by Holly Jacobs
Cara stopped in her tracks and stood stone-still. She felt a jolt pulse through her body, weakening her knees. All the oxygen whooshed from her lungs.
Could someone asphyxiate from surprise?
No, this was more than surprise.
Shock.
Could she asphyxiate from shock?
She didn’t want to look, couldn’t stand to be disappointed, but somehow she managed to turn, to see for herself.
Mike.
Mike King in Eliason?
“You?” she said, her voice soft because, after all, it was hard to speak when you had no air in your body.
“Me,” he said with a huge smile.
It almost looked as if the fink was happy to see her.
“I found you,” he said.
The sense of hope disappeared in an instant as Cara remembered what Mike King had done.
The jerk.
The creep.
The love-’em-and-leave-’em cad.
Cara knew she was a quiet woman, reserved and shy. But she forgot for a second as she publicly snubbed the smiling Lothario.
“Leave me alone,” she said and then turned on her heels and marched away.
She wasn’t sure where she was going, but it didn’t matter. She just wanted to get away from Mike King, the man who’d shown her one amazing night of passion.
Mike King, the father of her baby.
“Cara, where are you going?” he asked, obviously ignoring her command.
Maybe she hadn’t been clear. She whirled around and faced him.
“Where I go is none of your concern. I want you to forget you ever met me, because believe me, I forgot you the morning I woke up alone in that hotel room.”
Okay, so that was a lie.
Not just some little white lie.
A whopper of a lie.
But for the first time in her life, Cara didn’t feel guilty about avoiding the truth. After all, she was crossing her fingers as she said the words, and the creep deserved to think he was so easily forgotten.
She’d never tell him that not a day went by that she didn’t think of him. Not a night went by that she didn’t dream of him.
“I can’t forget,” he said.
She kept walking.
“Go away or I’m going to call security. They’ll arrest you for sure. I’m a guest of this country and I have friends in high places.”
Okay, so Parker’s parents weren’t really friends, but she imagined they’d help protect her from a lunatic ex-lover.
“Tell me where you’re going,” Michael ordered, still walking by her side. His legs were much longer than hers, so she had to take about a step and a half to every one of his long, loping strides.
“None of your business,” she said, trying to lengthen her own step, not wanting to be at a disadvantage. “Leave me alone, you cad.”
“Cad?” he said, his smile quirking sort of sideways with amusement.
“You gigolo.”
“Gigolo?” He chuckled.
That soft, throaty laughter had haunted her dreams for three months.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, as if to slow her down.
She shrugged free and tried to walk even faster. “Stop that, and stop following me.”
“I can’t stop following you. I was sent here to pick you up and take you to the castle, Cara Phillips.”
“You work for the king?” she asked, feeling as if a lightbulb had gone off over her head. “That’s why you were on Perry Square, in Erie. He sent you to try and make Parker go home, didn’t he? Then you met me, figured you could have a bit of fun before you ran back to Eliason. You figured you’d never see me again. Well, let’s pretend it worked, that you never met me back on the square. You can take me to the castle, then get on with your duties and forget we ever met.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, cara mia.”
The endearment whipped at her tenuous self-restraint. “Don’t call me that,” she said, hoping he couldn’t sense the emotion that was riding ever closer to the surface.
“I can’t do that either. You are my cara mia, my beloved,” he said.
He reached out as if he were going to touch her again, but drew his hand back. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Ha.”
“And I can’t leave you alone because my father asked me to assist you in whatever way suits your needs.”
“Your father?” she asked. A sudden sick pitch settled in her stomach as a glimmer of an idea struck her. An unsettling, horrible, the-fates-couldn’t-do-it-to-her kind of idea.
“Your father?” she repeated.
“My father, King Antonio Paul Capelli Mickovich Dillonetti of Eliason.”
This time Cara didn’t just feel weak-kneed, she actually sort of sagged.
Mike caught her elbow and steadied her.
An immediate awareness slammed through her system.
“What’s your real name?” she asked weakly, though she knew.
“I’m Antonio Michael Paul Mickovich Dillonetti. There are a lot of titles that come after that. But my friends call me Michael.”
“Well, Your Highness—”
“Michael,” he corrected.
“Your friends call you Michael, and I assure you I am not your friend. I’ll stick with Your Highness.”
“You’re right of course,” he said, using what he must have thought was a soothing tone.
In reality, it was too husky, too enticing to be soothing.
“You’re not a friend….” he began. “You’re more.”
Cara couldn’t stand it.
She knew that Parker and Shey were counting on her to keep this wedding intimate and not a circus like so many other royal weddings were. But she couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t be here, working with him every day.
Parker and Shey would understand. They’d have to.
She turned and headed for the ticket window.
“Where are you going now?” he asked, once again on her heels.
This time she realized there was a small group of men trailing after Michael as he followed after her.
Bodyguards?
Probably. After all, a prince had to have his entourage.
A prince. The rat.
“To buy a ticket home,” she said without turning around to look at him.
“You’re running away again?” he asked, his voice much softer now.
