by Shirley Jump
Zeke chuckled. “I do, but I don’t say that too loud ’round these parts. You gotta root for the home team, know what I mean?”
“I do.”
Jake thought of the season tickets to the basketball team that sat on his desk, year after year, used more often by his assistants than by him. Same with the box seats to baseball. For a second he watched the crowd around him, regular working men and women, who roared at each turn in the action.
And he envied them.
They took the time to go to bars and games, to have lives like Will’s. Maybe his friend was right. Maybe it was time to put work aside and live, like he had yesterday.
Except yesterday had been spent with a woman who had been lying to him, who had been hiding a secret the entire time she’d been in his arms. Maybe it was better to stick to work. At least a profit and loss was always written in black and white.
The period ended, and a commercial came on, causing the crowd around the television to break into small groups doing a verbal rehash of the last few moments of play, along with resounding criticism of the refs and the coaches.
“Ah, they’re losing.” Zeke frowned and turned away. “I know how it’s going to end. Badly.”
“Then why do you watch?”
Zeke’s frown turned into a grin. “Because at heart, I’m one of those sappy guys who believes in happily ever after. Just don’t tell the ladies, or they’ll be expecting me to go around with flowers and wine.” He puffed out his chest. “Gotta protect my image as a tough guy, you know.”
Jake chuckled. “Your secret’s safe with me.” He toyed with the beer bottle. “Speaking of women, I took Mariabella Romano to dinner tonight.”
He didn’t add how it had turned out, that he had realized she was leading a double life. From the look on Mariabella’s face earlier, Jake doubted anyone in town knew the truth about her.
Zeke’s jaw dropped. “And she went? On a date?”
“You’re surprised?”
“Our Mariabella doesn’t date much,” Zeke said, then thought a second. “Actually, I’ve never seen her date.”
That would make sense for someone protecting their identity. The question was why. And why she was so fiercely protective of a little town on the other side of the world.
“Things ended badly,” Jake said. “And I was hoping to make it up to her.”
Zeke gave him a little nudge in the ribs. “A secret flowers-and-wine counterattack? Is that it?”
“Exactly.” The one-word lie slid off Jake’s tongue easily. But it tasted bitter.
He didn’t know why it should. After all, she’d been lying to him from day one. He’d opened up to her and where had it gotten him?
Nowhere but distracted from the plans he should be focusing on. From here on out, things between them would be business, pure and simple. He had no intentions of wooing Mariabella Romano for anything other than her location. And that meant using every tool at his disposal.
Including her identity.
“Our Mariabella might not be the wine-and-roses type.” Zeke rubbed at his beard. “You’re going to have to work a little harder, my boy.”
“You keep calling her ‘our Mariabella.’ Is there a reason why?”
Zeke shrugged. “This town unofficially adopted her when she moved here. We took care of her, and she’s taken care of us.”
“Financially.”
“Hell, no. Though what she did for us has brought us up in the dollars-and-cents department. She’s started committees, arranged events, just got us organized and thinking in new ways. She’s been a real leader ’round here.” Zeke took a deep drag from the beer, then put it back on the bar. “Anyway, it ain’t none of my business to be talking about her behind her back. You want to know about Mariabella, you have to do your own homework.”
He had Tim and Darcy doing some of that homework. The type that could be done on computers, with background checks and phone calls. What Jake wanted to do involved a more…personal connection. “I’d like to get to know her better,” he said, “but she’s a tough nut to crack.”
Zeke chuckled. “She is stubborn, I’ll give you that.”
“I do feel bad about how things ended tonight,” he repeated, hoping to work on Zeke’s sympathies, “and if I knew where she lived, perhaps I could tell her in person. If I wait until tomorrow, she’ll be so busy at the gallery, that I may miss my chance.”
Zeke shifted on the bar stool. “I don’t think Mariabella would like me to give out her address.”
“You’re probably right.” Jake signaled for another round. The bartender slid two more beers their way. “Waiting until tomorrow to apologize for spilling a drink on her new dress probably won’t hurt….”
“Oh, boy, that’s a bad one!” Zeke crowed. “I did that once to my first wife, and I was in the dog house for a week! Cost me not one, but two new dresses.”
Jake nodded, and studied his beer. “I suspect I’ll be paying. For quite some time. But I suppose I can make it up to her later. Maybe.”
“First date you say, huh?”
He nodded again.
“I know a lot of us around here sure would like to see Mariabella with a fellow.” Zeke stroked his beard. “And you seem like a nice enough man.”
“My fifth grade teacher will vouch for me.” He gave Zeke a grin, one he hoped built camaraderie.
Zeke grabbed a pen from the bar, then scribbled something on a cocktail napkin and slid it over to Jake. “You didn’t get that from me. But if this works out, I want to be front and center for the wedding.”
Jake’s smile wobbled on his face. Wedding? That was as far from his plans as Pluto was from Earth. “You’ve got it, Zeke.”
He left the Clamshell Tavern, leaving behind a promise he didn’t mean, made to a man he hardly knew. It was business, he told himself.
Then why did something he did every day suddenly feel so wrong?
