t was nearly two-thirty in the morning before Veronica left the planning meeting.

All of the power players had been there—Senator McKinley, whose million-dollar smile had long since faded; Henri Freder, the Ustanzian Ambassador; Admiral Forrest, the salty-looking military man Veronica had met several weeks ago at an embassy function in Paris; stern-faced Kevin Laughton, the Federal Intelligence Commission agent in charge of security; and Prince Tedric’s four chief aides.

It had been decided that Prince Tedric should be spirited away from the hotel to a safe house where he’d be guarded by FInCOM agents and Ustanzian secret service men. The American sailor, Joe Catalanotto, would simply move into Tedric’s suite of rooms on the tenth floor, thus arousing no suspicion among the hotel staff and guests—or even among the prince’s own lesser servants and assistants, who would not be told of the switch.

After convincing the prince to give Veronica St. John a chance to work with the sailor, McKinley had gotten the ball rolling. Prince Tedric was gone, much to everyone’s relief.

Veronica and the prince’s main staff were working to reschedule the beginning of the tour. The idea was to organize a schedule that would require Joe to have the least amount of contact with diplomats who might recognize that he was not the real prince. And the FInCOM agents put in their two cents worth, trying to set up times and places for Joe to appear in public that would provide the assassins with an obvious, clear target without putting Joe in more danger than necessary.

“Where’s Catalanotto?” Admiral Forrest kept asking. “He should be here. He should be part of this op’s planning team.”

“With all due respect, Admiral,” Kevin Laughton, the FInCOM chief, finally said, “it’s better to leave the strategizing to the experts.” Laughton was a tall man, impeccably dressed, with every strand of his light brown hair perfectly in place. His blue eyes were cool, and he kept his emotions carefully hidden behind a poker face.

“In that case, Mr. Laughton,” Forrest said tartly, “Catalanotto should definitely be here. And if you paid close attention, sir, you might even learn a thing or two from him.”

“From a navy lieutenant?”

“Joe Cat is a Navy SEAL, mister,” Forrest said.

There was that word again. SEAL.

But Laughton didn’t look impressed. He looked put-upon. “I should’ve known this was going too smoothly,” he said tiredly. He turned to Forrest. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the expression, Admiral: Too many cooks spoil the broth?”

The admiral fixed the younger man with a decidedly fishlike stare. “This man is going to be your bait,” he said. “Can you honestly tell me that if your roles were reversed, you wouldn’t want in on the planning stages?”

“Yes,” Laughton replied. “I can.”

“Bulldinky.” Forrest stood. He snapped his fingers and one of his aides appeared. “Get Joe Cat down here,” he ordered.

The man fired off a crisp salute. “Yes, sir.” He turned sharply and disappeared.

Laughton was fuming. “You can’t pull rank on me. I’m FInCOM-”

“Trust me, son,” Forrest interrupted, sitting down again and rocking back in his chair. “See these dohickeys on my uniform? They’re not just pretty buttons. They mean when I say ‘stop,’ you stop. And if you need that order clarified, I’d be more than happy to call Bill and have him explain it to you.”

Veronica bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling. By Bill, the admiral was referring to the President. Of the United States. The look on Kevin Laughton’s face was not a happy one.

The admiral’s young aide returned and stood patiently at attention just behind Forrest’s chair. Forrest tipped his head to look up at him, giving him permission to speak with a nod.

“Lieutenant Catalanotto is unable to attend this meeting, sir,” the aide said. “He’s getting a tooth capped, and… something done with his hair, sir. I think.”

“Thank you, son,” Forrest said. He stood, pushing his chair back from the conference table. “In that case, I suggest we adjourn and resume in the morning, when Lieutenant Catalanotto can attend.”

“But-”

The admiral fixed Laughton with a single look. “Don’t make me make that phone call, mister,” he said. “I may have phrased it kind of casually, but my suggestion to adjourn was an order.” He straightened and picked up his cane. “I’m going to give you a little hint, Laughton, a hint that most folks usually learn the first day of basic training. When an officer gives an order, the correct response is, ‘Yes, sir. Right away, sir.’”

He glanced around the table, giving Veronica a quick wink before he headed toward the door.

