by Trish Morey
He stared at her for a moment, then gave a bitter laugh. “You mean why they want to lock me away in their particularly nasty tower and torture me with bad food? No. I’m still not sure what that is all about.”
She frowned. “Come on, Max. You must have a secret opinion. Or two.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve got some thoughts on the matter.” He frowned and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as though suddenly uncomfortable with those very thoughts. “But you wouldn’t like them.”
That gave her a momentary pang, but she was game. “Try me.”
He made a face. “I’d rather not.”
She looked into his eyes. He was serious.
“Max, this isn’t a game. We have to find out the truth. This has to be dealt with.”
He nodded slowly. “Of course.”
She waited. He stood very still and watched her. She sighed with quick exasperation and tugged on his sleeve. “Max! Tell me! Delve down into your deepest intuitions and tell me what you think it just might be.”
He grimaced, then looked back at her and shrugged. “Okay. If you really want me to do this, here you go. This is just a guess, but …” He took a deep breath, then looked out at the distant mountains. “I think they want me to marry their princess.”
She stared at him in shock. He glanced at her and sighed.
“And here you thought this was the only royal gig I had lined up,” he said grimly. “But no. I’ve got my choice. Lucky me.”
Kayla swallowed hard. She hadn’t expected something like this. Staring at Max, she tried to get her mind around these new developments. Everything inside her was aching for a denial. He couldn’t … could he? He hadn’t … had he?
“Is there …uh …a reason they would be demanding this? I mean, their charges were pretty hard-line, even if they weren’t explicit.”
His blue gaze skimmed her features. “You mean, did I compromise the girl’s reputation in some way?” he said with a trace of sarcasm and a touch of resentment. “No, Kayla. I did not.”
“Oh.” Relief flooded her, leaving her breathless. And then she realized she still didn’t know any of the details. “Then …?”
“The Princess Nadine is fifteen years old,” he told her, looking almost angry. “She decided to get a teenage crush on me. I didn’t do a thing to encourage it. Believe me, I do have certain scruples. But girls that age …” He shrugged and looked toward the heavens for help.
It was ridiculous. Maddening. And ultimately, he had a feeling it would be quite embarrassing. There had to be a way to handle this without everyone knowing what the Mercurians really wanted.
Princess Nadine was a lovely girl, but she was much too young to be handed off to an old guy like him. He’d only seen her a few times and he’d managed to keep those visits short. He couldn’t go back there. There was no telling what would be demanded of him. The family running the country was a few bricks short of a load at times. One might even say, crazy as loons.
“It’s not a good situation.”
“Oh.”
“She decided she wanted me. And her daddy, the King of Mercuria, gives her whatever she wants.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yes. ‘Oh, dear’.” He finally looked her in the eye. “So how am I supposed to explain this to Pellea? Especially when I don’t even know if it’s true?”
She thought for a moment. It was a problem. The queen was not going to be happy, and this put her in an awkward position in regard to an international relations situation that would just tangle things into knots. She could see why he hesitated to tell her about it.
But he would have to.
“You haven’t said anything to her about this?”
“No.”
She nodded. “Explain it to her just like you did to me.”
He looked skeptical. “I don’t think she’ll buy it.”
“If it’s the truth, what else can you do?”
He gave her a baleful look and shook his head. “Run away?” he suggested, only half joking.
“Never,” she said firmly.
He looked weary. “You know, this is just a guess. I don’t have any evidence. I’m not sure this is the exact thing pulling their chain. For all I know …”
“You’ve got to tell her. Right now.”
“Right now? But …”
She dug for her mobile and held up a hand to stop him. “I’ll see if she’s in,” she said, punching in Pellea’s office number. “She’s not there,” she said after a moment. “But her message says she’ll be right back.”
Leaning on the stone guard wall, he was watching her from under dark, lowered lashes. “You’re bound and determined to make sure I do the right thing, aren’t you? And by that, I mean the ‘royal’ right thing.” His eyes narrowed further. “You remind me of a prison warden I once knew.”
She looked up at him, doggedly set in her goals. “I’m going to make you into a prince,” she said coolly. “And you’re going to like it.”
He didn’t smile. His blue eyes looked as cold and hard as sapphire stones. “Or else I’ll bow out,” he said softly.
Holding his gaze, she shook her head slowly. “Over my dead body,” she promised, enunciating each word carefully. “You’re sticking this out, mister.”
He stared a moment longer, and then his lip began to curl. “Damn,” he said huskily. “Do you know how sexy you look when you’re giving me orders?”
“Oh!” She turned and started away, furious with him again. Was he ever going to take anything seriously?
“Hey.” He caught up with her and grabbed her upper arm, pulling her around to face him. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you thought that was condescending, didn’t you? I didn’t mean it that way. I was just being honest.”
She glared at him. “Be honest with Pellea. She’s the one who counts. And believe me, she’s ready to give you every chance in the world. But you have to level with her. Come on.” She linked her arm with his and gazed up at him, intense and a bit anxious. “Let’s go on over to the office. She ought to be back any minute. And you can tell her yourself. She’ll listen.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “She’ll try to see my side of things?”
