by Merry Farmer
“That is not how I imagined this afternoon going,” she said, sounding weary.
“Me neither. Come on.” He took her hand and started down the hall with her.
They made it no farther than the intersection between the formal wing of the palace and the hallway leading to the living quarters when Gloria pulled Mack to a stop. With her head tilted down, she said, “Mack, maybe it’s time I go home.”
A spike of terror hit Mack. “You don’t have to.” He pulled her into a light embrace. “Don’t let one little incident ruin the whole thing.”
She looked up at him. “Your family is just so busy right now. And something about that whole confrontation wasn’t right.”
“You can say that again.”
“I don’t want to go,” she rushed on. The softness in her eyes underscored the truth of what she was saying. “Believe me. I’m starting to feel like I could stay here forever.”
Mack caught his breath. He’d suspected she felt like that for days, but she hadn’t come out and said it. Not in so many words. “I want you to stay here,” he said. “Right here.”
He leaned forward, brushing his lips lightly over hers. His heart swelled in his chest. There were so many more things he wanted to say, but the intensity of those thoughts was so overwhelming he couldn’t find words for any of them. All he could do was kiss her again, from his heart.
“This is such a beautiful fairy tale,” she went on with a sigh, leaning closer to him. “Things like this don’t happen to ordinary people.”
“No,” he agreed. “But you’re extraordinary.”
She laughed, the sound coming from her chest, from her heart. “I could stay here forever and never get enough of your sweetness, Mack.”
“Stay,” he said. “In spite of my family and all the craziness of this wedding. Stay with me.”
Her expression tensed, longing deep in her eyes. “You don’t know how badly I want to take you up on that. But we’ve known each other less than a week. I need to find a job.”
“There are jobs here,” he said. “At the air field. I know Carl has a place for you. But more importantly, I have a place for you, here.”
He leaned in to kiss her again, catching her hand and bringing it up to his chest. He was certain she could feel the intense beat of his heart as he drank in the sweetness of her lips. If there was any hope for true love flourishing at all, it was there, between them.
“I know it’s only been a few days,” he said when he paused to take a breath, “but I love you, Gloria. And if it makes me a fool to believe that love can happen so fast, then I don’t mind being a fool.”
“It’s crazy,” she said with a sigh. “We’re not kids in school, making things up. But I think you’re right.” She leaned into him, kissing him with her eyes closed. “I think I love you too.”
“Then stay,” he went on. “At least until the wedding. Come to the wedding as my guest. I can’t imagine going through all those festivities without you by my side.”
Her sudden laugh invigorated him. “If the wedding itself is anywhere near as strange as all the other things that have been going on, then I wouldn’t want to miss it for the world.”
Hope flooded Mack. “So you’ll stay?” he asked, sliding his arm around her waist.
She nodded, breaking into a beaming smile. “I’ll stay,” she said. “At least for the wedding. Because right now, I can’t imagine my life without you and without Aegiria. But after the wedding, we’ll see.”
9
If only Mack could have taken the beautiful feeling of rightness that he had while kissing Gloria and translated it to everything else going on, life would have been easy. But the weekend passed in a haze of business and tension. Normally, he and his brothers went into sugar-shock every time they had to deal with their mother and William together, but for two, painful days, instead of smooches and pet-names, they had to deal with frosty silences and guilty looks.
“I can’t stand to watch this any longer,” Mack whispered to Gloria as the two of them stood to the side in the ballroom of one of Solrighavn’s most luxurious marina restaurants as the pre-wedding press event got underway.
Gloria hummed as she too watched the royal couple. “If they would just stand closer together, I think they’d present a better image to the press,” she said, leaning closer.
Mack breathed in her scent. Her brother had sent some of her things from London, including some sort of perfume that went straight to Mack’s head. In the slinky, gold dress she wore, her curly hair caught up in a style that both highlighted Gloria’s natural beauty and made her look as elegant as any princess, she was holding her own in the room full of Aegirian nobility—everyone from their cousins, Duke Larson Appelgren and his sister, Elna, to Earl Linqvist—and the press.
“You think if the two of them closed the distance they’d be all right?” he asked, resting his hand on the small of her back as if taking her advice for himself.
She sent him a flirty smile. Her dark eyes glittered with mischief. He would have been perfectly willing to make all sorts of mischief with her, press event or no, but after the way they’d been caught last time, he wasn’t willing to risk it.
“What I think,” she said, lowering her voice and studying the royal couple, “is that Dr. Hayes looks guilty as sin by keeping his distance from her. And while we both know he’s probably only slumping his shoulders and not looking your mother in the eye like that because he’s embarrassed, it strikes me that what your mother really needs right now is for him to march in like an alpha male and take charge of the situation.”
Mack laughed. “William is many things, but he’s not an alpha male.”
She glanced to him. “They’re overrated anyhow,” she said with a wink.
A chuckle filled Mack’s chest, spearing his heart. He wasn’t sure if she was taking a dig at him for not being the alpha type, like Alek was, or complimenting him for being something better with that wink of hers. Either way, he wasn’t going to knock it. Gloria was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time.
