Page 62 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

That hadn’t even occurred to me. If someone ever stole my phone, it would be no big deal. But I wasn’t royalty. I didn’t have my family’s privacy to protect the same way that he did. He probably had pictures and videos on there that he would not like to share with the entire world.

“That sucks.”

He straightened up, and I ordered my hand back to my lap. “It’s password protected. Unless he knows exactly what he’s doing, he shouldn’t be able to get access. Hopefully he had no idea who I was. My security team should be able to find it and get it back.”

“How?”

“There’s a tracker on my phone. Behind the battery,” he said absentmindedly.

I couldn’t help myself. I pulled out my phone, taking off the back panel and lifting out the battery.

“What are you doing?”

“I wanted to make sure you hadn’t put a tracker on my phone.” I reassembled the device and slid it back into my clutch. Because I wouldn’t have put it past him.

It made me suspicious that he didn’t look insulted. “Did you consider tracking my phone?”

Several beats passed before he said, “After the postcard. Yes.”

“Okay, promise me you won’t do that. No trackers.” It felt creepy. I didn’t want someone always knowing where I was.

His jaw clenched, but he said, “I promise you I won’t put a tracker on your phone.”

Good.

“Okay,” he started, thinking out loud. “Best-case scenario, in the next hour or so my men will come looking for me. The problem is when they activate the tracker, it will lead them into Iowa City. The weather’s so bad they may not see our car on the opposite side of the road.”

“And we won’t have enough gas to keep the car going for that long,” I added as I pointed at the gauge. The needle was down past empty.

“What?” he said, following my gaze. He slammed both of his hands against the wheel, making me jump. He uttered what Mr.Spock referred to as “colorful metaphors.”

“Che brutto!That was so stupid of me! I can’t believe we’re going to run out of gas!”

It wasn’t typical for him to slip into Italian. He must really be upset.

Then, as if on command and as if to prove that the universe really was conspiring against me, the engine sputtered and died.

He turned the key in the ignition, trying to start it up again. No response. He hit the wheel again, then the anger seemed to empty out and he leaned forward. “I’m sorry. I was just so focused on ... other things.”

“You were concentrating on the road and the storm,” I said. “It happens.”

“I should have checked the gas before we left. I wanted to keep you safe, and all I did was put you in more danger.” He sounded so dejected.

We couldn’t stay here and hope his bodyguards would find us. It would take them a long time to drive into the city because of the storm, and even longer to figure out what had happened to us and find Rafe’s car. I had experienced enough of these kinds of snowstorms to know that people had frozen to death in them when they were stranded. Or didn’t have heat.

I knew where we could find heat and shelter. It would just really suck to get there. But what other choice did we have?

If I was going to die, it was not going to be in some SUV, waiting for help. Even if I had to march into the freezing night in my cocktail dress and flats.

I wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Chapter 19

“Max has a cabin up here, near the lake,” I told him. “The road to get there is half a mile north, and then it’s another mile out to the cabin. He keeps it stocked, so we’ll be able to stay there and keep warm until they find us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure. Amanda had a lot of parties up here in high school, and we used that broken mile marker to know when to turn off. You can see it easily when there’s no snow.”

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