Royal's Wedding Secret (2 page)

"All right," she said softly. "Tell me what that means for us."

He started to say something about it not meaning anything for them, but she cut him off with a sharp gesture.

"I am falling in love with you," she said, and when she turned to him, her blue eyes were brimming with tears. She hadn't said the word
love
yet, and when she had thought about it, it was never like this. "What does this mean for that?"

Philip looked stricken, and then he gathered her into his arms. She wished she had the strength to fight him, but just then, it felt so good, too good. She allowed him hold her, and when she felt the faint tremor that ran through his body, she was comforted. He wasn't so apart from her. This wasn't some rich boy's game.

"Dear god, I love you too," he whispered. "But … you must understand. I am the eldest son, my father's heir. There are … expectations. I cannot throw them aside."

Marnie nodded, swallowing the lump that had appeared in her throat. "Then you understand that this is the last time we can do this," she said softly.

For a moment, it looked like Philip was going to argue, but then he saw the look on her face and subsided.

She loved him. There was no question of it in her mind. However, she knew herself and she knew her own worth. She knew what she wanted. Even for a man she loved like she loved Philip—and oh, she loved him with all of her heart—she couldn't let herself be used like that.

It felt as if her heart was ripping in two when he finally let her go. He stood up, and Marnie kept her back turned to him as he dressed. It was somehow too intimate to watch him do that. When they first slept together, the morning after, she had found herself watching him step into his clothes and do up his buttons as quickly and as eagerly as she had watched them come off. Now she couldn't bear to look at him.

When he was fully dressed, he had stood behind her for a full minute before sighing. "Goodbye, Marnie. I am … so sorry I hurt you. I wish I hadn't."

She had spent the rest of the week in a deep depression, and the one after that in a red rage. After that … well, she had other things to worry about and a big decision to make.

At the end, a month later, her phone let her know that there was a mention of Philip Demarier in the news, and it was all about his return to his home country after an extended time in the United States. By then, even if her heart still twisted when she thought of him, she had been relieved.

*

Now

If Marnie was totally honest with herself, she would admit that she thought of Philip far more often than most people thought about their old love affairs. It probably wasn't healthy, but she contented herself that it wasn't as if she was looking back with bitterness. There was some wistfulness there, but she could certainly say that she had moved on. There was some sadness there, but certainly that was natural? She didn't mourn, she didn't pine, and up until five minutes ago, she had thought that the only feelings she had left for Philip were gentle things, sweet and nostalgic.

Then on a windy night in October, he had spotted her from across the room at a poetry reading and she had realized that that was all a lie. When they locked eyes, all of the emotions that they had shared leaped straight to the forefront, and she felt exactly like that twenty year old who was in over her head.

"Marnie?" he asked, and even the way he pronounced her name made her belly turn over. "That can't be you, can it?"

"Of course it can," she said, surprising herself. "I'm New York born and bred. You're the one who's out of place, Your Highness."

He had the grace to flinch at that, but she could tell from the slight curl of his smile that she had amused him.

Now that Marnie was this close to him, she could see that he wasn't quite the young man he had been. He was a year older than her when they had known each other, and now she could see that he was still something of a boy six years ago. He was the same height, but his shoulders were broader, and he had filled out. With a few more lines on his face, he looked sterner, but to Marnie, it only made him more handsome.

"Are you doing well?" he asked, and it struck Marnie how ridiculous it was that they were making small talk in the aftermath of a truly awful poetry reading.

"Don't ask me something like that," Marnie said challengingly. "Ask me something real."

Philip's dark eyes narrowed, and she remembered with a pang that he had never in all of their time together backed down from a challenge, not once.

"Do you think well of me?" he asked, almost formally. "Should I simply say it was good to see you and take off before you decide to dump the salsa over my head?"

His question made her laugh, and she shook her head. "I do think well of you," she said. "Even if we weren't meant to be … yes, I do think well of you and you're in no danger of having salsa dumped over your head, at least not by me."

Philip's smile was as brilliant as she remembered it being. "Good," he said, stepping closer. "Then perhaps you would come out and have some dinner with me. I have a feeling we have a lot of catching up to do."

For a moment, she was twenty again, and there was nothing in the world she wanted better than to step out with a man who made her feel the way that Philip always had. Then her real life crashed through, and she knew that it was an impossibility. She started to flail around for an excuse, but then Cassie, wonderful Cassie who had been silent throughout this entire mad exchange, stepped in.

"Sorry, I'm sure Marnie would love to, but tonight she promised that she would get me home safely."

Philip looked startled, but nodded. "That is … very good of her," he said. "Marnie … it was a pleasure to see you. Here, take my card. If you want to see me again, just call, all right?"

She took the card from him with hands that felt as if they were frozen in ice, and she nodded. At that moment, the owner of one of the local presses flagged Philip down, and Cassie and Marnie made their escape.

"Thank you," Marnie said as they walked down the street. "That was getting strange to say the least."

"No problem at all. I'll do that for you any time, but seriously, what's going on with you and Mr. Kinda European? That was pretty intense."

Marnie took a deep breath and started to tell her friend all about her history with Philip, but her mind was already skipping ahead to her own apartment and the person who was waiting for her there.

When she had gone out this evening for the poetry reading, everything had been so simple.

Now nothing was.

*

When Philip managed to break away from the grasp of a particularly unctuous publisher, he was disappointed to see that Marnie was gone. He hadn't been fooled by her friend in the least. He had gone to enough public functions to know when one woman was extricating a friend from a situation perceived to be troublesome, and he bore her no ill will.

