Fit for a Queen

by Nicole Burnham

  For a beat, his tongue refused to work. It was an outrageous sum, even for the Barrali family. “Carlo, I couldn’t—”

  “Consider it a gift to the people of San Rimini, in memory of their queen.”

  “It would mean a great deal to us to see Aletta’s wishes fulfilled,” Fabrizia added, her tone rendering the decision final.

  Eduardo couldn’t imagine a gesture more befitting his wife’s memory. Or more generous. “That is extremely thoughtful of you. Thank you.”

  Fabrizia smiled. “Carlo’s assistant will contact yours to arrange the transfer once we return home. And regarding the other matter, you’ll know when the time is right to move forward. Next month, a year from now, five years from now. I’ll be here when you’re ready. I’m certain I can find the right person for the job.”

  One would have thought that, as the hereditary monarch, Carlo held all the power in Sarcaccia. To believe that was to underestimate Fabrizia’s intelligence and resources. Carlo had married for love, but he’d also married a woman who thrived in her role as queen. A woman who understood his nature both in public and in private. A woman he could trust to support him in both roles.

  Eduardo had also been fortunate in that regard. Though he’d once believed he’d grow old with Aletta, the years they’d shared had been glorious. He hoped his children—and perhaps even Aletta’s sister—would find that depth of love in their lives.

  “It will be some time in the future,” Eduardo finally told Fabrizia. “But when I am ready, I will take you up on the offer.”

  The queen smiled, but it had a cryptic quality. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter 2

  Daniela D’Ambrosio had used a good portion of her savings to visit a new-to-her country for spring break with the expectation of expanding her horizons, but heat, bruised ribs, and the oppressive odor of coconut, sweaty bodies, and spilled alcohol threatened to drive her from the most popular dance club in Cancun long before last call.

  She’d spent plenty of time on the beach while growing up on the island nation of Sarcaccia. She’d even visited its dance clubs. They didn’t compare. Sarcaccia’s Old World charm and Mediterranean traditions pervaded even its nightlife. Wine, brie, and thick, wheaty crackers were as likely to be shared between sessions on the dance floor as gossip. Cancun, on the other hand, was boisterous. It thrummed with youth in the way only a city carved from the jungle with the express purpose of becoming a vacation hotspot could. Newness infused everything from the menus to the music to the sombrero-bedecked frog and lizard decor of its bars.

  She couldn’t imagine Sarcaccia’s princes and princess socializing here, as they did in the nightclubs of their homeland. They certainly would not use the breaks between songs to tip backward on chairs or lie on tables to have tequila poured down their throats.

  “You can’t go now. This DJ is amazing!” Katja yelled over the music when Daniela waved to indicate that she needed to get some air. “And we’ll never find you again. Stay! Dance! You’ll get your second wind.”

  For another ten minutes, Daniela made the effort, but she was danced out. Tired out. Crowded out. Since their arrival two hours earlier, she’d suffered multiple elbow blows to her back and sides as dancers raised their plastic cups to cheer for the DJ, wave to friends, or call out orders to overworked bartenders.

  At the start of a new song, Daniela touched Katja’s shoulder, then leaned close to her friend’s ear and took care to enunciate so Katja could understand her over the booming bass. “I’m going to take the bus back to the hotel and meet you there. Let everyone know, all right?”

  Katja checked her watch. Her hip sway didn’t hitch. “We have forty minutes until the buses stop running. The last few will be packed. Stay a little longer, then we’ll all get a taxi. It won’t cost much if we split one of the vans.”

  “I need to save energy for tomorrow night. Dance your heart out. Have fun. I’ll be fine.”

  Katja looked doubtful, but then her gaze snagged on a handsome guy in a Red Sox baseball cap and an Auburn T-shirt who leaned against the bar, looking in their direction, and Daniela knew she had her escape route.

  “He’s waiting for me to leave you alone,” Daniela said. “Take advantage.”

  “But—”

  “When will you have this opportunity again? Have an adventure and tell me all about it tomorrow. It’s why we came, right?”

