by Raye Morgan
He glanced back at Kayla again and nodded. “Sounds reasonable.”
“As for the historical artifact, I let them know that we have no idea what this might be or how it might have come into your possession. We shall await clarification. Barring that, we are unwilling to count that as a serious charge against you.”
“Wow. I’d say that pretty much covers all the bases.”
Pellea nodded. “Now we wait to see how they take it. We should have their response tomorrow.” She gave him a significant look. “And then, we’ll see.”
He heard the warning in her voice. She was seriously worried about this.
“You’ve said the Mercurians were a big help in the fight to regain Ambria for the DeAngelis royal family,” he said musingly. “What made them come in on your side?”
Pellea shrugged. “As you know, Mercuria is a tiny stretch of land along the coast, not even as large or as important to this area as Ambria, whose main source of wealth comes from tourists, mainly in gambling. Some wags have called it nothing more than a casino with a nice beach. But they have been traditional allies of ours, and the fact that they have a monarchy, just as we do, cemented our ties more recently.”
He nodded. “And they are the closest country to you, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Just an hour by boat will bring you right to the foot of the Mercurian castle. You could almost consider them a neighbor.”
“Do you know King Juomo personally?”
“No, I don’t. I guess the families had personal ties back in the dark ages, but as far as I know, none of us have come face-to-face with any of them. As I understand it, they are rather reclusive.”
He nodded. “Yes. Very reclusive. And very strange.”
“So I’ve heard.” She made a face. “That doesn’t bode well. It’s hard to judge how they will take this. What do you think?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. King Juomo liked me, until he didn’t like me anymore. And I’m not sure what made the change.”
“Oh, well.” Pellea waved a hand dismissively. “We shall see. And I need to get back to work.” She smiled at him. “Cheer up. We’ll get through this.”
He smiled back. “Of course.” Taking a deep breath, he rose, took his leave of the queen and pivoted to Kayla.
“Do you have time to go get a cup of coffee with me?” he asked, looking at her without any clear emotion.
She glanced at Pellea, who nodded her permission, and smiled. “Sure,” she said, reaching to pull her tiny clutch purse out of her larger bag. “I won’t be long,” she promised the queen.
She almost had to run to keep up with Max’s stride once they were out in the walkway. His walk was strong and aggressive, with a hint of residual anger still hovering over his mood.
“Will you tell me why you’re so upset?” she asked.
He gave her a sideways glance and didn’t respond as they came out onto the public corridor and up to the coffee bistro. It was packed with people and the lines were long.
“There’s a vending machine a little farther out this way. We can get coffee and go out on the balcony.”
They got their coffee in paper cups from the machine and made their way outside. The balcony was small, but there was a table flanked by two chairs, and they went to it after a quick look over the railing. The blue skies were gone and a cool wind blustered in and out of the crevices and still neither of them had said a word.
Max stared down into his coffee. She watched him. Finally he looked up and met her gaze.
“You know what?” he said. “I want to go.”
Her heart jumped. His eyes looked hard and unhappy.
“Where?” she said.
He shrugged. “Away. Anywhere. Something new. Something different.” His blue eyes held hers. “This isn’t the life for me.”
“Max …” She reached for his hand and held it tightly.
“I don’t feel like I belong here. I don’t think the way these people do. My instincts don’t work here. I really feel I need to go.”
“Max …”
His wide eyes stared right into her soul. “Will you go with me?”
She stared at him. How could he ask such a thing? Didn’t he realize she had a life here? A son? She couldn’t go anywhere she felt like. She had commitments.
He could read her refusal in her eyes. The child. Of course. What was he thinking? She had the child. He pulled his hand away and looked out at the grey skies.
A cold wind blew in and Kayla shivered.
“Here, take this,” he said, slipping out of the denim jacket and handing it to her. “Unless you still scorn it?” he tried to tease, his smile unconvincingly stiff.
“I never scorned it,” she protested, shrugging into it and huddling gratefully in the warmth his body had left inside. “I love jeans jackets.”
“Just not on princes.”
She pulled the jacket in close and looked at him. “Not true. Max, I know you want to wear the clothes you feel comfortable in. And you should be able to. But you have to know what’s expected of you in certain situations. That’s all. We’re not trying to change the fundamental you.”
He grunted, and she leaned closer. “Tomorrow we’ll go clothes shopping and I’ll show you what I mean.”
He stared at her and finally a smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth. “I guess that means you don’t think much of my plan to leave,” he said, eyes smiling sadly.
“I think it stinks. You promised Pellea two weeks. You’ll manage to stick it out that long. I know you. You won’t run.”
He wasn’t so sure she knew him as well as she thought she did. Running was what he’d done all his life—running from his problems, running from expectations, running from commitment. He knew it was time for him to grow up and stop running, but he wasn’t sure how to do that.
