The Prince She Had to Marry (15 page)

“No. That envelope was propped against that blue pitcher when we got here. Neither of us has opened it.”

Still frowning, Jack took it, folded back the flap and removed a single sheet of paper.

Alex asked Lili, “Get me my pants?”

She had a contrary urge to tell him to go get them himself, but then she realized he was only being cautious. He didn’t yet want to let the newcomer out of his sight. “More than happy to, darling,” she answered sweetly. She popped back into the bedroom, grabbed his cargoes off the floor and brought them back to him.

By that time, Jack had wadded up the sheet of paper in a white-knuckled fist and lowered himself to a chair. “She’s left me,” he said in a desolate whisper. “Says she’s had enough of being alone. She took the chickens and the goats and went back to her father’s farm on the mainland.”

“Maa, maa, maa.” The white goat had eased her nose in the unlatched door. Alex strode over there, pushed the intruding nose back out and shut the door.

“Except for Bianka.” Jack held up the fisted paper. “Marina says here she couldn’t catch her.”

“Rough break, man,” said Alex.

“She has a cell phone,” Jack complained. “She could have called me and told me what she was planning. But no. She leaves me a note—and she refuses to answer the phone when I call. I was afraid something had happened to her.”

Lili begged to differ. “Not that afraid,” she chided. “Your Marina has been gone for a week at least. And there’s no fuel to run the generator, so it’s possible her cell was dead and she
couldn’t
call you—not until she got off the island, anyway. And by then, I’ll venture a guess, she had decided she
wouldn’t
call you.”

“It’s that mother of hers,” Jack muttered darkly. “Always popping over to see how her baby girl is doing, filling Marina’s head with lies about me.”

“At least her mother came to check on her.”

Jack’s shoulders slumped. “You’ve a point, I must admit it. I only thought she was giving me a big dose of the silent treatment.”

“You should have come back sooner,” Lili scolded.

“Give the poor man a break,” said Alex.

“The poor man? Marina’s the one who suffered, left here on her own for Lord knows how long with only chickens and goats for company—go after her,” she urged, making shooing motions at Jack with both hands. “Get her back. And next time, don’t be gone for so long.”

Both men rolled their eyes. Jack said, “I’m a fisherman. I have to work. That means I’m off for days on the boat. Marina knew that when she married me. She said she loved her time alone.”

Lili suggested the obvious. “Perhaps it was more time alone than she had bargained for. Make some changes. It can’t be that difficult.”

Now both men groaned. Alex said, “It’s just like a woman. They marry a man and then set about trying to make him into someone else.”

She couldn’t resist reminding them both, “Some men could use a little improving—some men could use a
lot
.” And then before either man could argue with her further, she turned, went into the bedroom and quietly shut the door.

* * *

Alex stared after her. “Lili’s a woman of definite opinions. Always has been.”

“Aren’t they all?” Jack set the rumpled letter on the table and smoothed it with his palms. “And she may have a point or two,” he admitted grudgingly. “I get working trying to fill my tanks, I lose track of the days....”

“You’re not Croatian by birth, are you?”

Jack shook his head. “Came on holiday, decided to stay. I
was
born a fisherman, though. Bought me boat eight years ago now.”

“Sorry we took over your house—
and
about that scrap we got into. You know how it goes.”

Jack agreed. “A man can’t be too careful.” Alex offered his hand. Jack took it. “No harm done. Glad the place was here when you needed it.”

Alex dropped into the other chair. “You came in your fishing boat, then?”

Jack nodded. “She’s in the western cove. Be happy to take you to Korčula.” Korčula was one of the larger of the southern islands off Croatia. It was also the second most populated, after the northern island of Krk. Jack went on, “Korčula’s not far and I have to return there anyway to pick up my crew. From there, you can catch a ferry to the mainland.”

How strange, Alex found himself thinking. All the days of waiting and wondering, worrying no one would ever come for them.

And then, just like that, they were rescued. Now he wouldn’t have to fight with Lili over whether she was going with him when he took the raft out. He wouldn’t have to risk going out there himself into the deep waters beyond the cove.

They would return home now. Everything would go back to the way it had been before.

He remembered what he had promised himself when he’d allowed himself to let down his guard with Lili. That when they were rescued, when they were safely home, he would withdraw again and reclaim his solitary life as it had been before.

Already, he missed what he and Lili had found here. He hated to lose it.

