A Tale of Two Cousins

by Katie MacAlister

  Iakovos eyed me for a second before sliding his gaze over to look at Dmitri. I had a feeling he wanted to say a few things to his cousin privately, no doubt warning him about the folly of marrying me, and since I agreed with him, I made an excuse and took Valentino to the bathroom with me for a few minutes.

  By the time I returned, Dmitri and Iakovos were arguing. Loudly.

  “I understand that, but I’m not some idiot who doesn’t know how to handle his own affairs,” Dmitri said with a frown at his cousin.

  Iakovos frowned right back at him. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. I wouldn’t trust you with my business if I thought that. I just want you protected—”

  He stopped at the sight of me, looking vaguely uncomfortable.

  “Uh-oh, did I interrupt a discussion where you were telling Dmitri that he needs a really strict prenuptial agreement so that I don’t take him for every cent he has?”

  Both men looked away.

  Harry sighed, and awkwardly got to her feet. “Bathroom break again. I swear, my bladder gets smaller with each baby. It’s a good thing this is the last one, or I wouldn’t be able to hold more than a teaspoon of pee at a time. Yes, Thyra, that’s what they were talking about, not that any of us really thinks you are going to do that, but Dmitri is a very dear friend, and Yacky wants to make sure he hasn’t gone insane with the thought of marrying an actual princess. No one say anything good until I get back.”

  She toddled off to the bathroom. I set down Valentino, who jumped up onto an end table and fixed his wicked yellow eyes on Iakovos, much to the latter’s discomfort. “As it happens, I was going to bring up the subject myself. I don’t want any of Dmitri’s money, Iakovos. I haven’t secretly tricked him into marriage just so I can benefit financially—I simply want to stop Kardom, and if you know of someone else who I could blight with a marriage to me—”

  “No,” Dmitri said, pulling me close to his side, making me feel warm and fuzzy despite the fact that I knew I should protest such a blatantly possessive demonstration. “You’re not marrying anyone else. You’ll blight me, and no one else.”

  “You romantic devil, you,” I told him, unable to keep from flashing him a little smile in hopes he let his almost dimples go wild.

  He did, and they did, and I melted into his side. “As to a prenup, I was, in fact, going to talk to Thyra about it, but not simply so as to protect Papaioannou Green. Thyra needs to be protected, as well.”

  “Me?” I laughed a jaded laugh. “I have all of fifty-seven euros to my name. I doubt if we got divorced the day after we got married if you’d benefit much from that.”

  He gave me a long look with his pretty green eyes that made me want to kiss him all over his adorable face. And chest. And, hell, the rest of him, too. “Whether or not you like the fact, you are royalty. I don’t know what claims your spouse would have on Beck, or any hereditary rights and privileges granted to you, but you need protection, as well.”

  “There’s not a lot of ways you could benefit from marrying me, so far as that goes,” I said thoughtfully. “Unless I’m recognized as crown princess, then you might have access to whatever funds the government granted me. And I could grant you a title, but I don’t know that it would benefit you financially, or, rather, hurt me should you marry me so that you could be Grand Duke Dmitri.”

  “Holy shit,” Harry said, returning from the bathroom. “Dmitri could be a duke?”

  “A margrave, actually. It’s roughly the equivalent to a duke, and is one of the traditional titles for a male consort, assuming I’m remembering my family history correctly.” I looked at Dmitri.

  He pinched my butt. “I told my lawyer to start working on a prenup agreement this morning, but I think perhaps you should have your own lawyer to make sure that any agreement between us wasn’t skewed to my benefit.”

  Which is why two hours later Harry and I were in the car, on the way to see her former lawyer Panoush. He did, in fact, have a thick accent, one that took every ounce of my attention to keep up with, but in the end, he agreed that he would have no problem representing my interests in the agreement, and after he insisted on a selfie with me so that he could show his wife he’d met a real princess, Harry and I returned to her apartment.

