“It’s not far now. Thanks to the landslides, most people are not venturing out this high, unless they have to, that is.” He turned to her, and her breath caught in her throat. His hair looked like it had grown overnight, and it was not the black she had thought it would be. Tia squinted against the light. Yes, it looked to be dark brown, almost like . . . That was silly. She was clearly suffering from too little sleep and an overactive imagination. Lots of men other than Antoine had brown hair.
“What made you want a place out here?” That’s it Tia, good girl. Keep up the small talk. If she were lucky, she may even be able to keep this up till they arrived at his house. Not that she had had much luck lately. That had always been Bastian’s forte, but one could hope for miracles.
His forehead wrinkled and his Adam’s apple bobbed lightly up and down. “It was a good choice.”
She was sure there was more. Heck, if there was some potential to this area, other than the natural beauty of it, then she could look into building factories and offices out here as well as on the Skipios site. Memories of Anna and her sons who worked there made her cringe. Yes, they would be out of work, but then she was making more work!
“You know a fantasy is something no one can live up to, right?” His words rang through the car like a loud bell clanging around her brain.
Drat! She thought he had forgotten about that.
“Pffft. I know that. Fantasies are not real things. They are wish lists conjured up by the imagination until reality sets in.” At least, that had been the case with her and Antoine. Either way, her present fantasy did not involve a man, but her modernisation programme.
She caught his gaze moving across her face. She felt her cheeks flame at the intimate look, and she gave him a questioning stare.
“Nothing. I just did not expect to agree with you on something.” He smiled slowly, and her heart thumped against her chest.
“Well we cannot have that can we? I mean, that is what makes this drive so much fun.” She rolled her eyes, her brain searching for something not fantasy related, only to get zip. Fine, brain, be like that. There was no other option; she would have to play the devil’s advocate. “However, on that note, some might say that fantasies change with age.”
“There it is. The argument. And just when I thought the remainder of this drive would be peaceful.”
Tia bit back a smile as Damon rolled his eyes. She had not been wholly kidding when she had said that was what made the drive so much fun. She had never had this freedom to argue with a man without him eventually quoting policies and procedures on why it had to happen or doing what her father did and pulling rank—or worse, just agreeing with her because of who she was.
“But they are still unrealistic,” he retorted.
“But it may become an aspiration.”
“Which you will eventually fall short of achieving because it is a fantasy. Besides, fantasy and aspiration are two different things.”
“Are they? Some woman’s fantasy may be another’s aspiration. The women who have that aspiration are more likely to get it versus the women who only fantasize, if that makes sense?” Gosh, she was so jumbled up with fantasies, realities, and everything in between, even she was not sure anymore what made sense.
“Erm, not really, and is that what happened to you? Did you find your fantasy was a far cry from what your reality-slash-aspiration was?”
“No comment” instantly sprang to her lips, and she pressed them together. She was not in front of the press, and even then, she had her press team to handle questions like that. Besides, she did not even have a fantasy man now. Antoine had been her fantasy when she was a teenager, but after university, she had grown up and knew that was all it was. She never really loved him, and deep down, she knew he never loved her. He was too cold. There was a reason members of the Montcroix press called him the Ice Prince. She was sure he was someone’s fantasy, but not hers.
“It is not a whom if that is what you are trying to pick at. It is a what, and I never had a fantasy for it. I had an aspiration that will turn into a reality.”
“You sound very sure. Do you always get your own way?”
The coolness in his comment stung like Jack Frost nipping at her toes, and she flexed her legs in front of her, sitting up straighter. She would not let him see how close to home that comment had almost come and how the memory of her father’s final words before she decided to leave home and find her own way had harpooned her heart.
You are now the future queen of Kephelai, Christiana. Georgios would not have had these fantastical ideas. It is time to put away these fantasies and come back to reality. Your reign is bigger than you getting your own way on this.
Had it only been yesterday when she had left? Her life in the palace seemed like a lifetime ago.
Tia folded her hands in her lap, pressing and relaxing her lips. “When something is important, I believe it is worth fighting for, don’t you think?” she said slowly.
He huffed lightly. “That is a lovely sentiment. Do you have a phrase book stashed in those voluminous layers of clothing that you are secretly referencing when I’m looking the other way? Besides, you did not answer my question.”
“I answered it perfectly. The question is, did you get your own fantasy?” Hells bells. Why was it so hard to say the word “fantasy” to him without her face feeling like a furnace? Maybe she just did not have practice saying the word enough. It was not a word that regularly came up in everyday conversation, like “the.”
“We are here.” His voice was devoid of any emotion, and she looked around at the white houses and small town centre statue. Her shoulder bumped into the door, and she rubbed it lightly as the jeep swung around a corner and up another hill till a house and driveway came into view.
It was the basic white of most mountain houses, but her eyes widened at the large horse statue at the front. She pushed the jeep door open as it squealed to a stop and a small rain of gravel hit against the side. She moved to examine the statue closer, all thoughts of fantasies and aspirations gone.
