Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

by Gardiner, Jenny

  “I did too,” Edouardo added.

  “Sometimes what you see isn’t what it is,” she said. “That was a complete setup. Thanks to me, I might add.” She patted herself on the back. “I can’t believe you bought it. But why didn’t you say something to her? You were supposed to swoop in there and reclaim your girl!”

  “Wait, you set this up, the three of you?” Darcy said, light dawning in his eyes as he realized he’d been made a fool of.

  “What other way for you to stop being so dense with her? She was mooning for you, you were mooning for her, but you wouldn’t take off your darned responsibility hat for two minutes to just let things flow naturally. So we decided to dam it all up a little bit more, see what happened when the dam broke.”

  “Well, thanks a lot, Clementine, for making everything even worse,” he said. “Knowing that Caroline and Zander and you conspired to make me look like such a fool, I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Maybe you could say something to Caroline,” she said. “Although you’d have to do that long-distance.”

  “What do you mean, long-distance?”

  “Because Caroline’s gone,” she said. “She’s returned to the States. She didn’t see any reason to remain here any longer. I think, Darcy, that you broke her heart.”

  Darcy’s lips were set in a hard frown. “Back to the States? Seems the perfect place for her to be. Good riddance.”

  With that he got up and stormed out of the room and out the back door, slamming it behind him.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  CAROLINE had settled into her latest job, consulting with customers wanting to reupholster their furniture. Not particularly glamorous-sounding on its face, but she had a good eye for decorating and design and would hopefully gain some experience and possible future clients by working at a high-end fabric shop. She hadn’t really talked about spearheading the future princess of Monaforte’s home overhauls because she wanted to just keep that as her special thing with Emma, not exploit it for personal gain.

  The one sticking point with this job was that she got absolutely no time off. Which meant Emma’s upcoming wedding was likely going to prove to be the end of this job, because her boss wouldn’t give her even one extra day, especially since weekends were their busiest time. Caroline didn’t even bother to explain she needed extra time off to be an attendant in a royal wedding. It just wasn’t worth pushing it. For some reason she’d just decided that those two worlds need never be entwined again.

  Except for when she FaceTimed with her best friend.

  “I’m thinking of getting a gerbil,” Caroline said when she rang through on her iPhone to Emma.

  “Gerbil? What would you want that for?” Emma scrunched her nose. “I thought you didn’t like rodent-y creatures.”

  Caroline shrugged. “I don’t. But I need some companionship. Companionship without long-term commitment. I figure the shelf life of a gerbil can’t be all that long—so I won’t get too attached, nor will I feel like I have to drop everything for the gerbil if I spend the night at some guy’s place, for instance.”

  “Ah, now you’re sounding like the Caroline I know and love,” Emma said. “But does this mean you’re spending the night at strange men’s places?”

  Caroline shook her head vigorously. “Nah. That footloose lifestyle seems to have lost its charm.”

  “Which could be a good thing, don’t you think?”

  “Except I’m living by myself in a six-hundred-and-fifty-square-foot apartment, and I don’t find dying houseplants to be the world’s best company. Hence the gerbil.”

  “Have you considered something a little more warm and fuzzy. Say, a cat?”

  “Funny you asked,” Caroline said. “I found this sweet little mama cat and a whole litter of adorable kittens living in the bushes by my apartment. I was feeding her because I felt really sorry for her, but then one day I found out animal control had trapped her and hauled her and her babies away.”

  “How sad.”

  “I know. It sort of broke my heart. But I can’t keep a cat here anyways—I think the landlord would birth a cow if I snuck in a cat,” she said. “A little mammalian humor for you.”

  “We all miss you and can’t wait for you to get back here for the wedding,” Emma said.

  “I miss you guys like crazy too.”

  “So why don’t you come back sooner? I mean three days before the wedding is hardly time to get ready. I could use my BFF here to help.”

  “I’m sure you’re doing just fine. Between Isabella and Gareth, I’m sure you’ve got it under control.”

  “Speaking of Gareth...,” came a familiar voice from outside the screenshot.

