37 Her Highness and the Bodyguard

by Christine Rimmer

  He bent to kiss the side of her neck and flattened a palm against her belly. Was it a fraction rounder than before?

  She put her hand over his. “I watched you with Grady. You were wonderful.”

  “I was trying to keep up with what he was telling me and not exactly succeeding.”

  “I think you did very well.”

  He remembered that he was supposed to tell her the things that were hard to admit. “In the past couple of weeks, since you told me about the baby, I find I think about being a father. I think about it a lot.”

  She turned in his arms and gazed up at him steadily. “You’re worried about this, about being a good father?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

  “Because you were raised without one?”

  He nodded. “And don’t start feeling sorry for me.”

  “I don’t.” A smile flirted with the corners of her mouth. “But I do feel some sympathy for the lonely and oh-so-well-behaved little boy you once were....”

  “Rein it in.”

  “You will be a fine father. Because you want to be a good father. And that means you will work very hard to be one.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I know I am.” She spoke with absolute assurance.

  And then she lifted up on tiptoe and kissed him.

  When she sank back to her heels once more, he said roughly, “Do that again.”

  She did. By then, he was hungry for the kind of communicating they’d always done so effortlessly. He picked her up by the waist. She wrapped those fine legs around him and he turned and carried her back inside.

  * * *

  The next day was Sunday. They called room service for breakfast.

  As she poured him a second cup of coffee, he said, “I think I want to go to Roland’s house today.”

  She didn’t seem surprised. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

  So her driver took them to Beverly Hills. The house was behind a tall stone fence covered in ivy, with an electronic gate. Marcus read the gate code to the driver and he leaned out the window and punched up the numbers on the keypad built into the wall. The gate slid open and they rode up a curving cobbled driveway with thick lawns and beautifully tended semitropical landscaping to either side.

  “So green,” Rhia said. “Beautiful and private.”

  The house was a one-story midcentury modern. The front door locked with another keypad. Marcus entered the numbers from the list of codes Anthony had provided. Joseph went in and Marcus read off the alarm code for him.

  Once Joseph had vouched for their safety within, they entered. The slate-floored foyer opened onto a living room with a wall of windows looking out on the backyard. It was all very clean and attractive and well-maintained.

  Rhia took his arm. He led her forward, into the bright central room, to the dining area and the modern kitchen, with its granite counters and stainless-steel appliances. She opened the refrigerator.

  Empty. Spotless. She tried the door between two gleaming countertops. It was a pantry. There were rows of canned goods, dried pasta and boxed cereal.

  “I do believe these cans are alphabetized,” she said, and shut the door.

  He went to another door. It opened to a laundry room. A door beyond that went to the three-car garage. He flipped on the light out there. A Jaguar, a Mercedes and a Land Rover, each one shiny and new. He could hardly bear to look at them. He turned off the light and quickly shut the door.

  She was waiting in the kitchen. “Marcus, are you all right?” She searched his face.

  He muttered, “Let’s just go through the rest of it.”

  “All right.” She followed him out of the kitchen and down a long hallway with a study, three bedrooms and two

  baths branching off it. The rooms were painted in deep colors—reds and forest greens, jewel blues and deep browns. Overall, the impression was inviting, Marcus thought, and attractive. He hated it, every inch of it.

  “It’s all so impersonal,” Rhia said sadly. “Not a single snapshot of a friend or any family photographs. And all the art has that look.”

  “What look?”

  “Generic. As though he bought it all framed and properly matted at some gift shop or art emporium.”

  They entered the big bedroom at the end of the hall. The room was a deep maroon color, with plain, dark, well-made furniture. Marcus knew from the size of it and the full bath branching off it that it must be the master suite. There was a sitting area and a sliding door led out to a small patio. He set the list of codes and the ring of keys on the sitting area table and opened the walk-in closet, which had been designed for maximum use of the space. Roland’s clothing hung so neatly. All the shoes were clean and polished, lined up with soldierly precision.

  “Everything is so neat and tidy,” Rhia said from behind him. “The housekeeper even made the bed. It’s hard to believe a man died here just three days ago.”

  He stared at the long row of dress shirts, each perfectly pressed, hung by color, from light to dark, and spoke without turning. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he left that housekeeper detailed instructions as to what to clean up in the event of his death. Judging by his will and the look of this house, he seems to have been a very organized man.”

  “Too organized.”

  He agreed. “You would almost think that nobody lived here.”

  “Well, Marcus. Nobody does anymore....”

  He felt a flash of heat under his skin. Annoyance. Worse. He turned to her. “You think I should have made up with him, don’t you?”

  She took his hand. He had to actively stop himself from jerking away. She wrapped that hand around her waist and then took his other hand and guided it behind her, too, so that he held her in a loose embrace. After she’d arranged his hands to her satisfaction, she put her own on his shoulders. Softly, she told him, “I think you’re a good man and you did what you could. I think you had a lot to forgive him for. Maybe too much.”

  “That’s no answer.” He growled the words at her.