She gathered up her papers and briefcase and followed, catching up with him in the corridor.

“Excuse me, Admiral,” she said. “I haven’t had time to do any research—I haven’t had time to think—and I was hoping you could clue me in. What exactly is a SEAL?”

Forrest’s leathery face crinkled into a smile. “Joe’s a SEAL,” he said.

Veronica shook her head. “Sir, that’s not what I meant.”

His smile became a grin. “I know,” he said. “You want me to tell you that a Navy SEAL is the toughest, smartest, deadliest warrior in all of the U.S. military. Okay. There you have it. A SEAL is the best of the best, and he’s trained to specialize in unconventional warfare.” His smile faded, giving his face a stern, craggy cast. “Let me give you an example. Lieutenant Catalanotto took six men and went one hundred miles behind the lines during the first night of Operation Desert Storm in order to rescue Tedric Cortere—who was too stupid to leave Baghdad when he was warned of the coming U.S. attack. Joe Cat and his Alpha Squad—they’re part of SEAL Team Ten—went in undetected, among all the bombs that were falling from U.S. planes, and pulled Cortere and three aides out without a single fatality.”

Admiral Forrest smiled again as he watched an expression of disbelief flit across Veronica’s face.

“How on earth…?” she asked.

“With a raftload of courage,” he answered. “And a whole hell of a lot of training and skill. Joe Cat’s an expert in explosives, you know, both on land and underwater. And he knows all there is to know about locks and security systems. He’s a top-notch mechanic. He understands engines in a way that’s almost spiritual. He’s also an expert marksman, a sharpshooter with damn near any ordnance he can get his hands on. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, missy. If you want me to continue, then we’d better find a place to sit and get comfortable, because it’s going to take a while.”

Veronica tried hard to connect everything she’d just heard with the grimy, unkempt, seemingly uneducated man who had appeared in her hotel room. “I see,” she finally said.

“No, you don’t,” Forrest countered, a smile softening his words. “But you will. Best thing to do is go find Joe. And when he talks to you, really listen. You’ll know soon enough what being a SEAL means.‘’

Joe sat in the hairdresser’s portable chair, looking at himself in the hotel-room mirror.

He looked… different.

A dentist had come in and capped the tooth he’d chipped three years ago while on a training mission and had never had fixed.

Joe had stopped noticing it after a while. He’d had the rough edges filed down the day of the accident, but he’d never had the time or inclination to get the damn thing capped.

The capped tooth wasn’t the only thing different about him now. Joe’s short dark hair was about six inches longer—and no longer short—thanks to the hair extensions the tired-looking stylist had almost finished attaching.

It was odd, seeing himself with long hair like this.

Joe had grown his hair out before, when he’d had advance warning of covert operations. But he liked wearing his hair short. It wasn’t military-regulation short, just a comfortable length that was easy to deal with.

Long hair got in the way. It worked its way into his mouth, hung in his face, and got in his eyes at inopportune moments.

And it made him look like that cowardly idiot, Tedric Cortere.

Which was precisely the point, right now.

God help them, Joe vowed, if they expected him to wear those satin suits with the ruffles and metallic trim, and those garish rings on his fingers. No, God help him. This was a job, and if the powers that be wanted him to dress like an idiot, he was going to have to dress like an idiot. Like it or not.

Joe stared into the mirror at the opulence of the hotel room. This place gave him the creeps. He was nervous he might break something or spill something or touch something he wasn’t supposed to touch. And his nervousness really annoyed him. Why should he be nervous? Why should he feel intimidated? It was only a lousy hotel room, for Pete’s sake. The only difference between this room and the cheap motel rooms he stayed in when he traveled was that here the TV wasn’t chained down. Here there was a phone in the bathroom. And the towels were thick and plentiful. And the carpets were plush and clean. And the wallpaper wasn’t stained, and the curtains actually closed all the way, and the furniture wasn’t broken and mismatched. Oh yeah, and the price tag for a one-night stay—that was different, too.

Sheesh, this place was as different from the places he usually stayed as night was to day, Joe reminded himself.

But the truth was, he wished he was staying at a cheap motel. At least then he could lie on the bed and put his feet up without being afraid he’d ruin the bedspread. At least he wouldn’t feel so goddammed out of his league.

