The Royal & The Runaway Bride (Dynasties: The Connellys Book 7)

by Kathryn Jensen

  Her man.

  No, not any longer, she told herself. Phillip had rejected her once and for all. How was she going to move on with her life without him? She had no idea.

  Eleven

  Alex turned from the window of the villa at the sound of the telephone ringing. Her suitcases stood ready beside the foyer door. Phillip’s driver had gone to bring the car to take her to the airport. She’d held out a fragile hope that Phillip might return to the house to at least say goodbye to her. But it seemed he intentionally was making himself scarce until she left.

  Her heart ached at the thought of leaving him and Altaria.

  Just as she picked up the phone, she caught a glimpse of Phillip crossing the yard between the two stables. He glanced once at the house. She held her breath. But he kept on walking and disappeared into the dark recesses of the nearest stable.

  “Hello,” she said over a horrid, stifling tightness in her lungs.

  “That you, Alex?” a familiar voice asked.

  “Drew?” She swiped at her eyes. It was her brother. “Are you in Chicago?”

  “No, I’ve been in London, then Rome on business. Just wanted to see if I could catch you in Altaria before heading for home. I was surprised to find you weren’t with Daniel at the palace. Are you all right?”

  She forced lightness into her voice. “Of course I’m all right. When have I not been?” She’d left her fiancé the day before their wedding, had a blazing affair with a prince, who subsequently dropped her… Why shouldn’t life be simply rosy? “As it turns out, I’m leaving for home tonight. Just waiting for my ride to the airport now.”

  “Oh, well, I guess I’ll see you at the summer house when I get back. I’m wrapping things up early. I got a call from my daughter. Says she has a surprise for me, something very special, and she wants me home. Kids!” He sounded tickled to death with the summons from his little girl. Alex knew how much she meant to him.

  “Sounds like a command performance before the queen. Guess you’d better not disappoint.”

  “I won’t,” he promised. Then the light tone of his voice altered. “I hear a lot’s been going on at home. Pretty serious stuff, the investigation and all. Dad must be going out of his mind.”

  “We’ll both have some catching up to do,” she commented, although nothing seemed important anymore. Not now that Phillip had walked out of her life.

  “See you back in Chi-town, sis,” Drew said.

  “Yes.” Her stomach clenched, and she felt sickened by the thought.

  She didn’t want to leave Altaria, didn’t want to return to her old life.

  Didn’t want to reenact all the old scenes with her friends and family. She couldn’t be Alexandra, the party girl, the girl who would try anything once, then move on. She wanted permanency, a life that meant something. She wanted to be the woman she’d become in Phillip Kinrowan’s arms.

  Alex slowly let the telephone receiver rest in its cradle. She looked out the window. The driver had brought the car up to the front of the house, and Phillip was nowhere in sight.

  Time to leave. Time to go home and try to figure out, once and for all, who she was meant to be.

  Alex’s heart felt lifeless. She couldn’t even feel her own pulse. Her feet moved reluctantly across the rich Pasha carpet, as if literally weighed down by her remorse. The one man who had counted for anything, and she couldn’t even be honest with him.

  It might have worked. It might have been forever.

  Phillip pitchforked fresh, sweet-smelling straw into Eros’s stall after mucking it out. He worked fast and hard, intentionally trying to exhaust himself. If he bled himself of all energy, he wouldn’t be able to think about Alex, wouldn’t be able to remember the good times he now realized he’d subconsciously wished could go on forever.

  In the background, beneath the sounds of the horses snuffling and shifting in their stalls, he heard a car engine growl to life, just as he felt his own will to endure seep away to nothingness. He closed his eyes. From the sounds, he could picture the vehicle pulling away from the front of the villa with Alex in it. Moving past the stables and driving off. The rumble of its engine faded to a hum, then was lost entirely among the softly comforting sounds of the horses.

  She was gone. He hadn’t looked up once, and he congratulated himself for being strong.

