by Cindy Gerard
A soft smile lifted one corner of his mouth as he made his way to the bar in the dark, then flipped on a light switch that cast the masculine room in muted shadows and softly glowing light. Bit the bullet, that one had. Big time. He still couldn’t believe that his little brother, who had played secret agent for real, who was the quintessential rolling stone set on gathering no moss, was a married man.
With a crooked smile he reached for a bottle of his private stock of scotch. Not just married, but married and already with a family.
At the thought of the twins, any ease of tension he’d felt knotted tight again. It had only been a week since Blake and Josie had celebrated the beginning of the process that would culminate in their adoption of Anna’s niece and nephew.
Anna. It all came back to her.
Grim-faced, he snagged a shot glass, poured two fingers and tossed it back. The burn of good scotch hadn’t yet cooled in his belly when he heard a door open, then close overhead. The sound of footsteps falling on the back stairs followed.
He’d already set a second glass on the polished surface of the bar when Hank Langley, the ex—special forces billionaire and owner of the sprawling, exclusive gentlemen’s club limped into the room. The leg was bothering him again, Greg noticed with concern sullied a bit by amusement. Since Hank had hooked up with pretty little Callie Riley a few months ago, she’d seen to it that Hank didn’t get much opportunity to antagonize his old war wound. Evidently, he’d snuck his dirt bike out into the hills south of town today, played “dodge the sand dunes” and riled it up some. Greg knew better than to offer sympathy or voice concern. Langley was a proud man, and though it was no failing on his part, Greg knew Hank considered the bum leg a weakness.
Hank took one look at Greg’s solemn scowl and eased a hip onto a tall stool on the opposite side of the bar. “Thought you’d gone home.”
“I had. Now I’m back,” Greg said matter-of-factly, sliding the drink he’d already poured Langley across the bar. “What are you still doing here? Last I heard you’d turned family man—white picket fence and all that.”
Hank flashed a quick grin, lifted his shot glass in salute. “I love that little girl to high heaven, and the word family has never had more meaning to me. But—I’ve lived upstairs for the better part of my adult life. When we moved out of the apartment for good, I left a little piece of me behind.”
“Translated, you aren’t quite ready to give up the old bachelor pad.”
“Translated,” Langley corrected with a wry grin, “I was feeling a need for one last little taste of a life I’d never dreamed I’d be so eager to give up—plus, I was lonesome. Callie and her aunt Manie flew out east for the weekend to visit a sick cousin,” he added with a sheepish grin.
Returning his smile, Greg poured them each another shot.
Langley was quiet for a moment before angling Greg a measuring look. “So... what’s up?”
Greg rolled a shoulder, noncommittal. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Langley nodded, stared at his glass. “Have anything to do with Annie?”
Greg hunched over his drink, considered admitting that these days everything had something to do with Anna. In the end though, he decided against answering at all. Not that it did any good.
“She okay?” Langley pressed, sensing intuitively that Anna was the catalyst for Greg’s nocturnal wandering.
Greg thought of how she’d looked when he’d left her. “Yeah. She’s fine.” It was a bald-faced lie, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“And?” Hank prompted.
Greg shot for a negligent shrug. “And nothing.”
Except for the tick of the walnut-and-brass mantel clock that lorded over the bar, the room sat heavily in silence. Deep shadows played off the rich wood paneling and crown molding of the ultra masculine club that Langley’s grandfather had established nearly ninety years ago.
“Look...you can pussyfoot around the subject until dawn,” Hank finally demanded, his tone making it clear he was tired of shadow dancing, “or you can spit out whatever it is that’s sticking in your craw where the princess is concerned.”
Greg let out a deep breath, worked his jaw.
“Okay.” Despite Greg’s reluctance, Hank wasn’t willing to let it go. “Then I’ve got something to say on the subject. A man with your responsibilities doesn’t drop everything, plan and help finance a mission to tote a royal princess across the Atlantic, set her up as a waitress—a damn waitress of all things,” he interjected as if he could still hardly believe what Greg had done, “and then make me believe there’s nothing going on. You may want to think that whatever you had together is over, but everything you do says otherwise.
“And while you’re thinking about what you’re going to say about that, grab those two bottles, get yourself out from behind that bar and set with me over at that table. If I’m going to be up half the night, I mean to be comfortable.”
That said, he limped over to a walnut table arranged beneath a massive wild boar head and eased into a plush, overstuffed leather chair.
Grinning in spite of himself, Greg snagged his glass, the bottles and joined him. By the time he’d sat down and poured them both another shot, Hank had propped his bad leg on a chair and was tuning up again to ease the way.
“Hell of a deal—what’s happened to her—and to that prince fella. I never did catch the whole story there.”
Greg kicked back, stacked his feet on the table and did some sorting. Facts, he could talk about. “As you already know, Anna’s country is in some financial difficulty, and her parents, the King and Queen of Obersbourg, offered her up as the prize to bail them out.”
“Nice folks.”
Greg’s grim look echoed Langley’s sarcasm. “Real jewels. Anyway, Striksky was power hungry, saw Anna as a plum ripe for the picking and control over Obersbourg as the ultimate reward. When she balked at marrying him, the royal family made her a virtual prisoner in her own palace hoping she’d knuckle under.
