HOLIDAY ROYALE

by Christine Rimmer

  Something disconcerting happened inside his chest. He rigorously ignored it. “Luce. My darling.” He lounged against the door frame and tried to look exhausted and thoroughly put out. “Did you notice? It’s past three in the morning and once again you’ve dragged me from my comfortable bed.”

  She glowed at him. “It’s really late, I know. I’m being unbelievably rude. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I have to talk to you.”

  Just as he’d expected. She had to talk to him.

  No. Absolutely not. He needed to gently but firmly send her away. And then tomorrow at a decent hour, he could take her aside and explain to her that he’d seen the light as to their holiday weekend together. He hated to back out on her, but the whole thing was off.

  Yes. That was exactly what he should do.

  He peeled himself off the door frame, stepped back and pulled the door wider. “Do you want coffee?”

  “No, nothing. Just to talk.” She chose the first door off the entry, which led to his sitting room. He gestured toward the two sofas facing each other on either side of the fireplace with its carved Louis Quinze red-marble mantel. She took one sofa and he took the other.

  He felt way too excited and also on edge. So he made a show of getting comfortable, resting one arm along the sofa back, hitching one ankle across his knee. “What brings you from bed at this time of the night?”

  She leaned toward him and braced her forearms on her thighs, folding her hands in front of her knees. “Oh, I haven’t been to bed yet. I went to see Noah.”

  The back of his neck went tight. He lifted his hand from the sofa and rubbed at it. “You dragged him from bed, too?”

  “I’m afraid I did, yeah.”

  “And how did that go?”

  “It was pretty rocky.” Her expression belied her words. She was grinning, pleased with herself.

  “Luce. What are you telling me?”

  She sighed and sagged back against the cushions. “The weekend. That’s what we’ve got, you and me, to maybe make something happen. I’ve got no time to fool around here. I realized I needed to deal with Noah right away. He was giving me dirty looks all night. And I know he was looking at you the same way.”

  He tried a lazy shrug—though he didn’t feel the least lazy. “It’s hardly a surprise that he wouldn’t be happy seeing the two of us together. Your brother’s my friend. But he doesn’t want me paying too much attention to his sister. He sees that there’s no future in that for either of us and he doesn’t want you hurt.”

  She sat forward again. “That’s pretty much what he said. But we both know he was wrong. You won’t do anything to hurt me. You would never hurt me, Dami. It’s not how you are.”

  “Luce. That’s exactly how I am. Don’t you know about me? I grow bored too easily. And when I do, I move on.”

  She raised her hands, spread them wide and then waved them in circles. “Oh, don’t be silly. You know what I mean. We have an understanding. You’re, er, helping me, or you might help me. I mean, we’re being together in a dating sort of way, and then maybe, if the feeling is right, we’ll get down to the part where we take off our clothes and have great sex... Well, I mean, I would hope that it would be great. But even if it isn’t, that’s okay, too. I mean, I’ve heard that it’s often pretty awkward the first time and I...” She let the words trail off as color flooded upward over her sweet round cheeks. “Ugh. I seriously hope to become more smooth and sophisticated by hanging with you. So far it’s not happening.”

  He wanted to tell her she didn’t need to be sophisticated. She was far too enchanting already. But extolling her charms was not the goal here. “And did you explain to Noah that you plan to end up in my bed?”

  Her slim back snapped straight. “Are you kidding me? Please. Some things are none of his business—including what’s really going on between you and me.”

  Dami reminded himself again that he needed to tell her this had to stop. But he kept forgetting what he needed to do because of what he wanted to do—which was to touch her. He ached to get up and sit on the other sofa with her, and the ache made a very distracting prickly feeling beneath his skin. He said flatly, “Your brother only wants you to be happy.”

