Stolen Kiss From a Prince (13 page)

Pulling back, she swiped at her cheek with her arm.

Foolish girl. The gym was no place for tears.

She struck at the bag again. And again. Anger at her self-deception burned in her gut. Had she learned nothing from her past experience? Just because she had feelings for a man didn’t mean he returned her regard. Obviously far from it.

At least Julian hadn’t betrayed her. Small compensation as she dealt with the fact her feelings for the photographer were a mere pittance compared to what she felt for Julian. True love made a mockery of simple infatuation.

The incident in her past paled next to the heart-wrenching pain she currently fought to contain.

The disdain and frustration in Julian’s voice as he dismissed any involvement between them echoed through her mind. He obviously didn’t love her, yet she’d believed he held some affection for her.

Never had she felt so alone.

She abandoned the punching bag and sought to regain some sense of self by going through the discipline of her regular karate routine. She took a couple of deep breaths before beginning, flowing from one movement to another with rigid control, focusing mind and body on form and motion.

She’d need all her wits about her when the repercussions of the photo in today’s paper began to rain down on her. If any pictures did remain from her past, now would be the time for someone to score big. Her name had been linked to two royal houses and she appeared to be the lover of a Prince. A compromising picture of her would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. If not more.

She should have stayed hidden in Pasadonia.

Halfway through the routine she became aware of Julian standing on the periphery of the mat. She ignored him in the hopes he’d go away.

He didn’t. He let her get through the routine and then he stepped onto the mat.

“Nice moves,” he said. “Excellent timing and balance.”

She completed two more punches before replying. “I practice often.” Without looking at him, she moved right into some quick kicks.

“You’re upset.”

She had no answer for the obvious.

She wondered at his conciliatory tone. Was he not upset?

“Katrina, I’m sorry you were alone this morning when you saw the paper.”

“It does not matter.” She gave him the truth. What difference would it make if he’d been there? None. The picture would be no less devastating with him by her side. And given what she’d heard she wondered how sincere his concern would have been?

He appeared in front of her, deftly catching the fist flying toward his face. “I need you to stop and talk to me.”

In a flash, her pain turned to anger. He became her adversary. She retrieved her hand, reset her balance and attacked with a few round kicks that made him retreat. “I sent you sprawling to the athletic mat before, Your Highness. Perhaps you should leave.”

“Katrina, we have much to speak of.”

“Funny, I cannot think of a thing.”

“I can be just as stubborn as you. I’m not leaving until we talk.” He gracefully advanced on her. For the first time she noticed he wore gym clothes. He bowed formally and took up a basic karate stance. “I know you expect the photos from your past to make an appearance. That’s not going to happen.”

“So you have said. I can only pray you are right.” She responded to his bow and immediately went on the offensive.

His defense and counterattack were perfect. She instantly recognized anger had affected his skills in their last bout and stepped up her game. She wouldn’t make the same mistake. He had reach and strength on his side, but she had finesse and agility on hers.

Plus she was stronger than she looked. She made him sweat. Better, she made him breathless, which made it difficult for him to talk. She struck with an open palm, driving her point to the heart.

The next few minutes were spent in physical exertion as she fought to put him on his ass again.

It may be petty, but being dismissed as a distraction did that to her.

The longer they fought, the fiercer she became. Perspiration dewed her skin, stung her eyes, weakened her. Whereas the sweat caused his T
-
shirt to cling to taut muscles. The harder he fought, the better he looked. Bastard.

Grunts and yells filled the air along with the smack of skin on skin. Fury propelled her actions, but his reckless grin put her over the edge. She finally put him down, but he took her with him. She landed on his chest with a breath-stealing thud and a nasty sense of déjà vu.

Pushing against the granite planes of his chest, she fought to right herself. The hard circle of his arms kept her pinned in place.

“Let me up,” she said, careful to keep all emotion from her voice.

“Not until you listen to me.” He tightened his hold. “You expect the worst. But don’t you understand? When the infamous photos don’t appear, you’ll finally be free.”

“You sound awfully certain.” She knew better. Her only chance at certainty was lack of exposure. And that option was now lost to her.

“It just makes sense,” he said, his arrogance showing.

