Lucy put up a hand. “No. You’re not doing that. You don’t get to go with me and take care of me, Noah. The whole point is that you have to let me go, let me stand on my own at last, let me make a life that works for me.”
He did turn on Damien then. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. “So what, then? You’re going to take care of her?”
“Of course he’s not!” Lucy cried. “How many times do I have to say it? I’m going to take care of me. Dami’s only going to take me to New York, show me my new apartment, loan me an embarrassing sum of money and then go back to his own life—which, if you think about it, is way more than enough.”
Damien said quietly, “I’ll make sure she’s safe, Noah. I won’t leave until she’s settled in.”
Alice leaned close to him. She didn’t say anything, just held tight and steady on to his hand. Hannah sat silent, too, her brow furrowed.
None of them agreed with him. Not one of them took his side in this. They didn’t know what he knew, hadn’t seen what he’d seen.
He couldn’t deal. Couldn’t take it all in. Couldn’t come up with a way to get even one of them to see the situation as he saw it. He turned to his sister again. Her wide mouth was set, her gaze unwavering. He accused, “You’ll do what you want to do, then, no matter the cost.”
“I have to do it, Noah.”
“That’s a lie.”
Alice chided, “Noah, don’t...”
He pulled his hand free of hers. There was nothing more to say. “This conversation is through.” He stood. “Good night.” And he turned on his heel.
Alice called after him. “Noah. Please...”
He kept walking. He didn’t stop or look back. Through the kitchen, down the hallway to the foyer, up the stairs to his rooms.
He went inside and slammed the door.
* * *
Alice winced at the sound of the door slamming upstairs. She wanted only to go up there, to be with him, to try to ease his suffering at least a little bit.
But it seemed wiser for the moment to leave him alone.
Hannah caught her eye and echoed her thoughts, “Give him a little time....”
Lucy worried her lower lip. “I knew this was going to be awful. I was so right.”
Dami suggested rather sheepishly, “You could always slow down a bit, give the poor guy a chance to get used to the idea that you’re going.”
Lucy shot him a startled glance. “Are you backing out on me now?”
“No. But if you want to think it over a little more—”
“I don’t. We’re going,” she said sharply. And then, more softly, “Please?”
Dami shrugged. “Well, that settles that.” He stood. “Allie, a few words, just the two of us?”
Alice got up and followed him out to the loggia.
“You probably don’t believe this,” he said when they were alone in the cool autumn darkness, “but I’m honestly not the least happy about causing all this trouble.”
“So, then, why are you doing it?”
He stared off toward the garden. “I’ve seen her designs, and she’s shown me the clothes that she’s made. She’s so talented. It’s wrong to hold her back.”
Alice phrased her next question with care. “I have to ask. Lucy says you’re her friend and nothing more. I’m going to be backing both of you up with Noah after you go. If the two of you are more than friends, I need to know the truth.”
Dami groaned. And then he swore. “How can you ask me that? Lucy’s very sweet. But she’s like a child. I’ve never been attracted to the wide-eyed innocent type.”
“She’s not a child, Dami. In many ways, she’s quite mature.”
He stuck his hands into his pockets and cast a glance at the distant moon. “Please. I swear to you on my honor as a prince of the blood. Luce and I are friends. That’s all.” Alice had known him all her life and she could tell when he was hedging. He wasn’t. Not this time. “Peace?” He held out his arms to her.
Alice accepted his embrace. When she pulled back, she said ruefully, “I only wish Lucy could have found someone else to come to her rescue.”
Dami made a low ironic sort of sound. “Her options were limited. And for more than a year she’s been trying to get Noah to give her a little independence. But he’s been locked up tight, absolutely sure something awful will happen to her if he lets her get out on her own. In the end, I couldn’t not help her. She’s got a fine opportunity and she doesn’t want to let it slip through her fingers. She has to make the break.”
Alice wrapped her arms around herself against the slight chill in the air. “Noah might never forgive you. He might never forgive any of us.”
“I think you’re wrong. He loves his sister. When push finally comes to shove, he’s going to accept that Luce is a grown-up and that she’s also fully recovered after that last surgery she had. He’ll realize that he doesn’t have to take care of her anymore. He’ll see that her leaving was the right choice.”
Alice blew out a hard breath. “All right, he’ll forgive Lucy. But will he forgive you?”
“I think so.” Dami grinned then, that charming world-famous grin of his. “He’ll want to get along with me. After all, I’m going to be his brother-in-law.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “I haven’t said I’ll marry Noah.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face when you look at him. And even tonight, with all hell breaking loose, it was obvious every time he glanced your way that he’s found the woman for him.”
I hope you’re right, she thought. But she decided not to say it. As soon as she did, Dami would ask her why she sounded doubtful. And then what would she say?
That she loved Noah but she hadn’t told him so, that for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words? That he kept his heart carefully separate at all times. That he wouldn’t take her to the place where he’d grown up and that made her feel that she didn’t really have his trust.