  Daniela knew Katja would have plenty of opportunities—guys gravitated toward the striking, doe-eyed German like children to an ice cream cart—but it was exactly what Katja needed to hear to allay her guilt over remaining on the dance floor while Daniela returned to the hotel. Katja smiled at Daniela, then her expression turned downright wicked before she flicked a long look toward the bar. It was the perfect invitation for Mr. Auburn. He threaded his way through the gyrating bodies, his eyes laser-focused on Katja.

  Daniela took her own zigzagging path through the crowd, heading for the door. She glimpsed two of her friends as she ducked under raised arms and drunken revelers, but they were too caught up in the atmosphere to see her go. A shout would be fruitless given the noise. Unwilling to battle her way toward them, she trusted that Katja would let them know she’d left.

  Eight of them had traveled to Mexico for spring break from the University of Michigan. They were all European, studying abroad for the semester. Katja had come from Germany, Daniela from Sarcaccia. The other six were Dutch and Belgian. None of them had experienced spring break before, nor had any of them visited Mexico, so they’d pooled their funds, scoured the Internet for cheap flights, then crammed into two rooms in one of the massive hotels that laced Cancun’s beachfront.

  They’d known it’d be an adventure. They hadn’t foreseen what kind.

  The strip of land that jutted from the center of town into the water in the shape of a backward number seven hosted thousands of carousing twenty-somethings in its myriad hotels and condos. Daniela’s ideas about spring break came from television; reality was a different beast. She’d enjoyed the daytime, spending most of her hours lazing around the pool and taking long walks along the beach to enjoy the warm wind and rolling surf as she people-watched. But on the third day, while her friends slept late, Daniela had hopped on a tour bus to see the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza. It’d taken most of her day, but she’d loved the trip. She’d used the last of her limited entertainment budget to enjoy a late afternoon fishing excursion on their fourth day, rather than join her friends for another sojourn to the pool. She’d caught a barracuda, which she happily handed over to the fishermen who owned the boat, and chatted with both the fishermen and the two married Texan couples who’d shared her excursion. Her friends thought she was crazy and accused her of pursuing “geriatric activities,” but a few hours away from blaring poolside speakers and nonstop rounds of tropical drinks had been an act of self-preservation.

  She’d needed respite from the overstimulation in order to handle the nighttime activities.

  Besides, she was in Mexico. She wanted to see what lay beyond the confines of Cancun’s hotel zone. To her, that was a better adventure than experiencing a party scene she could find closer to home, in places like Ibiza or one of Croatia’s music festivals.

  Daniela picked up speed as she maneuvered around the line of students waiting at the door to have their IDs checked. Relief flooded through her when the night air hit her face. It was least thirty degrees warmer than what she’d left behind in Michigan, but compared to the sweatfest of the dance floor, it felt downright cool.

  She took several deep breaths, her lungs free to expand now that she’d escaped the crush. Following the line of the bar’s awning, she located an empty bench near the end of the building. She dropped onto it, stretched her arms along its rear slats, and spent several minutes savoring both the freedom the space allowed and the breeze that skimmed her overheated skin as she watched the stream of spring breakers moving along the Boulevard Kukulkan. It wasn’t quiet outside the bar—not on a street packed
with restaurants, beach shops, and dancing venues—but the difference in noise level was as drastic as the abrupt end to a fire alarm, making her aware of her eardrums reverberating.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, imagining how she’d have designed the bar if she’d owned it. The place made its money on volume, which explained the management’s desire to draw in a capacity-busting number of patrons. Daniela’s dream location would have all the dancing, all the excitement, but with half the crowd so people had room to move, to enjoy their food and drinks without spilling, and to hear each other talk. She’d lengthen the bar and round it on the ends so the bartenders would be able to work within the same amount of space, but with better flow for guests as they approached, purchased their drinks, then returned to the dance floor or one of the high-topped tables that ran along the perimeter.

