The Duke of New York_A Contemporary Bad Boy Royal Romance

by Lisa Lace

  “When I first met your mother, I was crazy about football. I was constantly on the field or with my team. When I wasn’t in a game, I was practicing. Drove your mother nuts.”

  I’ve heard this story a thousand times before, but I know better than to interrupt him. I lean back and settle in.

  “I was good at football. So good, in fact, that I won a scholarship to a college across the state. And you know what I did?”

  You turned it down to stay with Mom because she was caring for her sick mother and couldn’t leave the state.

  “No. What did you do, Dad?”

  “I turned it down to stay with your mom because she was caring for her sick mother and couldn’t leave the state. By the time your grandma passed, the offer was off the table. I gave up my football career to be there for your mother.”

  “And you’ve talked about nothing but how you could have been a football star ever since!” I say pointedly.

  “That may be, but I’d do it all over again.” He clears his throat with a cough and shuffles in his chair again, leaning on one elbow and wagging a finger at me sternly. “Careers end all the time, but the love of a good woman is for life.” He nods wisely and looks up at me from under his eyebrows. “Sophie was a good woman.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you? She was so loyal to you. You were a fool to leave her waiting for you like that. You could have had a good life photographing other things like you do now. Instead, you sought your own glory.”

  “It wasn’t about glory. It was about doing something significant with my life.”

  Dad raises his hand. “Well, let’s not dig too deeply into all that now. What’s done is done. Are you going to see her again?”

  “I don’t think she’d want to see me.”

  “You’re seeing that other woman anyway, aren’t you? The one with the similar name.”

  “Fifi. Sophia.” I shake my head. “I’ve just come from breaking up with her.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  I lift up my hands and let them drop, leaning into the arm of the sofa and drumming my fingers against the fabric.

  Dad smiles. “To me, that says everything you need to know. You still have feelings for Sophie. Now, all that newspaper stuff is behind you, you can finally see what you gave up. Am I right?”

  “Even if you are, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

  “Obviously you think there’s still a chance, or you wouldn’t have broken up with this other girl.”

  “There was no point being with Fifi if all I could think about was Sophie.”

  “She’s still single, Sophie?”

  “Still single, and still working for that bank.”

  Dad shakes his head slowly. “Such a loyal girl,” he repeats. “You know she took that job for you.”

  My stomach twists with guilt. Hindsight makes me realize all the mistakes I’ve made. “The idea was she’d go to college after I got my full-time post.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s too easy to get trapped in a job.” Dad stretches in his chair, folding his hands across each other on his lap. He nods slowly. “If she’s still available, I don’t see the harm in seeing her again. I mean, she must have still felt something to have shown up at that bar in the first place.”

  “I told you, Dad, she didn’t know it was me. She thought it was someone else she’d been talking to.”

  “But she stayed?”

  “For a while.”

  “Then it’s not hopeless.” He stares at me intently. “She was so good for you, Cole. If I were you, I’d do whatever it takes to get her back. Flowers, dinner, the works. Make sure she knows that you know how badly you screwed up. Take her out—and whatever you do, leave that damn camera at home.”

  Sophie

  “Check it again.”

  I run the pile of cash through the automatic counter for the third time. “Four thousand dollars exactly.”

  The woman on the other side of the glass purses her lips and drums her fingers on the counter. “There should be four thousand, thirty-five.”

  I take a deep breath and glance at the clock. I was supposed to leave ten minutes ago, but as usual, the final customer is the most difficult of the day. “I’m sorry, ma’am. It comes to four thousand, exactly.”

  “Count it again.”

  I pick up the wad of bills again and hold them above the slot. The woman holds up her hand to stop me.

  “Not with that thing. It’s obviously busted.”

  I hold my tongue and count out the bills one at a time. “One hundred, two hundred, three hundred—” I place down the final bill, totaling four thousand.

  The customer sucks in through her teeth and shrugs. “There was four thousand, thirty-five earlier.”

  I wonder if she notices the daggers I’m staring at her. I force a smile. “Would you like me to deposit that for you?”

  “I guess.” She leaves without so much as a thank you or apology, but I don’t care.

  All I want to do is go home. I quickly close my counter, pick up my purse and speed out the door before anyone else can demand my attention.

  I rush out the door so quickly that my body slams into Cole’s. He’s waiting for me on the sidewalk, holding the biggest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen. A spray of petals float to the ground. At least, I think he’s waiting for me.

  Cole lets out a little “oomph” sound when I run into him. I take a step back and look up at him, my face flushed, my mouth forming a little “oh” of surprise.

  He looks good. He’s wearing a pair of gray pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His blond hair is swept back slightly, his eyes fixed on me. The sight of his chiseled jaw and ice-blue eyes stops me in my tracks. Those eyes haven’t aged a day.

  The way my heart skips a beat reminds me of the very first day I saw him standing there in Pisa when he drew my attention through crowds of tourists. Even then, he stood out by a mile.