She wanted to confide in Dami now, but the timing was all wrong. He’d come to take Noah’s sister away. He was in much too deep already. He didn’t need her crying on his shoulder, revealing things she ought to be discussing with Noah.
Dami took her hand and wrapped her fingers around his arm. “We’d better go in before Luce gets herself into any more trouble.”
They returned to the family room, where Hannah and the two bodyguards waited. Alone.
Hannah sent them a smile that was both wise and weary. “Lucy went upstairs. She said if you two could talk things through, she probably ought to make an effort to work it out with Noah.”
* * *
Noah expected Alice’s soft tap on the door. His pride jabbing at him, he started to bark at her to leave him alone. But his heart wouldn’t let him do that.
She infuriated and challenged and thrilled and bewildered him by turns. He was angry at her for not having his back with Lucy, for going so far as to keep crucial information from him. She damn well should have told him about that phone call she’d overheard.
And yet at the same time, in a deeper sense, he knew with absolute certainty that she did have his back.
From the first, she’d confused the hell out of him. And she continued to do so.
The soft knock came again.
He left off staring blindly out the sitting-area French doors to go and let her in.
But it wasn’t Alice.
It was Lucy.
His gut tightened at the sight of her standing there. “What?” He pretty much growled the word at her and then instantly wished he could call it back.
Lucy surprised him. She refused to let his gruffness send her off in a huff. She stared up at him with her lips pressed together and her eyes full of hope and anxiousness. “Look. You’re my br
other. I love you so much. And you saved my life. Repeatedly. I know that. I get that. I wouldn’t be here without you. I owe you everything. I owe it to you to do something with this life I have because of you. I know you’re afraid for me and you only want the best for me. I just need you to understand that my going is the best thing for me. So please, please, can’t you just give me your blessing? Can’t you just let yourself be okay with it? Can’t you just...let me go?”
Let her go....
As he’d had to let their dad go, and then their mom? No. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it....
“Please, Noah,” she said again. “Please.”
And the strangest thing happened. He looked into her upturned face and he saw the naked truth.
He’d lost the damn battle. She was going. He could get with the program and help in any way she would let him—or he could let his pride win, turn his back on her, shut the door in her face.
And then never be able to forgive himself if anything actually did happen to her if she felt that she couldn’t call him for help because he’d sent her away in anger.
He went with the truth instead of his pride. He gave in. “Lucy...” He let his pain and his love for her show on his face. In his voice. “All right. Yes. I get it. You need to go.”
“Oh, Noah...” All at once her big eyes brimmed with tears. “See, I knew it. I did. I knew you would come through for me in the end. Because you always do.” She threw herself against him.
He caught her and wrapped his arms around her good and tight. She smelled like cherries and Ivory soap and that made him want to hug her all the harder. “Just...be okay, will you? Just stay safe.”
“I’ll try. And if I ever get worried I’m not going to make it—”
“You’ll call me. I’ll be there.”
“I promise, Noah. I will.”
* * *
Alice hoped against hope that Lucy and Noah would come back downstairs together.
She got her wish.
Brother and sister appeared arm in arm and Lucy announced, “It’s okay. We worked it out.”
Dami said, “Wonderful.” He offered his hand to Noah.
And Noah took it. “She still insists on going with you in the morning, but I’ll handle her expenses.”
“Fair enough.”
Then Noah led Lucy away to his study to write her a check, explain about how he would arrange to give her early access to her trust fund, and no doubt provide endless and detailed instructions on any number of important subjects.
Hannah excused herself. Dami and Alice told their bodyguards to call it a night. They sat and chatted for a while about the family, about the goings-on at home. But Dami kept trying not to yawn. Finally, he had to admit he was jet-lagged. He said good-night. He and Lucy would be leaving before dawn.
Alice lingered in the family room, hoping Noah might finish giving last-minute advice to his sister and come and find her. She was feeling a little unsure.
Was he still angry with her for not taking his side about Lucy’s leaving? It made little sense that he would be. He’d ended up accepting the inevitable after all. But then there was the phone call she’d overheard. He’d seemed pretty put out with her for not telling him about that.
Seriously, though. At this point, he should be over that, too. Shouldn’t he?
She had no idea if he was or not. And it bothered her. A lot.
Everything had happened so fast at the end. Noah had whisked Lucy off to his study without so much as a glance in Alice’s direction. Just a look or a quick squeeze of her hand would have done it, let her know that he’d forgiven her, too.
But then, maybe he hadn’t.
The minutes dragged by. Hannah asked her if she’d like some tea or a snack. She almost asked for a vodka tonic—and to make it a double.
But drowning her doubts about Noah in alcohol was no kind of solution. She told Hannah good-night and went upstairs, where she considered calling Rhia and decided not to. It would be seven-thirty Sunday morning in Montedoro.
Alice settled on a bubble bath, heavy on the bubbles. The suite had a nice big tub. She filled it and lit the fat white candles waiting on the rim. Then she undressed, pinned her hair up and sank gratefully into the fragrant, bubbly heat.