She whirled around and found herself face-to-face, just inches separating them. “What do you mean again? I woke up and you were gone. There was nothing to do but go. I left, but I certainly didn’t run away.”
Had he been there, she was certain she’d have stayed as long as possible.
“I went to buy us breakfast only to return to the room and find you’d left,” he said softly.
Cara felt light-headed.
“You were coming back?” she whispered.
“Of course. You were in my room, after all.”
Oh, no. He hadn’t left her. He hadn’t used her then discarded her. Her hand fell to her stomach. Her baby’s father wasn’t a scum-sucking Casanova.
Another thought occurred to her.
Her baby’s father was a prince.
Even worse, he was the heir to the Eliason throne.
Cara groaned as she realized that her baby was, in fact, royalty as well.
Oh, no, what had she done?
The blood rushed from her head and Cara did something she’d never done before. She fainted.
Two
There wasn’t much in life that scared Michael.
All right, he wasn’t overly fond of heights. But although he always avoided the window seats in planes, he dealt with the fear and never let on that he was bothered.
But at this moment, he didn’t know how to hide his fear, much less deal with it. Cara collapsed in his arms and it was a thousand times worse than any height he’d ever experienced.
He eased her down on the ground without releasing his hold
on her.
“Call an ambulance,” he barked.
Marstel was on his mobile before he even finished the sentence.
Satisfied help was on the way, he focused all his attention on Cara. Her eyes fluttered and then opened.
He inhaled deeply and finally felt as if he could breathe again.
“Cara,” he whispered.
“What happened?” she said, trying to sit up.
“Stay still. You collapsed. Marstel is calling for an ambulance.”
“No. I don’t need an ambulance, I’m fine. It was just a long flight. I’m sure that’s all.”
“If your collapse was due to just a long flight, I suspect more of the people on the plane would have collapsed. But as far as I can tell, yours is the only body on the floor. You need to see a doctor.”
“I don’t,” she said, sitting up, even though he tried to keep her down. “Let go.”
“Cara, you’re seeing the doctor.”
She struggled to her feet, looked a bit unsteady for a moment, then stood firm and glared at him. “I won’t.”
Michael stood as well and faced her.
This Cara, spitting mad and glaring at him, didn’t quite match the mental image of the sweet woman who’d spent one passionate night in his arms. It was clear Michael had things to learn about Cara.
“You will see the doctor,” he said just as firmly. It was a tone he rarely used, but it had always produced the desired result, in the past.
Obviously, not this time.
Cara crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Listen, Your Highness, just because you’re a prince, doesn’t mean I’m going to play the loyal subject. I’m not seeing a doctor.”
She glanced past him and noticed Marstel, phone still in hand. “Call off the ambulance, I won’t get in it. They’d be wasting a trip, and it could endanger someone who really needs help.”
Marstel looked from Cara to Michael, who just shrugged. “Fine, call it off. I’ll have Dr. Stevens meet us at home.”
Cara shot him a small, brittle smile. “I hope you’re having him meet you for tea, because he’s not touching me.”
She whirled around and started down the hall toward baggage claim.
“Are you always so stubborn and argumentative?” Michael asked, easily matching her pace.
Her expression softened. “Believe it or not, no. I’m generally quiet and easygoing.”
“So, it’s only me who is blessed with seeing this side of you?” He shot her a grin.
She shrugged. “Guess so.”
She wore a small smile, though he could see her struggle against it.
It wasn’t much of a smile, just a brief upturn of her lips, but it was a start. A quick reminder of the woman he’d known.
“Lucky me,” he said in a teasing voice.
“Why are you following me?”
“I’m your ride home, remember?” he said. “You have decided to come home, right? I mean, you don’t want to let your friends down, do you?”
The smile was gone now along with his gentle cara mia. The real Cara Phillips was back and said, “I am going to the castle, but only because I love Parker and Shey. But I’m not going with you. I’ll take a taxi.”
“There you go, being argumentative again.”
“I wouldn’t have to be argumentative if you weren’t annoying.”
“And I wouldn’t seem nearly so annoying if you weren’t so stubborn and argumentative.”
“I guess we have a stalemate,” Cara said.
“So, why don’t you simply get in my car and let me take you home?”
“If I do, will you leave me alone once we get there?”
“I can’t promise that, but I will promise to give you some time to settle in before I start annoying you again.”
She sighed. “Fine.”
“Then come with me. Marstel will arrange to have your luggage delivered.”
“Whatever.”
Looking more like a woman on her way to the gallows than a woman who’d just found out she was being pursued by a prince, Cara came along quietly, but the petite brunette’s flashing green eyes seemed to radiate all the words she was holding back. They were seething just beneath the surface, ready to explode at any moment.
He smiled and admitted to himself, he liked that she wasn’t intimidated by him.
Too many of the women he’d dated had either been awed by his position, or had sought him out hoping to capitalize on it. That one night with Cara he’d known that she’d seen him…just Michael, not the prince. She didn’t look overly awed by the fact he was royal. And she certainly didn’t seem intent on capitalizing on it.
