Fit for a Queen

by Nicole Burnham

  “And mastering your painting skills.”

  He made an amused sound of affirmation. So much had happened in the last hour, he’d forgotten he’d told her that. “Lots of painting. Plus wood stripping, floor refinishing, cabinet repair, you name it. I even learned the basics of wiring and plumbing. By the time I finished, it looked pretty good. I thought about selling and using the profit to find a flat with a better view. I wanted to see the water without having to stand in a certain spot in my living room. Or look at the stars without having to open a window and lean out. I mentioned it to my neighbors, a retired German couple, and they told me they were about to put their flat on the market and move to Heidelberg to be closer to their grandchildren. They asked if I’d be interested, since their place was on the top floor and had a better view. I went to take a look and noticed photos they’d taken aboard a boat moored in the harbor. I told them it looked like heaven, and the wife said they were selling the boat, too. Within the month, both our flats were sold and I was the new owner of the boat.”

  Daniela set her water bottle on the table. “Funny how life works. One conversation, one chance meeting, and everything changes.”

  She didn’t mean Cancun, but it’s what came to his mind. What were the odds of their meeting outside that club that night? Or that they’d see each other again, years later, in a royal residence halfway around the world? That they’d sit together on this boat, on this night, with the lights of San Rimini in front of them and a million stars overhead?

  “Beautiful as this is, I’m not sure I could live on a boat,” she said on an exhale. “It seems…I don’t know. Confined.”

  “You’d think that, when you stand back and look at it from the walkway, but on board, it feels more spacious than my flat ever did. Most days I sit out here to read or eat. When I have a day or two off, I travel along the coast. The entire Mediterranean is my home then. I never hear the neighbors through the walls the way I did at my last place.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Her gaze slid toward the cabin. “You never feel trapped living in such a small space? What if it’s raining? Or cold?”

  He stood and reached for her hand. “Come with me. We’ll take a tour.”

  “Oh, that’s not necessary—”

  “The stars will still be here. I promise.” When his hand brushed over hers, he expected her to withdraw. Instead, as she stood, they laced fingers. He didn’t instigate the more intimate contact, nor did she. It just happened.

  As with bringing her here, it felt right.

  She moved along the deck with him, but as they entered the cabin and he showed her the galley, the adjacent table with its bench seats, the head—always important to know—and pointed toward his small stateroom, her face showed a mixture of interest and strain. It was the expression you’d see in the movies whenever a child stood inside the entrance to a dragon’s cave or a giant’s house, and their desire to explore battled their common sense urge to escape.

  “People might consider it confined,” he said, borrowing her term. “But I consider it efficient. Well planned.”

  She surveyed the space, taking in the small refrigerator and microwave in the galley, the sliding door to his stateroom, and the smooth-fronted cabinets he’d installed under the bench seats. Her gaze sailed over the notebook, pen, and sports magazine he’d stacked at one end of the table, then lingered at the window, as if she were imagining it with the shade open and daylight streaming inside. Her brows lifted. “You keep it very clean.”

  He shrugged. “I stick to necessities. My clothes fit in a storage locker behind the berth. Toiletries in a cabinet in the head. All out of sight.”

  “Ah.” She released his hand and picked a well-thumbed Jim Butcher paperback from the narrow shelf that ran above the bench seats, then flipped it to look at the back cover. It was one of his favorites.

  “I haven’t read this one, but my father loves the Dresden series. He’s read them all at least twice.” She scanned his other titles as she replaced the Butcher, taking in paperbacks by Lisa Gardner, Vince Flynn, Michael Connelly, Patricia Briggs, and several others. She tipped the lone Jacqueline Winspear to check the title, said that she’d been meaning to try Winspear, then slid the book back into place as she gave the shelf a final perusal. Her gaze hitched on the classics tucked at the end: Lady Chatterley’s Lover. East of Eden. The Odyssey. The Three Musketeers. Stacked at the very end, serving as a bookend, were his only three hardcovers, a two-volume history of World War II and Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One.

