by Trish Morey / Caitlin Crews / Nina Harrington / Raye Morgan
But then, he always had. She gazed at him almost hungrily, taking in all of him. It had been so long since she’d last seen him. She realized he considered her nothing but a hindrance, a ward who had been thrust upon him, a responsibility he didn’t need. But she’d always thought of him as her own personal hero. Only lately he hadn’t been living up to that part.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, looking fierce.
She frowned at him, lifting her chin defiantly. She wasn’t a child any longer and she wasn’t going to let him treat her like one. “Don’t swear at me. I’m your ward. You’re supposed to be a role model for me.”
“And you’re supposed to be at the convent, preparing for your wedding.”
She made a face and looked guilty, her gaze sliding to the side. “Yes, about that …”
He groaned. Trouble. Nothing but trouble. He could see it in her eyes.
A crowd was forming on the street level as well now. Before he knew it the paparazzi would get wind of this, and then there would be hell to pay. It was time to disappear from view.
“Come along,” he told her gruffly, taking her hand and beginning to lead her toward a shadowy space behind the stairs. “We need to talk.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” she said pluckily, though the sense of his forceful personality was wafting over her like a tidal wave and she knew she had to resist. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
That wasn’t quite what he had in mind, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he led her in through an unmarked door and then onto a private elevator that opened to his coded entry. Soon they were hurtling toward the penthouse of the ten-story building, and Prince Andre’s suite.
He looked her over, glancing sideways. She’d always been pretty, but she’d developed a luminous quality since he’d last seen her—a sort of inner glow that reminded him of angels.
Angels! He gritted his teeth. Just as he’d feared, she was more appealing than ever. He had to get her back to the convent as quickly as possible. Once she was married to his cousin, Prince Alphonso, he could wash his hands of her.
The elevator doors opened right into the Prince’s suite, making Julienne blink with surprise. As she stepped out she looked about, eyes wide with wonder. Everything was shiny chrome, gleaming dark cherry wood and smoky tinted glass, with sleek leather couches and huge abstract art pieces on the walls. One side of the room was a floor-to-ceiling picture window, overlooking the lake and showing off the snow-capped mountaintops in the distance.
When she’d been eight years old she’d gone on a trip to Paris with her parents and she’d stayed in places almost as elegant as this. But it had been a long time since then, and she’d become used to the simple, rough-hewn décor of the convent. This place took her breath away.
“Nice,” she said casually, trying hard not to come across as the wide-eyed-in-wonder country bumpkin she felt like.
“I like it,” he replied shortly. “Why don’t you sit down?” he added, nodding toward one of the softer-looking couches. “I’ll get you a drink.”
“A drink?” she said hopefully.
“Nothing fancy,” he warned her. “I think I’ve got some lemonade in the refrigerator.”
“Oh,” she said, somewhat deflated.
She’d been hoping he would serve an adult beverage, as though it were her due—a sort of sign that he understood she was of age now. No such luck. He still thought she merited lemonade. She was used to wine of a sort with meals at the convent, but it was hardly more than colored water as far as she’d ever been able to ascertain. His lemonade would probably provide more punch, even if it didn’t contain a bit of alcohol.
He watched the expressions change on her face and felt as though he could read every thought that was coursing through her mind. He had to turn away to hide his grin. Despite being fundamentally annoyed that she’d popped up into his world like this without warning, he couldn’t help but be charmed by her—as he always was.
What the heck—he supposed he could give her some vodka in her lemonade to make her feel as though she were doing something slightly sophisticated.
“Here you go,” he said, handing her a tall frosted glass. “I added a little something, but just barely enough for you to feel it. We can’t have you going back to the convent tipsy.”
She smiled at him, delighted, but at the same time vowing that the convent was the last place for her tonight.
He dropped smoothly onto the arm of the couch and looked down at her. He knew he should call Mother Superior to let her know Julienne was with him, but he didn’t want to. Surely they would try to contact him when they realized she was gone. And then he would have to make plans as to when he would take her back. Much as he wanted her back where she belonged, he began to realize that she wouldn’t have come if there wasn’t a serious problem. The goal was to get her to the church on time, with as little hassle as possible.
Still, he would have to take it easy and figure out the best way to accomplish that. Barking orders wouldn’t get her to do what he wanted. Cooperation was his goal. In order to achieve that he had to find out what had motivated her into coming to find him this way.
He grimaced. Being sensitive to the needs of others wasn’t usually uppermost in his mind. He was used to being catered to. Time for him to learn to stretch himself a little.
“Okay, Julienne,” he began slowly, feeling his way. “Explain to me just exactly what you’re doing here.”
His voice was low, but with enough command to let her know he expected a complete and coherent answer.
She took a sip, nodded approvingly, and smiled up at him again, waving one hand with a flourish.
“This is merely a courtesy call,” she told him cheekily. “I thought, as my guardian, you might like to know what I plan to do with my life.”
