by India Grey
‘Emily? My God…darling.’
She gave a whimper, her last shreds of self-control snapping as she ran forward into Oscar Balfour’s outstretched arms.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he murmured, his voice cracking with emotion.
‘Daddy,’ she sobbed, breathing in the familiar scent of cologne and Jermyn Street shaving soap. ‘You’re here—oh, thank God, you’re here. Please, Daddy—can I come home?’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AND in the end this was all there was, Luis thought numbly.
A narrow bed. A sheet folded neatly. A sense of things finished.
Or that’s how it was for his father. A life well lived. A job well done. A grieving public and an official period of mourning. A son who couldn’t feel much at all.
He dropped his head into his hands, and anyone passing the door would have thought that he was stricken with loss for his father, when the truth was he had barely known him. Marcos Fernando had been a King before he was a parent. He had been someone whose picture appeared on postage stamps rather than in family albums. Someone to bow to rather than hug.
Luis wanted so much more from life than that.
He straightened up, dragging a hand over his face with a rasp of stubble. There was no point in going down that particular well-worn track again, he told himself wearily. It was strewn with landmines and it led only to places that were locked and barred to him.
To Emily, in other words.
In the hour that had elapsed since his father’s body had been unhooked from its wires and tubes and the room had emptied of doctors and officials and palace staff, he had sat there alone, obsessively thinking over the possibilities like a prisoner exploring his cell for a means of escape.
There wasn’t one, of course, he’d known that all along. But he kept coming back to that thing she’d said last night on the beach, about him being king. Do it your way , she’d said. You’ll be brilliant. Emily, who did everything passionately, wholeheartedly. Who couldn’t pretend. Whom he loved and admired and trusted more than anyone else in the world.
He got to his feet, swaying slightly, his heart beating very hard. On the bed the figure of his father lay, already as cold and pale as an effigy on a tomb, but as if to prove a point, his own body fizzed and pulsed with energy and adrenaline. Quickly he took his father’s lifeless hand and held it for a moment, and then he walked to the door without looking back.
The guards outside jerked to attention as he passed, shooting each other uneasy glances as he headed straight for the lift. The doors slid open and he punched the button for the ground floor. At that moment Tomás appeared in the doorway of the room opposite, an expression of alarm on his face.
‘Your Highness! I mean…Your Majesty! Where are you—?’
The doors began to close. Realising that Luis had no intention of stopping them, Tomás made it into the lift just in time.
‘Sir, what are you doing ?’
His tone was a mixture of incredulity and disapproval, laced with pure panic. By contrast Luis was icy calm.
‘Going back to the palace.’
‘B-but the press are out there, sir. They’re waiting for statements and photographs, and the suit I brought for you is still—’
Ruthlessly Luis cut through the details. ‘I need to speak to Emily.’
‘Ah.’ It was a swift, defeated exhalation, but immediately Tomás drew himself up, visibly preparing to deliver bad news. ‘I’m afraid Miss Balfour is returning to England, sir. I spoke to Josefina just a moment ago. She had a meeting with her this morning, after which it appears Miss Balfour’s father arrived, quite by coincidence. In view of everything that’s happened it seems that Miss Balfour has decided to go home.’
The lift came to a halt and Luis’s lip curled into a sneer of contempt. ‘Miss Balfour decided that, or Josefina did?’ he asked, moving towards the door.
‘Wait.’ With uncharacteristic vehemence Tomás pressed the button to close the doors, and kept his hand there. ‘It’s too late , sir,’ he said desperately. ‘The helicopter is being prepared for take-off right now. By the time you get through the crowd outside and back to the palace she’ll be gone. So why don’t you go back upstairs and change into the suit and—’
He didn’t get any further. The lift shook as, in one lightning-swift movement, Luis lunged at him grasping him by the collar and holding him up against the wall.
‘No.’ It was a low, savage growl. ‘I will not wait, and I will not go back and get changed because I don’t care about wearing the correct clothes or saying the correct thing. I never have, and if I’m going to do this thing…’ His voice cracked a little, but he gritted his teeth and carried on. ‘If I’m going to play this role for the rest of my life, I’ve got to do it my way. I’ve got to be myself —not my father or brother— and if people don’t like it that’s tough. But I can’t just go through the motions any more. And I can’t—’
He stopped, letting Tomás go and turning away.
‘Sir?’
‘I can’t do it unless she’s with me too.’ Raising his arm Luis leaned briefly against the wall in an attitude of utter despair. ‘Do you understand?’
There was a long pause. Then, very tentatively, Tomás reached out and put his hand on Luis’s bunched, rigid shoulder. ‘Yes,’ he said so quietly it was almost a sigh. ‘Yes, I think so.’
Luis raised his head and for a moment their eyes met, but then the lift doors were opening and through the glass front of the building they could see the crowd of people that had gathered to wait for news—camera crews, reporters, paparazzi—all unusually subdued by the grimness of the situation. The reception area was filled with palace security, who looked surprised and flustered by the unexpected appearance of the new King. There was a flurry of uneasy bowing.
With just the barest of nods Luis walked through them all to the doors. Following him, Tomás’s face was drained of colour and covered in a sickly sheen of perspiration and he signalled a look of panic to the bodyguards.
