“Is that why I’m afraid to even change my hairstyle?”
“Don’t let them scare you. That gives them power over you and you certainly don’t want that. From what I’ve seen, you handle them like a pro.”
“Maybe it’s in the blood.” Her private thought flew off her tongue and almost made her halt in her tracks. Lately she’d been thinking a lot about the man who sired her. He faced the press every day with good humor and never seemed ruffled. It was so odd to think that they shared the same DNA.
“No doubt. I’m sure your father is very impressed.”
“My father is…was a nice man called Dale Winthrop. He’s the dad who raised me. I still can’t get used to people calling President Morrow my father. If it wasn’t for sleazy journalists breaking the law in search of a story, he wouldn’t even know I existed.”
They went into a sunlit room where an elegant and delicious-smelling breakfast was spread out on a creamy tablecloth. He pulled out her chair, which gave her an odd sensation of being…cared for. Very weird.
“Help yourself. The house is ours for now. Even the staff have been sent packing so you don’t have to worry about eavesdroppers.”
“That’s fantastic.” She reached for a scone, not sure what else to do.
“So you have the press to thank for learning about your parentage. Maybe they’re not so bad after all.” His honey-colored eyes shone with warmth.
“Not bad? It’s been a nightmare. I was a peaceful person living a quiet life—punctuated by spectacular parties—before this whole thing exploded.” She cut her scone and buttered it.
“I’m impressed that you haven’t taken a big movie deal or written a tell-all exposé.”
“Maybe I would tell all if I knew anything to tell.” She laughed. How could a foreign prince be so easy to talk to? She felt more relaxed discussing this whole mess with Simon than with her actual friends. “The situation surprised me as much as anyone. I always knew I was adopted but I never had the slightest interest in finding my biological parents.”
“How do your adoptive parents feel about all this?” He leaned forward.
Her chest contracted. “They died four years ago. A plane crash on their way to a friend’s anniversary party.” She still couldn’t really talk about it without getting emotional.
“I’m so sorry.” Concern filled his handsome face. “Do you think they would have wanted you to get to know your birth parents?”
She frowned and stared at him. “You know what? I think they would.” She sighed. “If only they were still here I could ask them for advice. My mom was a genius at knowing the right thing to do in a tricky situation. Whenever I run into a snarl at work I always ask myself what she would do.”
“It sounds like a great opportunity to welcome two new parents into your life. Not to replace the ones who raised you, of course, no one could ever do that, but to help fill the gap they left behind.”
His compassion touched her. And she knew his own mother had died suddenly and tragically, when he was only a boy, so he wasn’t just making this stuff up. “You’re sweet to think of that, but so far neither of them seems to want a relationship with me.”
“You haven’t met them?” He looked shocked.
She shook her head quietly. “The president’s office hasn’t even made an official statement about me, though they’ve stopped denying that I could be his daughter since the DNA test results became public.” She let out a heavy sigh. “And my mother… Can I swear you to secrecy?”
“Of course.” His serious expression reassured her.
“My real mother refuses to come out of hiding. She wrote to me privately, which I appreciate, but mostly to say that she wants to keep quiet about the whole situation. Weirdly enough, she lives in Ireland now.”
“Does she?” He brightened. “You’ll have to come to our side of the Atlantic for a visit.”
“She certainly didn’t invite me.” Her freshly baked scone was cooling in her fingers. Her appetite seemed to have shriveled. “And I can’t say I blame her. Who’d want to be plunged into this whole mess?”
“She can hardly bow out now when she’s the one who had the affair with the president in the first place. Though I suppose he wasn’t the president, then.”
“No, he was just a tall handsome high school senior in a letter jacket. I’ve seen the photos on the news like everyone else.” She smiled sadly. “She told me in her letter that she kept quiet about her pregnancy because he was going off to college and she didn’t want to spoil what she knew would be a brilliant career.”
“She was right about his prospects, that’s for sure.” He poured her some fragrant coffee. “And maybe she needs time to get used to the situation. I bet she’s secretly dying to meet you.”
“I’m quickly learning not to have expectations about people. They’re likely to be turned on their head just when I least expect it.”
“You can’t get paranoid, though. That doesn’t help. I try to assume that everyone has the best intentions until they prove otherwise.” His expression made her laugh. It suggested they often proved otherwise but he wasn’t losing sleep over it.
She didn’t know what to think about Simon’s intentions. She had a strong feeling that he didn’t invite her here to plan a party, but there was no way she could come out and ask him. Maybe he really did just want to give her a pep talk on how to deal with her unwelcome celebrity.
“So I should try to approach everyone as a potential new friend, even if they’re trying to take a picture of me buying bagels in the supermarket?”
“If you can. At the very least they won’t get a really bad picture of you and you won’t get in trouble for smashing their camera.” He managed to be mischievous and deeply serious at the same time, which was doing something strange to her insides.
“Ever since your older brother got married the papers keep speculating about your love life, but I haven’t seen any stories about it. How do you keep your personal life out of the papers?” Uh-oh, now she was asking him about his love life, in a roundabout way. She regretted the question, but also burned with curiosity to see how he’d answer. Was he involved with anyone?