  “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” she told me when we rode up in the elevator. “Iakovos said he has several meetings today, and some of them were with Dmitri, so I expect they won’t be back until evening. Unless, of course, you want to go somewhere else, although if your cousin is out there looking for you, it might be better to stay where you know he can’t get to you.”

  “Thank you, I wouldn’t mind staying for a bit so long as I’m not in your way.” I felt mildly guilty about infringing on her privacy, but she had assured me in the car that she was taking a break before writing her next book, and was going a little stir-crazy, since she wasn’t supposed to be too active. “Although I don’t think Kardom is running around Athens planning on snatching me on the street. He’s much too controlling for that. He likes to lay plans, and then gets annoyed when people don’t fall in with them.”

  “What a jerk. Well, you’ll be safe with us. Iakovos already told the concierge team to not let anyone up to see us unless we clear it first. Hello, Mrs. Avrabos. I think we’ll be ready for lunch in a few. At least, I hope Thyra is, because I’m famished.”

  The housekeeper greeted us, giving Harry a warm smile. “I am happy to feed you whenever you like, Kyria, but Miss Patricia is here with a friend, and she says she must see you urgently.”

  “Oh?” Harry frowned and dumped her purse on a console table next to the front door. “I wonder what she wants. You might as well come and meet the bane of the Papaioannou brothers, Thyra. Oooh, can I lay your title on her? She’ll hate that I’m chummy with a princess who she doesn’t know.”

  I giggled while I followed her into the living room, very interested to see this Patricia who had set Dmitri up with an old friend.

  Two women were standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows, each of them holding a glass of wine, laughing about something as they turned and saw us.

  “Harry, darling,” drawled a petite blond woman who set down her wine and approached us, giving air kisses to Harry. “You’re even bigger than you were the last time. Are you having quadruplets this time?”

  “Thyra, this is Patricia,” Harry told me with a long, martyred sigh. “She may seem like an obnoxiously predatory woman who will attempt to steal any man she desires regardless of whether or not that man is in a relationship or even married, but she’s not. Most of the time.”

  I fought back a laugh, figuring that the two women had a complicated relationship. “Hello, Patricia,” I said, offering a hand. She gave it a perfunctory shake, raking me over with a visual examination that ended almost before it began. She was clearly not impressed with what she saw.

  “You know Audrey, don’t you?” she asked Harry. My eyes widened at the name. This was Dmitri’s date of the other evening?

  I gave her a long, thorough visual examination, noting that she was about as different from me as could be humanly possible. Where I was short, had black hair, and was round everywhere, Audrey was tall and slim, with an elegant way of walking that reminded me of a model on the runway, with a touch of ballerina about her graceful hands. Hadn’t Harry said something about the women the Papaioannou men preferred all looking like they were underwear models? That description fit Audrey to a tee. Not only did she have the willowy form of a model; she had shoulder-length red hair, and the sort of face that men swooned over.

  She glided over to shake Harry’s hand while Patricia added, “She’s back in Greece now that all the legalities with her late husband’s estate have been settled.”

  “Never marry a man with adult children,” Audrey said, giving me a polite little nod before she turned back to Harry and added, “They cause you endless grief when it comes to proving a will is valid when they don’t benefit by it. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ha
rry. Patricia has told me so much about you.”

  “Audrey is in town for the bachelor auction,” Patricia said, taking Harry by the arm and hauling her over to the couch. Harry shot me a look over her shoulder, the light of merriment evident in her eyes. I bit my lip to keep from laughing, and followed Audrey, picking up Valentino to sit on the chair where he’d been curled up, snoozing. Audrey claimed the other chair, angling away from me and leaning forward. If I hadn’t been an introvert, and more than happy to be on the fringes of a conversation, I’d have been offended by the way both women had excluded me.

  “Oh, the auction!” Harry made a face. “I forgot all about it what with ... well, family things. It’s ... let’s see ... tomorrow night, yes?”

  “That’s right,” Patricia gave her a little frown. “You are still going to be able to MC it, aren’t you? We can get you a barstool to park your bulk on, but if you don’t think you’re going to be up to it—”

  “I’ll be there,” Harry said quickly. “Iakovos and I always support the children’s hospital, and this seems more personal than just giving them money, which of course we do anyway. I was actually asking about the date because I wanted to make sure that Dmitri would be free to do it.”

