The Virgin's Proposition

by Anne McAllister

But Franck wasn’t there.

  She felt a stab of panic at the sight of a complete stranger in Franck’s bed until Sister Adelaide, the head nurse, reassured her. “He has gone to Paris. For surgery.”

  “Surgery?” Anny knew about the surgical option. Franck had mentioned it. It was experimental. A new technique that might relieve pressure if the nerves weren’t dead. If it was successful and you worked like mad, exercised within an inch of your life, you might walk again. Might. Maybe. A little bit.

  As far as she knew, he’d rejected the whole idea.

  Sister Adelaide said, “He said you gave him the courage to do it.”

  Anny gaped. “Me?” Oh, yes, that was her, the poster child for taking risks.

  “And Luke St. Angier,” Sister Adelaide went on. “The actor. I forget his name. Very handsome.”

  “Demetrios Savas.” Anny was proud of herself for being able to say his name as if her heart weren’t breaking.

  Sister Adelaide smiled. “Oui. Monsieur Savas. You know he came back several times during the festival?”

  “Yes. They went sailing.”

  Sister beamed. “I think that was a big influence. And then the last day, before he left he came bringing Franck a whole folder of information about the surgery. He’d printed it out from articles he’d looked up online. He said it was important to be informed, but that was only a start. Ultimately you had to decide what mattered—what you were willing to risk. You had to ask yourself what you were afraid of—and decide if it was worth it.

  Whatever Franck was afraid of, he’d made his decision.

  “When is his surgery?”

  “Next week.”

  “And then?”

  Sister Adelaide smiled. “And then we will see. Franck will recover. He will exercise. He will work very very hard. If he walks, he will be very very happy. It is his dream.”

  Anny prayed that he would get his dream. She knew his fear and admired him for risking disappointment. It wasn’t easy, she knew. And not all endings were happy. She knew that, too.

  She didn’t want for Franck the pain of hopes dashed, of dreams that never would come true.

  After Lissa’s death, Demetrios shut himself off from the world.

  He was the grieving widower, after all, the tragic bereaved spouse who had just lost the most beloved person in his life.

  It wasn’t hard to act the role. It was easier, in fact, than being honest.

  There was nothing to gain from being honest. No one really wanted to know the truth.

  His parents and his siblings might have suspected that things weren’t all they should be between him and Lissa. But he’d never told them. He hadn’t wanted them to worry about him. And it was no one else’s business.

  Besides, after Lissa died, he had been grieving, just not for what everyone thought he was.

  So he went off by himself. He spent six months at a beach house on the Oregon coast, running on the sand, swimming in the ocean, and trying to write out his pain and frustration. He’d grown fit and strong, and his pain and frustration had made a hell of a screenplay.

  When it was done, he’d seen it as a way to get his life back.

  So he’d taken it. He’d got financing, made his movie, found his place in the world again. He’d gone to Cannes telling himself he was whole again.

  What a laugh.

  He wasn’t even close to whole. His life now was even more of a fiction than his perfect marriage to Lissa had been—because he was lying to himself.

  He had left his family in Santorini the day after Anny had left. He’d told them he had to get back to work. And he’d gone. He’d flown back to Hollywood, gone to script meetings, production meetings, design meetings, casting meetings. He’d pretended he was fine, that he could cope, that life would go on now just as it had after Lissa’s death.

  But he wasn’t getting over Anny. He couldn’t lie to himself about that.

  He sat in the spacious opulent Southern California house he had shared with Lissa, staring at its multitude of walls and plate glass windows and felt a soul-wearying emptiness. In his mind’s eye he saw the cramped quarters of the sailboat he’d shared with Anny and remembered laughter, happiness, joy.

  He dived into his pool and swam countless meaningless laps. Inside he remembered the frustration that had driven him to dive into the roiling Mediterranean sea to try to get Anny out of his mind.

  He lay in his wide solitary bed—a new one that he had never shared with Lissa—and remembered the two nights he’d spent making love with Anny.

