He let out a pitiful chuckle. “No.”
“So then . . . You said heir, which conjures up thrones and kingdoms. Should I address you as Your Highness?”
“Please, no. I’m not royal. I’m just the heir to the throne of the Constantine group of hotels. My grandfather named me as his successor when he passed.”
“Successor. Sounds royal. And hotels are sort of like palaces. Which leads me to ask . . . why didn’t you mention this when you came to dinner? Rich guy who lives in an efficiency flat over the coffee shop—what’s up with that?”
There it was. The very conversation he’d have with Amelia. Inevitably leading to . . .
“My grandfather’s money has only caused me heartache, so I like to keep it out of the introductions.”
“One of those I-don’t-need-or-want-my-money guys. Spoken only by people who have money.”
“Stop being so rough on him, Claire.” Jensen came in, holding two cups of steaming coffee. “Your new boss, Kathy, sent these up. Apparently you’re a bit of a legend now.”
Jensen handed Roark a coffee. Leaned against the wall. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Ready? Oh, right. “It’s not that I don’t like money—of course I like money. It’s just the way people look at you when they know you have money.” He glanced at Claire.
She frowned. “Touché.”
He took a sip of the coffee and felt the heat travel to his belly, fortify him. “And the last woman I loved died because of . . . well, because of me, but also the fact that I have money.”
Jensen set his coffee cup down and crossed his arms.
Roark couldn’t escape it now. He sighed. “I was an assistant manager at one of our branches in Paris—a five-star, with a view of the Eiffel Tower. On the night before I turned twenty-three, I had a party. Invited all of Paris and more—hosted it in the ballroom. Took the cap off the budget.” He blinked hard, looked away. “The place was jammed with guests—most of whom I didn’t know. I’d purchased my own fame and drank it in.”
He still hadn’t pinpointed why he’d needed the adoration of thousands. When he closed his eyes, regret could yank him back to the moment when the screaming began, right after Francesca’s toast. “We’re not sure how, but a fire started on one end of the ballroom. In the chaos of the fire alarm, I got separated from Francesca, my fiancée.”
Claire glanced at Jensen at the word fiancée. Roark took another sip of coffee. “We found her after the fire. She’d been trampled.”
“Oh, Roark.” Claire rested her hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He met her eyes. “It was my party.”
He couldn’t bear to confess the rest—how he’d made a few choices that had landed him on the side of God’s wrath, and the hotel fire only confirmed it. “So I quit. Left the hotel industry, the infamy of my mistakes, and have been wandering around the world since then, trying to figure out how to live with myself.” He set the coffee on his bedside table. “Then I met Amelia. She didn’t see me as broken or damaged or even rich. Just as the guy who made her laugh. Who could speak a couple languages, introduced her to Nutella crepes, and helped her see the world through the different f-stop settings on her camera. I wasn’t the hotel heir who burned down the Constantine Paris, or the grieving fiancé, but a photography bum on holiday. Who happened to be taking the same course she was.”
Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Happened to?”
“That might be a stretch, but in my defense, I was going to tell her. Just not yet. And not until I’d cleared the way with Cicely, Francesca’s sister. The woman Amelia thought I cheated with . . .”
“That’s why you didn’t tell her who Cicely was,” Claire said. “Because then you’d have to tell her the whole story about the fire.”
“Ending with the fact that my uncle wants me to report to the board in two months to ease into leadership.”
“And you didn’t think Amelia would jump at the chance to helm the empire with you?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know. I just knew that I’d had enough of women seeing only the euros attached to my name. Amelia didn’t . . . and then the omission became gaping, and I didn’t know how to bridge it. I’m not sure what to hope now. Especially since she’s already dating someone else. A big guy named Seth?”
Claire’s mouth formed an O. “Right.”
“His family owns Turnquist Lumber, and he’s the heir to his own throne,” Jensen said. “A sort of Deep Haven royalty, as it were.”
Roark winced.
“So when are you going to tell her?” Claire said.
“Tell her?”
