by Cat Schield
“Physically yes, unless you count hungover. He looked terrible when I showed up this morning.”
“So, he’s really taking the accident hard.”
“Of course he is. He and Glen have been obsessed with this dream of theirs for five long years. And as you said, he blames himself for what happened.” Brooke’s breath came out in a ragged sigh as her reaction to what she’d learned finally caught up with her. “He’s not coming back.”
“Sure he is. If anyone can convince him to not give up it’s you.”
“I can’t. There’s a bunch of other things going on.”
“What kind of other things?”
“Turns out there are problems at home and he has to go back and marry someone.”
“What?” Theresa screeched. “He’s engaged?”
“Not yet, but he will be soon.”
“Soon? How soon? Does he have a girlfriend he’s going to propose to? Is that why he broke your heart?”
“No.” Brooke knew she wasn’t being clear, but was having a hard time explaining what she still struggled to grasp. “Nothing so simple. Theresa, he’s a prince.”
Silence. “I’m sorry, a what?”
“A prince.” Her reaction was beginning to settle in. Brooke swiped away a sudden rush of tears as her ears picked up nothing but the hiss of air through the phone’s speaker. “Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here, but this damned international call has gone wonky. Can you repeat what you said.”
“Nic is a prince. He’s second in line to the throne of a small European country called Sherdana.”
Her breath evened out as she waited out her best friend’s stupefaction. It wouldn’t last long. Theresa was one of the most pragmatic people she knew. It was part of what kept them friends for so long. Opposites attract. Theresa needed Brooke’s particular variety of crazy to shake up her life, and Brooke relied on Theresa’s common sense to keep her grounded.
“You’re kidding me, right? This whole phone call is some sort of setup for one of those wacky reality shows where people get punked or filmed doing stupid things.” She paused and waited for Brooke to fill in an affirmative. When Brooke remained silent Theresa sighed and said, “Okay, you’d better give it to me from the top.”
* * *
Nic sat in the small den off the living room, his laptop on the love seat beside him, his thoughts lingering on Brooke and her crazy notion that they should say goodbye and gain closure by spending the next few days in bed together. Had he done a good enough job convincing her that wasn’t going to happen when he desperately wanted to make love to her again? During their five months together, she’d learned all she had to do was crook a finger and he was happy to abandon his work in favor of spending hours in her arms. Nic growled as he pondered his susceptibility to her abundant charms. He was fighting a battle with himself and with her. In a few hours she would return, refreshed and ready for the next skirmish and he’d better have his defenses reinforced.
With a snort of disgust, Nic turned on the computer in the den and cued up his email. She’d claimed there were dozens of unanswered emails, but the inbox was empty. It took him fifteen minutes to find them among the folders where he shunted the messages he didn’t wish to delete and restore the settings to the way he liked them. Brooke was a disaster when it came to anything involving technology. Glen had found his sister’s deficiency funny and endearing. Nic just found it exasperating. Like so many other things about her.
She was always late. In fact, her sense of time was so skewed that if he needed her to be somewhere, he usually built in a cushion of thirty minutes. Then there was her inability to say no to anyone. This usually led to her getting involved in something she needed to be bailed out of. Like at Griffin’s annual team picnic when she’d agreed to take all the kids for a nature hike and then got lost. It had taken Nic and Glen, plus a half dozen concerned parents, to find them. Of course, the kids all thought it was the best adventure they’d ever been on. Brooke had kept them calm and focused, never letting them know how much trouble they were in. Later, when he’d scolded her for worrying everyone, she’d simply shrugged her shoulders and pointed out that nothing bad had happened. She just didn’t think about the consequences of her actions. And that drove him crazy.
As crazy as the way she leveraged her lean, toned body to incite his baser instincts. Whenever she took a weekend break from school and came to visit, he found it impossible to concentrate on the Griffin project. She hung out in his office, alternating between cajoling and pouting until he paid attention to her. Most days he held out because eventually she’d grow tired of the game and let him get back to work. Unfortunately before that happened, he had to endure her flirtatious hugs and seemingly innocent body brushes. Usually by the time she headed back to San Francisco on Sunday afternoon, he was aroused, off schedule and in a savage mood.
His phone rang. Gabriel. The first in line to the throne sounded relaxed and a touch smug as he passed along the message Nic had been dreading.
“Mother is sending the jet to pick you up the day after tomorrow and wants to know what time you can be at the airport.”
“What’s so urgent? I thought I had over a week until your wedding.”
“She has a series of parties and events leading up to the big day that you and Christian will be expected to attend. From what I understand she has compiled quite a list of potential brides for you two to fight over.”
And so it began. Nic’s thoughts turned toward the woman napping in the guesthouse. His heart wrenched at the thought of being parted from her so soon after reconnecting. She would be disappointed to find out their time would be cut short, but he had warned her.