“None of this makes sense. Why would a paparazzo wait to sell a picture of us? The photograph in the paper was from the night of the funeral, more than a week ago. And your balcony overlooks the sea. The angle of that shot would have to come from the water.” She dug her elbow into his sternum almost earning her freedom. “It is a near-impossible shot.”

“Katrina.” He rolled, putting her beneath him.

“No.” She wedged her arms between them. She needed something, anything, to hold him at bay, to keep the pain contained. “You did this.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“
T
HIS
IS
ALL
your fault,” she whispered. “Seducing me, making me feel safe, giving me hope.”

She knew in her heart she was being unfair. That he meant to reassure her. Too late. Her confidence lay shattered at her feet. She pushed against his chest. “Let me up.”

“Katrina, listen,” he implored.

“No. Let me go.” She attempted to roll him off her. His elegant hands framed her, holding her fast, preventing her from getting away. She went still. Wiggling would only embarrass them both.

“I can’t stand for you to hide away from the world because of a past mistake,” he explained, staring into her eyes, pleading for her to understand. “You’re better than that.”

“My life is none of your business.” She looked away, unwilling to acknowledge his motives.

“It is as long as you are here in my palace.”

“A problem easily solved.” She pushed again, harder this time. “Let me up. I am going home.”

He loomed large above her. “You aren’t going anywhere. You need to stop protecting yourself and live.”

“Easy for you to say.” She turned her head away. “My life is not a game. People I care about can be hurt.” She couldn’t think beyond the rage, the hurt, not with the heady scent and feel of him distracting her.

“If they truly care, they will be pleased to see you free of the weight hanging on you.”

As if he truly cared. “They show their love by letting me make my own decisions.”

“You mean they allow you to hide in the palace. Such a beautiful prison. I’m surprised you accept it. Surely it is too good for the severity of your crime.”

“You do not know what you are talking about.”

“I know you are a shining star but you hide in the background, afraid to draw attention to yourself lest you disturb the shallow life you’ve built around your fear.”

Her chest tightened as the truth struck home. Her breath caught. She couldn’t breathe but her mind reeled. She told herself her sacrifices were for her family, to prevent further pain or embarrassment coming to them, but in reality she’d just been punishing herself for failing them. What a disappointment she was.

“Katrina! Damn it, breathe.” He lifted off her, dragged her into a seated position. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Stop. Do not pretend now.” He may be right about her, but it changed nothing. She threw up an elbow to block him when he tried to draw her close again. “Do not pretend you care when I am nothing to you. Your time would be better spent looking for a wife.”

He fell back on the mat beside her, nodded as if in confirmation. “You were in the passage near my father’s office. You heard him instruct me to—”

“Look for a wife,” she finished for him. She didn’t question how he knew she’d been outside his father’s office. At least part of the hidden passages must be under security surveillance. “Good luck with the search.”

“I’m sorry if you were disturbed by what you heard. But you must know you have been a comfort to me. I was in no mood to discuss our relationship beyond that.”

His reasonable explanation for what she’d heard did little to breach her anger and hurt. “I believe the word you used was
distraction.
”

“Both are true.” He propped up on an elbow, ran a finger down her cheek. She dodged away from his touch. “I told him, forget it, he didn’t get to dictate who I married. I’m thirty-two years old. I will not be told when and whom I shall marry as if I were a callow youth.”

“How crass of him to think of Sammy at this time.”

He narrowed brown eyes in ire. “Don’t you start. With handling my responsibilities and Donal’s, plus preparing for the Europol vote, I have no time to think between one meeting and the next. My visits with Sammy have to be scheduled into my day. And you are my hidden vice. I cannot take anything more being heaped on me.”

Hidden vice.

She supposed that described their relationship exactly. And it did not have a good ring to it. Partly her fault, she knew. Her insistence on discretion certainly contributed to the hidden part. But acknowledging it didn’t matter. She still felt used. Foolish. Shamed.

She’d let herself be seduced again.

Photographed again.

She couldn’t take any more.

“Well, you will have one less vice to worry about. I am returning to Pasadonia.”

