The Virgin's Proposition

by Anne McAllister

  “It’s a madhouse,” he muttered at one point when he came to stand beside her. “I’m sorry.”

  Anny wasn’t. “I love it. You are so lucky to have them. All of them. Such a wonderful family. You are blessed.”

  He grunted a reply. But she knew he agreed. She’d heard that love those evenings when he’d talked to her about his family. He had missed them. He just needed to figure out how to fit back into the family group.

  They made it easy for him. His parents were, of course, thrilled that he was finally home. His sister and brothers—they were all there except George—never mentioned the past three years. They just caught him up on what was going on. They drew him back into the fold as if he’d never been away. The in-laws were equally welcoming. The oldest nephews, Tallie’s twins, Nick and Garrett, and Theo’s Edward had seen videos of Luke St. Angier. They even remembered him as a favorite uncle from the pre-Lissa days. And it didn’t take them long to warm up to him again, to climb all over him and drag him into their games. And while sometimes he looked briefly lost and hollow-eyed, they won him over.

  They won Anny over, too. And she won them because she knew the games that little boys played. She told them all about Alex and Raoul and David and said how much her brothers would love to play with this roughhousing clan.

  “Go get ’em,” Edward suggested. “Bring ’em here.”

  Anny laughed. “I’d love to, but they live a long way away.”

  “Take a plane,” Nick advised.

  “Or a limo,” Garrett said, making car noises.

  “Limos don’t go fast,” his brother argued.

  “Do so!”

  “Do not!”

  The discussion that followed didn’t require any help from Anny at all.

  Nothing much required her help for the rest of the day and evening. But she never felt left out. They made her feel a part of their family. And of course she wasn’t allowed to go to Lucio’s.

  “It’s crazy here, Ma. She doesn’t need to put up with this,” Demetrios argued.

  Malena straightened up and gave a sharp look. “This is our home. We want her here. She is welcome here. You will stay, Anny?”

  Demetrios wanted her to go, she could see it on his face. But Anny was determined to take what she could get.

  “I would love to stay, Mrs. Savas.”

  Demetrios’s mother beamed and wrapped her in a warm hug. “Malena, dear. You must call me Malena.”

  She spent the night in the room right across the hall from him.

  Shared it with his three-year-old niece, Caroline, for God’s sake.

  She didn’t seem to mind a bit when his mother suggested it.

  “At Lucio’s she’d have a room of her own,” he’d pointed out.

  But no one listened to anything he said. Just like old times, he thought.

  But it was painful to watch her with them. She was so obviously delighted to be part of things. They were falling all over themselves to bring her into the fold, and nothing he could say or do seemed to have any effect at all.

  The next morning she and Caroline appeared together in the doorway to the breakfast room, holding hands.

  “Ah. Did you sleep well, my Anny?” his mother asked.

  Her Anny! His teeth ground together. He took a gulp of coffee and nearly scalded his throat.

  “Come.” His mother was making a place for her at the table across from him, between Yiannis and one of the babies in a high chair. “Sit. We have yogurt, fresh fruit. Eggs, ham. Martha is making French toast. Do you like French toast?”

  “I love it,” Anny said and, as usual, offered to help.

  Next thing he knew she was eating a yogurt with one hand, feeding the baby next to her, and talking to his sister, Tallie, about Viennese pastries at the same time. Her gaze lit on him regularly. He watched her while trying not to. But he was weak where she was concerned. He couldn’t help it.

  And seeing the woman he loved—yes, all right, he loved her!—happily involved with his family was a scene he’d always dreamed of. He’d cast Lissa in that role and knew very quickly the mistake he’d made. He wasn’t going to make another one. And he wasn’t going to let Anny make one. But watching Anny take a cloth and wipe the baby’s mouth, then offer her another spoonful of cereal, was a sight that made him ache.

  Suddenly the door to the roof garden banged open and Edward hurtled into the room. “Daddy! There’s a limo coming up the hill.”

  “It’s stoppin’ right out front!” Nick and Garrett came roaring in on his heels.

  Abruptly, Theo, Yiannis, Lukas and Socrates hurried up the stairs to have a look. Demetrios didn’t move. Anny went suddenly still.

  His mother paused, putting eggs on a plate. “A limo? For you, Demetrios? Not already,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not for me.” But he knew who it was for. “It’s for Anny.”

  Anny knew who the limo was for the moment Edward said the word.

  The jig is up, she thought. The fairy tale is over. The photos had reached the palace.

  And yet, at the same time, she didn’t believe it. She was a princess wasn’t she? Princesses got happy endings—especially if they risked for them. It was the essence of good storytelling.

  Besides, Demetrios loved her.

  Anny knew it. She could see it in his eyes when he watched her. And even when he pretended he wasn’t watching, she knew better. Wherever he was in the room, she could feel his gaze on her.

  Now she looked at him and smiled tentatively, but determinedly. Prayed that he would smile back. That he would own up to his feelings, accept them, act on them. Love her.

  Of course there would have to be explanations. Anny knew that. His family would have to be told. She dabbed at the baby’s sweet face once more, making sure it was clean, then pasted on her best public smile and prepared to make them.

