Lone Star Prince

by Cindy Gerard

  “We’ll see each other again, soon,” she had promised William, forcing a lightness in her tone for his benefit. “Momma has some business to take care of with Grandfather and Grandmother. Gregory will take good care of you. You’ll get to ride Bea. And play with Tito and Cosmo. I’ll call you every day, and you can tell me about everything you’ve done.”

  They hadn’t told William that Gregory was his father. The time was not yet right. Neither had they talked about when she would return, if she would return, how they would share their child. She only knew she couldn’t bear to deprive William of his father any longer—just like she knew she couldn’t live without William forever, either.

  Her decision to leave so abruptly had been prompted by Gregory’s actions. She had done what she could do to make amends, but her duplicity had fostered the return of his cold, distant disdain. She accepted and understood his reaction. Had been prepared for the loss of his love.

  But not for the pain. She’d known then that there was nothing to keep her in Texas. Nothing but Gregory, who she loved more than life, the twins, who she loved like her own, and her son, her beautiful precious child, who she could no longer deprive of his father and the chance to have the kind of normal life she and Sara had never known.

  In resigned silence, she stared out the window as the coastal seaport of Obersbourg, hugged by the blue-green water of the Mediterranean, came into view. The knots in her stomach clenched into tight balls of dread at the prospect of facing her parents. Yet she’d made her choice—if it could be called a choice. No one could understand—especially Gregory—the ties that bound her to her country. No one could understand the inescapable fact of her heritage. Obersbourg was her obligation. Its people, her responsibility. Just as William’s happiness was her responsibility.

  She would do it again. No matter how badly it hurt, she would sacrifice everything to insure he experienced this chance at normalcy. Even though her heart had broken when she’d left him. She would not subject William to her parents’ rule again. She would not allow the vivacious, precocious four-year-old she had always longed for him to be, turn back into a shadowy shell of a child.

  The jet shuddered slightly as the landing gear dropped into place. She stared, unseeing, at the palace turrets lording above the city, refused to consider that she’d had any choice but to return. A return that had cost her everything.

  Two words ran repeatedly through her mind as the earth seemed to reach up and meet the sky as the jet dropped, leveled, then kissed the runway in a smooth, effortless landing. Love and duty. It all came down to those two ultimate tests.

  All that she loved, she had left behind in Texas.

  All that was duty, she faced when she set foot on the tarmac in Obersbourg.

  She unbuckled her seat belt, gathered her composure, and rose to her feet.

  The first person she saw upon arrival at the palace was Royce. Her kind, faithful butler, Royce. She’d missed him. Missed only him, she acknowledged, and felt a small flicker of warmth trickle into a heart that had felt like ice since she’d left Texas behind.

  As the limo door swung open and she approached the grand staircase of the ornate but slightly tarnished splendor of the palace, Royce was the one person she was glad to see. Not her cold, uncaring parents, not her designer clothes and heirloom jewels, not the cars, the glamour, her personal chef, but her butler. Not because he was her servant, but because he was her friend. He knew and understood all that she and Sara had endured.

  Royce was the son of a baker who had visited the palace as a little boy and decided it was where he wanted to live. That had been almost fifty years ago. And during his years of service, he’d been more parent to her than servant, more friend than subject. It had been Royce who had kissed her boo-boos when she was a child starved for affection, Royce who had stayed with her, holding her hand during the solitary ordeal of William’s difficult delivery. And it had been Royce who had secreted his cell phone into her quarters and made it possible for her to call Gregory without the fear of the call being traced.

  She could see by the soft smile on his face that, if necessary, Royce was ready to hold her hand again now. She hugged him hard and, with a look, let him know that this battle was hers and hers alone to fight.

  “It’s splendid to see you again, Miss,” he said in his soft, polite way that expressed so much more than he deemed proper for someone in his position to verbalize.

  “I’ve missed you,” she confessed, holding his hands in hers. “And how is the climate in the palace these days?”

  “Frigid,” he answered with a sober look.

  “In other words, business as usual.” She forced a smile to reassure him. “It’ll be all right. I can handle them. I’m ready to handle them,” she added, seeing by the considering look in his eyes that he believed her.

  “King Richard and Queen Caroline are waiting for you in the library.”

  Anna checked her watch. It was 3:00 p.m. “I assume dinner is still served at eight.”

  He nodded.

  “Please extend my regrets to mother and father, but I won’t be meeting with them until then. I want to rest and freshen up a bit first.”

  “They requested that I escort you directly to the library upon your arrival,” he added with reluctance.

  She smiled. “I’m sure it was more of a command than a request but, in any event, I’ll meet with them at dinner. Express my regrets, will you please, Royce?”

  Reading the determination in her eyes, sensing her newfound sense of confidence, Royce smiled, delighted with her blatant act of rebellion. “It will be my pleasure, Miss.”

  King Richard and Queen Caroline were quietly seething when Anna entered the family dining room at precisely 8:00 p.m. She hadn’t realized how well she could read them until this very moment, when faced with their silent wrath.

