Prince of Midtown

by Jennifer Lewis

  What did it matter why he didn’t come? If he was too busy. He wasn’t hers to pine for.

  A gray-haired man in an expensive tweed jacket approached Tessa and she handed him an agenda with a wide smile. She wondered which of the Caspia Designs bigwigs he was.

  Sebastian greeted him warmly and they spoke in French.

  She didn’t understand a word. And why would she? This wasn’t her world. Yes, she’d been to the right school, but she’d never moved in these circles where everyone spoke five languages and was old and dear friends with everyone else.

  When she realized Sebastian was introducing her, she made an effort to nod and smile. All the while wishing she could run away to hide and lick the wounds that were already so deep they’d take years to stop bleeding.

  How could I have been stupid enough to let myself fall in love with him?

  Tessa seemed preoccupied and Sebastian couldn’t blame her. His own adrenaline ran high as he entered the meeting, flanked by the president of Carriage Leathers and the CEO of Bugaretti Fine Jewelry. The opportunity to turn these fine old companies around and increase their profitability was invigorating.

  He began the meeting by inviting the business owners and executives to think outside their well-polished boxes of tradition and habit. When would Tessa make an entrance? Sergei, his father’s secretary, was taking the minutes, presumably because some of the principals would be speaking in languages Tessa didn’t know.

  Still, he expected her to sit in. The inner workings of Caspia Designs were her business, too. Especially now that he was sketching plans to invite her into partnership of a far more permanent kind.

  Lunch took place right there in the conference room—colloquially known as the War Room for its role in shaping Caspian history. Still no sign of Tessa.

  While the participants drank coffee, Sebastian asked Sergei where she was. The older man glanced about the room, as if Tessa might pop out from behind a gilded column, then shrugged. Strangely anxious, Sebastian slipped out of the room and down the hall to the offices.

  His spirits lifted when he saw her packing papers into the cardboard crates used to transport them to New York.

  “Tessa.” He said her name with a satisfied smile.

  But when she looked up, her face was white, her cheeks hollow. Her magical green eyes glazed with unshed tears.

  He rushed forward and took her in his arms. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” She bit her quivering lip.

  “Nonsense. Tell me.” Urgency made his tone curt. “Please.”

  “I’m leaving as soon as the meeting is over.”

  Sebastian waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Her big, glittering eyes fixed on his. “I’m not.”

  “Tessa.” He spoke her name like a chant that soothed him. He rubbed his thumb over her chin. Her lip no longer quivered and he wanted to kiss her soft mouth. “After what we’ve shared, I know you’re not still thinking about running off to California with Paul or Peter or whatever his name is.”

  She trembled in his arms. “I have to go. I’m sorry I can’t fulfill my two weeks’ notice but I’m sure you understand why it would not be appropriate for me to work for you any longer…under the circumstances.”

  The last three words were spoken in a hushed whisper.

  “Sebastian! Where are you?” A masculine shout made him jerk his head around. His dad.

  “I’m in the file room.” He didn’t release Tessa from his arms.

  His dad called from the doorway. “Sergei’s been looking for you. We’re all ready to resume the meeting.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Tessa’s long golden lashes hid her eyes. “You must go.”

  “We’ll talk after the meeting.” He squeezed her arms. He wanted to fold her in his embrace and hold her tight.

  “I won’t be here.” Resolve shimmered in her soft voice.

  Panic seized his heart. “You can’t leave.”

  “I must go.” He could see her hands were shaking.

  “That’s impossible.” Surely he could prevent this. His ancestors would simply have forbidden her to leave.

  But those days were over. Tessa was an independent-minded American—one of the many things he loved about her.

  “Sebastian!” The king’s voice reverberated off the stone walls. “We’re all waiting.”

  Tessa’s fingers pushed against his chest. “Sebastian, please go back to the meeting.”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. She understood about duty. She wouldn’t really leave.