  He wasn’t sad, Phillip told himself. He was angry—and with good reason. Alex had played her selfish games, using him as a little child would use her dolls to act out dramas of her imagination. He doubted if even the tears she’d shed when he last saw her were real.

  Alex had pretended for so long, she probably didn’t know who she was or what she wanted. Hadn’t he accused her of that? If only he’d listened to his own words. If only he’d remembered them and taken them to heart and not let her get under his skin as she had.

  One thing was sure. He wasn’t going to throw away his own life trying to figure out life for her.

  He plunged the pitchfork into another pile of straw, then leaned on the handle and swore under his breath. Eros plodded over and nuzzled his cheek with a wet slobber.

  “We won’t miss her at all. Will we, boy?” Phillip muttered and stroked the gelding’s silky neck. “Better off without her.”

  It was two weeks after Alex’s return to Chicago, and life had returned to an all-too-familiar routine. She let herself be drawn in by her old friends. They whisked her off on unnecessary shopping trips, in search of clothing she didn’t need, perfume that smelled like a funeral parlor and food that tasted like cardboard after the simple, sun-drenched delicacies of Altaria. She spent money because she was supposed to, not because there was anything she really wanted.

  Long, dreary afternoons were spent at the spa, luxuriating in costly treatments to soothe her sun-pinked skin after her days of sailing and riding. But she felt worse rather than better.

  She missed Phillip with all her heart and struggled to occupy herself, to forget a way of life that was honest and plain but exciting as long as it was with him. She could not forget. Everything around her appeared gray and felt boring after Altaria and Phillip.

  One night she accepted an invitation to a party at a girlfriend’s house. As soon as she walked in the door, she heard a voice she recognized. A lump of panic rose in her throat, and she spun around, searching desperately for the nearest escape route. Behind her was a door, and she didn’t care where it led as long as it was out of the roomful of guests. She reached for the knob.

  “Hey, you just got here,” Sheila called from the middle of a well-heeled crowd, starting toward her.

  Tonight, everyone wore black; it was the thing. Black with silver or platinum jewelry. The whole damn room looked as if they’d coordinated their clothing before dressing. Alex felt disgusted. Where had her head been when she’d chosen friends all these years? They were plastic replicas of real people, dressed up like mannequins.

  “Where are you off to so fast?” Sheila bubbled.

  “You didn’t tell me Robert was coming,” Alex said under her breath.

  Sheila shrugged but didn’t look at all guilty. “You didn’t ask.”

  “Not funny.” Alex turned toward the door again.

  “Wait!” It wasn’t Sheila’s voice that stopped her, but Robert’s.

  She froze midstride, her blood running ice-cold through her body. She looked down at her hand without turning to face him. “There’s nothing to say between us, Robert. You know that.”

  Sheila gave her a look that said she’d been in on the conspiracy. She ducked out of Robert’s path and rejoined her other guests. Laughter, the clink of crystal, voices raised to be heard above the rising chatter, and Alex wished it would all go away.

  “Alex, come on, please. Honey, you don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”

  She looked at him for the first time in over a month. Robert Marsh was handsome in the expensive tuxedo obviously tailored just for him. His blond hair was trimmed perfectly, and his brown eyes sparkled wi
th what she might have read as sincerity if she hadn’t known better. Anyone observing them might have assumed he genuinely cared for her. But she had learned once, the hard way.

  “Missed me, Robert? I doubt that. All you miss is your insurance policy.”

  “My what?”

  “Me. Your security that your career will take you to the moon. Because you’ve married the boss’s daughter.”

  He rolled his eyes, as if saying, Women, what gets into them? “You never gave me a chance to explain. I love you, Alex. You’re more important to me than any job.”

  “I am?” Flashing her eyes at him, she stepped two degrees closer.