“That you’re rich to the third power. You know, ‘very, very, very’? How rich is that, anyway?”
He sighed. “Add a comma for every very.”
The room went quiet as Claire—and probably Jensen too—did the math. Their expressions confirmed the resolve inside Roark. In fact, he doubted that they would hear anything else he said. That was why . . . “I can’t tell her. Not yet.”
“But—”
“No, he’s right, honey.” This from Jensen. “If he tells her, he’ll never know if Amelia loves him for his money or for himself. He has to win her back without the money.”
Thank you, Jensen.
“But with Seth in the way, it does get tricky,” Jensen added. “He has hometown advantage.”
“But Roark has you and me.” Claire got up and patted Roark’s shoulder. “The first thing we’re going to do is get you out of this bed, get you back to our place, and fill you with warm stew, Your Highness.”
“Claire—”
“I’m just kidding. I’m going to call you Caesar instead.”
A guy who just tied the knot with the woman he loved shouldn’t feel like he was choking.
Maxwell Sharpe should definitely not feel as if something dark and lethal had climbed inside his chest, waiting, stalking, ready to devour him.
To gnaw away at his joy.
The feeling had started on their wedding night, at a resort on Isla Mujeres, the Caribbean breeze warm through the window, the waves a melody against the shore, singing into their cottage. In the cool, sweet night air, Grace Christiansen—now Sharpe—slid into his arms and became his wife.
Afterward, as he’d stared at the ceiling, her hand on his chest, her blonde hair splayed out on the pillow, her breathing full and deep, Max wanted to weep with regret.
Thankfully, the feeling had died in the sunlight of the day, in the glorious abandon of their honeymoon, and he’d thought himself free of it. They’d flown back to Minneapolis, and he’d agreed to the impromptu trip north to Evergreen Resort to tell Grace’s family the good news. Or at least he hoped it would come as good news.
They’d eloped. The word sounded like a gong, a thunderclap of doom resounding louder with each mile northward.
But Grace didn’t seem flummoxed by the fact that they’d denied the family a trip down the aisle, a chance to dress up and stand in honor beside them as the couple made their vows. In fact, she thought it might be a relief after the drama of Casper and Raina’s recent news and with Owen still on the run.
Maybe he knew her family better than she did.
Because even though the Casper-Raina-Owen triangle seemed soap opera worthy, it all paled when set against the brutal reality of Max’s terminal future.
A future that played cruel games, because while right now he proved to be the poster boy for health and vitality, playing forward for the St. Paul Blue Ox, one day his body would ambush him, his latent Huntington’s gene striking like a sniper to his future. And sadly, he wouldn’t go quickly and easily either, but mercilessly, one languishing day at a time, while Grace cared for him, watching him suffer.
Yeah, Max had no trouble at all picturing her father’s reaction to the bombshell of their elopement.
Because he could hardly stomach the shame of succumbing to his own desperate heart, falling in love, breaking his own rules, and marrying a woman who would sacrifi
ce her best years watching him die.
His troubles seemed to vanish, however, when they pulled up to the accidental drowning of practically an entire family. Two members had died on-site, and the mother later, at the hospital—leaving behind a little girl who, providentially, landed in Amelia’s care. And was apparently now in the care of Grace Christiansen. Er . . . Sharpe.
“She should be more traumatized than she is, so we’re going to watch out for shock,” said the doctor on call in the ER, where Amelia and Grace had taken the girl on the advice of Kyle Hueston, deputy sheriff.
The girl sat on an examination table in her pretty pink dress, those red ribbons in her braids loose, kicking her skinny legs against the metal and playing a game on Amelia’s iPhone. She hadn’t responded to their questions, although Amelia claimed she’d spoken Russian or something like it at the river. She’d finally found a name for her—written on the inside of her jacket. Yulia.
Amelia sat behind the girl, reaching around her now and again to help with the game. Grace talked on her own phone to Ivy, working out the child’s sleeping arrangements.
It helped that Grace already had Ivy on her speed dial, as her sister-in-law.
