Wedded for His Royal Duty (9 page)

“Alex? Eva?”

The sound of Sally Peterson’s voice echoed around the dark outdoor space. Alex stepped even farther away from Eva.

“Here you are!”

“Yes. We’re here.” He pushed back his shoulders and gave Sally his full prince stare. “May I ask what you’re doing, following me?”

“Your father noticed you were missing. I volunteered to look for you.”

Eva sneaked another peek at him. In all the confusion of wanting to kiss her for real to straighten all this out in his head, he’d forgotten there was a potential threat against her life.

No wonder his father had sent someone to look for them.

He caught Eva’s hand, said, “We’re fine,” and headed through the garden, into the palace and down the hall toward the engagement party again, glad they’d had the honest talk.

Unless they did something stupid, they could both walk away from this. But if they followed through on these unwanted feelings that he knew were more physical than emotional, they’d both be sorry.

And part of him absolutely revolted at the thought she’d be sorry she met him. If he couldn’t love her, if nothing else, he wanted to be the guy she remembered and smiled.

CHAPTER EIGHT

E
VA
MANAGED
TO
make it through the engagement party with her head high and a smile on her face. The next day, she happily accepted congratulations from her mom on the success of the event.

But when there was a quick knock on their door and Alex walked in, her stomach plummeted.

He didn’t want her. Not because he didn’t like her, but because he did. But the boy who’d lost his mom and a man who’d lost his first love had built walls. Even if they did fall in love, there would always be walls, a distance between them.

She saw it all the time in the way he related to her. The way he could walk away from kisses. The way he used protecting her as a convenient distraction so he didn’t have to talk to her.

He walked into their living room, caught her shoulders and put a soft kiss on her cheek. She suspected he’d done it for the benefit of her mother, but the unexpectedness of it stole her breath, made her heart ache all over again.

“Sally has informed me that gifts have begun arriving.”

Her eyebrows rose, but her mother clapped her hands together with glee. “Oh, that’s marvelous.” She faced Eva. “This is the most fun part of getting married.”

Alex laughed. “Really? Getting gifts is the best part of a wedding?”

“It’s not about being materialistic.” Her mom sniffed. “Gifts are kind of like a way to see what people really think of you.” She tapped Alex’s arm. “Trust me. You’ll know who your friends are by what they get you.”

Eva shook her head in shame at her mom’s one true vice. She liked presents. “Sorry, Alex.”

Alex shrugged. “Maybe she has a point. Maybe it will be fun.”

“It’ll be a blast,” Karen assured him. “Are you going down now to start weeding through?”

“We could.” Alex caught her gaze. “Or we could get some lunch. I’m kind of hungry.”

Realizing he wanted time alone for a private discussion, maybe even to explain his staff’s plan to return the gifts since there really wasn’t going to be a wedding, Eva said, “Great. I’m hungry too.”

“There’s a wonderful little bistro that serves the best salads.”

She glanced down at her jeans and top. “Is this okay?”

He smiled. “You’re with me, remember? The Prince of Scruffiness.”

She laughed. “That’s not exactly what I called you.”

“But it’s close,” he said, directing her to the door.

They said goodbye to her mom, then walked in silence through the echoing corridor to the elevator.

When the door closed behind them, she said, “So what’s up?”

“Up?”

“What do you need to talk about?”

He frowned. “Nothing.”

“You didn’t ask me to lunch to talk?”

“No. I asked you to lunch because I’m hungry.”

“At the engagement party, you said—” She stopped herself. “Never mind.” He might have said they were seeing too much of each other two days ago, and he might have warned her off at the engagement party, but today, the day after a real kiss and their honest conversation, he’d asked her to lunch for no reason except that he was hungry. And she was not questioning it.

He drove the Mercedes to a bistro so far out of the way she knew it wasn’t a haunt for tourists but somewhere locals ate, drank and had fun together. Bodyguards escorted them to the restaurant, but instead of Alex opening the door, he pointed at a cluster of tables on the sidewalk bathed in hot sun and the breeze coming off the ocean.

She frowned. “Outside?”

“Among friends,” he said, guiding her to a table in the corner. The wall of the restaurant was at their back. A clear view of the ocean was on their left. The other diners were to the right and in front of them.

“Prince Alex!” A tall man wearing a white apron scurried out to greet them.