  Patricia’s frown grew darker. “Why wouldn’t he be? He’s in town. Audrey said they had quite the time together the other night.”

  “We did,” Audrey said, brushing a nonexistent wrinkle on her dress. “We got along together very well.”

  The emphasis she put on the word “very” didn’t escape me. And judging from the way Harry’s eyes widened, she also heard the implication with which Audrey was all but beating us over the head.

  For a moment, my stomach seemed to turn over, a sick feeling making clammy little tendrils grip it. Dmitri didn’t say what he’d done that night other than spent it thinking about me ... but what if he was exaggerating? I didn’t think he was the sort of man who’d outright lie to a woman any more than I thought he’d engage in sexual acts with a woman one night and a different woman the following, but at the same time, what if he had a nicer time with Audrey than he had wanted me to know?

  “Oh?” Harry asked, her eyes sparkling as she glanced at me. “You guys had an instant rapport?”

  “Very much so.” Audrey looked smug now, sharing a smile with her friend. “We have a lot in common, and clicked on a number of levels. He’s such an interesting man. Very romantic, too,” she said with a throaty laugh that I could never achieve without smoking six packs a day.

  “Is he?” Harry asked before turning to me. “I had no idea. I mean, I’ve known him for more than ten years, but I had no idea he was Mr. Smooth. Would you say that was true, Thyra?”

  I shot her a quick look of both reprimand and amusement. “He’s definitely interesting. But as to romantic?” I thought about it for a minute. “I guess so.”

  “Do you know Dmitri?” Patricia asked, her gaze sharp on me as she gave me another once-over. She relaxed as soon as she’d done so, no doubt mentally comparing me with Audrey, and clearly marking her friend the winner in looks and personality.

  “As a matter of fact, I do.” I didn’t say any more because I didn’t think it was any of their business, and also, I refused to play the “Dmitri is mine” game that Audrey clearly enjoyed.

  Harry covered up a laugh with a cough.

  “Then you will know that he is the sort of man who makes the sort of little gestures that say so much,” Audrey said in a tone that implied she didn’t believe a word I was saying. “I find that infinitely more gratifying than a man who talks the talk without following through.”

  I just smiled but said nothing, refusing to be baited.

  “Weren’t you going out with him tonight?” Patricia prompted her friend, obviously hoping to score some points against me by showing me that Dmitri was far more interested in Audrey than me.

  I thought of asking Dmitri if that was true, but remembered how he’d woken me up that morning, his hands and mouth and various other body parts making sure we both started the day with silly grins plastered all over our respective faces.

  He couldn’t do that if he was pining for the redheaded underwear model.

  Audrey gave a little moue. “We were, but he had to cancel. I’ll be seeing him tomorrow, though, before the auction.”

  “It’s a good thing your husband’s estate is settled, since I’m sure there will be quite a few people bidding for him at the auction,” Patricia told her with a smug smile. “But I have a feeling you won’t let anyone outbid you.”

  “Speaking of that,” Harry interrupted with a bright smile. “When I asked about the bachelor auction being tomorrow, I wasn’t checking just to see if Dmitri would have time for the event.” Harry pinned me back with an unasked question, clearly asking permission. Although I hadn’t intended on telling anyone what Dmitri and I were going to do, since it wasn’t going to be a real marriage, for some reason that I refused to look at too closely, I itched to take that smug look off Audrey’s face.

  I gave Harry a little nod. She beamed.

  “Oh?” Patricia shot a suspicious glance from Harry to me. “What do you mean?”

  Harry’s smile grew even wider. She clearly took a whole lot of pleasure in saying, “I wanted to make sure that Dmitri would still be a bachelor then. But it won’t be until Thursday that you guys are getting married, right, Thyra?”

  “Married?” Audrey squawked, staring at me in abject shock and no little amount of disbelief.