“Are any of these women...?” What was he trying to ask? Without meeting any of them, he’d already decided they were unacceptable. None of them were Brooke.
“Beautiful? Smart? Wealthy? What?”
“Am I going to like any of them?” As soon as the question was out Nic felt foolish.
“I’m sure you’re going to like all of them. You just have to figure out which one you can see yourself spending the rest of your life with.” Gabriel’s words and tone were matter-of-fact.
“Is that how you felt when you first started poring over the candidates?”
Gabriel paused before answering. “Not exactly. I had Olivia in mind from the first.”
“But you spent a year considering and meeting possible matches. Why do that if you already knew who you wanted?”
“Two reasons. Because Mother would not have accepted that I had already met the perfect girl and at the time only my subconscious realized Olivia was the one.”
Nic wished he was having this conversation face-to-face because his brother’s expression would provide clues mere words lacked. “You’ve lost me.”
“As I worked my way through the list, I realized I compared each woman I met to Olivia.”
“She was your ideal.”
“She was the one I wanted.”
The conviction throbbing in Gabriel’s low voice spurred Nic to envy his brother for the first time since they were kids. Before Nic had discovered his passion for science and engineering, he’d wondered what contribution he could make to the country. Gabriel would rule. All Christian cared about was having fun and shirking responsibility. Nic had wanted to have a positive effect on the world. A lofty ambition for an eight-year-old.
Gabriel continued speaking, “Only I resented my duty to marry and didn’t know how perfect Olivia was for me. Even when I proposed to her I was blind to my heart’s true desire. Thank goodness my instincts weren’t hampered by my hardheadedness.”
“At what point did you figure out you’d selected the perfect woman?”
“The night my girls came to stay at the palace. Olivia took them under her wing and zealously guarded
them from anyone she believed might upset them. Me included.” He chuckled. “And she never wavered in her love for them, not even when she thought I was still in love with their mother.”
“And speaking of Karina and Bethany, how are your girls?”
“Growing more beautiful and more terrifying by the week. Thank goodness they adore Olivia or they’d be terrorizing the palace staff a lot more than they do. Somehow she guides their energy into positive channels and makes the whole process look effortless. No one else can manage them without being ready to pull their hair out.”
“Not even Mother?”
“At first, but now they realize she is too fond of them to scold. Father indulges their appetite for sweets and Ariana has shown them every good hiding place the palace has to offer.”
“It’s not called the terrible twos for nothing.”
“You’ll see soon enough. I’ll have the plane pick you up tomorrow around noon.”
“Fine.” That should give him time to make sure Brooke was safely on a plane heading for home.
“See that you’re there on time.”
“Where else would I be? I have nowhere to go but home.”
Nic ended the call with a weary sigh and mulled what Gabriel had said about his search for a wife. That his brother had settled on the perfect woman before his quest had even begun didn’t lessen Nic’s unease over what was to come. Already his mind and body had chosen the woman for him. She was currently stretched out on the bed in the guesthouse. If he was anything like Gabriel, he was going to have an impossible time finding anyone who could match her perfect imperfection.
Several hours later, he was opening a bottle of Sherdana’s best Pinot Negro to let it breathe when Brooke sailed into the living room. She’d changed clothes again. The tail of her pastel tied-dyed kimono fluttered behind her as she walked, exposing a mint-green crocheted tank and the ruffled hem of her leg-baring floral shorts.
A light breeze swept in from the terrace and plucked at her dark copper curls. She’d loosened her hair from its braid and it flowed in rich waves over her shoulders and down her back. She stroked a lock away from her lips. He caught himself staring at her and shifted his attention back to the wine.
How often in the past five years had he longed to sink his fingers into her tempestuous red locks and lose himself in the chaotic tangle? He’d imagined the texture would feel like the finest Chinese silk sliding along his bare chest. He’d been right.
Nic extended a glass of wine toward her. She shook her head.
“Something nonalcoholic if you have it.”
He found a container of orange juice and poured her a glass. She sipped at it, her eyes smiling at him over the edge of the glass. Expecting a whole new round of verbal fencing, Nic was surprised when she said, “You mentioned that your sister paints here. Could I see her studio?”
“Sure.”
He led the way onto the terrace and around the villa in the opposite direction of the guesthouse. A small building with broad windows facing north sat on a little rise overlooking the harbor mouth. Nic unlocked the door and gestured for Brooke to go inside.
“Oh, these are all wonderful,” she said the minute she walked in.
Though Brooke was always generous with her praise, Nic thought she was going a little overboard in talking about Ariana’s work. Nic was proud of what his sister had accomplished with her paintings but didn’t really get her modern style. She had often accused him of being stuck in the Middle Ages in terms of his taste. Brooke, on the other hand, seemed to get exactly what his sister was trying to do.