  I take a closer look at the flowers. The bouquet is bursting with purple blooms and sprays of soft white flowers. Purple is my favorite. The bouquet is a little squished after I’ve run into it, but Cole holds out the flowers to me anyway.

  I don’t take them. “Cole—what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to apologize. The flowers are a peace offering.” He holds my gaze intently. He takes half a step forward, leaning in slightly. “I wanted to give you something else as well.”

  My eyes widen. “What?”

  “An invitation to dinner.”

  I let out a surprised laugh. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I know; it seems crazy, but hear me out—” He holds out his hands in a gesture of conviction. “We met too soon. Think about it—we were both so young and still figuring out which direction we were headed in, but things are different now. We’re both settled. There are no surprises headed our way. We have the chance to make it happen for real.”

  I shake my head in disbelief. “Are you nuts, Cole? A few saucy messages aren’t a reason to open old wounds. I accept your apology, but I don’t want to take it any further than that. I’ve moved on.”

  “Have you? It looks to me like you’re exactly where I left you.”

  His words sting. Tears rise behind my eyes. It seems to me like Cole has a pretty short memory. I was headed for more before he came along.

  “How dare you!” I seethe. “I was going to go to college, but we had a plan: you, then me. Except, once you got yours, you were gone. You left me.”

  “That’s not how it went.”

  “Isn’t it?” My voice rises in anger. “Because I remember someone who couldn’t wait to run off to a third-world country instead of settling down.”

  “Who said I ever wanted to settle down?” Now Cole’s voice grows angry. “I thought I married a traveler; someone with a free spirit. But as soon as there was a ring on your finger, you had visions of us becoming some old married couple, rocking in our chairs on the porch, with four g
rown kids and a dog.”

  “I didn’t even get as much as a ring, did I? You proposed on a whim, making a huge decision without any thought—the same as always.”

  “You didn’t say no, Sophie.”

  “I loved you.”

  “And I thought I loved you.”

  The tears spill. I’m furious. My throat and face feel flushed with emotion. My skin is prickling with angry heat. “That’s what it came down to, isn’t it? You thought you loved me, but you made a mistake. You only loved the adventure and having some poor, naïve girl who would follow you anywhere. I put my education on hold for you, and you left me.”

  “What education? You didn’t even know what you wanted to study. You hadn’t made any college applications. Taking that job at the bank was probably the best decision you ever made.”

  “No, the best decision I ever made was giving you that ultimatum.”

  Cole shakes his head and throws the bouquet down. The flowers bounce on the ground, leaves and petals flying into the air, then floating down morosely. “You’re the one who changed when we got back to the US.”

  “I thought we had a plan.”

  “You had a plan. I never understood why you thought I’d give up my career because we got together.”

  “’Got together’? We got married, Cole!”

  “We eloped.”

  I hold up my hands. “Here we go again. It wasn’t a real marriage. You never saw it as a marriage. For you, it was always a fling that went too far. And now our paths happen to cross again, and because I’m still in the same town, working in the same bank, you think it means I’m still waiting for you. Get over yourself.” I’m shaking with anger. “I could have been someone if I hadn’t fallen for you.”

  “It’s not fair to act like I’m the reason you’re still working at that bank. We haven’t seen each other in ten years. So maybe you put your plans on hold when we started, but what’s your excuse for the decade since? It’s time to stop blaming me and take some responsibility for the choices you’ve made.”

  “That’s rich!” I retort. “You’re acting like I’ve done nothing with my life, but weren’t you supposed to have won a Pulitzer by now? Maybe I’m ‘just’ working in a bank, but you’re ‘just’ a wedding photographer.”

  Cole bursts into the apartment, picks me up, and spins me around.

  “I got it!”

  My eyes widen, and I squeal with delight. “Really?”

  “Yes!” He pulls me close, squeezes me tight, and presses his lips down over mine, holding me in a passionate, deep kiss. When he pulls back, I can see the stars in his eyes. “A permanent position. You know what this means, right?”

  Fewer moments like these.

  “I’m going to be on the frontline. I’m going to be out there in the action, making a real difference. The pictures I take have the chance to be iconic. I’m going to be more than some B-rate amateur.”

  “Your pictures were never B-rate, Cole.”

  “Now they’re going to be world-class. Finally, all that hard work is paying off.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  I’m pleased for Cole, but his self-satisfaction is a little hard to swallow. While he’s been out working for free and networking, I’ve been keeping a roof over our heads and working a dead-end job. It feels like I’m the one doing all the hard work while Cole gets to chase fame and glory. There’s no glory for the woman behind the man.

  Cole frowns. “You always hated my career. Seeing me fail must make you feel really satisfied.”

  “Satisfied? Our whole relationship was about you and your photos. Your career destroyed us, and if you’ve failed, all that means is that the whole thing was one huge waste of time. A whole lot of heartbreak over nothing.”

  “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  “Finally, something we can agree on.”