“Oh, absolutely. She’s really very understanding.”
“I really don’t understand any of this and what’s more, I won’t have it!”
Kayla recoiled. She’d never seen Pellea so angry. She glanced apologetically at Max, but he was scowling at the queen. Oh, brother, did she ever regret forcing this little conversation.
They had come back to the office and found Pellea just arriving, a sheaf of papers in her hand. Obviously, she’d had news. She’d greeted them both the way someone thoroughly annoyed might, and as things were going, that did seem to be exactly what she was.
Pellea took a deep breath, closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. “All right. I’m going to try not to shout. That sort of thing is never becoming in a queen.” She gestured at them, slipping into her desk chair. “Sit down. We’ll do this the right way.” But her eyes flashed at Max. “Now tell me again, what exactly have you heard from Mercuria?”
Every muscle he owned seemed to be locked in stone. “As I said before, not much.”
There was a hard line to his mouth that Kayla didn’t like. She knew he resented being talked to the way Pellea had done, but she could also see that he was holding back. She only prayed that he was in control of his emotions. And that Pellea was, too. Sinking into a chair, she tugged on his sleeve to get him to sit down, too.
“I do have some calls in to some people and a friend is trying to look into this further, but …” He shrugged. “So far, not much.”
“You’re right,” Pellea said evenly. “That’s not much.” She waved an official-looking document at him. “I’ll tell you what I have. We’ve just received it. It’s from their foreign minister.” Her eyes blazed.
Max’s head went back defensively and his eyes were hooded. “What does he have to
say?”
She rattled the paper. “He says we have five days to the deadline and at that point, they expect us to hand you over.”
A muscle pulsed at his jawline. “And if you don’t hand me over?”
She glared at him. “They’re going to invade.”
Kayla gasped. “What? Oh, Pellea, that can’t be.”
The queen looked at Kayla, at a loss and showing it. “That’s what they say, right here.” She held up the embossed announcement, complete with signatures and an official stamp. “Read it and weep.”
“They won’t invade,” Max scoffed. “They don’t have the man power.” But he perused the document carefully, reading every line.
Pellea seemed to be counting to ten. Finally, she said a bit breathlessly, “Maybe they won’t actually invade. Maybe this is all bluster. But that doesn’t fix everything. We still owe this country a lot. We need to pay them back, in kind if not in cash. What are we going to do to satisfy them? What are we going to do about their demand to have you extradited?”
His gaze was steady and firm. “We’re going to tell them to pound sand, I hope.”
“No.” She shook her head emphatically.
His face registered a tiny flash of shock, then one eyebrow rose quizzically. “You want me to go and stand trial?” he asked incredulously.
“Of course not. But we don’t get around it by yelling at them.” She threw her hands up. “We consult. We sympathize. We question. We find ways to talk them out of their anger. We don’t give them exactly what they want, but we make them think we did.”
Max frowned, not sure he bought her song and dance. “But we still don’t know exactly what they want from me.”
“No. We don’t, do we?” Pellea tapped the toe of her shoe against the tiled floor and stared at him steadily. “The only one here who could possibly know is you. So what do you think it is? If you were to venture a guess.”
Max stared back. Kayla waited breathlessly, expecting him to find a way to tell the queen about the princess, just the way he’d told her. She waited. And waited.
But Max didn’t say a word about that. Instead, his handsome face seemed to have cleansed itself of all emotion, all thought, and he said evenly, “I think you already have a theory. Don’t you? Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
“A theory? No.” She pulled another large sheet of paper off her desk and brandished it. “But the foreign minister of Mercuria seems to have one. Here’s what he says.” She held it up and began to read, just skimming to the pertinent words and phrases.
“According to the foreign minister, while you were in their lovely country, enjoying their delightful hospitality …” She took a deep breath before going on, setting up a nicely dramatic pause. “You stole a horse, hijacked an airplane and made off with an important ancient historical national artifact.” She lowered the paper and looked him in the eye. “And you say …?”
He was shaking his head, half laughing, but without amusement. “That’s insane. I never took any artifact.”
Kayla groaned and Pellea’s eyes widened. “But the horse and the airplane …?”
He grimaced. This was all so stupid. “Listen, I can explain.”
Pellea looked at Kayla. Kayla looked at Pellea. They both groaned.
“No, really,” he said, feeling unfairly outnumbered. “There was no money in the treasury. They gave me the plane in lieu of payment for services rendered. I can prove it.”
Pellea’s eyes flashed. “Good. You’ll have to. Do you have papers?”
He hesitated and then he shrugged. “I’ll have to take a look. I must have something somewhere.”
She nodded as though she’d known that all along. “And the horse?”
He drew in a long breath. “That’s a longer story.”
“Of course.” She was glaring again. “And the artifact?”
His eyes blazed at that one. “Now there, I have no idea what they’re talking about.”
