Command Performance by Nora Roberts

breath, another, then went after him.
    This woman, damn her, was making him forget who he was, what he had to be. There was a distance that had to be maintained between his feelings and his obligation, between the man and his title. With his family, in private, it could be different. Even with his closest friends the reserve had to be put into place when necessary. He couldn’t afford to allow himself the luxury of being too—what had she said?—human, when the responsibility was so great. More now than ever.
    He’d lost a valued friend, and for what? Because of some vague and violent statement by a nameless group of terrorists. No, he didn’t believe that. He tore a blossom from a bush as he passed. A man was more than a stalk to be broken on a whim. There had been a purpose, and Seward had been a mistake.
    His father had been the target. Alexander was as sure of that as he was of his own name. And Deboque, the animal, had been the trigger.
    “Your Highness.”
    He turned and saw Eve. The garden flowered around her, ripe, lush and tropical. It suited her name, he thought, as she did. But with the first Eve it had been the fruit that had been forbidden, not the woman.
    “I want to apologize.” She said it quickly. For her, apologies, like mistakes, were easier to swallow than to speak. “When I’m wrong, I’m often very wrong. I hope you’ll believe that I’m sorry.”
    “I believe you’re sorry, Eve, just as I believe you meant what you said.”
    She opened her mouth to contradict, then shut it again. “I guess that has to do for both of us.”
    He studied her a moment, aware she was still angry, and angrier still that her conscience had forced her to apologize. It was something he understood perhaps too well, the frustration of having a temper and being forced to restrain it. “A peace offering,” he decided on impulse, and offered her the flower. “It doesn’t sit well with me to have been rude to a guest.”
    She took the blossom, breathing in the light tang of vanilla while she struggled not to be charmed. “It would be all right to be rude if I weren’t a guest?”
    “You’re very blunt.”
    “Yes.” Then she smiled and tucked the flower behind her ear. “Lucky for both of us I’m not one of your subjects.”
    “That’s something we won’t argue about.” He looked up at the sky, as clear and perfect a blue as could be wished for. She saw the strain, the sorrow, and was moved to reach out one more time.
    “Is it only permitted for you to mourn in private, Your Highness?”
    He looked at her again. There was compassion there, an offering of friendship. For so long he’d forbidden himself to accept even that much from her. But there was a weight on him, a desperately heavy one. He closed his eyes a moment and made a quick negative move with his head.
    “He was closer to my father’s age than mine, yet he was one of the few people I could talk with freely. Maurice had no pretensions, none of the sharp edges ambition often gives us.”
    “He was your friend.” She came closer, and before he realized her intention, had wrapped her arms around him. “I hadn’t understood he was your friend. I’m so sorry.”
    She was killing him by inches with her warmth, her understanding. He needed more, too much more. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders when he burned to skim them over her to bring her closer. The scent of her hair, of her skin, raced through his system, but he could do no more than stand and be assaulted.
    He’d been trained to fight, to defend, to protect, yet he was defenseless. Flowers spread out, curtaining them from the palace, but there could be no haven for a man who coveted what belonged to his brother.
    It hurt. He knew that beneath the title, beyond the position, he was flesh and blood, but it was rare to experience pain this sharp and sweet. It tangled with the grief and the anger until it threatened to explode in a passion he would be helpless to control. Feelings