“Weren’t Mom and Dad cleared as foster placements last year when they took in my cousin? Don’t you think—? Oh, okay. But temporarily?”
Pause, then, “Yeah, me too. Okay, do your best.”
She hung up. “Ivy talked with Kyle. They found next of kin, a sister in college in Minneapolis. Apparently her parents recently adopted Yulia from Ukraine. The sister is in no shape to take her, so Ivy’s contacting the adoption coordinator, trying to see if we can take her temporarily.”
Max glanced at her from where he leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets. He needed air. “Anyone want water? Or coffee? Chocolate?”
Amelia shook her head, frowned.
He escaped anyway, stalking all the way out into the foyer, then beyond, to the cool, pine-scented night, the stars watching as he pressed his hands to his face.
“Honey? Are you okay?”
See, he couldn’t hide anything from his wife—not his stress and certainly not his regret.
Imagine her hurt when she discovered her groom regretted marrying her. The thought landed like a knife in his chest, and he bit back a cry of pain. He wanted to keep running out into the night but couldn’t when he felt her hand slide into his.
“What’s going on?”
Oh, she was beautiful—looking at him with those blue eyes in the way that could infuse a sort of light into his spirit. He reached out and twined his fingers into her silky hair, aware of how rough and big his hands were. “I’m just wondering how we’re going to tell your family—your overly protective, in-your-face family—that we eloped.”
It had been an impulse, really—birthed after Max’s hockey team lost their play-off round. Grace had met him in the tunnel after the game, wrapped her arms around his neck, and whispered, “Cancún. Let’s do it.”
And with her sweet smell, her soft body against his, her voice like a song in his ear, Max couldn’t deny that he longed, with every bone in his body, to be married to her. To take her in his arms, lose himself in her embrace.
He should have pushed her away, let common sense grab hold. Maybe right now, she saw that in his eyes.
“You have regrets,” she said, taking his hand from her hair, holding it. “But you shouldn’t. You’ve been putting me off for almost a year, and frankly, I would have married you last fall in front of a justice of the peace with a hobo for a witness, so the fact that you made me wait until after the season ended is pure cruelty, mister.”
She lifted her arms around his neck, pulled his head down. “I don’t think I could have waited much longer.”
Then she kissed him, and he was a weak man because he wrapped his arms around her, sank into her kiss. She tasted of the lemonade and salty fries from their stop at McDonald’s, smelled of the lilacs she’d picked in Minneapolis before their trek north. Her body fit perfectly against his, as if she’d been made for him, or him for her, and when he held her, the world dropped away.
Her touch could heal him. Convince him that yes, marrying her had been a gift to him from God to help him endure, the one thing on earth that could make his life worth living.
She leaned back and said, “I need to get inside and see if Ivy’s made any headway with her emergency placement with my parents.”
Her eyes glowed with an unfamiliar shine. Max frowned as he followed her inside.
“I think we’re done here,” the doctor said. “It seems as though your sister-in-law pulled a few strings. The adoption coordinator called and said they would release her into your custody, so she’s free to go with you. Just keep an eye on her, maybe check on her in the night.”
Yulia ducked her head again, her lower lip caught in her teeth as she played with the phone.
“She seems to be coping,” Max said.
Grace crouched before the girl and used a voice Max recognized from when he sank into a surly, defeated postgame mood. “Would you like some ice cream?”
The girl looked at her, wearing a blank expression. Undaunted, Grace straightened and held out her hand.
Yulia hesitated for a moment but then, one hand holding the phone, took Grace’s in the other and let Grace help her off the table.
Grace led her toward the parking lot. “Max, can you follow us? I’m going to ride with Amelia.”
He nodded, watching his wife climb into the backseat with Yulia and put her arm around the child.
A shadow brushed his heart at the sight.
And settled there as he drove north to Evergreen Resort.