  Alex poked him in the chest with one fingernail, perfectly shaped and lacquered a bloodred crimson. She hated the color, now that she thought about it. But it did make her feel just a little bit reckless, which was what she needed to get her through this final confrontation with Robert Marsh.

  “You’re certain I’m more important than your career?” she asked sweetly.

  “Sure.” He smiled, showing white teeth, but his eyes skittered around the room as if worried someone might overhear and refute him. “Working for Grant is just that—work. I thank God, though, I took that position with the company. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have met you.”

  “Right.” She didn’t believe a word of it.

  “So, what do you say, sweetheart? Can we get back together again? I mean, now that you’ve had time to cool off and—”

  “Tell you what, Robert,” she said cutting him off with a slashing movement of her hand. “I’ll take you back on one condition.”

  He grinned, ecstatic at the possibility. “Anything, sweetheart, you name it!” His arm snaked around her waist, and she didn’t fight him because she knew it wouldn’t be there for long.

  “Resign your position at Connelly Corporation, and promise me you’ll never work for my family again.”

  His mouth literally dropped open. “Alex?”

  “I mean it. If the job doesn’t mean anything, walk away from it. We can live a simple life. We don’t need a lot of money to be happy, do we, sweetheart?” She smiled at him coyly.

  His arm fell away from her and he took a step backward. “I’ve worked hard to get where I am at Connelly. We’d have nothing.”

  “We’d have our love.” It was a test, and it didn’t matter if he knew it. She was sorry she didn’t feel a thing for him when he hesitated for a moment longer, his face white, his lips pressed tightly together, the smiles gone. “That’s all right, Robert. You don’t have to say a thing. I know your answer.”

  She grasped his shoulders, easily turned him around and gave him a little shove to start him off. A moment later, he’d disappeared into the crowd, and she slipped out the door to her car. Sheila would be angry she’d ditched her party, but then again, she didn’t think parties would matter much to her anymore. Not the kind her old friends gave. She no longer felt a part of their pointless lives.

  Altaria in summer was more beautiful than any time during the year. Warm breezes off the Mediterranean, brilliant sunshine and afternoon showers lavished their attention on the lush tropical foliage and exotic blooms. The air was perfumed with their scent, and everywhere Phillip looked he saw evidence of the earth’s generosity. He had always been content to be here, in this paradise. He should have been happy.

  He was not. Alex had left him and his misery knew no bounds.

  The perversity of it wasn’t lost on him. She had left because he had told her she must, because he’d literally tossed her out. He’d done it because he believed he could only be happy without her. Only then would life make sense to him. But it didn’t.

  Barnaby Jacobs wasn’t the first to point out how badly he’d handled things. Cook had scolded him for sulking. His stable master had said, “You didn’t look so glum when the signorina was here.” And even Dr. Elgado, whom he’d visited for his annual physical remarked that Phillip seemed unusually quiet and less interested in life.

  They were right, dammit. But there was nothing he could do about it, was there? “After all,” he confided in Barnaby one evening as they sat on his veranda, sharing cigars and a fine old port, “I’d just be asking for trouble, getting serious with a woman who can’t tell the truth.”

  “You could look at it that way,” Barnaby agreed. “Or you might see things differently.”

  “How differently?” Phillip growled.

  “Well,” Barnaby blew a silver-blue puff of smoke into the hazy night air, “there’s a fine line between lying and being playful.”

  Phillip snorted. “Convincing the man you’re with that you’re someone you’re not. You call that playful?”

  “If she meant no harm in doing so, yes, I could see it that way.”

  Phillip took two hefty swallows of the port and let its rich warmth burn its way down his throat. “And how does one judge intent? She claims she wanted nothing from me, but it’s never been true before. How can I believe this woman was so different?”

  “Perhaps you just have to be a gambling man to appreciate a woman like Alex.” Barnaby’s trips to Monaco casinos were no secret.

  “Gambling is a dangerous sport, solicitor.”

