The Princess and the Player (Royal House of Leone Book 5)

by Jennifer Lewis

  “She was a schoolteacher for nearly twenty years, teaching French to immigrant children in the suburbs, but now she’s retired and spends most of her time in her garden.”

  “We have something in common, then. I love my garden. It’s a shame it will be too dark to see hers.”

  The drive was filled with relaxing conversation and reassuring glances, and he arrived at his mom’s gates with a sense of heightened anticipation. He didn’t start to get really nervous until the gates opened, and they pulled up the long gravel driveway.

  Would his mom assume he was bringing Lina to visit because he intended to propose to her? Would she think such an aspiration—marrying a royal—outlandish and arrogant? Would she welcome Lina or would she be—as sometimes happened—suspicious and prickly with his guest?

  Somehow everything mattered far more than it should.

  Lina managed to clamber out of the car before Amadou could rush around to help her. “I’m fine, really. People act like I’m helpless, but I’m not. I should open your door for you. Did you know I have a fitness trainer three times a week back in Altaleone?”

  “I’m not at all surprised.” His eyes roamed daringly up and down her body, making her feel like he could see right through her thin raincoat and the brand-new silky top and skirt beneath.

  She would have worn something quite different if she had known she was meeting his mother. His mother! It was hard to even remember that someone like Amadou—a kind of living rock god—had been born to a human mother. Which was silly because he’d mentioned her before. Still, she didn’t ever really think she’d get to meet her.

  That seemed so…serious.

  The front door of the large house opened, an archway of light in the rain-damp darkness, and a small female form appeared in silhouette.

  “Hello, Mama. I want you to meet Carolina. She’s one of my oldest and dearest friends.”

  Lina found his words—hey, she’d been friend-zoned—both reassuring and a little depressing. She climbed the steps and extended her hand, which was embraced in his mother’s two soft palms. The older woman’s dark eyes met hers, and she could feel them boring into her, asking questions. All kinds of questions.

  “It’s so nice to meet you…” What should she call her?

  “Please call me Aurelie.”

  “Please call me Lina.” She smiled her warmest, professional smile. Amadou’s told me so much about you. Have you lived here long? My, what weather we’re having! All her usual lines seemed embarrassing and inappropriate under the circumstances.

  “Do come inside.” Amadou’s mother moved slowly. She must be in her seventies, a delicately built woman, very elegant in a black sweater and patterned cigarette pants, her silver hair cut quite short. She led them into a beautiful, dimly lit living room. “You’re not the first royal person to visit this house.” She turned with a shy smile. “Marie Antoinette used it as a summer house from time to time.”

  “It’s gorgeous. Amadou tells me you have a lovely garden…” The conversation went smoothly and easily. For some reason she’d pictured his mother being some painfully shy immigrant with barely any English. Maybe she had been once, but that was a long time ago. They talked about places they liked to visit, Amadou’s alternately endearing and infuriating nomadic tendencies and—at last—his mother lamented about his refusal to create a family.

  “I would have loved him to give me grandchildren.” She shot him a scolding look.

  “I bought you Napoleon.” He glanced at the sweet black-and-white dog curled up on the sofa next to her.

  She tutted. “And he is my heart, but it’s hardly the same thing.” She sighed. “You have children, don’t you?”

  “Ten of them. Only five pregnancies, though. Twins run in my husband’s family.”

  Aurelie looked shocked. “I would never have guessed.”

  This was where Lina often thought she should admit to the tummy tuck she’d been talked into ten years ago, as well as the personal trainer, but as usually she just shrugged and smiled.

  “I would have loved to have more children, but it wasn’t meant to be,” Aurelie added.

  “Amadou could still marry a young woman and give you grandchildren.” Lina said the words through gritted teeth.

  Aurelie laughed and looked lovingly at her son. “Unfortunately he’s far too sensible for that.”

  Now Amadou laughed. “Are we ever going to eat? This conversation is embarrassing me.”

  Dinner was as stylish as her host and their surroundings, catered by two adorable young aspiring actors who couldn’t help joining in their conversation and gushing over Amadou’s Grammy nomination. After dinner they shared strong, rather bitter coffee and handmade chocolates, then his mom excused herself, saying that she needed to get her beauty sleep but that they should stay as long as they wanted.

  The caterers had packed up and left, little Napoleon tottered off after his owner, and suddenly they were all alone in the quiet living room.

  Lina didn’t realize until that moment just how much tension—sexual and otherwise—had built up in her during the hours of proximity and polite conversation.

  Amadou’s mouth crushed over hers with urgency that showed he felt the same. Relief flooded her veins at the sensation of his arms around her. She kissed him back with uninhibited passion. It was amazing to feel so much for this man and to express it.

  They must have kissed for several mindless minutes before she remembered their surroundings. “What would your mom think?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “She’s amazing.”

  “She is. I’m glad you got a chance to meet her.” He looked pleased at her praise.

  “You never told me she was a teacher.” He’d told her she was a maid or cleaner or something like that.

  “She wasn’t, back when we first knew each other. That came later. After I started making money I pushed her to try out some evening classes and she took it from there.” He cocked his head. “She’s living proof that you can reinvent yourself in midlife and go on to have a full career doing something different.”