  But abruptly Demetrios said, “Anny’s not just Anny, Ma. She’s Her Royal Highness, Princess Adriana of Mont Chamion.”

  For a split second Malena Savas looked at her middle son as if he were speaking a foreign language. Uncomprehending. Then, as the truth dawned, her face registered shock. Then, abruptly, resolution. In the next instant, she was wiping her hands on a towel and saying briskly, “Go get your father, Tallie. And tell him to tuck his shirt in.”

  Anny wanted to say it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this—she and Demetrios. Being part of his family. Forever.

  She looked at Demetrios.

  He straightened almost imperceptibly. “I’ll get the door.”

  Her father hadn’t sent his driver. He hadn’t sent his minister.

  When Demetrios came back a few moments later and opened the door to allow the newcomer to precede him, Anny discovered that her father had come himself.

  He stood just inside the door, a man of medium height and average build. But you knew he was a king just by looking at him, Anny thought. He had the carriage of generations of royal upbringing. He stood straight under years of responsibility. He had an aura about him of presence, of command. He was in charge and no one doubted it.

  Yet in his eyes she saw concern. New lines of worry seemed to crease his face. They softened now at the sight of her. “Adriana.”

  “Papa.” Her voice wobbled for a moment, weighed down by the sudden guilt she felt from having caused those lines, that concern. “You didn’t have to come all this way.”

  “Of course I had to come,” he said. “You are my daughter.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I saw the photos,” he said. “I knew who you were with. Where you had to be going. Certainly I had to come.” He held out a hand to her then.

  Vaguely aware that the room behind her was filling with amazed and intrigued family members, coming back down from the roof garden and tumbling out of the kitchen to stare, Anny crossed the few feet that separated them. She kissed her father on both cheeks and felt the gentle but firm press of his lips on hers as well.

  She stepped back, bu
t he didn’t let go. He held her away from him and looked into her eyes for a long moment, seeking, searching. And once more she felt a stab of guilt at the same time she knew that she had done the right thing. She couldn’t have stayed and married Gerard. She had to make her own way, be true to herself, to love as she would.

  Instantly she looked around for Demetrios. He was standing by his father, his expression unreadable. She reached out a hand to him.

  “This is Demetrios, Papa,” she said.

  He stepped forward, but he didn’t come and take her hand. He nodded politely to her father. “Your Highness.”

  “Yes. We met when he answered the door.” Her father’s gaze settled on Demetrios, looking at him with that same searching look.

  Now, Anny thought. Say it now. Say you love me. Tell him.

  But Demetrios remained silent, meeting her father’s gaze implacably.

  And so Anny stepped into the breach. Madame would have been proud. “Papa, I’d like you to meet Demetrios’s family.”

  She introduced them all. Malena offered him coffee and biscuits. Socrates inquired about his flight. Garrett, Nick and Edward hopped up and down and finally wanted to know if the limo driver would let them see the inside of it.

  Demetrios didn’t say a word.

  Her father drank a cup of coffee and ate two biscuits. He listened politely when Anny talked about their journey and drew Theo into a discussion of the boat.

  Demetrios didn’t say a word.

  Her father discussed private jets with Socrates, and boat-building with Elias, and he generously allowed the little boys to roam all over the limo and seemed amused when Lukas and Yiannis clattered down the steps to have a look with them. He looked at Demetrios.

  Demetrios didn’t say a word.

  Anny willed him to speak. Willed him to come to her, to hold out a hand to her and admit his love. She didn’t see or even feel his gaze upon her though she stared at him nearly every moment. He was in the room, but he seemed to have withdrawn completely.

  Finally her father declined another cup of coffee, said, “No, thank you very much,” politely to the offer of more biscuits, and stood up. Instantly every man and woman in the room stood up, too.

  “If you will collect your things, my dear. We should go.”

  Go. Leave her dream. Go back to the real world. Anny held her breath, wishing on all the stars in the universe as she looked across the room at the man of her dreams, her heart in her eyes.

  “I’ll get her bags,” Demetrios said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DEMETRIOS couldn’t stand there and watch her go.

  He got her bags from her room and carried them down to the car, aware of what seemed like hordes of his relatives pressing around Anny and her father, following them to the limo. He couldn’t do that.

  So he said goodbye the only way he could. He went up to the rooftop garden and looked down to watch her embrace his parents, his sister, his brothers, all the children. Then she looked around.

  For him? He knew the answer to that. Of course she was looking for him—because she loved him. As, God help him, he loved her.

  He had fallen in love a little bit when she’d let him sweep her off her feet. She’d been a good sport when he needed one. And when he’d seen her with Franck and the other kids at the clinic, giving of herself, doing what needed to be done, he’d fallen a bit more. He’d fallen a little deeper that night on Gerard’s yacht, when he realized how far she’d been prepared to go—to marry for her country, not for herself. Loyalty and devotion were so much a part of who Anny was.

  It was none of his business, of course, but he knew he couldn’t let her do it. Though how he would have stopped her, he didn’t know. Thoughts of breaking up a royal wedding to save her from herself were a bit over-the-top—but not by much.

