by Susan Meier
Her nerves jumped at the thought of it. She loved talking to him. She loved that he saw things, knew things, that she didn’t. And even though he might have all kinds of strategies in place to resist her, she wasn’t so experienced, so lucky. Every day she liked him a little more.
But it might all be over. She might have been summoned to the king’s office because her dad was back. Safe. Maybe even already in Grennady.
An odd queasiness filled her.
After today, she might never again see Alex.
A knock at the door announced the royal guard member who led her to the king’s office. She hadn’t been in the administrative offices of the palace, but she was so nervous that the art on the walls barely caught her attention.
She walked into a sitting room, then a huge space full of secretaries and assistants, then an office with one woman, who rose.
In her forties, with reddish-blond hair and brown eyes, she bowed. “Princess.” She walked to the door of the office behind hers, and the guard with Eva stepped back, as if handing her off. “I’m Maria.”
“A pleasure to meet you.”
“You too, Princess.” She opened the door. “This way.”
They walked through another room to a gilded door in the back, which Maria opened.
Eva walked into an office so grand, she blinked. The king, Dominic and Alex all rose from the seats around a huge mahogany desk.
Alex walked over and took her hands. Catching her gaze, he said, “Your father is on the phone.”
Her heart lurched. “He is?”
“Yes.”
Her dad being back in Grennady was good news, but Alex’s expression was serious, concerned, as if he was afraid she might shatter into a million pieces.
Confusion pummeled her as King Ronaldo rounded his desk. “You take my seat and we’ll give you some privacy. Just press the blinking button on the phone. That’s the line he’s on.”
Eva’s stomach fell. Something was dreadfully wrong.
Nonetheless, she held her head high. “Thank you.”
As she walked behind the desk, the Sancho men left the office.
She sat. Took a breath. Pushed the blinking light on the phone.
“Dad?”
“Hey, sweetie. How are the cats?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I haven’t seen my cats in weeks.” She gulped a breath, so scared and so confused she didn’t know what to say, what to ask. A million possibilities loomed in her mind. None of them good.
“How are you? Where are you?”
“I’m fine. But I’m still in hiding. Investigating everything that’s going on, I realized that my brother being a traitor is only part of the problem. But I don’t want to clean house in parliament, or reorganize the government. I want to show my detractors that I’m willing to work with them. There’s been dissension growing for years. I’ve seen it, of course, but I didn’t realize it had hit a crisis point.”
“What kind of dissension?”
“Our country is horribly behind the times.”
Hadn’t Alex told her that? “And we have a generation coming up that wants something more.”
He laughed. “When did you get so smart?”
“I’m not. Alex mentioned it. He suggested luring an internet company to Grennady, convincing them to put their corporate headquarters there.”
Her dad laughed again. “He suggested it to me too. I’m in negotiations with a company right now. But I can’t go back until I have a solid plan, proof that when I return things will be different.”
Her entire body froze. “Oh.”
“But the danger has passed, sweetie.”
“It has?” She sat back in the chair. She should have been relieved, but the feeling that Alex had been in on all of this sent little lightning bolts of anger through her. She was to be the queen of her country someday, yet everyone knew this plan but her. “Really?”
“Yes, your uncle is under secret house arrest, until I come home. But I still need time to create a new vision for the country.”
She sat up. “How can I help?”
“By doing what you’re doing. I don’t want word of this to get out. I don’t want to give my dissenters a chance to find a voice before I can come home strong, with a plan. That’s why I’m calling. You and Alex are going to have to go through with the wedding.”
She took a few seconds to let that sink in. Three weeks ago she could have married him in an award-winning performance. Now? He’d protected her. Kissed her. Told her he didn’t want her. And gone behind her back to help her dad, when she should have been the one in on the discussions.
Her dad drew in a breath. “Sweetie, I had no idea things were so bad. We’re a small, quiet country. I thought we could go on the way we were, the way we have been for generations. But there’s dissension that runs deep enough that my own brother wanted to kill me.” He took another breath. “I should have known how bad it had gotten. But I didn’t. And now I have to fix it.”
“Wouldn’t it be better for you to go home now?”
“I can’t go home until I have a solid plan. If I go home, admitting that we have things to fix, but without a way to fix them, the rebels will see we’re shaky and take advantage.”
She got what he was saying. He just seemed to be taking the long way around. Still, a princess didn’t question her king.
“We’ve always been so small that we haven’t really had a plan. We simply solved problems as they arose. Now, we know we need to think of all of the needs of the people and meet them. Ronaldo has sent financial advisors. Prince Dominic is flying here to help us tomorrow. We have the information. We just have to sort through it and figure out what works for us.”
And now he’d called Dominic for help. Not just Alex but Dominic? Her nerve endings fluffed out like porcupine quills. But she said, “Okay.”
