The Last Girl (Sand & Fog #7)

by Susan Ward

  “Are you finished?” he asked softly. “Please, sit. We’re not through talking.”

  “Don’t speak to me that way. Who do you think you are?”

  All that earned me was a quirked brow.

  Fine, it was a stupid question.

  He was Prince Damon Charles Arthur Deverell Saxe, Duke of Windmere, and literally speaking, by a curse of dual citizenship, I was his subject. I always forgot that part when I was around him. It was hard to see anything but the man when Damon was near.

  “Are we calm yet?”

  We? Great, he’d lapsed into third person.

  I pushed the hair from my eyes and glared at him. “I don’t know what we are, but I’m pissed off. Just stand there and let me work through it.”

  That made him grin. “What a flattering thing to say to a man.”

  My cheeks turned to fire. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  “It hardly couldn’t be.”

  “Damn it, Damon. Stop it!”

  “What?”

  Beulldozering over me. I shook my hands in the way I did when something was gross and I needed to shore up myself quickly.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” he announced.

  I was uncertain what he meant by that, but didn’t have to wait long to find out. He picked me up with a quickness that made me dizzy and set me down on the foot of my lounger.

  I swiveled to look over my shoulder. It was a clean shot to the house and no one was around to see me running from Damon there.

  “Khloe, stay put.”

  All the fight left me after that. “Okay, okay. I guess I underestimated your need to talk more.”

  After a nearly imperceptible nod, he claimed the spot on the lounger beside me. “I’m sorry for having manhandled you. But you are very hard to have a reasonable conversation with. First Paris. Now tonight. And as we’re related, I thought I could push the boundaries a bit in hopes of getting on with it.”

  Related? My stomach dropped. It couldn’t be true. Why did he look as though he believed it?

  “Calling crap on that one, Damon. We’re not related.”

  His gaze combed my face. “Your father has never told you that?”

  “Why would he? It isn’t true.” I lifted my chin, obstinate.

  His mouth pursed as he stared at the ocean. “I assure you it’s very true. I don’t understand why Alan never shared that with his family, but your dad’s bloodline is older and more noble than the Saxes’. He’s a direct descendent of the Deverells, while my family has more a curvy lineage to the house of Saxe. Our connection is two centuries back, but very significant. Haven’t you ever wondered why my father has such a close relationship with your father?”

  I stared at him with mocking disbelief in my eyes. I wasn’t sure what this bizarre assertion was about, but I sensed if Damon made it then it had a purpose for him. “Money is power. My dad is the richest man in the UK. What he does with his money can either help your country or crush it.”

  Damon smiled. “There is that. But in England blood counts more than money. You don’t know much about the United Kingdom, do you?”

  “No. Why should I? I’m American. Is there a reason why we’re talking about obscure family history that means less than nothing in California?”

  Damon sighed. “There is a point.”

  Another long pause of silence, the kind my dad made to maintain control over situations and sometimes made me want to scream.

  More moments passed with Damon staring at the ocean, seeming lost in deep thought and saying nothing.

  “Are you planning on getting to the point any time tonight?”

  “Alan’s right. You’re a cheeky girl.”

  “The tabloids are right. You’re an undisciplined, unroyal playboy.” I heard him suck in deep as if begging for patience, and followed up with, “It’s probably because you look and behave more like your American blood than your blue blood lineage.”

  Damon frowned. “American isn’t a race. One can hardly look like an American.”

  “Ah, but it is, to everyone but snobs. A wonderful blend of every race in the world. It’s the everything that makes us exceptional. You look more like Zane than you do your father. Probably because your mothers were sisters. Don’t scowl, Damon. You should be happy you look American. I would like you even less if you didn’t.”

  He looked aghast by the time I finished that nifty, insulting speech. “Damn. You’re frustrating to talk to.”

  Score one for Khloe...again.

  I smirked and laced my fingers primly in my lap.

  He shoved a hand back into his hair and exhaled loudly. “If we weren’t related I wouldn’t bother with this.”

  “We’re not related—not in any meaningful way, even by your measure—so let’s not.”

  He looked confused. “Not what?”

  “Bother with this.” As exhausted as the day and Damon had made me, somehow I was getting some of my pep back.

  He stared hard at me for a moment, and then his posture drooped as he began to laugh. It was clear he didn’t know how to deal with me and perhaps didn’t know if he wanted to.

  He stared off at the ocean, I assumed looking for inspiration on how to proceed, and I seized the opportunity to study him without him knowing it.

  God had smiled on Damon the day he’d been created. I could feel the strength of his tall body sitting close to mine, see the way the unruly strands of his hair looked temptingly soft and called out for my touch. His profile was as magnificent as the full view of his face; the strong set of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbones, the straight nose, and the line of his brow. Even discomposed he maintained an air about him that was very compelling.

  “May I just say what I came here to say?” He turned his face toward me, and his amber gaze locked on me, imploring. “Please, Khloe. It may not be important to you, but it’s important to me.”

  A smile teased my lips when I didn’t want it to. Verbally sparring with Damon had been a mistake. His reaction to it softened my combative mindset and reminded me I’d found him devilishly fun in Paris.