And oddly enough, she helped him to see the way that he could make a meaningful contribution to his family, a way he could truly be a part of things where he’d only ever felt useless before.
“I’m going to go talk to mother,” he said, touching her back one more time before leaning away from her. “I need to see if I can get to the bottom of this. Will you be okay on your own?”
“Of course,” she said, looking perfectly poised as she did. “Besides, I see Tracy and Emma, and I’ve been meaning to chat with them since the other day.”
Mack grinned, then kissed her cheek. Let the throngs of Aegirian press make what they would of that.
He gave Gloria one last look before heading toward his mother and William, who looked completely miserable. The press event had been organized to satisfy the hunger for royal wedding news, since there was only space for one reporter and camera team on the yacht, where the wedding would take place. Somehow, Tracy Minhall had been picked to be the journalist who would cover the wedding itself, which meant that every other reporter and news outlet in Aegiria and a dozen other countries was packed into the ballroom, eager to seek out a story about the royal couple. And Gloria was right—the way his mother and William were standing now, the story they’d all come away with wouldn’t be one that anybody in the royal family would like.
Of course, as soon as he came to within ten feet of his mother and William, William met his eyes with a look of relief—which quickly turned to embarrassment—then bolted. Mack paused, mouth dropping open in surprise and a failed attempt to come up with something to say that would draw William back, then shook his head and continued on to his mother, who looked miserable.
“He’s hardly said three words to me all weekend,” his mother lamented as Mack took up the place by her side.
They paused to smile for the camera as a couple of photojournalists snapped pics of the two of them.
“Prince M
ikael, how do you feel about your mother’s wedding?” a young man with a tablet and stylus rushed up to get a quote while he could.
“I couldn’t be happier,” he said, resting a hand on his mother’s back. “I’ve always admired Dr. Hayes and his conservation efforts, and he makes my mother extraordinarily happy.”
“But does he?” the reporter asked.
“The two of them didn’t look particularly happy just now.”
Mack wanted to throttle the young man. Most of the older reporters knew better than to insult the queen with impertinent questions like that. Not that they wouldn’t find more covert ways to wheedle a negative story out of the whole event. But he didn’t like the young reporter’s aggressive manner.
So he put on a sheepish grin and lied through his teeth. “I’ll confess, there was a…problem with the herring at breakfast this morning going bad. We’ve all been feeling a bit off.” He pressed a hand to his stomach as if to prove it.
“Oh. I see.” The young reporter looked disappointed. “Thank you for that quote.” He marched off, scribbling something on his pad.
Fortunately, that gave Mack and Viktoria a few seconds to themselves.
Viktoria let out a tense breath. “Thank you for coming up with that story. I should have thought of something like that myself. It would certainly explain William’s sour expression.”
The fact that his mother was referring to her beloved as “William” and not “Willy” or “Sweet cheeks” or “Snookums” was as big a red flag as could be.
“Mother, you know it was Gloria and me in that dressing room and not Gloria and William.” He didn’t leave any room for doubt in the way he said it.
His mother sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I know. I know.” The emphasis she put on her second know felt, to Mack, like she was still trying to convince herself.
“If I had known it would cause all these problems, I would have kept myself in check,” he said.
She glanced guiltily up at him. “I don’t want you to cut short your own happiness because I can’t let go of things that happened over twenty years ago.”
Mack’s brow inched up. “So it was true? What Aunt Marina said about father?”
His mother sighed and pursed her lips, glancing out the window behind them at the boats in the harbor. The skies were overcast, lending a sense of gloom to everything. “Yes, it’s true.”
She was silent for a long time before shaking her head and turning back to Mack. “I was horrifically busy with that business with import tariffs. Although I don’t suppose you’re old enough to remember all that.”
“It rings a bell,” Mack said, although he was still in grammar school when the tariff problem arose.
“Anyhow, your father felt neglected. There was a woman….” She pressed her lips into a line, her brow knitting. “It doesn’t matter who it was. She was the wife of a friend. The two of them shared their sorrows a little too intimately one night.”
Mack swallowed, hating the story.
“He told me it was only the one time, and I believed him,” his mother rushed on, taking hold of his arm. “But something like that leaves you suspicious long after the fact. It’s why I’ve always tried to raise you boys to be honest above all else.”
“William is an honest man,” Mack said, taking her hands in his. For once, he felt as though he not only had a place in the family, he felt as though that place was crucial. His mother was confiding in him. She was relying on him, and he wouldn’t let her down. “You know that he loves you more than life itself, and that he would never do anything to hurt you that way.”
“I know. I do know.” Again, it sounded as though she were trying to convince herself. She sighed. “It’s just that Marina and I talked about it yesterday, and all those feelings of abandonment and betrayal came up again.” She glanced up to meet Mack’s eyes. “I’m not used to second-guessing myself. I’ve run this nation for decades without flinching. Which is why this whole thing has thrown me completely. Am I doing the right thing? Am I truly serving the needs of Aegiria? Or should I remain focused on governing, even if it means sacrificing my private life.”
