood, but it’s the middle of the night. The police don’t swing by that often.”

  “I have been trained since childhood in unarmed combat. I possess the martial skills with which to defend myself.”

  “Still, people have knives, guns. At night the beach is deserted.”

  He looked startled. “How did you know I will go to the beach?”

  “Where else would you go? We both love the ocean.”

  “Yes, we do.” His expression gentled. Ilana shifted in her seat. When he gazed at her like that, a feeling of lightheartedness and lightheadedness bubbled up inside her. It made her feel like a shaken Pepsi bottle with a tight cap. If she opened the lid and released her feelings, would Ché suck the bottle dry before throwing it away?

  Yuck. Pepsi bottles and exploding emotions and long-term commitment—whoa. She was getting way ahead of herself, and she was in too good a mood to live anywhere else but in the moment. She dropkicked the thought out of her mind.

  Now Ché had turned pensive, too. Maybe it was contagious. On the plus side, he didn’t mention anything else about going off into the night alone. It was really pretty funny, the way she was so protective with him, when his stature and fighting skills screamed Don’t mess with me.

  “My wife will likely be a desert girl,” he said. It took her a second to catch up to him. He was still thinking about the ocean. “Perhaps she will come to love the sea. But most of them do not, the princesses from desert worlds.”

  “Your homeworlds are pretty forbidding places, but not all of them are desert worlds, right?” There were eight Vash homeworlds. To the Vash they were symbols of the victory over the warlords of their dark past. Good over evil. They formed the moral fiber and unity of the Vash Nadah federation. “Look at Eireya.”

  The pleasure of good memories softened his features. He loved his home, she saw. “It is the most beautiful of all the worlds.”

  “It is. And how did you Vedlas pull that one off, by the way? How did you get the best planet?” The climate was temperate and rarely stormy. What wasn’t ocean was beach. The landscape reminded Ilana of a warmer Tasmania: green, achingly lovely, unspoiled. Of course, she wouldn’t have known anything about Eireya if she hadn’t done all that snooping months ago to find out more about the man she couldn’t get off her mind. “Connections?” she persisted in a light, teasing tone. “Good real estate agent?”

  He shook his head at her confusing implications. “The Vedla ancestral home predates the Federation, you see. My family has always lived on Eireya. We ruled the galaxy from there for so long that our origins are lost in history. Then, after losing the throne and being massacred down to only a few survivors, we helped reunite and stabilize the galaxy after the Great War. The Vedlas have to share power now, but we got to keep Eireya.” Ché’s triumphant smile made it seem as if the event had happened last week instead of eleven thousand years ago.

  “While the other seven warriors had to go looking for the nastiest real estate in the galaxy,” she supplied. In Basic, she quoted from the Treatise of Trade in a pompous voice, “ ‘The Original Warriors chose the most forbidding worlds, to lead by example, to prove their willingness to sacrifice for the good of the many.’”

  She shrugged off Ché’s startled delight and said, “I’ve built up a nice little repertoire of recitations from the Treatise of Trade. I don’t know why—I never have the chance to show off. My point is, you don’t know where your wife will be from. There are other climates.”

  “Only two. Eireya and Mistraal, which is covered in grasslands.”

  Ilana perked up. “Tee’ah’s from there.”

  “Yes,” he said dryly. “I know.”

  “Oops.” Ilana sank back in her seat. “I guess it will be a desert girl for you.”

  “My mother was from a desert world—a Lesok princess. She grew to tolerate the water, to my father’s relief, but I suspect it was the sandy beach she enjoyed. She watched us swim, my siblings, my father, and me, but she rarely waded in herself…”

  Ilana hung on the images he painted of a loving family, the glimpses of his privileged and sheltered childhood. “Your father was a king, but he still made time for his wife and k
ids. Count yourself lucky.”

  With obvious cultural pride, Ché reminded her, “Family binds my society together.”

