Determined to Protect, Forbidden to Love

by Beverly Barton

  Doubts registered in Olivier’s eyes. “Sophia should have told Charlotte Aurora about the treaty years ago. Today was too much of a shock for her.”

  “I’m afraid it will be the first of many shocks she’ll have to deal with,” Laurent said, alluding to the numerous precautions he and Prince Olivier had taken to travel to California in secret to prepare the princess for her future and to keep her safe from any political cells who might wish to prevent the marriage from taking place.

  Laurent didn’t plan to reveal his true identity to Charlotte Aurora until he judged she was ready to meet her fiancé and discuss the complexities their marriage would entail. “We have to prepare her to cope with the public and the media and to recognize the risks to her personal safety—”

  “At the moment I think I’m my own worst enemy,” Charlotte Aurora said, interrupting them.

  Laurent rose, pleased that the princess had accepted his instructions and joined them so expediently. She looked presentable—and demure—in a simple black dress that shadowed her curves and rhinestone-studded sandals. Instead of repairing her makeup, she’d scrubbed her face and tied her hair into a knot at her nape.

  She clutched her evening bag, and to Laurent’s consternation, he noted that she’d removed the necklace. Her eyes carried the hint of a rebellious streak. She’d carried out his order just so far.

  Still, she’d made a beginning. And the fact that she’d removed the necklace suggested she was not going to let herself be vulnerable to lies. He approved.

  And he planned to continue earning her trust even though he wasn’t yet ready to tell her his real identity.

  Her gaze raked past him as she looked at her brother. Rarely had Laurent been so ignored. He felt a rather primitive desire to fist his hand in her hair and loosen the knot. To spread the abundance of amber curls out about her shoulders and whisper in her ear that she was far more entrancing that way. Earthy. Sensual.

  “I’m sorry to end the evening so soon, Olivier,” she said softly. “But I need some time to digest all this. Thank you for the dinner—and for coming all this way to meet me.” Moisture misted in her hyacinth-blue eyes, and her sincerity and vulnerability etched a mark on Laurent’s heart. He couldn’t imagine what his life would have been like had he been denied a relationship with his father. “I really am so glad to have a brother.”

  “Bonne nuit, Charlotte Aurora.” Olivier kissed her on both cheeks. “We’ll talk again tomorrow, oui?”

  Her head jerked up. Her face reddened as she stammered, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I prefer Rory. No one has ever called me Charlotte Aurora.”

  Rory? Laurent frowned, imagining the undignified headlines the press could create with her nickname.

  “Non? That is what I called you, ma petite soeur. You were named after your grandmother, Queen Charlotte. She was a very fine woman. Aurora was your mother’s contribution. It came from a storybook. I remember Sophia holding you in the nursery and telling me the story of a sleeping princess with several fairy godmothers.”

  Charlotte inelegantly sniffed back tears. “The story was Sleeping Beauty.”

  Olivier patted her shoulder. “When you come to Estaire I will show you a portrait of your grandmother. You resemble her.”

  “Really?”

  “Indeed,” Olivier assured her. “There are many things I wish to share with you about our family and Estaire.”

  Laurent experienced a cinching tightness in his chest at the wistful yearning in Charlotte Aurora’s tone. What had her mother been thinking to deprive Charlotte Aurora of her heritage for all these years? Instead, Sophia had encouraged her daughter to dream of fairy tales. Sophia had enjoyed her fairy-tale wedding to Prince August, but she had run the moment she was faced with the daunting responsibilities of royal life. Only time would reveal if her daughter was cut from the same cloth.

  At least the princess hadn’t immediately objected to the idea of visiting Estaire to learn about her family.

  Olivier nodded. “With your permission, I would like to continue calling you Charlotte Aurora.”

  “Of c-course.”

  “Bien. You rest now. Sebastian will see you home. And, ma petite soeur, you must be very careful to keep this news to yourself until you are ready to accept your duties as a princess. The press can be relentless in their pursuit of a story. You must learn to be guarded about your personal life and your activities.”

