by Sparks, Ana
I glanced at the caller ID and frowned when I saw the plus sign in front of the number that meant this was an international call. I never got international calls.
And as far as I was concerned, that could really only mean one thing. This was one of those telemarketer calls from Siberia or somewhere like that, where they were going to try to sell me solar panels. Maybe convince me that my social security number had been hacked. Or that the FBI was after me.
I almost never answered these calls.
But.
Well, honestly, I didn’t know why I answered it. But for some reason, I did.
I also went in expecting it to be a scam.
“Hello?” I said, using the fakest accent I could make up on the spot.
There was a pregnant pause on the other end, and it lasted long enough that I actually repeated the faux-accented greeting.
“Helloooooooooo?”
Okay, now I was trying not to laugh. And I was sort of glad I’d answered the phone. This was already cheering me up after my day of not sleeping well.
Then someone answered me.
“Is this Erika Saunders?”
“Yep, that’s my name,” I said, still using the fake accent.
“This is… Erika?”
Wait, I thought, frowning. I knew that voice. I knew that gravelly, rough tone.
I knew the way that person’s accent softened the ‘k’ in my name.
“Francisco?” I breathed.
“Erika!” he said, overjoyed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice at first!”
“Probably because I was using a fake accent,” I admitted, grinning widely at hearing his voice on the other end of the line—and immediately forgiving the fact that he’d been out of touch for an entire week.
“Of course you were,” he said smoothly. “I’m sorry, I should have expected that.”
And I did laugh then, just because that was such a Francisco response—and so like the responses he’d been giving me for the entire weekend of our adventure together. Just jumping right into whatever fantasy I’d cooked up at the time, and acting like it was completely normal.
Seamless. That was how we’d been together. And now that he was actually on the phone, making the same sort of jumps with me, that feeling was even stronger.
“Where are you, and what the hell happened?” I asked. “I haven’t heard from you in a week. I thought you might have been lost in the mail or something.”
“Does your mail service lose people often?”
I shook my head at that jump. “We don’t normally use the mail to transport people, believe it or not,” I said. “It was a joke. But the question stands. Where are you? What’s happened?”
At that, he launched into his story, going so quickly through a number of details that it took me several lines before I felt like I could actually keep up with him. God, I had forgotten how fast he talked when he was passionate—or upset—about something.
But what he said… Well, it was no wonder I hadn’t heard from him in a week. Evidently, he’d been deported back home, courtesy of the State Department—and his brother’s international warrant—and had been delivered back to said brother in Orlo, which was the capital of Tarana.
Once he was back in Orlo, Francisco had told his own State Department to find a way to smooth things over with their American counterpart. He’d wanted to come back to the States, he’d told the guy, and specifically Chicago.
“So you were going to come back,” I said, sort of ridiculously thrilled at this bit of news.
Not that I’d been doubting him. But when you meet a guy in a bar, spend the weekend with him, and then find out that he’s a prince and watch him get arrested, you do tend to have some doubts. That’s just human nature.
“Of course I was,” he answered, sounding like he was actually shocked to have been questioned on that point. “I told you I would. And I never go back on my word.”
I refrained from saying that the press hadn’t exactly portrayed him as someone who was that loyal to his word. Partially because of the way it made me feel to think that he’d been coming back for me. I liked the idea that he was the sort of guy who made a promise and then followed through on it.
I liked the idea that he’d made that promise to me, and had taken it so seriously that he’d actually gone to his own State Department and tried to get them to help him.
“Sadly,” he concluded, “Juan hasn’t been able to make any progress in that regard. The Americans are being… stubborn.” That last word came out in a low, intense voice—one that made his frustration clear.
And in that moment, I realized that I’d been a fool.
Francisco wasn’t calling to continue our relationship. He wasn’t calling to charm me or sit around telling jokes or remind me how good we’d been together.
He was calling me to tell me he wasn’t coming back. That he’d tried and hadn’t been able to get it done. I mean yeah, he was doing the right thing in letting me know. But that didn’t change the theme of the news.
“So, you’re not coming back,” I murmured, unwilling to admit how much that hurt.
“Not yet,” he countered. “I’m not finished working on it.”
Yeah, but that didn’t really matter, and surely he knew that. Because I didn’t think the State Department was going to change their minds. If they’d decided they didn’t want him back in the country, what could he possibly do to alter that decision?
A grand total of nothing.
Which meant I had to get over this whole thing.
I stayed on the phone long enough to get his personal number and wish him good luck, and then I hung up, my heart breaking a little bit the moment I pushed the red button that would end the call.
Well, I thought, that was that, wasn’t it? Because the guy wasn’t coming back. Period.
So that thing I’d been harboring in my heart, the thing about seeing him again and going on more grand adventures? The whole concept of actually dating a prince, and maybe even taking a trip to Europe?