  He’d asked her to stay and he could always count on Tessa.

  He kissed her cool cheek, and released her from his arms. Then he walked away, with unease crawling over his skin.

  Back in the meeting, he couldn’t settle. The din of the room hurt his ears. Raised voices bounced off the marble columns and the mosaic floors. How could Tessa even think of leaving? Couldn’t she see that he needed her?

  He dragged his focus back to the agenda, typed by Tessa’s elegant fingers. He had a meeting to lead and a company to save, and he was brought up to accept that his duty to his country must come before all other concerns.

  At the end of the meeting, Sebastian rose and pushed past the meeting attendees heading for the doorway. He rushed to the office, his heart in his mouth.

  But it was empty, except for the neatly stacked crates in the center of the room.

  In the hallway he collared Paulo, the footman. “Where’s Tessa?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Find her!”

  An ugly sensation gripped his gut. Where could she be? He marched along the hallways to her bedroom. He flung open the door, to find Anis changing the bedsheets. “Where’s Tessa?”

  “I think she left for the airport.” The shy maid looked apologetic.

  Paulo rushed into the room. “She left for the airport in a car forty minutes ago.”

  “Dammit!” Sebastian’s shout ricocheted off the frescoed ceiling. How could she do this to him? “Get the rear gates open. Now!”

  Already he raced along the passages to the garage. He could take his Land Rover through the orchards behind the palace and cut across the fields to the airport.

  His father held out his arms for him as he pelted down the main hallway. “Sebastian, where are you running to? The guests await you at the reception.”

  “Tessa’s gone.” He didn’t even try to hide the panic in his voice.

  “I know, son.” His father grasped his arms. “Your mother arranged a private plane for her. It left five minutes ago.”

  “But why?”

  “One cannot always understand the ways of women, my son.”

  “I must go after her.”

  “In a plane, to catch her in the skies? It’s not possible.”

  “But I…” He didn’t know what to do. This was the first time in his life that a woman had outright rejected him.

  Pain seared his heart.

  I love her.

  He didn’t say it though. Even in his distressed state he wasn’t ready to confess to loving a woman who didn’t love him back. He didn’t wish to bring shame on the crown of Caspia.

  “Duty comes first, son.”

  “I know, Papa, but…” Words failed him.

  His father patted his cheek. “Come, eat and drink. Some things are meant to be, and some are not. Everything will look brighter in the morning.”

  Sebastian stumbled after him, his heart hollow with disbelief. His arms ached with the longing to hug her.

  Would he never hold Tessa again?

  “Sebastian, darling!” He stiffened as Faris’s silvery tones rang out behind him. “Wait, sweetheart, my dress is so tight I can’t walk fast. And Daddy has a walking stick, remember?”

  Sebastian heard the tap of wood on stone and turned around. He didn’t want to insult Faris’s father. Deon Maridis had been in the meeting, and gracefully endured a harsh critique of his
methods of management. Sebastian thanked the older man for his participation and help, and managed a civil greeting to Faris.

  A fever of longing and despair racked his body. It was hard to talk, to be polite, when all he wanted to do was follow Tessa.

  To the ends of the earth if necessary.

  Faris held her father’s arm tightly. She knew her family’s close relationship with Sebastian’s was her trump card where her prince was concerned. Sooner or later he’d see sense and realize he had to marry her.

  She intended to make it sooner.

  The brief conversation with her father had given her some excellent ideas.

  “Sebastian, you seem awfully distracted.”

  “Long meeting,” he grumbled.

  “I think you need an evening of delicious relaxation. Perhaps a soak in the warm waters off your private dock, by candlelight? A massage with scented oils?” She waved her fingers in the air, to suggest the delicate motions she’d make on his skin.

  Sebastian glanced at her hands and gave her a look of dismay.

  Faris faltered. Perhaps her nails were a bit long for massage. Though honestly, she wouldn’t mind shredding his flesh to ribbons the way he’d humiliated her the other night at the ball.

