The King's Bought Bride (Royal House of Leone Book 1)

by Jennifer Lewis

  “We’ll be very quiet. My friends are both total geeks. That’s why they need someone like me to make sure they’re not alone at Christmas. I make a pretty decent Christmas dinner. I’ve done it before.” He shot her a winning smile.

  She stared at him. “What if I want to be alone at Christmas?”

  He studied her face for a moment and saw the hesitation in her eyes, the trembling frustration in her lips. He spoke softly. “Nobody really wants to be alone at Christmas.”

  On her blog Serena wrote a lot about “turning frustration into determination,” but she was beginning to hate this guy. “I do. Your wound is bandaged. Please get in your car and leave.”

  “But I just drove three hours from the airport and that was after a connecting flight from Atlanta and a nine-hour flight from Zurich. I’m not sure I’m even safe to drive at this point. Can I crash on the sofa until daylight?”

  He probably had no idea that she had been sleeping on the couch when he showed up.

  Could she really send a stranger out onto the unlit backcountry roads with no sleep? That was not how she was raised. She softened. “Okay. Just until you get enough rest.”

  His mouth creased into a smile broad enough to be a little cocky. “I appreciate it. I’m sorry for inconveniencing you.”

  She shrugged. It wasn’t his fault. “A misunderstanding. Are you hungry?” She started to feel like she’d been a bit harsh. Perhaps she should have tried communicating with him before smashing a vase over him. Still, he’d half frightened the life out of her.

  “I ate on the plane so I’m fine, but thanks.”

  He had a nice face. Too handsome for any sensible purpose, but a warm, open expression.

  Sandro, wasn’t it? He didn’t seem like a total jerk. “I’m Serena.”

  She decided to keep her last name to herself in case he was into Googling people. Hopefully, tomorrow morning he’d disappear and no one would be any the wiser that the New York Times best-selling author of a book on Living Your Best Life was holed up on the Georgia sea islands, wishing she could figure out how to follow her own advice.

  She turned and left, partly driven by a desire to pick up the shattered evidence of her overreaction and partly to get away from that penetrating gaze.

  She hoped the blue porcelain vase wasn’t a priceless antique, because it definitely wasn’t fixable. She collected the pieces in a bag from her trip to the local market on the way here. Sandro crouched down and plucked a large piece from the other side of the arched doorway. “I guess I’m lucky this thing wasn’t made of steel. You packed quite a punch with it.”

  “You took me by surprise. I assumed the worst.” She felt kind of embarrassed now. “I’m glad I didn’t have a gun. I’d probably have used it. I’ve watched too many scary movies.”

  “It is lonely out here.” He picked up some more pieces and cupped them in the palm of one big hand. “I didn’t realize how far the house was from everything.”

  “Not many people know about this area. Most of the locals are Gullah people. This house and two others like it are the only new ones out here.” She’d learned that while looking for the most remote rental house she could find.

  “Who are the Gullah people?”

  “You’ve never heard of them?” Other people’s ignorance often annoyed her.

  “In my defense, I’m from Europe.” A wry smile crinkled his eyes. “A tiny country called Altaleone.”

  “Oh. You do have a slight accent now that I think about it. The Gullahs are descendants of African slaves who’ve lived in this same isolated spot for centuries and retained aspects of their traditional culture. It’s a unique and fascinating place.”

  “I look forward to seeing it in daylight. I noticed there were few lights between here and the highway.”

  She stood up, her bag now full of all but the smallest pieces. Hopefully, she could find a vacuum cleaner somewhere. “Thanks for helping. That was kind of you. Does your forehead hurt?”

  He shrugged. “Not much.” His eyes twinkled. “I think I’ll survive.” He emptied the shards from his hand into her bag. “If you don’t mind I’m about to fall asleep standing up.”