Alex rose to shake his hand. He faced Eva. “This is Angelo. He owns the place. And this is—”

“Your beautiful bride,” Angelo said before Alex could finish.

She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“Lunch is on me!” Angelo said effusively.

Alex laughed. “No. You cook. I pay.” He took his seat again. “Amaze us with a salad that will fill us up, but not make us fat.”

Angelo happily raced away, and Eva sucked in a long drink of the sea air.

Alex laughed. “You’re getting a tad too comfortable with our weather.”

“I know.” She shook her head. “I’m in for so much culture shock when I get home.”

Alex glanced around. “You mean when
we
get home.”

She nodded, realizing she’d forgotten the charade, but ready to pick up the ball and do her part. “You know we’ll live in a wing of Grennady’s palace the way Dom and Ginny do.”

A waiter arrived with a plate of appetizers and Alex plucked a piece of cheese and popped it into his mouth. “I suspected as much.”

He ate another piece of cheese then said, “As heir, do you have duties?”

She shrugged. “Not really. About once a month I’m briefed on what’s going on in the country. Four or five times a year I’m needed for photo ops.”

He considered that. “That’s very different from what Dom does. He’s actually in on the politics. He has jobs.”

“Your country’s very different than ours. We don’t have access to a cash cow like oil. We also aren’t open to attack from enemies as you seem to be. We’re rural. Our subjects mostly make their livings from farms.”

“So you’ve said.”

She stiffened. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.”

But she’d heard something in his voice. Something condescending. “Oh, so the playboy prince suddenly knows government?”

“I’ve heard about government around our dinner table since I was in diapers. I’ve picked up a thing or two.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, it’s a big booming world out there. With the internet, everybody can be educated. Your father hasn’t considered that the generation coming up might want more from their lives than what their parents had?”

She took her napkin from the table, opened it and set it on her lap, busying herself so she didn’t have to look at him. “Our country’s claim to fame is that we are small and comfortable.”

He leaned back, settling on his chair, as Angelo rushed out with two heaping plates of salad.

Alex complimented the owner, who blushed with pleasure at the praise, and they began eating.

But though the conversation had ended, Eva had a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. A feeling that wouldn’t let him get away with saying part of something and not finishing it.

Finally she said, “So what would you do?”

With a forkful of salad halfway to his mouth, Alex said, “Do?”

“About the next generation in my country?”

He drew in a breath, thought for a second, then said, “If I were in charge of a country like yours, a place that’s quiet and peaceful, I’d probably try to lure an internet company into making its home there. You could provide hundreds if not thousands of jobs when you consider that ancillary businesses would shoot up. Not to mention extra jobs from the restaurants, shops and auto mechanics needed to support the population that would migrate to wherever the company settled.”

“Most corporations want a warmer climate.”

“Internet companies don’t necessarily want a warmer climate. They want ambiance. Your country has it in abundance. Skiing. Snowmobiles. Snowboarding. Sleigh riding. And in the summer, hiking and horseback riding. Rock climbing. Your country has enough ways to commune with nature, which internet companies believe inspires creativity, to entice just about anybody you want.”

She drew in a breath. “Impressive.”

He laughed. “Impressive that I can’t help overhearing conversations at dinner?”

“You make light, Alexandros Sancho, but you’re not the player you try to make everyone believe.”

He smiled. “There are already plenty of rulers in my family. We don’t need another.”

* * *

But the next day after a meeting with the royal guard, Dom asked Alex to come to parliament, and he went. Not because he someday wanted to be a ruler. But because he enjoyed the feeling of being productive.

His mornings soon filled with meetings over Eva’s protection because designers and florists and all sorts of wedding prep people began trooping to her apartment almost nonstop for consultations.

Every day he’d take her to lunch, then he’d return to find Dom and walk with him to parliament, to the section of their government that connected them to their people.

And the whole time he wondered about Eva’s country, about Grennady. How could her father let them get so far behind the times?

He wouldn’t let himself think about it while eating dinner with her. He was a prince supposedly marrying a beautiful princess. It wouldn’t do to have anyone overhear them talk about politics.

But one day, when he walked in on a conference call his father was having with King Mason and Dom, it all poured into his head again. He didn’t argue when his dad motioned for him to sit in.

He also sat in the next day and the next. He didn’t say much. He didn’t think it was his place to give advice, though it was clear King Mason needed it. He offered the idea of enticing an internet company to Grennady, then he sat and listened without comment for the next two days’ calls, until the fate of his “wedding” to Eva came up for discussion.

