by Vicki Savage
EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2017 Vicki Savage
ISBN: 978-1-77339-376-6
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Audrey Bobak
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A ROYAL IN RIO
Wanderlust, 3
Vicki Savage
Copyright © 2017
Chapter One
Miles
Finally, some privacy. I stepped on the gas of the stolen sports car and laughed as the wind whipped through my hair. I had been surrounded by personal guards, castle staff, and my overprotective parents since birth. I was long-past due for a little independence.
I cranked the wheel to the right, laughing once more as the car screeched around the curb of the busy Rio de Janiero streets. My father never would’ve allowed me to do something so reckless. It was unbecoming of a future king of England.
Not that I’d ever become the king of England. No, that business was for my distant cousins Will and Harry. Still, as a third cousin, there was a miniscule chance that I could ascend the English throne, at least according to my status-seeking parents.
I didn’t care about any of that. The royal life was far too stuffy and constricting for me. I was a thrill seeker, an adrenaline junkie. Life was to be lived dangerously if it was to be lived at all.
That was why, when I had seen the keys sitting in this sports car outside my Rio hotel, I knew I had to take it for a test drive. Oh, I was going to get in serious trouble when I got back, but for a while at least, I’d know what it felt like to be free.
I cranked around another curb, taking me farther and farther away from the crowded streets. I was almost at the edge of the city, where I knew I could really open the vehicle up and let it go. Man, it would be amazing to floor the gas pedal and see what this little beauty could do. Just a few more streets, and I’d be in the clear. Even now I could tell that the landscape was much less congested, and the road straighter—
The little girl came out of nowhere. She emerged from between two buildings on the right side, carrying a basket of tourist trinkets similar to the ones I saw earlier today in the shops downtown. I slammed on the brakes. Seeing the car, the girl screamed and dropped the basket. Tiny glass bottles shattered on the pavement at her feet, spilling sand onto the cracked pavement. The girl continued to scream as she brought her chubby little fingers up over her eyes.
Damn, there was no way I was going to be able to stop in time. Locking my jaw, I turned a hard right, swerving at the last minute and missing the girl by inches.
“Thank God.” I glanced over my shoulder and confirmed that the girl was okay. When I faced forward once more, I realized I had veered into the other side of the road and was headed straight toward several construction cones surrounding a large hole. Bright metal glistened up from the hole, indicating exposed pipes were probably being fixed. Thank God it was lunchtime and there were no construction workers on site. I forced the car back to the right, but it was too late. The wheels screeched as they knocked over the cones. I shielded my head as the front bumper of my car dipped into the hole so fast that it flipped the car, sending it over onto pavement on the other side. The driver’s-side airbag deployed as the world inverted in on itself. Time slowed as I steeled my body for impact. Then the roof of the car slammed into the ground, creating a loud crash.
My parents are going to kill me. The words ran through my mind as my entire world went black.
Chapter Two
Carina
“Mommy, Mommy!” Little Angelina ran into the room with dirt on her face and her pigtails half-undone. “Mommy, come quick!”
“Just a minute, sweetheart. I’m busy.” I finished pouring beach sand in the jar that had been hand-painted several hours before. While I loved my daughter, I also knew that she could be overly dramatic. Her emotional outburst could be over a new bird’s nest she had found on the roof of our apartment complex, or a worm she had discovered on the sidewalk out in the street. Either way, she never had a true emergency.
“Where is your basket?” I shook the tiny bottle, making sure the sand was even on all sides.
She nibbled her lower lip and folded her hands in front of her. “I left it outside.”
“Baby, you know how I feel about that. Baskets are expensive.”
“I know, Momma, but—”
“Did you give the bottles to Mr. Rodriguez down the street?”
“I tried, Momma.”
I raised my brows. “Tried?” The tourist shop owner not only sold bottles in his own shop, but distributed my artwork to the shops down by the water and on the other side of the city. Last month, he had told me that tourist season was starting, and there had been an increase in demand for my work. He had placed a rather large order, and it had taken me several weeks to hand-paint the bottles to make the demand. I hated making those bottles almost as much as I hated having no money, but after my husband, Adrian, died two years ago, Angelina and I could scarcely afford anything else. Sales from the bottles barely covered our rent for this dirty little apartment, let alone food and clothing, but I wasn’t fit to do anything else. I had married young and Adrian had insisted on me not working. According to him, it was a man’s job to provide for his family. As a result, I had no work experience or marketable skills.
“Mommy, please. You need to come and see.”
“I said just a minute.” I put a small cork in the bottle and moved over to the sink to wash my hands. “And you know how I feel about those bottles.”
“I know.”
“We need that money to pay Mr. Juarez. He won’t let us stay here for free.”
Angelina looked down at her shoes. “I know, Momma.”
