“I’ll march out there right now and tell them all that the plan was my idea,” he was saying. “Because it was my idea. We’ll cast you as the sympathetic girl done wrong.”
“No,” she said. But her voice was barely above a whisper. It didn’t matter. Alex went on as though he didn’t hear her.
“Leo will cast me out for such a dastardly deed.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” Leo said, but Alex ignored him as well.
“I’ll step out of the limelight for awhile,” Alex continued. “Not that it’ll keep the wolves at bay. If I run, they’ll follow me. But that means they’ll forget Jan. Your reputation will be saved. That’s what’s important here.”
“No,” Jan said again, her voice stronger this time. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You shouldn’t have to run.”
Alex cupped her cheek, rubbing his thumb over her lower lip. “I only care that you see me for who I am.”
“I do.”
“No.” He tilted her head back so that he could peer directly down into her eyes. “I don’t think you do. This is an entirely new me. I feel like a new man with you.”
Jan’s heart was overflowing like a pie with too much yeast. Emotion spilled out of her eyes and landed on her heated cheeks. “I don’t want you to leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you.” He wiped her tears away with his thumb as he held her firmly to him. “Well, I mean I am. But I’m not.”
“You’re giving a lot of mixed messages here, Alex.”
“Let me be clear. I’m going to go on one of my trips. Maybe to a desert or to the Arctic. Wherever I can that will make any press which follows me miserable. You’ll stay here and open the restaurant as planned. We’ll talk every day. You’ll be sick of me by the time I drag myself back here with my tail between my legs to beg your forgiveness in a huge spectacle and plead with you to take me back. Deal?”
Jan didn’t want to make a new deal. She didn’t want to be left alone in any capacity. The only pact she wanted was one where she and Alex stayed side by side. And kisses. She wanted a deal with lots of kisses.
“This is touching and all, but you’re missing the obvious answer,” said Leo. “Just get married. You’ll have the money. The press will be proven wrong. Everyone gets what they want.”
Jan changed her mind. That was the deal she wanted. Exactly as Leo had laid it out.
Alex sighed, dropping his chin to his chest, and Jan’s heart sank. Everyone wouldn’t get what they wanted. Alex didn’t want to get married.
He may have wanted to date her. Maybe even for a long time. But forever as a couple wasn’t in the cards. Which meant there was no reason for Alex to take the fall.
Alex planted a kiss on her forehead. Then he turned to face his brother. As Alex and Leo continued to argue over the details, with Esme playing referee, Jan slipped out of the office.
She headed down the hall and out the front door. Taking the long walk down the drive to the gate, she saw the press. They were all lined up, talking to each other.
Her sensible shoes crunched over the gravel. She was sure they couldn’t hear her through their own chatting and laughter. But yards away, like predators sensing prey, they heard her.
In unison, their heads turned. Their eyes widened in surprise. Then they wet their lips, held up their cameras and microphones, and the frenzy began.
Jan was still yards away. She had a distance yet to march down the aisle toward the gathered crowd. Instantly, she was transported back to her wedding day, standing at the end of the aisle.
Jan knew where Alex was. She knew why he wasn’t by her side. She knew that everything he was doing was to protect her from this very scenario. And yet, here she was throwing herself into the lion’s den to protect him.
If that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was.
She couldn’t freeze now. She had to face this and tell them all the truth. Jan turned to face the beasts who were all hungry for a scoop. She put one foot in front of the other and then another.
It was slow progress, but finally, she was standing before them. Now she just had to force the words from her mouth.
A hush swept over the crowd as they awaited her first words. She waited with breathless anticipation as well. She only hoped the words would come out soon.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I’m sorry, but marriage is the only way,” said Leo.
Alex hadn’t argued. Not because he thought that what his brother was saying was a fallacy. He knew that if he simply went out there and reconfirmed his engagement to Jan, the press would leave them alone. For a while. But then something else would come up. It always did.
The reason Alex didn’t argue with his brother was that he agreed with Leo’s statement. Marriage was the only way forward that he wanted to move with Jan.
Alex wanted more than a business arrangement with the pie maker. He wanted more than just her partnership in the kitchen. He wanted to be with her in each and every room of their very own house after they closed the restaurant each day. He wanted to make her breakfast every morning. He wanted to take her with him on his culinary adventures.
“A real engagement that leads to a legal marriage is the only way I can see to save your reputation,” said Leo.
“There’s no need for investors,” Esme said, standing beside her husband. “We’ll invest.”
Alex opened his mouth to turn the offer down.
“Alex,” Esme sighed. “That’s what families do. We support each other, especially when it’s our dreams.”
Alex looked to his brother.
Leo put his arm around his wife and nodded. “I believe in you. I want to see you work at your passion, and you’re clearly passionate about this.”
“I am,” said Alex.
“You never wanted any part of the family business. But you are my business. You are my family. I want in on this. If nothing more than to show you that I believe in you.”
Alex took in a deep breath, but his heart was too filled with emotion. He had to blow the air back out. It was an offer he’d never considered. Now that it was on the table, he couldn’t refuse.