Orange, brown, and white veins shot through the marble, making the horse look alive, as if it were really prancing. She ran her fingers along its smooth surface, lifting them off quickly at its hotness. “This is stunning, Damon. It looks very familiar.”
“It should. It is Kronos. My grandfather carved this when he was alive. I guess it was his way to remind me never to give up on my—” He stopped and laughed sharply, and Tia pirouetted around slowly. “I was going to say aspirations, but then . . . Never mind.” He shrugged and marched past her, unlocking the door and swinging his arm wide into the house. “Enter. The kitchen is straight ahead. I’ll bring Anna’s basket of food, and we should be able to leave here in a few hours. Or when it gets dark, at least.”
His boots hit into the gravel, spraying it up, and she stepped back into the statue’s long shadow, breathing in deeply.
Right. She was here for another few hours, then back to Arios and her fan— No, her aspirations. She was almost there. She could feel it. Yes, it had been a bumpy start, but they were into the last leg of things. What more could go wrong?
Chapter 8
Tia slipped her boots off and flexed her feet into the coolness of the mosaic floor. Boy, did it feel good to be out of the car.
She spun slowly around and blinked at her new surroundings. The marble statue should have been a surprise. Though it was a horse so it was not that surprising considering who her host was. But the large skylights with discrete lightbulbs scattered across the all-white walls and a green-and-blue mosaic floor . . . This was something else.
She looked over her shoulder only to find Damon’s back to her. His T-shirt stretched tightly across it as he reached down for the lunch hamper from Anna, and butterflies fluttered around her body. She patted her palm against her forehead, looking back into the room. Think, Tia, think. Noticing his body was not thinking, at least not realistically at any rate.
Smacking her cheeks
lightly and willing common sense to return, she stepped forward. Large, white, church-style pillar candles graced the various surfaces, and wooden stairs led up to what she could only assume was Damon’s bedroom.
Heat climbed up her cheeks. Did he have a large king bed or a single? Was he a pjs kind of guy or . . . she shook her head quickly. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t even have experience in that field to know.
“This basket feels heavier than the first time.”
Her stomach jumped into her throat at the suddenness of his voice behind her, and she flattened her hand over her stomach. She could not look at him. Knowing her luck, the heat she could feel on her cheeks was not the latent heat from being near the statue but an unsubtle blush, and he would guess her thoughts were less than pure.
“Well, like you said. Anna did pack a lot of food!” she chirped. Mm, maybe that was a bit too chirpy. She should bring it down a notch next time.
She kept her eyes on the floor as he shuffled past her, and she followed him and the sounds of unpacking. The blue and green of the hall melted into black and grey, and she looked up to see light streaming in from high skylights and subtler lighting.
“This is incredible, Damon!” The words fell from her lips, and she pressed them together tightly. So much for less chirpy.
The beginnings of a smile tipped the corners of his lips up, and his eyes appeared to sparkle like the lights on the wall. Nuts. If she thought being in the car was a problem, being alone in a house was beginning to feel a lot more lethal to her common sense. She had to remember her plan. Her aspiration was soon blossoming into fulfillment, and she could not let a . . . She stopped as the word “fantasy” popped into her head, and she let it float there before mentally smacking it away. There was no fantasy with this man. They were polar opposites. Her stomach flipped like an Olympian gymnast out for gold as his smile spread wider, exposing straight white teeth. Hells bells!
“Thanks. Jason helped me with this. Carpentry and horses I can do. Anything marble related, Jason is only second to my grandpaps in my eyes.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that,” she said. The palace had its trusted designers, but this was high-quality work. Tia trailed her fingers across the marble tabletops and seams. Very high quality. It was a lame tradeoff between the palace marble and the Skipios plant, but it would be nice to give something back to Anna and her family. Especially as Anna seemed to be the only one she had met on her journey so far who liked her family. Her father would have a big surprise when she reported her findings. She would just have to think of a way of telling him without mentioning how she found out.
“Well, well. What do we have here?”
Liquid sploshed loudly in a dark green bottle, and she leaned forward as he held it up for her.
“Where did that come from?”
The bottle twirled elegantly in Damon’s hands. It was not fair. How could such a man go from handling large, highly strung horses to handling a delicate and clearly very old bottle and do both well?
“My guess is, this is what was making the basket heavy, and from the looks of it, this is the work of Anna and Elias.”
He wrapped his fingers carefully around the top before a loud pop echoed through the kitchen, and he leaned down, inhaling deeply.
“Wow! This is strong stuff. Stronger than their last batch.”
He stepped towards her, and Tia leaned down to the bottle neck, her nose twitching at the sweet odour. She flapped her hand in front of her nose. God, it smelled strong. One sniff and she already felt intoxicated.
Glasses clanked loudly as he pulled two from a nearby cupboard and dropped them noisily on the counter top before filling them and passing one to Tia.
“Bottoms up.”
Wrapping her hand around the glass, she watched through lowered lashes as he downed his in one hit before raising a questioning eyebrow at her to do the same. The amber liquid splashed lightly against the shot glass’s rim, and she held her breath and lifted the glass to her lips.