  “Oh, Dami, come on. What he wants is for me to be safe. And to him that means under his control. If he had it his way, I would be back in California sitting around in my room. He wants me to be where he can check on me at regular intervals just to make certain I don’t need medical attention, stat, even though I’ve been well and strong for two years now. He still has issues because our parents died, because of all the times I almost died. He’s getting better at letting me make my own decisions about things, but he’s not all the way there yet.”

  As always, she was thoroughly out-talking him—which on the one hand, he found frustrating. On the other hand, he only wanted her to go on talking. He only wanted to get up and sit on the other sofa with her and hear her lovely, breathless voice in his ear as he brushed his hand against her cheek and breathed in the scent of her skin and pressed his lips to her hair.

  He stayed where he was and soldiered on. “I’m trying to tell you that Noah’s right to be annoyed with you and to be angry at me.”

  “No. No, he is not right. He’s out of line. Which is why I went to the villa and woke him up and told him so.”

  “Luce, I—”

  She barreled right over him. “And I know that it bothered you, him giving you those angry looks. He’s your friend and he’s been acting like such a jerk to you. That wasn’t right. But it’s okay now. Really. You don’t have to worry about it anymore. It took some doing—and Alice’s help—but I finally got through to Noah.”

  “Tonight? You’re saying you worked it all out with him tonight?” It was the last thing he’d expected.

  She nodded eagerly. “I did, yes. Tonight. He’s promised to stop with the deadly glances. And to totally get off my case. Honestly, he won’t be embarrassing either of us with any big-brother scenes, I can promise you that.”

  Did he believe her? “You’re certain about this?”

  “Yes. Of course I’m certain. We argued. Alice backed me. And at the end, I asked Noah to stay out of it and he promised that he would. Then he hugged me and he let me go. It was another big step for him. Really. Like I said, he’s getting better.” She was waving her arms about as usual, hands swooping and diving like soaring doves. “He’s learning to accept that I’m an adult with my own life, a life that is completely independent from him.”

  Dami realized he did believe her. If there was any doubt that Noah had surrendered this particular field, he would have been able to see it in her adorable open face by now.

  Not that it really mattered whether Noah was leaving it alone or not. Noah had never been the problem, not really. Dami’s plan to show Lucy a beautiful holiday weekend in lieu of seducing her—that was the problem.

  It wasn’t working. It had been a bad plan from its very inception. Less than twenty-four hours ago he’d been so sure he could never find her physically attractive. She’d shot down that certainty in the space of an afternoon.

  After that chaste kiss at the harbor, he’d known he had a problem.

  And how had he dealt with that problem? Why, by kissing her again that night, at which time his body had actively responded to the taste of her mouth and the feel of her pressed against him, filling his arms. He was as bad as old Dietrich VonDelft, sniffing around after an innocent who had a right to learn about love from someone as sweet and untried as she was.

  “Luce,” he began severely, despising the stiff, stuffy sound of his own voice, “I have something I really must say to you.”

  Instantly, her face changed. Her mouth went soft and her brown eyes went stormy. “Oh, no. What is it? What’s the matter now?”

  “I’ve been, er, reconsidering this situatio
n, meaning this weekend, you and me, together.”

  She made a small unhappy sound. “Reconsidering? Why?”

  “We have to be realistic.”

  “What? But I am realistic. I promise you, I am.”

  “I’m only saying that on second thought, it’s a bad idea.”

  She gulped. “A bad idea...?”

  “Think about it. Where can it go, really? Have you sat down and honestly considered how you’ll feel if we spend a night together? Have you given any thought to what would happen next?”

  She blinked. “Omigod. You’re worried about the same thing Noah’s afraid of. That you’ll hurt me. That you’ll break my heart.” And then she turned her elfin face away and slid him the most endearing sideways glance. “You are worried about that, aren’t you?”

  How did she do that? Get him at a disadvantage with simple honesty and a sideways look? “I’m your friend, Luce.”

  “I know that. Of course you are.”

  “I’m your friend and I want you to have so much. I want you to have what you need. And what a lovely young woman needs is a young man as eager and hopeful and...pure at heart as she.”

