One

      Time was running out, and Jacob knew it.

      In all the world, there was precious little his money couldn’t buy. Happiness itself had seemed within his purchasing power. He’d used the von Austerand fortune for twenty-nine years to satisfy his whims, lusts, real and imagined needs. Now the fun was coming to an end.

      “Damn!” he growled, crumpling the message and letting it fall from his fist into the blue-gray water lapping the hull of the sleek motor yacht. A brilliant orange September sun was already halfway up a cloudless sky. It beamed down on the snug cove nestled in the Connecticut shoreline, where the Queen Elise had anchored the night before.

      “Bad news, Your Royal Highness?” a voice colored by a deep British accent asked from behind him.

      “The worst, Thomas. The worst.”

      “The king? He’s had another stroke, has he?”

      Jacob swung around to face his bodyguard, who doubled as chauffeur, private secretary and self-proclaimed social adviser. Thomas was also his closest—some claimed only—true friend. Anger frothed up inside Jacob. The heat generated by his turbulent mood made his head hurt far worse than the hangover he’d woken with should have.

      “My father is in better health than most of his cabinet—better than I am, at this moment.” He gingerly pressed the heel of one hand to his forehead, as if to hold its contents securely in place.