“I have privacy.” He gestured at their elegant surroundings. “I just have to be cunning to get it.” His eyes shone. They were the color of neat whiskey, and were starting to have a similarly intoxicating effect on her. He had a light stubble on his cheeks, not dark, but enough to add texture under his cheekbones and she wondered what it would feel like to touch it. This was the private Simon the public didn’t see, and he’d invited her into his exclusive world.
Her breathing had quickened and she realized she was still holding her uneaten scone in her hand. She put it down and had a sip of orange juice instead. That had the bracing effect she needed. “I guess I need to get more cunning, too. It must help to have friends with large estates.” She smiled. “It looks like it has a beautiful garden.”
“Do you want to see it? I can tell you’re not exactly ravenous.”
“I’d love a walk.” Adrenaline and relief surged through her. Anything to dissipate the nervous tension building in her muscles. “Maybe I’ll be hungrier after some fresh air.”
“I already went for a run this morning. Just me and two Secret Service agents pounding the picturesque streets.” He stood and helped pull out her chair as she stood. Again she was touched by his thoughtfulness. She’d expect a prince to be more…supercilious.
“Where are the agents now?”
“Outside, checking the perimeter. They’ll keep a discreet distance from us.”
“Oh.” She glanced around, half expecting to see one lurking in the corner. Simon opened a pair of French doors and they stepped out onto a slate patio with a view over a formal rose garden. The heady scent of rose petals filled the air. “You picked the perfect time to invite me here. They’re all in bloom.”
“It’s June. The magic moment.”
He smiled and they walked down some wide steps
to the borders of roses. They were the fragrant heirloom roses, with soft white, delicate yellow and big fluffy pale pink heads, so different from the gaudy unscented blooms she sometimes dealt with for parties. She drank in their scent and felt her blood pressure drop. “How gorgeous. It must take an army of gardeners to keep them so perfect.”
“No doubt.”
She glanced up at him, instantly reminded of how tall he was. Six-two, at least. His broad shoulders strained against the cloth of his shirt as he bent over a spray of double pink blossoms. He pulled something from his pocket and snipped off a stem, then stripped the thorns.
“You carry a knife?”
“Boy Scout training.” He offered her the posy. Their fingers brushed and she felt a sizzle of energy pass between them before she accepted it and buried her nose in it. How could she be attracted to a British prince, of all people? Wasn’t her life crazy and embarrassing enough already? Surely she could at least develop a crush on a prince from some obscure and far-flung nation that no one had heard of, not one of her nation’s closest allies.
“You’re very quiet.” His soft voice tickled her ear.
“Thinking too much, as usual.” She looked up. The morning sun played on the hard planes of his face and illuminated the golden sparkle of her eyes.
“That’s not always a good idea.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe we’d better keep walking.” His hand touched the base of her spine, sending a thick shiver of arousal darting through her. Things just got worse and worse!
She walked quickly, first to lose his hand, and then to outpace her own imagination, which already toyed with the idea of kissing him.
“I think I’ve been working too hard lately.” That must be why the simple touch of a handsome man could send her loopy.
“Then you need to take a break.” He made it sound so easy.
“It’s not as if I can just step off the carousel and spend a few weeks in the islands.”
“Not without the entire press corps following you.” His wry glance made her chuckle. “You have to be crafty about it when you’re in the public eye. You don’t want to be caught topless in Vegas.”
She laughed aloud. “I don’t think there’s much danger of that. Oddly enough, I’ve never been there.”
“No quickie weddings in your past?”
“No, thank goodness. Otherwise my former husband would probably be preparing a tell-all biography about me.”
He slowed. “Is that a risk? Do you have people from your past who could reveal things you don’t want to be made public?” Was he tactfully inquiring about her romantic history?
“No.” She said it fast and loud. “I guess that’s something to be grateful for. My past is very plain vanilla. I was a bit embarrassed by how unexciting my life has been up to this point, but now it’s a huge relief.”
“But a little dull.” She glanced at him as he lifted a brow slightly. As if he wanted to tempt her into sin.
“Sometimes dull is good.”
“Even in the party planning business?”
“Oh, yes. Believe me, dull and tasteful goes a long way, especially when there are scandals swirling like tornadoes all around you.”
“Hmm. Sounds like a waste to me. If you’re going to have a party you might as well make it a live one. I suppose I feel the same way about life. Sometimes it drives the family mad that I can’t just plod around opening supermarkets and smashing bottles against ships, but I have to climb mountains and trek across deserts. Turning my adventures into fund-raising activities gives them an air of legitimacy, but frankly I’d be doing it anyway, simply because I enjoy it. Maybe you need an adventure.” His voice brightened.
“Oh, no.” Adrenaline shot through her. “No. Adventure is definitely the last thing I need. Really, I’m a dull and boring person. Happiest with a cup of herbal tea and a glossy magazine.” That should stop him in his tracks. And maybe she was trying to convince herself that she wasn’t experiencing a surge of excitement just from walking close to this man.
