by Anne, Melody
“We aren’t casual anymore, Adara,” he said, grasping her chin and forcing her to look at him. “You’re mine.”
“I don’t want to see you anymore, Chris. Please respect my wishes and leave. My no means NO.”
She wasn’t looking away now. He couldn’t tell whether she was bluffing, but he prayed that she was.
After a moment of silence, while she held herself stiffly in his arms, Chris let her go. He turned and began walking away. But before he got too far away, he turned back and called out Adara’s name.
“This is far from over, Adara. Don’t think for one second that it is.”
She gasped at him, opened her mouth, then closed it again, and sent him a withering stare. What did everyone say about discretion and valor? He decided he’d better leave before he said anything more.
Hell if he knew what he was going to do next. But there was one thing he did know for sure. Adara was the one. And he would prove that to her in one way or another. …
Chapter Two
Adara refused to turn around and watch Chris leave. Her heart was shattering into thousands of pieces, but there was no possible way she could allow him to see that. She refused to crumble.
Don’t be weak! If you show weakness, then you are nothing, and will never be anything but pathetic. You will go nowhere in life.
Those were the words of her dying mother, a woman who had passed away with a scrub brush in her hands. Okay, not literally, but she might as well have.
Adara packed up her charts and her telescope and put them carefully into her car before climbing inside and making the journey back to her childhood home — a very small two-bedroom house that was severely outdated.
It was her only inheritance. But she wouldn’t complain. It was so much more than many people got.
Until she was twenty, she and her mother had lived there together, and then Adara had been there all on her own, working part time to pay the bills while she finished her undergraduate degree and her master’s program in astronomy. Thank goodness she’d won full scholarships for her schooling, or she never could have finished.
Her mother, Irene, had struggled all her life. And though she’d been the best mom she could be, she had also struck fear into Adara’s head, fear about men and about relationships. Adara’s father had walked out the moment he’d discovered that her mother was pregnant — he wanted nothing to do with any babies. Too much like work.
Adara didn’t learn all of that until she was a teenager and begging to meet her father. Only then did her mother tell her the sad family history, and insist that no woman could ever count on a man, that eventually men would fail her, abandon her.
And then Adara had met Chris. She’d been swept off her feet by his looks, his charm, and his smile. Oh, that smile. The man had a smile that sent warm fuzzies deep down inside her. But she’d promised herself never to become romantically involved. She’d never end up the way her mother had.
So when he’d suggested a casual fling — though he didn’t put it so crudely — she’d been quite up for that. She was twenty-three, and that was long past time to have her first sexual experience. And, oh man, if she’d only realized how truly great sex was, she wouldn’t have waited that long. Men had their uses after all.
But Chris had now changed the game, and Adara was left with no choice but to break things off with him. He never should have uttered the commitment word. She couldn’t commit to any man, not even to this prime specimen. Not even if deep down inside she knew she was falling in love with him.
She really couldn’t bind herself to him now. If she lost who she was in him, that would be when she lost everything, just as her mother had.
Once Adara parked in front of her house, she collected her things from the car and made her way inside. At least she didn’t have to deal with memories of him at her place. That was another lesson her mother had given her — never bring a man home. Because then it would be too easy for him to find you again, and use you again.
She and Chris had spent all their time together at his ultramodern condo. She’d been burning with curiosity over who he was, what he did for a living, but she’d never asked any questions. Still, she’d given him far too much information about herself.
He hadn’t pressured her to stay the night with him after she’d first succumbed. After they were done making love, she wouldn’t cuddle; she would simply climb from his bed, clean herself up, and leave.
They exchanged no words of adoration, no small talk, no uncomfortable silences. In the beginning, at least. Then, after about a month, she found herself lingering once they had done the dirty deed, though not for too long — maybe just fifteen minutes, then thirty, and then once for two hours. But as she felt herself beginning to drift off, she would drag herself from his bed, and skitter away.
Last month, he’d told her she didn’t need to go out into the cold night, that she really should sleep over. She hadn’t made a big deal about it. She’d just told him that she had homework to complete, and then she’d headed for the hills as usual. He’d tried only twice more to get her to stay, the last time a few days ago.
It had taken all the willpower she had within her to refuse him that last time. She’d desperately wanted to lie there in his arms, wanted him to run his fingers down her back, tell her that everything was going to be okay in life. But because she’d wanted that so badly, she’d picked herself up, as always, and left once more.
Why hadn’t she ended things with Chris right then? Adara had been making excuses to herself for a while. She’d been telling herself she wasn’t really attached to the man. But tonight, he’d pushed it to a point where she couldn’t lie anymore.
She would miss him so freaking much.
The first tear of regret fell as she locked her door and wandered off to her bedroom and flopped down on the pitiful bed. The next tear fell out of anger at herself and her weakness. Adara hadn’t cried since the day her mother had died more than three years ago.