But he was stuck here until another assassination attempt was made or until the prince’s U.S. tour ended in five weeks.

Five weeks.

Five weeks of feeling out of place. Of being afraid to touch anything.

“Don’t touch!” he could still hear his mother say, when as a kid, he went along on her trips to Scarsdale, where she cleaned houses that were ten times the size of their tiny Jersey City apartment. “Don’t touch, or you’ll hear from your father when we get home.”

Except Joe didn’t have a father. He had a whole slew of stepfathers and “uncles,” but no father. Still, whoever was temporarily playing the part of dear old dad at home would have leaped at any excuse to kick Joe’s insolent butt into tomorrow.

Jeez, what was wrong with him? He hadn’t thought about those “happy” memories in years.

The hotel-room door opened with an almost-inaudible click and Joe tensed. He looked up, turning his head and making the hairdresser sigh melodramatically.

But Joe had been too well-trained to let someone come into the room without giving them the once-over. Not while he was looking more and more like a man who’d been an assassin’s target just this morning.

It was only the media consultant. Veronica St. John.

She posed no threat.

Joe turned his head, looking back into the mirror, waiting for the rush of relief, for the relaxation of the tension in his shoulders.

But it never came. Instead of relaxing, he felt as if all of his senses had gone on alert. As if he’d suddenly woken up. It was as if he were about to go into a combat situation. The colors in the wallpaper seemed sharper, clearer. The sounds of the hairdresser behind him seemed louder. And his sense of smell heightened to the point where he caught a whiff of Veronica St. John’s subtle perfume from all the way across the room.

“Good God,” she said in her crisp, faintly British-accented voice. “You look… amazing.”

“Well, thank you, sweetheart. You’re not so bad yourself.”

She’d moved to where he could see her behind him in the mirror, and he glanced up, briefly meeting her gaze.

Blue eyes. Oh, baby, those eyes were blue. Electric blue. Electric-shock blue.

Joe looked up at her again and realized that the current of awareness and attraction that had shot through him had gone through her, as well. She looked as surprised as he felt. Surprised, no doubt, that a guy from his side of the tracks could catch her eye.

Except he didn’t look like himself anymore. He looked like Prince Tedric.

It figured.

“I see you had the opportunity to take a shower,” she said, no longer meeting his eyes. “Did your clothes get taken down to the laundry?”

“I think so,” he said. “They were gone when I got out of the bathroom. I found this hotel robe… I’d appreciate it if you could ask Admiral Forrest to send over a uniform in the morning. And maybe some socks and shorts…?”

Veronica felt her cheeks start to heat. Lord, what was wrong with her? Since when did the mention of men’s underwear make her face turn as red as a schoolgirl’s?

Or maybe it wasn’t the mention of unmentionables that was making her blush. Maybe it was the thought that this very large, very charismatic, very handsome, and very, very dangerous man was sitting here, with absolutely nothing on underneath his white terry-cloth robe.

From the glint in his dark brown eyes, it was clear that he was able to read her mind.

She used every ounce of her British schooling to keep her voice sounding cool and detached. “There’s no need, Your Majesty,” she said. “We go from here to your suite. A tailor will be arriving soon. He’ll provide you with all of the clothing you’ll need for the course of the next few weeks.”

“Whoa,” Joe said. “Whoa, whoa! Back up a sec, will ya?”

“A tailor,” Veronica repeated. “We’ll be meeting with him shortly. I realize it’s late, but if we don’t get started with—”

“No, no,” Joe said. “Before that. Did you just call me ‘Your Majesty’?”

“I’m done here,” the hairdresser said. In a monotone, he quickly ran down a quick list of things Joe could and could not do with the extensions in his hair. “Swim—yes. Shower—yes. Run a comb through your hair—no. You have to be careful to comb only above and below the attachment.” He turned to Veronica. “You have my card if you need me again.”

“Find Mr. Laughton on your way out,” Veronica said as Joe stood and helped the man fold up his portable chair. “He’ll see that you get paid.”

She watched, waiting until the hairdresser had closed the hotel-room door tightly behind him. Then she turned back to Joe.

