by Susan Meier
* * *
From the way his dad and Rose, and Ginny and Dom behaved, Alex would have thought they believed he and Eva were actually married. He knew part of this was for the benefit of the charade. But, really? Sometimes his dad and Rose just got carried away. They loved family.
Twenty minutes later, with Rose still regaling them with stories from her days as a public school teacher in Texas, Alex looked at his watch. He’d known Eva had needed some space. He didn’t blame her. Though they’d spent their days on the yacht resting, reading, watching glorious sunsets, it was wearing to pretend to be honeymooning when they would go back to their suite and sleep in separate rooms.
But this afternoon there’d been something a little different in her eyes. Something more than exhaustion. So he gave Rose’s hilarious stories another ten minutes, then excused himself and headed for his quarters.
He saw the trail of clothes to her room and burst out laughing.
“Very funny, Eva.”
He picked up the first shoe, then the second. Took a few steps and grabbed her sweater. Another few steps and he could scoop up her jeans. He turned to open the door of her bedroom but it was already open, and Eva lay, face-first, on the soft comforter of the queen-sized bed.
He laughed. “That’s a weird way to take a nap.” But as he walked into the room darkened by thick drapes, he realized she was in nothing but panties and a camisole. Silky white with a wide lace border.
He stopped. Cleared his throat. Obviously she was sleeping, so he’d just drop her jeans, sweater and shoes on a chair in the back. He walked past the bed, dumped the clothes, and turned to leave the room, but as he approached the bed, he noticed her breathing was labored, difficult.
He walked over. “Eva?”
She didn’t move.
He bent and nudged her shoulder. “Eva?”
She still didn’t move.
He grabbed the receiver from the palace phone by her bed. “This is Alex. Send a doctor to my quarters immediately.”
It seemed to take forever for the doctor to arrive with a nurse, but the second they rang the bell, he opened the door.
Alex had turned on the overhead light, pulled back the covers and shifted her on the bed so that she was lying on her back.
When he took the doctor to her room, it was easy to see the bright red splotches on her cheeks. Her head shifted on the pillow. She moaned as if in pain.
Dr. Martin looped his stethoscope around his neck. “I can see from here that she’s got a fever.” He walked over to the bed, took a look at her face and turned to Alex. “I’m going to have Sarah take her vitals.” He motioned Alex to the door and walked him out of the room and up the hall.
“After Sarah gets the vitals, I’ll have a look at her. We’ll also need to draw some blood for tests.”
Alex said, “Okay.”
“Do you want me to call Dom to come and sit with you?”
“No. I’m fine.”
The doctor smiled. “Okay. Great.” He headed down the hall, but faced Alex again. “You know I have to report this visit to your dad, right?”
Alex nodded. Didn’t every flipping thing they did have to be reported?
“Great. Blood tests will take a few hours. Are you sure you don’t want somebody called?”
He nodded, realizing that the person he’d want called to help him through an afternoon of waiting was Eva. But she was the one who was sick.
When Dr. Martin and Sarah came out of her room after the exam, he asked, “Can I go in and sit with her?”
Dr. Martin winced. “Actually, Alex, you risk catching the flu. I can’t be certain, but it looks like that’s what she picked up. Maybe from someone on the yacht.”
“Which means I’ve already been exposed.”
The doctor shrugged. “I’d prefer you stay away. If you want someone with her, I can send up nurses who will do twenty-four-hour shifts.”
A sudden memory of his mom being sick sprang into his head. He remembered his dad by her side twenty-four hours a day and suddenly understood why.
“I’ll take the risk.”
“I have to report this to your father.”
“So you said.”
The doctor sighed and left with Sarah the nurse and Alex walked back to her room.
She was under the covers, dressed in a pair of pajamas. Alex had no idea where they’d come from, but all Doc had to do was get on the phone and tell someone in housekeeping to send pajamas and they’d probably be delivered through the back door.
He walked to the bed, not liking Eva’s labored breathing, but knowing she was being cared for by one of the best. Crouching at the side of the bed, he pushed her hair off her forehead and wished that they’d met under different circumstances.
Because wishing accomplished nothing, he forced himself to his feet, but didn’t leave her room. He pulled a Queen Anne chair from a corner of the room to the side of the bed. When he fell asleep, it was only for a few minutes at a time. So he crawled onto her bed. He stretched out beside her and fell asleep for a few hours, but when he woke up she was thrashing. The second he touched her hand, she stopped. So he stayed, right where he was, not under the covers, on top. Sometimes he’d smooth her hair from her face. For the most part he just held her hand. Until she scooted closer and snuggled against him. He wrapped his arms around her and slept. Not for long stretches, but longer than he might have slept on that uncomfortable chair.
In the morning, the doctor ordered him to go to bed and he told the old grouch that he’d go as soon as the doctor’s visit was over.