You will never be as strong as you need to be if you let petty emotions rule you, her mother had said. And her mother’s daughter had sucked in the tears, then stood stiffly beside the grave as the coffin was lowered into the ground.
For her to cry now for something as simple as ending a relationship that hadn’t really been a relationship was stupid and wrong. She would pull herself together, and she would do it right now.
She rose determinedly from her bed, moved into the cramped bathroom — the only one in the house — and scrubbed her face with cold water and a washcloth. As she looked in the mirror, she couldn’t help but notice the dark circles that were forming beneath her eyes. Damnable lack of sleep, and silly emotions. Her normally straight brown hair was mussed and definitely not ready for prime time, and her cheeks looked more hollow than usual. She’d been overextended, obviously, and she needed to take more time to eat.
And she would.
She had her master’s degree now, something she’d worked hard to get. Now it was time to live the life she was meant to live. No ties, no emotions, just science and work.
A knock on her door startled her into dropping the ragged washcloth that she’d been running on her neck. Who in the world would be knocking at almost ten at night?
She wasn’t living in the greatest neighborhood in town, but neither was she in the worst.
It wasn’t as if Ithaca, New York, was a bad place to live. It was pretty great, actually, though you got a lot of exercise with all those steep hills.
“Who’s there?”
No answer. Just silence.
What should she do? Pretend to have a husband who would come to her rescue? That was the standard dodge, but the attacker might well know that she lived alone. People could learn almost everything on the Internet.
“If you honestly think I’m going to open the door this late at night, you’re crazy,” she said. “Go
away before I pull out my gun.” The intruder probably didn’t know that she didn’t own a gun.
“Open the door, Adara. We need to talk.”
More silence, for about thirty seconds. He wasn’t speaking for now, but she felt him on the other side of the door. He clearly wasn’t leaving.
“I don’t have anything else to say to you, Chris. We’re done.”
“Open the door, Adara,” he said, with more authority in his tone than she’d ever heard him use before. It was spooky. “Now!”
That final word of his, and all the power behind it, almost made her door vibrate.
Unlocking the deadbolt, she swung the door open, but not in defeat. Her eyes were spitting fire at the man who’d dared speak to her that way.
“Who in the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m the man who is going to marry you,” he said, his lips turning up in a smile she wasn’t sure she wanted to interpret.
“Interesting overreaction. You clearly don’t deal very well with women who have the guts to break up with you.”
“You were the one who overreacted,” he told her with a cheeky grin. “How could you break up with me if we were never in what you Americans call a relationship?”
“Ugh. This is pointless, Mr. Dante.” She made her best effort to slam the door shut.
He didn’t have to try hard at all to stop her. He stepped inside her house for the first time ever, and his six-foot-three frame and wide shoulders were making the wretched little place seem even smaller than it was.
“I’m not leaving without you, Adara.” As he spoke, he pursued her. She went backward as quickly as she could, but there wasn’t much room to move.
“How did you know where I live?” She’d never given him her address. Purposely.
“I know everything about you.”
“That’s creepy, Chris.” Was he a stalker? She was on the verge of freaking out.
“I always know about any woman I spend time with. It’s a necessity in my life.”
They were now in her living room, and he had her cornered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Chris, but I don’t like what’s happening.”
His hands came up on either side of her, caging her against the wall. “You will learn to like it.”
“Who in the hell are you?”
This certainly wasn’t the same man she’d met three months before. He didn’t resemble the laid-back playboy she’d lost her virginity and possibly her heart to.
“I’m Prince Christopher of Rubare Collina,” he said imperiously. “And I’ve decided that you will be my bride.”
Adara’s head began spinning as she tried to wrap her mind around what he was saying. But she had to push the fuzziness away. This was far from warm fuzziness.
“I don’t know why you’re lying to me like this, but it doesn’t matter, because there’s certainly no way I’m marrying you. A prince? Give me a break. I won’t even be your girlfriend, let alone your wife.”
“You don’t have a choice,” he told her.
“Are you kidding me? I do have a choice. I’d already guessed that you were from another country — the accent was a big giveaway,” she said with no little sarcasm. “And it’s probably a country where women are subservient to men. I guarantee you that I’m not. Take your hands off me and let me go.”
She glared daggers at him, but the guy simply smiled back at her. She wasn’t saying another word. She’d said what she needed to say, and now he needed to get a clue.
“Do you know what the custom is in my land?” he asked, leaning in closer.
Damn it if her heart didn’t pick up just a little bit at his nearness. That was her body’s traitorous reaction. She would learn to quell that.
“I’m not interested in knowing what your customs are,” she finally replied.