  They appeared rattled and angry, and to have given in to such raw, uncivilized emotions was, in their opinion, entirely unacceptable behavior for blooded aristocracy. This unexpected insight bolstered the confidence that had been flagging since Anna had made some key phone calls not fifteen minutes ago. Instead of cowing her, her father’s barely controlled rage and her mother’s empty stare only served to strengthen her resolve, lend support for the confrontation to come.

  She sat down without a welcome. Ate without a word, taking note of an underlying fragility veiled behind her mother’s blank eyes, discovering what she had never before dared to notice. Age had touched her invincible father, although not unkindly. His face, though lined, was still coldly handsome; the gray in his hair, much more than a trace, lent a subtle elegance that he wore as an inalienable right rather than the inevitable mark of time.

  There was no sign that they were happy to see her. Of course, she’d expected none. What she’d expected was exactly what she was getting—their chilled silence, at least until the final course was served and finished. Then, and only then, would she be taken to task for her myriad transgressions.

  What they expected from her, was capitulation. Complete and total. Knowing that they were about to have the priceless Persian rug pulled out from under them when she gave them anything but, added strength to her convictions, fostered a newfound confidence that rode on a fledgling rush of power.

  “Mother, Father,” she said, addressing them in a voice made strong by commitment, “we have many issues to discuss concerning the future of Obersbourg.”

  Two stunned faces acknowledged her insolence with glacial glares. Her mother’s face drained to pale. Her father’s mottled with his rising blood pressure.

  “You dare to assume,” the King accused, his voice carefully modulated to mask an unprecedented loss of control, “that I would entertain any discussion you would deem to initiate?”

  “What I dare,” she assured him, her gaze locked and steady on his, “is to assume my rightful place as my country’s princess. What I dare to assume,” she continued, as her father’s combative stare attempted and failed to bring
her to her knees, “is that your antiquated economic theories and failing commerce practices are robbing our country of the prosperity its people deserve.”

  “How dare you!” he demanded as he rose from the table, tossing aside his linen napkin with an exaggerated flourish.

  “I dare,” she countered, rising to her feet to equalize instead of diminish her power, “because this is my birthright. I dare, because I am of royal blood and because I refuse to stand by one moment longer and watch our sovereignty slip away.”

  “You are responsible for that!” he roared, his face vivid red with rage. “Because of you, Ivan is dead. There will be no marriage, no merging of power. Because of you, Obersbourg is hanging on the precipice of destruction. A seven-hundred-year-old dynasty is facing an end.”

  “Ivan is dead because he was a coward. Seven hundred years ago, an arranged marriage may have been the only answer. Today we need to look toward untapped opportunities, not archaic rituals where fathers offer their daughters as prizes to the highest bidder.”

  His hard eyes bored into hers. “You, my dear daughter, are no prize.”

  Cave-cold silence echoed off the damask paneled walls.

  She’d thought she was immune to the special kind of pain he could administer. She was wrong. But she was not about to let it stop her.

  “And you,” she said, her every word laced with regret for everything that he’d never been, for everything she had ever wanted him to be, “are a man without vision, a man without heart. To recover, Obersbourg needs both.”

  “I suppose you think you are the one who will deliver.”

  “I will, absolutely, deliver. Starting tomorrow. I’ve called a cabinet meeting for 9:00 a.m.. You may attend if you choose, but I will expect either your silence or your support.”

  Before the King could recover, she went on. “Do not force me to end your rule in disgrace. I would not want to have you declared mentally unfit to govern.

  “And do not underestimate me, Father,” she added when his shocked expression relayed he had reeled past disbelief. “I am not the browbeaten puppet who ran from you in fear last August. I returned to Obersbourg because I intend to offer our people the leadership they deserve. Do not doubt my motives or my determination. I will accomplish what I set out to do with or without your support. With or without your support,” she repeated purposefully. “And never forget that I learned how to be ruthless from a master.”

  Neither her mother nor her father appeared capable of speech. She shook her head sadly, turned to leave the room, then stopped long enough to look back over her shoulder.

  “You could have been so much more to me. To Sara and our children. We needed so much more from you. And now, it’s too late. What compassion I have left, is reserved for my people. Do not make the mistake of doubting that, either.”

  Greg scanned an incoming fax, tossed it aside, then rose from his desk to stare grimly out the window. During the last month, he’d moved the bulk of his Pine Valley office to Casa Royale. It hadn’t been that much of a transition. His small office at the ranch was already equipped with computer and fax. All he’d needed was the addition of his files, a few extra phone lines, a scanner and copier and he was in business. He had excellent staff manning Hunt Industries, kept in constant communication with them and was gradually shifting control of several projects into the capable hands of his project managers.

  The relocation was a necessary adjustment on his part to ensure that William felt a sense of security. A sense of home.

  From the window, he could see William and Tito and the ever patient Cosmo, engineering a sprawling network of highways in the huge sandpile he’d recently constructed at the edge of the garden.

  God, how he loved the boy. Loved watching him. Loved discovering how his mind worked. He was a small miracle, an immense source of wonder and pride. That he could have been a part of making such an astonishing source of energy and intelligence was a constant source of amazement to him. That he had missed so much—four years—was a niggling and infuriating source of frustration that fueled an anger and fed a sense of betrayal that had corroded his feelings for Anna beyond recognition.