  She kept her chin tilted up, her gaze on his. “Sorry. It’s the only answer I’ve got right now. This is all very sad. He did well for himself in America, but it looks like he was all alone.”

  “And whose fault was that?”

  “Marcus. Does it really have to be someone’s fault?”

  He was the one who looked away. “There’s a safe in the study.” He took her hands from his shoulders and stepped back from her. Grabbing the list he’d set on the table, he turned for the door to the hallway.

  The study had cherrywood wainscoting to waist height. He pressed a panel. It swung wide. The safe was behind it. He went on one knee to enter the combination. It opened.

  Inside there was a small stack of cash on top of a large yellow envelope. He counted the money. Two thousand dollars in hundreds. He supposed it belonged to him now—like everything else in this too-orderly, too-quiet house. But for some reason, he couldn’t bear to take it. So he set it aside and picked up the envelope.

  “What is it?” Rhia had followed him. She hovered in the doorway to the hall.

  He rose, carried the envelope to the desk and poured out the contents.

  Disappointment tightened the skin on the back of his neck and made a hard ball packed with nothing in the pit of his stomach. “Just another copy of the damn will.”

  She came to stand at his shoulder and asked in a low and careful voice, “What is it you’re looking for?”

  He sank into the desk chair. “I don’t know. Something more than this. Letters. Photographs. Something...personal. Something real.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “I think we should look through the house, open all the drawers, go through everything. See what we can find.”

  He reached up and clasped her fingers. They felt good in his. They felt right. Funny how just the touch of her hand did so much to make the emptiness bearable. He shouldn’t be so gruff with her. But somehow, gruff was the only way he cou
ld be right then. “Doesn’t that seem a little disrespectful, going through Roland’s drawers and closets when I never even knew the man?”

  She moved in closer, wrapped her arms around his neck and bent close to him. He breathed in the faint scent of jasmine and the knot of nothing in his gut eased a little more. She whispered, “What I think is that you need more than an empty house, a pile of money and another copy of your father’s will. And I think we are going to keep looking until we find what you need.”

  * * *

  Beneath the orderly rows of matched, perfectly rolled socks in Roland’s sock drawer, Marcus found two pictures. In one, a pretty, very serious-looking woman wearing dark trousers, a black vest, a white shirt and a bow tie stood by the world-famous Fountain of the Three Sirens in front of Casino d’Ambre. On the back of that snapshot was one word: Isa.

  The other picture was of Roland and the same woman. They sat at a table in an outdoor café. His arm was across her shoulders, an open bottle of wine and two half-full wineglasses in front of them. Roland was grinning at her. Isa was smiling back at him. It was a joyous, open smile with just a hint of mischief in it.

  He called Rhia in from the other room and showed her what he’d found.

  She clapped her hands at the sight. “Personal pictures. Oh, I’m so glad. I knew we’d find something.” She read his mother’s name on the back of the one by the fountain, then turned it over to study the image on the front. “Oh, Marcus. She looks so...subdued. It’s hard to tell much about her from this one.”

  “The other one’s better, I think.”

  She took the second one and stared at it for a long time. “This is the good one. She looks like she doesn’t want to be anywhere else but right there, at that table, with that man. He looks like he feels the same about her. As though they have it all, don’t you think?”

  He wasn’t willing to go that far. “They look as though they’re having a good time. I’ll say that much.”

  “Well, I would guess from this picture that they were happy together, at least for a while....”

  What did it matter? They would never really know. “All right. Let’s think of it that way. Once, they were happy.”

  “Yes. I like that. I truly do.” She gave him back the photo and left him to return to the search.

  It was only a few minutes later that she called him into the study and showed him a four-drawer file cabinet in the closet. The bottom drawer was labeled “Marcus.” It contained a series of reports and a large number of photographs compiled by the investigators Roland had hired to gather information about the son he’d abandoned. The first report was fifteen years old.

  “It fits,” Rhia said, excitement vibrating in her voice. “He came to America, spent several years building his business. But he never forgot you. When he had some money, he started trying to find out what had happened to you.”

  He wasn’t impressed. “Too little, too late, as far as I’m concerned.” The more he thought about it, the more he realized he didn’t need to know any more about the long-dead past.

  She was giving him a look that seemed to speak volumes, but she didn’t say anything.

  That look got under his skin. “He abandoned both my mother and me. In the end, that’s all that really matters to me.”

  She did speak up then. “And he spent his life paying for that one terrible decision.”

  “I would say he did all right for himself.”

  “Marcus, he was alone. He never married, never had a family.”

  “Because he threw away his family. And what do you mean, one terrible decision? I would say that there were at least two of those. He didn’t call for help when he found my mother’s body. And then he took me, only to abandon me.”

  “Because he was afraid. He didn’t know what would happen if he called for help. I can see that he might have thought he would be blamed for her death.”