He enjoyed watching her stroll through his sister’s art studio and study each canvas in turn, treating every painting like a masterpiece. By the time Brooke returned to where he stood just inside the door, her delighted grin had Nic smiling, as well. The next time he saw Ariana, he would be sure to tell her what an accomplished artist she was.
“I never looked at Ariana’s art that way before,” Nic said as he relocked the studio and escorted Brooke back toward the main house. “Thank you for opening my eyes.”
She looked caught off guard by his compliment. “You’re welcome.”
At that moment Nic realized how rarely he’d ever offered Brooke any encouragement or a reason to believe he appreciated her. How had she stayed so relentlessly positive as he’d thrown one obstacle after another in her path? All she’d ever asked was for him to like her and treat her with civility. Was it her fault that she agitated his emotions and incited his hormones?
“What are you thinking about?” she asked as they stepped back into the main house. She gathered her hair into a twist and secured it into a topknot.
“Regrets. I spent so much time keeping you at bay.”
Again he’d startled her. “You did, but to be fair, I am a little overwhelming.”
“And very distracting. I had a hard time concentrating when you were around.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?”
“I had a call from my brother while you were resting and I have to leave for Sherdana the day after tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Her lips curved downward.
Nic wanted to put his arms around her, but it would do neither of them any good to deepen their connection when the time to part was so near. “Apparently my mother has planned several events she’d like me to attend in the next week, culminating in Gabriel and Olivia’s wedding.”
“But I thought they were already married.”
“They are. Actually...” Nic stared out the window at Kioni in the distance. “He brought her to Ithaca for a surprise wedding ceremony.”
“That’s very romantic.”
“And unlike Gabriel to put his desires before the needs of the country. But he’s crazy about Olivia and couldn’t bear to live without her.”
Something about Brooke’s silence caught his attention. She was staring at the floor lost in thought. “So why are they getting married again?”
“The crown prince’s wedding is pretty momentous and my parents decided it was better to have a second ceremony than to rob the citizens of the celebration. There will be parties every night leading up to the big event, both at the palace and venues around our capital city of Carone.”
“Tell me about the parties at the palace. They must be formal affairs.” Brooke’s smile bloomed. “Do you have to dance?”
“Only when I can’t avoid it.”
“So you know how.”
“It’s part of every prince’s training,” he intoned, mimicking his dance teacher’s severe manner. “I don’t have Gabriel’s technique or Christian’s flair, but I don’t step on my partner’s toes anymore.”
“After dinner tonight you are going to dance with me.” She held up a hand when he began to protest. “Don’t argue. I remember on three separate occasions when you told me you had no idea how to dance.”
“No,” he corrected her. “I told you I don’t dance. There’s a difference.”
“Semantics.”
“Very well.” He knew that taking her in his arms and swaying with her to soft music would lead to trouble. But he could teach her a Sherdanian country dance. The movements were energetic and the only touching required was hand to hand. “After dinner.”
“So what are we having that smells so delicious?”
“Elena left us lamb stew and salad for dinner.”
Brooke drifted to the stove where a pot simmered on a low flame. “I don’t know how I can be hungry after all we ate for lunch, but suddenly I’m starved.”
Something about the way she said the word made him grind his teeth. She was hungry for food, but the groan in her voice made him hungry for something else entirely. Directing her toward the refrigerator where Elena had put the salad, he spooned the stew into bo
wls and tried not to remember Brooke beneath him in bed, her red hair fanned across his pillow, lips curved in lazy satisfaction.
“Can I help?”
He handed her a bowl and a basket of bread, almost pushing it at her in an effort to keep her at bay.
She walked toward the table. “I love the bread here in Greece. That and the desserts. I could live on them.”
“I hope you like the stew, as well. Elena is an excellent cook.”
“I’m sure it’s wonderful.”
Nic’s housekeeper had set the table earlier so there was little left to do but sit down and enjoy the meal. The patch of late-afternoon sunlight on the tile floor had advanced a good three feet by the time they finished eating. Following his example, Brooke had torn pieces of the fresh-baked bread and dipped them into the stew. He’d lost count how many times her tongue came out to catch a crumb on her lip or a spot of gravy at the corner of her mouth.
For dessert Elena had left baklava, a sticky, sweet concoction made of stacked sheets of phyllo dough spread with butter, sugar, nuts and honey. He couldn’t wait to watch Brooke suck the sticky honey from her fingers.
And she didn’t disappoint him.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded, her tongue darting out to clean the corner of her mouth.
Nic banked a groan and sipped his wine. “I’m trying to remember the last time I enjoyed a pan of baklava this much.”
“You haven’t had any.”
He imagined drizzling honey on her skin and following the trail with his tongue. The bees in Greece made thick sweet honey he couldn’t get enough of. Against her skin it would be heaven. The arousal that had taunted him all through the meal now exploded with fierce determination. Nic sat back in his chair all too aware of the tightness in his pants and the need clawing at him.