  He remembered her softness, her warmth, her smooth skin and shining hair, her hands that had learned him even as he had learned her. He remembered her wrapping herself around him, drawing him in, making the two of them whole together.

  He would never be whole without Anny.

  Never.

  He padded from room to room, telling himself to stop thinking about the past, to focus on the future. But when he faced the truth he knew that the only future he wanted was with Anny.

  Anny.

  She’d taken a risk when she’d broken off her engagement with Gerard.

  The boy Franck, Demetrios knew from a series of e-mails, had taken a risk by having the surgery.

  They’d both credited him with giving them the courage.

  “It’s what you would do,” Franck had written.

  Was it? Demetrios wondered now. Or did he just talk a good fight?

  Mont Chamion was a small country. But it was big enough to get lost in—if you wanted to—even if you were the crown princess.

  Especially if you were a crown princess needing some time and space—a few days on her own—without her worried papa, her gentle stepmama, her rambunctious, inquisitive brothers.

  Anny knew all the out-of-the-way rooms in the palace. She knew which bookcase to press to open the secret door to the turret. She knew how to find great-grandfather’s folly in the woods and the best time to be alone in the summer house. But none of them would give her more than the respite of an hour or two.

  Now that her brothers were older, there were fewer places she could go that they couldn’t find her. They took great joy in it. And it had become something of a game in the last couple of years. A sort of royal hide-and-seek.

  They’d played it often since she’d come home after her trip to Santorini. After Demetrios. Papa had wanted her here. She knew it even though he hadn’t insisted. The boys had.

  “You’re gone too much,” her middle brother, Raoul, had told her.

  The youngest, four-year-old David, had climbed into her lap and said, “It’s no fun without you, Anny.”

  And Alexandre, who, at nearly eight, was becoming aware of his responsibilities said, “Papa worries about you, Anny. You should stay here where we can take care of you.”

  And so she had stayed. For a while. To make them happy. To reassure her father. To spend time with her stepmother and her brothers. To feel loved because she was still raw from Demetrios’s rejection.

  But she’d been here nearly three weeks now. A long time. Too long. She should go back to Cannes again and get to work. But going back would mean facing every day remembering what had happened there. Remembering Demetrios.

  As if she would ever forget.

  She wouldn’t. She knew that. But just as she and Papa had had to go on after her mother’s death, she knew she had to go on now.

  And so this morning she had asked her father for the key to the lake cabin.

  “Are you sure, my Anny?” he asked. “There are memories there…”

  “Good ones,” Anny said firmly. “I am sure, Papa.”

  He had raised his brows silently and rolled his pen between the palms of his hands. “No one goes there now,” he warned her. “It was our place. I never took Charlise and the boys. They have seen it, but the gardens are overgrown. It is old and dusty and run-down. Are you sure you will not be too lonely. Is it really a good idea?”

  “Yes, it is. I’ll clean it,” Anny sai
d. “Please, Papa. Just for a few days. I need some space. And,” she added, “ the boys won’t find me there.”

  He smiled. But as he reached into his desk drawer and drew out the key, he said, “You hope.”

  The cabin was as old and dusty as he’d predicted. But to Anny it brought back wonderful memories. Some were sad. But she didn’t regret them. And as she cleaned and scrubbed and swept and washed windows she felt herself settling down, coming to terms, putting things into perspective.

  When her mother died, Papa had brought her here to remember. “We will look back,” he had said. “We will remember. We will carry her with us as we go on.”

  She would do that now. Only this time she would remember Demetrios.

  And then she would go on.

  As night fell and the sky darkened, she went out onto the porch and, wrapped in a shawl in the cool mountain air, she sat down and stared up, watching as first one star and then another star winked into sight.

  Wishing stars, Mama had called them.

  Conversation starters, she thought with an ache in her throat, remembering the nights with Demetrios.

  She started to shove the thought away, to think about the future. But then she stopped. She let the memories come. She had come here to remember. She didn’t have to go on—not just yet.