  When she caught herself mentally planning the menu, she sighed and straightened. Owning a bar wasn’t her dream in any way, shape, or form. But when she witnessed a shop or restaurant working at less than peak efficiency—or worse, entered one that was messy—it was her habit to mentally organize it.

  It didn’t take a psychologist to tell her the trait was a knee-jerk reaction to being raised in a house that was anything but organized.

  The thought of her childhood home was pierced by a deep—and deeply pissed-off—male voice coming from her right. “For the last time, it’s called a gap year because it’s a gap in my career trajectory. A planned gap. I have the rest of my life to work, which I plan to do in exactly five months.”

  Daniela didn’t dare look, but the smack of feet against pavement indicated he was moving her way, escaping the noise of the bar as she had. “If it makes you feel better, think of it as a sabbatical. It’s not as if I’m spending this year sitting around doing nothing. I’m just not doing what you wanted me to do.”

  There was silence, then, “I answered your phone call, didn’t I?” followed by more silence, a huff, and, “Cancun, Mexico. A group of us drove here for a long weekend. We’ll be back in Guatemala tomorrow night. And yes, before you ask, I’m perfectly safe. It’s loud because we had a late dinner and now I’m standing on a street with restaurants and dance clubs.”

  Daniela heard more pacing as the guy listened to whomever was on the other end of the phone. She didn’t need to see him to feel the frustration that rolled off him. She wanted to disappear into the bench and give him privacy…not that anyone could find privacy in this district.

  A moment later, in a calmer voice, he said, “I am. I promise, I’m not doing anything that’ll come back to haunt me.” There was a slight pause before he added, “Tell Mom not to worry. I’ll call Monday morning before I go to the field. Will you be available then?”

  Daniela lost the end of what he said as a pack of at least a dozen girls in wispy, spaghetti-strapped dresses walked in front of her. Several had their arms linked. All spoke at a volume more appropriate for shouting over music than strolling down a city street in the early hours of the morning. A bus rolled to a stop nearby and the horde giggled before scurrying to catch it, wedging their bodies into what little space remained once the doors accordioned open to admit them.

  She’d observed earlier in the week that the buses tended to run one behind the other, so she glanced in the direction from where the bus had come to see if another was in sight. When only taxis and a single motorcycle with a pizza carrier on its back appeared, Daniela figured it was just as well. Another minute or two in the cool air would help wash the remnants of sweaty dance bar from her sinuses before she boarded the bus for the suffocating ride to the hotel.

  With the beach less than a five-minute walk from the dance club, it seemed a shame not to stay outdoors and enjoy the warm night air and the scent of the ocean while she could.

  She decided she’d walk a stop or two, then board. Her hotel was at the opposite end of the long tourist strip. If she walked beyond this cluster of bars and restaurants to the nearest of the major hotels, enough people should hop off to make room for her.

  She rose from the bench and dodged a group of roughhousing guys to check the printed chart attached to the post for the exact location of the stop.

  One kilometer south on the boulevard. Perfect.

  “That was the last one.”

  The familiar male voice came from behind her, so close she caught the lightest whiff of his cologne. Or maybe it was his laundry detergent. Whatever it was didn’t assault her senses the same way the mix of scents had while she’d danced in the club.

  Slowly, she looked over her shoulder, then up. Her forehead was square with the center of his chest. He wore a casual yet well-fitted gray T-shirt. His face was clean shaven, but the highest part of his cheekbones appeared slightly darker than the rest of his face, as if he’d spent time in the sun sporting both a hat and light facial hair, and the sun had caught the exposed area. The color wasn’t edged in pink, as with most other guys prowling the bar area, which spoke to months spent outdoors rather than a few days.

  “I don’t mean to be intrusive,” he said, raking a hand through his wavy, sun-kissed brown hair, “but I don’t want you stuck waiting for a bus that isn’t coming.”

  “That’s kind of you, but I was looking at the stops, not the times.” And he was wrong. Her glance at the schedule indicated there were at least two more buses.

