The Prince's Royal Dilemma

by Brenda Harlen

  He frowned at her question as he took her hand again and led her over to the marble bench facing one of the fountains. “I know of him.”

  She sat, because his nearness was making her knees weak, and he sat beside her, so close that their bodies were almost touching. She stared at the water and tried again. “He called today,” she said, “and—”

  “I’ve missed you, Lara.”

  And she completely lost her train of thought.

  She shifted away from him. “Rowan…”

  “I had a meeting with Marcus this morning.”

  They were definitely off topic now, but she let him talk, figuring her turn would come when he was finished.

  “Actually, I spoke with Christian first,” he told her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that Lady Victoria wanted to send the children to military school?”

  “Because I knew you wouldn’t let her.”

  “Christian was less certain.”

  “I hope you reassured him.”

  “Since I’ve decided not to marry her, it’s a nonissue.”

  So much for her hope that they were already engaged.

  “What do you mean you’ve decided not to marry her?”

  “Maybe this will help.” He opened the folder and took out a sheaf of papers, flipping through them until he found a page that had been highlighted, and passed it to her. Lara’s eyes skimmed over the passage while he spoke.

  “As it turns out, I don’t have to choose a bride who fits the criteria set out by Parliament more than a hundred years ago.” He looked up at her and smiled again. “I can marry anyone I want, even if she’s not royal or Tesorian or—”

  “Anyone you want,” she interrupted, her gaze dropping back to the page. “So long as a majority of the votes cast in a referendum approve of your choice.”

  “I want to marry you, Lara.”

  Two weeks ago—even two days or two hours ago—she would have been thrilled to hear him say those words to her, to know that he wanted to be with her. But in the space of a two-minute phone call, everything had changed.

  She could still hear the taunt of the reporter on the other end of the telephone, could all too easily imagine the headlines if Rowan chose the bastard nanny as his royal bride.

  And when the referendum failed, so would his hopes of remaining on the throne.

  She forced herself to meet his gaze and said, “But I don’t want to marry you.”

  Rowan stared at her as her words echoed in his mind. He felt like an idiot for not even considering that she might not want the same thing he did. It had simply never occurred to him, after everything they’d been to each other, that she would reject him.

  She laid her hand on his arm—as if the gentle touch might soften the devastating blow. “I’m just not ready to make that kind of commitment to anyone.”

  He had to unclench his jaw to speak. “Any idea when you might be ready?”

  “I’m not asking you to wait.”

  And he didn’t have the luxury of waiting—unless he could somehow use the legislation Marcus had dug up to amend the timeframe in which a ruler was required to marry. “What if I could?”

  She shook her head. “I never said or did anything to give you the impression that I wanted to marry you.”

  It only made him angrier to realize that she was right. And yet, he couldn’t believe the statement was a true reflection of her emotions.

  There were so many things they hadn’t spoken of while they were together, feelings they couldn’t share because of the forbidden nature of their relationship. But not talking about them didn’t make them any less real. At least, not for Rowan. And, he was willing to bet, not for Lara, either. “Then tell me what you did want,” he demanded.

  “Exactly what we had,” she told him.

  “Do you expect me to believe that it was just sex for you?”

  She shrugged, but didn’t meet his eyes. “I was a twenty-five-year-old virgin,” she reminded him. “Yes, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about sex, and I was fortunate enough to be initiated into the art of lovemaking by a man who is clearly a master.”

  “That assessment doesn’t flatter either of us.”

  “I care about you, Rowan. You know I do. But I never expected nor wanted anything more than an affair.”

  She was lying to him. He couldn’t have said why he was so certain of it, only that he was. But the realization was little consolation to his wounded heart.

  “Okay,” he said, playing along for the moment. “You don’t want to marry me. I guess that puts Lady Victoria back on my list of candidates.”

  He saw a flicker of something in her eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to convince him that she wasn’t as cool and unaffected as she wanted him to believe.

  But then she looked up and forced a smile. “I was thinking that it might help to have the children out of the way while you’re making the final preparations for your wedding. Maybe I could take them to Ireland when school is finished for the summer, so they can visit their grandparents.”

  “I think you’re running away,” he said. “The question is—from what?”

  “I’m only trying to do my job.”

  “And if I refuse to let you go? You can hardly take the children out of the country without my permission.”

  “You have too much pride to make me stay where you know I don’t want to be.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that.” He tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “And what does my pride matter if you’ve already taken my heart?”

  She jerked her head to the side, but not before he caught a glimpse of the tears that shimmered in her eyes. When she turned back again, they were gone. “Don’t try to manipulate me, Rowan.”

  “I’m not trying to manipulate you—I’m trying to understand why you’re so intent on denying what’s between us.”

  “There’s nothing between us. Not anymore.”

  But there was more desperation than conviction in her tone, and he had one last card to play—and one he could hold on to no longer. “I love you, Lara.”

  She didn’t respond. And though he still didn’t understand why, he understood that she wanted him to believe their relationship truly was over.