Sighing, I reached for the soap and realized the water had started to turn brown again. Damn developers. The governor had brought them in to fulfill his campaign promise to the people. He wanted to bring our poor, rundown section of the city into the twenty-first century. So far, all these people brought were problems.
I turned off the water and dried my hands. “Okay, what do you wish me to see?”
“This way.” Angelina tugged on my skirt. “There’s a man in the hole on the other side of the street.”
“It is just a construction worker.”
“No, he drove his fancy car into the hole. Come.” She tugged on my arm.
Alarms went off in my head. It was unusual for someone to have a ‘fancy car’ in this part of town. It was even more unusual for that person to drive it into a well-marked construction site.
“Is he hurt?” I hoped it wasn’t one of those patrons from the bar down the street. I knew from experience that the early hour didn’t stop many of the locals from having a drink or four at their favorite spot. Drinking and sex seemed to be the favorite pastimes of the men in this section of town. It didn’t matter if the women were willing or not. They took what they wanted regardless.
Some of the women in my apartment complex made good money servicing these men. I’d hear their moans of pleasure in the evenings and see them with a new fur coat the next day. The lifestyle was tempting, but I had Angelina to consider. I couldn’t service men with her in the next room. Also, the thought of those greasy, drunk men putting their hands on me made me want to gag.
I had turned down enough o
f the locals so that they knew I was not for sale. Angelina was only five, so I never thought the men would ignore her. Perhaps I had been wrong, however. Drunk people did strange things, and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that one of them would approach my daughter if she were alone. If one of them was trying to coax her into a dirty hole to have sex with her—
I refused to think about it. It was the middle of the day. Not even a drunk man would be so stupid as to approach a child where everyone can see them. The fact that Angelina was here, talking to me, suggested that such a thing had not occurred—not yet anyway. As I followed my too-thin daughter I realized that we couldn’t live like this much longer. Something was going to have to change soon, or else I’d have to start entertaining the offers from those disgusting men just to keep the roof over our heads.
“You need to see him,” Angelina said. “He’s napping in his car.”
More alarms went off in my head as I followed her out of the apartment. “Did you find him like that?”
“No.” She ran down the stairs of the apartment complex. “I didn’t mean to do it.”
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t reply, but instead pushed on the dirty door to our complex and ran out onto the sidewalk.
“Angelina! How many times have I told you not to run into the—” The words died on my lips as I took in the scene before me.
My daughter’s basket sat on its side on the sidewalk. Brightly painted glass chips and sand were everywhere. Skid marks marred the pavement, trailing in curving lines past my broken bottles and into the large hole of the construction site on the opposite side of the road.
Grabbing Angelina’s hand, we crossed the street to have a better look. When we were inches away from the crash, I stopped and stared at the back end of an electric-blue sports car. While I didn’t know enough about cars to determine the make and model, it looked expensive. Peering into the hole, I saw that the front end of the vehicle looked to be dented beyond repair. The top of the car rested against the side of the hole and smoke drifted up from the engine.
“Look Mommy!” Angelina pointed to the driver’s side. “There he is!”
I crept closer to the car and crouched down to have a better look. My daughter was right. It appeared as if someone might still be inside.
“I didn’t mean it, Mommy. It was an accident,” Angelina said as I straightened. “I just stepped out of the ally over there so I could see the pretty bird—”
“Get back, child.” I waved her away and glanced around to see if anyone could help us. Unfortunately, our section of the city was mostly quiet during the day. The real activity came at night when the bars were open. The people in these apartments were so used to hearing loud noises that they didn’t come to the windows anymore. They were fearful of what might be happening outside of their home.
I walked around to the edge of the car and got down on my hands and knees. A tall, broad-shouldered man with hard features and a thick crop of auburn hair was still strapped in the driver’s seat. His eyes were closed, and blood covered his temple. It looked as if he had taken a nasty blow to the head.
“Hello? Do you need help?” When he didn’t respond, I inched closer. “Can you hear me?”
I had no idea how I was going to get this guy out of the car. He was at least twice my size and seemed as solid as a rock.
It didn’t look as if I had much choice, however. There was no one else around, and I didn’t have one of those cell phones the developers carried with them all the time. There was no way I could call anyone for help.
I glanced over my shoulder at my daughter. “Go back into the apartment complex and get Mr. Juarez.”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“And be careful crossing the street!” I shouted at her retreating form. After making sure she crossed safely, I sighed and turned my attention back to the stranger. “I’m sorry about this, but I need to get you out of there.”