Fire burned down her throat and through her insides. She smacked her hand over her lips as a small cough emerged, and heat that had nothing to do with the drink crawled up her neck at his lazy grin. So much for seeming to be a woman of the world.
She cleared her throat loudly, willing the next cough to subside. “This is a terrific view.” She moved towards the windows. He had said it was a good choice to buy up here. Now she could see why.
“Yes. That mountain over there is nicknamed Aphrodite’s Mountain.”
“It sounds familiar. I think I’ve heard of it.”
Heard of it? Pah! She wanted to laugh at her pathetic pretence of not knowing Kephelai’s infamous mountain. She had read the tales of couples from across history who had wandered on to it only to realise they were with their true love and married mere months later.
“Another?”
She shook her head as his smile deepened, and he moved slowly towards her like a mountain lion who had just awakened in the sun—languid yet determined. His hand settled around her shot glass, and his fingers grazed hers. Her fingertips burned from the small contact, and she looked up and straight into his eyes. His eyes seemed to flash, mixing the blues and greys, like an ocean, and dragging her, like a ship, into their depths. She could hear the ringing of the ship’s bell and . . .
No, wait. That was not right.
He blinked slowly and dropped his hand from hers, moving his head from side to side. “I think that is my phone. Excuse me.”
His feet were soundless, and she would not have known he had even moved if it was not for the sound of a door closing nearby and the cooling of her skin at his absence. She pushed the glass onto the counter top and slumped her body against it, pushing her fingers under the wig and scratching her scalp.
Soon, Tia, soon. Soon she would be in Arios and in a small secluded apartment that she had already found was safe, and she could take it off. Of course she would have to wear it in the shop where she would be able to subtly ask the customers about their feelings about her family. Then she could transform herself into the queen of her people. It was not a move that was popular with her family or, now that she thought about it, Antoine even, but to heck with him. And them.
She knew what she had to do.
• • •
“What do you mean he is now threatening to press forward with further action?” Damon’s knuckles were white around the phone receiver, and his hand had begun to ache.
“Just what I said, Damon. I have received a phone call from your . . . I mean Mr. Phillipe Rousseau’s lawyer as a final demand for the letter he wrote you directly and the other letters.”
Damon rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Yes I know the ones. And all this in addition to—never mind! As my lawyer, I want you to reply that he can’t have them. End of story!”
“But Damon . . . ” He could hear the exasperation in the older man’s voice before it dropped to a whisper. “We are talking about the House of Rousseau. They have been Montcroix’s first family for decades. This is no bluff my friend. You could lose all you have worked towards. There is something in the those letters he really wants back!”
“I don’t care! Phillipe is not getting his sticky hands on anything of mine. First threats to my stables, then this.” Damon exhaled loudly, dropping into the nearby chair. What did he expect? Phillipe strikes again!
“I understand you are angry. What did you mean ‘This in addition to . . . ’?”
Damon twisted the telephone cord around his fingers. Should he tell him about Tia? He had thought his feelings towards this situation and her had been so easy, but recently . . . “No, never mind. It is nothing.”
“Okay, as you want. Where is the letter now?”
“Safe. With me.” Damon smoothed his hand over his pocket, his whole body relaxing at the familiar crackle of the paper. It never left his side.
“I will see what I can do. And Damon, please do not do anything rash.”
Damon dropp
ed the receiver into the cradle at the click and leaned back in the chair, linking his hands behind his head.
He shouldn’t have been so indecisive. He should have just told his lawyer who he suspected Tia was. At least that way, when the time came to expose his father, he could expose her as well and have a witness to corroborate his belief about who she was.
Gift shop indeed. And one with such an English name. Yes, she had a point about it being named after the queen, but Tia’s car had seemed too new, too expensive to be owned by someone taking a job in a gift shop. Things just were not adding up.
He stood up and kicked the chair back. Since they had these next few hours, he would find out as much as he could.
His body stilled at the ring of the phone, and he grabbed it quickly. Damn. He knew the man was a good lawyer, but Damon really should give him a bonus after this.
“Yassou . . . Yes, it is me, Marius. What is . . . What do you mean the road is closed? I drove through it half an hour ago. The barriers looked stable and . . . What can I do to help? Damn, okay. Keep me posted.”
Damon dropped his head into his chin, exhaling slowly. This . . . could . . . not . . . be . . . happening!
Someone up there must really hate him.
He flung his head back, eyeing the basic white ceiling. Usually it calmed him. Now it was like the top of a prison cell.
His feet were heavy, and he made his way to the door. It would be okay. The house was big enough, and how long could it take Marius and his men to clear the mountain road? A couple of hours tops. There was nothing wrong with a couple of hours. That was how long they’d planned to stay there, hadn’t they?
He dragged his hand across his brows. Who cared about the alcohol? He needed caffeine. Sleep had deserted him last night thanks to the knowledge that she was in the barn that had once been his home and the knowledge that she had been in his bed.
The Runaway Queen Page 9