  Restless, he walked back to his desk, even though his concentration was shot. He wasn’t counting days, he told himself as his gaze darted to a desk calendar framed in brushed chrome. He wasn’t consciously tallying the .forty-two days and nights since Anna had flown out of his life and back to the one that had claimed both her allegiance and her presence.

  “Juanita told me I’d find you here. Brooding.”

  He looked up at the sound of Blake’s voice, crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his leather chair.

  Blake, Josie and the twins had arrived yesterday for an impromptu visit. To meddle, he suspected, on the pretense of worrying about how he was getting along with William. How he was getting along without Anna.

  “I’m not brooding. I’m working. Some of us have obligations.”

  “And some of us recognize denial when we see it.”

  He shot Blake a stony glare—which only prompted a chuckle.

  “What do you want, little brother?”

  Blake hitched a hip on the corner of Greg’s polished mahogany desk. “Just thought I’d catch you up on a little overseas activity—strictly a business update.”

  “Since when have you been interested in international finance?”

  “Oh, since a certain princess appeared on the scene and set the European business world on its heels.”

  Greg didn’t try to deny that he knew exactly what Blake was talking about. It was his business to keep abreast of any opportunities that Hunt.Industries could take advantage of, both domestic and abroad. Under other circumstances he would have been jumping into the thick of the action in Obersbourg like a hockey player diving into a fight.

  “You see this yet?” Blake asked casually as he tossed the latest copy of Newsweek onto the desk.

  He’d seen it. Schooled himself to ignore it now. Yet he knew every detail of the cover photo.

  A Portrait Of A Princess was printed in bold black letters beneath a recent photograph of Princess Anna von Oberland: beautiful, sedate, regal. She sat stiffly on Obersbourg’s royal throne, a diamond-and-ruby tiara atop her golden hair, heirloom jewels glittering at her throat, dripping like tears from her ears. There was a hollow, haunted look about the emerald eyes that met the camera, a stark determination that even the reserved warmth of a smile that held no joy couldn’t conceal.

  In case you missed the article,” Blake went on, snagging the magazine and thumbing through it until he found the page he’d marked, ”I’ll fill you in.”

  Greg pressed steepled fingers to his chin, knowing there was nothing to do but wait Blake out.

  “Here is it,” he said, and began to read.

  “The small principality of Obersbourg, nestled in a picturesque elbow of the Mediterranean and all but obscure for the past seven centuries, has made news this past month when its princess, Anna von Oberland, set the business world on the edge of its collective seats. After seven hundred years of male-dominated rule, the first woman in the history of this tiny country of approximately twenty-five thousand subjects has taken over the reins of power.

  “In an effort to regain her country’s solvency—and in the process avoid its loss of sovereignty to France—the princess has initiated bold and daring business ventures, offering as collateral a treasure trove of heirloom jewels—many of which the princess is wearing in the cover photo—to finance a massive refurbishing of the palace and converting the first two stories into an exclusive gaming casino that, it’s rumored, will reduce Monaco’s famed gambling establishment to the equivalent of a thatched hut.”

  Blake droned on. Greg shut him out. He didn’t need to hear any more. He practically knew the rest of the article word for word. He’d read it several times, picturing the reporter’s graphic description of Obersbourg—picturesque seaport city...breathtaking view of the Mediterranean ... o
ldest ruling family in Europe... the palace’s exquisite gardens, magnificent flowers, private zoo...destined to become the elite haunt of the world’s rich and famous.

  “Hocked the family jewels. Can you believe it?” Blake interjected with a chuckle. “The girl’s got guts, I’ll give her that—she set aside a pride that had kept her country wallowing toward financial ruin for centuries. She’s got a damn good head for business, too, if you ask me.”

  “I don’t recall asking.”

  Blake went on as if he hadn’t heard Greg’s dry comment. “She’s opening up bids for a major aircraft plant to be located on the edge of the city, in another attempt to boost the failing economy. Seems to me we should be getting in on a piece of that action.”

  Greg arched a brow. “We?”

  Blake had the good sense to look sheepish. “I’m a family man now. I figure maybe it’s time I start taking an interest in the family business.”

  Greg snorted. “So now you’re an instant expert.”

  “You’re the expert. When you don’t have your head up your—”

  “What’s going on in here?” Josie poked her head in the door, puzzled to see Blake grinning amiably into Greg’s dark scowl.

  “Just a little business discussion, darlin’,” Blake said, snagging her arm and pulling her to his side.

  Oh, please. Sweetie, what you know about business you could tuck into a button hole and have room left over for a Mercedes.”

  This brought a grinning snort from Greg and a wounded look from Blake.

  “So much for the cherish part of the vows,” he said with a staged pout.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, pecked him lightly on the lips. Darling—you know there are other aspects of your sterling character that I highly cherish.”

  Blake’s grin spread wide. “Oh, yeah. Just last night, you were cherishing the hell out of—”.

  She clamped a hand over his mouth, shot a bright, blinking smile Greg’s way. “We’ll be getting out of your hair now.”