“You won’t run,” she repeated confidently, and he merely smiled and let her think she had him pegged.
“At least you won’t really need new clothes tonight,” she mentioned. “Pellea has a dinner planned for all you princes, but it’s beer and pizza and football on the television.”
His smile evaporated in an instant. This was the first he’d heard about it. He scowled, but she wasn’t cowed.
“You need to interact with your brothers more,” she said. “Once you get to know them better, you’ll feel more welcome here.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t look convinced, but the sun came out from behind a cloud at that very moment, and it was as though liquid gold was streaming down all around them.
She laughed and went to the railing, enjoying the warmth of the sun, and he followed. The countryside around the castle looked magical. It was late afternoon and the shadows were long and colors intensified.
“Do you ever go walking down by the stream?” he asked her, pointing it out below.
“No, I’ve never been there.”
He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go,” he said spontaneously. “You’ll love it.”
They took the elevator down and walked quickly through the corridors and onto the back patio, hoping to catch as much sunshine as they could before the cloud cover took over again. He took her hand and led her through the trees to his favorite rock. She scanned the area, enchanted with the rustling leaves and babbling brook. Then she got a thoughtful look.
“Is this where you were when you thought you were being watched?” she said accusingly.
“Yes, it is.” He looked excessively innocent. “Why do you ask?”
“You just wanted me to come down here to see if I could help you catch the culprits, didn’t you?” She pretended to take a swipe at him.
He laughed. “No,” he said, fending off her mock attack and grabbing her wrists. “Though come to think of it, two sets of eyes are better than one.”
He pulled her close until their faces were within inches of each other. She smiled into his eyes. He smiled back and something electric happened. He was going to kiss her. She could feel it. H
er breath caught in her throat and she pulled back quickly, heart pounding.
“I don’t see anybody,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t hear anybody. I think you’re getting paranoid.”
“No. Someone was there.” He pulled her back against him. “But I don’t care anymore.”
He saw alarm in her eyes—denial, dismissal and a lot of worry, but like he’d said, he didn’t care anymore. His mouth took hers as though he had a right to it, as though he’d gone through all the reasons why she wasn’t his for the kissing and decided to throw them out the window. He wanted her. He’d always wanted her. And now that he had her in his arms, he needed to feel her heat, taste her warm sweetness, touch her beautiful body.
His hands slid under the jacket, under her sweater, up her slender back and she arched her softness against his hard chest. His kiss was hungry and hot and she answered it back the same way. The wind swirled around them. Leaves blew around their feet. The water from the brook sang a happy song, and time seemed to stand still.
It was meant to be a short kiss, just something quick and loaded with commitment and affection, but he never wanted it to stop. If it had been up to him, it never would have. But she knew it couldn’t last.
“Max.”
He was kissing the curve of her neck, tasting her skin, devouring her sweetness.
“Max!”
Pulling back, he looked at her groggily. She was laughing.
“Max, stop!”
He shook his head, then groaned and let her go. Running his fingers through his hair, he tried to get his balance back.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “You just feel so good. I want to hold you forever.”
She looked into his eyes, smiling, loving him, but not sure what to say. They couldn’t do this. He couldn’t kiss her this way. There was something intoxicating between the two of them. Once they started, they didn’t seem to know how to stop. Reaching out, she cupped his rough cheek in her hand and smiled sadly.
And then, without a word, she stepped away carefully and sank down to sit on the rock. He followed and sat beside her.
“Eddie would have loved this place,” he said softly, and then winced, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.
She didn’t look at him. She didn’t say a word, but he knew she what she was thinking.
They were silent for a few minutes, watching the water, and then Max started talking about his brothers again, haltingly at first. And then he just kept going, talking as though they had never stopped.
“You know, there’s a big difference between me and the other princes,” he said at one point. “They all grew up in families. They might not have been the right families, but at least they had that. I think I’m the only one who sort of got thrown out with the trash.”
His words might have been bitter, but she was glad to notice that his tone was more bemused.
“Actually,” she told him, “Prince Cassius—the one we all call Joe—had a pretty rough time of it as well.”
“Prince Joe? The surfer prince?” He had to grin. He’d met Joe.
She nodded, smiling. “That’s him. Whoever was supposed to hide him that night didn’t show up and the kitchen maid ended up taking him with her when she ran, hiding him under her shawl on the boat. She didn’t know what to do with him, so she took him back home to England, whereupon she promptly died and left him to be raised by members of her family who had no clue who he was.”
“How did he end up in California?”
“The family emigrated and then the parents got divorced and they all pretty much split up. I guess it wasn’t much of a warm-and-toasty family after all. Sort of dysfunctional. The way I heard it, he took off pretty young and then he joined the military.”
Max nodded. “Okay. Joe and I might just have a little bit in common. Maybe I’ll have a chance to talk to him tonight.” He made a comical face. “Pizza and beer,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I guess she really does want to make me feel at home. That’s practically my daily diet as it is.”