  Maybe, she thought. But she suspected that his family’s closeness transcended the rules. “My mother pretty much raised us herself, Ian and me. My dad was an airline pilot. He used to pick up extra trips—for the money, he said—but the truth was that he liked flying more than he liked being home. My mom divorced him when I was a teenager.” Ilana spread her hands on her bare thighs, pretending to study the pale pink polish covering her short, manicured fingernails. Divorce didn’t happen amongst the Vash. There wasn’t even a word for it in the Basic language. “Since then, he’s remarried, had another kid, divorced, and remarried.” She glanced up at Ché. “The new wife’s pregnant.”

  “I know about your father, Ilana. Jock Hamilton.” A hint of a grimace curved his lips, as if the name itself left a bad taste. “I cannot stomach adultery. In my culture, when a man promises to be a woman’s protector, to worship her body, to father her children, he does not stray.” The dent in his jaw was back. It was a good barometer for his mood—his bad mood. “Your father left your mother with children.”

  “Ian and I were practically grown. A year later I was out of the house.”

  “You make excuses for him.”

  Anger flooded her. “He’s my father. Faults and all, I love him.”

  “And so you justify his behavior. You try to make him look better in the eyes of others.”

  “I don’t support what he did. It was wrong. But he’s not completely evil. He’s a good man. He just has…problems. Your culture tries to see everything as black and white, good or evil, right or wrong. Life’s not like that, Ché. It’s naïve to think it is.”

  To her amazement, he agreed. “I know what you try to do for your father, because I do the same for Klark. You have an adulterer father. I have a fanatical, xenophobic brother.”

  Ilana pushed hair off her forehead and studied him. She’d expected him to preach Vash gobbledygook.

  “I have lived what you have, Ilana, done what you have done. Many in the palace and Great Council viewed Klark’s ambition in my behalf as improper and brash. They frowned on him for it. At the same time, they admired him for his passionate support of me. It put me in a difficult position. It was difficult to disapprove without coming across as unappreciative. I often explained away the worst of his behavior—until he tried to sabotage Ian’s ascension to the throne and punish Tee’ah for breaking her promise to me. Then I could no longer make excuses. I had spent years propping up Klark’s reputation, even when his behavior appalled me.”

  “If they don’t look so bad,” she ventured, “then maybe we don’t look so stupid for loving them.”

  He pulled back, dismay making his features taut. “Great Mother. I hope not.”

  But she’d given him that doubt, made him question what she often saw in herself. Ché’s gaze turned introspective. He opened and closed his hands, his face contorted as if he were disgusted with himself. But he did not speak; he kept his emotions under tight control, a trait drilled into the Vash from birth. Yet, after spending time with Ché, Ilana could see that the Vash were in fact very emotional people. In private and only with those they trusted, her mother had told her. Now, Ilana understood.

  “So you say it is pride that drives us to defend them,” Ché said finally in an even tone.

  “I think so. There’s love, too, and that always makes everything more complicated. Nothing is ever black and white.”

  He gave a short, self-deprecating laugh, then relaxed. “I am beginning to believe it. This past year has introduced me to more shades of gray than I ever knew existed. As you said, I love my brother as you love your father: faults and all.”

  Then sudden realization flared in his eyes. “It seems we have more in common than our love of the ocean, Ilana.”

  She winced, squeezing the steering wheel. She wasn’t supposed to have anything in common with him. He was supposed to be all wrong for her. “I don’t know, Ché. It sounds very different to me. Klark did what he did to help you. But my father? I wish I could say he had a reason for being unfaithful, a reason for breaking apart the family, but he didn’t. He just couldn’t keep his pants on.”

  He gave her that Pepsi-bottle-shaking look again and leaned forward, resting his forearm on his thigh. A shadow fell across his face, muting his penetrating regard. “And you, Ilana? Can you keep your pants on?”

  She stiffened. “You’re one to talk! You and your harem.”

  Her outrage didn’t faze him. It was clear that he hadn’t asked the question to tease her; he very much wanted to hear her answer. And no matter how crazy it seemed, it was important to her, what he thought. It was the only reason she didn’t respond with a tart Screw you. “If you’re asking if I cheat, no, I don’t. It’s the ultimate act of betrayal. I know; I’ve lived it vicariously through my mother. I don’t do it, Ché. I never have. I just—I just don’t stick around very long. And there’s no law against that.”

