“Indeed. And it ensures that one day Nicky will be king.”
They weren’t even touching now. Their bodies had slipped away from each other, and goose bumps rose on her skin in the night air coming in through the open window. Perhaps it was simply his love for Nicky that brought him to her? Maybe he wanted to make sure she’d stay and this was the only way he knew how. He paid for her loyalty—and for his son’s presence in his life—with passion that fired her heart but left his cold.
An ache of despair and loneliness crept over her, extinguishing the joy she’d felt only moments earlier. She turned away from him and climbed back into the bed. “We’d both better get some sleep.” He must be anxious to slip away, as he did every night, back to his own realm. Away from her.
She heard him don his clothes in the darkness, even his mask, because she saw the sequins that edged it shimmer in the pale moonbeams that crept around the curtains. “Good night, Stella. Sleep well.”
His kiss made her lips hum, and she hated the way her heart squeezed at his touch.
Of course now she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all. Not that she could earlier. Being around Vasco was driving her crazy. One minute she was drifting on a tide of joy, sure that she was the happiest woman alive. The next she was alone and filled with anguish, sure that he didn’t love her and never would. She could make all the plans and conditions she liked when she was alone, but as soon as she was in Vasco’s presence all common sense and resolve evaporated in the heat of passion.
There was no way she could stay here in the palace with him and remain sane.
Ten
The local librarian put her in touch with some owners of nearby private libraries who might want a restorer. She didn’t mention that she was also looking to live in. She struck gold with a nearby family who spent most of the year in Paris but had a small estate in Montmajor only a ten-minute drive from the palace. After a phone call and a reference from her old boss in California, they hired her to restore some rare volumes over the next three months. Most importantly, she could live in their villa, which would buy her time to find somewhere permanent to move and give her space to think about her life.
She waited a few days until Vasco went out of town. She knew that if she tried to confront him he’d just wear her down, probably with nothing more than a meaningful look. She’d tried too many times to stand up to him and failed more miserably each time. She needed to make her break when he wasn’t there to cajole her out of her decision.
While she waited for him to leave she slept in her own bedroom, alone, with the convenient excuse that it was “that time of the month.” She’d felt a mix of relief and disappointment at the realization that she wasn’t carrying another of Vasco’s babies. And her monthly visitor was welcome protection. If she slept in Vasco’s arms at night, she’d lose every last ounce of conviction.
With no possessions other than those in her suitcase, the move required no planning beyond packing some of Nicky’s toys into a box and calling a taxi.
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?” Aunt Lilli’s eyes widened with alarm. Her arms reached for Nicky, who ran immediately into them.
“I’m only moving up the road, to Castell Blanc. I’ll be working in their library and living in the house. If you agree, and if Vasco is okay with it, I’d like to bring Nicky here every day to spend time with you.”
“Vasco’s not going to like this.” Aunt Frida pursed her lips and shook her head. “Not at all.”
Stella swallowed. “I know, but’s too difficult for me to live here. It complicates matters.”
“How is it complicated? Vasco is crazy about you.” Aunt Mari crossed her arms. “You must marry him.”
Stella blinked. “He’s made it clear that he won’t marry me. Or anyone else, I think. He doesn’t like the idea of marriage and said it ruins relationships.”
“But you’re the one who told Mimi you’d never marry him.”
“Only because I knew his opinion already. To be honest I was hoping he’d see it differently, but he’s as determined as ever to remain single and I can’t live here as some kind of…” She glanced around, then lowered her voice. “Concubine.”
Lilli sucked in a breath. “I’ve had words with him. I’ve tried to explain to him that you’re a nice girl.” She hesitated.
Stella pondered that if she was such a nice girl she wouldn’t be in a position to be called his mistress.
“He’s stubborn,” Lilli continued. “Obstinate.”
“A typical man,” cut in Aunt Frida.
“Perhaps you moving out is for the best. He’ll realize what he’s missing.”
Stella shrugged. She wasn’t going to get carried away hoping things would change. People rarely changed. “I want Nicky to grow up with his family, including all of you. I intend for us to stay here in Montmajor, but I need to leave the palace right now, today.”
Lilli nodded. “I understand.” Still, she looked very sad as she stroked Nicky’s cheek. “You’ll bring him tomorrow?”
“Without fail. Unless Vasco barricades the castle against me.”
“He’s not that foolish.” Aunt Mari looked down at Nicky. “I do hope he’ll see sense before it’s too late.”
Her feet and her heart felt heavier than her suitcase as she walked through the grand archway out of the palace. Silly, as she hadn’t come here to marry him. She also hadn’t planned to fall madly in love with him. That was the real reason she had to go. It was just too painful to fall asleep in his arms dreaming of them as a real family, knowing all the while he saw her only as his girlfriend—enjoyable and potentially disposable—and that he had no plans to ever commit to a permanent relationship.
Heck, he wasn’t even there when she woke up in the morning!
Maybe if she hadn’t waited nine years for a commitment from Trevor—which never came—she’d feel differently, but her life had made her who she was, and she’d sworn she’d never let anyone do that to her again.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Vasco scanned the hallway behind Aunt Lilli. He’d returned from his short trip to Switzerland midday on Sunday, and the palace was eerily silent.