  “Then by all means,” I said with a wave in front of me.

  “Would you stop mocking me, please?”

  Please, a second time. “I’m not mocking you, Damon.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “Listening,” I replied softly because I could feel it curling inside me, taking hold. I liked Damon, who he was and who he wasn’t and all the messy contradictions in between. There was no denying I was in trouble where he was concerned. His tenacity and composure were seductive.

  He leaned forward, refilled his glass with what remained of the martinis, and handed me the one I discarded untouched. “You didn’t have your cocktail earlier. I saw you set it down after your mother left.”

  I took my lower lip in my teeth and assessed him over my glass. “I take it I’m going to need a drink for whatever you have to say.”

  “No.” His brows shot up. “I am. But it’s impolite to drink in front of you unless it’s your choice.”

  “Well, let’s not be impolite.” I did a cheers motion with my glass. “Bottoms up, Damon. If any night called for drinking I think it’s tonight.”

  I sipped my martini and waited to hear whatever it was that brought me to this unlikely moment.

  He stared at his glass, a pucker in his brow. “Your mum makes an interesting martini. It’s rather good. But different.”

  I laughed. “Mom doesn’t like alcohol. When my parents have cocktails, she has to camouflage the booze. Unless she’s upset. Then it’s scotch neat. There’s a hint of watermelon juice in it. That’s what you’re tasting.”

  Damon’s face smoothed into something dangerously assessable. “It’s good. Whatever it is. I like your mother. You’re very much like her.”

  “Thank you, Damon.” I took it as the compliment it was instead of how I suspected he meant it. “Can I have another smoke?”

  “I thought you only smoked
two a day.”

  “Usually, but I smoked my second one without my drink. It’s not the same. It takes away half the pleasure and I hate to be cheated on my rare indulgences.”

  He reached for his pack. “Why only two? Does it have anything to do with your illness? Should I even give you one?”

  “It has nothing to do with anything other than I hate the habit.”

  “Then why smoke at all?”

  I tilted my head and widened my eyes. “We all do little things to be bad. Don’t you?”

  He ignored that question and raked his fingers through his hair. “When I left Italy, Zane had texted me a photo of you so I’d know who I was meeting in Paris. He refused to tell me any of your details other than your name was KK. I tried to find you on my own instead of going to Paris. I did a Google image search. Nothing came up. That never happens. I found it unsettling. I find it more so knowing you’re Alan’s daughter. How is it possible there’s not even a picture of you on online news? It’s bothering me, given all I’ve discovered here.”

  I shrugged like it was of no consequence, though discovered here was a very loaded statement. “It shouldn’t bother anyone. It’s nothing more than it is. My parents kept me off the grid after I was born. Your privacy is the most precious and hardest thing to get back once you’ve given it up, my dad likes to say. For as long as I can remember, both of my parents have been obsessed with the concept of being private and safe. My mom with existing inside the circle of those she loves here at this house. She hardly ever leaves the house. My father with building a barrier between him and the world. It seems even people with power and money build boxes and then trapped themselves in them. But this box I could have climbed out of at eighteen. That’s when my parents thought I had a right to make my own decisions over my privacy. But I didn’t. I’ve never had even a social media profile. And it’s easy not to become a target of the media if you don’t give them a reason to make you one. I like my privacy. I keep it. That’s why you couldn’t get a result from my picture on a Google image search.”

  He smiled wryly. “Very wise girl to stay off the grid. Your dad’s right. Your privacy is impossible to get back once you’ve lost it. More valuable than money.”

  He lapsed into pensiveness and whatever he was thinking made him seem sad. Then, without glancing at me, his blood-warmed fingers settled atop my cold hand. He didn’t speak, and I couldn’t speak with him touching me, but the quiet between us had a strange closeness to it.

  Through the fabric of my pants, I could feel the long, elegant muscles of his body, his complete awareness of me, and a potent sensation that I suddenly knew was us. Not him near me, an external force of who he was—I’d been wrong to think that before—but us.

  No matter what Damon said to explain why he’d followed me to California, it had been this. He’d felt it and understood it first, what this feeling meant when we were together.

  I slipped my hand from his. “I’m very tired, Damon. Can we finish this tomorrow?”

  The ocean breeze tussled his hair and his amber eyes had an intent, sober glow. “I’m sorry. Of course. Tomorrow, then.” His voice through the quiet was powerful.

  As I stood, he rose with me. “Good night, Damon.”

  His smile was kind, understanding, and very human. “Good night, Khloe. Pleasant dreams.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  MY MOM’S VOICE CAME to me in the darkness, startlingly clear and filled with anguish.

  “Alan don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault. We’re not going to lose her like you lost Molly. Don’t cry...nothing is going to happen to Khloe...” But despite her loving, determined words, my mother sobbed as she held my dad in the kitchen.

  With a gasp of air, I jerked upright in bed, trembling as I stared into my empty bedroom. My mom’s voice had sounded so real that at first when I heard it in the darkness I thought I’d overslept and missed tai chi with her on the cliffs at dawn. But it was the dream again—the dream I hated because it was devastatingly vivid with my parents’ worry, pain, and fear, riddled with things I knew nothing about.

