Something in the Heir (It's Reigning Men, #1) (18 page)

Adrian stopped and pulled her closer. “You are not a loser, Emma. Teddy is the loser. Or was the loser. I don’t know if he’s lived to be a better man. If anything, you were the winner for not having been stuck with the likes of him.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Absolutely. It’s all a matter of perspective. When someone imposes something bad on you, that isn’t a reflection on you —it only looks badly on them. I don’t doubt that it hurt your feelings but to let it change your mind about every man out there seems nuts.”

“Nuts, eh?”

“Indeed. In fact, I think you should make up for it by skinny-dipping with me.”

“Skinny dipping? Are you mad? In case you didn’t get the memo, it’s Christmas time! That water would kill you in about two seconds.”

“Um, hate to disagree with you, Ems, but what about the Polar Bear Swim?”

Caroline and that big, fat, oversharing mouth of hers.

“First a guy named Teddy. Then a polar bear swim?” Darcy asked. “You got something for ursines?”

“No, I have no bear fixation. But yeah. Emma and I did a polar bear swim when we were in college. We came down here over New Year’s, and on New Year’s Day we joined about fifty other brave souls and took the plunge.”

“You took the plunge and you didn’t die, then?” Adrian asked, chuckling. “And it’s even colder in January.”

“As a matter of fact it was quite refreshing. Especially considering the hungover state we were in.”

“Hungover, were you?” Adrian continued. “In that case, I’d say it’s practically expected of you as a host to show your guests a good time. If you can do it half-drunk in the dead of winter, with a bunch of strangers, then surely you can with your good friends. On the count of three.”

Adrian began to peel off his clothes, with Darcy hot on his heels.

Caroline soon joined in, wincing at her friend’s lacerating glare.

“When in Rome?” she said, shrugging.

Before she knew it Emma was surrounded by three naked people, who were encircling her and taunting her to not be a weenie. And while Emma wasn’t one to succumb to peer pressure, she had to admit the circumstances were a little unusual. It’s not every day you had a future king and his right-hand man both naked as the day they were born, demanding that you strip your own clothes off for the cause.

“Oh, all right. Fine,” she said as if someone was persuading her to eat Brussels sprouts against her will. “But when we did it last time, at least we had bathing suits on to keep us warm.”

“No worries, darling,” Adrian said. “You’ll have me to keep you warm.”

“He clearly hasn’t considered he’s going to be awfully busy keeping a certain part of his own self warm,” Caroline said.

Emma started to laugh and Adrian helped lift off her sweater and unzip and pull down her jeans. ‘Now we’re talking.’ He gave her a thumbs-up, and she couldn’t help but feel she was swimming against the tide. In very frigid water.

The four of them held hands along the shoreline and counted to ten, and ran as one to the ocean.

“Bloody hell, it’s
freezing
,” Darcy shouted, gasping as he hit the water.

The girls just screamed and squealed. Adrian was the only one to dive underneath a wave, and came up shouting.

“If only the queen could see you now,” Darcy said, laughing.

“On so many levels it would not be good,” his friend said. “But that’s what’s so perfect about this. I’m me. Doing my thing. Without rules, without a palace, without bodyguards. I’m free!”

And it was then that Emma really understood how much fun it might not be to be owned by the state, or a family, or whoever it was who might impose their unacceptable standards on you. And to truly appreciate that she had the freedom to live as she pleased, even if she made stupid mistakes, like skinny-dipping in the Atlantic Ocean in December.

“Uh, guys, I don’t know about you, but things are starting to turn numb on me,” she said.

Adrian came up to her and pressed his ice-cold flesh to hers. “Then let’s warm you up.” He rubbed her body with his arms and pressed himself against her so they were sandwiched as one. And then he leaned forward and kissed her, hard, pulling her mouth toward him and kissing her as if it was the most important thing he could do in the world.

And at that very moment, Emma knew she only wanted to be a part of whatever this thing was. Even if it couldn’t ever go anywhere, at least she had the chance to live it while she could. It no longer made sense to live now for what might happen later. How stupid was that? She had a hot (well, cold) naked man in front of her at this very minute who wanted only her. Who was she to decide that was a bad idea?

