‘I’m not a king yet.’
‘You’re surely acting like the coronation’s already happened. Pont l’Évêque? I ask you! Maybe I should ask for a frying pan and a fridge in my room so I can cook things normal people eat.’
She was back to being bossy. He remembered Ellie’s bossiness. He’d liked it.
With the bench wiped and her hands well washed, she set to inspecting the fridges. There wasn’t a lot that met with her approval.
She found bread and butter. She checked the Pont l’Évêque for blood. She set the frying pan on to heat and then glared at the basic supplies.
‘You want more than cheese?’ he asked.
‘We might need to make do.’
‘What about using the caviar?’
‘Caviar?’ She stared at him blankly and then turned to the appropriate fridge. A container of caviar sat on the top shelf, huge and unopened.
‘I’ve never had caviar,’ she managed.
‘It’s good.’
‘You have it all the time?’
‘Hey, I’ve been self-funded until now. Caviar hasn’t been in my budget. But I have tried it. It might go okay with cheese.’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘A Pont l’Évêque and caviar toastie? Let’s try it.’
‘Marc...’
But he was grinning. ‘You remember those chocolate whisky microwave puddings we invented? We never got around to patenting the recipe. Let’s try this as a second invention. Hey, at this rate we could write a cookbook.’
And she flashed a look up at him that was almost fearful.
He could guess why. Memories were everywhere.
Those puddings had been an experiment, made while she was studying and he was in carer mode. The night before her last exam she’d studied to the point where the pages were blurring. He’d made his puddings, lathered them with cream and then fed hers to her, spoon by spoon.
She’d protested and giggled and fed his back to him.
And then they’d made love. The next morning she’d blitzed the exam.
The memory was suddenly so real it almost made him gasp. Ellie was concentrating fiercely on the fridge, then turned back to the table with the tub of caviar, but he knew the same memories were with her. ‘Right,’ she said in a strained voice and picked up the knife to cut the cheese.
He put his hand over hers. ‘Ellie...’
‘What?’ The look she flashed him was fearful.
‘Put the memories aside while you chop the cheese,’ he told her. He looked ruefully at his bandaged finger. ‘I’m speaking from experience here.’
She looked up. Her gaze met his and held.
He smiled, but for a minute she didn’t smile back. She just looked at him, long and hard. As if trying to get him in focus.
And then she sighed and concentrated as ordered on the cheese.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Chop cheese with care. Ladle caviar without spilling. Fry toasties without burning. I can do this.’
‘Of course you can,’ he said softly. ‘You can do anything.’
* * *
They should definitely patent this recipe.
Toasted to perfection, the crusty, golden toasties oozed creamy goodness mixed with golden balls of tang. The sensation was amazing.
While she’d supervised toasting, Marc had foraged in yet another refrigerator and produced a champagne whose label made her jaw drop.
‘We can’t,’ she gasped.
‘We have no choice,’ he told her. ‘My uncle and his family considered this the cheap stuff. In time I’ll restock, but for now we’re forced to slum it.’
So slum it she did, eating her astounding toastie, savouring the way the caviar burst in her mouth, feeling her tongue tingle with the truly wonderful champagne.
But she was being careful. One glass of bubbles and one glass only.
For this was a night out of frame, she told herself.
For a short few months all those years ago, she’d thought this man could be her soulmate. It was a stupid hope but her heart—and her body—had taken over her sense. She was older now and a whole lot wiser, but this man still made her feel on the verge of something dangerous.
She had herself under control for now—but one glass of champagne was definitely enough.
So she sipped cautiously and she nibbled her toastie and Marc watched her, sort of like the Cheshire Cat watched Alice.
‘You’re enjoying it,’ he said, satisfied.
‘You’d better believe it.’
‘We can make more. We can open another bottle if we like.’
‘You might need to get used to champagne and caviar. I need to go home to Cheddar cheese and soda water.’
‘Not on the royal allowance you’ll receive,’ he said firmly. ‘Ellie, whatever course you choose to take, you’ll never need to struggle financially again.’
She cast him a fearful look and went back to concentrating on her toastie. There was so much behind that statement. As if she was somehow bound.
Maybe she was. Because of Felix.
No. Two weeks a year here, max, and only then when Felix needed her, she told herself. Her reality was sense. Her little hospital in Borrawong.
But jet lag was making her feel strange, or maybe it was the champagne, or even the crunch from the toastie. The caviar. The setting...
Not the man smiling at her from across the table. Never that.
She finished the last of her toastie and rose. Her champagne was only half drunk. She looked down at it with regret. It was a crime to leave it, and yet the way she was feeling there was no way she was game to take another sip.
‘Chicken,’ Marc teased and she cast a look at him that clearly displayed her apprehension. Right from the start this man had seemed to be able to read her mind. Once upon a time that had seemed so sexy, so right, so perfect that it set her body on fire.
Now it seemed a threat. This whole situation was a threat.