  Lina exhaled slowly. “I’m not sure I’m up for a new career. Have I ever really had one? I’m not sure that royal wife actually counts.”

  He laughed, a truly amused giggle. “I’m sure you were a lot more than that. Diplomat, hostess and of course a mother. I bet no one ever believes you had ten children.” He gave a steamy glance down at her body. “What’s your secret?”

  It was her turn to shrug and smile mysteriously. “It wouldn’t be a secret if I told you, would it?”

  He stared at her for a moment, let his gaze drift to her lips, then kissed her again. It felt okay to have secrets with Amadou. Everyone had them. Her husband certainly had. No one ever knew everything about anybody.

  Her belly shimmered as his fingertips grazed it through her thin top. She let her hands stray to his biceps. So hard and powerful. Everything about Amadou was intense, strong, a little overwhelming.

  She gasped slightly as his hand slid inside her blouse and his thumb grazed her nipple. The intimate touch sent a jolt of arousal through her like he’d hit a switch. Her blood heated and she leaned toward him, closing her eyes and inhaling his masculine scent.

  “I want to make love to you.” He breathed the words into her neck, hot and insistent.

  “Here?”

  “Now.” He was already removing her top. Were they really going to make love on his mom’s expensively upholstered sofa? She felt like a teenager again—except that as a teenager she’d probably have been more sensible.

  Sensible had deserted her. They tugged their clothes off and eagerly pressed skin to skin. Then Amadou sucked her nipples to hard peaks. She feathered kisses over the hard muscle of his chest, and down to his rock-hard erection.

  Then she stopped.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lina hesitated. Her husband had told her that giving a man pleasure this way was undignified. Something expecte
d of a whore, not a wife.

  Of course this was the man who had brief, vanilla sex with her, then apparently satisfied his less conventional urges with an ancient sex society devoted to keeping royal proclivities—and infidelities—under a cloak of secrecy.

  Amadou’s erection shifted slightly, as if anticipating the touch of her lips. She decided to indulge her desires, first licking the tip, then taking it into her mouth and sucking eagerly.

  His tortured groans only fueled her own inner fires. She wanted to go on sucking him, but the desire to feel him inside her grew more intense until she rose up and pressed herself against him. “I want you.”

  His only reply was a ragged breath, half buried in a kiss, as he lowered her to the soft cushions of the sofa, sheathed himself with a condom and entered her with exquisite care. The sensations were so powerful she climaxed almost immediately, but—her insides still pulsing around him—she wanted more.

  As he moved inside her, deeper and deeper, she knew she wanted to climb on top of him. Again, this was something she hadn’t done since she’d last been with Amadou. Her husband had always treated her with the respect and dignity due to his royal bride, and royal brides apparently did not ride cowgirl.

  But she hadn’t forgotten. Amadou helped her ease herself into position, and it all came back as if she’d last made love to him yesterday. This time, though, she appreciated the intimacy and tenderness of his touch.

  When he whispered her name it excited her as it had always done, but somehow being older and wiser made everything more powerful, more meaningful. Back then she hadn’t known how perfect their partnership was. She hadn’t known that she’d never feel anything quite like it again. That compared with Amadou any other man would be a disappointment and a let down.

  Traitorous thoughts, to be sure. And ones she’d never let herself entertain while her husband was alive. Or even afterward, in her grief at losing her best friend and the father of her children. But he’d never made love to her like this.

  Never let her make love to him like this.

  She rode Amadou slowly, then faster, guiding them both to an explosive climax that flung her forward onto him and left them both gasping and perspiring into the designer fabric of his mom’s sofa.

  When she stopped gasping, she suddenly wondered. “Did I make too much noise?”

  He laughed. “I have no idea. My mom is a sound sleeper, though.”

  “And probably far too discreet to listen. Still, let’s get dressed. I can’t sit and talk to you naked in your mom’s living room.”

  Chuckling like teenagers who’ve just gotten away with something, they tugged their clothes back on, then wrapped themselves into an embrace on the sofa again.

  “You do realize this isn’t normal?” Amadou spoke softly into her hair.

  “Two full-grown adults acting like naughty teenagers?”

  “No.” He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. “Two full-grown adults with such a deep and powerful connection.”

  She swallowed. There was something—different—between them. Love? No. Love was the feeling that grew inside you along with loyalty and duty to the people you cared about. In many ways this was the opposite of that as it threatened to tug her from her duty and from the people who needed her.

  Lust. Passion.

  “Just one of those things, I guess.” She tried to say it lightly, to shrug off the deep feelings that rose inside her when she was around Amadou.

  “I worked really hard to put you out of my mind,” he said, expression deadly serious. “It took a long time, and I finally succeeded.” His eyes shimmered with emotion. “Or I thought I did. Now all my hard work is ruined.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was joking or being serious. It was always hard to tell with Amadou.

  He tilted his head. “Was it hard for you to forget me? Or did I just slip out of your mind the day you left me?”