  “They never gave you reason, your men, to ‘stick around.’”

  “What’s this? Are you making excuses for me now? Don’t bother. Klark keeps you busy enough.”

  Ché leaned forward. “I am saying that you deserve better. You deserve a man who will not let you go.” She caught the scent of his warm skin, of faint masculine sweat. His expression was so intense, she wanted to look away. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The conversation had taken a deeply personal turn, and she didn’t like it. It was one thing to talk about her father, quite another to reveal too much about herself.

  Don’t look under the bed if you don’t want to find dust bunnies. That was what she felt like telling him. But Ché was to dust bunnies as an open door was to a stuffy room. Without warning, he’d stomped inside her head. Now he was peering around as if he wanted to move in.

  Now, that was a frightening thought. Frightening but exhilarating, her inner voice whispered in her ear. Admit it, Hamilton. Or are you too scared?

  Ché moved closer. One big hand smoothed over her hair, revealing her face to him. Tingles cascaded down her spine, and she trembled at his forthright touch. “If you were mine, I would not let you go.”

  Suddenly there was no air left in the Porsche to breathe. “But I’m not yours.”

  “I know.” His fingers moved in her hair. Every time they did, she shivered. “We are wrong for each other. We were never supposed to meet. We were never supposed to”—His attention dropped to her mouth—“Kiss.”

  She swallowed her sigh as he bent his head to brush his lips over hers. A slow and tender exploration. Her tingles became a roaring blaze. Ché was a master; he could charm her even when she was angry, even when she was scared. But was he really that skillful? Or did she happen to be susceptible to him? Neither could be a good thing, she thought before his skill blanked out everything but his incredible mouth.

  She slid her arms over his shoulders, her head tipping back. His hard body trembled, muscles shifting. He came up and over her, groaning softly as he kissed her hard and deep, his fingers twisting in her hair. The surge of rightness inside her and the passion with which she returned the kiss made no sense at all. The righteous warrior and the barbarian princess—it sounded more like the title of a bad novel than any relationship that stood a chance of getting off the ground.

  He was the one who ended the kiss, not she. The realization left her dazed and unsettled. It was like waking in the middle of the night and not knowing where you were.

  Ché’s face hovered over hers, dark and serious. Before he could say anything, she pressed one finger to his lips. “Don’t make a bigger deal out of this than it is. I like to kiss and…well, you’re a great kisser. How would the Vash put it? We shared a little pleasure. That’s all.” She made her voice drop lower. “We could share more, if you want to.”

  He gazed at her in wonder, as if he’d never seen her before. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have sai
d he looked lovestruck, head over heels—or like someone who’d been hit over the head with a two-by-four.

  The change in him was unsettling. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. “Ché, let’s go inside. I’ll make you a drink. I’ll have one, too. Maybe three. How about a turkey sandwich? We’ve got lots of food now.” She wriggled out of the embrace—she’d had plenty of experience at that—and opened the car door. Cool, damp air swept into the Porsche, ruffling Ché’s dark, copper-gold hair.

  “You are a princess,” he said.

  “And we know what you are. But I thought we weren’t going to bring it up while you were here. I’m the tour guide and you’re the bodyguard, remember?”

  He simply watched her, intently. She felt like a deer in the sights of a game hunter’s rifle. “Ché, are you feeling okay? It’s jet lag, right? Or space lag or something.”

  “Or something,” he agreed without changing his absorbed expression. Hmm, his face said. He was deep in thought, plotting, picturing something from every angle.

  “Let’s go, Ché. You’re going right to bed.” She swung one leg out onto the pavement. Her heel scraped across the blacktop.

  He didn’t open his door. “We are both unattached,” he said.

  “Yep. Isn’t it grand? Now, come on.”

  “It could work, Ilana.”

  She gaped at him. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  He sputtered. “No. Certainly not. I was merely suggesting that a union between us could work.” He appeared to catch on to her question, and lifted a brow. “Why? Would you consider marriage? To me? This is all hypothetical, of course.”