  He stood up. “I told you once before—when I fight, I fight to win. And I’m not going to give up on us without a fight.”

  Lara managed to hold back the tears until he’d gone, then she dropped her face into her hands and let them come.

  “I didn’t intend to eavesdrop.”

  She’d thought she was alone, and jolted at the sound of Marcus’s voice.

  He lowered himself into the seat recently vacated by his brother. “I was already in the garden when you and Rowan came out, and I couldn’t help but overhear.”

  She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “How much did you hear?”

  “Enough to believe you actually meant what you said—until the tears started.” He curled his arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “So do you want to tell me why you sent him away with his heart in jagged little pieces when you’re obviously as much in love with him as he is with you?”

  She tipped her head back against his shoulder and sighed. “You know,” she said, ignoring his question, “if you hadn’t given him ideas about changing the rules halfway through the game, he’d be engaged to Lady Victoria by now.”

  “And that would be a much better situation for all,” he said drily.

  “It would,” she insisted, thinking of the reporter’s phone call again.

  “For your information, Rowan had already decided he couldn’t marry Lady Victoria before I saw him this morning—probably because he realized what a mistake it would be to marry one woman while in love with another.”

  “When he’s had a chance to think about it, he’ll do what is right for his country, and that’s marrying Lady Victoria or one of the other suitable women on his list.”

  “If he does, he’ll be unhappy
for the rest of his life.” Marcus pointed out. “Is that what you want?”

  “If he lost the Santiago family’s right to the throne after four hundred years, he’d be more than unhappy—he’d be devastated,” she insisted.

  “So that’s what this is all about,” he murmured.

  “I can’t let him make that kind of sacrifice.”

  He smiled a little. “You don’t know my brother very well if you think he’ll appreciate you making that kind of decision for him.”

  “I know how much his heritage means to him.”

  “I wouldn’t have suggested the referendum as an option if I didn’t think it could succeed,” Marcus said.

  “You didn’t have all the facts,” she told him.

  “Why don’t you fill me in?”

  So she told him about the phone call—Girard’s questions about her paternity, his speculation about her relationship with Rowan, and her lame “no comment” response.

  “When this all comes to light, Rowan will understand that I did the right thing, and he’ll be grateful I didn’t make an even bigger mistake by accepting his proposal.”

  “Do you really think so?” he asked.

  She nodded, needing to believe it was true, needing to believe that she hadn’t hurt Rowan without good reason. Especially when she’d ripped her own heart out in the process.

  Marcus went directly to La Noticia and used his not-insubstantial powers of persuasion to convince Alex Girard to shelve the scandalous story in exchange for an exclusive interview with the prince regent and his fiancée once the engagement was officially announced. The reporter, recognizing the value of establishing goodwill with a member of the royal family, agreed.

  Afterward Marcus went to visit Elena Leandres. Though the reporter’s responses to his questions had been carefully worded to protect the identification of his source, there had been enough clues in what he did say for Marcus to recognize his aunt’s hand in things.

  The princess royal wasn’t nearly as reasonable as Girard.

  “There are other papers,” she told Marcus upon learning that the story of Rowan’s affair with Lara had been shelved. “Maybe not as reputable as La Noticia, but more than happy to give me the headlines I want.”

  “I don’t doubt that’s true. Just as I don’t doubt that they’d also be happy to print the story about your attempts to discredit Rowan by paying Chantal St. Laurent to seduce him. Or an interview with the prostitute in Manilla who claims to be carrying Cameron’s child.”

  “It’s not his,” she snapped.

  “No—and you had the DNA test done to prove it, didn’t you? Which means you couldn’t have been sure.” Marcus held her gaze for a long moment. “You want to play dirty, Princess? Go ahead. Just be forewarned that I will do anything to protect my family.”

  She shot him a glare filled with pure hatred.

  Marcus took that to mean his aunt would back off—at least for now—and he walked out of her apartment, satisfied that he’d accomplished his task.

  Lara finalized the details for her trip to Ireland with the children, then ensured she had a letter of permission from Rowan—delivered through his secretary—along with the children’s passports. She hadn’t expected that he would really try to prevent her from leaving the country, nor had she expected that she wouldn’t see him at all in the ten days that had passed since he’d proposed to her in the rose garden.

  By some twist of fate that she chose not to question, Girard seemed to have lost interest in publicizing the rumor that she’d been involved with the prince. Still, she believed she was doing the right thing in going away—she needed some space and time to let her heart begin to heal.

  She was completing a last-minute check of the children’s rooms to ensure they hadn’t forgotten anything that was crucial to getting through the next few weeks—Damon’s stuffed monkey, Lexi’s favorite doll, Christian’s books—when the summons came from Prince Rowan.

  Ten minutes, she thought as she picked up the suitcase she’d returned to her own room to retrieve, and she would have been in the back of the limo with the children and on her way to the airport. Instead she was on her way to Rowan’s office to see the man who—even if he didn’t know it—held her heart in the palm of his hand.