“It’s a damn bad deal what happened next. When Anna didn’t come around, Striksky had a royal snit. Went off the deep end. Way off the deep end.”
He paused, lifted his glass to his lips and set it down again. Swirled it slowly on the table top. “I made some contacts, had a stroke of luck and connected with the attorney who handled Marcus Dumond’s estate—Dumond was Striksky’s horse trainer,” he elaborated. “Turns out Dumond was also the father of Anna’s niece and nephew. Ivan found out about it, saw an opportunity to profit and coerced Dumond into signing an agreement that, in exchange for some mighty big money, he’d denounce his paternity.”
He stopped, sipped his drink, shook his head. “Poor bastard. In effect, he signed his own death warrant. His and Sara’s.”
“I don’t understand. And I don’t understand how Anna fell into the mix. If Ivan wanted a princess, why didn’t he just go after Sara?”
“Sara was too wild and willful. Striksky must have figured he’d never be able to control her. But Anna, Anna was always the dutiful little princess—and he had his mind set on her.”
“That still doesn’t explain what Dumond’s paternity disclaimer had to do with anything.”
“The disclaimer cleared the way for Ivan to claim to be the twins’ father, which made them his heirs, which, in Ivan’s mind, increased his leverage over Anna, who became their guardian once Sara was out of the way.
“Yeah,” he said, when Langley’s stunned look told him he’d finally put it all together. “We’ve got some pretty solid evidence that Striksky arranged for their deaths.”
“And with Sara out of the way,” Hank concluded, “he tried to use the twins to get to Anna.”
Greg nodded. “And once he got Anna., he got Obersbourg, which was his ultimate goal.” He grunted in disgust. “Because of that convoluted, tyrannical logic, both Sara and Dumond died, and when the way was clear to claim the twins as his, Ivan had all the license he needed to take them to his little toy country.”
/> “Asterland, or something, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Asterland. Guess Striksky figured if he held the babies hostage, Anna would finally come around to help them and marry him.”
Langley considered his whiskey, then Greg. “So that’s when she called you to come and help her.”
Greg nodded.
“And now the prince is dead.”
Another nod.
“And Annie’s feeling responsible,” Langley concluded, thoughtful. “Poor kid. Losing her sister. Giving up those babies. Having to deal with the mess of Striksky’s suicide. Don’t imagine it’s over yet, either. If the press gets wind of a European prince doing himself in in the middle of nowhere Texas, this place will be crawling with reporters trying to ferret out the reason why.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about that. These blue bloods don’t like scandal. They’ve managed to keep Anna’s disappearance from Obersbourg under wraps to save face.” He let out a disgusted snort. “As far as I know, the coldhearted bastards didn’t even care what Striksky was up to. They just wanted Anna to marry him to bail them out.”
Langley eyed Greg thoughtfully. “At the risk of repeating myself, for a man who claims not to give a damn, sure seems to be a lot of fire in your words where she’s concerned.”
Greg cut him a quick, hard look. “Don’t go looking for something where there’s nothing.”
“Nothing?”
Greg slowly shook his head. “Nothing,” he repeated firmly, then downed the last of his drink.
“Which still doesn’t explain why you went after her when she called you.”
Greg considered his friend, considered an excuse, then opted for leaving as the easy way out. He stood. “Sorry I got you up.”
“Cute little fella.” Langley stared casually at the toe of his boot and ignored Greg’s sudden, pressing need to leave. “That boy of hers. Kinda quiet for a kid, though. Sorta sad, don’t you think?”
Greg fished his keys out of his jeans pocket as a picture of Anna’s little boy—solemn, blue eyes, silent as a whisper—appeared and stayed in his mind. “Hadn’t thought about it,” he lied. “Guess good manners are just bred into him.”
“Royal blood doesn’t breed the boy out of the boy,” Langley insisted, his eyes on Greg now. “He’s too quiet, you ask me. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Don’t know. Don’t want to know. It’s none of my business.”
It was one more lie that felt prickly on his tongue, but he didn’t want to admit that he was concerned, too. Even more, he didn’t want to admit that he’d sensed a sadness in both Anna and the boy that transcended their current dilemma and wore on his defenses like the constant West Texas wind eroded the soil.
“See ya around,” he said, skirting the issue “And if I was to worry about someone, I’d worry about old fools who think they’re young fools and go riling old bones on young men’s toys,” he added with a grin as Langley, rose and limped toward the door to see him out.
“Go to hell, Hunt,” Hank said good-naturedly. “I’m not that old and I can damn well take care of myself.”
“If you can’t, I know one sweet little lady who can.”
“Well, that there is a bona fide fact.” Grinning, Hank slapped Greg on the back. “Now get the hell out of here so I can get some sleep. And think about what you’re doing where the princess is concerned. Think about what you might be letting go of—again.”
That said, he closed the door and left Greg standing outside in the dark.
Hank’s words trailed after him, chased him all the way across town. As he made the silent trip across Royal to Pine Valley, the exclusive private-gated residential community where he’d built his Gregorian-style mansion a couple years ago, Greg couldn’t stop thinking about what Langley had said. Or about the lies he’d told him. The lies he’d been telling himself since he’d gotten Anna’s phone call four months ago.