“I’ll tell you anyway,” he said with a smile before taking a step back, allowing her to breathe, until his next words took her breath right back away.
“The prince is to find his bride before his thirtieth birthday — and the bride is allowed no choice in the matter.”
“What do you mean by that, Chris?” The look in his eyes was beginning to scare her.
“It’s our custom . . . let’s say . . . to use any means possible, fair or unfair, to take our bride back to our homeland.”
She gazed at him for several long moments.
“Spit it out, Chris.”
“I’ve decided to marry you, so you will be coming with me,” he said, taking a step back toward her.
There was just no reasoning with a crazy person like this one, Adara decided. She somehow evaded his grasp and made a beeline for her front door. And she actually managed to get outside. Then his hands encircled her waist.
“I know we’re meant to be together,” he said, flipping her around and giving her a victorious smile.
“You can’t do this. Please don’t do this,” she begged him.
He stopped what he was doing and let her go immediately. “I’m not trying to frighten you,” he told her.
“Well, you are. How in the hell can you say that to me? You’re telling me that I have no choice other than to be with you, and then you say you aren’t trying to scare me,” she panted. She hated the weakness she was feeling.
“You’re right,” he said, immediately moving back, if only a little.
“Thank you.” She finally took another breath, and then took a strategic step backward.
“Will you come with me, please? Just let me show you something,” he said, sounding like his old self.
“And if I say no?”
“Then I’ll leave,” he told her.
“Then the answer is no.”
Chris hung his head for several moments before he looked back up at her. “You need more time. I understand.”
With that, he turned and walked away. Adara moved back to her doorway and looked out, watching him climb into whatever expensive car he was using and drive away.
Closing and double-locking her door, she decided that the first thing she needed to do was some extensive research. There was no way he was an actual prince, was there?
No. It just wasn’t possible. He was just a garden-variety rich and sexy psychopath.
But she was filled with nagging doubts. If only she’d had Internet service here at home, she’d be surfing it right at that very moment. It looked like it would have to wait until later, though. She had a feeling the circles beneath her eyes weren’t going away any time soon, because she wasn’t going to get a good night’s rest tonight.
Chapter Three
Flying wasn’t so bad. “You can do this!”
Maybe if she said it loud enough, she’d be fine. Yep, that was it. She’d just keep repeating it in her head over and over again. And repeating it to the world.
Sitting in the terminal at the Syracuse Hancock International Airport, Adara was wondering at her impulsive decision to get out of town.
It had been a week since her quarrel with Chris, and she missed him, missed him more than she would ever admit to him or herself. “It wasn’t a relationship. We were just friends with benefits. Just benefits, really. We weren’t even friends.”
“Excuse me?”
She turned to see a man looking at her with a strange expression on his face. Great. Now people were going to think she was crazy.
“I’m just talking to myself. Carry on,” she told him as she lifted her Long Island iced tea and took a big swallow. “The drinking helps; don’t judge,” she snapped when the man continued to stare at her.
He finally retreated, and she finished her third glass. Good, strong stuff. “I have a question,” she said a bit too loudly to the bartender.
“How can I help you?” The man really was quite nice. And she must appear like an utter
loon right now.
“Is there any actual tea in a Long Island iced tea?”
The man looked at her for a moment before he broke out in a smile. Wow. Nice smile. Nothing like Chris’s smile, but still a nice smile.
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“Then why is it called that?”
“I don’t really know.”
“Aren’t bartenders supposed to know it all, be like a whiz with drinks, a therapist, and all that jazz?”
He laughed. “I think you’ve had enough of those ‘teas’ for now,” he told her.
“But you just said there’s no actual tea in the drink,” she pointed out.
He set a cup of coffee before her.
“I’m not drunk,” she said, before wobbling on her bar stool.
“You might just want to have a cup of coffee before your flight,” he said, pushing the cup closer to her. “It’s on the house.”
“I would hope so. Who in the world sets the prices for these drinks? I could eat for a week on the cost of three drinks.”
“I’m not sure ma’am.” The bartender walked away.
Well, she didn’t really want to talk to him anymore anyway. And she didn’t want the dang coffee. She was flying to . . . Where in the world was she flying again? She pulled out her tickets and the letters blurred together for a moment. Maybe she had drunk just a little bit too much after all.
Oh, yes. Las Vegas. She was flying to Sin City, taking her life into her own hands, and getting away from the state of New York before she found herself running back to Chris. She wasn’t a huge fan of flying anyway. The space was too crowded and she much preferred looking up at the sky, not gliding along in it. And she really, really wanted to call Chris.
Yes, he was slightly crazy, and, yes, he’d said the commitment word, but, man, was he a hell of a lover. And to top that off, the guy could talk . . . Oh, his voice could melt her. Okay, maybe she should drink the coffee.