“I’m sorry I won’t be at the wedding.”
“It’s not a real wedding.” But that thought depressed her even more. She’d be standing up in front of a mountain of press, her friends, her family, Alex’s family, saying vows that weren’t real. To a guy she was growing to like, but who didn’t like or trust her enough to tell her he’d been helping her dad for God only knew how long.
“What happens if you can’t do this? Three weeks have gone by. How do you know your detractors aren’t already planning to take over?”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure they are. That’s why this wedding is so important. You’re distracting everybody. Buying time. And I swear, I won’t need more than another few weeks.”
A few weeks of being married to Alex? She squeezed her eyes shut. If he were a mean, ugly man, none of this would matter. She could do this with her eyes closed. But he was good-looking, kind, smart. A born leader who, quite obviously, her father trusted.
And maybe the real reason he didn’t want her was bigger than she’d suspected. Maybe he saw her as her dad did. A figurehead? Not a real person, not someone who could give or take love. Someone who simply held a place and did what she was told.
She swallowed hard, but said what her dad needed to hear. “I’m fine. I serve at the pleasure of my king.”
“That’s my girl. And when everything’s straightened out, I’ll come to America and visit your cats.”
Pain skittered through her. The very thing she’d done to keep herself busy, to make a mark while she bided time, made her look foolish.
She swallowed again, played her role with a dad who was too busy to see how he was hurting her. “So you’ve said a million times.”
“This time I mean it. We’ll attach the trip to a formal, official visit to the United States.”
She took a slow, necessary breath, as the truth of her life made a ring of sadness around her heart. She was nothing. “Okay.”
“I think she’s going to skin you alive.”
“No. She’ll understand.”
Eva hung up the phone a few minutes later knowing that her mom would understand. Her mom would do her duty. So would Eva.
But her hands shook and her heart hurt. In four weeks, her entire life had changed. She’d believed it was because her dad had gone through a midlife crisis, but it was so much more serious than that. And the Sancho family had stepped in to help them. But she’d been tucked away like a porcelain doll.
A few seconds after she’d hung up the phone, Alex and his father returned to his office.
Alex said, “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “He says he’s going to talk to my mom this afternoon.”
The king reached for his phone. “I’ll tell my secretary to arrange that. You two do whatever it is you had planned for today.”
She nodded again and Alex took her elbow to guide her out of the office.
In the corridor leading away from the administrative offices, Alex glanced at her jeans and tank top and said, “So I see you’re ready to go into the village.”
She forced a smile. “Sure.”
He stopped. “You’re not ready?”
She shook her head as the implications of everything her dad had said rained down on her. What did she expect? Her father had no intention of retiring. She was a well-loved only child...only daughter. She busied herself with charities, but essentially lived in America. Even she didn’t see herself as a ruler.
“No. No. I’m fine.”
He studied her face. “You’re not fine.”
“Does it matter? There are so much bigger things at stake here.”
“True, but you’re not going to convince a block of reporters that you’re a happy bride if your smile falters.”
“I can pull it off.”
He glanced down the empty corridor. “You know what? Maybe you can, but this has been a long, weird bunch of weeks for you. You’re accustomed to low-key. I’ve dragged you around town. Maybe today would be a good day to take a break.”
She hated to say it. Hated to think she was this weak. Except she wasn’t weak. She was worn down by the truth. Her father didn’t trust her. She’d thought he did because he let her live her own life, but if he really trusted her, she’d be preparing to be queen. To be a ruler. But she wasn’t. Her dad had said she’d rule only long enough until her son—a son who wasn’t even yet born—could take over.
“No. I need to go somewhere. I can’t sit around the palace all day. That would just make things worse.”
He smiled. “I think I have an idea.” He glanced at her outfit again and confusing longings rolled through her. This man pampered her, protected her, and kept her out of the loop even more than her father did. Why should she want him to look at her with interest in his eyes?
“You’ll do.”
Thank God that made her laugh. “I’ll do?”
He took her hand. “Yes. I have an idea.”
He rushed her out of the corridor to a slim hall that led to another slim hall.
“What are we doing?”
“Escaping.”
Shades of the real Alex returned, the simple guy she really liked. Not the one who apparently went to secret meetings with her dad. “Escaping?”
“Yes. There are times when I can’t stand the bodyguards, hate the media...don’t even want my dad to know where I am.”
Her eyebrows rose. This truly was the Alex she liked.
“So—” He opened a small, inconspicuous door onto a huge garage. “I go here.”
She glanced around in awe at the sheer number of vehicles. Everything from limos to tiny sports cars and bikes. “To a garage?”
“Nope,” he said, grabbing a motorcycle helmet from a shelf.
Realizing what was happening, she skittered back. “Oh, no...”