When they came up for air, the two of them looked to their right, to see that Darcy and Caroline had made it to the wet, hard-packed sand along the shoreline and were rolling around in the sand like a couple of very happy canines.

“So much for Caroline playing hard to get,” Emma said as the freezing waves crashed against them. “I don’t know about you, but I need to warm up. You’re doing as fine a job as possible under the circumstances, but I think body heat plus some warm clothes, maybe a fireplace, and absolutely no ocean water involved, is in order.”

“Only as long as you promise I get to sleep in the pink palace tonight,” Adrian said.

“Well you’re not sharing my folks’ bedroom,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Come on, let’s warm up!”

They wedged their cold, wet bodies into their clothes, even though clothes never seemed to want to go on over wet skin. Caroline moaned and complained that she was perfectly fine warming up the way she had been just minutes earlier, despite a near-Siberian wind chill factor.

“Yeah, well you two can warm up at the Loggerhead Inn,” Emma said. “I presume you’ll be able to get some extra blankets, being that you’re the only guests.”

“Heh. We won’t need blankets to keep us warm,” Darcy said, giving Caroline
that
look. The one that would have made Emma roll her eyes, except she had the very thing on her mind, with one slightly bedraggled but nonetheless quite handsome prince.

“I just thought of something,” she said to Adrian. “I can call you the Prince of Tides, now that we took our ice plunge into the Atlantic. Get it? Tides? Ocean?”

They all roundly booed her bad joke, and Adrian simply urged her to get a move on it, heat blasting, as they dropped their friends off at the hotel.

Except that as Darcy and Caroline were about to get out of the car and their friends speed away in anticipation, Darcy’s text dinged. Make that Adrian’s text dinged, in Darcy’s pocket.

Darcy and Adrian groaned in unison.

“Please, no,” Adrian said as Darcy pulled out his phone and looked at the message.

“Oh, boy. You’re going to love this one,” he said to his friend and began to read:

“Adrian, it’s me, Serena. We need to talk. It’s sort of urgent. Name the place and I’ll be there. I can’t wait a minute more.”

T
hey
were faced with an awkward dilemma, starting with what the bloody hell would Adrian say to her? She was no doubt going to tell him how desperately she wanted to marry him, and that he might as well yield to it because it was all but signed, sealed and delivered. Another problem was that he was supposed to be incommunicado. But if she spoke with him, then couldn’t she find out where he was? And how awful would that be?

After a few minutes’ debate, Adrian and Darcy decided it best for them to text a reply, telling Serena he could talk with her when he got back home. Whenever that was. Though with Christmas approaching, it was going to have to be sooner rather than later. Which made Adrian sad to realize that would be the end of his ever-so-enjoyable little escape from reality.

A few minutes after sending the message, she replied.

“Adrian, we have to talk
now
. It’s
urgent
, it really cannot wait. Please, tell me where you are and I can meet you.”

Adrian told her that was simply impossible, and that he’d let her know as soon as he returned. At that point, he turned off his phone, slipped it in his pocket, and they bade good night to their friends.

~*~

T
hey beelined to the glowing fireplace the minute they returned to the beach house. Emma’s mother was engrossed in some documentary about Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson on
BBC America
, undoubtedly only further reinforcing that Adrian must think her and her mother to be some strange Euro-groupies intent on delving into a world in which they entirely didn’t belong.

“Do you mind my asking what you’re watching, ma’am?” Adrian asked, making small talk.

“Oh, it’s a scandalous story about Wallis Simpson. Do you know about her? Of course you must, being a British royal scholar and all. Why, that woman dug her claws into that man and ruined him,” she said, wringing her hands at it.

Adrian chuckled at the academic commendations being bestowed upon him erroneously. “I’m sure I have heard of her somewhere along the way.” His mother constantly warned him to avoid those types of foreigners who were after a quick entrée into royal society, not to mention bank vaults. If he’d heard it once he’d heard it a thousand times how badly he needed to marry one of his own. What that never explained was what if you didn’t love one of ‘your own’? Then what?