  But at least one tiresome problem was out of the way. She’d passed “it” in her car on the way here, and one of the palace servants had confirmed her suspicions. “I hear your assistant went back to New York in a hurry. Did she get tired of Caspia?”

  “No,” growled Sebastian. He looked away, tension tightening his features.

  “Perhaps Caspia grew tired of her?” she purred. Quite likely Sebastian had already tired of boinking his secretary.

  Sebastian’s eyes flashed. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  They both glanced at her father. Mercifully he was rather deaf, but even he looked up. Sebastian nodded to him, then strode off so fast Faris didn’t have a prayer of trying to catch him in her fitted dress.

  What had gotten into him?

  She knew exactly what had gotten into him.

  She frowned, then wiped the unflattering expression away. No sense getting wrinkles over some trampy American chit.

  Somehow, Tessa Banks had managed to worm her way into Sebastian’s affections. And she, Faris Maridis, future Queen of Caspia, was going to flush her out.

  With extreme prejudice.

  Eleven

  S ebastian woke up and again the hollow sense of loss hit him.

  Repeated phone calls to the New York office had gone unanswered. Her cell phone was turned off.

  Tessa was AWOL.

  Not that he had the power to give her leave to go anywhere, now that she’d quit. He’d instructed that her last paycheck include a substantial bonus. He wanted to prove to her he didn’t hold a personal grudge.

  And he wanted her back.

  His cell rang on the dressing table. He rubbed his face and rolled out of bed, then wearily picked it up.

  “Sebastian.” His father’s voice made him sit up. “There’s an article in the papers. Come to the dining room immediately.”

  Adrenaline snaked through his gut. “What’s it about?”

  “Just come. Now.”

  Sebastian pulled on pants and a shirt and slipped his feet into shoes. Could it be about Tessa?

  Bad news?

  He strode along the empty hallways to the dining room.

  Could she be hurt? In trouble? Caught up in something she was afraid to tell him about? That would explain her strange behavior.

  If that sleazy lawyer Patrick Ramsay were involved, he’d tear him limb from—

  “Mama, Papa, what’s the matter?” Their stricken faces stopped him dead in the doorway.

  His father tapped the paper in front of him. “The participants of the meeting were sworn to secrecy, were they not?”

  Sebastian strode into the room. “Yes. They all signed a confidentiality agreement.”

  “Then how do you explain this?” He pointed to an article near the bottom of the page.

  Sebastian grabbed the paper and scanned it.

  Caspia Designs Mired in Debt and Mismanagement.

  He sucked in a breath as he read. The article was brief. A single column, laying bare the company’s recent stagnation and the sliding profits of its component parts. It mentioned large debts recently incurred by Château D’Arc wineries. And the final paragraph outlined a problem that Sebastian had never mentioned outside the meeting—not even to Reed—that the company was plagued by decades of uncollectible accounts, amounting to a potential write-off of more than three million dollars.

  He could barely focus on the tiny words.

  “Tessa Banks uncovered all those debts, didn’t she?” Sebastian’s mother took a sip of her coffee.

  “There wasn’t much to uncover. They were sitting right there in the books. Deon Maridis had been letting accounts receivable slide for years.”

  His father leaned forward. “Deon saw them as debts from personal friends. Good people who’d pay eventually.”

  “But they won’t, will they?” asked his mom.

  “Some of our oldest customers aren’t as rich as they used to be.” The king sighed and leaned back in his chair. “They rested on their laurels too long just like Caspia Designs. That didn’t stop them buying jewels and champagne they couldn’t afford, though.”

  “What would happen if you tried to collect through professionals?” His mom lifted her coffee cup.

  Sebastian and his dad stared at her in horror. The king almost rose from his chair. “Shame our friends with lawsuits and public humiliation? Never. I’d pay their debts myself first.”