He plopped the helmet on her head. “You don’t ride?”
“No.”
“Then this is the perfect day for you to start.” He put a helmet on his head. When he spoke his voice came to her through a speaker by her ear. “You’ll love this.”
She had the horrible feeling of going from the frying pan into the fire, but if anything would make her forget that her dad didn’t need her help—didn’t want her help—fear for her life would probably accomplish it.
He climbed on a small, rather simple bike.
She looked at him. “This is the royal motorcycle?”
“This is a bike no one looks at twice. In jeans and a T-shirt, with a helmet on my head, I’m just another guy out for a ride on a bike.”
She climbed on behind him. “Good point.”
He was right. Maybe what she needed was even for her to forget she was a princess.
CHAPTER NINE
ALEX REVVED THE engine and headed for a garage door that automatically opened when they got close. A warm sun beat down on them, but as soon as he turned them onto the road that wove through the trees, the air cooled.
Eva clung to him, obviously a first-time rider. But the farther they got into the woods, the more her grip loosened.
He missed it. As happy as he was that she’d relaxed, he missed having her arms wrapped tightly around him for support. He knew something was wrong. He’d expected her to be thrilled her dad was safe, and had a plan in process. Instead, she seemed confused, disoriented. So he vowed that no matter what it took today, he would distract her.
They drove and drove. Up a mountain, through another patch of trees. The feeling of the wind swirling around him always calmed him, and he could feel her relaxing behind him.
Finally, the house came into view. A nine-bedroom, two-story stone monstrosity with brown shutters and a wide wooden porch that ran across the entire front and curved around the right side, the house had been designed as a retreat, a place for the Sancho family to be a family. Not royalty. Not rulers. Just people.
He heard her small gasp through the system of mics in their helmets.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“It’s old,” he said flatly. “And in general need of repairs.”
He drove the bike down the winding road that took them to the aging country house. He punched the alarm code into the box by the gate. It swung open, and they rode through, then the gate automatically closed behind them.
Standing on the front porch, he used another code for the house alarm.
As he reached for the knob to open the door, she glanced around nervously. “You’re not worried about security?”
“We’re fine here. I’ll bet nobody even realizes we’re gone. I told my guards we’d ring when we were ready to head for town. If I don’t ring, they’ll just think we decided not to go out.”
He opened the door revealing a dusty foyer. Furniture was covered with cloths. Cobwebs danced like streamers from the chandelier to all four corners.
He batted them away so Eva wouldn’t have to walk through them. “Just FYI, the press knows this is the house we would be living in if we got married.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It’s already crowded in the palace. It’s a gift to be given a real home.”
She stepped around a chair that had been placed haphazardly in the foyer, as if someone had been moving it to storage and forgotten it.
“How long has it been since anyone’s been here?”
He didn’t even have to think about it. “Since my mom’s death.”
She faced him. Her eyes filled with apology, the first real emotion he’d seen from her since her call with her dad. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Some things are just facts.”
Her eyes softened. “Facts to me. Sorrow for you
.”
He sniffed a laugh. “At one time. But I’m accustomed to it, remember? I’m the guy with the walls.” He led her out of the foyer to the huge room beside it. The dusty fireplace was the only thing not covered by cloths.
“You have a fireplace!”
“We only used it to hang stockings at Christmas.”
She walked over, ran her hand along the rich wood of the mantel, sending dust flying. “So you had Christmases here?”
“Actually we came here a lot. My mother believed that living where he worked kept my dad from relaxing. So most weekends she’d bring him here.”
But Christmas memories were the strongest and they floated to him. Trays of cookies and tea. Mountains of presents wrapped in shiny foil. His mother laughing.
They walked through a sitting room and formal dining room, an office, and a craft room that had been his mother’s, down a long corridor to a ballroom.
“You have a ballroom in a country house?”
“My father always hosted a grand party.”
She walked inside. Her voice echoed around her when she said, “Wow.”
But he suddenly pictured the room clean, decorated for the holidays as it had been when his mom was alive. He could see Eva in her red gown, greeting guests at the door because parties here had been formal, but comfortable...wonderful.
He shook his head to clear the haze. “Let me show you the kitchen.”
Rather than a huge restaurant kitchen designed for a staff, the room was small, intimate. His mother had created it that way. After the big party, she would dismiss the servants—let them have their holiday. Then she would make Christmas or Easter breakfast and dinner. He and Dom would stay in their PJs and lean against the center island as she cooked.
“Oh, I could see myself making pizza on that island.”
“You make pizza?”
She laughed. “I love to cook.”
“My mom did too.”
“Let me guess. That was part of your holiday tradition. That she cooked.”
He walked around the room slowly, memories tripping over themselves in his head. He might have only been eight when his mom died, but he remembered enough to fill a lifetime.