  “Are you kidding? My lips are sealed. No one would believe me, anyway.”

  “With your permission, I would like to assign you a team of bodyguards.”

  “No,” Charlotte Aurora said firmly.

  “It is for your protection,” Olivier insisted. “Being a royal makes you a target. I’m concerned that there may be some resistance to your marriage to Prince Laurent.”

  “Well, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one who has concerns about the wisdom of the arrangement. But my answer is still no. I’ve had enough shocks for one day without suddenly taking on two stern-faced roommates.”

  She marched toward Laurent, her sandals slapping ominously against her heels and a glint of hostility embedded in her eyes. “I’m ready when you are.”

  Laurent bowed to Olivier. “Your Serene Highness.”

  He felt the stiffening of the princess’s body as he politely took her elbow. He suspected it would be a very long walk in the park.

  RORY BRIEFLY CONTEMPLATED ways to ditch Sebastian as they stepped into the hallway with Heinrich, the stony-faced human tank. She didn’t know where the other bodyguards had gone. She’d much prefer to take a cab home alone than to put up with Sebastian’s arrogant, disturbing presence one second longer than necessary. But his strong, uncompromising fingers cupped her elbow, preventing her from dashing into the elevator without him. Her skin resonated with his touch like a single clear note picked out on a piano keyboard. Every nerve of her body was attuned to the slowly fading sound and made her feet forget where to put themselves.

  She jerked her arm free of his grasp, then almost wished she hadn’t when the sensation abruptly ceased, leaving her feeling unbalanced and disoriented. Any thought of running away fled when Sebastian studied her with the inky-black fires of his eyes carefully banked and his firm, sexy lips pursed thoughtfully. A shiver inched in slow motion through her limbs.

  “You’re angry,” he commented. “It shows.”

  “Well, duh! My whole life has been mapped out for me without my consent. Wouldn’t you be angry?”

  His eyes gleamed with faint amusement. “Duh?” Rory almost giggled at the sound of the word in his odd accent.

  “This is a strange American word. As for your question, madame, I would be honored to be in your position where my actions could positively impact so many lives. I would consider it a privilege.”

  “Then, you marry Prince Laurent and spend the rest of your life surrounded by bodyguards,” she snapped. “I have plans for my life that don’t include becoming a princess.”

  Sebastian raised an eyebrow and regarded her dubiously.

  “What do these plans for your life include?”

  Rory suspected he was mocking her, but she wasn’t sure. She narrowed her gaze on him. “It’s none of your business.”

  “If it concerns your reasons for not wishing to marry Prince Laurent, then it is most certainly my business.”

  Rory swallowed hard and wished he would stop looking at her so intensely.

  She wet her lips and told him her plan to open a children’s bookstore. She expected him to peer down his arrogant nose at her and assume a patronizing smile. But he didn’t laugh at her.

  “So you are interested in literature and education and promoting literacy. I applaud you, madame. That is a very noble endeavor. Think what you could do on a grander scale to further those worthy causes. That is what I meant about positively affecting lives. Prince Laurent shares those interests, as well. He believes a society is formed on the education of its children. Ignore the needs of children an
d society suffers for it.”

  Rory eyed Sebastian suspiciously. Was he telling her what he wished her to believe? Or was it the truth?

  Sebastian lowered his head over hers. “What other dreams do you have, Your Serene Highness?” he asked, his rich husky voice filtering into her ears like a caress. He touched her cheek with the back of two fingers. “Do you want a partner? A companion? Children? That is what Prince Laurent desires.”

  Rory disentangled herself from the disturbing touch of his hand. She knew exactly what she wanted. Someone who thought she was the center of his universe, who loved her unconditionally. “What about love?” she challenged him.

  “Love?” He spat the word back at her. “You Americans talk of love and the importance of it, yet your divorce rate suggests you discard it at the first hint of incompatibility. Prince Laurent does not so easily disregard his promises or his responsibilities.” He glanced down the hallway as a door opened. A middle-aged man in a navy suit stepped out into the hallway and gave them an interested glance. Rory noticed Heinrich close ranks in front of them and keep a trained eye on the man. Did the bodyguard really think the man with the bad comb-over might pose a threat to them?