Thankfully, the hole wasn’t too deep, and I could easily open the driver’s door from my position at the edge. As I wiggled inside the car and reached around him to unbuckle his belt, I became acutely aware just how strong and muscular he was. He felt so solid, so masculine. Something stirred in my lower abdomen as I searched for the latch to the seat belt. It had been a long time since I had sex, and being this close to a man did things to my insides. I scolded myself for thinking of such things when he was laying there unconscious. Clearly I would have to do something about my womanly needs when this was over. Glancing at his face, I tried to memorize his features so I could picture him later when I was alone in my bedroom.
I unhooked the latch and scrambled out of the way as gravity took charge. The man slumped to the top of the car. I tried to soften his fall, but he still hit his head fairly hard. Wincing, I scrambled back, trying desperately to drag him out of the car.
It was pretty obvious what had happened. Angelina had been wandering out into the road—something I specifically told her not to do—and this guy swerved to avoid hitting her. If that was true, then his injuries were our fault. I was going to have to tend to his wounds and hope he wouldn’t press charges and make our bad financial situation worse.
“He’s not home, Mommy.”
Frowning, I remembered he had told us that he was going to the airport today to pick up his grandson. Just my luck.
“I don’t think I can lift him, baby,” I said.
“I found a dolly by the back door of the apartment complex.”
“A dolly?”
She nodded. “The kind that the delivery guy uses when he drops off packages.”
I smiled as I realized she must have been referring to a delivery trolley. I held out my hand. “Show me.”
She did, and it wasn’t long before we pushed the trolley back to the construction site. As we walked, I glanced over and saw her pigtails bobbing up and down as she walked. She looked so innocent and sweet, far too sweet for the hard life I had given her.
Wandering out into the middle of the road was something all five-year-olds did in their lives. I couldn’t blame her for what happened. This crash, this mess, was on me. I should have watched her closer, but there was just too much to do, and although I could have her work beside me making painted bottles of sand, I wanted to give her as much of a childhood as I possibly could.
“Do you need help, Momma?”
I admitted I did. I had already hauled the man out of the car and onto the ground, but it had taken all of my energy. He was just too heavy to move anymore.
“I’ll help you, Momma.” Before I could protest, Angelina hurried over and slid her arms under his head. “See? I’ll hold his head for you.”
I tried not to chuckle. His head wasn’t the problem. It was the rest of him. I didn’t want to insult her, however. She was trying, and I could only imagine how guilty she must feel.
“Okay, honey. Hold on.” I got up onto my feet and placed my hands underneath his shoulders. “On the count of three, we’ll pull him up so he’s leaning on the trolley. One, two…”
It was difficult, but we managed. Within minutes, we hauled the poor man’s body onto the trolley and positioned him so that his head and limbs weren’t at odd angles.
“Does he need a doctor?” Angelina asked.
“Probably.” I started heading back to the apartment, looking both ways before crossing the road.
“Are we going to call a doctor?”
Good question. This man didn’t look like a Brazilian native, and as a foreigner, he would have to pay for any kind of healthcare. The expensive car suggested he could afford it, but I didn’t know if he’d sue us to recoup the expenses. We didn’t have enough for food, let alone a lawyer to defend us in a lawsuit or a hospital stay for a stranger. I couldn’t leave him, however, and I supposed I did owe him since he had somehow managed to avoid hitting my daughter.
“Perhaps,” I said. If we could find someone who wouldn’t mind being paid in painted bottles.
“When
?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Will he come and visit us?”
As we walked, Angelina continued to ask her questions, never stopping until we reached the front door to our apartment. As I pulled him up the steps and through the front door of the complex, the man moaned, turned his head, and then stilled.
He was waking up. The sooner we got him back to the apartment, the better. If his memory was foggy, perhaps we could alter the truth enough so he wouldn’t sue us.
“Could you help me get him on the elevator?” I asked Angelina.
She opened the door. “Should we get the doctor now?” she asked when we were finally moving up. “Mr. Juarez said his grandson was a doctor. Maybe we could get him?”
I was about to say no and then hesitated. I didn’t have a phone, so contacting someone was going to be a little more effort than I anticipated. Since Mr. Juarez owned the apartment complex, the chances were good that his grandson knew the difficulties the residents in this section of town faced. If anyone would take a look at this man without charging us an enormous fee, it would be him.
“I think that’s a good idea, baby.” The elevator doors opened and I pulled the unconscious man out into the hall.
“I’ll go to his apartment and wait for them. As soon as they arrive, I’ll bring them up here.”
She shut the door before I could form a reply. Despite being tired and frustrated—this incident had already set me back a half-day’s work and the cost of a doctor—I chuckled to myself. Kids.
Unfortunately, Angelina left before I could get this stranger out of my trolley. I nibbled my lower lip as I tried to figure out where to put him. Ideally, he would need a bed. I only had two: Angelina’s and mine. Angelina’s was far too small, so it would have to be mine. I could sleep on the couch for a few nights.