“She moved out four days ago.” Lilli pursed her mouth in that disapproving way he remembered from his childhood. “She said it was a personal matter.” She raised her brow on the word personal. No doubt she didn’t want to reveal too many details in front of the staff.
“Come to my study.” He strode past her. How could Stella do this? She was happy here in the palace, he knew it.
Though she had been avoiding him for the last week. Her excuse about having her period was convincing at the time but now he grew skeptical. She’d known all along that she was leaving and she wanted to keep her distance.
He flung open the door of his office and ushered Lilli in, then slammed it again. “Nicky, where is he?”
“He’s with Stella, of course.”
He blew out a curse. “She said she’d stay here. That she liked Montmajor and she knew it was a good place for Nicky to grow up.”
“She hasn’t left the country. She’s living at Castell Blanc.”
“Oscar Mayoral’s old place? Why is she there?”
“She’s working on books in the library. And living there.”
“How does she even know Mayoral?”
Lilli shrugged.
At least the landowner was in his seventies. And married, with several children and grandchildren, so there was no immediate risk of losing Stella to him. “Doesn’t he live abroad?”
“Yes.”
He frowned. “So she’s there alone?”
“There’s a housekeeper, a handyman and a gardener.”
He inhaled and tried to wrap his mind around Stella living anywhere other than right here in the palace. It felt wrong. “I must bring her back home.”
“She no longer wishes to live here as your…lover.” His elderly “aunt” narrowed her eyes slightly as she said the last word.
; “She told you that?”
“In so many words. She knows you won’t marry her and she’s too principled a lady to live here in sin with you, especially with her son to consider.”
Vasco snorted. “Live in sin? Not everyone has the same outdated moral code as my aunts.”
Lilli lifted her pointed chin and crossed her arms. “No. They don’t.” Her gaze accused him. She clearly felt that he was at fault. “She wants to marry you.”
“She told the press she’d never marry me.”
His “aunt” clucked. “Nonsense. She told Mimi she knew you’d never marry her. That may not be how she phrased it but we all know it’s the truth.” She walked up to him and adjusted his collar, which made him feel like a naughty schoolboy again. “And she won’t live here anymore unless you marry her.”
Something deep in Vasco’s gut recoiled from the implied ultimatum. “Marriage is not for me.”
Lilli shook her head and clucked her tongue in that infuriating way of hers. “Then apparently Stella is not for you, either. Or Nicky.”
Panic flashed through him for a second, then he calmed. “She agreed to let me become Nicky’s legal parent. He’ll officially be next in line to the throne.”
His aunt snorted. “After you’re dead? How consoling. Don’t you want to enjoy him in your life right now?”
“Of course I do.” Why did Stella have to mess things up when they were going so well? “Are you trying to say that Stella won’t let me see Nicky unless I marry her?”
“Stella brings Nicky here in the mornings during the week to spend the day with us. She has no intention of keeping Nicky away. Just herself.”
He frowned. “So she’ll still be coming to the palace.” He’d see her every day. He could tempt her. He’d already proved that.
“I know what you’re thinking, young man. If you try to seduce her you’ll only drive her further away. Stop thinking like a lover and start thinking like a father.”
Vasco wheeled away. That’s exactly what he didn’t want to do. If he started planning his love life around domestic practicalities, it would end up as loveless and unromantic as his ancestors’. Passion and duty just didn’t go together.
“Do you love her?” Lilli’s quiet question penetrated his thoughts and almost made a sweat break out on his brow.
“What kind of question is that to ask a king?”
“Don’t make light of it. It’s a question you need to ask yourself.”
“I don’t know what love is. I’m a Montoya man, remember?”
She snorted. “That’s the trouble with you. Montoya men keep their brains in their breeches, that’s why they’ve relied on women to keep this good country going all these years.”
“I should have you thrown in the dungeons for such a treasonous statement.”
She raised a stern penciled brow, but humor twinkled in her eyes. “I can see I’m making you think.”
“Nonsense. You’re making me annoyed. And hungry. Do they not serve lunch around here anymore?” He needed to end this conversation. “Please ask Joseph to serve it immediately.” He turned away and pulled out his phone to signal that the conversation was over.
His aunt Lilli didn’t budge. Barely more than five feet tall, she seemed to occupy the entire space of his office with her willful presence. “Bring her back home, Vasco. For all of us.”
“Ms. Greco, there’s someone very important here to see you.” The elderly caretaker wiped her hands anxiously on her flowered housedress. Her wide eyes said it all.
“His majesty.” Stella managed not to look up from the large letter E she was touching up on a seventeenth-century bible. It was Sunday and she was trying to squeeze some work in during Nicky’s afternoon nap.
“Yes. He’s at the door right now. Which room should I bring him into?”
Stella swallowed and put down her tiny paintbrush, sure she wouldn’t be able to keep her hand steady enough not to destroy the precious book. She would have loved to say, “Send him away!” but that would have scandalized and horrified the housekeeper, and wasn’t fair.