  “Oh, of course. Do take the sofa.” She gestured toward the one she’d just been sleeping on. She didn’t want him settling into a bedroom. Then she’d never get rid of him. “I’ll be upstairs. Please don’t do anything to frighten the life out of me.”

  His apologetic smile disarmed her. “I’ll do my best. See you in the morning.”

  An alarming prospect.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Serena muttered to herself under her breath while she applied mascara. And lipstick, and a hint of contour and highlighter.

  Really? She was putting on makeup for a random stranger who’d made her jump out of her skin?

  Apparently so. Maybe she just needed to paint on her game face. Especially since she wanted him out of here as soon as possible so she could get back to licking her wounds in peace.

  Dressed and with her hair in a neat bun, she ventured downstairs. A quick glance at the sofa showed it empty. Had Sandro left already?

  Her hopes were dashed when she heard the fridge door close in the kitchen. “Good morning,” she called. Was he rifling through her newly purchased food? This man had a nerve.

  “Good morning, Serena.” Sandro looked deliciously rumpled, his dark hair tousled and his expensive shirt crumpled. “What would you like for breakfast?”

  “Uh…I can help myself.”

  “Why don’t you relax and let me cook you something? A friend I shared a flat with in Paris now owns a string of gourmet restaurants. I picked up a few tricks from him.” He grinned, then turned back to the fridge.

  “Are you serious?” Now she was intrigued. Could a man this gorgeous and confident really cook?

  “Try me.” His eyes twinkled with mischief, suggesting that she try more than his cooking. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and fought the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Do you like frittata? I see you bought eggs, onions, spinach and parmesan cheese.” He looked at her expectantly.

  “Mmm, that sounds delicious.” And she’d get to sit here and watch him make it? “I’ll take you up on your offer. And I hope you’re making enough for yourself as well.”

  This might even make a good blog post—perhaps with mention of a handsome man cooking but no information about his identity. She hadn’t yet revealed to her audience that her engagement was over.

  Still, she didn’t want Sandro to get the idea that he was staying. “Did you get in touch with your friends?”

  “Not yet. They’re on the West Coast so I need to wait a while longer before it’s morning there.” He was already breaking eggs into a bowl, big tanned hands moving with deft ease.

  Yum.

  This was an excellent way to get her mind off Howard, who didn’t know how to boil an egg, let alone make a frittata with it.

  “You probably shouldn’t be alone here anyway. The car rental place told me there’s a big storm coming.” He sliced into the onion, and she braced herself not to cry. She didn’t even need an excuse lately. “I had to promise them I wasn’t going anywhere near the ocean.”

  “So you’re a liar. That’s encouraging. But how can there be a storm? It’s not hurricane season.”

  He shrugged. “I guess this storm didn’t get the memo. And there’s also a winter storm coming down from the Great Lakes. They’re supposed to meet up somewhere right around here. Wind, snow, ice and who knows what else. You might need help shoveling out afterward.”

  She shrugged. “I’m from Virginia. I’ve seen snow before, and I’m stronger than I look.”

  “I’m from the Alps. I’ve seen snow higher than my head.” He flashed that disarming grin, and her insides did a weird flip-flop thing.

  “What country did you say you were from?”

  “Altaleone.”

  “Never heard of it.” Maybe he was making it up. He’d already confessed to
being a liar.

  “It’s tiny. In between northern Italy and Austria.”

  He must be pulling her leg. She’d been skiing in Austria and visited Italy twice. “I don’t believe you.” She picked up her phone and searched for the name using the house’s Wi-Fi. Sure enough, there it was. Total population twenty-nine thousand. Ruled by the Leone family since A.D. 800 and known for producing fine champagne and cut diamonds.

  Wait a second.

  “What did you say your last name was?”

  “Leone. Sandro Leone.” He smiled before stirring chopped onion into the egg.

  “Any relation to the royal family of your country?” She lifted a brow, now sure he was lying to her.

  “My brother Darias is the king.” He said it softly, matter of fact. “It’s a beautiful country. You should come visit.”