  She looked up at the stars and she wished.

  She wished for Demetrios to find happiness. She wished he would know love. She wished that someday he would realize love wasn’t only painful, that it could bring joy.

  She wished it would bring her a little joy. Someday. Somehow.

  Mostly she wished she would stop crying. She swallowed hard and scrubbed at her eyes.

  And then she heard the footsteps. Light. Hesitant. Unsure of their way.

  Oh, Papa! she thought despairingly, knowing what he had done. He’d worried about her being here by herself. He’d given the boys hints. Maybe not David, but Alexandre and Raoul were old enough that he would let them follow these paths. He knew she wouldn’t turn them away.

  She straightened and cleared her throat. “I hear you,” she said. “You can stop sneaking around.”

  “Anny? Thank God.”

  She almost fell off the porch. Then, tripping over the shawl, she stumbled to her feet. “Demetrios?”

  She stared in amazement into the darkness, wondering if she were hallucinating, as a tall lean man picked his way up the narrow overgrown path, then stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up at her.

  She couldn’t read his expression. From his stance he looked wary, uncertain. Pretty much the way she felt, Anny thought. Her knees were shaking. She clutched the porch rail to keep herself upright.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Right now? Thanking God I found you,” he said with a shaky laugh. “I almost don’t believe it.”

  “Neither do I,” Anny said, which had to be the understatement of the year. She wanted simply to stare at him, to drink in the sight of him—what little she could actually see in the darkness. She wanted to pinch herself to be sure she wasn’t dreaming. She didn’t even know why he was here.

  Finally she remembered her manners. “Would you like to come in?” she said politely. “I can make some coffee. I have some biscuits.”

  He made a sound that was half sob, half laugh. “Oh God, Anny, I’ve missed you. Yes,” he said coming up the steps, so close now she could touch him. “I’d like to come in. I’d like coffee. I’d like biscuits. I love you.”

  She stared at him, stunned, disbelieving. He was right in front of her, his shirt brushing against her sweater, his breath warm against her face. Real. And saying the words earnestly, not grudgingly. She opened her mouth and closed it again.

  He didn’t move away. He touched her cheek, tipped her face so that she looked straight into his eyes. The only light she had to see them by was starlight. It was enough. “I mean it,” he said urgently. “I love you, Anny. I have since—hell, I don’t know when! But it isn’t going away. I’m glad it isn’t going away,” he said fiercely. “You know I love you. You told me I did,” he said, sounding a little desperate at her silence.

  Anny nodded numbly. “Yes, but—”

  “But I didn’t want to hear it.” He shook his head. “And I still don’t know what to do about it. I have so little to offer you. I failed Lissa—”

  She couldn’t stay silent now. “You didn’t fail Lissa!”

  “I didn’t help her. I couldn’t reach her. I didn’t even really know her.”

  “You knew me. You reached me. You gave me strength and courage and hope. And love,” she told him. And she felt her throat tighten and feared she would start crying again, so she took his hand. “Come in.”

  She led him into the cabin and switched on the light, and felt her heart kick over at the sight of him.

  He wore a long-sleeved, open-neck denim shirt, a rough canvas jacket and a pair of clean but faded jeans. He was cleanshaven now, and his thick dark hair had been neatly trimmed. He was every bit as gorgeous as she remembered. As far as she was concerned, there was no man on earth with a stronger, more masculine, yet more beautiful face.

  But beautiful as they always were, his eyes were different tonight. On the boat they had watched her, but had always held her at a distance. Even when they’d made love and they’d warmed with desire and clouded with passion, they’d still held her off.

  Tonight they invited her in.

  And Anny didn’t need any more explanation than that. She trusted his love. She trusted his being here. She framed his face with her hands and raised herself on her toes to touch her lips to his.

  In an instant his arms wrapped around her. He crushed her against him, burying his face in her hair. She felt a tremor run through him, and she knew her own heart hammered with the joy of the hallelujah chorus in her chest.