“I’ll come to the door.”
“I can’t leave him standing there.” Already the old lady was shocked.
“I’ll go right now.” She closed up her bottle of ink. The most important thing was not to weaken and fall into his arms. Not that he’d want her to. If he thought chatting with a gossip columnist about her lack of marriage prospects was a breach of trust, then moving out had probably set his hair on fire.
She hurried past the flushed housekeeper and headed for the front door. The housekeeper’s gnarled husband, who was the live-in handyman, hovered hidden behind an archway.
“The king!” he sputtered, as she went by. Apparently they hadn’t been reading the gossip columns or they might have expected his majesty to show up. Castell Blanc was a very quiet place. She’d been here four days—since Vasco left for his trip—and no one had visited at all, not even a Jehovah’s Witness. Now suddenly the local monarch was cooling his heels on the doorstep.
She managed to prevent a hysterical giggle from rising to her throat. It was late afternoon and warm amber light brightened the foyer and poured through the half-open door. She could see Vasco silhouetted against it, standing just inside the doorway.
“What does this mean?” His deep voice greeted her before she could even see his face.
“Let’s go outside.”
“No, I’d like to come in.”
“It’s not my house so that’s not appropriate.” Her heart beat like a freight train. She didn’t want the elderly couple to hear their conversation. He might be king but that didn’t mean he could just march in anywhere like it was his own palace.
She walked past him, avoiding his glance, and out the front door. Unfortunately his spicy masculine scent tickled her nostrils as she passed, and sent darts of misgiving prickling through her.
He followed her down the wide steps. Castell Blanc was a large house, maybe three hundred years old, built of mellow golden stone. It had the air of a summer residence, not well updated or overly maintained, which suited its rustic charm. She hadn’t even met the owner. He’d hired her over the phone on the strength of her Pacific College references and her acquaintance with a respected local librarian, who was too discreet to mention her circumstances. What would Senyor Mayoral think if he knew his new book restorer was angering royalty on his front doorstep?
A vast paved courtyard, surrounded by disused stable buildings, sprawled in front of the house.
“You’re not going to let me in?” He looked both amused and astonished. Vasco had probably never been denied entry anywhere. She’d even let him into her L.A. house eventually.
“I can’t.”
“I’m sure Oscar wouldn’t mind.”
“I came here to get away from you.” She felt indignant that he didn’t even seem to be listening to her. “I need some space.”
“There’s plenty of space at the palace. You could have your own wing.”
She felt the urge to growl. “And you’d be able to saunter into it whenever you pleased. That’s what I’m trying to get away from.”
Why did he have to be even more handsome and good-humored than she remembered? He looked striking and quite unroyal in jeans and a dark green shirt. The thin layer of dust suggested he’d arrived on his motorbike, which was just so…Vasco. It was hard to be mad at him in the flesh.
Which, of course, was the whole reason she needed distance between her flesh and his. “I don’t want a relationship where I’m at your beck and call but there’s no permanent commitment between us. You may find that bizarre, especially since we haven’t been together very long, but that’s just how I feel. I’ve been there already with my ex, and it’s not for me. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it again.”
“Your ex and I are totally different people.”
“On the surface, this is true. On the other hand, you’re both men and neither of you wanted to commit, so maybe you have m
ore in common than you think.”
“This is all about marriage, for you?” He frowned.
She inhaled a breath. “That makes it sound like I’m making an ultimatum, but I guess it is about marriage, when you come right down to it. If I choose to be in a relationship, then it’s because I am seeking the kind of lifetime partnership that I think all of us deserve. I’m not a teenager looking to experiment, or a college student interested in playing the field. I’m a mature woman and the mother of a young child. At this point in my life I either want a committed relationship, or I’d rather be single.”
She’d made that decision when she told Trevor she wouldn’t be available on Friday nights anymore. No more dating “just for fun.” Once she realized a relationship wasn’t going anywhere, she wanted out. Which was probably why she hadn’t taken a chance on one since. Was she a freak because she wanted a committed, loving relationship?
“We can be committed without being married.” Vasco’s gray gaze implored her. “Marriage doesn’t work out well for the Montoyas.”
Again desire warred with fierce irritation. Why did his eyes have such an infuriating sparkle to them? “You aren’t your ancestors, you’re you. We can’t just live together in our situation. You’re a king. We have a child. No one knows the true details but right now I have ‘live-in royal mistress’ stamped on my forehead like a supermarket chicken. Nell Gwynn may have been happy with that arrangement, as long as Charles II gave her enough money and houses, but I’m more old-fashioned and can’t live like that.”
She glanced around, suddenly worried the elderly caretakers might be listening. “I don’t want people talking about me. About us.”
“But they will anyway, because Nicky is our child.”
“They don’t know the truth about his conception.” An idea made her stand up straight. “Maybe we should tell them? We’re not lovers at all, simply strangers brought together by the freezers of a California sperm bank.”
Vasco shivered. “No.”
“Why not? It’s the truth. You made the choice to leave your deposit there. It’s not like you didn’t know what you were doing.”
Claiming His Royal Heir Page 12