But he didn’t leave. He stayed in the chair, watching her. Though the temptation was strong to lie on the bed with her, he resisted it. He watched nurses take her temperature, wake her up enough to give her meds and even cool her head with a wet cloth.
When the doctor returned that evening it was to announce that her fever had broken.
“Now, there’s no reason to sit by her bed. You can get some sleep.”
He walked the old man to the door, and hesitated at the place where he’d go left to his own room, or right to Eva’s.
But staying in her room was silly. She was over the worst of it now. And he needed some sleep.
He turned left, got a shower and shrugged into a T-shirt and a pair of pajama pants. But when he lifted the cover off his bed, he couldn’t slide inside.
For some reason or another, he simply could not leave her alone. He knew she only had the flu. He knew her fever had broken. But he just couldn’t leave her by herself in a room that was unfamiliar to her.
Still, he was tired. Exhausted. So he walked to the empty side of her bed, lifted the cover and slid inside. When she turned to him, he wrapped his arms around her. The second he closed his eyes, he fell asleep.
* * *
When Eva awakened she had no idea what time it was...or what day. Vague images passed through her brain but nothing stuck. She was also comfortably tucked against someone. Not the way a mother or father cradles a child, but closer.
Alex.
Some of the images gelled in her mind. Him ordering around a man in a gray suit. Him giving uniformed nurses instructions.
She smiled.
“Go back to sleep. You might have slept away the past thirty-six hours. But I’ve slept in fits and starts.”
On this bed. With her. Flashes of him lying beside her, stroking her hair, flitted to her. That’s why his arms around her hadn’t awakened her. He’d done this before. Maybe even the entire night before.
She stilled her hands at her sides and felt silky material.
“The nurses did that. Changed your PJs twice. They also gave you two sponge baths. Though I volunteered, they shot me down.”
She laughed.
“There you go. Now I know
you’re not just awake, you’re feeling better.”
“I am.”
“Well, go back to sleep. It’s still night. And I’m tired.”
He was staying? Was he going to hold her the entire time he slept?
Happiness overwhelmed her and suddenly she felt every inch of him that touched her. Not just his warmth, but the softness of a T-shirt and cotton sleep pants. His bicep was her pillow. Her cheek rested against his chest. It was the most intimate, most wonderful feeling.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
His voice filtered to her softly, filled with a casual intimacy that caused joy to radiate to every nook and cranny of her body.
“Do what?”
“Get so sick that half the palace worried you were going to die, or that we’d put so much stress on you we’d killed you.”
She carefully, slowly raised her hand until she could lay it against his chest. Not so much out of curiosity about what he felt like, but more out of a longing to know what it felt like to be allowed to touch him.
“All I remember is a headache.”
“You had a virus.”
Here they were, apparently in the middle of the night, having a conversation while wrapped in each other’s arms. She flattened her palm against his chest, reveled in the steady rhythm of his breathing, knew this was what being married felt like: a quiet, unspoken connection.
“A weak virus if I’ve only been sleeping thirty-six hours.”
“Strong enough that your mother almost sent for clergy.”
She laughed and snuggled against him. His arms tightened around her. “I seem to remember you bossing around the nurses.”
“I have a marriage license that says I can.”
She suppressed a smile. “So you’re one of those types who throw their weight around.”
“I haven’t spent six weeks protecting you only to have a virus kill you.”
He said it so easily, as if that was all it was, but his muscles tightened.
She suddenly wished she could see his face, see the naked emotion in his dark, dark eyes. But then she’d have to pull away. It wasn’t often he let her be so close, let her touch him, let himself touch her.
“You like me.”
He laughed. “Of course, I like you.”
“No. You like me.”
He stilled. The room got very quiet.
“Does it matter?”
It mattered to her. A great deal. If only because her heart needed to know. Needed to hear him say that something had blossomed between them, because she couldn’t take another day of being so close to him, yet being emotionally separated.
“It matters.”
“Then, yes. I have feelings for you that I shouldn’t have.”
“I have feelings for you too.” Such an inadequate description of the emotions that squeezed her heart and captured her soul. Made her hot and cold. Made her long to be with him as he distanced herself from her. Made her understand the bond between her parents that was strong enough that her dad could pretend to leave with a mistress and trust her mother would collapse into his arms when the truth was revealed. She almost couldn’t bear the strength of it... Yet it slipped out as one tiny sentence.
His voice was slow, hesitant as he said, “I know.”
Her heart tripped over itself in her chest. It wasn’t the first time they’d talked about this. But it was the first time she believed they could both be honest. “I—”
“Go to sleep, Princess.”
She heard the tiredness in his voice. Felt his muscles relaxing as if he were drifting off and wanted to shout, “No! I need this.” But she didn’t. She didn’t say anything else and soon she knew from his relaxed body that he was asleep.
She awakened the next morning to find him gone. She slid her hand along the space where he’d slept. It was cold.
Hopelessness billowed through her. She’d had her moment, but it was gone.