“She’s doing her best.” She looked at him whimsically. “I don’t think you realize how much better this is going to make things for you,” she said simply.
He groaned and the anger flared in him again. That was the last thing he wanted to hear.
“Don’t tell me how wonderful this is for me and how it’s going to change my life. I don’t want my life changed. I like things the way they’ve been. I don’t want to be a prince.”
She was frowning at him now. “You don’t want to be a prince because you don’t want to have to conform to rules and standards. You don’t think anyone else should have a say in how you should act, do you?”
He blinked, not used to tough talk from her. “So? What’s wrong with that?”
Her eyes flashed. “Grow up, Max. It’s time for you to stop playing at life and start living it.”
Maybe I don’t want to.
He didn’t say it. The words popped out onto the tip of his tongue, but he wisely held them back, and as he thought them over, he realized how childish they were. What the hell. She was right. It was time for him to grow up. Grabbing her hand, he pressed his lips to the center of her palm, then looked up at her, smiling.
“How did I do without you all this time?” he said huskily. “Eddie once said to me that if anything ever happened to you, he wouldn’t want to go on alone. And I can see why.”
His words sent a shock through her. She closed her eyes and thought about them for a moment. Then she looked at him, trying not to be resentful. “And you’re wondering how I’ve managed to go on so normally without him?”
“No,” he said, looking shocked at the thought. “That isn’t what I meant to say at all.”
“Then why did you say it?”
He shook his head, trying to remember what had been in his mind at the time. “I just wanted to remind you to remember how much Eddie loved you.”
She pulled her arms in close. “I don’t need reminding. I remember very well. I remember it all the time.” She still felt resentful as she looked at him. “I didn’t get to where I am without a lot of pain, you know.”
He nodded, searching her face, staring into her eyes. “I know that, Kayla. There was enough pain to go around.” He winced and looked away. “I felt it, too. After Eddie died, I went a little crazy for a while.”
“Didn’t we all?”
“No, I mean it.” He looked back at her. “I took stupid chances, did stupid things. In some ways, it almost felt as though I couldn’t live life normally anymore. If a guy as super as Eddie could get killed like that, what right did I have to be happy?” He frowned, remembering. “I began to make careless mistakes. At one point, I did something stupid and I had to ditch my plane. I bailed out in time, but it was a while before they found me.” He shook his head. “That woke me up.”
“That was when I saw the report on the news. I … I really thought you were gone, too.”
He nodded. “It was hard to accept a world where the best people got snuffed out like candles. No real reason. Just here one moment, gone the next. To see a good guy like Eddie get killed so easily and a waster like I am get lucky every time—it didn’t seem right. I was having a hard time with that.”
“Max, Eddie’s gone. I don’t think you’ve completely faced it yet.”
“Have you?”
“Yes. I’ve tried very hard. There’s a part of me that will always love him and miss him horribly. But most of life has to go on without him. I either go on or I throw myself off the balcony.”
His eyes darkened with horror. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“No. I couldn’t do that. I have Teddy.”
He looked startled, as though he’d forgotten.
“Teddy is my whole life now,” she told him carefully, wishing she saw a smile or a look of affection or something friendly toward her son. How could this man not feel something? “Do you understand that?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
She tho
ught about the fact that he’d never really lived in a family. Maybe he didn’t understand what it meant to have a child, how it consumed your soul. It was true that as far as she could see, he didn’t react well to Teddy and she didn’t know why. But maybe this was a part of it.
Or maybe it was something else, something about Teddy’s background that threw him off. And if that was what it was, she knew she didn’t want to face that at all.
“I’ve got to get back.”
He nodded. “I’ll walk with you.”
They started off and once again, they both fell silent, as if they had talked about things that needed some mulling over before they mentioned them to each other again. At the door to her office, Kayla smiled at him.
“Could I come by and see you tonight?” he asked. “After the pizza party?”
Her smile disappeared. “No,” she said slowly, thinking it over on the run. “I think it would be better if we kept our relationship on a completely professional level. Forget that we’re friends.”
He looked as though he thought she was nuts. “Forget that we’re friends?” He shook his head, his anger beginning to hint at a return engagement. “No. That’s carrying things too far. I’ll be circumspect during prince lessons, but once they’re over, you’re fair game.”
“Fair game?” she repeated, puzzled.
“You got it. You can run but you can’t hide.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This.” Taking her face in his hands, he bent down and kissed her softly. His lips were warm and his solid male earthy scent made her head spin. His kiss was sweet and sincere and somehow much more effective than the wild one out by the little river. It brought tears to her eyes and left her gasping, aching for more.
“And that’s just a sample of things to come,” he told her, giving her a triumphant grin and turning to go.
Speechless, she watched him go, her cheeks burning. It wasn’t until he was out of sight that she remembered she still had his jacket.