‘Ellie, I won’t hurt you,’ he told her. ‘There’s no need to look like that. I understand the terms of this contract. I won’t push you further than you wish to go.’
‘Why would you want to push me?’ She said it almost angrily. She was so far out of her depth.
‘I wouldn’t. I promise.’
She took a deep breath, trying to move on. ‘Marc, what am I going to do for the next few weeks? Hilda’s told us the plans for Felix. Introduction to swords and crowns and rings. Meet a friend. Pageantry and fun. It all seems designed to make him want to come back next year. That’s okay with me—I understand. But he champs at the bit if I watch. He’s learned to be independent and his gammy leg has made that need almost fierce. If he has a friend he’ll be better without me.’
‘Then take a holiday,’ he suggested. ‘The palace has three swimming pools. We can organise a chauffeur to take you anywhere you wish. The village has magnificent tourist shopping. I wish I could take you myself but...’
‘But you’d be mobbed. And you have other things to do.’
‘I do,’ he said reluctantly. ‘But, Ellie, you need a vacation. Indulge yourself.’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘Learn.’
‘I don’t think I want to. Marc, isn’t there something I can do?’
He hesitated, frowning. She watched his face and there was that recognition again. He knew her. He understood.
It was a jab of knowledge that hurt. It was as if that brief, dry ceremony ten years ago had created a conduit between them, a current of understanding so deep that divorce couldn’t break it.
Or maybe it hadn’t been the ceremony. Maybe that current had always been there. She thought of the first time she’d seen him, when she’d straightened from the carn
age of broken glass and wine and found those dark eyes twinkling at her. That recognition that life could never be the same again.
She was trying to corral her tumbling thoughts, but Marc was still watching her. Did he know what she was thinking now?
She needed an off-switch.
She needed to stay as far away from him as she could for the next four weeks.
‘If you’d like a little work...’ he said and that helped her steady. Work. That sounded good. She understood the parameters of medicine.
‘I guess...the language would be a problem,’ he was saying and she thought, Okay, here goes. She had to tell him some time.
What would he think? Pathetic? That she’d been clinging to shades of him all this time?
Just say it.
‘I don’t have a problem with the language,’ she told him. ‘At least, I don’t think I do.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I speak your language fluently,’ she told him, slipping effortlessly into the lilting Falkenstein dialect that resembled a mix of French, Italian and German, making it relatively simple for Falkenstein’s populace to make itself understood all over Europe.
* * *
He’d been holding his glass of champagne.
It was all he could do not to drop it.
She sounded as if she’d been born and bred in the streets of Falkenstein.
What the...?
‘You taught me some,’ she said diffidently, still in his language. ‘Just a smattering, but it was enough to get me interested. I got hooked. I bought lessons online and put headphones on as something to do when I needed to relax. And then...’ She became even more diffident. ‘When Felix was born I started teaching him. I used to sing Falkenstein lullabies to him. How embarrassing is that?’
‘Why?’ He was staring at her in amazement.
‘Who knows?’ She tried to talk as if it didn’t matter, but she knew she was failing. ‘I guess I do know why. I’ve always felt if you adopt a child from another country you should at least try to let him learn of his background. I thought one day Felix might want to meet you. I know you have brilliant English but who knew? By the time Felix was old enough to travel you might have forgotten.’ She grew more tentative. ‘Or...or he might wish speak to his half-brothers or sisters. It might...it might make things easier.’
He sounded winded. ‘You did this...for me?’
She jutted her chin, almost defiant. ‘I’d lied to you about Felix’s adoption,’ she said. ‘You had your reasons for needing to leave us and I understood. This seemed the least I could do. It’s no big deal.’
‘No big deal! How fluent is Felix?’
‘Ask him for yourself. It’s a wonder he hasn’t already told you, but he’s been excited about the surprise and you speak such good English. But he’s good.’ She smiled, thinking of the indulgence of talking to Felix in a language no one at home understood. It had been like their own secret code.
Now it was a bond to this guy who stood before her.
‘So the future Crown Prince of Falkenstein speaks our language,’ Marc said, stunned. ‘And you didn’t tell me.’
‘You never asked.’
‘I never asked all sorts of things. I never asked how you were. I didn’t know your mother died. I simply walked away.’
‘Hey, Marc—we had a relationship that lasted exactly five months.’
‘Which included marriage.’
‘The marriage wasn’t real. We closed our eyes to every problem and jumped. It was a fantasy bubble. It burst and that was that.’
‘Leaving you holding the baby.’
‘Will you cut it out? You talk as if he were a burden. Felix has never been a burden.’ She thought of her beautiful boy, sleeping now in his grand apartment. Her boy who looked like his father. ‘He’s my one true thing,’ she whispered. ‘My gift. My Felix.’
‘I wish I’d shared that.’ And it was too much. The tension between them was escalating to the point where they had to touch or run—and running was unthinkable.