And why should you lose it?
He could almost hear Lili lecturing him now.

She would insist that they didn’t have to lose anything. He almost smiled thinking of the things that Lili would say when he tried to withdraw from her, of the arguments she would lay out for why they should continue as they had been here on the island, where they had only each other. Where he had finally been forced to realize what a truly fine woman she was.

Where she had said she loved him and then set about proving it in a thousand different ways.

Where they had been happy.

Together.

Happy. Imagine that. He was not supposed to be happy. He’d convinced himself that he couldn’t be happy ever. Not after what had happened, not after the evil he had caused.

But the clear fact was, he
had
been happy here with Lili. And the idea of turning his back on her now, of pushing her away and then keeping her at a distance, of sleeping without her curled close to his side...

It all felt alien to him now. Pointless. As though he wasn’t the same man he had been just a week ago. And the things that had seemed so real to that other man, that man he had been just a week ago...they had no meaning to him now.

Jack said, “You still with me, mate?”

Alex shook himself. “Right here. Sorry. Just thinking. I wonder...”

“Spit it out.”

“All I really need is to make a call and we can be picked up right here on the island. You wouldn’t happen to have a working cell on you, would you?”

“Course I do.” Jack reached in his pocket and pulled out a phone. “I never go anywhere without me phone.”

Chapter Twelve

A
few minutes later, Lili emerged from the bedroom, fully dressed. By then, Alex had already made the call that would bring rescue.

The helicopter from the
Princess Royale,
piloted by one of Alex’s best men, would be touching down near the stone house within the hour. As it happened, the search had moved into the area. Alex’s men would no doubt have spotted the driftwood messages and come for them that day or the next day at the latest.

Lili was just grateful that Jack had appeared before Alex insisted on going off on the raft. In this case, timing was everything. They could have been lost all over again, and just before they would have been found.

She didn’t remind Alex of that. She had a feeling, from the sheepish look in his eyes, that he already knew it.

Lili brewed tea and opened a tin of cookies. Alex went to the bedroom to finish dressing and gather up their things. That gave her a few minutes alone with Jack.

“Take a break from fishing and go get your wife.” She took Jack’s weathered hand and tucked her big wad of kunas into his rope-scarred palm.

Jack had his pride. “That’s a lot of money. Too much.” He tried to give it back to her.

She only leaned back and put up both hands. “Believe me, I can get along without it. But you need Marina. And I have a feeling she needs you.”

Finally, Jack agreed to go and try to work things out with his wife. He also promised he would take good care of Bianka.

“See that you do,” Lili replied. “I love that goat.”

Jack said regretfully, “I would give her to you....”

Lili smiled. “But Marina loves her, too.”

“How did you know?”

“Just a guess.” She leaned close and kissed his cheek. “I’ve been meaning to ask where you got your Cadillac.”

“It was here when I bought the place.”

“Does it run?”

“Of course. Marina and I used to drive it round the island.” Jack’s eyes got a faraway look. “She loved that, riding in the Cadillac, with the top down. I haven’t had time to drive her around lately, though.”

“Make time.”

“I’ll try.”

“You know Montedoro, Jack?”

“I know it. Where the nobs go. I seen pictures of the Prince’s Palace and that big casino at Colline d’Ambre.”

“How about Alagonia?”

“Off the coast of Spain. A beautiful little piece of real estate.”

“Alex is from Montedoro. I’m an Alagonian.”

“Hold on.” Jack had paled a bit. “When I dropped my crew off on Korčula, I saw the papers. A missing prince and princess, lost somewhere in the Dalmatians...”

Lili nodded. “And you, Jack, have saved us.”

“You kissed my cheek,” Jack muttered in disbelief. “I seen the prince in the altogether, and got into a right fine scrap with him as well. He shook me hand....”

Lili said softly, “There will be a reward. It will be a large one.”

“But...” He held up the money she’d already given him. “This’ll more than do it, Your Grace.”

“There will be a lot more.”

“But all I did was to come home.”

“And you should come home more often. Spend a little more time with Marina. Promise me.”

Jack touched his cheek where she’d kissed him. “Your Majesty, if she’ll have me back, I swear to you, I will.”

* * *

They were ready well before the helicopter came. There hadn’t been much to prepare. Lili had her pack. Alex had told Jack where to find the raft and given him the survival pack to go with it. Jack promised to store them both on his boat. They might come in handy one day.