He frowned, wary, but still in control of his reactions. “As your guardian, I already know what you’re going to do with your life. In fact, I planned it myself. No need for you to bother.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’ve gone wrong.” She took another sip, just for bravery, and set the drink down on the glass coffee table. “You see, I’m no longer a minor, no longer in a position to be your ward.” She took a deep breath and faced him squarely, her gaze simple and direct. “In fact, I quit. I’m old enough to be on my own. And that is what I choose to do.”
He looked pained. “Julienne, you know very well your life was mapped out seven years ago as part of the Treaty of Salvais.”
She glanced down at the drink, began to reach for it, then drew her hand back and nodded quickly. “I know. I know. But, you see, that was done without my consent, and—”
“Your consent!” He shook his head, losing control of his patience a bit. “Julienne, your wedding is in less than a week. You can’t back out now. The invitations are out. The gifts are streaming in. It’s too late to stop the momentum. It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not.”
She didn’t look convinced. In fact, she looked downright resentful.
“And are you planning to show up this time?” she asked, challenging him with her dark, honest gaze. “Or do you have your usual ‘business to attend to’ instead?”
His head went back in reaction. She’d pushed exactly the button that was guaranteed to open the floodgates to the guilt he felt about his guardianship. Over the last few years he’d avoided seeing her, missing every Christmas, every birthday. He knew his actions had hurt her. But it couldn’t be helped. As her guardian, he had to protect her from predatory men. What he’d never expected when he took on that role was that he would be his own prime target.
“Julienne, all this is beside the point. You are required by treaty to marry Prince Alphonso next week, and marry him you will.”
She shook her head, lower lip thrust out rebelliously. “I never signed any treaty,” she insisted. “I never gave consent.”
He jerked to his feet and began to pace the floor, holding back his q
uick surge of exasperation. Was he going to be forced to go over the whole history with her once again? No, she was just being stubborn. She knew all about the fighting between the three royal houses that had ripped their country apart for generations.
Right now an uneasy truce prevailed, but it had only come about after a long, bloody war. Too many people had died. He thought, with a quick slice of pain, of his own mother, killed by an assassin’s bullet. The factions had fought each other to a standstill, and then it had taken a long, torturous struggle of negotiation to finally settle things, and that had only happened once Julienne’s parents, the King and Queen of the House of Emeraude, had agreed that she would marry Prince Alphonso when she reached twenty-one years. Their marriage would tie the houses of Emeraude and Diamante together for evermore, and help balance the struggle of power between the three houses.
It had to happen. If she didn’t follow through with the treaty’s promise, the country was very likely to go up in flames again. No one wanted that, and as one of the architects of the plan he couldn’t let it happen. In fact, it was up to him to make sure she followed through.
“Your parents gave all the consent that was needed,” he told her coolly. “The deal was sealed. There is no going back on our word.”
“I know all that,” she was saying, looking at him earnestly. “But I’ve thought it over and I think I can fight it in court.”
“In court?” He stopped pacing and stared at her, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Didn’t she realize that as far as this went he was pretty much all the “court” she was going to have at her disposal? How could he explain to her? She really didn’t have a choice.
“Yes,” she said emphatically. “I’m sure forcing me to marry is against my civil rights.”
“Really?” he said, still staring at her. “You think you have civil rights?”
She sat up straighter, looking shocked that he would even question that. “Of course. Everyone does. And making me marry someone just to hold a country together doesn’t make a lot of sense. I bet there’s not another girl in the world who is being expected to do that.”
Poor Julienne. He regarded her with a mixture of exasperation and a certain sad bemusement. How had she managed to make it this far without learning that being royal meant you weren’t like everyone else? That had its obvious advantages, but there was also a downside. She was stuck. She could twist and turn and try to think of every sort of angle, but there was no escape. She would feel a whole lot better about things once she accepted that and got on with her life. In a strange, convoluted way, her plight touched his heart. But there was nothing he could do to remedy it.
She looked so young, so innocent. The late-afternoon light shafting in through the huge picture window seemed to turn her skin a creamy gold.
“You’re probably right,” he told her, fighting off the impulse to reach out and cup her lovely flushed cheek in the palm of his hand. “You’re the only one.”
He saw the hope that flared in her eyes and he hated to douse it, but it had to be done. He knew it was asking a lot to rest all the culture and peace of one country on the shoulders of one tiny twenty-one-year-old girl. But what was right and what was fair just plain didn’t matter. That was the way it was. Her situation was her situation, and if she didn’t abide by the rules he’d set up a lot of people might die. It had happened before. It could happen again. They couldn’t risk it.
“You’re looking at this all wrong,” he told her helpfully. “You should be proud of the sacrifice you are making for your country.”
Her eyes clouded and she wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. Ask someone else, please.”
Was she going to cry? He tensed. If she started to cry it would be impossible to keep his distance and he knew it. But she looked up and smiled at him tremulously. And that was almost as bad.
He had to turn away and begin pacing again. When she sat there looking so adorable, everything in him seemed to yearn toward her. And so he paced, gritting his teeth and searching for strength.
