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  Needing a few minutes to bolster her defenses, she slipped out onto the colonnade. In forty-eight hours she would not have this magic view of Monaco, but no matter what happened she would always be grateful for her time here. She’d learned that despite her dysfunctional youth she could fall in love, but she could let go—unlike her father.

  “Why do you not tread on my rugs?” Franco asked from behind her.

  Stacy winced and wished she’d had a few more minutes to prepare for this encounter. She took a bracing breath and turned to find him a few yards away. He stepped out of the shadows and her lungs emptied again when she noted the lines of stress marring his handsome face. She shook off her concern. If he was stressed, it was no more than he deserved. He’d tried to buy her baby.

  “I had to walk through pools of blood on our white kitchen floor when I found my mother and father. Your red rugs on white marble remind me of that night.”

  “I will throw the rugs out and replace the floor if you will come back to me.”

  Her heart stuttered. “What?”

  He closed the distance between them. “I was wrong, Stacy. All the money in the world cannot buy the one thing I desire most.”

  “An heir? I’m sure you can find some woman who’ll jump at the chance.”

  His unwavering blue gaze held hers and something in their depths made her pulse skip. “I desire you, mon gardénia.”

  His velvety deep voice sent a tremor rippling over her. She held up a hand to halt his approach. “Don’t do this, Franco.”

  But he kept coming until her palm pressed his chest. His warmth seeped through his silk shirt into her fingers and snaked up her arm. She jerked her hand away and fisted it by her side.

  “I was afraid to trust what my eyes—what my heart—told me. I offered to buy your baby as a test. If you had accepted the money, then I would know you were like every other woman I have known. But you are nothing like them.”

  She couldn’t comprehend what he was saying, but that look in his eyes was beginning to fan that ember of hope she thought he’d extinguished. “Why me?”

  A smile flickered on his lips. “Besides your incredible legs and the contradiction between the siren in your eyes and your cloak of reserve?”

  “Huh?”

  “Because my father challenged me to find a woman I could marry if she couldn’t be bought.”

  Had someone slipped something into her drink? “I’m sorry?”

  “Papa suggested I stop dating spoiled rich women and find someone with traditional values if I wanted to find a woman who would love me for myself and not my money. I told him I would prove him wrong by finding one of the mythical paragons he described and buying her.”

  Stacy flinched. She’d thought she couldn’t possibly feel worse, but she did. Had she been nothing more than a bet? He lifted a hand to stoke her cheek, but she jerked out of reach. “So taking me to the chateau was just flaunting me in front of your father to show you’d won?”

  “Oui. That was my original goal. But then you told me about your parents. You had compelling reasons for accepting my offer. Reasons which I could not condemn. And you refused to let me spoil you with meaningless gifts. I found myself falling in love with you.” He extended his arms, palms up and shrugged. “I had to push you away.”

  Falling in love with her? She pressed a hand over her racing heart. “I would have slept with you without the money, Franco.”

  “And I would have offered you more.” He stepped closer and trapped her by planting his hands on the railing beside her. “So much more.”

  He really had to stop doing that. She told herself to duck out of the way, but her legs seemed numb. He bent and teased the corners of her mouth with tantalizing, but insubstantial and unsatisfying kisses.

  “Je t’aime,” he whispered against her lips and her world stopped. Taking advantage of her shocked gasp, he captured her mouth in a deeply passionate kiss. And then he slowly drew back, his lips clinging to hers for a heartbeat longer.

  The emotion in his eyes washed over her, but she was afraid to believe what she saw.

  “I love you, Stacy, and if you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I want to marry you. I will add fidelity to my vows, because I never want you to doubt that my heart and my soul belong only to you. And whether or not we have children, the money I promised you is yours because you have given me so much more than money can buy.”

  Her eyes burned and her throat clogged. Happiness swelled inside her. Only a man who truly loved her would offer her everything she’d ever dreamed of and at the same time open the door to set her free and provide her the means to escape.

  He loved her enough to let her go.

  “You don’t have to buy my love, Franco. It’s freely given.”

  “Tout a un prix.”

  A smile wobbled on her lips. She cupped his cheeks and stroked her thumbs over his smooth warm skin. “Not this time. I love you, and if you lost everything today, I would still love you tomorrow and every day thereafter. Yes, Franco, I will marry you.”

  His chest rose on a deep breath. “I swear you will never regret it, mon gardénia.”

  An Officer and a Gentleman

  By Rachel Lee

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 1

  “You okay, cowboy?” The voice was cool, light.

  Alisdair MacLendon’s eyes snapped open. Blue lights flashed intermittently, giving an unearthly look to the youthful face that was bent over him. Too young to shave, MacLendon thought groggily, and nobody calls me cowboy, least of all some snotty kid.

  Moving was a mistake. Shooting stars slashed across his vision, and some idiot with a jackhammer started trying to take a chunk out of the side of his skull.

  “Hey! Cowboy!” The kid’s light voice became sharper. “Open those eyes. Tell me where it hurts.”

  “My head, damn it!” His eyes flew open again. Nobody called him cowboy.

  “Sergeant!” The light voice took on authority as the kid called to someone Alisdair couldn’t see. “We’ve got a head injury over here. What have you got?”

  “This idiot wasn’t wearing his seat belt. He’s got the windshield in his face. Can’t tell about the rest.”

  “Radio the hospital.”

  The youthful face turned back to MacLendon, who was thinking that if he puked now it would be perfect. What had happened? Oh, yeah, some turkey in a blue hot rod had run the stop sign at about ninety miles an hour. He remembered the sickening thud as his head slammed into the door stanchion.

  “Just going to check you out a little, cowboy,” the kid said, voice pitched soothingly. Fingers moved through his hair lightly, feeling the side of his head.

  “Ouch!” The fingers found the place where the jackhammer was working.

  “You’re gonna have one hell of a goose egg,” the kid said. “Does anything else hurt?”

  “No.”

  The kid backed off a little, squatting. For the first time MacLendon was able to identify the components of an Air Force security police uniform: nylon winter jacket, beret, holstered gun. Captain’s bars winking at the shoulders. Captain’s bars? This kid was too young.

  “You cold?” the too-young captain asked. “I’m afraid we don’t have any blankets, but the ambulance will be here in a couple of minutes.”

  “I’m okay.” If okay was a knife in the brain, spots before the eyes, and a heaving stomach. “What’s a captain doing on patrol?” he asked. Anything to keep from thinking about his discomfort.

  A grin, a one-shouldered shrug. “Keeps the troops on their to