He lifted his head and stretched out his hand to his brother. Leo took Alex’s hand and pulled him in for a hug. It had been a long time since Alex had been held by a member of his family. His father was always too distant and aloof. Leo had tried to walk in his father’s footsteps early, but Alex had gotten a few hugs back when he was small. He was now coming to realize Leo’s rare embraces had meant the world to him.
The embrace ended all too quickly. Both brothers fidgeted, not quite meeting the others’ gaze now that there was air between them. Esme rolled her eyes, but she grinned, clearly pleased with the outcome.
“I know you never wanted anything arranged,” Leo said, “but the two of you get on. You have similar interests. And frankly, I don’t think you could do better.”
Leo looked pointedly at Alex letting him know that he didn’t think Alex could do better than Jan. Alex chuckled. He agreed wholeheartedly. There was no one like Jan.
Alex had never felt that feeling before, but he knew what it was. He’d seen it in the eyes of his brother and Esme. He was falling in love with Jan.
Would she laugh when he told her? Maybe she’d knock him over the head with another rolling pin? It didn’t matter. He’d take it. Just as long as she took him.
She’d been silent through the whole exchange. It was quite unlike her. Had she not liked the arrangement that the two men had set out for her? Was she simply biding her time to give him an earful? He turned to her, uncertain of what he would say. But she wasn’t there.
“Where did she go?”
Esme and Leo looked over Alex’s shoulder as though to confirm that Jan was no longer present. Alex did a complete three hundred sixty degree turn about the room. Jan wasn’t hiding in any corners. As he came back around to face Leo and Esme, he saw it.
Tiny sparks of light went off in the distance. The sparks were too
big and frequent to be fireflies. He knew the press was out there, and then he realized what the bursts of light were.
“Oh, no,” he muttered, taking off out of the room.
As he came out the front door, his suspicions were confirmed. Cameras flashed like an American Fourth of July fireworks display. The press stood behind the iron gates of the castle, pawing to get in like zombies looking for warm bodies. There was one solitary warm body making slow steps toward the gate.
Alex rushed to her. It didn’t take him long to overtake her. Jan’s steps were slow and uncertain. Lights flashed in her face. Reporters shouted at her. All the while, Jan resembled an actual deer caught in headlights.
He remembered her reaction the first time the press accosted her, as they made their way down a runway to their plane. They’d been lined up as though on two sides of an aisle as they stared and shouted questions at her. She’d gone catatonic under their scrutiny.
She wasn’t quite catatonic now. Just a bundle of nerves. Without needing to be told, Alex understood the trauma she was reliving.
It was her wedding day all over again. She’d been left to face the crowd alone. But she wasn’t alone. He was there with her. He’d always be by her side. And Leo and Esme were hot on his heels.
Jan was surrounded by the ones who loved her most. The ones who believed in her. The ones who’d never let her down or let her walk down an aisle alone.
She needed to know that. As she opened her mouth to speak, Alex stepped up. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into his warm body.
Jan startled. She turned and looked up at him, her gaze wide with surprise. In real time, Alex saw the tension release from the corners of her eyes. He saw her mouth relax as she let out a long, slow exhale.
As she leaned on him and took comfort and solace in his hold, Alex felt like the king of the world. “I have an announcement to make,” he said, never taking his eyes off the woman he wanted to hold onto for the rest of his life.
All went silent. The reporters stopped questioning. The cameras stopped clicking. The pencils stopped scratching. Even the night crawlers hushed to hear what their prince had to say.
“Chef Peppers and I are opening a restaurant together. We will serve fusion fare of the likes your taste buds could never imagine. We will install hydroponics in the back of the garden for fresh fruits and vegetables. This is a tactic that I learned from my time in Nairobi where I helped locals to install the technology. Our restaurant, The Prince’s Palette, will be entirely farm to table produce using recipes and spices I learned while helping cities install food co-ops and farmer’s markets around the world. This venture will be successful because when this woman and I are in the kitchen together, magic happens.”
A grin spread across Jan’s face. She looked up at Alex as though he’d hung the moon for her. Alex felt certain he could stretch that tall and reach the night’s sky for this woman.
“And the wedding?” shouted a reporter. “The inheritance?”
Alex’s gaze never left the woman he loved, the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. “There’s not going to be any wedding.”
Jan blinked. Her bottom lip trembled, and she shut her eyes. Alex felt a shudder run through her body, and he pulled her closer into his heat.
“I don’t need any collateral to secure my future with this woman,” he said.
Jan opened her eyes and looked at him. They stared directly into each other’s gazes. Alex felt she was seeing into his soul.
“I know with every fiber of my being that we will be partners for the rest of our life. And that that partnership will be fruitful, and bountiful, and filled with mutual respect and utter devotion and … love.”
Another tremble went through Jan’s body. This time, it didn’t have the tinge of sorrow. It was a shiver of delight.