  Rory glanced back at Sebastian. He was smiling at her.

  “Prince Laurent would most certainly not approve of my discussing him in such a venue. You make me forget myself.”

  “I do?” Her heart spun dizzily in her chest. She told herself it must have been a mistranslation. He couldn’t have intended it to come out the way it had sounded. Not for a moment did she believe that Sebastian felt anything toward her more flattering than disdain. He was her supposed fianceé’s deputy secretary. She’d never met another man like him. One who fascinated her as much as he did, whose touch set her nerves jangling with warnings and fantasies and whose dark, disapproving eyes instilled her with a curious desire to earn his approval.

  Sebastian took her arm again, and Rory’s hypersensitive nerves reacted like wind chimes caught in a breeze, twirling and playing out a melodious song that echoed through her bones. Rory attributed it to the combined effects of the champagne and the wine she’d drunk.

  He smiled down at her, a smile that made him seem younger. Less intimidating. “You do not appear so angry now. That is good. You never know when the paparazzi might take an unflattering photo and create an unflattering story to accompany it. You must learn to conceal your emotions.”

  Rory sighed as he guided her toward the elevator. The navy-suited man who’d arrived before them was holding the elevator for them. Heinrich entered the elevator first, positioning himself between them and the man. Rory wondered if the bodyguard truly thought that harmlesslooking man would pull a knife or a gun on them. “Give it up, Sebastian. This is as good as I—”

  The toe of her beach sandal wedged in the crack between the floor and the elevator cage.

  “—get,” she huffed, bruising her toes as she pitched forward.

  She cried out, accidentally smacking the gentleman in the face with her purse as she tried to catch her balance and keep from landing nose-first on the elevator floor. The man reached toward her. Heinrich grabbed him.

  Rory could see the headlines: Clumsy Princess Assaults Man and Breaks Toe in Elevator Incident.

  Fortunately, an arm that felt like iron clamped around her waist and stopped her inches from disaster. “Oomph!” she exhaled.

  Sebastian helped her to her feet. “Are you all right?”

  Rory wanted to snap that she obviously wasn’t—her toes were shrieking with pain. But before she could complain, she noticed Heinrich had the poor man pressed up against the elevator wall, his forearm burrowed into the man’s throat. Her purse print was clearly visible on the shocked gentleman’s face.

  She was mortified. “Heinrich, let him go! I’m so sorry, mister! I didn’t mean to strike you. It was an accident. I tripped.”

  “No harm done, young lady,” the man gasped. Alcohol oozed from his breath. Rory wondered if Heinrich had smelled the alcohol in the hallway. “What are you, a pop star or something? I’m having a party in my suite tomorrow night. You’re welcome to come.”

  “The lady says no, thank you,” Heinrich said, reluctantly releasing his hold on the man.

  The bodyguard extracted her sandal from the gap and passed it to her. The toe strap had torn off and rhinestones dribbled forlornly onto the floor.

  Rory felt as pathetic and tawdry as the ruined sandal. Heinrich pushed the button for the lobby. Rory’s stomach lurched all the way down with the elevator’s descent. She couldn’t look at Sebastian, but she felt the humiliation of his nearness and the wrath of that ironhard arm still circling her waist. Even the refined scent of him—wool, linen and sandalwood—rebuked her.

  Mindful of Sebastian’s warning about the paparazzi, Rory jerked free of Sebastian’s grasp and hobbled out of the elevator to the limo as gracefully as possible.

  She ducked into the limo’s secluded rear seat. It wasn’t a closet to hide in, but it would do.

  Clenching her ruined sandal and her purse in her lap, she braced herself for another lecture as Sebastian slid onto the spacious black leather seat beside her.

  But Rory was in no mood to talk. She threatened him with the sandal. “Do not say a word.”