“Your Majesty,” she said again. “And Your Highness. And Your Excellency. You’ll have to get used to it. This is the way you’re going to be addressed.”

“Even by you?” Joe stood very still, his arms folded across his chest. It was as if he were afraid to touch anything. But that was ridiculous. From the little information Veronica had gleaned from Admiral Forrest, Joe Catalanotto, or Joe Cat as the admiral had called him, wasn’t afraid of anything.

She crossed the room and sat down in one of the easy chairs by the windows. “Yes, even by me.” Veronica gestured for him to sit across from her. “If we intend to pull off this charade—”

“You’re right,” Joe said, sitting down. “You’re absolutely right. We need to go the full distance or the shooters will smell that something’s not right.” He smiled wryly. “It’s just, after years of ‘Hey, you!’ or ‘Yo, paesan!’ ‘Your Majesty’ is a little disconcerting.”

Veronica’s eyebrows moved upward a fraction of an inch. It figured she’d be surprised. She probably thought he didn’t know any four-syllable words.

Damn, what was it about her? She wasn’t pretty, but…at the same time, she was. Her hair was gorgeous—the kind of soft curls he loved to run his fingers through. Joe found his eyes drawn to her face, to her delicate, almost-pointed nose, and her beautifully shaped lips. And those eyes…

His gaze slid lower, to the dark blue blazer that covered her shoulders, tapering down to her slender waist. She wore a matching navy skirt that ended a few inches above her knees, yet still managed to scream of propriety. Her politely crossed legs were something else entirely. Not even the sturdy pumps she wore on her feet could hide the fact that her legs were long and graceful and sexy as hell—the kind of legs a man dreams about. This man, anyway.

Joe knew that she was well aware he was studying her. But she had turned away, pretending to look for something in her briefcase, purposely ignoring the attraction he knew was mutual.

And then the phone rang—a sudden shrill noise that broke the quiet.

“Excuse me for a moment, please,” Veronica said, gracefully standing and crossing the room to answer it.

“Hello?” she said, glancing back at Joe. As she watched, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

Thank goodness. He couldn’t undress her any further with eyes that were closed. And with his eyes closed, she didn’t have to be afraid that the warmth that spread throughout her entire body at his unmasked interest would somehow show. Heaven help her if this man got the idea that he could make her heart beat harder with a single look. She had enough to worry about without having to fight off some sailor’s amorous advances.

“The tailor has arrived,” one of Tedric’s aides told her. “May I ask how much longer you’ll be?”

“We’ll be up shortly,” Veronica said. “Please arrange to have coffee available. And something to eat. Doughnuts. Chocolate ones.” Lt. Joe Catalanotto looked the chocolate-doughnut type. They could all certainly use some extra sugar to keep them awake.

She hung up the phone and crossed back to Joe. His head was still back, and his eyes were closed. He’d slumped down in the chair as if he had no bones in his entire body.

He was totally, absolutely and quite soundly asleep.

Veronica sat down across from him and leaned forward, studying his face. He’d shaved and somehow managed to get all of the grease and dirt off in the shower. Even his hands were free of grime. His hair was clean and now, with the extensions, quite long. To the average eye, he might have looked quite a bit like Prince Tedric, but Veronica knew better.

Tedric had never been—and never would be—this handsome.

There was an edge to Joe Catalanotto’s good looks. A sharpness, a definition, an honesty that Tedric didn’t have. There was something vibrant about Joe. He was so very alive, so vital, as if he took each moment and lived it to its very fullest. Veronica had never met anyone quite like him before.

Imagine taking a squad of seven men deep behind enemy lines, she thought, with bombs falling, no less. Imagine having the courage and the confidence to risk not just one’s own life, but six other lives, as well. And then imagine actually enjoying the danger.

Veronica thought of the men she knew, the men she was used to working with. They tended to be so very…careful. Not that they weren’t risk takers—oftentimes they were. But the risks they took were financial or psychological, never physical. Not a single one would ever put himself into any real physical danger. A paper cut was the worst they could expect, and that usually required a great deal of hand-holding.