However, when he thought about it, he had to admit that he was stung that Marnie had gone along with it. When he had seen her, he had been catapulted back to that summer he had spent in New York. If he was honest with himself, that was what had set him on the path that had taken him back to New York this very week.

Less than two weeks ago, he had walked out of a dinner with the royal family of Svarta and had turned to his parents with disbelief.

"You cannot be serious," he had said, and his father had frowned.

"She is a perfectly delightful woman," Alexander had rumbled. "She is attractive. What more do you want?"

"I want a great deal more," he had shot back. "If I am to be married, I am certainly not interested in it being to some placid little cow."

"Keep your voice down," his mother had hissed. "She was perfectly polite and kind to you, and the last thing you should be doing is hurting your future wife's feelings."

“Future—? Mother, Father, no. I have nothing but respect for you, but I am not going to marry Johanna. There is no way in hell."

Alexander had stepped up to his son and for a moment, Philip had wondered if they were actually going to come to blows. The older man was still hale and hearty, but Philip matched him pound for pound. The prince had narrowed his eyes, but his father only came close to him, eyes cold as icy steel.

"You have been raised to serve this country," he had said. "And from the time you were a child, you know that part of serving the country would be to marry a suitable woman and to have an heir for the throne. This is not a duty that you can abdicate while still remaining the Prince."

Philip had met his father's gaze without flinching. "Do you think you are going to frighten me with my disinheritance?"

"You are a full-grown man, and for the most part, I respect you as much as I care for you. I wouldn't threaten you, but I will tell you this." Alexander had paused, as if the words that he was going to say were too heavy for him. "I am not threatening you," he had said solemnly. "I am not going to rail at you or try to punish you. You are a man, and the only thing I will say is that your actions contribute to an inevitable result. If you refuse to do your duty, if you will not take up the responsibilities that have been part and parcel of the duty of every Demarier male heir, I will disinherit you. You will no longer be a prince. You will no longer be my heir."

Philip had frozen. His father had intimated that Philip could be disinherited before, but he had never come out and said so quite so bluntly. Philip's first emotions had been an empty grief that he could be so easily ushered out of his own family, and then it was followed with a raw and red rage.

He couldn't trust himself in that moment. If he had continued, he might have said something that he didn't mean, something that was even more disastrous than a disinheritance might be. Instead, he had stared at his parents, bowed abruptly, turned on his heel and had left.

They probably had thought he was going to go to his own home to sulk, or that he was even going to go on a tear through the capital. Instead, he had walked straight up to his own apartments, packed a bag, and had booked a ticket.

Less than five hours later, he had been on a plane bound for New York.

New York had always been a kind of promised land for him. It was a place where he could disappear into the tumult, where cashiers and waitresses rubbed elbows so often with stars and politicians that it simply wasn't worth mentioning anymore.

It was in New York where he had met the first great love of his life, and though he knew that time had passed and the world had moved on, he would have been lying if he said he harbored no hope of seeing her.

He had appeared in New York, and spent some time at the hot spots before he began craving something more sustaining. The poetry reading was dismal, however, and he was just beginning to think about excusing himself when he had seen her from across the room.

His brain might not have known how he was going to react, but his heart had its own ideas. His heart throbbed with a kind of recognition that made him ache, and it was all he could do not to walk over and try to pick up where they had left off.

She had changed, he noticed when he got closer. She was still short, with a fall of hair as black as his and those enormous blue eyes. She was a little curvier as well, but it only made her look more womanly to him. He saw her, and his first instinct was still to plant a gentle kiss on her full lips.

He kept himself back however, and when she looked a little frantic, he had let her go.

Philip woke up the day after the reading feeling more contemplative than he had been before. When he checked the news from home, he made a face to see that his parents had
revealed
that he was taking a trip to New York for family and business purposes. He supposed that telling the press he was running away from a dull-as-dirt future marriage was out of the question.

He skimmed through the society pages, and then with feelings of surprise and fate, he recognized Marnie's name.

Marnie Drake can't be stopped as she heads out tonight to promote her third novel, The Wind that Sustains Us. The prodigy authoress will be giving a talk at Sandhill Bookstore in Manhattan at 7 this evening and signing her new novel shortly thereafter.

Philip debated with himself briefly, and then he gave in. If Marnie didn't want to see him, he would get a book signed by an old flame who had grown into all the promise she had when they knew each other. If she did …

Philip's heart beat a little faster. He told himself that he had to recall his position and hers. If she didn't want to see him, he would be fine with that and move on. Despite that, something in him that felt as if it had been asleep for six years was waking up, and he had no idea what would happen now.

CHAPTER TWO

The Sandhill Bookstore was a gorgeous old building with antique mahogany shelves and an actual crystal chandelier hung high on the ceiling. It covered two floors of books both old and new, and when Philip arrived, it was already filling up with eager fans. He actually had to hustle to pick up Marnie's book, and when he thumbed through it, he was startled to see how much of her came through in her writing. There was something indefinably Marnie about it, and he warmed to her even further.

Philip decided that he didn't want to sit up front, where she might be distracted by seeing an old flame. Instead, he took a seat at the back, where the last stragglers were filling in. It was dimmer there, and he sat waiting for Marnie to appear.

Seated just a seat away from him was a little girl who couldn't be more than five. She was a fey little thing, dressed in a green dress with gold ribbons in her hair. With her dark hair and slim build, she reminded him of some of his cousins' children. Philip wondered at parents who would bring a child to such an adult event, but the little girl seemed to
be content to draw in her large pad of recycled paper, making broad black lines with her stub of crayon.

When she felt his eyes on her, the girl looked up, and to his surprise, he saw that her eyes were as dark as ink. Between the dark eyes and pale skin, she could easily have passed for the child of one of his relatives.