  “I love you,” he said again. His words teased the tendrils of her hair, touched her ears. And her heart.

  “I love you, too,” she vowed.

  He kissed her cheek, her temple, her hair, then down her jawline to her mouth. His tongue parted her lips, tasted her, and she tasted him in return. Her arms slid up to go around his neck. He wrapped her close, drew her against him, and she felt how well they fit—as if they belonged together. Because they did. He deepened the kiss. His fingers traced the line down her spine, cupped her buttocks and held her against him, let her feel the need that matched her own.

  Then she pulled back. “Are you sure you want coffee and biscuits?”

  He laughed. “I’d rather have you.”

  She took his hand to draw him toward the bedroom. “That can be arranged.”

  But he didn’t move. “Not just tonight,” he said, his hooded eyes dark. “Always.” He ran his tongue over his lips. “I didn’t know the protocol,” he said. “But I asked your father if he’d agree to my asking you to marry me.”

  Anny’s eyes widened. “You talked to my father?”

  He nodded. “You weren’t in Cannes. You weren’t in Berkeley.” At her surprise, he added, “Tante Isabelle said she didn’t know where you were. You might be in Berkeley defending your dissertation.”

  “Not yet,” Anny said, smiling, knowing Tante Isabelle well enough to know she’d been determined to make the man who’d broken her goddaughter’s heart prove his mettle before he found her.

  “So I discovered,” Demetrios said. “So I went to the palace. Without an appointment. That’s apparently not done.”

  But he’d done it. “Papa would have wanted to talk to you.”

  “Oh, yeah, he did. Gave me an earful. Wouldn’t tell me where you were.”

  “And then relented when he saw you meant it?”

  Demetrios shook his head. “No. He said I could damned well find you myself if I loved you.” He squared his shoulders. “So I did.”

  She stared. “No one but Papa knew where I went.”

  “But your brothers at least knew you were in Mont Chamion. And your father said yo
u didn’t want distractions. That you didn’t need to be bothered. So I knew where you’d gone.”

  She stared. “You did?”

  “You told me about this place. Your refuge by the lake where you wished on the stars. Where you’d gone after your mother died. I guess I didn’t know for sure,” he admitted. “I hoped. So I asked your father for directions to the lake house. And that was when, I think, he realized you’d trusted me with something you didn’t talk about to everyone. There was a faint crack in the royal facade.”

  She smiled. “Yes. We don’t talk about the cabin to anyone.”

  “So he gave me the directions—along with an introduction to his sword collection and word about what a good fencer he is.” Demetrios’s mouth twisted wryly. “I am allowed to ask you to marry me. He said it was up to you—but if you said yes, I’d better never hurt you again.”

  Anny laughed. Her heart was near to bursting. “You won’t.” She knew that for a fact. If he’d faced his demons and come looking for her, she had nothing at all to fear. “So are…you asking me?”

  “Will you marry me, Anny?” He didn’t stop there. “You are everything I’ve ever wanted—a woman to share with, to talk with, to joke with, to sail with, to ride out a storm with.” He swallowed. “To have a family with.”

  It was her turn to kiss him then. To run her fingers lightly over his scalp, to stroke his now short hair and nuzzle his smooth-shaven cheek and inhale—and cherish anew—the scent of him.

  “You are everything I ever wanted, too,” she told him. “Not just the man on the poster. The man I met in Cannes. The man I sailed with. The man I made love with—fell in love with. Yes, I’ll marry you, Demetrios. And have a family with you,” she whispered. “Yes. Oh yes, please.”

  Royal weddings took an inordinate amount of time to arrange. If, Charlise told her stepdaughter, you wanted to do them right.

  “By right, I mean, with all proper pomp and circumstance, protocol and rigamarole.” She paused. “But if what you want is the right man and the right woman and the right people there to celebrate with you, I think we can do it in six months.”

  Anny goggled. “Six months?”