It felt so good she closed her eyes and drifted. She tried to forget her worries about Noah, to be happy that what had started out so badly had ended up with Lucy and Noah reconciled and Lucy gaining her freedom at last.
“You look so tempting in that tub I could almost forgive you for not telling me about Lucy’s plans....”
Noah.
He might be mad at her, but he had come to find her. Her pulse pounded swift and hard under her breastbone. Even in the scented heat of the bathwater, goose bumps prickled across her skin.
She let her eyelids drift open. He lounged against the door to the bedroom, watching her, still fully dressed in the tan trousers and knit shirt he’d worn that afternoon.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you to knock before entering a woman’s private space?” she asked him lazily, waving her hands in a treading motion under the water, enjoying the heat and the wet and the feeling of floating.
Not to mention the look in his blue eyes as he watched her. She could stare into those eyes forever and never get bored. A heated thrill of pure anticipation shivered up the backs of her knees.
He undid his belt. It made a soft whipping sound as he pulled it through the loops and off. “I knocked. You must not have heard me.”
“But that’s the point. If I don’t answer, you don’t get to come in.”
He reached over his shoulders and got hold of the back of his shirt, gathering it in his fists the way he always did, pulling it over his head and tossing it aside. “I wanted to see you.” He really did look much too amazing with his shirt off. She admired the depth and breadth of his chest, the power in the muscles of his long arms, the hardness of his belly. And the gold hair in a T-shape, trailing on down to heaven.
Hair dusted his forearms, too. She liked to rub it, just run her hand lightly above the surface of his skin and feel the silky, subtle brush of it against her palm.
What were they talking about?
Right. She was getting on his case for coming in without her knowing. “Still, you shouldn’t have.”
He undid his trousers and ripped the zipper wide, slanting her a devil’s glance as he did it. “Do you want me to leave?”
Her breath came a little shaky. “No. Stay. Join me.”
The corners of his mouth curved up and the blue of his eyes grew somehow deeper. Darker. A bolt of heat zipped along her spine, sharp and sweet, pooling in her belly, spreading out slowly like honey in a spoon.
“Happy to oblige.” He shucked out of his shoes, lifted one foot and then the other to yank off his socks.
“Lucy all set, then?”
He straightened, barefooted, bare chested, still wearing the tan trousers, though his fly gaped wide, revealing silk boxers beneath. His eyes had changed, gone darker still. There was still heat in them, but there was anger, too. “As set as she’s going to be. And I mean it. You should have told me about the phone call.”
Alice sat up and shook her head. “I made the right choice on that. You won’t convince me otherwise, won’t make me feel guilty. Lucy’s not only your sister. She happens to be my friend, too. That phone conversation was between her and Damien. I shouldn’t have listened in. But then when I did, the only right thing to do was to keep what I’d heard to myself.”
His gaze tracked her eyes, her lips. Lower. “You’re distracting me, all those wet bubbles on your shoulders, shining on your breasts, sliding down over your nipples....”
She leaned back again, resting her head on the tub rim, letting the bubbles cover her. “Better?”
He made a low sound in his throat and shook his head. And then, swiftly and ruthlessly, he shoved down his trousers and kicked them aside. The boxers followed, down and off. He was fully aroused.
And that turned her on. He turned her on.
A lot.
The man was pure temptation—and she’d known it from that first day. From the moment he raised his golden head and met her eyes.
Oh, yes.
Temptation. Coming to get her, to stir everything up—her body, her mind, her heart. To lure her from her home and her horses, to wreak havoc on the careful, well-behaved existence she’d been trying to make for herself after the Glasgow incident.
He came to her then, covering the distance between the door and the tub in five long strides, stepping in at the opposite end and lowering himself slowly until the bubbles covered the proof of how much he wanted her.
His leg brushed hers under the water. She felt his foot sliding along the inside of her calf. And higher. “All right. I forgive you for keeping that phone call to yourself.”
She suppressed a low moan of pleasure. “I would prefer if you admitted that I did the right thing.”
He regarded her lazily. “Sit up. Let me see your breasts again. You can probably get me to admit just about anything.” Something in his voice alerted her.
Something ragged. Raw.
“Oh, Noah...” She did sit up.
“Alice.” He said her name low. Rough. And he reached for her.
She went to him, up on her knees between his open thighs, bubbles and bathwater sliding between her breasts and over her belly. Capturing his face between her two hands, she gazed down at him, into his seeking eyes. “What is it?”
He searched her face as though she held truths he needed to find. “Tell me that I did the right thing tonight.”
She lowered her mouth to him and kissed him. Soft. Slow. Up close, even beneath the floral fragrance of the bubble bath, she caught his scent: sunshine and that aftershave she loved. He tasted of mint. “You did the right thing,” she whispered. “Absolutely. The true thing.” She kissed him again. “And Lucy is ready. She’s going to be fine. Watch and see.”
HOW TO MARRY A PRINCESS Page 16