Alex went down on one knee. He took Jan’s hand in his. “Jan Peppers, will you do me the honor of never marrying me.”
There was a confused silence that rippled through the crowd. Alex only had eyes for Jan. He saw when the true meaning of his words, meaning that only those in their circle would understand, hit her.
“Will you go on this journey through life with me with no safety net knowing that I believe in us and will do everything in my power to bring about our success?”
Jan opened her mouth, but no words would come out. After a few deep breaths, she tried again. “Yes, Alex. Yes, I’ll never marry you.”
Alex rose and scooped this magnificent woman into his arms. Jan was smart and witty and talented and his. “You know it’s not just your cooking I love, don’t you?”
“You know I’m not in it for your inheritance.”
“Or the crown?” he asked
“Well …” She cocked her head as though considering. “A tiara is way cuter than a chef’s hat.”
“I’ll give you a tiara.”
“I’m good with your heart.” She placed her hand over the beating organ to the right of his chest.
“You have it,” he said.
“And you have mine,” said Jan.
“What just happened?” one of the reporters asked. “Are they getting married or not?”
“Oh, they’re definitely getting married,” came Leo’s commanding voice.
Alex was fine with that … one day. Perhaps in a year, after the restaurant, which he’d allow his brother to finance, was doing well. But for now, he pulled Jan into his arms and kissed her lightly. Then because he was a glutton, he deepened the kiss.
All around him, cameras flashed. But for once in his life, he didn’t mind what story they printed in the papers because this particular headline could not be spun into any other tale except a Prince in Love.
Epilogue
Diego Zhi Wen de Barnadino, the current Duke of Mondego, sat behind the massive oak desk of his ancestors peering down at the day’s headline. A Prince in Love? asked the rag of a newspaper that was The Royal Times. That reporter, Lila Drake, had been a pain in the sides of noblemen and noblewomen across all of Cordoba for years. She could’ve left the question mark off of the report.
Instead, she speculated that Alex and Jan might not be in it for love. That they could possibly be in their relationship, in their business partnership, for money.
Though Zhi had never expected Alex to actually get married, he knew that what was between the prince and the pie maker was the trues form of love he’d ever bared witness to. He also knew that money played no part in the affair.
Zhi had known there was something afoot between the two back when Jan had presented a perfect pie and swiped a win from him in the annual Union Day pie competition. Her concoction had won her the equivalent of five thousand US dollars.
It had been money that he’d needed. Money that his ducal estate could have sorely used. Instead, he’d had to laugh off the loss as though it meant nothing to him.
He was a duke. He held vast lands. His coffers were brimming. Unfortunately, only two out of those three statements were true.
The ancestral desk wobbled as Zhi leaned his elbows on it. It was in need of repair. So many things inside this crumbling estate were in need of rehabilitation, reconstruction, or a downright overhaul. But the money coming in was a trickle where he needed a deluge to set the estate right.
Zhi bent down and stuffed a wadded sheet of paper beneath the unbalanced desk leg. It would hold for a while. But if he wasn’t careful, he’d lose it all due to his father’s mismanagement of their wealth.
His ailing father had a solution. Whenever the old man was lucid, he demanded Zhi simply do what he did in his position when he took over from his near destitute father. That solution was simply to marry more money.
It was the way of the men of their class. Love matches like Alex’s were rare even today. But Zhi was neither irresponsible when it came to money, nor was he heartless when it came to women. So he rejected that idea.
Not that he planned to find love in this lifetime. But he would save h
is dukedom, and not by lying to some unsuspecting heiress like had been done to his mother. No, Zhi planned to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty.
He’d righted the desk. He would right the entire estate, brick by brick, stone by stone, dollar by dollar. He just needed time to do it… and a miracle would be nice.
* * *
Unfortunately, Zhi’s time is about to run out.
He’s going to have to consider his father’s Option B
-to boo up with a wealthy heiress.
Too bad he’s about to fall for the rich girl’s party DJ instead!
The tables will turn when these two opposites attract.
* * *
Grab your copy of “The Duke and the DJ” today!
About the Author
Shanae Johnson was raised by Saturday Morning cartoons and After School Specials. She still doesn’t understand why there isn’t a life lesson that ties the issues of the day together just before bedtime. While she’s still waiting for the meaning of it all, she writes stories to try and figure it all out. Her books are wholesome and sweet, but her heroes are hot and heroines are full of sass!
And by the way, the E elongates the A. So it’s pronounced Shan-aaaaaaaa. Perfect for a hero to call out across the moors, or up to a balcony, or to blare outside her window on a boombox. If you hear him calling her name, please send him her way!
You can sign up for Shanae’s Reader Group at
http://bit.ly/ShanaeJohnsonReaders
Also by Shanae Johnson
The Rebel Royals series
The King and the Kindergarten Teacher
The Prince and the Pie Maker
The Duke and the DJ
The Marquis and the Magician’s Assistant
The Earl and the Exterminator
The Count and the Carpenter
The Baron and the Barista
The Prince and the Pie Maker Page 13