“No.” He pushed to his feet, pulled her up, too. He scrubbed his hands over his face, wiped the sweat on his pants. “I’m saying I couldn’t think! While my father was talking I simply reacted, pushing back at him, denying all concept of courtship and marriage. Yet as soon as I left him and turned my thoughts to you, it all clicked into place.”

“No.” Stomach churning, she backed up.

“Ja.”
He pursued her hands reaching for her. She childishly put hers behind her back as she continued to retreat. He matched her step for step, catching her by the elbows when she tripped on the edge of the mat.

“Do not,” she entreated.

“You are the answer, Katrina. You are gentle and caring, smart, funny and sexy. I can talk to you. Best of all Sammy already loves you.”

Her heart broke a little with each word. It was all about the convenience, all for Sammy. “What about you?”

He cocked his head, his brows rising in question. “What about me?”

“Sammy loves me. How do you feel?”

His expression cleared. He hauled her close, kissed her temple, her mouth. “You know I care about you. Haven’t I demonstrated how much each night in your bed?”

“You want me.” She wormed her arms between them, seeking distance, needing the ability to think. “That is passion. It will fade.”

“It hasn’t,” he stated with emphasis. “My need for you has only grown.” A finger on her chin lifted her face to him. She stubbornly refused to look at him. “Katrina, will you marry me?”

Her gaze flew to his, and she saw amusement lurking in his amber eyes. Oh God. How sad was it that for a moment joy flared through her? Pretty pathetic, as proven by his humor at her expense.

Oh, she had no doubt he was serious. Lowell’s point, after all, had been to provide Sammy with a mother figure. Who better than she? Hadn’t she put her life on hold for the child? She loved the little guy, wanted the best for him. But this was one sacrifice beyond her.

“No.” Pretending her heart wasn’t breaking, she pulled away from Julian. “I am done being used by you.”

“Harsh.” He reached for her hand. She tucked it behind her. “You love Sammy. We’re good together. We can make this work.”

“We really cannot.”

“Katrina. I want you for my wife.”

“No, you want the comfort you find with me. Well, I am done being a diversion for you. You do not get to manipulate my life, turn around and insult me, and then expect me to fall all over myself when you propose. You think you know me and maybe you do, but you do not love me.”

Sliding to the side, she gained her freedom, stepped away from him with hands fisted. “In a world where everything around you seems out of control you have found the one thing you can apply reason and strategy to solving. Well, my life is not a game and it is not the place for you to flex your leadership muscles.”

Walking to the bench at the side of the room she grabbed up her towel. When she turned back, he stood in the middle of the mat, his features expressionless.

“Goodbye Julian.”

*

Who did she think she was?
Julian snarled to himself. He was a bloody Prince. Women didn’t turn him down. Not now, not ever. His temper no cooler for a cold shower, he stepped out and grabbed a monogrammed towel.

She should be honored and thrilled by his proposal. Instead she acted as if he’d betrayed her.

Forgive him if he didn’t see the tragedy in the photo making the papers. His father and Katrina were both overreacting.

Never a violent man, he’d experienced a rage unlike anything he’d ever known when she told him of how she’d been drugged and humiliated. He’d wanted to hurt someone. Do something. He’d been helpless to defend her.

So seeing her freed from her self-imposed isolation pleased him enormously.

Fury flared as he remembered the hurt and dejection on her face. With a sweep of his arm he cleared his bathroom counter. Bottles, soap, crystal dishes went flying across the room.

He left the disarray and marched to his closet, chose a new suit, a matching tie.

Damn her for treating his proposal as an insult.

So he hadn’t been as smooth as he could have been. And maybe he should have chosen a better time. And place. She didn’t have to attack his motives, his character. They were good together, both in bed and out. She loved Sammy. Was it so wrong to think they would make a happy family?

It all went to show he’d been impulsive in proposing. Far from the premeditation she accused him of, he’d reacted to her pain, allowing emotions to sway him, which was totally unlike him. When he looked at the circumstances logically, he reverted to the arguments he’d given his father.

He had a country to run. Marriage was a distraction he couldn’t afford. The abrupt end to the love affair only proved a relationship was ill-advised at this time. He was too busy for a proper courtship, let alone marriage.

Besides, they just buried Donal and Helene. Bad enough Julian must fill his brother’s boots on a political front. It was just wrong to insert Sammy into a new family unit as if his parents were interchangeable.