“He wants me on the next plane home,” Mariabella said. The plane ticket sat on the table before her, bright red and white.
Demanding.
She tucked herself into the chair, the plaid wool afghan drawn tight around her legs, but it didn’t block the stress whispering at her nerve endings. She’d come home from the restaurant, terrified that Jake would come running up her walk, announcing he’d recognized her. Calling out her real name. Calling her Princess.
He hadn’t, so in that area, she was still safe.
Maybe Darcy had gotten her confused with some soap opera star or someone else and the whole incident would blow over. The churning worry in Mariabella’s gut said otherwise.
She’d come home tonight to an overnight delivery truck in the driveway, a driver waiting with a pen in his hand and an envelope with her name on it. Her father had done as he’d promised, and sent the ticket. For a few hours today, she’d hoped maybe her father had been bluffing.
She knew better. Franco Santaro never bluffed. Never joked. He ordered—and he got what he ordered.
“I know what your father has said.” Her mother let out a long breath. “He is insistent this time. But, I will talk to him. Tell him two months will make no difference.”
“You know how he gets, Mama. He won’t listen.”
“He will. He did the first time.”
But her mother’s voice lacked conviction, and Mariabella knew the chances of her father changing his mind had dropped from zero to a negative number. The king had made up his mind—and he expected to see his daughter at Christmas dinner in three days.
“I’ll come home on the next plane,” Mariabella said. “It will make him happy and be easier for—”
“No!” The word escaped her mother in a forceful shout. “Stay where you are until your birthday.”
“Mama…”
“No. Once you come back, you will be trapped in this life forever. You know it, I know it. Take this gift of freedom while you have it. I will talk to him, and remind him of his agreement.” Her mother paused. “Find your heart,
my daughter. You may never have another chance.”
“I already did find everything I wanted, Mama,” Mariabella said, even though the thought giving up all of that made something shatter inside her. “My gallery is a success—”
“Have you found love yet?”
“I didn’t come here for love.”
Her mother tsk-tsked. “The right man could be anywhere.”
Mariabella laughed. “Mama, I’m not ready to get married. I don’t want to get married. I’m happy as I am.”
“Are you?”
Two words, a simple question, and yet they hit a nerve both women knew ran deep. Mariabella Santaro had led a solitary life, much like the Rapunzel of fairy tales, stuck in the castle, not by an ogre or an evil prince, but by duty. By honor.
For Mariabella, dating had always been a disaster. Men made too nervous by her position, or too ambitious by her last name. She hadn’t met a single one who had seen her as just Mariabella.
Her mother, bless her heart, didn’t understand. Franco Santaro had married a woman outside the monarchy, a woman who had not grown up in that steel bubble of judgment. Bianca had been a member of the aristocracy, an approved bride, chosen by his parents, so she would be acceptable, both to the crown and to the populace. Despite the odd beginnings of their marriage, Bianca had fallen in love with her husband, and had been happy for decades.
Mariabella hoped some day to find that kind of happiness, but she had yet to find a man who could see past the crown she would someday wear.
She thought she had, but—
Tonight that had all likely been ruined.
“You need to settle down, Mariabella. You’re getting older,” her mother said. “Promise me, you’ll open your heart, too, while you are in America. And give some man a chance.”
Mariabella sighed. “I’ll…try.”
The image of Jake Lattimore sprang to mind. His deep blue eyes, the way they seemed to pierce through the thick armor she’d built around her true heart. So many times, he’d gotten so close to her, close enough that she could have slipped and nearly told him everything.
If she had, would he have looked at her the same way? Held her, kissed her, the same? Or would he have run from the pressures of being with a royal?
Maybe he had put the pieces together tonight and that was why he hadn’t come to her house. Maybe he’d decided a princess carried too much baggage for an ordinary man to handle.
This was why she didn’t open her heart. Why she didn’t give men a chance. Because once she did, and they knew who she really was, they stopped seeing her as a woman and instead saw her as an object, a crown on a pedestal.
How she wanted to be seen for herself, to have someone look past the exterior and look inside.
“You know the one thing that will change your father’s mood,” her mother was saying, “and bring back the smiling man we all remember?”
Mariabella tried to think of who her mother meant, because as far as she could think back, her father had always been the monarch, stern and judgmental. “What?”
“Grandchildren.”
Mariabella scoffed. “Mama, I’m not even dating anyone. Don’t talk about children, too.”
Her mother laughed. “If you need someone to date, your father is talking about Ricardo Carlotti again.”
Mariabella scowled. “Mama, I don’t even like him. He’s…dull. Predictable as a cloud. Spends more times reading than he does looking at me. He’d be happier marrying a library.”
“Your father thinks he’d make a good match. And,” she continued before Mariabella could interject, “your father would like to see you married before you ascend to the throne.”
“I don’t want to get married. Or ascend.”
Her mother was silent. The former might be an optional choice, but the latter was a foregone conclusion. She was the firstborn of three daughters.
The plane ticket glared at her. Waiting patiently, but with one clear message.
Go home.