Everything about her small speech made the hair on the back of Mack’s neck stand up. She couldn’t possibly be doubting whether to continue with the marriage, could she? And if she was, why did that feel so much like a kidnapping or a concert going awry or a yacht sinking?
“Did you say that Aunt Marina was talking to you about this?” he asked.
“Yes.” She sent him a weak smile. “That’s been the one good thing in this whole situation. Marina and I are close again after growing apart. She’s been such a help and a comfort.”
“Has she?” Mack’s suspicions ran wild. He shifted his weight, narrowing his eyes. “How did the two of you end up in the hall just as Gloria was coming out of the dressing room?” He searched back through his own memory of the incident, trying to remember if anything had prompted his mother and aunt to leave the room. He’d been too busy talking to his brothers to take notice of much.
His mother shrugged, shaking his head as though she wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “I’d been consulting with the photographer about something. Marina came up to me and tugged me away. She didn’t have time for an explanation, she just said there was something I had to see.”
“Did she now?” Mack’s brow knit into a frown. Marina had said her assistant spotted him and Gloria through the window from the other wing. But he’d been the one facing out, not Gloria. If the assistant in question had seen them, it would have been obvious that he wasn’t William. And now that he thought of it, the assistant in question had never been called to the scene to corroborate what they’d seen. Could that have been deliberate?
Was it possible, just possible, that his Aunt Marina was the one attempting to put a stop to the wedding?
Mack glanced up, scanning the room in search of his aunt. His brothers were there, several cousins and members of the Aegirian nobility were there as well, keeping the press occupied. But no matter where he searched, he couldn’t spot Marina.
Until he turned toward the door leading to the kitchen and saw Gloria storming forward, a look of vengeance in her eyes and a firm grip on Marina’s wrist. Tracy Minhall marched with them, as if standing guard. And Marina looked as though she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
Gloria watched Mack cross the room to speak with his mother, and a zip of pride hit her. She wasn’t sure she’d be brave enough to speak to her mother about relationship problems. Then again, her parents had been happily married for over thirty-five years, and she was sure she’d get a smack if she were ever cheeky enough to ask about their love life. That was just another thing about Mack that she loved.
A hitch caught in her chest. She loved him. It was silly, really. She hadn’t known him that long. But the time they’d spent together felt like years instead of days. They had so many things in common that she was willing to put aside her lifetime of seriousness and logic to entertain the idea of soulmates.
No sooner had that thought struck her when she watched Dr. Hayes practically run away from Mack and the queen. She had to do something about that.
“Dr. Hayes, where are you going?” she asked, walking so that she would intercept him. They met in front of the door leading to the kitchen.
“Oh. Um. Yes. Uh. Miss Swann.” He wavered and stammered, not meeting her eyes. “I was just….” Gloria reached out to touch his arm, but he jerked away from her. “I’m sorry, Miss Swann, but I’m just not interested in anything like that.”
Heat flooded Gloria’s face. She wasn’t sure whether to be offended by his assumption or to feel sorry for him and the awkward situation he clearly didn’t know how to handle. She opted for the latter.
“We both know this is all just a strange misunderstanding, Dr. Hayes,” she said, taking a half step back to give him space. “And I’m sure the queen knows there’s nothing at all, even a little bit between you and I.”
At last, he dragged his eyes up to meet hers. “Of course, there’s nothing between the two of us. She should know that. But she’s…different somehow, and I don’t know how to make it better.”
“Maybe you don’t have to make it better.” Gloria shrugged. “Maybe things are fine and everyone just needs a little time to get over the awkwardness.” William didn’t look convinced, so she went on with, “It was a terribly awkward situation. We were all embarrassed. I’m sure the queen is still just embarrassed.”
He made a strangled sound. Gloria couldn’t tell if it was agreement or doubt.
“I’m sure if you take her aside and talk to her, the two of you can sort everything out.”
William sighed. “I can’t talk to her. I don’t know how to talk in situations like this.”
“Well, I know it’s trite and cliché, but women always respond well to flowers.”
She thought she was being ridiculous, but William’s eyes lit with inspiration. “Yes, that’s right. Flowers say ‘I’m sorry’.”
“They also say I love you and I’d never do anything deliberately to hurt you,” Gloria added.
“Flowers.” William nodded. “Yes, that’s it.”
Without another word, and with barely an acknowledgement, he marched off. Gloria tried not to laugh, but he was incredibly sweet in his awkwardness and single-mindedness. The queen was a lucky woman.
“What was that all about?”
Gloria turned to see that Tracy had walked up to her side and was glancing curiously after William.
“Nothing,” she answered. “There was a spot of bother the other day—”
“I remember,” Tracy cut in.
“—and I think it’s about to be resolved.”
“Good.” Tracy smiled, shifting to smile at the queen, who was talking to Mack. “I love this royal couple. I want to see the two of them happy together. I feel like I have a vested interest in them.”