Just before the helicopter arrived, Lili said goodbye to Bianka. She cried a little to have to leave the sweet goat behind. And then the loud beating sound of the whirring helicopter blades had Bianka scrambling for cover. Lili dried her tears and let the little goat go.

Jack stood out of the way of the blades as Lili and Alex climbed aboard.

Moments later, they were lifting into the warm, clear morning air. Lili looked down at Jack waving them off, at the stone house and the barn and the two sheds. She had been so happy there.

Always, she would remember the house and the beautiful island as a place of true enchantment, the place where she’d found her heart’s desire. The place where she’d found Alex at last. Where she had discovered what it could be, to have her lifelong dream: a real marriage, a true partnership of equals.

Since April, every day had seemed like the worst day of her life. She’d given up hope, she truly had, that she would ever find the love she longed for. She, who always looked on the bright side, had truly despaired. How could she not? Tied to a man who didn’t even like her, with a baby on the way. She believed that marriage was for a lifetime. And then somehow, she had allowed herself to be bound until death to a man who would never love her.

But then they went out on the
Lady Jane
and got caught in the whirlwind and ended up stranded. Being shipwrecked was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

And to Alex, too, although she couldn’t be sure he would be willing to admit that. In fact, her stomach was definitely knotted with dread. Now that they were rescued, would he revert to the old Alex?

Would they end up miserable, living separate lives, barely speaking, right back where they’d started? Just the thought that he might throw it all away, turn his back on everything they had found together, put a gray cast to a bright and sunny day.

He’d damn well better not revert. If he threw their happiness away now, she was going to kill him.

She slid her hand into his. He didn’t pull away. In fact, he squeezed her fingers and even leaned close to give her a quick, brushing kiss.

She smiled at him, her heart lifting. But he was already turning away to say something to the pilot.

* * *

Alex expected a hugfest when they landed on the
Princess Royale
and he expected right.

Lili’s father was aboard, as were his own parents. They’d all flown to Dubrovnik and then boarded the yacht five days before, when the early searches had come to nothing.

It was a tearful reunion, but in a good way. They were all so grateful to have Alex and Lili safe again.

“We never doubted for a moment that you would be found,” Lili’s father said gruffly.

Overhead, helicopters hovered. And boats surrounded the
Princess
on all sides. The paparazzi were on the job, snapping away endlessly, getting shots of all of them hugging and crying, just like any ordinary family might do when two of their own came home safe after vanishing without a trace for days on end.

No one wanted to sail home on the
Princess
. That would take days. Jets were waiting in Dubrovnik, one for His Majesty and one for Her Sovereign Highness and family.

Lili insisted on a bath before she would go anywhere. “And poor Alex desperately needs a shave....” She granted him a look that dared him to disagree.

He rubbed his cheek. “My bride is right—but then, she always is.”

His mother was watching him. “Alexander, I believe I sense a change in you—a change for the better.”

He laughed. It felt good. “Lili has worn me down at last.”

The two of them retired to their stateroom, where they cleaned up and changed into fresh clothes.

Before they rejoined the others, he took her in his arms. “You look beautiful.”

She searched his face. “I’m afraid, Alex.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Of what? We’ve been rescued. We’re safe.”

“Am I going to lose you now?” The jewel-blue eyes seemed full of worried questions.

He cradled her face and kissed her, a quick press of his lips to hers. “No, you’re not going to lose me.”

She took in a ragged little breath. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

“You really are...better, then?”

“Better?” he asked, even though he knew exactly what she meant.

And she knew that he knew. “You know what I mean. Your mother noticed. You’re different, more open. You seem ready to get beyond whatever happened to you when you were captured by the Taliban.”

“Well, that’s good, then, isn’t it?”

She peered at him even more closely. “Yes, I think so....”

“But you still have your doubts about me, eh?”

“Alex, I didn’t say that.”

“You were thinking it—and it wasn’t the Taliban who captured me. My captors were just plain kidnappers in it for the money. Kidnapping is big business in Afghanistan. The plan, which they hadn’t thought through in any orderly way, was to ransom me.”

“I thought they were terrorists....”

“No. Just street thugs who got lucky and grabbed a prince—and then had no idea what to do from there. We were unarmed and without security at the time. It was in Kabul, on a busy street. It was stupid of us. But after surviving the constant danger of the tribal areas, we made the fatal error of assuming we were reasonably safe in the capital.”