  The queen’s eyebrows rose. “I hope that won’t be necessary.”

  Sebastian put the paper on the table. “These debts won’t matter in the long run. We’ll write them off and get the businesses humming the way they should be. Profits will be back up within the year.”

  His dad clapped his hands together. “Thank heaven we’ve got Sebastian in on the game to shake things up.”

  “This article will cause the stock to move, though.” Sebastian glanced back at the paper. “And it won’t be going up.” He whipped his PDA out of his pocket and pulled up his ticker symbols.

  An ancient tribal curse fell from his lips.

  His father tapped the paper. “Who could have let this leak out? I’d stake my life on the good faith of our principals.”

  “Pierre de Rochefauld was rather evasive.” Sebastian remembered the dismal accounting ledgers Tessa had unearthed on the ancient and unprofitable Château D’Arc wineries. “And he wasn’t happy when I read him the riot act for getting his winery into debt this year to pay for repairs to his château.”

  “But would he want his own debts publicized in an international paper?” His father shook his head. “I think not.”

  His mother waved her hand dismissively. “I agree with your father. They were all such charming gentlemen. Even the girl from Carriage Leathers was delightful.”

  “She’s not a girl, Mama. She’s at least your age.”

  His mother narrowed her eyes. “What are you implying, Sebastian?”

  Sebastian rubbed his temples.

  “I know you’re fond of Tessa Banks…” His father’s soft tone made him look up. “But what do we really know about her?”

  Tessa pulled another long strip of packing tape and ripped it off with a loud rasp. She’d well and truly mucked up her life. Now she had to move on whether she wanted to or not.

  She’d given notice on her apartment before she left for Caspia and it was already rented for the following month. She had to be out by the end of the day or lose her deposit.

  She smoothed the tape over the flaps holding a box shut. Lucky thing she had so little stuff. She could stow it in her parents’ basement until she figured out a game plan.

  Which was a challenge, since the first thing she’d done when she got back was tell Patrick she wasn’t moving to Californ
ia with him.

  Heat crept up her neck in shame at how she’d betrayed him. Cheated on him after only a couple of days in Sebastian’s company. She deserved everything that fell on her now.

  She hadn’t told Patrick what really happened. Just that she’d had a “change of heart.” She hadn’t even had the guts to tell him face-to-face.

  Oddly he’d sounded almost relieved. Maybe he somehow knew she was an unreliable and untrustworthy partner.

  And her job at Caspia Designs was history. Even if Sebastian did want to keep her on—she was an efficient and experienced worker, after all—she’d rather be honorably dead than sit there typing his memos while fielding phone calls from his newest girl-of-the-week.

  She slumped for a moment and rested her forehead on the cool cardboard of the packing carton. She cut herself some slack by acknowledging she’d had no chance. He was Sebastian. She was doomed the moment he decided to flirt with her.

  Her heart still squeezed when she remembered the warmth and passion she’d seen in his dark eyes. Of course it had just been lust, but…

  “Oh, dammit all to hell!” She pounded her fist on the box. It would have been so much easier to get on with the rest of her life if she hadn’t royally screwed up this part.

  No pun intended.

  He hadn’t called. What had she expected? Besides, she’d mailed her cell phone back to the office. She didn’t want him thinking she’d try to sneak any “free perks” on account of their intimacy.

  Her door was ajar in a vain attempt to create a cross breeze in her top-floor apartment, and she heard footsteps on the stairs. Tessa frowned. The Man-With-Van wasn’t due for another hour. Besides, she hadn’t buzzed anyone up, and her neighbors were all at work. “Who’s there?”

  She sprang to her feet as the door swung open.

  “What’s the matter?” Sebastian materialized in the doorway.

  Her mouth fell open.

  “I heard you cry out. Are you okay?” He looked around, taking in all the boxes. The ugly mess that was her upended life.

  “Um, sure. I’m fine.” She cringed that he’d heard her curse.