by Ally Blake
“Tell Garry we’ll make time soon. And send through the changes to the calendar when you have them.”
“Shall do.” A beat then. “So is it true?”
“What’s that?”
“That the royal wedding didn’t go off as planned?” Her sing-song voice dropped, as if they were sitting across from one another at a café. “It’s all over the news. Apparently, the bride-to-be had a change of heart.”
“You don’t say.”
Will glanced towards the wooden door when the sound of running water stopped. He listened a moment before he heard a splash. He imagined Sadie stepping a muddy foot into the bath. Then a long, pale calf, then...
Natalie sighed, bringing his vision to a halt. “She looked so nice too. Fun. Smiley. Someone you could be friends with. What did you think? I mean, before she did a runner? Did she seem as lovely as she looked in the magazines?”
Will knew better than to engage. He rubbed his temple instead.
“Aw, come on, Boss Man! My cousin Brianna works for a reality TV producer. I don’t get many chances to one-up her in ways she understands.”
“Alas.”
“Fine. I’m guessing by the stoic silence she’s not all she’s cracked up to be. I mean, did you get a load of the Prince? Oh, me...oh, my. I guess a real-life, normal girl marrying a prince is simply too much to hope for.”
“Hang in there, Natalie.”
“I’m all right. You’re the only man I need.”
“Lucky me.”
And then she was gone.
It seemed word was out. If Natalie was busy making negative assumptions, tucked away in her cottage in Wisconsin, it wasn’t looking good. Things had gone up a notch. This was no longer simply a case of keeping Sadie in sight until Hugo came to get her, but actually keeping her safe.
Something he’d not been able to do for Clair.
Throat feeling unnaturally tight, Will lifted a hand to his neck, tugged his tie loose, then pulled it free and tossed it on top of his bag.
He wasn’t built for this. All this...emotional disarray. It wore down a man’s sharp edges. He liked his edges. On a day like today—with the whole world looking to others with a need to “share”—those edges were a requirement.
Ironic that he’d thought Clair’s memory would be the biggest battle he’d fight today, instead it was the reality of Sadie. Yet somehow it was all intertwined. Choices, decisions, reactions, repercussions.
The door to the bathroom opened. He pulled himself to standing. Turned. And whatever ethical dilemma he’d been mulling over disintegrated into so many dust motes as his eyes found Sadie.
Gone was his oversized tracksuit, the piles of messy curls, the tear-soaked make-up.
Her hair was wet, and long, and straight. Her cheeks were pink from the heat of the bathroom. Freckles stood out on the bridge of her straight nose. Without the black make-up her eyes were even bigger. Blue, he thought, catching glints of sky. Wrapped in a big, fluffy, shapeless robe, she seemed taller. Upright. More graceful somehow. Long, lean and empirically lovely.
Something tightened in his gut at the sight of her. Something raw and unsettling and new. Like the deep ache of a fresh bruise.
Her brow knotted and she ran a self-conscious hand over her hair.
Will came to; realised he’d been staring.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much. I did wonder if you’d still be here when I got out.”
Will held out his hands. “Not going anywhere without my favourite running gear.”
Sadie seemed to remember she was holding his clothes. She padded over towards him and handed them over. She was careful not to touch him.
He threw them atop his bag and her eyes followed, glaring at the clothes as if by sheer force of will alone she could unzip his bag, pack the clothes away and make him leave.
“Now that you have them...”
Will put his hands into his pockets. Right. How to convince her to let him stay without coming across as a Neanderthal. Or a Lothario. Without giving her actual cause to run.
“Will,” she said.
“Yes, Sadie.”
She lifted her gaze, bright eyes snagging on his. Then she laughed, a sound both sweet and husky. But there was no humour in it. “I was going to eke it out. To keep you hanging. Make you suffer. But you look like you’re about to pull a muscle with the effort at keeping this up. I saw your credit card downstairs. You’re Will Darcy. You were heading to the wedding at the palace today because you were invited by Prince Alessandro himself.”
Will should have been prepared for this eventuality. He was a man of angles after all. And control was an illusion. The universe chaotic. Any number of factors altered the possible futures of any given body, making accurate projections near impossible. Still, he found himself unprepared.
“Are you going to deny it?” she asked; gaze steady, that humming energy of hers now turned up to eleven.
He shook his head, No.
As if she’d been hoping for a different answer, Sadie deflated, crumpling to sit on the arm of the couch. “Okay. Next question. I know the answer but I want to hear it from you. Do you know who I am?”
Will crossed his arms over his chest as he decided how to play this; fast and loose as he had so far, or absolute truth. As a man of science, the decision was elementary, and a relief.
“You were Hugo’s intended. Now you are his runaway bride.”
Her eyes were wide, luminous in the fading light. “How?”
“The dress. The tears. The determination to be as far from the palace as you could be. But it was the ring that clinched it. I’d seen it before. We were at school when his grandmother sent it to him. After...”
“After Prince Karl—Hugo’s father—died in a crash,” she finished, her gaze not shifting a jot. She was far tougher than she looked.