The secret thrill I got whenever I thought about him?
Yeah, it all had to go away. It had to get cut off at the source. Francisco might have been the hottest guy I’d ever walked the streets of Chicago with, and he might have actually been a sort of Prince Charming—literally—but he was also a troublemaker. Someone who trotted around the globe getting into trouble with other women, and then getting arrested.
I had been stupid to ever think I could be anything more to him than another fling in a series of dozens.
And I needed to put this on my list of funny stories I told at parties, and then move on with my life. I had to get over Prince Francisco, and forget that weekend had ever happened.
I needed to stop thinking about him and start thinking about how to make more of my life.
Chapter 14
Francisco
I listened as Erika hung up, my heart sinking like the Titanic, and closed my eyes for a long moment, regretting everything about how that conversation had gone.
Well, not everything. I mean, it had started out just fine. It had started out with the same sort of effortless flirting we’d always had together. The same sort of back-and-forth that we’d lived off of for that entire weekend. The stuff I’d missed every second since I’d left her.
And it didn’t surprise me that it was still there.
I did regret, though, how quickly it had disappeared when I started telling her about what had happened. Not that I could have changed anything about that. After all, I wasn’t the one in charge of the State Department or their decisions.
I was doing everything I could to fix things.
And I was just going to have to keep doing everything I could. Because if that phone call had told me anything, it was that the magic between Erika and me was still there. And waiting for me to get back to Chicago and enjoy it again.
It had also made me even more dedicated to finding a way to do that. Even more obsessed with
it, if I was being honest.
A knock at the door interrupted the rabbit hole I was about to go down, and I looked up at the door of my suite, wondering who the hell was in this wing of the palace. Yes, I still lived in the same house as my brother and mother, though ‘house’ was putting it pretty mildly. The house being, you know, a palace, and I had an entire wing of it to myself—which meant that I very rarely saw anyone I didn’t want to see.
“Yes?” I called out. “Come in!”
The man who entered was my brother’s main assistant, and I lifted one eyebrow at him, already knowing that this was going to be trouble.
“Carlos,” I said smoothly. “I don’t often see you on this side of the estate. What can I do for you?”
Carlos sketched out a bow to me—a requirement, courtesy of my position in the family—and then let his mouth twitch in the start of a grin.
A grin that I returned.
I’d known Carlos for most of my life, as he’d grown up as the son of my father’s own assistant. We had seen each other through boyhood and into the gangly teenage years, when we were both trying to figure out who the hell we were. And we’d stayed friends into adulthood—even when he became my brother’s man, and his loyalties had to shift.
And he and I both knew that if he was here, knocking at my door, it meant I was either already in trouble or about to be.
“Your brother has requested a lunch date,” he said simply, surprising me.
“That’s it?” I asked. “Lunch with Javier? Or is there a catch hidden in there that you haven’t told me about yet?”
Another twitch of the lips. I didn’t know why he didn’t just go ahead and smile. We were in my private rooms, after all, and he knew I wouldn’t turn him in for breaking protocol.
“I wouldn’t call it a catch,” he said. “But the king does want to discuss your… future.”
He lifted an eyebrow at that last word, and everything fell abruptly into place. Javier, my older brother and king of the nation, the man who was married and already working on producing an heir, had decided that it was time for me to do the same.
Or at least, a younger brother’s version of the same.
“So he thinks I need to settle down, get a wife, and start making babies?” I guessed.
Carlos finally broke out into the smile he’d been flirting with and cocked his head. “I wouldn’t know, Your Highness. He did not give me the details of his thoughts ahead of time. I assume he’ll be quite forthcoming with them when you ask, though. At lunch this afternoon.”
“Ah,” I said, further understanding. So lunch was already planned, then, and we probably had reservations already set. My agreement was really just a technicality.
But that was what I got for being the spare.
“Well then, I suppose I’ll have to accept. If only to find out what exactly he’s thinking,” I told Carlos, softening the statement with a smile.
Because it wasn’t his fault my brother wanted to control my life and tell me how to move forward. It wasn’t Carlos’s fault that I had spent my entire life avoiding this exact conversation—and was now going to, I suspected, finally have to pay the bills for all the things I’d done during that rebellious era.
* * *
When I walked into the restaurant—one of the best in Orlo—I saw that Javier’s security had done a pretty complete job of cleaning the place out before our lunch date. There were still a few couples around the edge of the room, but they would have been searched for weapons, and would be dining with our security guards breathing down their necks.
Our country was small and mostly peaceful, and we’d never had any problems. But there was no point in risking the king’s safety just so he could have lunch with his brother.
“Javier,” I said, sliding into the seat across from him and looking him up and down. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
He gave me a grim smile. “Longer than that, actually. If it looks like it’s only been a week, I suppose that means the youth elixir is working.”