Marc reached out and took her hands and held her before him. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
She stared down at their linked hands. She was way out of her depth here. She had no idea where her emotions were taking her. She only knew that tugging away was impossible.
‘I hate that I haven’t had a chance to love Felix,’ he said, softly now.
‘I know you do, and I’m sorry.’
Silence. There was something building between them. Something so huge.
‘Ellie, I did love you,’ Marc said at last, as if the words had been forced out.
She turned her gaze to his face. She expected to see confusion. Instead there was wonder.
Admiration?
Intention.
‘Marc, no.’
But she knew already what would happen.
She should pull away. She should head straight back to her over-the-top apartment, step through the door and lock it behind her.
‘If you really mean no, then I won’t touch you,’ Marc said and it needed only that. Ever the gentleman. And suddenly she was close to screaming.
What she needed right now was a Neanderthal man, a guy with a club who took all the decisions out of her hands.
Or not?
Neanderthal man might expect a clubbing right back from Dr Ellie Carson. She was no shrinking violet, ready to be carried off at the whim of any man. But then, this wasn’t Dr Carson. This was just Ellie, holding hands with Marc.
Or maybe that wasn’t the truth either.
Maybe she was still Ellie Falken, the nineteen-year-old who’d met and married this guy out of hand. Who’d fallen in lust at first sight.
Who’d stayed in lust with him all that time?
Only because he hasn’t been in your life, she told herself. Her head was screaming advice, trying to make her hormones see sense.
You divorced for a reason, and even if you hadn’t divorced, all sorts of other reasons would have reared their heads over time. You’ve made this man into some sort of fantasy. You’re a doctor. You’ve spent your life working hard, raising Felix, doing the practical things you’ve needed to do to survive. Be practical now.
But her hormones weren’t listening. Her hormones were tilting her chin. Her hormones were raising her feet onto tiptoe but there was no need. Somehow Marc had her by the waist.
Somehow Marc’s mouth was claiming hers.
And her body remembered.
The instant surge of heat. The feel of him. The taste, the strength, the sheer animal magnetism. It had blown her away ten years ago and here it was again, fusing their bodies, destroying her defences in an instant. She felt herself whimper as her barriers came down in a cloud of lust. She felt her hands slide up to his face, her fingers glorying in the shape of him, the size of him, the knowledge that this perfect, gorgeous, wonderful man wanted her.
Her.
Had she no sense? She did have sense, she thought dazedly, but right now her sense was a pool of jelly lying uselessly at her feet. Maybe she’d gather it around her again, but not now, not yet. Not while this mouth claimed hers. Not while his arms held her against him, while her breasts were crushed against his chest, while her mouth tasted him, savoured him, owned him.
There was no future for her here. She had enough sense to know it, but surely there was no harm in kissing.
And it wasn’t as if she had a choice. He was kissing and she was kissing back, and if World War Three erupted around them right now she wouldn’t notice. All she wanted was this man.
He could take her, she thought wildly. Right here. Her hands were tugging him closer. She wanted him more than life itself.
Ten long years. Her body remembered and screamed that this was what s
he’d been missing for all these years and she’d blocked it out, but it had never properly disappeared.
This man. Her husband.
‘Ellie...’ Somehow he tugged back, just a little. He was holding her face now, cupping her chin, looking down at her with an expression she’d never seen before.
‘Marc...’
‘You are my wife.’
She wasn’t. The sensible part of her shouted it. She’d never been a wife to this man, the Crown Prince of Falkenstein. She’d been wife to just-qualified Dr Marc Falken, a friend, a colleague, a guy who’d been a little bit older but almost equal.
But now wasn’t the time to say it. Not now, not when her body was making demands she had no hope of denying.
‘Enough of the complications,’ she managed. ‘Just kiss me.’
* * *
He wanted her as he’d never wanted anything or anyone in his life before. She felt like his.
She was his.
He’d had relationships over the last ten years—of course he had. He was a divorcee but most women didn’t hold that against him. One failed marriage didn’t mean a life of celibacy.
And yet that one sweet time had messed things for him. No one felt the same as Ellie. No one moved him as Ellie did.
He’d told himself what he’d had with Ellie had been his first real passion. That if it had been allowed to run its course, with luck it would have mellowed into the day-to-day fondness and friction he assumed most marriages became. It was simply that he’d been wrenched away before that initial passion had dried up, meaning it had messed with his head for years.
So there was no reason why that passion should flare as it did now. There was no reason his body should respond as if this was his place, his right. As if Ellie was part of him and he was part of her.
How could a marriage vow do this? It couldn’t.
Fate, duty, lawyers had separated them for sensible reasons. So why was his heart feeling as if it might burst in his chest with the joy of holding her?
Ellie...
His love. His wife.
But, even as he thought it, the door opened behind them.
And Ellie pulled back as if she’d been struck.
Reunited with Her Surgeon Prince Page 9