He thought of the first time he’d seen her, when she was only fourteen years old. He’d spent a hard few days negotiating with her parents, the King and Queen, in order to convince them that the only way peace would be achieved would be for them to lock their daughter into a marriage contract that would cement the ties and keep the jealousies in check. With Emeraude and Diamante joined as one, the renegade House of Rubiat wouldn’t dare try another power-grab.
They’d invited him to share their dinner, and, though he usually didn’t like to socialize with negotiating partners, he’d liked the two of them well enough, and respected them enough, to make an impulse decision to eat with them. They’d been talking pleasantly when Julienne had come into the room.
“And here she is,” her father had said fondly. “The center of all our conversation these days.” He’d smiled at his daughter. “Prince Andre, may I present Princess Julienne?”
He remembered rising and giving her a deep bow, while she curtsied in her charming way. He recalled smiling at her and thinking she was the cutest thing he’d seen in ages. For just a moment he’d wished he had a young sister about her age, someone he could take under his wing and mentor in the ways of royal life. And that was odd, because he’d never had a thought like that before in his life—nor had he since—and yet that was pretty much what very soon came to pass.
She’d charmed him right from the beginning. She was such a sweet, lively girl, but with a spark of humor and a quick understanding that seemed to belie her young age. He’d liked her immediately.
Only weeks later her parents had been killed when their light plane went down in the mountains. Andre became her guardian from the first, with the consent of all concerned. He’d been the architect of the treaty and it was up to him to make sure its elements were complied with.
He’d brought her to Diamante Castle and treated her like one of the family from the first. King Harold, his father, was busy with affairs of state, his life’s work, which he’d thrown himself into with a vengeance once Nadine, his wife, queen and Andre’s mother, had been killed by a sniper years before. They rarely conferred. Harold was the sort of man who seemed weighed down by his work. To the casual observer, he was an old grouch. But not to Andre. Andre knew the tragic sorrow he carried with him at all times and he loved him for it.
Still, his father never showed much interest in the young, lively and engagingly coltish girl who’d come to live with them, and it was up to Andre, despite the fact that they were less than ten years apart in age, to act the part of elder authority along with everything else. And the two of them had got on well together. He looked back on those days as some of the happiest of his life.
As she’d grown older, he’d known it couldn’t last. And then came her eighteenth birthday and the dance—and the kiss.
That was when he knew he had to call upon some inner well of strength to get through the next few years until she married. And here they were, with six days left. Was he going to make it?
Demo version limitation, this page not show up.
CHAPTER THREE
PRINCE ANDRE escorted Princess Julienne back to his penthouse suite as soon as their meal had run its course. She went willingly enough, though she did have a qualm or two. Had he tempted her with the promise of new clothes just to make sure she didn’t try again to make a run for it? Or was she getting a little too suspicious for her own good?
Since her parents had died when she was fourteen, she’d known almost nothing but life in the Diamante Castle—a stark, forbidding structure manned mostly by servants. She’d studied with a governess, and the daughters of local noble families had been brought in to be her friends, but the days when Andre was home were what she’d lived for. Andre was her hero and her best friend. When he showed up, her drab life had suddenly lit up.
But once she’d turned eighteen it had been mostly life in the convent. She was allowed to go back to the castle at Christmas for three days, and for two we
eks in the summer she was sent off to stay at the lake house. On her birthday someone would come to visit her bringing presents. Until two years before that someone had been Prince Andre. But without explanation he had stopped coming.
Dear Prince Andre, she mused sarcastically, glancing at him sideways. Her guardian. The man who was in control of her life. And he wouldn’t even come to visit her. They’d told her that he was too busy. They’d said he was an important man and couldn’t be bothered. And he hadn’t answered her letters.
So she’d finally come to see for herself.
He was busy, all right. Busy living like a playboy. As she thought of it now, she was more furious with him than ever—and that only confirmed her determination to fight him. House of Diamante, House of Emeraude, House of Rubiat—who cared? They could take this royal life, this relic of the past, and they could keep it for themselves. She would have no part of it.
“Did you enjoy the dinner?” he asked her, pulling off his tie and opening his shirt a few more buttons’ worth.
She nodded, going back and forth between thinking he was the most handsome man on earth to resenting how he’d treated her over the years.
“It was wonderful,” she admitted.
“I’m glad you liked it.” His eyes were deep and sultry. “I want you to be happy.”
But still he expected her to marry Prince Alphonso.
He left the room and she turned away and looked at the moonlight over the lake. She really didn’t know Alphie well, but she’d met him a time or two, and this last summer he’d come to the lake to see her for four days—the longest, dreariest four days of her life.
If only he were more like Andre maybe she could stomach the thought of it. But he wasn’t like Andre. Nobody was like Andre. She put her hands against the cool glass and sighed.
He came back into the room, poured himself a drink and got her a lemonade—this time without enhancement. She sat on the long couch and stared at it. He was treating her like a child again, she supposed, but there were so many things she was trying to fight him on, she decided to take a pass on this one.