  Her lips twitched in approval, though he could tell she tried to hide it.

  “No television?”

  “Most of my entertainment is digital, so I use a tablet. That way I don’t have to cram in a television or keep very many paperbacks. Easier to organize, less to dust. It’s the last thing I want to do after work.”

  Her eyes flickered in amusement at his comment about not keeping very many paperbacks, given that he had a shelf full of his favorites. So she was a reader, too. Interesting.

  “No souvenirs from your travels?” she asked. “Most people have a few sentimental items. There were even some in Queen Aletta’s closet.”

  “Oh, I’m not completely devoid of sentiment.” He looked toward his stateroom. “By my bed there’s a painting I bought from a street vendor in Guatemala. I also have a funky wooden wall plaque my parents bought for me in Germany when I was a kid, though that’s hanging in the head, mostly to irritate my mother, who thinks it belongs in a more hallowed location.”

  Amusement lifted the corners of her mouth. “No doubt. Does she visit here often?”

  “Not really. It’s easier to have dinner at their place. We try to do it once a week.”

  With a light touch at the small of her back, he eased her toward the galley, then opened one of the cabinets. “Most of my souvenirs are practical, which is why they don’t stand out. The blanket on my bed was purchased at a marketplace in Spain. My plates and bowls came from Egypt, Turkey, and Greece, which is why” —he gestured toward the cabinet interior— “nothing matches. Oh, and I bought a pair of espresso cups last month in Italy. I prefer stuff I can use to things that collect dust.”

  “They’re gorgeous.” She peeked around the cabinet door. “That green bowl, especially.”

  “That piece of perfection is my dedicated ice cream bowl. I found it in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. The place is a total tourist trap, but I don’t care. It’s the best bowl ever made.”

  She grinned. “Until it breaks.”

  “Hey! Bite your tongue.”

  As he closed the cabinet, he turned to face her. It was intimate, yet comfortable.

  Then it wasn’t so comfortable, as a zing of desire flashed between them.

  He shouldn’t have said bite your tongue. Thinking about it brought other words to mind. Taste. Savor. Indulge.

  When he recovered enough to speak, grit laced his voice. “Now that you’ve had the grand tour, would you call it confined?”

  She angled her chin. For a split second, he saw another spark of desire in her gaze. Then he could feel it, sizzling between them like a physical entity.

  He debated. Do I kiss her? If I stay perfectly still, will she kiss me?

  The kiss they’d shared all those years ago in front of her Cancun hotel had blown his mind. Time and maturity could only improve it. And her expression made him think—hope—that she was about to lift onto her toes and prove him correct.

  When she finally replied, her voice was soft, yet serious. “I admit, I wonder why you’d choose to live in a floating coffin.”

  Chapter 20

  Royce drew back and held a hand to his heart in mock agony.

  A coffin? She’d compared his pride and joy to a coffin?

  A suppressed smile bloomed across her face. “Given that you’re a painter, I should have known you’d have better lighting. I’ll withdraw my use of the word confined and go with your choice of efficient.”

 
“I do have good lighting. And for your information, the ecru paint and blue trim you see replaced a rather bleak hunter green and burgundy color scheme.” It came out sounding defensive—hell, it was defensive—but at the moment, he wasn’t really thinking about the paint job or the lighting. He wasn’t even thinking about the fact she’d felt comfortable enough to tease him. He was entranced by the curve of Daniela’s lower lip. The single eyelash on her right upper lid that angled in the opposite direction of all the others. The color differences in the strands of her hair.

  And his stupidity in asking a question about boat decor instead of leaning in, framing her gorgeous face in his hands, and kissing her senseless.

  That didn’t happen in a coffin, floating or otherwise.

  “Paint job noted, including the fact you used the word ‘ecru.’ You’re a man of many talents.” Her attention went to a spot on his arm and her expression changed. “You’re also bleeding. Or bled. This looks dry.”