Outside it took a moment for what was happening to filter through the crowd, and a ripple of feverish excitement disturbed the sombre mood as everyone pressed forward to get a glimpse of the new King—ashen with exhaustion, shirtless and in surf shorts. Security had gone into discreet overdrive and they held the crowd back as Luis went up to the small dais.
He hesitated for a moment, looking down and clearing his throat before speaking. ‘I’m sorry to have to announce the death of my father, King Marcos Fernando,’ he said slowly, pausing again as the gathered crowd gave a muted groan. ‘He suffered a stroke in the early hours of this morning, and never regained consciousness. He died very peacefully just after 2:00 p.m.’
There was a moment of dead calm, and then a forest of microphones went up and questions rose in a deafening crescendo. But Luis simply held up his hands and, shaking his head, turned away. Striding over to the cordon he looked over the heads of the reporters pressed against it, to the back where the paparazzi lurked on motorbikes waiting to tail his car. A moment later there was uproar and confusion as Luis slipped beneath the cordon and into the crowd.
Security guards surged forwards from nowhere, barking instructions while Tomás, almost passing out with panic, tried to follow. But the hardened, cynical reporters had parted to let their king through and then swallowed him up completely so it was impossible to reach him. In seconds Luis found himself at the back of the press pack, camera flashes exploding like fireworks as he headed straight to the paparazzi photographer on the biggest, most powerful motorbike.
‘How would you feel about being the first paparazzi in history to be decorated for services to the king?’
Finally fighting his way to the back of the crowd a few moments later Tomás was just in time to see Luis climb onto the bike. Swiftly, grimly, he shook hands with the photographer before starting the engine with a roar. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, and as he accelerated away with a squeal of tyres there was no mistaking the expression of despe
rate, haunted bleakness on his face.
‘Is that everything?’
Oscar picked up the small case, frowning at how light it was, and Emily looked around the beautiful suite for the last time.
‘That’s everything,’ she said in a small voice. Everything that belonged to her anyway. She was wearing the blue dress she’d worn when they went to dinner with Luciana, but other than that all the clothes Luis had ordered for her were still in the dressing room. Not that the Duchess de Mesa would need any help with her wardrobe, Emily thought bleakly. After all, she had qualified for the job of Luis’s wife on the grounds of having the perfect image already. Maybe Luciana’s nannies would get to use them.
Oh, God. Luciana. The thought of leaving her was like knives in her flesh. The hour Emily had spent with her earlier, maintaining a mask of cheerful reassurance that she’d see her very soon and talking about all the things they would do when she came over to England to visit, had left her drained, shaky and feeling sick. It was some comfort that Valentina’s maternity leave had come to an end, and with it Senhora Costa’s sterile rule in the nursery. It was a very different Luciana who tearfully hugged her goodbye to the one who had greeted her with such rigid shyness two months ago.
The helicopter was waiting on the lawn, and with every step she took towards it Emily felt her heart crack wider open. Oscar helped her into the back, settling her in as solicitously as if she was ill, holding her hand as the blades started up and they rose into the air. Emily watched as the palace grew smaller beneath them and had to snatch her hand from Oscar’s and press it across her mouth to muffle the sobs she couldn’t control.
‘Oh, darling girl, I can’t tell you how much I’ve longed to have you back,’ Oscar said sadly. ‘But not like this. Not with your heart broken. Tell me what happened.’
‘I fell in love with him,’ she whispered, leaning her head back and letting the tears fall down her cheeks. ‘I knew it was dangerous, but I couldn’t stop myself.’
‘And he doesn’t feel the same?’
‘No.’ She turned her face to the window and looked out over the treetops. It felt like her heart was being wrenched out of her chest as she saw the slate roof of La Guarita below. ‘For him it was practical. It was PR ,’ she sobbed. ‘And although in the end I desperately want to think that he did come to feel something for me it just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t love .’
Ahead, beyond the trees she could see the glitter of the sea. In a moment they would be flying over the beach where they’d danced last night, and where she’d woken up this morning in his arms. And then that would be it. Santosa would be behind them, and nothing but half a world of cold, deep ocean ahead. She closed her eyes, wondering how to get through the pain.
‘You’re sure about that?’ Oscar asked gently. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ she whispered. ‘But even if I wasn’t, doesn’t that say something? I couldn’t live like that…with someone who couldn’t say it. I couldn’t live not knowing…’
‘No, sweetheart, you couldn’t.’ Oscar sighed. ‘You need—’
He stopped abruptly, midsentence, and Emily opened her eyes.
‘Daddy, what’s wrong?’
Oscar was staring out of the window, his brow creased into a frown. Heart thudding, Emily followed his gaze.
Below them the tide was out and the beach was a wide, white expanse. Already the tents had been taken down and the ashes of the fire had been covered over, leaving no trace of last night’s party. It was deserted, apart from a single figure.
A lone surfer, she thought dully, noticing the shorts, the bare, bronzed back and broad shoulders. He was bent over, as if he was looking for something in the sand, but moving quickly so that the muscles of his back rippled in the sun.