  “I’ll be seeing you, Sophie.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Cole turns and walks away. My heart is thumping. I look down at the trampled flowers on the ground, and my heart breaks all over again. Cole has a habit of leaving a trail of broken gestures behind him. That’s all they are—meaningless gestures.

  My car is parked further up the street where Cole is headed, but I don’t want to walk in the same direction, so I stride purposefully away. Funny—we always end up going the opposite way, even if we’re meant to travel together.

  Cole

  I have a headache from running through the events of yesterday over and over in my mind. I have no idea how I managed to screw things up so badly. In my head, I’d had it all planned. I’d show Sophie the flowers. Then, she’d forgive me instantly, and we’d pick up where we left off like nothing had ever changed.

  But things have changed, Cole.

  Dennis is looking at me from across the table in the diner. He’s been silent since we arrived, letting me wallow, but three bites into his double-decker burger later, he’s finding it hard to manage his curiosity. “You know I’m going to ask eventually.”

  I pick at my fries. “It was a disaster.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had it all figured out—what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. Then something completely different came out of my mouth.”

  Dennis chuckles. “Welcome to the world the rest of us live in. Finally, a woman who gets Cole Tanner tongue-tied.”

  “I don’t know why I thought she’d simply say ‘yes.’”

  “I know why.” Dennis swallows another mouthful of beef and lettuce, dabbing at the ketchup on his bottom lip with a paper towel. “You’re cocky.”

  “Cocky?”

  “You have an ego, and don’t pretend you don’t know it. You think you’re too good for this job, and you obviously think you’re too good for Sophie.”

  I raise my eyebrows. I’m taken aback to hear Dennis say it so straight. “Wow. Tell me what you really think, why don’t you?”

  Dennis chuckles again and shrugs. “Maybe someone needs to say it. You were a big shot once, and you’ve never forgotten it. From what you’ve told me, you chose your career over your girl and then vanished from her life for the next ten years. Yet the second you return, you think she should drop everything and take you back. Are you really that big a deal?”

  I draw in a sharp breath and roll my tongue around my mouth, chewing over his words. “I wouldn’t say it’s quite like that.”

  “No. I don’t suppose you would.” He raises his eyebrows and shrugs. “You don’t have to listen to me, though. I wasn’t there.”

  I recall the moment my conversation with Sophie went south. It looks to me like you’re just where I left you. A swell of shame stirs in my gut. I nod. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “You can’t win them all, buddy. Maybe there’s still time to make things right with Fifi.”

  “I don’t want to get back with Fifi—or any of those women online.”

  “I’ll be honest. I don’t know what’s gotten into you. If Sophie was that special, you wouldn’t have left her in the first place, or waited ten years to win her back. I think you’re letting old memories cloud your vision. You don’t divorce someone if everything’s all sunshine and roses. Memory’s a funny thing. Things weren’t amazing then, and there’s no reason they should be amazing now.”

  She stands under the cherry blossoms. I shake a branch to make the petals fall. Sophie holds out her hands palms upward, her face bright and enraptured. I lift my camera to my eye and take pictures of her dancing under the pink rain.

  This very moment, she is too beautiful for words. The lens has always been more important than the subject, but when Sophie is in the frame, she’s all I see. Thoughts of contrast and composition fade away; I only want an excuse to keep staring.

  She comes toward me. Her hands close around my lens and draw it down as she rises on her tiptoes to catch me in a kiss.

  She threads her arms around my neck and leans back slightly, looking up into my face. She closes her eyes a
nd lets out a soft sigh of contentment. “Today has been a perfect day.”

  “You’re wrong. Things were amazing—until they weren’t.”

  “What do I know?” Dennis shrugs. “I’ve yet to get to a third date, let alone travel the world, get married, divorce, and then reunite with the same woman.”

  “I don’t want us to walk away from each other on bad terms again.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Try again.”

  Dennis raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re not pushing this too far?”

  “Ever since seeing Sophie again, I can’t stop thinking about her. I was so blinded by my ambition at the time that I took her for granted. I won’t do that again.”

  “Really? It seems like it’s already headed for disaster.”

  I place down my cutlery and rise from my chair. “I’m going to make this right.” I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s almost five, and I’m only a few blocks away from the bank where Sophie works. “I’m going to see her now.”

  I throw down a twenty on the table and leave the diner, then stride quickly toward the bank. I have no idea what I’m going to say to Sophie when I see her, but I can’t let it end like this. I’m convinced that fate has brought us back together for a reason.

  She steps outside the building, her jacket folded over her arm. She sees me and her face creases in anger. She turns on her heel to stride away, but I take hold of her arm to stop her. “Please, Sophie, hear me out.”

  “Don’t touch me! Jesus, Cole—who do you think you are?”

  My hand drops and I step back, bowing my head in apology. “I’m sorry.”

  “You need to stop this. I don’t know what you want. First, you trick me into seeing you. Then, you show up and make me feel small by judging what I’ve done with my life. Now, you’re here to stir things up again. Leave me alone, Cole.”