She wanted to go? Let her. He had more important things to do than chase after an ungrateful brat.

Julian shrugged into his jacket, straightened his tie and left his suite. Katrina was right about one thing, it was time to put his considerable talents of reason and strategy to work on his country’s problems.

*

Surprisingly, King Lowell seemed sad to see Katrina go. Good manners demanded she bid her host farewell. Giselle gave her a hug and wished her well, but the King showed her to the conversation area of his office and seated her in a Queen Anne Chesterfield armchair.

“I must thank you for all you’ve done for my family. You made a difficult time more bearable with your kindness and care.”

“I hope you might let me visit with Sammy sometime,” she asked humbly. “He has truly stolen my heart.”

“Of course. Though, I do not think Sammy is the only one to steal his way into your affections. I have never seen my son so smitten.” Lowell leaned back in his chair. “Today is the first time he has ever defied me outright.” He smiled and shook a finger at her. “He disagrees with me plenty. But he is a strategist. He steps back, assesses. And always he comes with his arguments of logic and reason. Today he argued from a position of emotion.”

Katrina fought to make sense of what the monarch said. Had he just confessed to matchmaking? Was that his response to the picture in the paper? She supposed announcing a wedding was imminent would defuse the sordidness of the situation. Running would no doubt acerbate things, but it could not be helped.

“You play a dangerous game, Your Majesty.”

“Julian has suffered much over the past month, and he has much yet to deal with in the months ahead. He would benefit greatly from having a strong woman by his side. One thing I have learned over my many years of ruling—there is a time for caution and a time to be bold, and you must be willing to live with the consequences of the choice you make.”

King Lowell sighed, as if some of those many decisions carried some weight. “I wish Julian to be happy, so I felt the reward was worth the risk, but make no mistake there is a duty he must meet here. Sammy will be well cared for, but there is no replacement for a mother figure.”

Katrina struggled against a rising confusion. The King’s interference may have precipitated Julian’s proposal, but the son’s sins were all his own.

She knew the importance of a mother’s presence in a child’s life as she lost her mother at a vulnerable age. Even now she missed her. What she wouldn’t give to talk to her mother for just a few minutes. She loved her father, but sometimes she wondered how different her decisions might have been if she’d had her mother longer.

“You are right. Sammy is lucky to have you and Giselle, but he deserves to have two loving parental figures.”

For all Julian’s faults, he had Sammy on his radar, and she had no doubts he would do right by his nephew. How like him to schedule Sammy into his day. His devotion could not be questioned, which meant he would eventually bow to duty and choose a wife.

She forced the thought of Julian with another woman out of her mind and rose to her feet. Time to go.

“I have taken up too much of your time. I just wanted to say goodbye and thank you for making me welcome.”

“You are always welcome here. I fully expect to see you again soon. In the meantime I have ordered the royal jet be made ready and a helicopter is standing by to take you to the airport.”

“But, Your Highness!” she protested in shock. “I cannot—”

He held up an imperious hand. “For your comfort, yes. But more for my son’s peace of mind. He will not rest easy until he knows you are safely home.”

*

Her last stop was the nursery. Sammy cried. “You go bye-bye like Mama.”

“Shh, little man. Do not cry,” she bade him. “I will still be your friend. I promise to come visit you.” And she would. Soon. While Julian was away.

“No! Do not go,” he implored, clinging to her, tears staining his cheeks. His distress wrenched at her already-broken heart.

“I love you, Sammy,” she assured him. “You can always count on me. But the time has come for me to go home to my family.”

“I don wan’ you to go.” He burrowed his head against her. Knowing there was no way to make him understand, she gave him a final hug and kiss and then handed him over to the waiting Inga.

“Take good care of him,” she urged the other woman. Swallowing down tears, Katrina made her exit, glad to be going home.

*

The helicopter served as a white-knuckle distraction on the flight to the airport in Newcastle, England where the Royal House of Kardana kept their royal jet. Katrina barely noticed the well-appointed amenities surrounding her in the luxury jet. She sank into a soft cream leather armchair, pulled lush brocade drapes over her window and closed her eyes, shutting out the world.