  NOT SINCE MARIELLE’S DEATH had Laurent been at such a loss for words. How could one articulate Princess Charlotte Aurora’s predisposition for faux pas? He ignored the sandal she was brandishing like a dagger and withdrew a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his blazer. “Your foot is bleeding.”

  “It is not.”

  He illuminated the lights in the rear compartment. “I suppose that’s not blood on the carpet, either.”

  He heard her small sigh of surrender. “When I wake up tomorrow, will this be a bad dream?”

  He found himself smiling. Gently. The day—especially this evening—had the makings of a nightmare. She looked so out of sorts brandishing that sandal that he couldn’t bring himself to offer more constructive criticism. He gestured for her to lift her foot, so he could bandage it.

  “It hasn’t been all bad,” he mused as she offered her foot up for examination. “You’ve discovered who you really are. Some people spend all their lives without accomplishing that feat.”

  “I already knew who I was. Who I am,” she groused.

  He raised an eyebrow as he gently took her narrow foot between his hands. It was an exceptional foot; finely arched, the skin golden and smooth. The toes perfectly formed and unvarnished. She’d cut the tip of her big toe. She winced as he dabbed at the wound. “Perhaps I misinterpreted the expression on your face when Prince Olivier confided that you resembled your grandmother.”

  “Ouch!” She attempted to pull her foot away. Laurent held it firmly, curiously aware of the intimacy between them. Of the tempting golden curve of her calf. Of the sweet mermaid scent of her hair. Of the lights shimmering on the mirrored surface of the bay beneath the Coronado Bridge and the salty tang of the ocean permeating the air.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Her chin jutted up. “The fact that I resemble a grandmother I never knew doesn’t have anything to do with who I am. I want to know who my father was. What’s wrong with that?”

  “You don’t see a connection between who your father is and who you are?”

  Her foot tensed in his hands. He sensed the resistance building in her and knew she wasn’t going to admit to any such thing. “What’s the connection between you and your father?” she asked.

  Laurent paused for an instant, considering. “He’s my teacher. I see myself as the continuation of everything he taught me.”

  “What does your father do?”

  Laurent debated how to best answer the question. “He’s one of King Wilhelm’s most trusted advisors.”

  “He’s still living, then?” Envy traced her tone.

  “Yes.”

  Charlotte Aurora tilted her head against the leather headrest, her ha
ir cascading over her shoulder in a fragrant waterfall of curls. Her lashes slowly lifted and her eyes pierced him. “Was it your choice to follow in his footsteps or was the decision made for you?”

  Laurent avoided her gaze and stared down at her slender foot. “Both. We always have a choice to act or not to act.” He deftly tied his handkerchief around her toe.

  Charlotte wiggled her foot free and stretched her leg out like a sleek golden cat desiring to be stroked. She eyed the neatly folded bandage critically. “Do you always do everything so perfectly?”

  “I suppose so. It’s how I’ve been taught.”

  “By your father?”

  Laurent shrugged and extinguished the overhead light, cloaking them in shadows. “My father is often too…busy. I’ve been taught by many people.” For some peculiar reason he was certain that he would remember this odd conversation for the rest of his life. He felt as if he’d revealed more to this woman he was fated to marry than he’d ever revealed to anyone before. Even Marielle.

  He realized how freeing it was to be Sebastian Guimond and not Prince Laurent. He felt light, as if the world were a simple place and not complicated by his responsibilities of being a crown prince. If only that feeling could last.

  Her hand crept onto his on the seat, fragile and trusting. “I’m sorry.”

  Laurent was puzzled. “Sorry? Whatever for?”

  “That your father was too busy. At least you know him.”

  Laurent squeezed her fingers, not knowing how to reply.

  She sighed. “I wasn’t cut out to be a princess, Sebastian. Tonight was proof of that. Why don’t you give me a call if an opening comes available for a court jester?”

  He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss on the back. A tremor rippled to his soul at the exquisite softness of her skin and the knowledge that his behavior was entirely inappropriate for a deputy secretary toward a royal. But tonight had been an extraordinary night.