Adrian and Emma stood face to face by the fireplace rubbing each other’s arms, trying to warm up. Only then did her father look up briefly from his book—yet another World War II story, a subject she thought he’d probably read until there was no more information to glean. But it was his obsession. That and tacky wide-wale corduroy pants. Tonight he donned bright green ones with embroidered red Santas on them. She figured if there was any question about whether Adrian would stick around with her family, this would send him packing right back to his small Mediterranean principality, stat.

“Where’s Adrian’s little fellow?” Ellen asked.

Only her mother would refer to a man’s former “boyfriend” like that.

“They’re staying at a motel not far away,” her daughter said. “They insisted on not putting us out.” She couldn’t imagine juggling all the lies if everyone was under the roof the entire time.

“And here I was looking forward to a little slumber party!” she said. She looked at them and frowned. “You know you two look a little wet.”

Well. No one thought about having to explain away that one.

“Um, yeah,” Emma said. “We got caught in a small rain shower.”

“Rain shower?” he mother said. “I thought it was crystal clear out when I looked up at the sky earlier!”

“Indeed,” Adrian chimed in. “Strange sort of weather system. Just rolled in off the ocean and that was that. Maybe you needed to be right on the water’s edge to get it?”

“Yes, a microclimate,” Emma said.

“Microclimate? What were you doing on the water at this time of year?”

“We took a walk along the shoreline,” Emma said. We were just having fun, enjoying the ocean.”

“A few more degrees and you could’ve gotten some snow instead,” her father said, not lifting his eyes from the page.

“You don’t say,” Adrian said. “That might explain why I felt like an icicle out there.”

Emma shook her head. “I could give you a few reasons why you felt like an icicle.”

“Oh really? Do tell,” he said, challenging her. Only then did she realize she had to zip her mouth shut.

“Heh. Just joking.” She stifled a yawn, stretching her arms out. “Think I’m going to call it a night.”

“That’s fine. Your young man friend can join me on the sofa to finish watching the show,” her mother said, turning to Adrian and patting the seat next to her. “I think you’ll find this royal scandal most fascinating.”

Clearly Ellen had found one of her tribe once she learned he was gay
and
loved royals. Only thing better to her would have been if he could sort of un-gay himself so that he could woo her daughter. But some things weren’t meant to be.

Adrian looked at Emma wide-eyed, imploring for an escape clause. No way could he be assured of keeping up the ruse without Emma to run interference.

“I think Adrian’s still suffering from some jetlag, Mom,” Emma said. “I’ll just tuck him into bed and he’ll sleep like a baby I’m sure.”

“If you insist,” Ellen said. “But please feel free to join me if you can’t get to sleep!”

“Most definitely,” Adrian said, thinking he’d never dream of running the risk of being alone with her and chance spilling the truth.

~*~

“G
ood Lord, this is getting complicated,” Emma said as she shut the door and slumped against it, warding off any more unwanted attention.

“You’re not kidding. I think it’s more private being a public figure than it is being a stowaway. At least around you!”

“How was I to know this place would become Times Square?”

Adrian walked toward Emma and pulled her up against him, his mouth just inches from hers.

“If it takes living in a circus in order to do this, I’ll sacrifice for the cause,” he said, leaning forward and ever so gently grabbing her lower lip with his teeth, before settling his mouth on hers for a kiss. He could feel Emma loosen up and finally just yield to his efforts.
So this is what it would be like if she stopped
thinking
and just went with it
.

“I’m so glad I finally got you all to myself,” he whispered between kisses.

“I’m afraid this is as far as it’s going to go, however,” Emma said, pushing him away yet again. “We can’t risk detection. My parents can hear everything.”

“Are you kidding? Your father seemed thoroughly oblivious to the presence of other humans, engrossed as he was in that compendium he was reading. And your mother is glued to that television program. She’s practically in Buckingham Palace, or Windsor Castle, or wherever it is those two were trysting,” he said, a slight whiff of desperation to his voice. “Speaking of trysting, you promised me the pink palace tonight!”

“I know, I know. I’m really sorry, but I’ve had a change of heart,” Emma said.

“Again?”