  He frowned and looked down as her fingers went to the spot.

  “I don’t think it’s mine,” he said. His arms and shoulders didn’t feel injured. Not like his cheek, where every turn of his head brought on the dull throb that resulted from a punch. He’d sport a bruise tomorrow, despite Basia and her bag of ice.

  Daniela murmured something to herself as she shifted to his side for a better view. She ran her hand along his arm until she gripped it above the elbow. “There are several spots. Definitely bloodstains, though there’s dirt, too. No damage to the fabric, but you should soak your shirt in cold water. Warm water will set the stains.”

  “Address a lot of bloodstains with Queen Fabrizia, do you?”

  She glanced at him with amusement in her eyes, though her focus remained on his arm. “The worst she gets is a splatter of salad dressing. Occasionally a dirt stain, if she’s walking the palace grounds and feels the need to deadhead something, but that’s rare. The gardeners’ primary mission is to stay ahead of her.”

  “I imagine.” He smiled at the image of Fabrizia stopping to pluck a fading bloom, lest it mar her otherwise perfect garden, then shrugged. “Blood I can handle. Military and all. Salad dressing is outside of my area of stain-fighting expertise.”

  “Ah.”

  Color crept into her face and she released his arm. He quickly added, “I’m glad you spotted it. I doubt I’d have noticed until I did laundry. Or worse, afterward, when it was good and set.”

  The statement was true enough. Still, she seemed momentarily unsure what to do with herself. She took two steps backward and her hip grazed the side of the table. For an instant, her expression mirrored what he’d seen on her face in the restaurant, when she’d remained crouched behind Basia’s counter even after the police arrived. He should have recognized the signs then…the tight jaw, the internal battle to remain in control despite a growing sense of fear. The time lag between when he’d spoken to her and when she responded.

  As with bloodstain removal, some knowledge came with time in the field.

  She moved toward the deck, saying something he didn’t quite catch about watching the stars for a few more minutes before she returned to her hotel. The wheels of his mind clicked, remembering another trip to a hotel, another escape from a crowded spot, and mentally comparing her body language then and now.

  “You’re claustrophobic.” Her coffin comment, while delivered to tweak him, had its roots in the truth.

  Her shoulders tensed involuntarily before she turned to face him. “What makes you say that?”

  “You weren’t keen on seeing the cabin. That was a clue.” He made an encompassing gesture as he moved toward her. “You expected to feel trapped.”

  “I couldn’t picture anyone living full time on a boat. Now I can. You’ve made smart design choices.”

  Aware he was cornering her in a tight space about that precise fear, he thanked her for the compliment, then urged her toward the deck. Once they were in the open air, he guided her toward the chairs, but slipped an arm around her waist before she could sit.

  “That all right?” He could just make out her soft smile in the moonlight before she nodded. They remained quiet for a full minute, hip to hip, enjoying the calm of the night, the soft lap of water against the hull, and the distant hum of the city. Lights in many of the hillside homes and apartments had been extinguished for the night.

  On weekends, the casinos and dance clubs pulled out all the stops to attract Europe’s glitterati. Tourists who’d spent the day at the aquarium or the Duomo packed the adjacent restaurants in hopes of spotting a Hollywood starlet or a one-of-a-kind Lamborghini. Mondays, however, were the quietest day of the week in San Rimini, ideal for giving Daniela the sense they had privacy and that she could talk.

  Finally, he said, “I’m glad you agreed to come here instead of heading straight for your hotel. Do you feel better than when we left the restaurant?”

  “Me? You’re the one who took a beating.”

  “Del Prete’s buddy is the one who took the beating.”

  He could feel laughter ripple through her where his hand rested at the small of her back. “I stand corrected. But in answer to your question, I’m fine.”