  She scanned the wiki page and saw the name Sandro Leone listed as a member of the royal family. “So if your brother is the king, you must be…”

  “A prince? Yes.” He chopped the spinach with speed and skill.

  “Show me your passport.”

  “What?” He looked up from his chopping.

  “If you arrived on a plane you must have it with you. Do you expect me to just believe you’re a royal prince?”

  He walked to the sink and washed his hands, then dried them. She followed him into the living room, where he fished into an outside pocket of his bag and pulled out a passport. He handed it to her with a lifted brow.

  The passport was burgundy in color and had a hard cover. She flipped it open and the colorful pages revealed a photo of Sandro and the name he’d given. “This could be fake.”

  “It’s real. I swear it.” His eyes glimmered with humor.

  Damn it, she believed him.

  She shoved the passport back at him. “We don’t really believe in princes in America.” She wanted him to know she had no intention of calling him your majesty or any such nonsense.

  “I don’t take it personally.” That warm smile again. He led the way back to the kitchen and resumed his chopping. “I’m just a regular person. I’ll never be king.”

  Sure. The wiki article had referred to the ancient family’s great wealth in land, art and plain old money. “Just a regular Joe, huh?”

  “A regular Sandro.” He scraped the spinach into the eggs and whipped the mixture with a fork. His rolled-up sleeve gave her a tantalizing view of his muscled forearm. “At your service.”

  “You’re too much. You still need to find somewhere else to stay, though. I’m here to write.”

  “What do you write?”

  She hesitated. “Nonfiction.”

  “What kind?”

  Gulp. “Self-help books. Giving people life strategies, that kind of thing.”

  “Like how to spend Christmas alone in the middle of nowhere?” The way he glanced at her, laughter dancing in his dark eyes, made her chuckle in spite of herself.

  “Exactly. I can show people how to have a wonderful holiday by themselves.”

  He poured the egg mixture into a baking dish. “Where is your boyfriend or husband?”

  She gave him credit for not staring awkwardly at her while he asked such a personal question.

  She gave herself credit for not flinching before answering. “I had a recent breakup. To be honest I couldn’t face going home to my family alone. My sisters and my brother are all married and happy. I’m the odd one out.”

  “You do seem pretty odd.” He closed the oven door, opened the fridge, poured two glasses of her orange juice, and sauntered over to where she stood by the island. “But I like that in a woman.”

  She took the glass from him. “Are all royals as confident and obnoxious as you?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sandro shrugged. “Probably.”

  “It figures.” She sipped the juice, fighting the urge to smile. He stood far too close, and she could smell the last traces of some kind of yummy expensive cologne clinging to him. When she told people this story none of them were going to believe her.

  “Why didn’t you buy a goose?” he asked.

  “Why would I?”

  “It’s the traditional Christmas bird. You didn’t buy a turkey, either.”

  “I bought a rolled turkey breast with stuffing in it.”

  He grimaced. “I saw that in there. Sorry, but no.”

  She stared. “What? It’s not any of your business what I eat.”

  “Indeed it is.” He polished off the last of his glass and put it in the dishwasher. “I have fallen into your life, and I intend to save you from yourself.”

  “I don’t need saving, thanks.”

  “Because you already figured everything out and wrote a book about it?”

  “Pretty much.” Strange feelings built in her chest. A mix of hurt and anger and humor at her own ridiculous predicament. “And since that’s how I pay my bills, I need to write another one. And I can eat a rolled turkey breast while I’m writing it if I want to.”

  He chuckled and turned on the oven light. She could see the top of the frittata already beginning to bubble.

  She frowned. “You preheated the oven?”

  “Of course.”

  “So you were going to make a frittata whether I wanted one or not?”

  “If you wanted something else I’d have made that. Just getting prepared. Speaking of which, we need to hit the local stores before the storm rolls in. I started writing a list.”