She showered and dressed in jeans and a top, not quite sure what her mother would have planned for the day, but knowing she needed to spend time with her mom to make up for their fourteen-day separation.
Expecting to find Alex’s quarters empty, she stopped short when she walked in on him in his small dining room, eating breakfast. He rose when he saw her and came over to pull her chair away from the table. But before he let her sit, he took her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
The crazy feeling of intimacy from the night before trembled through her. “I won’t.”
He kissed her cheek then sniffed a laugh as he returned to his own seat. “You just promised you’ll never get the flu?”
His words slid through her, as she sat. He said it as if they would be together forever. The hope that had died tried to flicker to life. She swallowed.
“I should have gotten the vaccination.”
“You should have.” He frowned when she reached for a platter of eggs. “You might want to go easy on food today, give your body a chance to recover.”
“I’m ravenous. Besides, the flu is gone. I was better last night when we—”
She couldn’t say snuggled. She wanted to. But she couldn’t even say slept together, even though sleep was all they did. Silly superstition filled her. Almost as if she was afraid that if she said any of it out loud, she’d jinx it.
He caught her gaze. “Had our chat?”
“Yes.”
He rose from his seat. Tossing his napkin to the table, he walked over to her, bent down and kissed her cheek. “I have things to do this morning, but don’t make plans for lunch. If your stomach really is up to it, we’ll go see Angelo.”
Her body went soft, almost boneless, over the wonderful intimacy that hadn’t disappeared as she’d believed it would.
On the way to the door, he stopped a maid. “My wife is better this morning. But I don’t want to take any chances with germs. Clean her room as if the royal health inspectors will be visiting.”
Eva laughed. He spun to face her. “You laugh. But you don’t know what a scare you gave me.”
“Over the flu?”
He said, “Over something,” then left the apartment.
Eva sat very still. The only other “something” in that equation had been the possibility that he’d lose her.
The hope flickering in her roared into a flame of possibility. Would he eventually realize that he’d lose her when her father returned? Would he stop her?
* * *
After a morning spent with his brother and father, catching up on everything that had happened while he was gone, Alex was glad he’d made lunch plans with Eva. The two weeks they’d been away had been quiet. Dom was even shaving back the amount of time he spent helping Eva’s dad. Soon, King Mason would be returning to rule. He’d upend his country; that was for sure. But the changes would be for the better.
Everybody was happy. Especially Alex. Eva had scared him beyond belief with a simple case of the flu. But she was well now. And he couldn’t shake the out-of-proportion happiness that brought. She’d had the flu, not the plague. Yet every time he looked at her and saw the light in her eyes, the color in her cheeks, crazy pleasure flooded him.
It was weird.
He hoped lunch with her would get him beyond it. Except she wore a pretty blue top that made her eyes look even bluer and Angelo didn’t just make lunch. He sat with them, telling Eva stories of when Alex was at university and he’d sneak the private plane to come home and have dinner at Angelo’s.
“Just because I could,” Alex said, shaking his head.
Angelo tapped Eva’s hand. “He was drunk with power.”
Eva laughed but Alex straightened. “I wasn’t drunk with power as much as I was experimenting with my po
wer.”
Catching his gaze, Eva said, “Ah. I get it now.”
And he felt it again. That fluttery happiness that was more than relief that she was well. It was as if somebody turned on a light in a very dark room.
He got up from his chair. “Angelo, the next time we come here, I want to vet the stories you decide to tell.”
The old chef laughed merrily. “What fun would that be?”
“Are you trying to get my wife to run for the hills?”
“No. I’m telling her the stories before she hears them from strangers.” Angelo rose as Alex helped Eva stand. “Look at it this way, if I tell them in front of you, then you have a chance to defend yourself.”
“Good point.”
He took Eva’s hand. She smiled at him. As they made their way to his Mercedes, bodyguards shifted and scrambled. They all seemed a little too alert, more alert than they had just two hours ago when they’d driven to the restaurant.
He told himself he was imagining it.
“Can I drive?”
He glanced at Eva as he reached into his pocket for the keys, but Jeffrey, today’s team leader, walked over.
He bowed. “Prince, allow me the honor of driving.”
Alex handed him the keys. He knew better than to argue. Something had happened.
But he didn’t get an inkling of a word about it when he left Eva in their apartment and went to his father’s office and Dom’s. Both were out at meetings and no one on either staff seemed to know what was going on.
When he asked Jeffrey, all he said was, “Your father implemented a secondary protocol which we followed. I assumed it was a test or a dry run since we’ve had no threats.”
“A dry run?”
“We do them all the time.”
And wouldn’t it make sense that his father would want his bodyguards preparing for the day when Eva’s father returned.
His gut tightened. Though he tried to tell himself it was out of fear, he realized it was because he would miss her.
When he finally returned to the apartment, Eva stood in the sitting room wearing a slim red dress.
His eyebrows rose. “Going somewhere?”