  “Gareth! How’s my decorating partner doing?”

  Gareth came into the camera frame. “Good. Better than good. I came by to tell Emma some great news, but you’re actually the subject of that news, so even better that I can tell you.”

  “I haven’t had good news since I found out the boric acid I used to kill the cockroaches that overtook my apartment while I was gone finally worked.”

  “You’re living high, lady,” Emma said, laughing. “Hurry up, Gar, do tell!”

  “So we,” he said, pointing to the screen at Caroline, “meaning you and I, have some jobs lined up. Several of the contractors we worked with on the two renovations passed our names on to other clients, who saw what we did and loved it. We’re in business!”

  Caroline stared at her tiny cell phone screen. “Business? As in you and me? In Monaforte?”

  “As in get your behind back here as soon as possible so we can get started,” Gareth said.

  “But... but how could I do that? My job? My apartment. My extremely overwhelmingly exciting life here. I couldn’t possibly give that up.”

  Emma smirked. “If I was next to you I’d smack you one right about now, you know?”

  Caroline laughed. “Oh my God. You two are serious? I can return to Monaforte and have a real job, not one that’s just a pity job from my best friend? What about a place to live?”

  “Honestly, Care, that’s the least of your problems,” Emma said. “Besides this huge palace where you could hide and be out of our way and never be seen for weeks on end, we also have a carriage house adjacent to that vast country home of mine, which you’re more than welcome to live in. I don’t think we could possibly even notice you in the place.”

  “You two are really serious about this?” Caroline said, not daring to believe that something so amazing could indeed prove true.

  “Honey, I’ve been working on this since before you even left Monaforte,” Gareth said. “I loved teaming up with you, and I think you’ve got a great eye and an even better design sense. Considering what you did with these stuffy old spaces, I knew we could make a go of this.”

  “So, Care, looks like it’s a no-go on that gerbil, then.”

  Caroline snapped her fingers, showing her disappointment. “And I’d held out such hope for that rodent thing. Sort of like how they pair up rescue dogs with lonely old people.”

  “Yeah, keep working on that idea,” Emma said. “I guess this means we need to figure out how to get you here all over again?”

  “I’ll go online and see what flights will cost me,” Caro said, “Keeping in mind that I’m earning fourteen dollars an hour, so I might have to wait to book a flight six months out.”

  “Ha-ha. You know I was already flying you here for the wedding. Now to see if I can get a plane for you just a little bit sooner...”

  “I’m not so comfortable commandeering the royal jet, Ems,” Caro said, when in fact she’d have loved nothing better than that.

  “Oh stop. Of course you’d love it. Who wouldn’t? Let me see what I can do and I’ll get back to you. In the meantime, you’ve got a lot of things to settle up on your side of the pond—find someone to sublet your apartment, quit your job, stockpile boric acid for your new tenant.”

  They both laughed.

  “Who knew thing
s could turn so quickly?” Caro said.

  “Sometimes you just have to believe.”

  Chapter Thirty

  DARCY arrived a few minutes early to the restaurant and ordered a scotch on the rocks, still trying to figure out how much he wanted to share with Emma and Adrian about his tribulations.

  He saw them both enter the restaurant hand in hand, so happy and in love it would have made him a bit grumpy except that he’d decided to stop with the grouch routine and return to the old confident Darcy. Just because he’d screwed things up so badly didn’t mean he couldn’t put them back together again. A sort of valiant Humpty Dumpty effort on his part.

  Now to make the egg right.

  Darcy stood and kissed Emma on both cheeks and gave his friend a hug.

  “Glad to see you amongst the living finally,” Adrian said, and Emma elbowed him. “Damn, that came out wrong.”

  Everyone took a seat and Darcy waved his hand. “No, actually, it’s a very appropriate comment. I did join the walking dead for a while. But I’m back now. And I need to find out if I can fix everything I mucked up.”