As-a-matter-of-fact, she was put out by it.
“Come with me, sweetheart,” he said, taking her arm, feeling as if everything in his life were suddenly on track.
She jerked her arm away, sent him a scathing look, then followed him as he made his way toward the car.
Michael wasn’t sure if round one of their first fight was a win, a loss or a draw, but he was looking forward to seeing what happened in round two.
Cara glanced at the man standing next to her in the hallway of the castle. Parker’s home was as grand and wonderful as she’d pictured it. Unfortunately, some of her pleasure at arriving was diminished given the company she was keeping.
To think, she’d had fantasies for the last three months about finding her Mike. Fantasies where she’d run into him on Perry Square. Just bump into him. He’d look at her and whisper, cara mia and pull her into his arms. He’d profess his undying love and apologize for leaving her that morning. She of course would forgive him and when she told him about the baby he’d cry with happiness. A manly sort of crying. Really only a tear or two in his eyes as he professed to love her and their child forever.
She’d never have that particular fantasy again.
Now all she wanted to do was get some distance from Mike…Michael. The prince. Maybe once she got out of his vicinity she’d be able to think again.
She scanned the grand entryway. Her whole apartment would fit in it. Parker’s and Shey’s as well.
She’d been so excited to be visiting a castle, staying in one. And the impressive gray structure had barely blipped on the radar of her thoughts. All she could do was wonder what on earth she was going to do.
Her fantasy lover hadn’t deserted her. He claimed he’d been looking for her.
Her Prince Charming was a prince.
And she was carrying his child.
She had to tell him. She knew that much. But not quite yet.
Soon.
As soon as she figured out just what she was going to do.
Maybe she’d better wait until she was back in the States to tell him. Maybe he’d want to keep the baby. After all, the child growing in her womb was his heir.
What were the laws regarding parental rights in Eliason? And did a prince have to follow them?
She didn’t know.
Cara had thought being a single mother was as complicated as her life could get.
She was wrong.
“Cara Phillips, may I present my mother, Her Royal Majesty—”
“Cut it out, Michael,” his mother said sternly.
Michael and Parker’s mother didn’t look queenly at the moment. As a matter of fact, she was wearing a battered pair of jeans and a Mercyhurst sweatshirt.
“Cara, dear, I’ve heard so much about you. Call me Anna.” She enveloped Cara in a hug. “I’ve so longed to meet you. You’ve been such a good friend to my Parker.”
“Your Majesty—”
The queen cleared her throat.
“Anna,” Cara corrected herself with a sheepish smile. “I’m the lucky one. Parker’s the best.”
“Is she truly happy with her private investigator?” the queen asked with a motherly concern.
“Yes, I believe she is. When Parker and Jace look at each other, you can see…” She stopped. She wasn’t sure how to put it without seeming like a hopeless
romantic.
“You can see the love?” the queen asked.
“Yes.” Cara couldn’t resist a small sigh.
“That’s all I ever wanted for her. That she’d find a place to belong and someone to belong with.” The queen looked toward a dark-haired man in crisply creased Dockers and a dark blue polo shirt striding toward her. “There’s nothing more important.”
“Is this her?” the man asked.
“Yes. Paul, this is Parker’s friend, Cara. She’ll be working with Michael and me on the wedding details.”
Paul.
The king.
Darn. Cara wished she’d asked Parker the proper protocol. Should she bow, curtsy?
She was saved trying to figure it out when the man thrust his hand in her direction. “Cara, we’ve heard so much about you from our wayward, stubborn daughter.”
Cara shook his hand and smiled. “And I’ve heard a lot about you.”
He chuckled. “I imagine you have.”
From what she’d heard from Parker over the years, she knew any stubbornness Parker possessed was genetic, inherited from her father.
“Now, Cara, let’s get you settled and then I’ll show you what I’ve already accomplished,” the queen said. “Michael’s been my errand boy, and we’ve really made some progress. We’ll—”
“I think,” Michael said, interrupting his mother, “that it would be better for Cara to take a rest rather than jumping into work. She passed out at the airport.”
“What?” the queen and king said in unison.
“I’ve sent for the doctor,” Michael assured them.
Cara caught the look of triumph he shot her. The ha-ha-I-won-this-battle sort of look.
“It was simply a long flight,” she said. “I don’t need a doctor. I don’t need to rest. I just want to get down to the details.”
The queen shook her head. “Oh, no. Not until you’ve been checked out. What would Parker say if she arrived and found you ill?”
“I—”
“Don’t argue,” the king instructed. “My daughter would blame me if something happened to you, and I can get in more than enough trouble with her without your assistance. So, you’ll see the doctor and get his clearance before you lift a finger or look at one wedding plan.”
“Really, I’m fine,” Cara protested, though no one seemed to notice.
“Dr. Stevens will be the judge of that. Now, come with me, dear. We’ll get you settled,” the queen said, putting an arm over her shoulder and leading her down the hall.