He’d always loved the Christiansen homestead: the two-story lodge with the attic bedrooms, the expansive open family room/kitchen with a stone fireplace. The place overlooked Evergreen Lake, with a deck that could host the entire Blue Ox team, and a fishing dock jutting out from shore.
His wife had grown up here, surrounded by a family that had only seemed to grow stronger with the challenges of the past few years. The wildland fire that destroyed the rental cabins. The accident that left Owen—Max’s former teammate—unable to play, and the blowup of his injuries and mistakes that eventually led to the birth of his daughter with a woman now pledged to marry Casper, his older brother. And now, well, Max hoped very much that John and Ingrid would weather the news of their daughter’s elopement.
He pulled into the lot behind Amelia and got out, seeing how Grace clutched Yulia’s hand as they walked to the lodge. “Tomorrow, I’ll bet Nana Christiansen will make you cookies.”
Nana Christiansen?
Grace opened the door, ushered the troupe inside. Max retrieved their suitcases and followed her.
Ingrid Christiansen, her short blonde hair tucked behind her ears, already had Grace in an embrace, the smell of baking—something sweet and chocolaty—filling the air. Max set the suitcases down.
“And Max too!” Ingrid stepped past Grace and threw her arms around his waist.
“Hey . . .” Not Mom. “Mrs. Christiansen.”
“Call me Ingrid, Max. We’ve been through this.” She caught his face in her hands and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
Yeah, he liked Grace’s family. Hopefully, after tonight, they’d still like him.
Ingrid crouched before the little girl. “Are you hungry, sweetie?”
“I don’t think she speaks English, Mom,” Amelia said. “We tried—but she seems to understand Russian.”
“Well, I’ll bet she understands the language of macaroni and cheese and chocolate cake.”
Max had to love Ingrid for her shower-them-with-food philosophy. Yulia followed her into the kitchen and climbed up on one of the counter stools. A plate of macaroni waited.
Ingrid dug around for a fork, found one. “Your father is out at the accident site—they found the family’s car and are towing it to the police station. Darek went home for the night, but I’m sure he’ll bring the
kiddos up tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait to see Joy. And little Layla. How are Raina and Casper?” Grace said.
“Good. Raina is still house-sitting for her aunt, so she’ll stay there for a while. Casper usually drops by after work—but I think he’s itching to go search for Owen.”
Max didn’t look at Ingrid, the memory of his part in the fight that caused the wounds of his angry, prodigal brother-in-law still raking up too much grief.
“I don’t know why Casper’s still working at the Wild Harbor,” Grace said. “After all, with the reward he netted after his last find, he has enough money to spend his time hunting for more treasure.”
“I think he’s just trying to help Ned. You know how he is—always coming to someone’s rescue,” Ingrid said. “Besides, I think he has plans for the money. Something that includes building a home as soon as he can marry Raina.”
Max glanced at Grace, an eyebrow up. Now. Tell them now, honey. But Grace was watching Yulia.
“Poor thing,” Ingrid finally said, pouring the little girl a glass of milk.
“I don’t know, Mom,” Amelia said. “Maybe it’s shock, but she didn’t seem to care who held on to her, just followed the first person who took her hand.”
Ingrid frowned. “She’s probably scared.”
“It could be an attachment disorder,” Grace said. “I’ve read about that—happens with orphans. They have trouble fixing themselves to one person, feeling that bond.”
“Even at the accident site, when they pulled out her parents, she named them but sounded so detached.” Amelia scooted a stool next to Yulia, setting her camera case on the counter. “Can I talk you into some macaroni and cheese for the local photojournalist?”
“Oh, Amelia, did you get the job? That’s wonderful news!” Ingrid went to the stove and returned to the counter with a plateful.
“I don’t know yet, but I got shots not only of the oh-so-exciting Girl Scout Troop 168 car wash, but also the events at the river.”
“The whole thing is so sad,” Ingrid said. “Tourists just don’t realize how dangerous it is to wade in the rivers and creeks. Life turns ugly so fast. Makes a person want to hold tighter to the happy moments. The joy.”
The Wonder of You Page 6