Then she shifted, her robe falling open. The slit separated at her ankles, then her knees, revealing one long, creamy pale leg. She had freckles on her knees. A small bruise just below. Her hands delved up inside the robe and, before Will could even look away, with a wriggle she pulled a frilly pink garter down her leg.
The fact that this rather intimate move had been meant for Hugo later that evening was not lost on him. Neither was the heat that travelled through him like a rogue wave.
Will pressed his feet harder into the floor and thought of England.
Holding the garter scrunched in her hand, she took a deep breath and opened her palm. And there, tied to the thing with a length of pink ribbon, was the Ring of Vallemont.
Then, tucking the ring back into her palm, she held out her other hand. “Mercedes Gray Leonine. Pleased to meet you.”
He took it. Her hand wrapped around his—soft and cool and impossibly fine. He could all but feel the blood pulsing beneath her skin, the steady vibration of the perpetual electric impulses that made her tick.
His voice was a little rough as he said, “Will Darcy. Pleasure’s all mine.”
She let go and used both hands to slide the garter back into place. “But it’s not your pleasure, not really, is it?”
Will said nothing, holding his breath so long it grew stale in his lungs.
“I’m a drama teacher, you know. Or I was...before. Body language—understanding it and duplicating it—is my job. You’ve hardly hidden the fact that you would rather be anywhere but here.” She blinked at him. “If it helps any, I’d rather be pretty much anywhere but here too.”
It didn’t. It only made his task more complicated than it already was. He didn’t want to see her side of things. He certainly didn’t want to empathise. He wanted to keep her from running away again and gift her back to Hugo in one piece. Then leave.
He saw the moment she realised it too. She sat taller, and narrowed her eyes his way. Something hardened in her gaz
e, like steel tempered by fire. And Will couldn’t press his feet into the floor hard enough.
Her eyes drilled into his as she said, “He’d never mentioned you before, you know.”
A deliberate barb, it scored a direct hit. Will crossed his arms tighter.
She noticed. A small smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “And suddenly, with the wedding, you loomed large. This friend from school he hadn’t seen in years. A falling-out he never explained, no matter how maddeningly I prodded. With all that, I imagined you hunched and brooding. More Holden Caulfield, less...”
“Less?”
“Mr Rochester.” She waved a hand his way as if it was obvious, her eyes dashing from his chest to his hair and back to his face. Her cheeks came over such a sudden pink he knew he’d have to track down this Rochester fellow the moment he had the chance.
She looked down at her toes, where he could see the nails painted in some kind of animal print, making him wonder if this palace rebellion of hers had been coming on for some time. Then she asked, “How did you imagine me?”
“I didn’t.” It was true. He’d done everything in his power not to know anything about her. He was no masochist. Though the longer he chose to stick around this woman, the more he’d question that fact.
Sadie crossed her arms, mirroring his defensive position. “Seriously? Then you have a better hold over your curiosity than I do. Well, how about now? Am I the kind of girl you imagined Hugo would one day marry?”
Will ran a hand through his hair. Hell. This was worse than masochism. He’d found himself on the pathway to hell.
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay. So, cards-on-the-table time. What are we doing here, Will? What’s your end game? I know something happened between you and Hugo, something regrettable. If your intentions aren’t above reproach, if you’re out to humiliate him in any way... I’ll... I’ll cut off your whatsit.”
Even though he knew she was all bluff, Will’s whatsit twitched in response. “I think he’s had quite enough humiliating for one day, don’t you?”
Her gaze dropped to his...whatsit.
Will’s voice was dry as he said, “I was talking about Hugo.”
Another hit. This one flashed in her eyes like a bonfire. “Leave him out of this.”
He shook his head.
“Why? Wait. Have you spoken to him? Is he okay? Does he know we’re here?”
Will pulled the phone from his pocket. “Call him. Ask him yourself.”
Sadie’s arms loosened, her hands dropping to grip the arms of the couch on which she sat. She pulled herself to standing. Then reached out and took Will’s phone.
Their fingers brushed, static electricity crackling through his hand.
Her eyes shot to his. She’d felt it too. Breathing out hard, she asked, “Are you sure? I mean, will he even take my call?”
“Call him.”
She nodded and took a few steps away, before turning back.
“Today—not going through with the wedding... It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. I usually make a much better first impression. I’m very likeable, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
She looked at him then, all ocean-blue eyes and electric energy. With her brow twitching a moment, she said, “No, you’re not.”
And then she stepped out onto the balcony and was once more gone from his sight.
With leaden feet, Will sat back on the couch. Feeling like he’d gone ten rounds.
She was right. After what she’d done today, to his oldest friend, he wasn’t convinced that he would ever come to like her. But there was no denying she’d made an impression he’d not soon forget.
CHAPTER FIVE
SADIE’S HEART STAMMERED against her ribs.
In front of her, the palace was glowing gold in the final throes of the dying light.
Through the gauzy curtains behind her, a man was all but keeping her hostage. A man who’d made no bones about the fact he wasn’t a fan. A man who made her feel unsettled and antsy and contrite.
And in her hands was a link to her Prince. Her friend. The man she’d wronged.