I took a sip of my own elixir—a gin and tonic, which was already sitting on the table, courtesy of Javier—and gave him a much more carefree smile. “What, you’ve gone off the whole blood-of-virgins diet and onto an elixir instead?”
He waved that suggestion off. “Well, one can only drink so much blood before it makes you sick.”
I toasted him with my drink. “You’ve never made me feel better about being the second son.”
And that right there was the truth. Being the spare was hard on the old ego, but it meant I didn’t have to rule the kingdom by myself, or as the face of the government, and I thanked the universe for that on the daily. Because I’d seen how much it took out of my brother. I’d seen what it did to my father before him—and my mother, in the short time she’d had to shoulder the responsibility.
It was an experience I didn’t want.
Of course, I supposed, it did at least give their lives meaning. Something I had yet to really experience.
“So, what is it?” I asked, getting straight down to business.
The corner of Javier’s mouth lifted, his eyes glinting with appreciation at my bluntness. “You sure you don’t want to order first?”
“I’d rather get it over with,” I said honestly. “I know you’ve got something to say, and I’d rather just hear it. We can get food afterward, and eat while we make amends for whatever we’re about to discuss.”
Hey, I was a playboy and I liked parties and drinking. That didn’t mean I didn’t know how to talk business.
Javier nodded firmly and cut right to the chase. “Francisco,” he said quietly, “I try not to ask favors of you. I try to keep you free of the headache of leadership. I always have. Because I love you. But this whole thing in the US, and the number of countries where you’re now banned…”
“Let me guess: It’s getting harder for you to pretend to approve of me as your brother,” I said, seeing exactly where he was leading.
“I will never find it hard to approve of you as my brother,” he said immediately. “I will never do anything other than love you, and you know that.”
I felt a stab of emotion in my heart at that, and fought to keep from reaching out and embracing him. Because I hadn’t known that. At least, not completely.
“What, then?” I asked.
Javier leaned toward me, his face intent, his eyes sparking with passion. “I need you here with me. I know you’ve struggled with finding your way in the world, and I’ve thought that letting you go out and search for it was the best way to help you. I thought you might find something out there that gave you… motivation, I suppose. But I need you here with me, now. I need you to settle down. Perhaps find a wife, start a family. But mostly… mostly, it’s for me.”
That stabbing-heart feeling got even worse at that, and I reached out to take my brother’s hand. “You want me here? And what happens if I find that I’m too bored here? Or that there’s nothing here for me to do?”
Javier leaned back and sighed heavily. “If you can’t settle down here and make a quiet life for yourself, my advisers are telling me that I would be best suited to disinherit you, for the good of the country. Cut you free, to go live your life without affecting the reputation of Tarana. I don’t want to do it. And I’ve told them that if I ask you to settle down, you’ll do it. For the good of the country itself.”
He leaned forward again, his face showing a whole lot more strain now. “Francisco, I need you to prove me right on this one. I need your help. I need you to support me now like you’ve never supported me before. Or we’re both going to face a situation neither of us wants.”
I leaned back as well, all the air going out of my lungs with the shock of what he’d just said.
Wow. I didn’t know now if we were going to be able to order lunch after all. Because my appetite—which was always strong—had flown right out the door.
I’d just been given a choice. Stay here and settle down, start
a family, and become an important—or at least less disliked and disregarded—member of the royal family…
Or be disinherited.
Chapter 15
Erika
A Month Later
The house was freaking packed, and as I looked out over the crowd, their faces shining with the humidity that hung heavy in the bar, each of them with their eyes turned to me, I grinned.
This was what it was all about. This was what I’d been craving for my entire life—and what I’d almost given up on when I realized I had to get a real job and be responsible rather than going out on the road to make music.
I’d been performing for the last two weeks, twice a week, in an attempt to regain what I’d almost let go of—and what I’d forgotten I loved so much. The adrenaline of getting up on stage and looking out over that sea of faces, the feel of my fingers on the strings of my guitar, that first crackle when I turned the microphone on…
And really, none of that came close to the absolute ecstasy of breaking into song and seeing the entire crowd swaying with me—and even singing along, if I was covering a song they knew.
Nothing could replace this. This was what I’d been living for since I was a kid, when I first realized what I could do with a set of strings strapped to a hollowed-out piece of wood (I mean, really, that was essentially what a guitar was). And though I loved playing piano, too, there was absolutely nothing that could top the position I could take when I was on guitar. I liked looked out over the people like this. I liked standing in front of them and dancing as I sang my heart out for their entertainment.
Tonight, I had one of my best friends with me on the other mic, and we were doing every guitar duet we could think of, every piece of music that could support two guitars and two voices. And when you came right down to it, that meant we were playing pretty much every song we knew by heart, and just doing it at the same time, harmonizing all the while.