  Molly. Who was Molly? Maybe if I knew I could better navigate the emotional volatility of my parents and keep them from fighting over trivial disagreements about me. But I’ve never dared to ask them directly. They kept so many things hidden between them, locked in the vault of their great love for each other. Some I suspected were intimacies all couples had and kept their own, but others I could tell by how they talked when they were alone were skeletons from their pasts.

  Molly, I was sure, was a skeleton. For that reason, I could never ask my dad about her. The sadness that claimed him when they spoke of her was very real, always present, and that meant whoever she was she’d been important to him.

  Remembering Damon’s insistence that they were related by royal blood was proof positive my dad had skeletons he kept his own. As well as I knew my father, I sensed I would never know him completely and often wondered if even my mother did.

  Switching on the light, I checked the clock. It was nearly 7:00 a.m. and I had less than ten minutes to get out onto the cliffs unless I wanted Chrissie hurt again. I tossed off my blankets with a groan. I needed to find a way to get my mother to stop her obsessive need to find her own miracle: the many and extreme diets for me; the doctor who practiced ancient eastern medicine, who measured my inner energy and sometimes poked me with needles or laid crystals on me; and tai chi too early in the a.m. to balance my energy.

  Criminy, Chrissie had done everything but feng shui my room. When I came home from Europe I half expected to find lush plants and bowls of lemons, the light changed to be as bright as her bedroom was, and my clutter gone.

  I went to my dresser to yank out yoga shorts and a t-shirt and reminded myself it was wrong to be critical of how my mom expressed her love because it was a measure of how much she loved me. The crazy regimens were also her way of coping, just as Dad’s was to let me live like a normal girl. My real circumstance existed somewhere in between their two extremes, so that part about them being in ways completely opposite had a personal benefit for me and was something to be grateful for.

  Tai chi on the cliffs was calling, and I went toward my patio doors, slipping from the house via my bedroom because I didn’t trust that Damon wasn’t awake and lurking somewhere.

  Damon.

  As I walked across the lawn, my chest hurt and I rubbed it. I’d only banished him from my thoughts last night when I’d at last fallen asleep. I had a weird certainty where our discussion would go next and an equally desperate want to avoid it even though I’d promised him that whatever he needed to say we’d finish today.

  There was no denying I was drawn to him. He might have thought he overwhelmed me into remaining on the cliffs to hear him out last night, but that wasn’t the case and I wasn’t that easily controlled. I’d stayed because of that sensation we shared, savoring it while it frightened me. That was reason alone to avoid him throughout his stay.

  I found my mother sitting near the cliffs, her legs bent and her arms around her knees. I ran my eyes down her shape and posture. She was sixty-two, freshly beautiful in a way that I never took note of the lines and wrinkles on her face—Mom did nothing to stop the process of aging and relied only on her genes—and it seemed to me she’d be forever washed with the sweet fragility of a girl. An aura I’d lost eight years ago, though I didn’t resent seeing it on her face. It belonged there just as my dad belonged at her side.

  I sank onto the ground beside her, sitting on my knees as I lay my cheek on her shoulder. “Have you been waiting long?”

  She shook her head, her blond hair tickling my face. “No. I slept late, too. I was worried you were waiting for me.”

  I laughed at her notion of sleeping late. She considered waking any time after four thirty being behind schedule.

  She patted my thigh. “You must have been up late, Khloe, if I beat you out here.”

  I tensed. There was a bit of chide and a lot of curi
osity in her voice, telling me she was wondering how things went between me and Damon on the cliffs last night. I confessed I remained briefly with Damon after she’d left, skipping over the parts I considered my personal intimate details. “I was in bed by nine. Still jet-lagged and adjusting to the time difference, I think.”

  “Maybe we should just watch the sunrise today.” Her golden brows crinkled. “I don’t want to tire you out.”

  I pulled away and sprang to my feet. “No, Mom. I think my energy could use some balancing after all the traveling.”

  Beaming, she grabbed her phone, switched on the music she liked to play, and took her place beside me. We went through our routine, limbs flowing and graceful, not talking and yet with a closeness I never felt to her any other way.

  When we finished, the faint blue sky above was washed in orange and red. We took our loungers to witness the finish of nature’s miracle. My mom filled our glasses with something red, though I’d have preferred coffee but there wasn’t any.

  She held out a glass to me. “It’s cranberry juice this morning. I hope that’s all right.”

  Cranberry juice? I knew what that was about. She’d logged onto my private medical record before tai chi, read my monthly lab report even before I had, and was troubled over my kidneys. This needed to stop for her own well-being, but I smiled anyway. “No. It’s fine. I love cranberry.”

  She sat with her legs curled and eased into me. “Damon’s fascinating, isn’t he?”

  Not subtle, Chrissie. “Well, he’s a much nicer man than I expected him to be given all the stories in the tabloids. If not a bit stuffy and arrogant.”

  My mom frowned. “He’s perfectly lovely and gorgeous.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t let Dad hear you say that.”

  She made a face at me. “We don’t get jealous over each other anymore. You worry things like that because you’re young. Old love is more calm and comfortable than young love.”