  “There’s only one store, and I don’t think they’re going to have goose. I went there in daylight, remember. I wanted to buy feta cheese, but they didn’t have anything that exotic. They have a lot of different cuts of pig.” She shuddered at the memory.

  “Excellent. My chef friend I told you about is from the Deep South. New Orleans, to be precise. His name is Louis DuLac.”

  “I’m not eating pigs’ feet. Or intestines. I’m not wild about the rest of the pig, either.”

  “Shame. We’ll make do with turkey. If you rub butter and herbs underneath the skin it stays juicy.”

  “You really do love to cook, don’t you?”

  He’d turned away to remove the dish from the oven using one hand and the dish towel. “It’s a useful hobby.”

  “I agree. I wish more men could cook.” She wasn’t much of a cook herself. She liked reading cookbooks and watching cooking shows, but even when she used all the right ingredients and followed the directions to the letter, nothing ever came out quite right.

  Kind of like her life lately.

  Her stomach growled. “That smells wonderful.”

  Enjoy life’s unexpected blessings. Hadn’t she used that as a chapter heading once? “Let me get the plates. If I can find them.”

  It didn’t take long to get two places set at the large stone island. She even found some ironed linen napkins.

  “Coffee?” He put freshly cut slices of frittata in both places.

  “I thought I smelled coffee.”

  “I’m glad you thought to shop ahead.”

  “I try to think of everything.”

  “Is that something you recommend in your books?”

  “Absolutely. The power of making lists.” She smiled. He was so easy to talk to that she couldn’t be mad at him right now. Even if they were blowing through all the ingredients she’d bought for her holiday for one. “But seriously, where will you stay? Is there a hotel? Or another rental?”

  “Milk? Sugar?”

  “Just milk.” Was he ignoring her questions? Just because he was royal didn’t mean he could do whatever he wanted.

  “Say when.” He poured in a trickle of her one percent milk.

  “When.”

  “I hardly poured any.”

  “I like it dark. So when are you leaving?”

  He put the milk back in the fridge. “About that.” He turned and put his hands on his hips. “Wouldn’t you enjoy a multi-course, expertly prepared Christmas dinner with all the trimmings? And I brought some Christmas mus
ic. You’ll like Zach and Ajay. They’re super nice guys even though they’re geeky shut-ins a lot of the time.”

  The frittata looked so delicious that she didn’t feel like arguing right now. Maybe the eggs would give her the strength she needed to put her foot down. She decided to ignore his question.

  His phone rang, and she heard someone talking on the other end.

  “Just a few gusts of wind, nothing serious.” He sat down on the stool near hers. “We’re not going to get snowed in. We’re at the beach! Who ever heard of getting snowed in at the beach. Don’t worry. You’ll be back in time for your meeting.”

  He hung up and shook his head. “It’s hard to get these workaholic types to take a break. He’s trying to use the storm as an excuse to cancel.”

  “You were trying to convince me only a few minutes ago that I might need help shoveling out. I take it you’re the kind of person who says whatever they think will win.”

  “Do you warn about people like me in your books?”

  “Not yet, but I’m considering this breakfast as research.” She shot him an arch look.

  He had the audacity to look pleased. “I hope they don’t cancel. Then I’ll be all alone for Christmas.” He looked up at her with sad eyes.

  You’re the kind of person who says whatever they think will win.

  “You could fly back to…Altaleone.”

  “It’s too late already. By the time I fly from here to a hub, then from there to Austria, or Switzerland, and drive through the mountains—which are heavy with snow at this time of year…”

  “That would be sad, wouldn’t it?” She tried to sound sarcastic. “You could use the time to write a book. What do you do, anyway? Or is being a prince a full-time job?”

  “I’m a mechanical engineer by training. I invent things by inclination.” He sipped his coffee.

  “Like what?”

  “Right now my main focus is on portable solar panels for smaller applications like a single laptop.”