With the fall of night came a brisk wintry breeze cascading off the snow-topped mountains in the distance, skipping and swirling through the narrow valley and tossing Sadie’s damp hair about her shoulders.
She pulled her gown tighter, sat on a small wrought-iron chair and tucked her feet up beneath her. And typed in Hugo’s private number.
As unexpected as it was sudden, Hugo’s picture flashed onto Will’s screen as the phone rang. Will was in it too. They had their arms around one another as they stood atop a mountain somewhere. Young men. Grinning. Happier times.
The phone stopped ringing.
“Darcy?” said Hugo, in his deep bass voice. “What’s happened?”
Sadie pictured him sitting behind the grand old desk in his study, foot hooked up on the other knee, hand gripping his chin.
Sadie closed her eyes and swallowed. “Hugo—” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “Hugo, it’s me.”
Sadie couldn’t remember a time when she’d been so scared of a response. Not since calling her mother to let her know New York hadn’t worked out as hoped and that she was coming home.
She’d felt like a failure then. As though she’d let everyone down. Right now, she knew she was a failure. She knew she’d let everyone down.
Finally he spoke. “Leo.”
Sadie nearly sobbed with relief. Hugo was the only person in the entire world who called her that and the fact he used her nickname now meant so much. It meant everything.
“Hey, big guy. How’s it hanging?”
“Tight and away.”
Her laughter was croaky. “Yeah. Figured as much. I’m assuming you got my note?”
“The one about deciding not to marry me after all?”
“That’s the one.”
The moment she’d realised there was no way she could go through with the wedding, she’d also known she couldn’t go without letting him know.
Finding him would have been impossible without making a huge scene. At the time not embarrassing Hugo in public had seemed the most important thing. Now she realised she’d simply postponed the inevitable.
So she’d torn a page from a hymnal, grabbed a stick of lipstick left behind by the make-up artist and scribbled down the best short explanation she could. She’d given it to the sweet maid who’d been left to “keep her company” and, using every ounce of charisma she had in her arsenal, had convinced the young girl to deliver it to the Prince.
Then she’d climbed out of the old stone window and run.
“The poor girl who gave it to me was so terrified she left fingerprints in the thing.”
Sadie laughed, even as a rogue tear slithered down her cheek. She dashed it away with the sleeve of her gown. “She needs a raise. A big one.” Then, “Is it crazy over there?”
“That’s one way of putting it. It was agreed that Aunt Marguerite would make the announcement to the guests. One line—the wedding would not go ahead but the after-party would. Then everyone was promptly herded into the ballroom. The champagne is flowing. The music is loud. The doors are bolted shut.”
“She’s hoping they’ll not remember any of it in the morning?”
“Very much.”
Sadie heard a squeak. He was definitely in the leather chair behind his desk. She wished she was in there now, lying on the big, soft rug, using a throw cushion as a headrest, annoying him as he tried to work; chatting about her latest class play or Netflix addiction; niggling him about some movie star who’d claimed to have a crush on him; listening as he took calls from foreign leaders, or those interested in his divine resorts.
“So,” he said, his voice nothing but a rumble. “You’ve met Darcy.�
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“Mmm-hmm.” Suddenly uncomfortable, Sadie adjusted her gown. Then her sitting posture. Then the garter which had begun to feel scratchy now her tights were gone.
“What do you think?”
“About?”
Hugo waited. No surprise that he saw right through her. Born two years apart to the day, they’d grown up in one another’s pockets. The Prince and the daughter of a palace maid. As the story went, she’d told anyone who would listen that she’d one day marry Hugo before she could even pronounce his real name properly.
“Oh,” said Sadie, “you mean Will? He’s...” dogged, grouchy, brooding, infuriating, enigmatic “...a very good driver.”
Hugo’s chuckle was pained. “You playing nice?”
“Of course I am! I’m the epitome of nice. Ask anyone.” A beat. “Well, maybe give it a few days.” Weeks. Months. Millennia. “I’m not sure there’s a person in the world who’d have a good thing to say about me right now. Hugo—”
“Leo. It’s okay.”
“But—”
“Truly.”
“No. I need to say it. I wronged you. Terribly. I screwed up more than even I ever imagined I could and that’s saying something. And I plan to do everything in my power to fix it. I’ll write an official apology to the palace. I’ll take out a full-page ad in the Vallemont Chronicle. I’ll go door to door telling every man, woman and child that my running away had nothing to do with you. That you are the Prince they know you to be, while I am a complete flake. Anything.”
“Anything except marry me.”
She opened her mouth to...what? Tell him to give her another chance? That this time she could go through with it, if it was what he really wanted. What he needed. But for some reason Will’s face popped into her head right at that moment. Those intensely dark eyes of his boring into her as if he’d accept nothing but the truth. Her truth. However unpopular it might be.
The tears flowed fast and furious now. “God, no. Anything except that.”
Hugo laughed, as she’d known he would. Never in the history of history had there been a better man, meaning that he deserved a better woman.
Sadie shifted on the seat. “He doesn’t like me, you know.”