  She inhaled slowly. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she didn’t want to lie to him, either. He didn’t deserve that. “I suppose that unlike you I saw it coming so I was prepared. I’d been groomed from birth to marry someone suitable and strategic. Seriously, it was the kind of thing my family discussed at Sunday lunch when I was as young as twelve.”

  “You have got to be joking.” He looked suitably appalled.

  “Nope.” She wished she could laugh about it. “They said that because I was pretty I was the best hope of continuing the family name and fortunes. Liesel was too plain—they said that openly too, right in front of her—so their hopes all rested on me.”

  “No wonder she’s a bit crabby.”

  “Truly.”

  “But you just went along with their plan like it actually made sense?”

  She blinked. “I wanted to make my parents happy. To make them proud. I knew that my looks were my best asset. I was the pretty one, and Liesel was the smart one. I wasn’t going to attend university and have a big career, so my job was to find a good husband and make my family proud.”

  Amadou stared. “It may have been another century, but it was the twentieth century, not the eighteenth.”

  “I admit that from where I stand now, it all seems ridiculous. I would no more push my children into a strategic marriage than I would sell them into slavery. It was another era back then, though. Look at poor Princess Diana—married off to a much older man who cheated on her. Things have changed a lot since then. At least I hope they have.”

  “Maybe you should have told me I was just a temporary fling. Part of your last gasp of freedom.” The glint of humor in his eyes warred with the low tone of his voice.

  “I thought it was the same for you. I knew I wasn’t your first girlfriend. I knew I wouldn’t be your last. I guess I didn’t think it was that serious.” They hadn’t lived together—she’d been in an all-girls dorm at her expensive school—or even discussed it. Or anything beyond their plans for the following weekend.

  “Maybe I didn’t realize how serious it was until it was over.” He stroked her cheek. “I suppose I didn’t know how deeply I’d fallen in love with you until I tried to fall out of love again.”

  Lina’s breath stuck in her chest. For some reason his words hit her like a blow to the chest. He should hate her after how she’d treated him. “It wasn’t easy to leave you. I tried to do it the way you’d rip off a Band-Aid.”

  “Because I wasn’t the kind of lover you could bring home to Mama and Papa.”

  She didn’t know what to say. “They were very snobbish. They definitely wouldn’t have approved.”

  “Of me being a street musician or me being black?”

  “Both.” She didn’t try to prevaricate. “They would have been really upset and told me to leave you immediately.”

  “So you preemptively avoided the ugly confrontation by doing it before they could meet me.”

  She nodded, and to her surprise hot tears filled her eyes and flooded her throat. “I should be ashamed. I think I am ashamed. I guess I never really looked at it that way before.”

  Amadou took her face in his hands. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry. You were just trying to be a good girl and make your family happy. Any parent would be proud of you. My mom was probably crying into her pillow in Paris worrying about me—with good reason—so in a lot of ways you’re the better person than me.”

  “You’re sweet, but I can see that I was just weak.”

  He shrugged. “Not everyone is born strong. You became strong, though. Your beautiful family is a testament to that, and you wouldn’t have them if you’d run away with me.”

  She smiled through her tears. “True.”

  Amadou marveled at his restraint. She shed tears, and he acted like he was a stranger to emotion. He would let his feelings out later in a song.

  How did she still look so lovely? And all the more gorgeous flushed and glowing from making sweet love with him.

  He certainly hadn’t expected that to happen in his mother’s elegant living room. If any
thing he’d thought they might settle for a discreet kiss in the car. He wasn’t trying to rush into anything hot and heavy with Lina.

  Partly because he knew it would scare her into hiding. And partly because this experience was taking a toll on him. He’d spent years getting over her, and now he found himself diving back into her embrace like a just-rescued drowning man who hurls himself back into the ocean.

  Yet here they were. Where was this going?

  Even he wasn’t rash enough to ask the question aloud.

  She patted her hair. “We should get back to Paris.”

  “I suppose so.” He hated the idea. Left to his own devices he’d like to buy another house like this and keep her locked up in it so she couldn’t run away from him again.

  “Why are you laughing?” She lifted a brow.

  “You’d be disturbed by how much I don’t want to take you back.”

  “I don’t really want to go back either, but I know I have to.”

  “Duty calls.” He cocked his head. She’d always choose the call of duty, responsibility and family over him. She’d said as much herself.

  “Exactly.” She straightened her silk top. “Sometimes duty is the only thing that keeps me sane. In the days immediately following my husband’s and mother-in-law’s deaths, sometimes I thought I might really lose my mind.” She lifted her chin. “Sometimes I still do. How can we not have found the murderer? Every day I fear for my son, the new king. If I didn’t have functions to attend and have to keep up a brave facade, I might have gone to pieces by now.”

  “Are there suspects?”

  She exhaled. “Nothing solid. They were in a strange secret society that makes me nervous, but my son thinks that the society exists to protect royals, not kill them. No one ever explains anything to me. I know they’re keeping secrets from me to save my feelings. All I know is that the killer is still out there.”

  She’d stiffened while talking about it, and his fingers itched to massage her now tight shoulders. But that felt wrong when she was talking about her late husband’s death.