his ring for years. I found out that not only had he been cheating on me, but - "
"What was his name?"
Startled, Hannah blinked. "Duncan."
"Duncan the stinkin' dog."
"Oh, but we can't say bad things - "
"No wonder you were looking for some nookie last night," Desiree said over her protest. "I say, you go, sister."
Hannah stared at her. "But...but...that nookie was with the man you're almost engaged to."
She fluttered a hand, nails manicured to perfection. "Didn't you listen? He turned me down, the dumbass."
And Desiree didn't look all that upset over the rejection. Hannah clunked the back of her skull against the leather headrest and felt her hangover headache sink its claws into her again. Seagulls swooped overhead, turning circles that were less tangled than the thoughts running through her brain. "But...but don't you want to be his wife?"
Desiree's glance shot toward the tall man now climbing into the beat-up van on the other side of the parking area. "I was just trying to think of some way to make it up to him. Marrying me would mean lots and lots of money for him. I come with a muy grande trust fund."
"Make up for what?"
Desiree stared into her coffee. "Well, I made him famous. Or, more accurately, infamous." She took a sip of her drink. "Even if you don't watch too much TV, I bet you read the newspaper."
"Ye-es."
"Remember the assassination attempt on Prince al-Maddah eleven-plus months ago?"
Hannah nodded. "The Secret Ser vice prevented it, though."
"They have something called the Dignitary Protective Division. My father - that's the prince - was in the States for some meetings and charity events. I met him here in Southern California so we could spend time together."
"But he's okay, right? They stopped the person who was after him."
Desiree nodded. "Thank God. But in saving my father an agent was killed."
Hannah's heart jolted. Her uncle Geoff was a supervising agent in the Secret Ser vice. Tanner had worked for him. Oh my God, had Tanner - but then, she realized, of course, that Desiree couldn't have been talking about him. He was alive.
"The whole episode got a lot of global press."
Hannah recalled the story with more clarity now. A young female agent had been killed taking a bullet meant for the prince. "The Secret Ser vice came out as heroes."
Desiree wrinkled her nose. "All except one."
At that moment the Volkswagen bus on the other side of the parking lot rattled to life, then swung around to motor toward the BMW. Desiree slunk lower in her seat, but then shot straight up as the bus braked beside the convertible. Troy Hart stared through the windshield, giving Desiree the evil eye.
His animosity traveled through glass and space, but Desiree seemed not to notice. She lifted her coffee in a little toast to him, smiling all the while.
His mouth tightening, he popped the clutch in his hurry to get out of the lot. Watching the Volkswagen pull away, Desiree released a little sigh.
"There's more to the story than was covered on page one," she went on to say. "While my father was leaving the ballroom where the charity event was taking place, while his life was threatened and then defended by the agents of the Secret Ser vice, Tanner was inside watching over me. There was plenty of press there too, and I'd had a bit of champagne and I was a little miffed that my father had left without me and I...I didn't think of anything but getting some male attention. When I kissed the cute agent who was my bodyguard for the evening, camera shutters clicked all over the room."
She grimaced, looking older than Hannah had first thought her. "There's a segment of the media obsessed with the rich and spoiled and their inevitable unsavory doings. All the available Internet sex tapes were old news eleven months ago, and so the celebutante and the Secret Ser vice agent became the big story all over the world. Tabloids from New York to Nice are still speculating about us."
Hannah didn't watch much TV, but she didn't live in a box either. She knew the kind of attention the other woman was talking about. "So Tanner lost his job because you kissed him?"
Desiree shook her head. "More like Tanner resigned from his job because I kissed him. There's a reason why they call it the Secret Ser vice. His face was too recognizable. And, of course, he blames himself for all of it - including what happened to