  “You wanted to see me, Your Highness?”

  “Yes, Miss Brennan.” But he finished signing the paperwork on his desk and waited for his secretary to leave before he even looked up. “I saw the chauffeur loading suitcases into the car. Were you planning to leave without a word?”

  She swallowed. “I told the children to say goodbye.”

  “They did,” he told her. “I wondered if you were going to.”

  “I thought we’d said everything we needed to say in the garden the other day.” Her chin tipped up just a fraction. “And I took Lady Barrow’s presence here last evening to mean that you agreed.”

  Rowan noted the hint of irritation in Lara’s tone, filed it. And he didn’t tell her that Lady Victoria had come to the palace without an invitation, or that he’d made it clear that he had no intention of marrying her before he sent her on her way again.

  He did push his chair back and walk around his desk, so that he was facing her without any barriers between them, though not so close that he could touch her. “Then you assumed wrong.”

  Her hands were linked in front of her, held together so tightly her knuckles were white. “I really need to be going. We’re scheduled to leave in less than an hour.”

  “That plane isn’t going anywhere until I say so.” He wasn’t in the habit of using his power arbitrarily, but he couldn’t deny that there were times when he was glad he could do so.

  Her jaw set. “What do you want from me, Rowan?”

  “The truth,” he said. “I told you the other day that I love you. Maybe I didn’t choose the right time or place for that declaration, but poor planning doesn’t make the feelings any less real.”

  She dropped her gaze. “Candlelight and soft music wouldn’t have changed anything.”

  “Because you don’t love me.”

  She nodded.

  “I want to hear you say it, Lara.”

  She swallowed, but then she lifted her gaze and locked her eyes with his. “I don’t love you.”

  But the defiance in her tone and the sparks in her eyes told a different story. He nodded, as if satisfied by her response. “Then it probably won’t matter to you that I got a phone call yesterday from Alex Girard,” he said casually.

  He saw the uncertainty now, the flicker of wariness, and knew that she was remembering the day that she’d tried to tell him about the reporter. He hadn’t remembered himself until the man started talking, asking for confirmation of the exclusive interview Marcus had promised in exchange for axing the story about the prince’s affair with the nanny.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” she said again.

  “Not if you won’t let it.”

  “We come from different backgrounds. We live in different worlds, Rowan. You have to know that a relationship between us would never work.”

  But she wanted to believe it could—he saw that now, the wary hope, the fear, the confusion. She did love him, but she didn’t believe she was worthy of his love. The seeds of her insecurities had been planted too deep to be easily uprooted.

  Rowan didn’t need it to be easy. He would do whatever was necessary to prove to her that he did love her, and he would trust that her feelings for him would win out, that she would be willing to take a chance on love—for both of them.

  “I don’t happen to agree, but that’s your call,” he said, understanding that he couldn’t make that decision for her.

  “Enjoy your trip, Lara.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  No, he couldn’t make the decision for her, but he was going to do everything in his power to help her decide in his favor. He followed her to the door, as if he was only intending to see her out, but it was really only a ploy to move close
r to her. “Oh, there was one more thing before you go.”

  She looked at him warily, as if realizing she was trapped. “What’s that?”

  “This,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  It was more than a kiss—it was a promise of the love that filled his heart.

  She held herself still for a moment, then—on a sigh that spoke as much of frustration as acceptance—her lips softened and finally responded. Her arms came around him, her body yielded, and then she was kissing him back with a passion he knew she’d never felt for anyone else. He savored the moment, the connection that had always been there between them, and the hope that he hadn’t lost her completely.

  He could have pushed for more. She would have given more. And then she would have withdrawn even further. She’d been hurt too many times to give her heart easily—by the father she’d never known, the mother who never wanted her and, though he hated to admit it, by him.

  He couldn’t blame her for being wary. He could only hope that with time, she would come to accept his feelings and acknowledge her own. And the time he gave her would allow him to put his plan into action.

  It was this thought that helped him ease away when he wanted only to sink deeper into her.

  “I’ll see you in three weeks,” he said, and somehow managed to smile as she walked out the door with both his future and his heart in her hands.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Christian spent most of the flight reading; Lexi watched a movie; Damon slept; and Lara tried not to think about Rowan’s goodbye kiss—and the way she’d kissed him back. He’d caught her off guard, or at least that was the reasoning she used to justify her response, even if the justification was only in her own mind.

  She hadn’t struggled. How could she fight against something she wanted so desperately? Instead she’d savored every moment, memorized every detail, accepting it for what it was—a final kiss goodbye. She’d wrapped her arms around him, pressed her body close to his and told him with her actions the words she didn’t dare speak aloud.

  When he’d finally ended the kiss, her throat was tight, her knees were quivering, and her heart was breaking all over again. He’d held her for another moment, though, those dark chocolate eyes seeing far more than she wanted him to. Then he rubbed his thumb gently over her bottom lip, moist and swollen from his kiss, and said, “I’ll see you in three weeks.”