* * *

When the phone in the apartment buzzed, Eva jumped. So did her mom. The phone never rang, except to announce a wedding vendor, and they had no one scheduled for that day. Eva looked at her mom. Her mom looked back.

“I’m guessing we should answer it.”

Eva carefully made her way to the discreet beige phone that sat inconspicuously on a table by the sofa.

“Hello?”

“Good afternoon, Princess. This is Maria Gable, King Ronaldo’s personal assistant. He requests your presence in his office. A member of his guard should be arriving for you shortly.”

“Oh.” Confusion rumbled through her, but one didn’t say no to a king, not when she was at his palace, and not when he was protecting her. Especially since he could have news about her dad.

Three weeks had passed since her father had stashed her and her mom in Xaviera. Her father had had plenty of time to get the proof that his brother had conspired to have him killed. Plenty of time to arrest Prince Gerard. The day she’d been simultaneously praying for and dreading might be here.

“Thank you.”

She hung up the phone, glancing at her blue jeans and white tank top. She and Alex had decided to spend the afternoon poking around the shops in the village. Very visible again. They’d hold hands. They’d smile, and they’d talk.

Her nerves jumped at the thought of it. She loved talking to him. She loved that he saw things, knew things, that she didn’t. And even though he might have all kinds of strategies in place to resist her, she wasn’t so experienced, so lucky. Every day she liked him a little more.

But it might all be over. She might have been summoned to the king’s office because her dad was back. Safe. Maybe even already in Grennady.

An odd queasiness filled her.

After today, she might never again see Alex.

A knock at the door announced the royal guard member who led her to the king’s office. She hadn’t been in the administrative offices of the palace, but she was so nervous that the art on the walls barely caught her attention.

She walked into a sitting room, then a huge space full of secretaries and assistants, then an office with one woman, who rose.

In her forties, with reddish-blond hair and brown eyes, she bowed. “Princess.” She walked to the door of the office behind hers, and the guard with Eva stepped back, as if handing her off. “I’m Maria.”

“A pleasure to meet you.”

“You too, Princess.” She opened the door. “This way.”

They walked through another room to a gilded door in the back, which Maria opened.

Eva walked into an office so grand, she blinked. The king, Dominic and Alex all rose from the seats around a huge mahogany desk.

Alex walked over and took her hands. Catching her gaze, he said, “Your father is on the phone.”

Her heart lurched. “He is?”

“Yes.”

Her dad being back in Grennady was good news, but Alex’s expression was serious, concerned, as if he was afraid she might shatter into a million pieces.

Confusion pummeled her as King Ronaldo rounded his desk. “You take my seat and we’ll give you some privacy. Just press the blinking button on the phone. That’s the line he’s on.”

Eva’s stomach fell. Something was dreadfully wrong.

Nonetheless, she held her head high. “Thank you.”

As she walked behind the desk, the Sancho men left the office.

She sat. Took a breath. Pushed the blinking light on the phone.

“Dad?”

“Hey, sweetie. How are the cats?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I haven’t seen my cats in weeks.” She gulped a breath, so scared and so confused she didn’t know what to say, what to ask. A million possibilities loomed in her mind. None of them good.

“How are you?
Where
are you?”

“I’m fine. But I’m still in hiding. Investigating everything that’s going on, I realized that my brother being a traitor is only part of the problem. But I don’t want to clean house in parliament, or reorganize the government. I want to show my detractors that I’m willing to work with them. There’s been dissension growing for years. I’ve seen it, of course, but I didn’t realize it had hit a crisis point.”

“What kind of dissension?”

“Our country is horribly behind the times.”

Hadn’t Alex told her that? “And we have a generation coming up that wants something more.”

He laughed. “When did you get so smart?”

“I’m not. Alex mentioned it. He suggested luring an internet company to Grennady, convincing them to put their corporate headquarters there.”

Her dad laughed again. “He suggested it to me too. I’m in negotiations with a company right now. But I can’t go back until I have a solid plan, proof that when I return things will be different.”

Her entire body froze. “Oh.”

“But the danger has passed, sweetie.”

“It has?” She sat back in the chair. She should have been relieved, but the feeling that Alex had been in on all of this sent little lightning bolts of anger through her. She was to be the queen of her country someday, yet everyone knew this plan but her. “Really?”