Anna’s phone call.
That’s all it had taken. One damn phone call and his life had suddenly become one huge lie. He’d spent the last four years trying to get her out of his head. If he was going to be one hundred percent truthful, he’d admit that it hadn’t taken seeing her again to accept that he hadn’t been successful. Royalty was news, and news sold everything from magazines to newspapers. Hardly a week went by that Anna’s face or that of her notorious sister, Sara, wasn’t splashed across the front page of a tabloid, plastered across the cover of a glitzy magazine. So, no, he hadn’t forgotten her, though Lord knew, he’d wanted to. And Lord knew, he’d tried.
He’d been twenty-seven when he’d met her. Even then, he’d been his own man. Born to old Texas money and obscene wealth, he’d been raised in a regimented but loving environment, and while not altogether bucking family tradition, he’d always done things his own way. That’s why, after he’d finished law school, he’d done something as blue collar as enlist in the marines. Not just to test his own mettle, but to impress upon his father that he would make his own choices, call his own shots. It was while he was on his last tour of duty and on leave in Obersbourg that he’d met Anna.
He clenched his fingers tighter on the wheel and reluctantly gave in to the memories of the few short nights they had shared as lovers. In retrospect, he thought, stroking his thumb across the supple leather of the wheel, it had been one of the happiest times of his life.
Until she’d pointed out to him that he wasn’t from her world...couldn’t be a part of it. His memory flashed on the moment they’d parted, him angry, her with tears shimmering in her eyes—and over seven hundred years of aristocracy, wealth and privilege an impenetrable wall between them.
Well, old buddy, he reminded himself as he turned in his drive and hit the remote to open the iron gates that protected his property and his privacy. Just like this security gate, the wall was still there. Would always be there.
Just because she’d breezed back into his life, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t be breezing right on out again. As far as he could see, with Striksky dead, the only thing keeping her in Texas now was her attachment to her sister’s twin babies. And now that she’d given them up to Blake and Josie, she was free of that obligation.
Only he didn’t get the sense that she felt it was an obligation. He’d gotten the sense that giving them up had been very painful for her, even though by all appearances she seemed delighted with the arrangement.
So what part was she playing this time, he asked himself as he parked the truck beside his Mercedes-Benz in the garage. Was she hiding her grief over the loss of the twins or was she relieved to be rid of them?
As much as he’d like to believe the latter, when he finally hit the sheets about 3:30 a.m., he accepted that Josie and Blake had probably been right. They’d told him Anna’s attachment to the twins was strong and that her struggle with her decision to give them up had been heartbreaking to witness even as they had prayed she would agree to the adoption.
It still didn’t change a thing. She was from one world. He was from another. And Royal, Texas, with its common folk and simple lifestyle was a far cry from Obersbourg and life inside the gilded frame of aristocracy.
No matter how well she seemed to have adapted, there was no room in Royal for a princess and her sad little miniature prince. Just like there was no room in Obersbourg for a Lone Star prince.
Still, he drifted off to sleep thinking of a pair of summer-green eyes and the promise he’d once seen in them. He drifted off, wondering if he was wrong, if there actually could be a possibility, however slim, of something as elusive as happily ever after.
The festive sound of Christmas music had been playing nonstop at the Royal Diner since the beginning of the week. Above the music, the tinkle of the little gold bell hanging over the entrance door brought Anna’s head around. Her mind automatically geared up to count heads then gather menus to take to the new table of breakfast customers.
On this bright December morning, however, there was only one head to count. Only one pair of
eyes, as blue as the West Texas sky, unreadable and brooding, met hers from beneath the brim of a coal-black Stetson.
They were eyes she recognized too well. They were eyes that had once mellowed with warmth, once heated with hunger. And subjected to their probing depths, all thoughts of issuing a chipper good morning and taking another order slipped from her mind like snow sliding down Mt. Obersbourg in a sun melt.
“Mornin’ Annie,” Gregory said in that slow, deep, velvet-and-sandpaper voice that had mesmerized her from the beginning.
“Good morning,” she managed, lost in the reality of his presence as he stood by the entrance, backlit by a rope of glittering gold garland and a row of smiling Santas that decorated the windows and door.
It shouldn’t have felt so good to see him again. It shouldn’t have seemed so significant But it was good to see him. And it was significant. Over a week had passed since he’d answered her alarm and shown up a her door. Over a week had passed since she’d made her decision to tell him about William and then return to Obersbourg and get on with her life.
Yet here she was. Still in Royal. Still at the diner, where she no longer needed to hide. Still playing a part because she wasn’t ready to face the reality that was her life. She was stalling for time. Praying for a miracle. Seeing Gregory like this, so unexpectedly, so wonderfully strong and vital and...yet so distant, caused a knot of tension to tighten every cell in her body. Seeing him made her realize there was no miracle on her horizon in the immediate future.
She had to tell him. She had to tell him soon. First, though, she had to work up the courage. His appearance this morning was a glaring reminder that she was running out of time.