  “You mean how you screwed up so badly with Caroline?” Emma said, and Adrian kicked her beneath the table for bringing up a non-bring-uppable topic. “Sorry, didn’t mean to suggest you blew that one. Even though you did.” She winked at him, and Adrian kicked her again.

  “Actually, she’s right about that too,” Darcy said. “I’ve made a perfectly fine mess of it all, I freely admit.”

  Emma burst out laughing. “Now you say this? After all the trauma, drama, and angst we’ve undergone?” she said. “You do know she’s left? She’s gone back to the States.”

  Darcy rubbed his tired eyes with his hands. “I know. I’m learning all this a little bit late.”

  “Better late than never,” Adrian said. “How’d you finally come round?”

  “God, where to begin?” he said. “Clearly my tack wasn’t working so well. All I’d succeeded in doing was work myself into a complete state of exhaustion while alienating my family and friends. I hadn’t spoken a word to my brother in several weeks.”

  “You’re actually speaking again?” Adrian said.

  “He and I finally hashed it out, yes.”

  “I can’t believe what he did to you and Caro,” Emma said, but then Adrian kicked her beneath the table because he’d told her that in confidence.

  “I thought that was between us,” Darcy said to Adrian, forcing his eyebrows down in a furrow.

  “Sorry. I thought Emma was exempt from the vow of secrecy,” Adrian said.

  “Since when are there exemptions?”

  “It’s a brave new world out there,” Emma said. “Just you wait and see how much more dish you’re privy to once you’re part of a couple.” She smiled at him.

  “So glad the entire world knows now that Caroline and I were caught—”

  “With your pants down, quite literally,” Emma said, practically guffawing. “C’mon. You have to admit it’s sort of funny.”

  “I can’t imagine how mortifying it must have been for Caroline,” Darcy said.

  “Don’t worry about it. She’ll get over it,” Emma said. “Believe me, she’s been in plenty of embarrassing situations before. And she’s lived to laugh about them.”

  “Thanks for the overall vote of confidence.” Darcy shrugged. “So how’s she doing?”

  “All things considered, she’s doing really well,” Emma said.

  Which led Darcy to frown. “So she’s happy back home?”

  “God no. She’s miserable. So miserable she was considering getting a pet gerbil. You can imagine how lonely she must be if she’s considering adopting a rodent. Although she said she’d befriended a mama cat and a sweet litter of babies, but then they got rounded up by animal control. She was so sad about that it got her thinking rodent.”

  “Why not just go get another cat then?” Darcy asked.

  “She’s not allowed dogs or cats in her apartment.”

  Darcy nodded. “So if she’s so miserable, why is she staying there?”

  “Well, that’s the good news about all this. Which is why I said she’s doing great,” Emma said. “She’s coming back!”

  “For the wedding. I know, I know,” Darcy said.

  “No, I mean she’s coming back, maybe for good! Gareth surprised me today while I was speaking with her and said that he’s lined up more design and decorating jobs for the two of them—they’re going to team up together to form a business venture!”

  “You mean he’s not going to be protocol chief at the palace anymore?” Adrian said.

  “Sorry, sweetie, I haven’t had a chance to even tell you all this yet,” she said. “I only just heard.”

  “So when’s she coming back?” Darcy asked.

  “We’re working on that right now,” Emma said. “Trying to figure out how to get her here.”

  “Why don’t we send the plane, Ems,” Adrian said. “I don’t think my father or mother are using it this week.”

  Emma smiled. “Perfect timing! I was just going to ask you if you could find that out for me. So it looks like Caroline’s going to be home soon. To her new home, that is.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  CAROLINE experienced a fleeting moment of déjà vu as the town car she was riding in pulled up to the tarmac at the airport, parking just before a gorgeous white jet featuring the regal dueling griffins of Monaforte in gold and blue on the tail of the aircraft. Just remembering how much fun she and Emma had on their flight over to Monaforte last Christmas had her smiling. So much had happened since then, both good and bad.