  “Oh, no.” She shook a finger at him. “Oh, Dami. Really. I told you. I’m totally behind the curve on this. I need someone to teach me, to bring me up to speed. I don’t have time to be fumbling around with some guy who’s as inexperienced as I am—and as far as your hurting me, your breaking my heart... Can’t you see? I’m not like that. Not like most inexperienced girls.”

  “But you are inexperienced. And it’s wrong for me to take advantage of you.”

  “Take advantage? No, that is not what you’re doing. You would be doing me a favor. A very special kind of favor.”

  “No.”

  “Yes! You and Noah, you’re both so afraid I’m going to get my heart broken. But see, my heart was broken for most of my life. Yeah, okay, it was technically a birth defect that caused a faulty valve. But it made me different, made me feel I would never have all the things everyone else takes for granted. I always tried to put a smiling face on it, but deep down my heart was broken for all the life I would never have.”

  “But now you’re well,” he reminded her, preparing to go on and explain calmly and gently how she only had to be a little patient. She would meet someone special and nature would take it from there.

  But before he could say that, she went right on. “Exactly. I’m well. New techniques were developed and I had the surgery I needed, finally.” She put a hand to her breast. “My heart is now unbroken. And yeah, okay, I might be hurt by a man, by love gone wrong. I might suffer the way any woman suffers when she loses the guy who matters most. But even if that happened, so what? That’s what real life is. Being hurt, getting up and going on. And maybe, if you’re richly blessed, finding true happiness in time. I’m up for that. For whatever happens. Because my heart is unbroken and now I’m strong enough to see a heartache through to the happiness on the other side.”

  Damien stared at her. How could he help himself? She really was amazing. He could just sit there and listen to her chatter away, waving her pretty hands, saying things that touched him, things that made him feel glad simply to know her, to be her friend.

  But he had to do the right thing by her. He had to make her see the light. “That’s just it. It all becomes convoluted and complex between men and women when sex enters into it. It’s rarely as simple as you might want it to be—especially when it’s your first time.”

  “I see that, I do. That’s why I chose you. Because you do love me.” He must have winced, because she added quickly, “Settle down. Take a deep breath. I mean as a dear friend. You love me and I love you and you have always shown such care for me. Noah wants me to be safe. And you know what? With you, I will be. I have no doubt of that. I will be safe and treated right. And when it’s over, I swear to you, I will smile at you and wish you the best of everything and let you go.”

  Damn it to the depths of hell. What could he possibly say to that?

  Not that it mattered what he might have said, because of course Lucy was still talking. “Tell me the truth,” she demanded, biting her soft lower lip.

  “Er...which truth is that?”

  She gave him another of those sweet sideways glances. “Remember when you kissed me in my room earlier?”

  As though he could possibly forget. “What are you getting at?”

  “You...liked it, didn’t you?”

  He opened his mouth to tell her a lie—and nothing came out.

  She shook that finger at him again. “Dami, I may be inexperienced, but I saw the look on your face. I felt your arms around me. I felt...everything. I know that you liked kissing me. You liked it and that made you realize that you could make love with me after all. That you could do it and even enjoy it. And that wasn’t what you meant to do when you told me we could have the weekend together. That ruined your plan—the plan I have been totally up on right from the first—your plan to show me a nice time and send me back to America as ignorant of lovemaking as I was when I got here.”

  “Luce...”

  “Just answer the question, please.”

  “I have absolutely no idea what the question was.”

  “Did you like kissing me?”

  Now he was the one gulping like some green boy. “Didn’t you already answer that for me?”

  “I did, yeah. But I would also like to have you answer it for yourself.”

  He wanted to get up and walk out of the room. But more than that, he wanted what she kept insisting she wanted. He wanted to take off her floppy sweater, her skinny jeans and her pink canvas shoes. He wanted to see her naked body. And take her in his arms. And carry her to his bed and show her all the pleasures she was so hungry to discover.