“You said they took you for ransom?”

“That’s right.”

“But there was never a ransom demand, was there? I thought you simply...vanished.”

“The thugs got cold feet when it came to the actual deal-making. They never made any demands, they simply traded us—up the line, you might say. Every time we were traded, our new captors took pictures and made videos of us—none of which they ever did anything with that I’m aware of. They beat us, interrogated us. But in the end, nobody seemed to know what to do with us. None of our captors had a network sophisticated enough to make a ransom demand of the Princess of Montedoro and to work out an executable plan to collect the money—let alone deliver the hostages. So there were more interrogations, more threats, more beatings. And sometimes, for months, there was nothing.”

“Nothing?”

He shrugged. “Long stretches of time would go by during which we were simply prisoners, half-starved, losing hope. Ignored. They didn’t even bother to torture us for months on end. It was after we were traded for that last time, three years into our captivity, that they killed Devon.” He said the words. They tasted bad in his mouth, but they conveyed nothing of the real horror of what had happened to his friend. “More months went by. And then, finally, after all that time, after four damn years—finally, when I’d given up and knew I would die there, in a hole in the ground near the Pakistani border, there was a raid by American troops. I escaped in the confusion and managed to make my way to the Americans. They got me out.”

She shivered. “I hate that you suffered. And I hate even more that you lost your friend.” She asked, so gently, “You went to Princeton with him, didn’t you?”

He took the question for exactly what it was: just one of many. He probably shouldn’t have told her anything, should have kept his silence on the subject.

But he didn’t want to keep his silence. Not anymore. Not really. Not with Lili, anyway. She honestly had changed him. Somehow, by some miracle of will and tenderness, she had done it, brought him, kicking and screaming and dragging his feet every step of the way, back into the world of the living again. He owed her. And he saw now that knowing the truth of what had happened to him was important to her; it
mattered
to her. He wanted her to have what mattered to her.

“Yes, Devon Lucas and I were at Princeton together,” Alex said. “We both majored in journalism. After Princeton, he worked for an American newspaper. He became a war correspondent—first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan. I wanted to write about the Afghan opium trade, to explore the cultural and financial ramifications of opium cultivation and smuggling as a way of life. I contacted Devon. He was still in Afghanistan and he already had a network of guides and sources. He said he would help me out, take me where I needed to go. He’d been planning to go home before he heard from me. He
would
have gone home if not for me.”

She was searching his face again. “You blame yourself for his death.”

“I
am
to blame for his death.”

“No.”

“Yes. Devon stayed in Afghanistan because I asked him to. He was kidnapped because he was with me. When we tried to escape, they beat me, but they cut off Devon’s hand.”

She swallowed. Hard. “Oh, my sweet God...”

He nodded. “I had ‘value’ to them because I was a prince and they still believed they would find a way to demand and get a big ransom for me. Devon’s only value to them was as a way to control me. And in the end, when they killed him, they did it to break me. They brought us both up out of the hole they kept us in and they shot him in the head in front of me.”

Her eyes were turbulent, swirling with outrage and sadness combined. “It was
their
fault. Those thugs who took you, traded you, tortured you.
They
are the ones to blame, Alex, not you.”

“Well, they paid—at least the men who shot Devon paid. They all died in the American raid.”

“Good. They deserved to die.”

“Lili.” He smoothed her gleaming, freshly shampooed hair. “I believe you have a bloodthirsty side.”

Staunchly, her blue eyes glittering now, she repeated, “They deserved to die. And it wasn’t your fault.”

There was no point in arguing with her over it. He told her tenderly, “I mean it. I’m all right.”

She almost smiled. “You realize what a big step you’ve just taken?”

“Oh, have I?”

“Yes. You’ve finally talked to me about the things you always refused ever to talk about, about your friend Devon, about the evil men who kidnapped you, about the terrible brutality you suffered while you were a prisoner....”

“See? I’m a changed man. All because of you.” He said it teasingly, even though it was true.

She studied him. “You
have
come a long way.”

“Yes, I have.”

And then she frowned. “But I still have this strange feeling that you’re holding back something important.”

He caressed her cheek and reassured her again, “I’m all right, Lili.”

She sighed then. “I don’t think I could bear it if you turned away from me now. That would be too impossibly cruel of you, to show me what it could be for us. And then to take it away.”