  “True. But sometimes the rewards are magnificent. I suppose it depends upon what’s at stake. Many women, I suppose, wouldn’t be worth the risk. But Alex… You know, Phillip, I don’t think I can recall you smiling or laughing so much as when she was with you. You began to live again, really live. How is the boat coming, by the way?”

  “Not badly,” Phillip said, a note of pride in his voice. “I’ve nearly finished the rough plans. There is a shipyard in Nice that may be perfect for what I need. I’m flying there next week to meet with the naval architect and discuss details.”

  “That’s wonderful. I think Alex would be very pleased to know this. She would be proud of you.”

  Phillip crushed out his half-smoked Havana in the crystal ashtray on the table before them. “There’s no telling what that woman might think. She’s a mystery.”

  “Aren’t they all, in a way?”

  “Not like Alex,” Phillip grumbled.

  Barnaby smiled. “No. She was truly special.”

  Phillip closed his eyes and remembered her as she’d stood by the roadside, astride Lucy, holding Eros’s reins. She had sat so very tall in the saddle that day, giving him that impish grin that said she’d succeeded where all of his men had failed. Yet she had seemed so little, so fragile next to his horses.

  Yes, he could imagine her being proud of him, returning to his dream.

  “What about her, Phillip?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Alex’s dream. You said once that she considered writing fiction. Have you heard anything from her? Has she continued to write?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice sounding as hollow as his soul felt. “She hasn’t tried to contact me. I don’t expect she will, after the way we—” He couldn’t go on.

  “You miss her, don’t you?” Barnaby laid a consoling hand over his arm.

  “That’s beside the point. I couldn’t trust her.”

  Barnaby sighed. “Strange, I think she was the most honest woman I know.”

  Phillip laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Really. She knew the price she’d pay for telling you the truth. You told me after she left that she’d tried to say something to you earlier, but events kept getting in the way. That wasn’t her fault. She must have loved you a great deal to be so afraid of telling you she was a Connelly and a member of the social elite you were so set on running away from.”

  Phillip dropped his face into his hands and tried to make sense of it all. He had been so sure he was in the right. But now…now, the way his friend put it, the scale seemed to tip the other way.

  “Even if I wanted her back in my life,” he said slowly, “I’m pretty sure I’ve burned my bridges.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe there is some way you can show her you are a man who make
s mistakes, a man who appreciates her.”

  He lifted his head and looked at the lawyer. “I can’t begin to imagine a way to do that.”

  Barnaby blew a perfect smoke circle. It hovered for a moment in the still air, a silver ring that slowly drifted apart as a warm breeze caught it. “The right gift to go with the right promise. Something she can’t buy for herself with her own money. Something that only you possess and can give to her. Something she loves.”

  Phillip blinked, thinking hard. There was one thing…

  Emma Connelly did her best to comfort her daughter, but she wasn’t successful. She felt for Alexandra. More than her other children, her daughter was fragile of spirit. She’d always tried too hard to please, searched too frantically for her place in life. Emma had hoped that marriage to a good young man would bring Alexandra the peace and joy Emma had come to know from her family. But Robert Marsh wasn’t the right man for Alexandra.

  And now, after returning from Altaria, her daughter seemed sadder than ever. But with the sadness there had come other changes. She seemed more sure of herself, less fragile. After the first week of meeting with old friends, she had set up a computer in her room and spent hours typing. Emma had seen some of the pages, and she was amazed at the joy and brilliance in her daughter’s writing. It was as if she’d uncovered a hidden talent that had been waiting for just the right moment to show itself.

  “Are you planning to write a book?” Emma had asked jokingly one afternoon.

  Alexandra smiled a little, gave a sideways tilt to her head. “Maybe. I’ll see.”

  Just like that. Perhaps there was hope for the girl yet. Emma only wished that finding herself hadn’t cost her daughter so dearly. The man she’d met in Altaria, whose name was never spoken, had broken her heart if not her spirit. And that was a high price for finding oneself.