Most men looked softer, less imposing when asleep, but not Joe. His body may have been relaxed, but his jaw was tightly clenched, his lips pulled back in what was almost a snarl. Underneath his lids, his eyes jerked back and forth in REM sleep.

He slept ferociously, almost as if these five minutes of rest were all he’d get for the next few days.

It was strange. It was very strange. And it was stranger still when Veronica sighed.

It wasn’t a particularly weighty sigh, just a little one, really. Not even very loud.

Still, Joe’s eyes flew open and he sat up straight. He was instantly alert, without a hint of fatigue on his lean face.

He took a sip directly from a can of soda that was sitting on the glass-topped end table and looked at Veronica steadily, as if he hadn’t been fast asleep mere seconds earlier. “Time for the tailor?” he said.

She was fascinated. “How do you do that?” she asked, leaning forward slightly, searching his eyes for any sign of grogginess. “Wake up so quickly, I mean.”

Joe blinked and then smiled, clearly surprised at her interest. His smile was genuine, reaching his eyes and making the laugh lines around them deepen. Lord, he was even more attractive when he smiled that way. Veronica found herself smiling back, hypnotized by the warmth of his eyes.

“Training.” He leaned back in his chair and watched her. “SEALs take classes to study sleep patterns. We learn to catch catnaps whenever we can.”

“Really?” Joe could see the amusement in her eyes, the barely restrained laughter curving the corners of her mouth. Her natural expression was a smile, he realized. But she’d taught herself to put on that serious, businesslike facade she wore most of the time. “Classes to learn how to sleep and wake up?” she asked, letting a laugh slip out.

Was she laughing at him or with him? He honestly couldn’t tell, and he felt his own smile fade. Damn, what was it about this particular girl that he found so intimidating? With any other woman, he’d assume the joke was shared, and he’d feel glad that he was making her smile. But this one…

There was attraction in her eyes, all right. Genuine animal attraction. He saw it there every time she glanced in his direction. But there was also wariness. Maybe even fear. She didn’t want to be attracted to him.

She probably didn’t think he was good enough for her.

Damn it, he was a Navy SEAL. There was nobody better. If she wanted to ignore the fire that was ready to ignite between them, then so be it. Her loss.

He would find plenty of women to distract him during this way-too-simple operation, and—

With a hiss of silk, she crossed her long legs. Joe had to look away.

Her loss. It was her loss. Except every cell in his body was screaming that the loss was his.

Okay. So he’d seduce her. He’d ply her with wine—no, make that expensive champagne—and he’d wait until the heat he saw in her eyes started to burn out of control. It would be that easy. And then… Oh, baby. It didn’t take much to imagine his hands in her soft red hair, then sweeping up underneath the delicate silk of her blouse, finding the soft, sweet fullness of her breasts. He could picture one of those sexy legs wrapped around one of his legs, as she pressed herself tightly against him, her fingers reaching for the buckle of his belt as he plundered her beautiful mouth with his tongue and…

Sure, it might be that easy.

But then again, it might not.

He had no reason on earth to believe that a woman like this one would want anything to do with him. From the way she dressed and acted, Joe was willing to bet big bucks that she wouldn’t want any kind of permanent thing with a guy like him.

Veronica St. John—“Sinjin,” she pronounced it with that richer-than-God accent—could probably trace her bloodline back to Henry the Eighth. And Joe, he didn’t even know who the hell his father was. And wouldn’t that just make dicey dinner conversation. “Catalanotto… Italian name, isn’t it? Where exactly is your father from, Lieutenant?”

“Well, gee, I don’t know, Ronnie.” He wondered if anyone had ever called her Ronnie, probably not.!!!“Mom says he was some sailor in port for a day or two. Catalanotto is her name. And where she came from is anyone’s guess. So is it really any wonder Mom drank as much as she did?”

Yeah, that would go over real well.

But he wasn’t talking about marriage here. He wasn’t talking about much more than quenching that sharp thirst he felt whenever he looked into Veronica St. John’s eyes. He was talking about one night, maybe two or three or four, depending on how long this operation lasted. He was talking short-term fling, hot affair—not a lot of conversation required.

It was true, he didn’t have a lot of experience with debutantes, but hell, her money and power were only on the surface. Peel the outer trappings away, and Veronica St. John was a woman. And Joe knew women. He knew what they liked, how to catch their eye, how to make them smile.