And then she realised. He wasn’t looking.
He was writing.
Big letters in the sand—a message that she read incredulously through a mist of tears.
EMILY…I LOVE YOU.
She gave a desperate, incredulous sob, scrubbing the tears from her eyes so she could read it again, to make sure she wasn’t wrong. And as she did so the tanned, bare-chested man on the beach heard the helicopter and straightened up, tipping his head back. And she saw that it really was Luis, and that he wore an expression of torment that matched her own.
‘I was going to say you need someone who can tell you that they love you,’ Oscar said in a voice that was choked with emotion. ‘But I think that writing it in metre-high letters is even better.’
Her heart had risen up into her throat and was beating there, as if it might choke her. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. It didn’t matter. Oscar was already leaning into the front of the cockpit and asking the pilot to land.
The sand swirled upwards as the helicopter came down, the wind from the blades ruffling Luis’s dark gold hair as he stood, taut and unmoving in the centre of the storm, his head tipped back in an attitude of silent suffering, his perfect face mask-like. Throwing open the door Emily jumped down, her blue dress billowing up around her thighs, her eyes never leaving him.
Slowly, like a sleepwalker, she went towards him, stumbling slightly as her feet sank into the sand, pausing to kick off her shoes and then stopping altogether a few feet from him as she saw that his face was wet with tears.
‘Oh, Luis…’ she said in anguish. ‘Your father. I’m so sorry.’
He gave a curt, dismissive shake of his head, as if her compassion flayed him. Everything about him resisted approach and despite the tears he looked terrifyingly, fiercely remote. ‘I listened to what you said,’ he growled in a voice like rusty razor blades. ‘I’m going to try to do it my way. Be honest. Not hide anything. Do things from the heart.’ He made a sweeping gesture to the message in the sand. ‘Telling you I love you seemed like the most important place to start.’
A cry was torn from her throat and in an instant she had crossed the distance between them and he was opening his arms to her with a muffled groan of agonized surrender. As he folded her against his hard, hot body she could smell the musky scent of his damp skin and feel his heart smashing against his chest.
‘The only problem is I don’t know where to go from here,’ he muttered through gritted teeth, cradling her cheek with his palm. ‘I don’t know how to carry on if you’re not there to show me.’
‘I’m here,’ she gasped, reaching up to find his mouth, pressing hers against it. ‘I’m here, I’m here .’
He kissed her back, wildly and hungrily, as if to prove that she was real. ‘I’m not asking you to stay,’ he rasped, breaking away and burying his face in her hair. ‘I can’t do that to you. But neither could I let you leave without knowing how much I love you.’ He took her face between his hands and tilted it up towards him, so she was staring into his blazing golden eyes. ‘I wanted you to know that I don’t care about what the public think or what the papers say—I’ll love you whatever you do and wherever you are, and I’ll keep loving you in public and in private every minute of every day for the rest of my life.’
‘I don’t want to leave,’ she said in a broken whisper. ‘I don’t want to leave you, ever again, but it’s not that simple, is it? You’re King now—that means you have a duty to Santosa, and a public image to maintain and—’
He stopped her with another furious kiss. ‘I want my duty to be to you and our children before anything else,’ he said angrily. ‘I want my image to be of a man who, above all, is desperately, ridiculously in love with his beautiful wife. But I’m trying to give up being selfish so I don’t know if I can ask—’
‘Try,’ she said fiercely. ‘Oh, Luis, please try .’
‘Oh, Emily…’ he sighed, letting her go and taking a step back. Smiling crookedly he picked up the stick that he had dropped onto the sand. ‘Close your eyes and let me finish the message.’
Half laughing, half sobbing, she did as she was told. From a distance away, above the sound of the wind and the waves, Luis’s
voice reached her, wrapping itself around her and making her shiver with love and longing.
‘Emily Balfour, if I promise to show you every day how much I love you…’ he shouted across the sand. ‘If I swear never to put protocol…or obligation…or any stupid, outdated ideas of what I should be and do before your happiness…or let anyone tell us how we should live and bring up the many children I want to have with you…would you really be mad enough to do this?’
He broke off and she opened her eyes. He was standing a little distance away, and stretching away from him on the sand were the words MARRY ME.
She couldn’t speak. Her throat closed up against the wild, racking sob of relief and joy and agonising, exquisite love that gathered there, so instead she extended one bare foot, pointing her toe and writing her answer in the damp sand as tears dripped down her face
YES.
And then she was running towards him and he caught her in his arms and gathered her to him, lifting her high. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her fingers twining in his tangled hair and he held her tightly against him as their mouths met. They kissed, on and on, oblivious to the wind whipping her hair across Luis’s bare shoulders and the waves breaking behind them, to Oscar waiting, damp-eyed, beside the helicopter and the paparazzi photographers and news crews beginning to gather at the top of the dunes.
And this time there was no need for statements from the press office or quotes from palace sources. The figures locked together on the beach, the writing in the sand, told the whole story.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to India Grey for her contribution to The Balfour Brides series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6978-5
EMILY AND THE NOTORIOUS PRINCE
First North American Publication 2010.
Copyright © 2010 by Harlequin Books S.A.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