“I don’t believe a word of it.” He touched the small of her back again—just for a split second—as they descended a short flight of stone stairs. Again her skin prickled as if he’d touched it right through her clothes. An odd sensation was unfurling in the pit of her belly. One she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“Trust me,” she pleaded, as her body threatened to succumb to far more excitement than she needed. “All I really want is my ordinary, quiet life back.”
“Well.” He stopped and took her hands. Her fingers tingled and her breath caught in her lungs. “That is most certainly not going to happen.”
Two
It took every ounce of self-control he possessed for Simon not to press his lips to Ariella’s soft pink ones. But he managed. Years of royal training, accompanied by thinly veiled threats from older members of the family, had taught him to handle these situations with his brain rather than other more primitive and enthusiastic parts of his body.
He didn’t want to blow it. Scare her off. Something deep in his gut told him that Ariella Winthrop was no ordinary woman. He trusted his gut in the line of fire and on the face of a sheer cliff. It rarely steered him wrong.
Something about Ariella sent excitement coursing through him. He couldn’t explain it, or even put his finger on the feeling; it was just a hunch that meeting her could change the course of his entire life.
He even managed to let go of her hands, reluctantly, and turn toward the rhododendron border as a distraction. “The reality is that your life has changed forever.” He glanced back, and was relieved to see her following closely. “Whether you like it or not, you’re public property now.” It made him feel close to her. They shared a bond and his years of hard experience could help her negotiate the minefield of a life lived on the pages of the daily papers.
“But I’m still the same person I’ve been all along. People can’t expect me to suddenly welcome the entire world into my private life.”
“You’re not the same, though. You didn’t know the president was your father, did you?”
“I was as surprised as he was. I’d never have guessed it in a million years. Now people are even saying I look like him. It seems insane to me. I don’t feel in the least bit related to him.”
Simon surveyed her strikingly pretty face. She had elegant, classical features, highlighted by the sparkle of warmth from her people-oriented personality. “You do look rather like him. You both have striking bone structure, and something about your eyes seems familiar.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re just imagining it. Or trying to make me feel better, and it’s not working. Yes, I’d like to meet him, since we do share the same genes, but I’m sure I’ll never have the same feelings for him as I do for the man who actually raised me.”
“Of course not.” He frowned. Her moss-green eyes were filled with concern. “No one expects you to do that.”
“I feel like they do.” she protested. “Journalists keep talking to me as if I must be happy to have President Morrow as my father. He’s so popular and successful that I must be dying to claim his revered family tree as my own. I couldn’t care less. I’d rather be descended from some nice man whom I could actually meet and get to know, not some almighty, carved-from-stone figure that everyone bows down to. It’s exasperating.”
He chuckled. “Maybe he isn’t as carved in stone as you think. Sometimes people expect members of the royal family to behave like granite statues, but believe me, we have feelings, too. It can be very inconvenient.” Like right now, when he longed to take this troubled and lovely woman in his arms and give her a big bear hug.
Once again he restrained himself. He’d learned to do a pretty passable impression of a granite statue when the occasion called for it.
“I don’t think the press wants me to be a granite statue. I think they’d like to see me go right to pieces. The way they’ve been hounding me and peppering me with questions, it feels
like they’re just waiting for me to say the wrong thing or break down sobbing. They must be exasperated that I’m so dull I couldn’t give them a good story even if I wanted to.” The morning breeze whipped her dark dress against her body. The soft fabric hugged contours that would bring a weaker man to his knees. If only he wasn’t a gentleman.
“You’re anything but dull.”
“Why are we talking about me? That’s a dull topic if there ever was one.” Her eyes flashed something that warned him off. “Didn’t you invite me here to help you plan a party?”
He frowned. Had he used that as an excuse? He just wanted to get to know her better. It was a good idea, though. He’d like to raise awareness of World Connect in the US and gain some new donors. “Do you think you could help me put together a fund-raiser for World Connect? We’ve never done one on this side of the Atlantic before.”
“Absolutely.” Her face lit up and he could almost feel her lungs fill with relief. “We organize gala events all the time. We can pretty much print out a guest list of people who like to support worthy causes. Happily there are a lot of them in D.C.”
“They sound ideal. And I wouldn’t turn up my nose at people who want to donate for the tax benefits, either.”
She grinned. “They’re often the most generous ones. What kind of venue did you have in mind?”
He tried to look like he’d put some thought into it. “Somewhere…big.” It was hard to think at all with those big green eyes staring so hopefully at him. “I’m sure you could come up with a good place.”
“The Smithsonian might work. There are a lot of possibilities. I can make some phone calls once you pick a date.”
“A date?” He drew in a breath. “What would you suggest?” A date far off into the future might be good, so he’d have plenty of excuses to get together with her for brainstorming and planning.
“Summers aren’t ideal because a lot of people go away to the beach. I’d recommend the fall or winter. Something about the short days makes people want to get dressed up in their sparkliest outfits and stay out late.”
Affairs of State Page 2