Pellea’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, but I think you do.”
“Do you?” His back was really up now. “Then why don’t you tell me?”
She searched his eyes for a moment, then shrugged. “We’re going to put together a letter of explanation,” she said, completely dismissing the subject of the artifact for now, “and send an ambassador right away.”
“For this?” he said dismissively.
She turned and looked at him. “Don’t you understand how important this is? We have to soothe ruffled feathers as quickly as we can.” Her eyes flashed and her hands smoothed down the bright red dress she was wearing, the outfit that was making her look like a Spanish dancer. “Unless you’d like to go back and explain it to them yourself?”
He winced. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Just so,” she said, as though that proved some point she’d been making all along.
Watching all this, Kayla was at a loss. She knew Max was being cagey. Why hadn’t he brought up the princess? Why did he treat Pellea like someone he had to keep things from? She wished he would lay it all out for her. If they didn’t handle this properly, war could be the result.
Either that, or extradition. She shuddered.
“Pellea, does Monte … does the king know about this?” she asked her.
“No.” Her face crumpled and for a second, Kayla was afraid she would cry. But she regained her composure quickly, taking Kayla’s hand in hers and squeezing it as though grateful she had her support and understanding. “No, he’s got his own international relations problems right now. I don’t want to bother him with this. I have to begin taking care of these things on my own and not go running to him with everything.”
Kayla nodded sympathetically. Working with Pellea, she had seen for herself what a precarious tightrope she walked trying to become effective without becoming either obsessive or too dependent. She and Monte had been like the perfect couple from the beginning, in more ways than one. Their royal marriage was a partnership and Pellea worked at it night and day.
Max rose, looking moody. “Your Majesty, let me just say this. The list you received from the foreign minister sounds like a bunch of excuses to me. I don’t know what’s really behind all this.” He stopped and swallowed hard. It really wasn’t easy for him to delve into his life and try to find explanations for this. But he would try.
“Why not wait until I find out something from my contacts in the country. Just hold on until then. Maybe we’ll have something we can work with.”
Pellea nodded, looking distracted. “Of course. You’ll let me know, won’t you?” She waved them off. “Until then, I’ll be counting on Kayla to manage things. So go, both of you. Get some lunch. I’ll talk to you later.”
Kayla looked back as they closed the door. A jagged little piece of her heart tore at the look in Pellea’s face. She bit her lip and turned away.
They walked away from the office. Kayla eyed at Max sideways and wondered how to broach the subject that was begging to be discussed. She kept expecting all this to be cleared up, and instead, she was just getting more confused.
“You want to explain all that to me?” she said at last, when he didn’t volunteer anything.
He looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. “You mean, why I didn’t tell her about Princess Nadine?”
She nodded. “You could start with that.”
He shrugged and kept walking. “There was nothing about it in the complaint. So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s not what this is all about.”
She stopped him and searched his eyes in wonder. “You don’t believe that.”
He glanced back at her, frowning. “Who cares what I believe, Kayla. What does it matter?”
“Of course what you believe matters. How are we going to get to the bottom of all this if we just throw out theories without exploring them?”
She saw the torture in his eyes and melted. “Listen.” She grabbed his arm and pressed close so she could talk to him softly. “Whatever they think yo
u did, whatever it turns out to be, we’ll handle it. Nothing is going to drive you away. We won’t let it.” His gaze locked in hers. “I won’t let it,” she whispered, her love for him in her eyes.
He reached up and his hand cupped her chin, fingers trailing across her cheek. He didn’t say a word, but something in his eyes said volumes. I need you, Kayla, they seemed to be saying. Don’t ever leave me. I don’t want to live without you. Never again.
She saw it as clearly as though he had said the words aloud. But she also saw what followed—a regret, a denial. She’d seen his true feelings, but at the same time, she saw why he couldn’t act on them. It was all there. As Pellea had said, read them and weep.
He dropped his hand and looked away and she put distance between them and cleared her throat.
“Tell me about the horse,” she said coolly.
Something flashed in his eyes and he turned away, then steeled himself and turned back and said, “Let’s get some food first. Where’s the closest place to get some food around here?”
She led him there and they entered the fast-food cavalcade, all chrome and neon flashing lights, with simple tables and chairs and a counter for ordering your food. Colors screamed from all sides and music was loud and aggressive. He scanned the place, then looked down at her and shook his head, his eyes amused.
“Are you going to tell me this is one of your favorite places?” he said skeptically.
She raised her chin and tried to keep from smiling, though his gorgeous eyes were tempting her to laugh. “Hey, I hang out here all the time.” She glanced around the room while he grinned at her obvious lie. “And anyway, you asked for something close.”
He bit his lower lip and attempted to adjust the criteria. “How about the closest decent food where you can also hear yourself think?”
“Say no more,” she said and led him to the escalator, then around two corners and onto a quieter walkway. “How about this?”
She would have thought the Two for Tea tearoom might have been a little too precious for his taste, but he smiled and nodded. “Looks great,” he said.