Usually women came to him. It had been a long while since he’d actively pursued one.

This could be fun.

“We trained to learn how to drop instantly into rapid-eye-movement sleep,” Joe said, evenly meeting the crystal blueness of Veronica’s eyes. “It comes in handy in a combat situation, or a covert op where there may be only brief stretches of time safe enough to catch some rest. It’s kept more than one SEAL alive on more than one occasion.”

“What else do SEALs learn how to do?” Veronica asked..

Oh, baby, what you don’t know…

“You name it, honey,” Joe said, “we can do it.”

“My name,” she declared in her cool English accent, sitting back in her chair and gazing at him steadily, “is Veronica St. John. Not honey. Not babe. Veronica. St. John. Please refrain from using terms of endearment. I don’t care for them.”

She was trying to look as chilly as her words sounded, but Joe saw heat when he looked into her eyes. She was trying to hide it, but it was back there. He knew, with a sudden odd certainty, that when they made love, it was going to be a near religious experience. Not if they made love. When.. It was going to happen.

“It’s a habit that’s gonna be hard to break,” he said.

Veronica stood, briefcase in hand. “I’m sure you have a number of habits that will be a challenge to break,” she said. “So I suggest we not keep the tailor waiting a minute longer. We have plenty of work to do before we can get some sleep.”

But Joe didn’t move. “So what am I supposed to call you?” he asked. “Ronnie?”

Veronica looked up to find a glint of mischief in his dark eyes. He knew perfectly well that calling her “Ronnie” would not suit. He was smiling, and she was struck by the even whiteness of his teeth. He may have chipped one at one time, but the others were straight and well taken care of.

“I think Ms. St. John will do quite well, thank you,” she said. “That is how the prince addresses me.”

“I see,” Joe murmured, clearly amused.

“Shall we?” she prompted.

“Oh, yes, please,” Joe said overenthusiastically, then tried to look disappointed. “Oh…you mean shall we leave? I thought you meant…” But he was only pretending that he misunderstood. He couldn’t keep a smile from slipping out.

Veronica shook her head in exasperation. “Two days, Lieutenant,” she said. “We have two days to create a miracle, and you’re wasting time with sophomoric humor.”

Joe stood, stretching his arms above his head. His feet and legs were bare underneath his robe. So was the rest of him, but Veronica was determined not to think about that.

“I thought you were going to call me ‘Your Majesty.’”

“Two days, Your Majesty,” Veronica repeated.

“Two days is a breeze, Ronnie,” he said. “And I’ve decided if I’m the prince I can call you whatever I want, and I want to call you Ronnie.”

“No, you most certainly will not!”

“Why the hell not? I’m the prince,” Joe said. “It’s your choice—Ronnie or Honey. I don’t care.”

“My Lord, you’re almost as incorrigible as Tedric,” Veronica sputtered.

“‘My Lord,’” Joe mused. “Yeah, you can call me that. Although I prefer ‘Your All-Powerful Mightiness.’ Hey, while I’m making royal decrees, why don’t you go ahead and give the serfs a day off.”

He was laughing at her. He was teasing her, and enjoying watching her squirm.

“You know, this is going to be a vacation for me, Ron,” he added. “Two days of prep is a Cakewalk.”

Veronica laughed in disbelief. How dare he…? “Two days,” she said. “You’re going to have to completely relearn how to walk and talk and stand and sit and eat. Not to mention memorizing all the names and faces of the aides and ambassadors and government officials that the prince is acquainted with. And don’t forget all the rules and protocols you’ll have to learn, all of the Ustanzian customs and traditions…”

Joe spread his hands and shrugged. “How hard could it be? Give me a videotape of Tedric and half an hour, and you’ll think I’m the same guy,” he said. “I’ve gone on far tougher missions with way less prep time. Two days—forty-eight hours—is a luxury, sweetheart.”

How could he think that? Veronica was so stressed out by the rapidly approaching deadline she could barely breathe.

“Less than forty-eight hours,” she told him sharply. “You have to sleep some of that time.”

“Sleep?” Joe smiled. “I just did.”