  “Dami. Did you like kissing me?”

  “Damn you,” he said, low.

  And then she said nothing. That shocked the hell out of him. Lucy. Not saying a word. Not waving her hands around. Simply sitting there with her big sweater drooping off one silky shoulder, daring him with her eyes to open his mouth and tell her the truth.

  He never could resist a dare. “Yes, Luce. I did. I liked kissing you. I liked it very much.”

  A small pleased gasp escaped her. She clapped her hands. “Then there’s no problem. It’s all going to work out. We’ll have our weekend. We’ll see how it goes.” God, she was something extraordinarily fine. So eager and lovely, her eyes shining with anticipation at the possible pleasures to come.

  And who did he think he was fooling? He was who he was. When confronted with temptation, he inevitably found a way to surrender to it. She was right. He knew that he wanted her now, and that changed everything.

  He only prayed that when it ended, he could still be her friend.

  Chapter Five

  Five hours later Damien sat across from her at a small round corner table in his favorite café, a narrow window-fronted shop on a side street in the mostly residential ward of La Cacheron.

  “I love it here,” Lucy declared. She was looking amazing, as usual, in a short ruffled skirt, a white schoolgirl blouse, black suede boots and a bright yellow sweater. Amazing and wonderfully young, he thought, so fresh faced and glowing after staying up most of the night battling first with her brother and then with him.

  “What, exactly, do you love?” he asked, so that she would continue talking and waving her hands about.

  She put out both arms to the side, palms up. “I love the black-and-white linoleum floor, the dark wood counters, the waitresses in their little white aprons, those plain shirtwaist dresses and sensible shoes. They look like they’ve been working here all their lives.”

  “Most of them have.” He sipped his café au lait and nodded at their server, Justine, who was tall and deep breasted with steel-gray hai
r. “Justine has been serving me since before I could walk. Gerta, our nanny, used to bring us here at least twice a week.”

  “Us?”

  “My brothers, my sisters and me. Sometimes my mother or my father would bring us. They’ve always loved it here, too. The croissants are excellent and Justine and the others always knew to wait on us without a lot of fanfare so we would be comfortable and able to enjoy just being a family out for a treat.”

  She ate the last bite of her croissant. “Um. So good.” A flaky bit of pastry clung to her plump lower lip.

  He imagined leaning across and licking it off. “Finish your coffee,” he said a little more gruffly than he meant to.

  She dabbed at her lip with her napkin and then sipped her coffee slowly. “Are we in a rush?”

  “We don’t want to miss the Procession of Abundance.”

  “Ah, yes,” she answered airily. “I read the guidebook. It’s an age-old Montedoran tradition that always occurs on a Friday at the end of November. A parade of farmers and vintners marching the length of the principality to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows in order to have their seeds and vines blessed, thus ensuring bountiful crops in the year to come.”

  He nodded approval. “Very good. But don’t forget the donkeys.”

  She pressed a hand, fingers spread, across her upper chest. “I can’t believe I forgot the donkeys. The farmers and vintners all ride on donkeys.”

  He gave another nod. “As did our Lord on Palm Sunday and Mary on the way to Bethlehem, the donkey symbolizing loyalty and humility and the great gift of peace, which brings the possibility of abundance. Ready to go?”

  She set down her white stoneware cup. “I just want to look at the pictures first.” And she swept out her left arm to indicate the sketches and paintings that jostled for space on the dark wood-paneled walls. A moment later she was up and strolling the length of the shop, her gaze scanning the framed oils, watercolors and pencil drawings created by local artists over the years.

  He left the money on the table and got up and went with her. She stopped opposite three drawings grouped together on the back wall. One was a street view of the café’s front window, one of a slightly younger Justine, in profile, bending to set a cup on a table. The third was the front window again but seen from inside. A fat cat sat on the window ledge looking out.