  Of course, back then she and Darcy had a casual relationship, but it had seemed so ripe with possibility. And after spending the week from Saint Christus Day through New Year’s together back then, Caroline had felt oddly assured of a future with Darcy. But clearly that wasn’t meant to be. Finally she’d accepted this reality, and she felt okay about it. She’d grown a lot and felt as if she’d finally shed some of the immaturity of her youth. This time she was returning to Monaforte with a purpose: she had a burgeoning career, and she’d made some friends of her own—granted, one was inconveniently Darcy’s sister, but oh well. She could deal with that. Regardless, she was going back to Monaforte on her terms, her head held high and ready to forge her own path there, not just as Emma’s tagalong.

  The driver loaded the three large suitcases that constituted most of her entire life’s possessions while she boarded the plane and was greeted by the pilot and flight attendant, who offered her champagne. After a too-lengthy champagne-free hiatus, she was more than happy to accept her kind offer.

  Now a veteran of flying royal-style, she settled into a plush leather reclining chair and prepared for takeoff, turning on the large-screen high-definition television and perusing her viewing options. The perfect time to catch up on back episodes of The Bachelor, which she’d missed while living in Monaforte. For the first hour or so of the flight, she kept a running dialogue with some of the pathetic women vying for the Bachelor’s extremely divided attention.

  “Seriously, don’t be so stupid,” she said to one contestant, who happily threw herself at the man just after another woman had been grinding into his lap in the shallow Caribbean waters in which they were relaxing. “Have some self-respect, girl!”

  She thought about that line for a minute. She’d wasted a lot of time throwing herself at men along the way, so she knew whereof she spoke. But she was ready now to stop worrying about that pursuit and focus instead on herself and forging a healthier lifestyle in Monaforte. And if that meant an embargo on men for a while, then so be it.

  ~*~

  After the plane landed and she once again climbed into the Rolls for the ride into Porto Castello and the Grande Palace, Caroline decided she would pay close attention to every tiny detail along the drive. She never wanted to take this place for granted again.

  The car meandered through the countryside, the fields still filled with br
eathtaking wildflowers in shades of periwinkle, gold, and fuchsia and, farther along, cheerful sunflowers baring their joyful faces to the day. She loved the stone farmhouses and thought about how lovely it would be to own one someday. The possibilities seemed endless for once.

  On either side of the narrow, windy roads, sheep gamboled on sleepy hillsides and cows lazily grazed behind stacked stone walls. This, Caroline thought, is my home. And she smiled, feeling such joy fill her heart. It made her happier still to realize that it had nothing to do with a man. She wasn’t finding fulfillment in another person but rather in her own self and her accomplishments. And it felt pretty damned amazing.

  The countryside gradually gave way to the city as farmland yielded to gorgeous old Gothic-style buildings. It still gave Caroline a thrill to see scattered about the many-centuries-old statues, some dating back to the days of Roman occupation of this land. And soon, before her, the familiar spires and goblin-like gargoyles of the palace came into view, and the car navigated down the busy boulevard alongside the wrought iron palace fencing, peaked with gold fleurs-de-lis that gleamed in the sunlight and seemed to be winking at Caroline.

  The Rolls pulled through the official palace gates, the gold-leafed dueling-griffin crests festooning each of the large gates parting to allow them entry.

  The car finally stopped on the pebbled driveway just to the side of the grand marble staircase where Emma stood waving wildly at her friend. The two friends ran toward one another and squealed and squeed with one another as they caught up on news and gossip and just being together.

  “First thing, before anything else, you have to see how the apartment looks,” Emma said, grabbing Caro’s backpack and pulling her hand.

  They ran past the stone-faced palace guards flanking the palace entrance and up the white marble stairway into the grand hall, Caroline trying to catch her breath as they went.

  They quickly mounted the grand staircase, taking the red-carpeted steps two by two, holding tightly to the balustrade for purchase as they climbed the stairs. They raced past walls covered in oil paintings and friezes and plaster reliefs as they scurried down the Corridor of Elders and turned in the direction of Apartment One. When they arrived, the doors were open wide and sunshine streamed through, quite the contrast to the first day Caroline had seen the living quarters, then so dingy and neglected.