  But how could he let her tie herself to a loveless marriage? He knew about loveless marriages. Knew the aching loneliness, the sense of failure. Gerard wasn’t Lissa, of course. But Anny deserved so much more.

  So when he was tempted to hurtle down the stairs and say, “Don’t go,” he didn’t. His knuckles tightened on the waist-high white-washed wall, anchoring him right where he was.

  Then the chauffeur helped her in. Her father joined her. And the limo pulled away. The glass was tinted. He couldn’t see past it, couldn’t see Anny now. But he didn’t need to see her to know how she looked.

  She was there on the inside of his eyelids when he closed them. She was there in his dreams when he slept. She was a part of every fiber of his being.

  She’d said he loved her, and truer words were never spoken. But what did he have to offer a woman like Anny?

  He had made it back from the disaster that had been his marriage to Lissa. But he wasn’t the man he had been. He had nothing to give her except what he’d given her these past two weeks—the chance to be herself without the demands of her country and her title, the chance to discover what she wanted, who she was.

  He knew who he was.

  He also knew she didn’t need a man like him. He had too much baggage. Too many bad memories. Too little belief in happy endings.

  And more than anyone he knew, Anny deserved a happy ending.

  At least he had memories, thanks to her. It was ironic, he supposed, that she’d been the one to ask him for a memory that first night. He’d never imagined how much it would matter to him that he had it, too. And he had memories of these past two weeks with her as well. Memories of her laughter, her joy, her hard work, her generosity, memories of the most lively, loving woman he would ever meet.

  And last night. He would never forget last night—never forget making love to her one last time. He shouldn’t have done it, should have resisted.

  But how could anyone resist when Anny said, please?

  Thank God she hadn’t looked at him a few minutes ago and said, Please. Please ask me to stay. Please don’t let me go.

  If she had, there was no way he could have let her go back to her real life, to her kingdom, to whichever prince she would ultimately marry. To a future without him. He only managed to because he loved her. And because he’d come up here alone.

  He couldn’t have stood there among his family and watched her leave. Couldn’t have smiled and said all those polite things Anny knew how to say. Couldn’t have kissed her cheeks and wished her happy because he knew it was the right thing to do, because he knew she would be better off without him.

  He might have three Emmy nominations, a Golden Globe and fifteen films under his belt, but he wasn’t that good an actor.

  They had barely left the Savas family behind when Papa spoke. “I have spoken to Gerard.”

  Anny jerked. “I’m not—” she began.

  But her father shushed her and took her hand in his. “You are not marrying him,” he said in his gentle but firm voice. “Yes, I know.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa. I know you want me to. But I can’t!”

  “My Anny.” Her father chafed her fingers with his, all the while regarding her gravely with his deep brown eyes. “I only ever wanted you to be happy.” A rueful look flickered across his face. “And I hoped…” He shrugged. “Gerard is a good man. Older, yes, but not doddering like me.”

  “You’re not doddering!”

  “Perhaps not. But foolish I could be. The point is, I thought it would be a good marriage, a marriage like mine and your mother’s. That you might grow to love each other as we did. Our marriage was arranged, too, you know.”

  “Yes,” Anny said quietly. But she’d always believed her parents had been in love before their marriage. She’d blinked in surprise at her father’s revelation. And then she’d said, “I’m glad it happened for you. But I can’t!”

  He nodded. “I know. I knew it when I saw the pictures.”

  The pictures.

  He picked up a folder from the seat and opened it, handing her a stack of photos, and the tabloids that had printed them. And seeing them, Anny knew they were easily worth a t
housand words apiece, those pictures the paparazzo had taken on St. Isaakios.

  There were half a dozen at least of the two of them dancing. She and Demetrios had their arms locked around each other, their bodies in tune with each other. In one his cheek was against her hair. In another her lips brushed his ear. She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes. He looked down at her, brushed a hand through her hair.

  “You might have been happy,” her father allowed, “if you had had the time together to learn to love each other. But not, my Anny—” he touched her cheek, tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear “—when you are already in love with someone else.”

  She was in love with someone else. And she believed he loved her.

  He would come to his senses, she told herself. He would see that they belonged together, that their lives were incomplete without her.

  But if he did, she never heard about it.

  Her father took her back to Mont Chamion and she spent a few days with him and her stepmother and her little half brothers. She thought he would come there, would sweep her off her feet, promise her undying love, ask her to marry him and live happily ever after.

  That was what Prince Charming did, after all.

  Pity she hadn’t left a sandal behind, she thought grimly. Not that it would have done much good. Days passed.

  Before a week was up she left Mont Chamion and went back to Cannes. Tante Isabelle had come home in the meantime, and she took one look at Anny and said, “My dear, you need a holiday and some rest.”

  Anny laughed. “I had a holiday,” she said. “I just came back.”

  “Well, don’t tell me where you went,” Tante Isabelle said. “If it has made you this pale and miserable, I do not want to know.”

  Anny had left a message for Franck when she’d left Cannes after breaking her engagement. In it she’d told him he’d given her the courage to make a move, to take a risk. She was determined to smile and assure him it had been the right thing to do regardless of how miserable she felt.