  “Stops are every half-kilometer, but that won’t help you unless you’re going downtown, in which case you need to be on the other side of the road.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Good, because you’d have to run to catch that one.” His dark eyes went to the opposite side of the wide street, where a near-empty bus slowed to a stop. The only people on board appeared to be hotel employees and restaurant workers heading out of the tourist zone after a long day, most with headphones in their ears and half-asleep expressions on their faces. “If you want to split a taxi or ride share, I’ll call one. What kilometer is your hotel? I’m near the end, so it’s no problem to let you out at yours.”

  She swallowed. He didn’t say anything, but she knew he’d seen the involuntary movement. “Thanks for the offer, but it feels so nice out, I think I’ll walk to the stop at kilometer eleven and catch a ride there.”

  A ride on a bus.

  The edge of his mouth quirked as if he’d read her mind. He held a slip of paper in his hand that looked like a charge receipt from the bar. He wadded it, looked at a garbage can three bench lengths away, then fired it into the top as if making the shot were no big deal.

  “I’m Royce. Royce Dekker.”

  He extended his now-empty hand. Large, masculine, and attached to what she now realized was an arm with a rather firm bicep, one that suited the athletic chest.

  Royce Dekker was extremely fit. Smiling at her. And waiting.

  Chapter 3

  She ignored her nerves and accepted his handshake. “Daniela.”

  He looked at her expectantly after she released his hand, which compelled her to add, “Daniela D’Ambrosio.”

  She didn’t know why, but it made her uncomfortable giving strangers any more information about herself than necessary. Katja had groaned when Daniela skirted the issue a few weeks earlier, when they’d gone out for pizza in Ann Arbor and group of law school students joined their table. After a few minutes of animated conversation, Katja had shared her full name, phone number, and major as easily as she’d shared napkins from the dented chrome dispenser, while Daniela had only given her name.

  “What was that all about?” Katja had asked later that night. When Daniela explained that she didn’t like giving up her privacy, Katja’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What do you think they’re going to do? Steal your identity? They’re in law school.”

  Daniela had shrugged, unable to give a more specific answer.

  “Mind if I walk with you?” Royce asked. He angled his thumb toward the bar. “After an hour inside that place I need a break from crowds. The volume is unreal.”

  She hesi
tated, a lifetime of caution warring with her gut instinct that Royce Dekker was a decent human being.

  A sheepish grin brought out a devastating dimple in his cheek. “If you’d rather not, no problem. You don’t know me from the plaster frog sculptures. I just thought it’d be—”

  “No. Let’s go.” She wasn’t sure why she said it. Maybe it was remembering Katja’s criticism. Or maybe it was that she’d had a week of doing things she didn’t ordinarily do, like visiting Chichen Itza on her own and staring out across the jungle canopy from atop one of the ruins. Either way, if she were to take a chance and do something adventurous on her vacation, walking with Royce seemed like a step in the right direction.

  His brows lifted. “All right.”

  She glanced at the garbage can as they passed it. “That was a nice shot. You play basketball?”

  “Only with my trash.” He directed a look behind them. “Need to tell your friends you’re leaving?”

  “I already did.” She frowned. “How’d you know I have friends inside?”

  “No one goes on spring break alone.” He lifted a shoulder, then added, “I saw you dancing in there earlier. You looked about as happy with the place as I felt.”

  She mentally set aside the fact he’d noticed her for later consideration. “You didn’t like it?”

  “The music was great. Crowd was great. Dancing, however, is not my thing. All I do in a place like that is bounce up and down and look like an idiot while I try not to spill my beer.”

  That made her laugh. “That description applies to most people.”

  They passed a convenience store, then waited for a white van bearing a soda company logo to exit the alley that ran alongside it before continuing.

  “So where do you go to school, Daniela D’Ambrosio?” he asked. “You and your friends aren’t American.”

  She cast him a sideways look. “My English can’t be that bad.”

  “It’s fantastic. But there’s a lilt to your voice that tells me you aren’t American. The girl you were dancing next to—the tall one—stood next to me at the bar to order a drink earlier. She sounded German. You don’t have the same accent she does, though.”