  “Why would he even think he would be blamed if it wasn’t in some way true? And now I say it all out loud I’m seeing that it’s more than two bad decisions. There was a whole ugly string of them. And that’s if we can even believe his story that she was dead when he got there.”

  “Marcus. Come on. I’m sure that he wouldn’t have—”

  He shoved the file drawer shut. It slammed hard against the frame. “I’m finished here. None of this stuff means a damn thing to me.”

  She wouldn’t give it up. “My mother always says that forgiveness is everything, that when we forgive, we free ourselves more than the one who needs our forgiveness.”

  “Heard that before,” he told her flatly. “Raised by nuns, remember?”

  “I’m only saying that the more you learn about who Roland and Isa were, about what really happened between them, the more you’ll begin to see that they did the best they could.”

  He took her arm and pulled her out of that closet. “Enough.”

  “But, Marcus...”

  He didn’t need to know any more about his mother and Roland and their tragic love—or whatever it was between them that had ended with his mother dying all alone and him abandoned on a cold cathedral step. It was over and done. Isa and Roland were gone. Beyond suffering. Beyond retribution for their sins.

  Whatever their sins might actually have been.

  What mattered was now. This moment. What mattered was this fine, true-hearted, beautiful woman before him. His child that she carried inside of her body. What mattered was this chance he had with her.

  Against all odds. In spite of everything—his own blind, foolish pride most of all.

  “Marcus, have you heard a word that I’ve said?”

  “Every word, Rhia.”

  “I only think that it could help you, to know more about them.”

  He reminded her, gently now, “You said that already.”

  “But I’m trying to—”

  “Shh. No more.” He put his finger under her chin, tipped her soft mouth up—and claimed it.

  She stiffened at first. And then a choked little sigh escaped her. And then she slid her hands up over his chest and clasped them behind his neck. She melted into him.

  He tasted her sweetness and knew that, no matter what happened, no matter if she refused to marry him every time he asked for the rest of their lives, he would never leave her. He would be there, for her. And for the child. He would never be a man who walked away from the ones who mattered most of all.

  * * *

  They left that house soon after. He took the two pictures from the sock drawer with him and the list of codes and the ring of keys. Everything else, he left behind.

  He told the driver to take them to their favorite burger stand. And then they went to a movie—a comedy—at Mann’s Chinese Theater.

  That evening, they stood out on the balcony at the Beverly Wilshire and he told her that, no, he didn’t want to go to Roland’s cabin in the Sierras. “What I want is to call Anthony Evans and find out if there’s anything else I need to do to settle my father’s estate. And then I want to call the Neptune Society and ask them to ship Roland’s ashes to me. And as soon as all that’s done, I want to go home.”

  She caught her lower lip between her pretty white teeth. “I know I should just let it be....”

  Her hair was up. He wanted it down, wanted to sift the strands between his fingers. So he started pulling out pins, letting them fall where they might. One pinged against the railing. And another after that.

  She didn’t object—not to his taking her hair down, anyway. “We might find more pictures, up at that cabin, learn more about your mother....”

  “Forget the cabin. It doesn’t matter.”

  “But—”

  He bent close, pressed a quick, hard kiss against those sweet red lips. “Shh.” He whispered against her mouth, “I want to go home.” He combed her hair with his fingers. It felt so warm and soft and silky. And then he took her by the waist. “Come here. Closer...” He slid his hands down, cupped her firm bottom and pulled her in tight to
him. He was already half-hard.

  And he was getting harder. He wanted her. All of her. He wanted her clothes off. He wanted that now.

  “Marcus...” She sounded slightly breathless. He liked her that way. He started unbuttoning the sleeveless pink shirt she wore. She pushed at his chest. But not all that hard. “We should really...talk about...” He covered her mouth and sucked the rest of that sentence right out of her.

  She tasted so good and he didn’t want to talk anymore.

  He was through talking for one day. More than through.

  He wanted her smooth, pretty body. He wanted her ardent sighs. He wanted to kiss all her most secret places.

  And then he wanted to bury himself in her sweetness for a long, satisfying ride.

  He had all of her clothes off in less than a minute. He’d always been good with his hands. Her little pink shirt and her short skirt, the red thong she wore underneath. And the lacy pink bra, too.

  About then, she started pushing at his shoulders again. “Marcus, I’m standing here on this balcony naked as the day I was born....”

  “You still have those sandals.” He tried to capture her mouth again.

  “Anyone might glance up here and see me.”

  He scooped her high against his chest. “Then we should go inside.”

  She made a sound that might have been a protest, but then she wrapped her arms around his neck and tucked her head against his shoulder. He carried her in and set her down in front of a fat wing chair. She blinked up at him, bewildered. “What are you doing?”

  “Here. Let me show you.” He took her velvety shoulders and pushed her gently down into the chair.

  “Marcus...”

  “It’s fine.” He knelt before her and eased her shapely knees wide. “Just keep saying my name.”

  “Oh! Marcus...”

  “That’s the way.” He bent close, nuzzled the soft dark curls that covered her where she was hot and wet already—and open for him.