  “Good.” He smoothed his thumb back and forth across the fabric of her blouse. “Thank you for handling the phone call with the Canadians. You do well under pressure. Queen Fabrizia must depend on that.”

  “One would hope, or I’d be out of a job.”

  He risked a sideways glance. Her eyes remained on the stars and the gentle smile lingered on her face.

  “That’s partly how I figured you aren’t too good with confined spaces,” he ventured, hoping the topic wouldn’t extinguish her smile. “You weren’t upset by the fight at Safina’s. You could deal with that. It was being stuck in the gap between the counter and the wall that bothered you. I didn’t realize it at first, though. You hide it well.”

  It took her a second longer than usual to respond. “Working closely with the queen requires that I take defensive training. There are times I may be nearer than her security team, which means I’d be the one to shove her behind a counter in an emergency situation.” She met his eyes for a brief moment, then her gaze returned to the city and its twinkling lights. “But no, I’m not a fan of confined spaces. Even when it’s the safest possible place to be, given the situation.”

  He remained quiet, giving her room to say more if she wished. A moment later, she asked, “Have you ever seen an old car crushed for scrap metal? Entering a confined area makes me feel like I’m strapped inside one of those cars with no way to undo the seat belt and escape, and no way to prevent the huge metal plate from coming down on my head. I know it’s not rational to feel that way, so when I’m faced with a situation like tonight, I tell myself it’s temporary. That it’s all in my head. It’s not real. Then I try to find something else to focus on. A floor tile. A light bulb. Anything that will occupy my brain.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Not always. Fortunately, it isn’t an issue that often. It’s not like a fear of the dark, where you’re forced to confront it every night.”

  Royce continued to stroke her back with his thumb. It impressed him that she could find an optimistic way to view a difficult situation.

  “It’s a common fear,” he said. “Not that commonality makes it less frightening. One of the guys in my unit dealt with claustrophobia and I saw firsthand how it knocked him back on occasion. He thinks it developed when he was a kid and his older brother locked him in a closet overnight as a prank. When he first joined the service and realized he’d have to spend time in confined areas, he made a few appointments with a counselor, and he’s the last guy on earth you’d expect to voluntarily see a counselor.”

  “Did it help?”

  “He said it wasn’t a cure, but he developed a few mental tricks to fight off the sensation. Like you telling yourself it isn’t rational, I imagine. When he told me about it, he compared his appointments to attending physical therapy fo
r a torn rotator cuff. The counselor gave him a range of exercises, and with experimentation, he found some that worked.” Royce couldn’t help but grin, picturing the burly Scotsman. “He’s a tough guy. Huge. Places that are normal-sized to other people felt small to him. Probably didn’t help matters.”

  She surprised him with a smile. “I imagine his brother paid for the closet episode.”

  “I’m sure he did. Eventually.” Royce lifted his hand to caress her shoulder. She didn’t stiffen or pull away. “Any idea what triggered yours?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “Nothing as traumatic as your friend. I’m hopeful I’ll shake it someday. Maybe experiences like tonight’s will convince my brain that I’m safe. Like kids who are scared to go down a playground slide, but after they try it a few times and see that nothing bad happens, they’re fine.” He could see her smile in the dark, though it was a smile that covered discomfort rather than replacing it. “Your boat is lovely. If I’d planned the layout, I doubt I could’ve designed it better.”

  “Now that’s a high compliment.”

  She tucked in closer, and his pulse picked up in response. “Thank you for bringing me here. You were right about needing a mental palate cleanser. But I should probably call for a ride, given how early we need to be at the palace tomorrow morning.”

  “I have a car at the marina lot. I could take you.”

  “I appreciate that, but Queen Fabrizia hired a private service to drive me wherever I wish while I’m here. I’ll message them. You should sleep. Maybe ice your cheek again first, or Miroslav will have questions.” She lifted her face to the stars. “It’ll probably take ten or fifteen minutes for them to arrive. We can stargaze until then, if that’s all right.”