“Bella, I did not grow up a royal,” her mother said, as if reading her daughter’s mind, “but because of that, I know what it is like to live an ordinary life. I also know what it is like to become queen, and to see your father’s life as king. I have lived both sides of the coin, and understand your frustrations, your desires. As a princess, you had more freedoms than you’ll have as the monarch, even if it didn’t feel like you did.”
“I know.” She hadn’t had the multitude of state duties, the dinners, the meetings that consumed her father’s days. She’d had the expectations of decorum and a number of events, but nowhere near the total her father attended.
“I want you to live the life I had, for as long as you can, before you’re…laced into the corset of that crown. Don’t get on that plane. Your father can wait two months.”
“He won’t be happy.”
“I know,” her mother said quietly.
“He’s…” Mariabella paused. “He’s never been happy with me.”
“He loves you, cara.”
“That’s not the same thing, not when I’ve never felt loved by him.”
There. The words were out. They weren’t all of them, but they were a large part of what she had been feeling for so many years. For a long time, her mother didn’t say anything, and all Mariabella heard was the crashing of the waves outside her cottage, the hum of the phone line.
“He’s a difficult man. A stubborn one.”
“That does not give him an excuse, Mama.”
Her mother let out a long breath. “No, it doesn’t. I think…he is too much of a king. He forgets to be a father.”
“If that is the kind of queen I will end up being…I don’t want to wear the crown.”
“I understand. But you won’t be like him. You’ll be yourself, Mariabella.”
Mariabella glanced out the window, at the country, and the town, she had come to love, because it was here that she had finally become herself. Neither her father nor her mother seemed to understand that. They saw only duty, not Mariabella’s heart.
“I’ll try, Mama,” she said, the words escaping on a sob. She tried to call the tears back, but they pushed past her reserves, fell down her cheeks and dropped onto the only course of action Mariabella had.
The plane ticket home.
Mariabella said goodbye to her mother. She had no other options left. She had better face that now, before she got any more attached to this place.
She rose, crossing the living room, her bare feet padding across the hardwood floors, then meeting the cool tile of the kitchen.
A small house, a cottage really, nothing much by most people’s standards. But it sat on the edge of beach, and was kissed by the salty air each morning. The cottage held none of the grandeur or servants of the castle, but Mariabella didn’t mind. She loved every inch of the wood frame, the wide pine floors and the white wicker furniture she’d bought herself.
The doorbell rang. Probably Carmen, here to plead her case again about getting Mariabella to hang some of her own paintings in the gallery. Mariabella swiped the tears off her face, then opened the door, expecting a friend.
And got instead Jake Lattimore, with a bouquet of flowers, another bottle of wine and a smile. Not the person she wanted to see, not now, not after the conversation she’d just had. And not after what had happened in the restaurant.
Then she thought of the time in that room in the inn, how he’d looked out over that small town, and seen something similar to what she had seen every day of her childhood. Perhaps he could understand what she felt right now, and realize why she had lied. Perhaps leaning on him could ease the ache in her heart brought on by the thought of leaving.
“May I come in?”
She debated saying no, knew she should say no. She didn’t need to entangle herself in a personal relationship, especially not now. She was leaving, probably in the morning. Her moments of normalcy were over. No sense dragging this out another minute. But oh, how she needed someone’s sh
oulders to lean on, someone to hold her and tell her everything would be fine.
Someone who would make her forget for just a minute, when he whispered her name. Touched her. Kissed her.
“I promise, I only want to talk to you.” Jake extended the flowers forward. “And to say I’m sorry for tonight.”
The fresh scent of white Gerbera daisies, accented with red roses, green kermit poms and holly berries, teased at her senses. An unexpected surge of joy rose inside her. She’d received flowers before—by the truckload, from enraptured suitors determined to win her heart. Once, two wealthy men from Uccelli had gone head to head in their battle to convince Mariabella to go to the annual ball with them. They’d played one-upmanship with flowers, sending so many, the florists in the city had finally begged Mariabella to end the war because they couldn’t keep up with the demand.
She’d opted to go alone, and given each man equal time on the dance floor. And donated all of the flowers to the hospital and nursing home.
But these—these were chosen just for her. They were beautiful in their simplicity. “Thank you.”
“I apologize for my team being at the restaurant tonight. I had no idea they were coming to town.”
Get rid of him. He already knew she wasn’t who she said she was. A day, maybe two, and he’d figure out who she was. If it took even that long. Then he would bring in the media, and the frenzy would disrupt the peace in Harborside. Her friends, her neighbors, would be upended by the constant barrage of questions and intrusions into their lives. Not only would the fabric of the town be destroyed by the Lattimore resort, but the tranquility would also be erased simply because of her presence.
Don’t let the flowers sway you. Or his words. Or his smile.
“Jake, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time,” she said. “And after tonight—”
His gaze lit on the space behind her. “Wow. You surprise me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought you’d be more of a portrait artist. Maybe landscapes. But these…” A smile took over his face. “Amazing.”
Mariabella followed his gaze. Her pulse skittered to a stop. Oh, no. Her paintings. He’d seen her paintings.