It was an agonizing three minutes before she’d reached his side. When she tilted her chin up and gave him an expectant look, he obliged her with a kiss to her cheek. Violently aware oftheir audience, he paused to murmur against her ear. “What are you doing?”
“Making a choice,” she replied and slipped out of her jacket. Sebastian helped her and pulled out her chair. Once she was seated, everyone resumed their places and Gencome took a stance directly behind her.
“What choice?” He clasped his hands together and directed the low-whisper to her.
Instead of answering, Meredith glanced at their audience. “Now, gentlemen, please forgive His Highness. I’ve caught him rather off guard. Surprising him is half the fun, but onto more serious matters…after conversations with Mr. Jacob and Mr. Hannah,” she gestured to the Canadian and Australian ambassadors, “as well as my own research, I realized this is more of a trade negotiation. You’re all looking to make the most equitable arrangements possible which means the biggest question on the table is how to get what each of you wants without giving up things you don’t want to lose.”
Her gaze fixed on the Kachusov attaché, and he leaned back in his chair. “Indeed, Doctor Blake. That is exactly what we all want, though I doubt any of us would put it so boldly.”
“Because you’re diplomats and business people. I’m a teacher. I know my students can’t answer a question if they don’t know what the actual question is.”
“Well said.” Hopkins, the British Ambassador smiled. “With Dr. Blake’s wisdom in mind, gentleman, let’s take the time to address what we want and then see who has the power to make it happen.”
Pockets of conversation erupted around the room and Meredith glanced at him finally, her nut-brown eyes filled with utter sobriety. “Talk to him,” she said quietly. He didn’t have to ask who she meant. Like him, the attaché was there for just such an opportunity and all the smoke and mirrors in the room weredesigned to allow him to liaison directly with the family who wanted his dead.
Sebastian wasn’t sure whether to be furious with her or grateful. The last place in the world she should be was exactly where he’d always wanted her—at his side. “Meredith…” Words failed him.
“I know, but the variable of time is not going to wait for us. Tick tock, make peace, Your Highness.”
Catching her hand, he lifted it and kissed her knuckles once before he turned to face Kachusov. By silent agreement, they both rose and moved away from the others. Up close and personal, Mikael Kachusov was an inch shorter than him and he possessed thinning hair on his pate, but he wasn’t more than a decade older.
“So, we shall put our cards on the table. That was quite the gamble, bringing the professor.” Kachusov half-smirked. “Interesting ploy with the woman.”
“Have a little respect for her.” Sebastian folded his arms. “She’s got more sense than the two of us put together. But she’s right, we do need our cards on the table. No more half-truths, innuendo or polite, political discussions.”
“Very well.” Mikael nodded once. “You and your family should cease any and all efforts within Belaria and go away. We do not want you here.”
“Your party doesn’t want us here. The royalists do. But you’ve never bothered to find out what the Andrastes want.” He’d been trained for as long as he could remember to avoid direct statements. To couch terms in the expedient, if polite, terms and to avoid committing to any one true course. Suggestion, his father often said, allowed listeners to draw their own conclusions, favorable or not.
The other man studied him with a frown. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a half-crushed pack of cigarettes. “Do you care if I smoke?”
“Not at all. One good thing about closed door sessions is we can smoke, drink or dance around naked.” The last earned a half-smile and Sebastian waited a beat while the other man lit his cigarette. Vidal was nearby, as was Kachusov’s man, but both guards kept a discreet distance.
“An odd turn of phrase for a prince,” Mikael said on the exhale.
Sebastian shrugged. “I’m an odd kind of prince.”
“Are you?” The tip of the man’s cigarette flared. “You all seem rather the same to me. A mere accident of birth places you ahead of others.”
“The only thing my birth granted me was a life surrounded by bodyguards and a target on my back from families like yours who assume our genetics predispose us to ruling.” There was something freeing about addressing this entire topic in blunt form.
“Then perhaps a different life would be more suitable—and safer—for you and your brothers. One well beyond the limelight.” Mikael straightened.
Negotiation had been Armand’s idea, as he wanted a peaceful settlement. Sebastian, however, was done with being threatened, especially with Meredith sitting less than a half-dozen steps away. “And less thuggish tactics might benefit your family because you realize there are only really two ways to respond to the way you’re playing the game.”
He had the man’s full attention. “That sounds very much like an implied threat.”
“Well, then let me restate myself so I’m explicitly clear.” Sebastian hardened his tone and his heart. “Mikael, you’re a minor functionary in your family. You have no military recordand no real pull with your grand-uncle, the colonel. However, what you do have is a family of your own—a wife and children. Your uncle keeps coming after my family because he’s worried we’re a threat to your political control. The consistent and regular attempts on my family’s lives stops or our lack of interest in the throne is going to evaporate.”
He paused for a moment to let the man absorb the information. “And I’m going to walk out those doors and announce the return of the Grand Dukes of Andraste to Belaria. We just donated seven million dollars to the health care fund, and another ten million to house orphans and single mothers, a really rampant problem in the declining economy of your nation. Who do you think the people will want? A dictator or a King?”
“You’re bluffing.”
Any other time, Mikael might have been right. “Why should we bluff? You’re going to try to assassinate us no matter what we do, so why shouldn’t we satisfy the people? We’ll leave it to the people of Belaria to vote. How do you think they’d like it if your family ended up on the wrong side of this issue? It’s not like radicals would take offense to your trying to kill us.” Sebastian let his smile chill because while he’d never asked for this life, he was through running. “Or try to even the score?”
Mikael put out the cigarette. “It would broker civil war in my country.Mycountry.”
“Call it mutually assured destruction. You keep bringing this war to my family, we’ll bring it to yours.” Sebastian glanced over at Meredith where she spoke with an assistant to the British ambassador. “Play the numbers, Mikael. You have lot more to lose and we’ve been surviving your attempts for a lot longer.”