  Patricia narrowed her eyes at Harry. “What’s this? Since when is Dmitri getting married? I haven’t heard anything about it, or about”—she gestured toward me—“her.”

  “The princess, you mean?”

  “What princess?” Patricia asked, now in a full-fledged glare at Harry.

  Audrey looked stunned for another few seconds; then her eyes also narrowed, but I was the target of her ire.

  Harry adopted an astonished expression that had me biting back laughter. There was a wicked sense to her humor that made me feel like we would be good friends. “Oh, that’s right, I didn’t introduce you properly. Ladies, may I present Her Serene Highness Princess Juliane of Sonderburg-Beck, although she prefers to be called Thyra. Dmitri and Thyra are going to be married on Thursday.”

  “But ... Dmitri ...” Audrey went from a confused stammer to anger. “I see. Naturally, you will understand that I’m more than a little startled by this news, given our date the other night, and how well we got along, and the things he said. ...” She let the inference hang in the air. Once again a little doubt spiked me, but I quelled it. She was just trying to save face. Dmitri wasn’t the sort of man to two-time anyone.

  “They haven’t made the engagement known,” Harry said blithely, and at her words, a chill gripped me.

  “No, we haven’t, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it,” I said quickly, the sudden image of Kardom making my blood turn cold. If he knew I was going to be married in three days, he’d redouble his plans, going to who knew what lengths to stop it. I had a horrible image of him attacking Dmitri, my stomach turning over again at the thought of him being harmed. Or worse.

  “Why?” Patricia asked, her expression hard with suspicion. “Why don’t you want it known?”

  I stared at her, unable to answer her, my mind too filled with thoughts of Kardom kidnapping me again.

  “Because she’s a princess, of course,” Harry said after a very long few seconds. “Do you think the press would let her wedding to a local man go without a big hullabaloo? They want their wedding to sail under the radar of press and society until it’s a done deal.”

  I shot her a grateful glance. “Yes, it’s important to us both that we have a simple wedding, with just a few friends and family.”

  “How very ... quaint,” Patricia said with a meaningful look at her friend.

  I sat uncomfortably for the next ten minutes while Patricia, ignoring me, went over Harry’s role at the charity auction the following e
vening. “It’s too bad we lost Theo to that American, but I’m sure Dmitri will fetch a large sum,” she said before rising. “I know Audrey plans on bidding for his services.”

  “Services?” I couldn’t help but ask, wondering just what sort of an auction this was.

  Audrey smiled at me, showing what I thought was more teeth than necessary. “All the bachelors have volunteered to donate twenty-four hours of their time to whoever wins the auction for them, the time to be put to whatever use the winner chooses. I have some amusing things for Dmitri and me to do for the entire twenty-four hours.”

  Harry slid me a questioning look, clearly wondering how I was going to react to such a blatant statement.

  I stood up, as well, and laughed so loudly I woke up Valentino from where he was snoozing in a patch of sun on the carpet. “You ...” I was so amused at the thought of the look on Dmitri’s face when she asked him to do something sexy, like prance around wearing nothing, that tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes. Mindful of how rude I was being, I made an effort and got a grip on myself, wiping my weeping eyes when I straightened up and faced Audrey. “You can sure try,” I finally managed to get out, but not without my lips twitching a few times.

  She snarled something quite rude in French, then excused herself, telling Patricia that she’d wait for her downstairs.

  “I’m so sorry,” I called after her, still wiping my eyes. “No offense intended! You kind of hit my funny bone with that comment.”

  She said nothing, just marched out of the apartment, all righteous indignation.

  “Well,” Patricia said, giving me a scathing look. “You may be a princess—if, in fact, you are, since I’ve never heard of a place called Sonderburg-Beck—but you certainly have the manners of a pig.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” I said, sniffing back the running nose that inevitably accompanied tears, even those of hilarity. “I didn’t mean to laugh quite so hard at your friend, and for that, I apologize. Although, hoo boy, I haven’t laughed that way in a long time.”

  “I know all the royalty in the area, and I’ve never heard of you,” she continued, narrowing her eyes.